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| 2016-09-17: Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Touring |
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Posted by: Bob Schroeck - 12-03-2024, 09:57 PM - Forum: Stories
- Replies (6)
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Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Touring
by Robert M. Schroeck
Chapter 1: Yesterday In Old Fall River
Motel 6 Fall River
459 Airport Road
Fall River, Massachusetts, USA
Saturday, September 17, 2016, 7:36 AM
"What are you doing drooling on me, Mophead?"
Half-asleep, Hane wrapped her pillow around her head in the hope that she could block out the sound of an outraged Rin, as muffled as it was, and return to blissful unconsciousness. She squeezed her eyes shut tighter than they already were, burrowed deeper into the covers and slid closer to the figure on the other side of the bed that radiated pleasant heat. "Mm, Yume, you're nice and warm," she murmured as she wrapped her arm around her sister, while still doing her best to ignore the sounds of the argument on the other side of the wall.
Then her eyes snapped open. Yume couldn't possibly be sharing her bed. The Club was on a road trip, and Yume wasn't a biker. And Hane had gone to sleep in the top bunk of a very narrow bunkbed in a youth hostel in Kyoto the night before. There should have been no room for someone to be in the bed with her -- but someone was, anyway. In front of her nose was hair the wrong shade of brown to be Yume. "Chisame?" Hane murmured in confusion.
She unwrapped her arm from around the other girl (who slept on, unaware) and carefully rolled over onto her back before sitting upright. (Definitely a larger bed than last night's bunk. And much closer to the ground.) The room that came into view was dimly lit by morning light leaking around curtains that covered a single large window to her left where the room she had gone to sleep in had had two regular casement windows to her right. There was a door next to the window that apparently led outside -- very different from the hallway door that had been past the end of the bunk by a couple meters. The faint light also revealed unfamiliar furnishings including a TV which hadn't been there the night before.
It was also lacking the other four members of the club and Mister Hayakawa, all of whom had been in the remaining bunks of their shared hostel room. Rin and Onsa's voices, somewhat muffled, were still audible through the wall behind her, so they at least weren't too far away. But they still weren't where they were supposed to be.
"Something weird is going on," Hane whispered to herself.
"Sempai?" a sleepy voice came from behind her. "What are you doing in my bunk?"
Ten minutes later, Hane and Chisame -- now hastily dressed -- burst out through the door to their room to find (as she'd feared) a sidewalk and not the hallway of a hostel. Almost absently Hane noticed it was cooler than it had been the previous day -- about twenty degrees, almost ten degrees cooler than the day before.[1] From the other side of the room next door seemingly occupied by Rin and Onsa came Hijiri, Lime and Hayakawa. Of the three, Hijiri was the most obviously distressed.
"Hane! Chisame!" she cried, agitation driving her voice almost up into a shriek. "What happened? Do you know where we are?"
Hane glanced around and shook her head. "I have no idea. It's not Kyoto, though." And it wasn't. The hostel where they'd gone to sleep had been a boxy, two-story structure of dark wood surrounded by densely packed city blocks, with nothing but sidewalk separating them from the narrow streets. But now... now they were standing along the front of a long, white one-story building in what looked almost like a rural area, with thick stands of trees and grassy lawns in every direction. At one end was something that looked like it might be a restaurant.
The only other structures for at least a hundred meters in any direction were three large buildings, one each to the left, right and across the broad highway that ran past the other side of that parking lot separated them from it; a sign where one could turn off the road into the parking lot declared they were at "Motel 6" and "Denny's"; something about the sign seemed odd to Hane but she couldn't put her finger on exactly what. The parking lot itself was filled with cars and...
"Our bikes!" Chisame cried. And there they were, neatly sharing a pair of parking spots right by the doors to their rooms.
Hane was the first to reach hers, and quickly ran her hands over it while checking the paint job. It was, she was glad to see, in perfect shape. In fact, she quickly realized, it was lacking the road dust that had accumulated on their drive to Kyoto. "Someone washed you?" she murmured. To either side of her, Chisame and Hijiri were saying similar things, and looking up, Hane saw that Lime seemed surprised and pleased at the state of her Kawasaki -- before she waved and pointed at the rear of the lime-green motorcycle.
When she pointed at the back ends of the other bikes, Hane stood and stepped behind her Su-Four. It took her a moment to figure out what Lime had spotted.
The license plate was not the one she was familiar with. Gone were the familiar kanji, hiragana and number in green on white. The plate that was now affixed to her bike had red romaji and numerals on it...
"What's 'Florida'?" Chisame demanded.
"It's one of the United States," Hijiri said absently. "How odd. Your bikes have red lettering. Our Ducati's license has green. And why do yours say 'Under 21' below the number?"
"Because we're all under 21 except for Mister Hayakawa," Hane offered. "Speaking of Mister Hayakawa, where is..."
"Right here," the butler said from behind her. She spun, surprised, to see him standing there in a fresh uniform, with a newspaper under his arm. "Good morning, young ladies," he continued, withdrawing the paper and unfolding it. He held it up so they could see the masthead, which read "The Boston Globe" in English. Under it were headlines, also in English, that Hane realized she was reading so easily that she hadn't noticed she'd been reading English. She turned abruptly to look at the sign that had seemed odd and it, too, was in English. That was what had been odd about it.
"We appear to be in Massachusetts in the United States," Hayakawa continued calmly. "And if this newspaper is correct -- and I believe it is, as I have just retrieved it from a stack of identical copies from a vending box a few meters away -- it is September 17, 2016."
"What?" someone shrieked. Hane wasn't sure who said it; all she could think of was how when they'd gone to bed in Kyoto the night before it had been July twenty-third, just a couple days after the start of the summer holiday.
In 2012.
The door closest to them was flung open; Onsa and Rin, still buttoning and zipping up their clothes, charged out onto the sidewalk. "What about September 2016?" Rin demanded. Huh. Hane realized she hadn't heard them arguing for a while now.
Onsa dragged her sleeve across her mouth, glanced around, then added, "And where are we? This isn't Kyoto."
It took only a minute to share what little they knew, and most of that was spent convincing Rin that whatever it was, a mistake wan't among the possibilities. Hayakawa's newspaper went a long way to proving that something weird was going on, much as Rin didn't want to believe it.
"What do we do now?" Chisame asked
"I think," Hayakawa said slowly, "that before we do anything else, it would behoove us to have breakfast." He gestured toward the end of the building, toward what she had thought was a restaurant. "I am reliably informed that Denny's serves a more than acceptable American-style meal."
"Of course it would, we're in America," Onsa muttered.
"How are we going to pay for breakfast if we're in America?" Rin demanded.
Hayakawa held up a wad of unfamiliar-looking money. "What or whoever is responsible for depositing us here has not left us without resources."
If being able to read the newspaper hadn't been enough, reading the menus at the Denny's certainly hammered home that everyone could now read English perfectly -- even Onsa, whom Hane knew hadn't been the best in class. Knowing that, she wasn't sure why she'd been surprised when she realized that they all now spoke English as well, and had been since waking, and hadn't realized it until the hostess had greeted them and guided them to a large corner booth.
Most of the breakfasts in the menu were huge, but that was okay -- Hane was starving, and judging by everyone else's orders, they were, too. Hayakawa was the exception, ordering just a bowl of fruit, which he consumed quickly but elegantly before excusing himself. "I believe I shall take a short walk to learn more about where we are," he said as he handed off the money to Lime. Then he gave the table a quick bow before exiting the restaurant.
"You can tell he was in the army during the Pacific War," Onsa said between bites of sausage. Hane had a couple links of it on her plate, and she thought it was oddly seasoned but still tasty.
"What do you mean?" Chisame asked, a forkful of scrambled eggs halfway to her mouth. Next to her, Hijiri nodded sagely but said nothing.
Onsa gestured vaguely. "Every once in a while he gets all military-like. Like just then," she said. "He's scouting the area like we're in enemy territory."
"Aren't we, though?" Rin asked. "We're in another country, probably illegally for all we know, in the freakin' future, and we have no idea how or why. Someone left us money for breakfast, but we don't know who."
Lime waved for their attention and held up her pad:
"There's enough here for lunch, too!"
Rin rolled her eyes. "Okay, so we won't starve until after it gets dark. Big deal. The point is, we've got nothing but our bikes, the clothes on our backs, and our travel gear. We may have our licenses and all, but they're all in Japanese, and we don't have passports. What happens the first time a cop pulls us over?" She spread her hands with a self-satisfied look on her face. "Enemy territory."
Across the table, Hijiri suddenly got that delighted look she always got whenever she thought she was doing something naughty or "delinquent".
Hane bit her lip as a thought struck her. "We're four years in the future... and we're not any older, any of us." She looked up at the rest of the table. "We've all been missing for four years! Our families must be frantic."
"Or they've given us up for dead," Chisame said glumly, staring into her orange juice.
"That's easily fixed," Onsa declared confidently. "When we're done here, we go back to our rooms, and we call our families."
"And tell them what, Mophead?" Rin snorted derisively. "'Hi, we went to sleep in Kyoto in 2012 and woke up in the United States in 2016? Can you come get us?'"
Onsa scowled at her. "We can at least let them know we're alive."
Rin's expression softened. "Yeah," she admitted after a moment. "You're right."
"I have to admit, I'm curious who is behind this," Hijiri said, then nibbled on a strip of oddly crispy bacon. "As Rin said, the money proves there is a someone. But what can possibly be the motive for transporting us halfway around the world and four years into the future?"
The debate on that topic which ensued lasted longer than their remaining breakfasts, and continued as they left the Denny's and returned to their rooms.
Hane bit her lip as she closed her phone. She tried not to worry what it might mean that both her home number and her parents' number here in the United States had netted her "no such number in service" recordings. "Chisame?" she said without looking up from the phone cupped in her hands. "I heard you talking. Did you reach your parents?"
"There's something really wrong here, sempai," Chisame said from the other side of the bed. "Someone answered, but I didn't recognize them. they'd never heard of my parents, and they said they'd had the number longer than I've been alive. When I told them my dad's name, they asked if I mean Nakano Shinya instead of Nakano Kinya.[2] " Hane looked up in time to see Chisame shake her head. The younger girl normally showed little in the way of emotion, but Hane thought she looked like she was about to burst into tears. Not that Hane didn't feel much the same.
Yume... where are you?
There was a knock at the door, and after a glance at Chisame, Hane hopped off the bed. It was, as she expected, the other girls.
None of them looked happy. In Lime's case, her entire bearing seemed to droop. Hane looked from face to face, and said, "I'm guessing you didn't have any more luck than we did."
"If that means you didn't reach anyone," Onsa said with a grimace, "Then yeah, no luck."
Hane stepped back and opened the door wide. "Come on in."
A minute later the entire club was in a rough circle, some perched on the bed, others sitting in a pair of chairs that flanked a small table in front of the room's picture window. "So now what?" Rin asked, in a tone considerably more subdued than her usual.
"I don't know," Hane admitted, shaking her head.
"Where are we going to go?" Hijiri asked. "We don't have enough money for another night in this establishment." Her eyes widened. "We have no money." She looked like she was about to start hyperventilating.
Chisame rolled her eyes. "Relax, Hijiri. Worse comes to worse, we should still have our tents -- we can always camp overnight."
"Besides, someone left us money for breakfast," Onsa pointed out. "Somebody is looking out for us."
"Well, whoever they are, they could be doing a better job of it," Rin snapped.
There was another knock and the door, and once again Hane got up from where she was sitting on the end of the bed to open it, to reveal Mister Hayakawa.
"Hayakawa!" Hijiri declared as if the simple presence of the butler was a lifeline. "Please tell us you have good news."
As Hane closed the door behind him, Mister Hayakawa calmly replied, "Yes... and no."
"No?" Chisame asked, an eyebrow raised.
He nodded, glancing around the room at them. "I have made several phone calls and learned a few things. For one, the Minowa conglomerate does not exist and never has."
Hijiri shot to her feet. "What?"
"There is not, and never has been, a Japanese zaibatsu by that name, and by extension there is no Minowa family. At least one of great wealth," he replied blandly.
"My family's gone?" Hijiri whispered.
"Well, that's just freaking great," Onsa growled. "Compared to that, what's the good news?"
Mister Hayakawa favored her with a faint smile. "When I returned to my room after my... investigations, I found this." He reached into his pocket and withdrew...
"That's my teacup!" Rin declared. And it was -- Hane recognized the Suzuki cup she'd given to Rin after receiving it from that biker with the robes and the halo that she'd helped on the road to Aomori that one time.
"Indeed it is," Hayakawa said, handing it over to her. "It was in my room, next to another stack of money, on top of this." He held up a sheet of what looked like parchment. "It is, as far as I can tell, an itinerary, sending us to a number of stops along a route that terminates in the state of Florida a week from now."
"Florida again!" Hijiri cried.
"Oh yeah," Onsa chuckled. "Somebody's got a plan for us."
"Someone who keeps breaking into Mister Hayakawa's room," Rin growled.
"While two of the stops are at motels where, it notes, reservations have been made for us," Mister Hayakawa continued, "the rest are at locations with quite odd names like 'The Steeple' and 'Gulfside Rest'. And the first stop, which we are apparently expected to reach by tonight, is 'Douglass Gardens Apartments' -- where, according to a note next to its name and those of its managers, 'All will be explained'."
Onsa laughed out loud. "Like I said, a plan!"
"So that's it?" Chisame asked. "We're just going to bike over to wherever this Douglass Gardens Apartments is?"
"New Jersey," Mister Hayakawa noted, "about five hours away to the south."
"Do you have anything better to do?" Onsa demanded of Chisame, who scowled at her.
"Do you know anything about driving in the United States?" she asked.
Onsa dug into her pocket and pulled out a little leather case, which she flung at Chisame. "I have a Japanese motorcycle license! I can go anywhere in the world."
"I don't think it works like that," Hane pointed out.
Meanwhile, Chisame was frowning at the contents of the case, which had landed open in her lap. "No, you don't, Onsa."
"What?" Onsa gave her a puzzled look. "Of course I do."
Chisame shook her head. "No, you have a Florida license." She held it up. "Driver License Class E, Motorcycle Only." She turned it around and peered at the front. "And according to this, you live at 809 SE 8th Ave, Okeechobee. Wherever that is."
Mister Hayakawa chuckled. "What a coincidence. That is the address of our ultimate destination."
"Gimme that." Onsa lunged across the bed and yanked the case out of Chisame's hands. "Damn," she said disconsolately. "The same lousy picture of me."
A quick check revealed that they all now had Florida licenses. Lime and Mister Hayakawa had full Florida driver licenses with motorcycle endorsements, meaning (Mister Hayakawa explained) that they were both permitted to drive cars as well as motorcycles. To her chagrin, Chisame had a motorcycle learner's license. (But according to her paperwork, Chisame had completed all the required courses and passed all the tests to convert her learner's license into a full license on or after her 17th birthday. So she was somewhat mollified, even if she had to wait nine months.) As for the rest of the club, like Onsa, they had full Florida "Motorcycle Only" licenses.
And all the paperwork had "809 SE 8th Ave, Okeechobee, FL" on it for their home addresses.
"Could they be forgeries?" Hijiri asked with that barely-restrained delight with which she approached anything that seemed the least bit "delinquent".
"I bet you'd be so disappointed if they weren't," Chisame muttered, and Hane giggled.
In the end, they ran out of reasons to delay. There was no point in staying here -- even with the money Mister Hayakawa had found, they didn't have enough for another night. They didn't have anywhere else to be, either, and they'd been promised an explanation by their mysterious benefactor at their first stop. Rin had suggested ignoring the itinerary and striking out at random, but only half-heartedly, and no one else thought that contrariness was a good enough reason to ignore the only lifeline they had in this weird, crazy situation.
They'd packed up, checked out of the motel, and mounted up. A few minutes later they were heading south along the Western Fall River Expressway, which was also Massachusetts State Route 79, enjoying the weather, the ride, and the view of the river to their right, chatting over the radio link along the way.
"All I'm saying is that whatever's waiting for us in Florida, it had better be worth the drive," Rin grumbled.
Hane laughed.
809 SE 8th Avenue
Okeechobee, Florida, USA
Saturday, September 17, 2016, 9:45 AM
There was, Molly decided, something distinctly odd about the guy who'd hired her father to do a little fix-up on the house around the corner, and then be something like a landlord for the people who were going to be moving in. There wasn't any one thing that she could put her finger on, but a whole lot of little things that just didn't add up.
She stretched out her legs in front of her as she sat on the hearth of the fireplace that took up nearly a third of the longest wall in the great room, pulled a scrunchy out of her pocket, and gathered her mane of red hair together into a long, thick ponytail with it. Then she leaned back against the cool stone and watched as the guy led her dad around the house, pointing out a host of little things that needed attention. He had a really deep voice, she noticed, that seemed out of place on a guy of decidedly medium height and (fit) build -- a build that was revealed nicely, in Molly's opinion, by the white leather motorcycle suit he wore.
And that was one of the odd things -- she'd never seen a pure-white head-to-toe full-body biking suit with matching boots before. (She was sure they must exist, but she'd never seen one in a catalog or a shop.) It looked absolutely brand new, without a speck of road dust or wear on it, either, even though she'd seen him drive up to their house on a simply massive black Suzuki Intruder. His beanie-style helmet was also pure white, with a green "crown of thorns" design on it that Molly was pretty sure Pastor Williams would call "sacrilegious".
As her dad and his new boss returned from the far end of the house Molly squinted and tried again to get a good look at the empty air above his head. She could almost but not quite see something floating there, and it was driving her nuts. It almost looked like a... a halo, of all things. But that was crazy. She sighed. Just one more oddity about this guy. "We're expecting the furniture to show up on the twenty-third," he was saying, showing her dad something on the tablet he was carrying. "Do you think you can get all that done by then?"
Her father thought for a moment, then nodded. "Yes, that's doable. Fortunately there's nothing really bad that needs attention, just little things. I'll assemble a small crew and we can get it all done, if not before Friday, then on Friday." He grinned at the other man. "We'll just work where the delivery guys aren't if it takes that long."
"Fair enough," he said with a chuckle. "Then I think we have a deal, Mister Ritter."
"Tom, please. And excellent," her dad said, smiling, as they shook hands. "Let's head back to my place and we can take care of the paperwork."
"Paperwork." The other man shook his head with a rueful smile, sending his shoulder-length hair swinging. "The bane of mortal man since at least the Romans."
Her father shrugged. "What can you do?" he asked, then looked over at her. "Well, sweetheart, we're done here."
Molly smiled, and climbed to her feet. "'Kay, Dad."
"I'm sorry I interfered with your plans for the morning," his boss said. "But I'm afraid it couldn't wait. Maybe it'd help if I mentioned there'll be five girls your age moving in next Saturday? I'm sure you'll become the best of friends."
"I don't know," Molly replied doubtfully. "What if we don't have any interests in common?"
"Oh, I don't think that will be a problem," he said. "They're all bikers like you and your dad."
Molly blinked. "In that case, you might be right."
- RMS: That's in Celsius, of course -- in Fahrenheit it would be low 70s vs low 80s, which were the actual temperatures for the locations and dates concerned.
- RMS: Chisame's father, Kinya Nakano, is a thinly-disguised version of retired Grand Prix motorcycle road racer Shinya Nakano.
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| 2016-10-31: Hallowe'en in Another Reality |
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Posted by: Bob Schroeck - 11-26-2024, 05:23 PM - Forum: Stories
- Replies (3)
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Hallowe'en in Another Reality
or
A Mingling of Misplaced Souls
by
Brent Laabs
Rob Kelk
Robert M. Schroeck
with
James Bostwick
Dartz
Inquisitive Raven
and other current and former posters to the Drunkard's Walk forums
Chapter 1. The Invitation
A place that would be seen by three-dimensional beings as the Yggdrasil control room
October 16, 2016
Out of necessity, all physical actions in this realm are being described as if they were their three-dimensional analogues.
"... We already lost the reality that was home to Bella and Edward[1] before anybody was displaced from it, and things are only going to get worse in the short term as mortals measure time," Peorth concluded her status report.
Urd nodded grimly. "Thank you, Peorth. Losing even one reality is a shame for us all; we need to do better. Belldandy, how are the displacees handling their time in Refuge?"
She smiled and spread her hands apart in a gesture that showed her reply would be mixed. "Some are doing well, some are doing poorly, and a few simply don't care."
"How can they not care?" Skuld asked.
"They don't know. There's one... dude?"[2] Puzzled, Belldandy double-checked her notes. "... 'dude', who's still bowling every week; he simply abides in a different version of Los Angeles. There isn't much that we can do for him or the others like him."
"That statement implies that you want to do something for the others," Urd didn't quite ask.
Belldandy nodded. "These people have what is to them a unique chance to meet people whom they consider to be fictional characters, and learn firsthand just how little they knew about these people from their stories. While we can't bring everyone together because of language barriers and space constraints, we can still let groups of them meet and learn about each other."
"That's a great idea!" Skuld said with a grin. "Getting them to meet each other in a relaxed atmosphere would be a good preparatory step before they need to work together in a fight, too. Where do we start?"
"We should begin with the English-speaking displacees," Peorth suggested. "They have been spread across two continents and some notable islands off the coast of a third; they're our single largest refugee group."
Skuld said, "You're talking about people who have been gifted with fluency in English, right? They're a big group, yes; there's literally hundreds of them with more arriving every week. Where can we get them all together right now?"
"That isn't an issue," Belldandy replied. "My husband and I live in a residence that can hold them all."
Peorth looked worried. "You aren't seriously considering gathering all of the displacees together, are you, ma cherie? We don't really want mortal enemies in the same place at the same time, do we?"
Skuld chuckled. "The fight might make for good entertainment. We'd almost definitely get a few einherjar out of it."
"We're too busy right now to indulge in your Valkyrie hobby of collecting fighters," Urd pointed out.
"It isn't a hobby!"
"Ladies!" They both turned to face Peorth. "We don't have time for this. And I begin to understand why you want to have a party, Belldandy."
"Is it that obvious?"
"Only to somebody who knows the three of you well. Each of you are working harder than the rest of us are, and it's beginning to show in your work. The three of you need to relax for an evening. As for how you relax, I think most of us agree that a fight to the death between displacees would be a bad thing at this point, no matter how many einherjar we would gain before Ragnarök. That still leaves hundreds of refugees who can meet without trying to rip each others' guts out of their bodies, and I think we're all agreed that this is a good idea for them to do so. It's also a good idea for them to have a chance to meet you socially."
Skuld smiled. "And imagine how many of them would be happy to meet the real Sailor Moon."
Belldandy sighed. "That poor girl will be run off her feet just meeting everyone. We'll need to be especially nice to her."
"She'd probably like having her boyfriend back in her life," Peorth suggested. "We'd best hold this get-together soon, before the guest list gets too long. When's the next holiday in the English-speaking world?"
Urd grinned. "Hallowe'en."
"You just like dressing up," Skuld muttered.
Belldandy ignored her younger sister. "I'll let Keiichi's building managers know that we want this to happen. Now, what do we do for the French-speaking displacees, or the Polish-speakers?"
"Same thing, different places," Peorth suggested. "And that would give the trainees and me our own chance to get away from the office for an evening."
"Why not?" Urd agreed.
Douglass Gardens Apartments
Somerset, NJ, USA
October 16, 2016
1:00 PM Eastern Time
"...Okay, then, let us know what works for you and I'll make sure that it syncs up with everyone else's schedules," Bob said, his cellphone at his ear. As his wife Peggy watched, he nodded, although the other person in the conversation wasn't there to see it. "Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Cool. In that case, let me let you go. Take care, and let Aunt Linda know I said 'hi!'." He took the smartphone away from his face and stared its the screen just long enough to find and swipe the "end call" button.
"Well?" Peggy asked as the phone went black and he laid it down on the tabletop next to the remains of his lunch.
Bob smiled. "Uncle Arthur said he and Aunt Linda will be happy to come by the next time they're in the area and workshop with the bands."
"'Workshop'?" Peggy raised an eyebrow.
He laughed. "His word, not mine. Which is a lot more than I actually asked him to do."
Peggy nodded and sipped her coffee. "And when will they be coming?"
"They're not sure," Bob replied, shrugging. "No more than a few weeks was the best he could tell me right now. Before Thanksgiving at the latest. He'll check their schedule and get back to me." He grinned wickedly. "And then I tell the girls that I've arranged for a multiple-award-winning composer and arranger to work with them on their music."
"Yui'll go nuts," Peggy chuckled, then took another sip.
Bob gave her a flat look. "Yui would go nuts if you gave her a cracker with cheese on it." Peggy only barely avoided snorting into her coffee as he continued. "I'm coming to love that girl like a daughter, but she's the single most indiscriminately happy person I've ever met."
"Yeah, she is, isn't she?" Peggy said with a grin of her own.
Before Bob could reply, though, the phone on the "manager's desk" in the part of the first floor of their apartment that served as their office rang. Glancing at the clock on the wall, he jumped out of his chair and dashed over to the desk, where he picked up the handset and hit the "talk/on" button. "Douglass Gardens Apartments," he said brightly — he answered outside calls so infrequently that it wasn't a chore. "How may I help you?"
"Good afternoon, Bob! It's Belldandy." And indeed it was — there was no mistaking her voice, and Bob smiled. He could listen to her speak all day.
"Hi, Bell!" Peggy set her coffee down on the dining room table, tilted her head and raised an eyebrow at him. "I see by our caller ID you're not ringing us from your place, so I'm guessing this is a business call?"
She laughed. "Yes, and no. There's been some discussion here in the ... home office about getting as many of the displacees together as possible to meet each other. We think it will be an experience that most will appreciate, and it will also help with morale."
Bob saw where this was going and chuckled. "Let me guess. You want us to get out the guest linens and air out the spare room."
She laughed again, a silvery arpeggio. "Something like that, yes. We'd like you and Peggy to host a Halloween party for as many of the English-speaking displacees as care to attend."
"Aha! I knew there was a reason you saddled us with this monster complex! We're nothing but party central to you guys, aren't we?" He made sure his tone was light and teasing. Still standing at the door to the kitchen, Peggy tilted her head and raised an eyebrow. He hit "mute" and said, "Belldandy's asking if we'll host a big Halloween party for all the displacees."
"Find out if they'll be paying for it," she replied with a frown. "We can't cover something like that out of our budget."
"Right." Bob released the mute button. "Sorry, Bell, Peg wanted to know what was going on."
"Oh, that's all right," Belldandy said. "Well?"
"Well. I think we're okay with that." He glanced at Peg just to be sure, and she nodded once. "Yeah, I think we can do that for you. I'm just concerned about what it'll cost, and if maybe it's more than just two people can set up."
"Oh, of course. Well, we can help with the funding," she said, "and I'm sure Keiichi and Megumi will be happy to lend a hand."
"If we're asking them, we might as well as send out an all-call for volunteers to the entire complex," he mused. "It'd only be fair."
"Well, then," she said happily, "in that case it sounds like you've got the start of a plan!"
Bob laughed. "Oh, I wouldn't say that, yet. But we'll get there soon enough."
"Very good, and when you do, let us know what you'll need to cover costs."
"Will do. Is there anything else you wanted from us?" he asked.
"Oh, no, that's all. Thank you ever so much, Bob," she replied.
"All part of the service. And you know we could never say no to you, Bell."
She giggled. "In that case, I'll try not to abuse the awesome power at my fingertips. Good-bye, Bob!"
He rolled his eyes. "G'wan, get out of here, you troublemaker." She was still giggling when she hung up.
Bob put the handset back on the charger and looked over to Peggy, who was waiting patiently, cloth in hand. "Tag, we're it," he said. "We're the lucky winners of a Halloween Party, all assembly required."
"We've only got two weeks," she pointed out.
He nodded. "First things we need to do is round up volunteers and hit up all the other residences to see who's going to want to come. Then we can figure out what we need in the way of ... well, everything."
"How're they all going to get here? Charter planes and buses?"
"I haven't the faintest."
One of the advantages of Douglass Gardens having a modern PBX telephone network is that every apartment automatically got its own voice mailbox. From the master console program it was quite easy for Bob to send a message to every mailbox on the system, announcing that Belldandy had asked the managers — and by extension the residence as a whole — to throw a party, and requesting volunteers to help with setting it up.
While they waited for what they hoped were droves of willing and eager helpers, Peggy and Bob did some quick brainstorming. It would be insufficient to call the other residences and say "party on the 31st, no details yet", so they quickly established some specifics. A costume party on Halloween was pretty much a given. And after some discussion, they decided that making the party a potluck cut down substantially on both costs and effort, and would self-adjust for the number of attendees. Not to mention giving the attendees an extra reason to mingle and talk to each other. Peggy made a note to post a thread on the managers.yggdrasil discussion board where the attendees could sign up for specific dishes.
That settled, Bob printed out two copies of the latest list of residences, freshly downloaded off the managers' server. He mused at the necessity — the arrival of interdimensional refugees was practically a daily affair now, and it seemed like a new place opened up every week to house them. By the time they actually threw the party, there'd probably be two entire new households they'd need to invite at the last minute. Peggy sat down at the table in the dining area next to the "office", and Bob stepped over to hand her one of the sheets. "Here... you take everything from the Hangar on down, and I'll call everyplace above it."
She nodded, and dug out her cell phone. "Okay."
Before they could start calling, though, the doorbell rang. "Hi, Mr. Schroeck!" Ui chirped when Bob opened the door. She peered around him and waved at Peggy. "Hi, Mrs. Schroeck!" Looking back up at him — he wasn't a tall man, but for all that they were practically full-grown women, the Hirasawa sisters were tiny — she continued, "I got the message about volunteers for the Halloween party and wondered if you needed anything right away."
"Hey, Ui, come on in," he said as he stepped back and waved her in. Closing the door behind her Bob added, "Oddly enough, we could use another hand right now — we're calling the other residences and inviting them. Sit yourself down at the desk, take part of the list, and be your usual charming self on the phone."
He smiled as she blushed, and led her over to the desk which was the centerpiece of the "office" portion of the ground floor. A minute later they'd redistributed the numbers. He and Peggy still had the beginning and end of the list respectively, like before, but now Ui had the middle half-dozen residences. With three callers, the job should be a fast one.
"Mr. Schroeck," Ui asked on looking at her assignment, "is this telephone number supposed to have so many digits in it?"
"Huh?" Bob said. "Let me see." He looked over her head at the first entry on the sheet. "Ah, yeah, that's an international number — they're somewhere in Southeast Asia near Thailand, I think."
"Ah, okay," Ui said, nodding. "Okay, I think I've got this."
"Cool. And thanks for helping." With that Bob parked himself on a stool in the kitchen with his cellphone in hand, while Peggy had already seated herself at the table in the dining area. With the three of them separated widely enough that none of them would be inconveniently audible on the others' calls, they got to work.
Bob had his own international number to start his calls with. Consulting the printout in front of him every few digits, he slowly punched "011 353 089 011 0701" into his phone, and a few moments later he heard the distinct double-"brrrr" of the UK phone network's "ringing" sound.
7 Henrietta Street
Dublin, Ireland
6:20 PM Irish Standard Time
At the sound of the ringing phone, Meg raised an eyebrow. She rose from her seat and crossed to the side table where the phone — a near-antique hardwired land line — rested on a small table that pressed up against the water-damaged oak wainscoting.
"Seven Henrietta Street," she said upon lifting the receiver to her ear. "Meg Deckard speaking."
"Hello, Meg." A man's voice, with an American accent, vaguely familiar. "This is Bob Schroeck from Douglass Gardens. I hope I didn't interrupt your dinner."
Ah, that was why his voice was familiar — the various teleconferences over the past few weeks as they'd started thrashing out some manner of organization between the residences. "Hullo, Bob. No, we won't be eating for another hour or more, so you're fine. What brings you to call?"
"Well, at the request of the really upper management, we're going to be hosting a Halloween costume party for all the displacees, and naturally, you and yours are invited," he said briskly.
"In the U.S.?" she asked. "How would we get there?"
"I'm assuming the megami are handling that or having it handled," he said. "We were just asked to provide the venue."
Meg hmmm'ed for a moment. "Well, I'd need to check with everyone to be sure, but I think you can put us down as a 'yes'."
"Great!" There was a brief pause during which she heard the rustle of papers. "Oh, one more thing — it'll be a potluck. Once we're done with the invites we'll post something on managers.yggdrasil to work out who brings what."
"Grand," she replied. "I'll keep an eye out for it." Meg smirked as a thought struck her, and impishly added, "This isn't going to be a Buffy the Vampire Slayer-style Halloween, is it?"
"Jinx us, why don't you?" Bob shot back. "No, not if I have anything to say about it. Any more questions?"
Meg laughed. "No, I think that's it."
"All right, then, let me let you go." He chuckled. "I've got plenty of invites to make before the day is out. Take care and we'll see you in a couple weeks."
"Ah, and bye then."
"Kickstand Cottage"
809 SE 8th Avenue
Okeechobee, FL, USA
1:21 PM Eastern Time
Even though they'd been moved in to the house for over three weeks now, the sound of the phone ringing was still a surprise big enough to shock everyone into silence. Hane hopped out of her seat on the big couch in the family room and trotted over to the end table where a wireless handset sat in its charger.
"Helloooo!" she chirped as soon as she had it to her ear.
"Hi, this is Peggy Schroeck from Douglass Gardens."
"Hi, Peggy, it's Hane!" She cupped her hand over the receiver and hissed to the rest of the room, "It's Mrs. Schroeck from Douglass Gardens in New Jersey." Returning to the phone, she added, "What's up?"
"Oh, we just wanted to let you know we're holding a Halloween costume party on the 31st and everyone there, including the Ritters, is invited. Can we expect you?"
"Hold on." Hane turned to the rest of the room. "The Schroecks are inviting us to a costume party on Halloween. Do we want to go?"
The rest of the room burst into a chorus of approval, with Onsa's shout of "Oh yeah!" while pumping her fist in the air, being loudest. A moment later, a curious Hayakawa looked in, wiping his hands on a kitchen towel. Hijiri quickly explained, and he nodded.
Hane grinned and returned triumphantly to the phone, "We'll have to ask Tom and Ellie later, but in case you couldn't hear that, everyone here thinks that's a great idea."
The Black Lagoon
Gulf of Thailand, 11° 56' 8.7288" N, 102° 35' 45.51" E
17 October 2016
12:22 AM Bangkok Time
Revy snarled her way to an unwanted wakefulness at the sound of the cell phone ringing. Dammit, she'd just barely gotten to sleep. She grabbed the phone from its charger, brushed her thumb across the "answer" button and brought it to the ear that wasn't still buried in her pillow. "You better have a damned good reason for calling at this hour, whoever you are."
"Um." A girl's voice, hesitant, tremulous, came through the phone. "Ms. Revy? This is Ui Hirasawa at Douglass Gardens Apartments in New Jersey."
"Yeah?" Revy growled. "The hell do you want?"
"Um... we're going to be holding a Halloween party, and we wanted to invite all the displacees at your residence to come?"
What the fuck...? Revy lifted the phone from her ear, stared at it for a moment, then replaced it. "Hell, no. Our idea of a party is nothing like yours, little girl. Go away and let me sleep." She disconnected the call and threw the phone across the cabin before burrowing back into her covers.
The Anything Goes Cafe
Antigonish, Nova Scotia, Canada
October 16, 2016
2:25 PM Atlantic Time
"Funtom Property Management, Antigonish building. What can I do for you?" Epsilon's voice, trained by years of telemarketing work, sounded polite and friendly.
"Hello, Aaron. It's Bob Schroeck calling from Douglass Gardens."
"Oh, hello, Bob!" Epsilon's voice immediately lost its professional tone, sounding more human instead. "What can I do for you?"
"We're going to have a Halloween party here, and Belldandy-sama has asked us to invite everyone in the other residences."
"Belldandy," Epsilon replied flatly.
Bob realized that he'd made a mistake; during the weekly managers' meetings, Epsilon always asked someone else (usually Rob at Blossom) to deal with Belldandy in his place. "But they aren't organizing the party. This is something that we're putting together ourselves."
"I suppose we... excuse me." The phone wasn't on mute, so Bob could hear one end of the interrupting conversation in Nova Scotia. "No, I gave the business licence to Cologne the day before yesterday. ... Aren't you the expert in restaurant management here? ... Try the Xaverian Weekly; they accept ads and everyone on campus gets a copy. I am in the middle of a call. ... No, you're busy. I'll make something later, thank you." Then there was silence for a short moment, followed by Epsilon's voice at full volume again. "Sorry about that, Bob. Shampoo wanted some help."
"That's all right. We're here for them, after all. I was about to ask whether you and your residents would be coming to the party on Halloween."
"I want to come, but I've just been reminded that we can't. Cologne, Shampoo, Mousse, and Ukyo are starting an Asian fusion takeout restaurant and they're still building customer goodwill." It sounded to Bob like Epsilon was making an excuse, but it was a good excuse. "And do you really want the others to show up without supervision?"
"Wouldn't Kasumi be able to supervise the Tendos and the Saotomes?" Bob asked.
"Kasumi," Epsilon replied, using the same tone that he'd used to refer to Belldandy earlier.
"No, I suppose she couldn't," Bob said quickly. What was it with Epsilon and characters played by Kikuko Inoue, anyway? Bob didn't have time to ask about it just then, and he didn't think it was his business anyway. But he had to wonder if Epsilon would have the same problem with Lobelia from Sakura Taisen or Baita from Bakuon!! "Maybe you'll be able to attend next time."
"Maybe. I'm sorry that we're too busy, Bob." There was what sounded like a small explosion at the Nova Scotia end of the conversation, followed by Epsilon muttering, "Which wall has Ryouga destroyed this time?"
"You sound like you've got your hands full. I'll let you go."
"Thanks. I'll talk with you at our next meeting. I have to go." And with that the cell connection abruptly dropped.
Blossom Apartments
Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
October 16, 2016
1:44 PM Eastern Time
Rob Donaldson looked at the call display on his cellphone, then tapped the speakerphone button. "Hi Bob! You're on speaker, and Mii-san is here."
"Hello, Mr. Schroeck!"
Contrary to expectations, Bob Schroeck's voice did not fill the room. Instead, they heard a rather pretty but not completely confident female voice. "Hello, Mr. Donaldson. Mr. Schroeck asked me to call you. I'm Ui Hirasawa. I hope I'm not interrupting anything important." She almost sounded like she was in a call centre; Rob could hear Bob and Peggy talking on calls in the background.
"That depends on how you define 'important', Ms. Hirasawa," Rob replied, using the same level of formality that she was using. "Mii Konori and I are finishing off some paperwork for Funtom Property Management Canada."
"That sounds important. Maybe I should call back...?"
Rob thought that this didn't sound like the self-confident Ui Hirasawa he knew of from watching K-On!, but her voice sounded like Ui's in the anime. And his contract said he was hired to help the displacees, so if Ui had a problem, then it might be his responsibility to help. Maybe. "Talking with a displacee, any displacee, is more important than my paperwork, Ms. Hirasawa. Is there anything I can do to help you?"
Mii whispered, "Should I leave?"
"Not yet," Rob whispered back.
"Thank you for asking," Ui said more confidently than she sounded before. "You're much kinder than Ms. Revy was."
"Revy? Of the Black Lagoon? You called Revy?"
"Just before I called you, yes."
"Oh, my," Rob said. "Who let Revy pick up the phone? She's the least personable person aboard that boat. Ms. Hirasawa, I promise you that I will not react the way that she did."
"Thank you!" Ui said with obvious relief.
Mii quietly made a note to avoid speaking with this "Revy" person if at all possible.
"Now, is there a problem at Douglass Gardens that Bob can't help you with?"
"Actually, I'm helping Mr. Schroeck," she replied. "And it isn't with a problem. It's an invitation. We're having a Halloween party."
"That sounds like fun," Mii said. "Why are we being invited to it?"
"Mr. Schroeck said that Belldandy-sama insisted. We're inviting everybody. Belldandy-sama also insisted on that. I've been told that she wants everybody to get to know each other. Would you want to come to the party? All of you, not just Mr. Donaldson?"
Rob nodded in agreement, not that Ui could see him. "So it's our turn to grant Belldandy a wish? Sure, why not? Speaking for myself, I'd love to attend. And I'm sure that at least some people at other residences would love to meet Usagi-chan in person while they have the chance."
"'Usagi-chan'? Tsukino Usagi-san? Sailor Moon?!"
Rob chuckled. "It sounds like you're one of those people, Ms. Hirasawa. Yes, Sailor Moon."
"I'd like to meet everybody, too," Mii added. "We'll need transportation, though. It is a school night."
"Mr. Schroeck hasn't told me how that will be arranged, yet."
Rob shrugged his shoulders. "Well, if necessary, the ladies can take two days off school and I can drive six hours each way on I-81 if I have to." Then he had a thought. "Considering that involvement by the megami means there's already a supernatural element to the party, I have to ask: This isn't going to be a Buffy Halloween party, is it?"
"What's a Buffy Halloween party?"
"One with supernatural shenanigans that inconvenience the party-goers."
"Oh, I hope not."
"So do I. Let Bob know that Mii and I will tell the other girls about the party, and I expect we'll all be there."
"Certainly, Mr. Donaldson. Oh, we're planning on it being a potluck."
"We have a pastry chef in training resident here. No doubt Mako-chan would love to make some sweets for you. And before you ask, yes, she's Sailor Jupiter."
"I'll mention that to Mr. Schroeck. Um... what you said earlier..."
He heard the hesitation in her voice, and assumed that the call had gone from being about the party to being about the caller and a possible problem. "Yes?"
"Is it strange for a resident to help a building manager?"
"Not at all," Mii replied before Rob could. "I'm a resident here, and I'm helping Rob-san. He's helping me with tuition here, so helping him is the least I can do."
"It's more like your working here part-time is a justification for me paying you. I'd still help out as much as I can, but this makes it easier to explain to the upper management." Or lower management, in the case of the demons, but Rob thought that Ui didn't need to know that part of the arrangements. And with that thought, he turned his attention back to the call. "Ms. Hirasawa, I do have one more question."
"What is it?"
"It's an interrogative sentence designed to elicit information," Rob said. "But that's not important right now."
Ui giggled. "Mr. Donaldson, are all of the residence managers like you and Mr. Schroeck?"
"No, Ms. Hirasawa. Bob and I have known each other for years, so some of our personality traits have rubbed off onto each other."
"Ah, I understand. What's your question?"
"Will we have a chance to hear Wakaba Girls play during the party?"
The line was silent for a moment, then Ui asked, "You want to hear us play? Wakaba Girls? Not Hokago Tea Time?"
"Well, I'd like to hear them play too, but I do want to hear your band play, please."
"I'll ask the others, but I think we can do that, Mr. Donaldson. Thank you for asking! Oh, but I should be calling other residences, not continuing to talk with you. Good-bye, Ms. Konori and Mr. Donaldson."
"Until we talk again, Ms. Hirasawa."
Once the call ended, Mii said, "That was kind of you, asking to hear her play. They're an amateur band, you know."
"I know. But the poor dear needed a confidence boost after speaking with Revy, and I do want to hear their band's music at least once."
Douglass Gardens
1:43 PM Eastern Time
"Bob, is this a joke?"
"Huh?" Bob looked up from the next number on his list of residences. Over at the desk, Ui looked up as well. "Is what a joke?"
Peggy waved her list. "Is Jenny Everywhere's number really 867-5309?"[3]
Ui looked confused. Bob sighed.
Live Oak Manor
Vicksburg, Mississippi, USA
October 16, 2016
1:45 PM Eastern Time
Jenny Everywhere snagged the phone just before it rang. "Live Oak Manor, Jenny speaking."
"Hi, Jenny! It's Peggy Schroeck at Douglass Gardens,"
"Hey, Peggy, nice to finally meet you, kind of." Jenny settled herself into the closest chair and got comfortable. "What brings you to call?"
"Oh, we're hosting a potluck costume party on Halloween," Peggy said. "We got voluntold by Belldandy," she added with a chuckle. "I'm surprised you guys don't already know and have all your costumes already, what with being time travelers and all."
Jenny laughed. "Oh, it doesn't work like that, unfortunately. The Celestials have us locked down to keep us from messing things up worse than they already are."
"I suppose that makes sense," Peggy mused. "So anyway, we're calling all the residences we know of to invite everyone. Can we expect you?"
Jenny nodded to herself. "I'll have to double check with everyone here, but put us down for a strong tentative yes."
"Great!"
"It's not going to be a Buffy Halloween party, is it?" Jenny added impishly.
"Huh? Let me ask Bob," Peggy replied, and before Jenny could tell her it was a joke, the line was muted. A few moments later, it unmuted. "Bob says no, and why are so many people asking?" Peggy sounded genuinely confused.
Jenny couldn't help herself — she laughed.
Appartements Mont-Royal Sud
Montréal, QC, Canada
October 16, 2016
1:49 PM Eastern Time
«3487 rue Parc. Allô!» Cassiopée said into the receiver.
«Allô,» a man's voice responded. «Um, voici Bob Schroeck chez, um, de Douglass Gardens en les États-Unis...»
"Oh, hello, Bob," she said, switching to English.
He sighed in obvious relief. "Hello, Cassiopée. Thank you for sparing both of us my badly-remembered high school French."
Cassiopée laughed. "Gladly. What brings you to call?"
"Ah, at the request of certain persons who shall remain Celestial, we're going to be holding a Halloween costume party for all the residents in the network. And of course you and your band of merry pranksters are invited. Oh, and Grahame, too, of course."
"That sounds delightful," she said.
Callahan's Bar
Rocky Point, NY
1:51 PM Eastern Time
Mike pulled the cordless handset out from under the bar and thumbed it on as he brought it to his ear. "Callahan's, Mike speaking."
"Hello, Mr. Callahan!" The sweet voice of a teenaged girl came across the line. "This is Ui Hirasawa calling from Douglas Gardens in New Jersey." This early in the day the Place was only sparsely populated, and there was no background ruckus to drown her out.
"Well, good afternoon, Miss Ui. What can I do for you?"
"Our residence is going to be throwing a Halloween party — a costume party — on the 31st," she chirped. "And we wanted to invite you and your family. Do you think you can make it?"
Mike sighed. "Unfortunately we're far too busy on a night like Halloween to get away for a party. But thank you for thinking of us."
"Oh, that's too bad." She sounded sincerely distressed, and Mike smiled at the empathy in her voice.
"Now don't you worry about us, young lady," he reassured her. "I run a merry place here, and we'll be celebrating in our own way. And I'll see to it that we keep you in mind while we do."
Phantomhive Manor
Lamberhurst, Tunbridge Wells
Kent, UK
5:56 PM Greenwich Time
The telephone barely had had time to ring before Sebastian had lifted the receiver from the hook. "Phantomhive Manor," he said briskly and professionally. A butler who can't properly answer his employer's phone isn't worth his salt, after all.
"Good afternoon, Sebastian. This is Peggy Schroeck from Douglass Gardens Apartments in the United States."
"Hello, Mrs. Schroeck," Sebastian replied. "May I inquire what brings you to call the Manor this pleasant Sunday afternoon?"
"Ah, well, we'll be throwing a costume party on Halloween, and we wanted to invite you and Lord Phantomhive."
A small but pleased smile crossed the demon's face. "I do believe my master's schedule is free that evening. I will confirm with him, but unless you hear otherwise from me, you may count on our attendance."
"Oh, good," crackled over the transAtlantic connection. "Now, the party is a potluck, but we wouldn't expect Lord Phantomhive to have to bring a..."
"Nonsense!" Sebastian interrupted her. "Let me know where and when to choose a contribution. Rest assured we will arrive with something to share with everyone."
"Oh, thank you, Sebastian!" Peggy's smile was audible. "We'll be putting a signup on the managers' board shortly."
"Excellent. In that case, unless there is anything else, allow me to bid you good-bye and good evening."
"And to you, too, Sebastian," Peggy replied. "We'll look forward to seeing you."
Aria House
Venice Beach, California, USA
10:57 AM Pacific Time
Bob wasn't expecting the sweet voice who answered, "Brent's phone, Alicia speaking."
"Oh, um, hello. You must be Alicia Florence, right?"
"Right." She glanced at the name on the phone. "Do I know you, Bob?"
"I'm Bob Schroeck, co-manager of Douglass Gardens Apartments. I have the same job as Brent."
"Ara, of course!"
"Can I speak to Brent?"
"Well, he's a little bit buried in sand at the moment – let me see if I can get the phone down to him."
Bob explained, "Well, I just wanted to invite you all to a Halloween party here in New Jersey."
"Oh, that sounds lovely. We're having a little party of our own right now, but it would be nice to meet you all. Ara, it looks like he's getting out of the hole."
Tomo's yell made it across the phone line, "IT'S A SAND MONSTER, RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!!!"
Alicia spoke, "Hold on just a minute, please."
A few seconds later, Brent Laabs was on the line. "Hey Bob, what's up?"
"I was just about to ask you if you wanted to bring everyone to a Halloween party here in Somerset. You know, let our tenants get to meet other people like themselves."
"Cool. But how are we going to travel there, deep in the heart of Jersey?"
"Where the city rats run in big packs, deep in the heart of Joisey?"
Brent chuckled. "Heh, you like that song, too."
"Oh yeah, it's a classic. Uncle Floyd for the win."
"I probably heard it because you posted it on the forums, didn't I?"
"Probably."
"Great tune, bad it isn't a answer. Flights from LAX to New York for everybody won't be cheap, and then we'd have to rent a van to get the rest of the way there."
"You don't want to do that. Go to Newark Liberty. It's only half an hour away. If you arrive at JFK or LaGuardia, you'll have to spend at least a couple of hours just driving across most of New York City — and not the scenic parts," Bob advised. "Considering the goddesses want this party to happen, though, I'd be surprised if they weren't making arrangements for everybody."
A few cheers were picked up on the phone's mic.
"Sounds like we're coming."
Bob spoke, "Great, I'll see you there. I'll email you the details."
"Before you go, I do have one question though: It's not going to be a Buffy Halloween, is it?"
"Now why is everyone asking me that question?" Bob grumbled in jest.
Gulfside Rest
Pensacola Beach, FL, USA
2:00 PM Eastern Time
The phone rang while Harley was finishing up the dishes from lunch. He slid a damp sandwich plate into the drying rack, slung the dishcloth over one overlarge shoulder, and snagged the wall phone from where it hung on the opposite wall of the kitchen. "Yo," he said. "Harley here."
"Mr. Waters? This is Ui Hirasawa from Douglass Gardens in New Jersey."
"It's just 'Harley', Ms. Hirasawa," he corrected gently. "'Mr. Waters' is my father."
"Oh, I'm sorry!" she squeaked.
"Nah, 's okay, you didn't know," he replied. "So what can I do you for?"
"Er... I'm not sure I understand..."
Harley chuckled. "That's just a spoonerism that some of my friends say on purpose. What can I do for you?"
"Oh, right! I'm calling to let you know that Douglass Gardens is throwing a potluck costume party on Halloween, and that you and your tenants are all invited."
He ran his free hand through his beard. "Sounds like fun, but how are we going to get there?"
"Well, Mr, and Mrs. Schroeck were asked to throw this party by Belldandy," Harley's eyebrows rose in surprise, "so we're assuming she's got something in mind." She paused a moment in an almost audible shrug. "We just don't know what yet."
Harley nodded to himself. "Well, then, Ms. Hirasawa, assuming there's a way for us to get there that doesn't involve a few thousand dollars in airfare, I think we'd be happy to attend."
The Banzai Institute for Biomedical Engineering and Strategic Information
Somerset, NJ, USA
2:03 PM Eastern Time
When the phone rang, Eunice closed the copy of Microsoft Office for Dummies she had been reading for the last couple hours, lifted the phone's handset and hit the blinking button for the inbound line. "Banzai Institute," she announced in a practiced cadence. "Mrs. Johnson speaking. How may I direct your call?"
"Hello, Mrs. Johnson, this is Bob Schroeck at Douglass Gardens, just down the street from you." There was the briefest pause, and he added, "Don't tell me they have you working on a Sunday afternoon."
She laughed. "Oh, no, I'm not working — but I am in my office catching up on new software. And when the main line rings, it lights up on my phone here."
"Fair enough," Mr. Schroeck said. "So, the reason I'm calling is that we'll be throwing a costume party on Halloween, and we wanted to extend an invite to Team Banzai and the members of the Institute."
"Oh, I'm afraid we'll have to decline," Eunice replied instantly. "The Cavaliers are booked for a show that night."
"Ah, of course. Well, in that case I'll let you get back to what you were doing."
She shrugged, even though there was no one to see her. "Sorry, I'm sure we would have had fun. Good-bye."
"Later," he said and the line dropped. Eunice set the receiver down in its cradle with a thoughtful look.
Douglass Gardens
2:06 PM Eastern Time
Ui checked the next number on her list and confirmed she'd read the address correctly. "Mr. Schroeck?" she said when she saw he had just hung up.
He looked up at her. "Yes, Ui?"
"What time is it in..." She glanced down at the sheet again. "Adelaide, Australia?"
"Mm. Let me check," he said, turning his attention to his cell phone. A few fingertaps, and he nodded. "It's about 3:30 AM there right now," he said without looking up.
She bit her lip. "Maybe we should wait to call them?"
Bob looked up. "I don't think that you need to worry about waking anyone up — there's supposedly someone on duty around the clock who can answer the phone."
"Oh, okay, then!" she said with a smile.
"The Hangar"
Adelaide, South Australia, Australia
3:38 AM Australian Central Daylight Time
Night watch in a facility that has yet to see anything close to action is one of the more boring duties a soldier can undertake. Kurz Weber and Melissa Mao were sharing the duty this night — their compatriot Sousuke Sagara had school in the morning and thus was spared the task — and they had reached the point of maximum boredom (for Kurz) and annoyance (for Melissa, with Kurz). While she cleaned her sidearm at her desk in the office that overlooked the Hangar's large open maintenance floor, she glared at Kurz, who had his feet up on his desk, leaning back in his chair with his arms folded behind his head.
The unexpected ringing of the external phone line was like a jolt of caffeine, shocking them both to a higher state of alertness than they had possessed a moment before. With a devil-may-care casualness that grated on Melissa's nerves, Kurz reached out and smacked both the the "answer" and "speaker" buttons. Folding his arms back behind his head, he announced, "Madman Omar's House of Iniquity, Omar speaking."
"Kurz!" Melissa snarled, and he shot her a grin.
"Um, what?" what sounded like a confused teenage girl said on the other end. "Is... is this the Hangar?"
"Yes, this is the Hangar," Melissa said in a softer but still professional tone. "Pay no attention to the idiot there."
Kurz clasped a hand to his chest. "Mao! I'm hurt!"
"Not yet you aren't," she hissed at him, "but keep it up and you will be!"
The unknown girl giggled nervously at the exchange before tentatively saying, "So, um, hi? This is Ui Hirasawa at Douglass Gardens in the United States."
"What can we do for you, sweetheart?" Kurz smarmed, and Melissa wished she was close enough to kick him.
"Um..." Melissa scowled. Whoever the girl was, she didn't have any defenses against Kurz's lech act, and it was audible in her voice. "I'm calling to invite everyone there to a Halloween costume party at Douglass Gardens?"
"Really?" Melissa asked. "You're inviting people halfway around the world from you? How are we supposed to get there?"
"Well, Belldandy asked Mr. and Mrs. Schroeck to throw the party, so we think she has something planned for that."
Belldandy, huh? Melissa had been in the military long enough to recognize an order disguised as a suggestion, and if a goddess was having a party thrown, attendance was no doubt required. The Captain would almost certainly agree. "In that case... Thank you for the invitation, Ms. Hirasawa. The two of us here can't formally accept it — we'll have to pass it on to Captain Holder for that — but just between us I think it's likely we'll all be coming, so it's probably safe to mark us down as a tentative yes."
"Just so long as it's not a Halloween like on Buffy the Vampire Slayer!" Kurz added.
The girl on the other end laughed. "It seems like everyone's asking about that!" she said with a little giggle in her voice. "No, we're pretty sure it's not. Anyway, thank you! Good-bye now!"
"Good-bye," the two of them replied and the line dropped.
Melissa glared at Kurz. "Buffy the Vampire Slayer?" she demanded.
"Hey," he replied, "It was funny. And apparently something other people were actually worried about." He gestured casually. "Don't get on my case. She wasn't offended or upset. I mean, just imagine if Sousuke'd picked up the call — she'd have been traumatized and he'd have been completely baffled."
Melissa rolled her eyes, but she couldn't help but give a small chuckle at that. "Oh, yeah." She pitched her voice lower. "'Is this a mandatory training exercise? I do not understand the purpose of this gathering.'"
Kurz added, "'Are these strangely-dressed individuals valid targets? I do not recognize what force they are part of.'"
Melissa laughed and nodded. "We're going to have to make sure he's as disarmed as we can possibly get him."
The Steeple
Philadelphia, PA, USA
2:10 PM Eastern Time
Heather Raven put her bottle of cold brew iced tea down on her desk and started going through her paperwork for Funtom Property Management. The paperwork for the van was particularly messy. She needed to arrange for the adult Takamachis to get their driver's licenses so she could put them on the insurance.
She was wrestling with PennDOT's website when the phone rang.
Heather snagged the phone on the first ring. "Steeple. Heather Raven speaking."
"Hi, Heather. This is Peggy at Douglass Gardens. How're you doing?"
"I'm doing all right," she admitted.
"Good!" Peggy replied. "I'm calling because we're throwing a costume party on Halloween and you and your residents are invited."
Heather raised an eyebrow. "Please tell me this isn't going to be a Buffy the Vampire Slayer Halloween."
Peggy laughed. "Well, given how many other people have asked..."
"Well, how many of them were interviewed by a character from Buffy?"
"Really? Who?"
Heather considered how to explain her situation. "D'Hoffryn, lord of the Vengeance demons. His servants specialize in Monkey Paw wishes. No, wait. Monkey Paw wishes are safer."
"Yeah, I guess you have good reason to worry. But no, this is happening at the request of Belldandy, and we're pretty sure she's not going to let anything like that happen."
Heather allowed herself to relax. "Well, that's a relief."
Peggy chuckled. "So, that dealt with, I need to tell you that it's a potluck."
"Okay... Mrs. Takamachi's a professional chef."
Heather's cat climbed into her lap and attempted to move from there to the desktop.
"Cool. If she's willing to help out, then you're covered," Peggy said. "No need to worry about exactly what you'll be bringing yet... we'll put a sign-up sheet on the managers' system once we're done with all the invites."
Heather thought for a moment as she removed the cat's front paws from her keyboard. "Okay... There's a brew supply shop nearby where I can probably get a giant tank of CO2 and attach it to my SodaStream to keep us in carbonated drinks for the teetotalers."
"That's going to be at least half of the guests, so that's great. Don't forget to add it to the sign-up."
"I won't," Heather said.
"I'd ask you if you had any more questions, but that's about all the answers we have at this point."
"I was about to ask about getting there, actually," Heather offered. "I mean, we're in Philadelphia so getting someplace in Jersey isn't too hard, but I might need directions."
"Well, we can get you directions, but we're figuring that the goddesses have something in mind, given we're inviting everyone including the folks in Australia. Don't plan on driving just yet."
Heather nodded, even though Peggy couldn't see her. "Gotcha."
"Well, that's about everything then... I have one more to call to make, so I'll let you go."
"All right, I'll see you later."
"Yeah, in person finally! In two weeks! Bye now." Click.
Heather made a note on her calendar and returned to the PennDOT website after once more removing the cat from the keyboard.
Ben Rose House
Highland Park, IL, USA
1:13 PM Central Time
Oh, hey, readers. Ferris Bueller here. It's about time the authors got back to us folks in Chicagoland. I mean, six short paragraphs in Everyone's a Critic? That's hardly even a cameo. But I get it — they're juggling more than seven hundred people, and not everyone is going to be center stage all the time. (Although if you ask me, the girls at Blossom Apartments are getting more than their fair share of stories...)
Anyway, Cameron, Sloane and I have finally started settling in since we arrived not quite two weeks ago. Lately we've been feeling out our new roommates Bean, Rally and May, who just showed up on Thursday and are still getting used to the idea of Refuge, let alone sharing a house with three strangers. Yeah, everyone is getting used to everyone else. The last thing any of us were expecting at this point was an invite to a party, but... I'd shrug here but you wouldn't see it.
So it was right after lunch and we were cleaning up when the phone rang. I was closest to the kitchen phone, so I dropped my dishtowel on the countertop and picked it up. "Ben Rose House," I said, overriding my natural impulse to say "Frye home". "Ferris Bueller speaking."
"Oh! Hi." An older man, sounding somewhat surprised. "Wasn't expecting you to pick up. This is Bob Schroeck, one of the managers at Douglass Gardens in New Jersey."
"Hi, Bob," I said and grinned at the memory of a certain drinking game. "Douglass Gardens — that's where all the musicians are, isn't it?" Sloane and Cameron were giving me inquiring looks, so I covered the mouthpiece and whispered, "It's the manager from New Jersey."
"Yeah," he said as I shifted my attention back to the call. "And comic book artists, and magic knights, and psychics. You know, just everyday folks."
I chuckled. "Right. Just like us here."
"Hey, you said it, not me," he replied with a chuckle of his own. "Anyway, I'm calling because we're throwing a costume party on Halloween, and you and your housemates are invited. Can we expect you?"
"Hold on," I said. "Let me ask." I put my hand over the mouthpiece again. "We've been invited to a Halloween party in New Jersey. Want to go?" I asked the room at large
"Oh, definitely," Sloane squealed. Cameron nodded his head slowly and thoughtfully before declaring "Yes".
I glanced over at the table where Bean, Rally and May still sat. "How about you guys?"
Rally and May traded looks before saying "Yes" together.
Bean shrugged and said, "I suppose."
Lifting my hand from the mouthpiece, I said, "Looks like we're all up for it. Six of us just in case you didn't hear that we got three new people a couple days ago."
"Got it," Bob said. "Marking that down now. As for getting here, well, we're doing this at Belldandy's request," I raised an eyebrow at that, "and we're assuming she's making arrangements to get everyone here and back again, even the folks in Australia."
"Well, that's good to know," I said. "Is that it, then?"
There was a pause on the other end, and then Bob said, "Nah, that's it. We'll see you in two weeks. Later!"
"Bye!" And he hung up. Good. For a moment there I thought he was going to ask about you guys, and then what would I say?
The Masaki Home
Coquitlam, British Colombia, Canada
11:16 AM Pacific Time
As the refrigerator door shut behind her the house phone rang. Garnett snagged the receiver with one hand while setting down the miso Sasami had requested on the counter next to the other ingredients for lunch. "Masaki Home for the Romantically Entangled. Garnett Iwasaki speaking."
"Good morning, Ms. Iwasaki!" A girl's voice, bright and cheery. She sounded a bit younger than Garnett. "This is Ui Hirasawa at Douglass Gardens in New Jersey."
"Good morning, Ui. You're one of the K-On! girls, aren't you?" Garnett slid down the counter to give Sasami more room to work. "What's up?"
"Oh, yes, I am! I'm helping out Mr. and Mrs. Schroeck — Belldandy asked them to throw a party on Halloween, and we're calling all the residences to invite everyone. So... you're invited? All of you?"
Garnett chuckled. "Well, thank you, and thank the Schroecks for me. I don't want to speak for everyone without checking first, but I think it's likely we'll all want to go." Washuu strolled into the kitchen and poked her head into the refrigerator, clearly looking for a snack.
"Oh, good!" There was a pause, then, "Okay, so, it's going to be a potluck, and they'll be posting a signup sheet on the managers' board by tonight. Oh, and it's a costume party, too."
"Sounds fun," she said with a smile. "So, how are you getting people there? I mean, we'll probably have Ryo-Ohki fly us over, but..."
"Are you talking about the Halloween party?" Washuu had pulled her head out of the refrigerator and was now looking at her with eyebrows raised.
"Hold on, Ui," Garnett said, then put a hand over the mouthpiece. "Yes, we just got invited." She frowned minutely. "How did you hear about it?"
Washuu waved a hand breezily. "The goddesses contacted me and asked me if it would be difficult to set up portals connecting all the residences to Douglass Gardens. Pfft! Like it's a challenge!" She spun on her heel and wandered out the kitchen, taking big crunching bites out of whatever it was that she'd found in the fridge.
Garnett blinked, then removed her hand from the phone. "Did you hear that?"
"Um, no?"
"Washuu says the goddesses asked her to set up portals to connect all the other residences to yours for the party."
"Oh! That'll be handy!" Ui chirped happily, then shifted gears abruptly. "Mouuuu...."
"What?" Garnet asked.
"That means we have to call everyone again to let them know!"
Douglass Gardens
2:20 PM Eastern Time
"Good news, everyone!" Ui announced as she hung up her most recent call.
Bob and Peggy looked up. "What?" Bob asked.
"Washuu says she's been asked to set up portals connecting everyone to us for Halloween."
Bob glanced at Peggy. "Well, that solves that problem."
"What, do we have to call everyone back now?" she asked, frowning. Ui nodded solemnly.
He shrugged. "If you want, but mentioning it when we post the signup sheet for the potluck should serve just as well."
Warehouse 13
Boston, Massachusetts, USA
2:21 PM Eastern Time
Robert Thompson hit the speaker button almost as soon as the phone began to ring. "Warehouse 13. Kestrel speaking."
"Hi, um, Kestrel? This is Peggy Schroeck from Douglass Gardens."
He smiled to himself and leaned back in his chair. One thing to say for this job, they understood that a programmer needed a really good chair to work in. "Good afternoon, Peggy, nice to speak to another of my fellow managers."
"Oh, yes, nice to speak to you, too," she said.
"What brings you to call?"
"Well, we've been asked by Belldandy to throw a Halloween party for all the displacees and managers," she explained, "and we wanted to invite you."
He sighed. "That's kind of you, Peggy, but I don't think that's going to work out. You have to understand, I'm not so much a manager like you and Bob as a prison warden. Most of my 'residents' can't be trusted outside the Faraday cage that lines the entire building. And even if they could, most of them are pretty much immobile and can't interact in the physical world anyway. The ones that can are the ones I'd never let do so." He shrugged, even though she couldn't see him. "So thanks, but we'll have to take a pass."
"Even just you yourself can't get away?" she asked, a little plaintively he thought.
He sighed again, shaking his head with a rueful smile. "Like I said, Peggy, I'm the warden. Some nights I can sleep in my own bed, but other times it might be days before I can go home. It depends on how much trouble my... inmates are making. I don't want to plan to be away for any length of time in case they take it as a cue to try something."
Peggy didn't say anything for long enough that Kestrel started to wonder if they'd gotten disconnected. "That sounds... unpleasant," she finally said.
"It is what it is," he replied matter-of-factly. "And it's not all bad. Strange as it sounds, I love what I'm doing. It's just that I can't let my guard down. Maybe someday — in a few months, a year — but not this Halloween, no. Thanks, though."
"All right, then, I guess I'll mark you guys down as 'no'," Peggy said reluctantly. "You have a good Sunday afternoon, Kestrel."
"You, too, Peggy." The line dropped and the phone automatically hung up. Kestrel took a deep breath then leaned back in his chair and studied the bare brick of his office walls.
Douglass Gardens
2:25 PM Eastern Time
Peggy crossed out Kestrel and Warehouse 13 on the sheet in front of her, then looked up. Ui she knew had finished her calls, and Bob looked like he had, too. "We're done?" she asked.
"Yep," Bob said. "I left an invite on Artie Duncan's machine, more for politeness' sake than anything, since the Artery's had posters up for their Halloween bash for a couple weeks now. Far as everyone else is concerned? Well, we're still waiting for some tentative yesses to turn into confirmed ones, but we at least have a ballpark number of guests to work with, and we can start figuring out what we need in the way of ... oh, I don't know. Do we need some kind of permit from the town for an outdoor party this size? It certainly won't fit in the community center." He shook his head. "Tables, chairs, tents, those foil Sterno-heated trays for food... Those propane-powered outdoor heater things." He frowned. "More stuff to figure out."
"Oh!" he continued. "And before I forget... Ui, I'm sorry — I should have paid more attention to what I was doing and not included the Black Lagoon on your list."
Ui's face was blank with surprise for a moment, then she launched herself from behind the desk to wrap Bob in a hug. "That's okay! Anyone can make a mistake," she declared. "And I'm sure that whoever called, she still would have yelled at them." She released Bob and stepped back.
Bob shot a look at Peggy, then shrugged. "If you say so, Ui. But I wouldn't blame you if you were still upset."
"Oh, I could be," she chirped. "But I'm too busy looking forward to all the people I'm going to meet in two weeks!"
Bob grinned. "Honestly, Ui? So am I."
While almost everyone was fairly enthusiastic about attending (and meeting other people in the same situation as themselves), a few individuals saw fit to decline their RSVPs. Touya Kinomoto more regretfully declined to attend, as he had part time work scheduled, bearing silver platters of hors d'oeuvres at a fancy Hollywood party. Yukito Tsukishiro decided to stay behind and hand out candy at Aria House, though pretty much everyone knew that it was just an excuse to get more time alone with Touya.
And at Aria House, Tomoyo Daidouji's sewing machine was worked so hard by its owner making costumes that she nearly drove it to destruction.
The character of Jenny Everywhere is available for use by anyone, with only one condition. This paragraph must be included in any publication involving Jenny Everywhere, in order that others may use this property as they wish. All rights reversed. — Steven Wintle
- Twilight and the characters thereof are copyright © 2005-2008, 2015, 2020 by Stephanie Meyer, and are used without permission.
- The Big Lebowski and the characters thereof are copyright © 1998 by Working Title Films, and are used without permission.
- RMS: For our younger readers who may not recognize the reference or understand why Peggy thinks this is a joke, "867-5309/Jenny" was a huge hit in 1981 for the band Tommy Tutone.
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| 2016-10-14: A Serotinal Frolic |
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Posted by: Bob Schroeck - 11-19-2024, 06:43 PM - Forum: Stories
- Replies (2)
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A Serotinal Frolic
A "KanriKyara" Story
by Brent Laabs
Chapter 1 - Planning
1.1 - An Alarming Development
Friday, October 14, 2016
It was a few minutes to eleven when I heard a knock on the door to the apartment manager's office. I took my time getting up to answer, so the knocking grew louder, more insistent.
"Hi, can I help?" I looked down to notice my visitor, a Japanese girl in blue jeans and an Godzilla-branded oversized tee, tied in a knot above the midriff. "Oh. It's you." The pest had come to visit me again.
"I'm having a problem with my computer, Brent."
"Uh huh."
"The interface is too complicated. Can I get a Chobit instead?"[1]
"We don't have those. Not invented yet."
"Okay, how about a boomer?"
"It's 2016, not 2040."
"Well, what do you have?" Tomo pushed her way inside my apartment, and ducked into the office. She declared, "Aha, look at that, two monitors!" as if it was proof.
I sighed. "My setup is even older than yours, Tomo. You don't need to hack the Gibson, and neither do I."
"But what about this thing," she pointed to a keypad and a set of blinkenlights in the wall.
"That's the security system Washuu-chan installed last night. I guess it has some sort of space-grade security, so there are probably force fields or floating column things. But mostly it's just to let other apartments know so we can be good neighbors if something goes wrong."
"Ah, a Good Neighbor System."
"Sure, I guess you could call it that. Whatever." It was yet another weird nickname from Tomo. I picked up the security system's manual, "Actually, I was just trying to figure out how it all worked."
I had actually meant to talk to her about how it worked at the time, but even as Washuu-chan and her robots installed the system around the property, she spent the rest of her time convincing me of the benefits of being her guinea pig. I got out of the conversation with all of my body parts intact, and a with a lot more help for my residents.
We were one of the very first residences to get the security system installed, because I had pressed for it after hearing that a God-damned Predator had shown up in Canada. None of my residents stood a chance in combat among a wide variety of scaries in fiction, being completely normal human beings (and a Mars cat), so I wanted to be able to call for backup. At that point, as far as I knew, it only connected to the Masaki residence, but that was plenty. If you could call in Tenchi and Ryoko for backup, there'd be no need for panic.
Tomo asked me, "So what does this red button do?"
"That's the panic button. If we're under attack or see something big, it calls for help."
"Oh, cool."
I looked back to the book.
"So uh, how do you turn the panic button off?"
I glanced over — a red light started flashing on the device, and the panic button itself was glowing a nice warm red. "What did you do?"
"Well, the button looked so big and red, it was basically asking me to push it!"[2]
"Tomo, you idiot!"
"Don't mind, don't mind. Just turn it off."[3]
I flipped through the manual. I quoted, "Enter the DAC, then hold PANIC and RESET for three seconds. What the hell is a DAC?"
"Don't look at me!"
I started flipping through pages at random, trying to figure out what to do next.
Tomo declared, "I'm just gonna try the Panic and Reset button thing." Three seconds later, and a flashing blue light joined the urgent red lights. "I don't think that worked."
"What now?" I read the display, "What's 'Crisis Mode'?"
It turned out that the panic button really lived up to its name, in terms of the amount of panic we were feeling. "I don't know, but what are those things coming out of the ceiling?"
Rotating beacon lights, from the look of it. The room took on a rosy glow, which was not how I was feeling, "Tomo, I turn my back on you for ten seconds, and you cause this? What the hell is wrong with you?"
"Hey, it's not my fault you don't know how to work your security system," she countered.
I yelled back, "Even an idiot knows not to push buttons randomly. What are you, three?"
I could see Tomo say something angry in reply, but I couldn't hear it over the klaxons going off.
"What's going on?" The door to my apartment slammed open as Akira came in, with Alicia following in her wake.
"Technical difficulties," I screamed over the klaxons.
In the corner of my bedroom sat a full-length mirror. I saw the glass of the mirror begin to shimmer, then distort, as a woman in elaborate robes flew through the mirror as if it were a portal to another world.
"Can I help?" Belldandy asked.
Not even realizing who it was, I yelled, "Yeah, you can help by shutting off the alarm that this idiot set off."
"If you had read that book better we wouldn't be in this situation," Tomo said, sticking out her tongue.
"You think this is all a big joke, don't you? You really are a fucking moron!"
"Maybe we need a better manager."
"Maybe it's time I throw you out on the streets."
"You wouldn—"
"You alway—"
Belldandy simply said, "Silence", and everything, everyone was quiet, including the alarm. She picked up the book, and quickly keyed in the code for a false alarm.
By this time we had attracted a crowd of residents trying to figure out what was going on. The first to get her voice back was Osaka. "Who's she?"
By now Tomo and I had actually looked at our new guest, and realized who exactly she was, but she introduced herself to the group anyway. "Good morning, I'm Belldandy, Goddess First Class, unlimited. I've been hoping to visit you, but I've been very busy lately with the… situation."
"Oh, that's okay." Osaka replied. "Ganbare ne."
Tomo began, "Belldandy-sama, I–"
"Tomo, it's okay to be funny, but doing things that inconvenience a lot of other people isn't very polite. I'm disappointed in you."[4]
"I'm— I'm really sorry!" Tomo bowed deeply to Belldandy, then turned towards the rest of us and bowed once again. "I'm really really sorry, okay?"
Yomi looked at everyone else in the room with a look of incredulity. "Wha? Are you seeing this?" she whispered.
Chiyo just shrugged in reply. Tomo's apologies were a rare event indeed.
"And Brent," Belldandy turned to face me. "It works best if you're calm in a crisis — and there's never an excuse to berate your tenants. I expected more from our valued apartment managers."
It was phrased really politely, but it struck me like a shot to the heart. I could feel the clear timbre of every one of her words in my brain. And I could see the truth: I had screwed up badly, enough to annoy Her Holiness.
It was like a weight crushing my heart, making the words just tumble out my mouth, "I'm sorry Miss, uh, Lady Belldandy. I didn't realize — not that it's an excuse — I behaved poorly to both you and Tomo, and I, uh, apologize to both of you. I'm really sorry, Tomo."
It took all my willpower just to keep my eyes off the ground.
Belldandy had just said I was valued, so no matter how worthless I felt right then, I knew I couldn't trust that emotion. But I knew I could do better. I don't know if what I felt then was magical or just Belldandy being herself — and her being a goddess, I'm not sure that there's a meaningful distinction.
She smiled at us, with that graceful mien, and it felt a lot better. "Well, that's settled." She turned to the crowd that had assembled in the hallway outside the manager's office, and asked, "Is there anything else that needs to be addressed here?"
Most everyone outside was still in awe of what had happened. Akari's mouth was agape in that expression she always did when something unexpected happened. As it happened, after plenty of silence, Osaka was the first to react, "Why'n'cha stay for lunch? I'm baking a soufflé right now."
Yomi turned to Osaka and murmured incredulously, "You are?"
"I'm sorry, I'd really like to stay, but I have to attend to some important matters."
"Ah well, another time!" Osaka spoke with her drawl.
"Of course. Good-bye, all!" Belldandy re-entered my bedroom, then stepped into the mirror and out of our plane of existence.
Akari said, "What the heck just happened?"
"Just stupid people being stupid," Yomi said in a fake aside: quietly, but loud enough so that everyone could hear anyway.
"No, the lady, was she... really?"
Chiyo said, "She says a goddess first class, and it sure seemed like that to me."
Akira said, "For sure. There's something in the way she moves that calls to you."
"I wish I could be so graceful," Akari said.
"Good news then, Single! It's time for more practice!"
"Hahi!"
Osaka interrupted, "Oh! My baking!" Osaka immediately exited outside to climb the building's outer stairwell.
Through all of this, Tomo and I just kind of stood there, looking shell-shocked. Yomi finally broke it up, "Oh-kay, show's over. C'mon Tomo, you've caused enough damage today."
As Yomi grabbed Tomo's hand to lead her away, she whimpered, "I'm sorry."
Only a few minutes later, I heard a knock at my door again. I checked the peephole just to be sure it wasn't her. I just wasn't ready to face Tomo yet, not after I acted that way. To my relief, it was just a lone Osaka, holding a plate, staring off into space as she waited for me. I took a breath, and opened the door.
"Hi Brent. I had some extra soufflé, and Ah thought you might be a mite peckish." She thrust the plate forward with both hands, offering it in the Japanese style. A cheesy, eggy, savory smell filled the hallway of my apartment.
"Thanks. I guess I am a little hungry, now that I've smelled that." I tried to take the plate from her, but somehow managed to pull her inside the apartment along with the food.
Osaka slipped by me and headed towards my dining table. "Aw, it fell already," she said, inspecting the slice of her soufflé, which was bit flatter than she had hoped by the time she made it downstairs.
I simply sighed and followed her.
"Now, Don't be all down in the dumps, hun." she said, in her mysteriously Southern America accent. Osaka, for all that she was offbeat and quirky, was quite the straight-shooter. "We all know what a... a bitch Tomo can be. I mean, not like a bitch in Japan, that's different, that kind's one of them, uh..."
"Sluts." I knew a little Japanese — I learned all of the worst words first, naturally.
"That's it. She's not a slut. Anyway, Tomo can be a right American bitch. From Japan."
"I know, but I'm twice her age. I shouldn't—" I trailed off.
"Everyone falls down, once in a blue moon. Just like my soufflé. Eat it anyway." She set the food down on the tabletop like a waitress serving an imaginary customer, "Here ya go."
"Alright." I took a fork from the drawer beneath the kitchen counter, sat down, and took a bite of Osaka's baking. "Mmm... Hey, this is pretty good."
"Ah used three different cheeses to broaden the flavor."
"Whatever you did is pretty good."
"Aw shucks." Osaka talked while I finished the lunch she had brought me. "Ya know, I don't think no one was acting their best this mornin'. Like take, f'r'instance, in the case of Belldandy: She seems pretty darn stressed. Ah mean, she's so pretty an' all, but she really looked like she needs a vacation."
I asked, "Do goddesses even take vacations?"
"Of course! Amaterasu did!"
"Does that count?"
"Yup. Oh, and Persephone, too."
I gave in under the weight of her "logic," before I managed to start a row over something even stupider. "Sure, why not."
"Anyway, y'all oughta make up. Tomo's a barrel o' fun, most of the time." Osaka picked up the plate she had brought, now empty.
I didn't have the appetite to see Tomo any time soon. "I don't know, I don't think it'll help."
As she walked out of my apartment, she reiterated, "You should make nice with Tomo, and that's a grain of truth!"
But I didn't go see her. I just threw myself into quiet work for a while, organizing some papers. Letting people know about the false alarm earlier. That kind of stuff. Whatever I could do to avoid people for a while.
1.2 - Arrested for Tagging
A couple men knocked on the door of Kagura's apartment, who announced themselves as: "Mattress delivery!"
"Aw sweet. I can finally get rid of that soft bed! Come on in!"
A couple signatures later, and the deliverymen were back down to carry up Kagura's new bed. This was actually one of their easier jobs, as the mattress could fit in the elevator.
While Kagura removed all of the sheets off her old bed, Osaka went to the door to let them carry in the new mattress. Pretty soon, Kagura was testing out her new bed and the deliverymen left; little did they know that the apartment door was left open.
"Ah, finally. Much better for my back!" Kagura enthused.
Osaka decided, "The new bed doesn't look so comfy. I like a bed you can really sink down inta, ya know? Like you can be all wrapped up in a fluffy world at night."
Kagura wiggled around a little, and caught a bit of a distracting rustle from the end of the bed. "Well, I like it, but it needs one thing."
She walked over to the desk, picked up a pair of scissors, and made for the end of the bed.
"Nooooo!" Osaka dramatically leapt across the floor and wrenched the scissors out of Kagura's hand. Or so she planned; what actually happened resembled nothing more than a short-range belly-flop on dry land.
A couple squeezes of the shears later, Kagura declared, "All done!" The offending mattress tag held in her hands.
A voice came from the floor, "What have you done!?"
"Um..."
Osaka slowly got herself up, and dusted off her dress. She took a long look at Kagura, then snatched the slip of fabric out of her hands. Holding it in front of Kagura's face, Osaka said, "You can't cut the tag off a mattress! It's a crime!"
Kagura read the tag, "Oh, huh. Weird."
"I can't imagine, Kagura living a life of crime. I guess you'll be on the run from the law now, livin' life on the lam. When you're out there riding the rails from town to town, hiding from the lawman, I hope you remember me fondly."
"What?"
"If you leave now, you can still escape the fuzz, but ya gotta hurry!"
"It's really not that big of a deal, Osaka."
A woman's voice called through the still-open door of the apartment, "FREEZE, POLICE!"
"Oh crap!"
"Too late now," Osaka drawled.
"Tag cutting is forbidden! Surrender now, or… or else!" the voice called out.
Another woman spoke, with a little less enthusiasm, "You're in mega trouble now."
"It was just a mattress tag!" Kagura trembled, too afraid to look into the hallway to see her accusers.
"Save it for the judge," the first voice insisted.
"I'll be visitin' you in the big house, Kagura."
Kagura crept out of her room into the hallway of her apartment, hands above her head. She turned her head, and saw Aika poised towards her, her fingers pointed in the shape of a gun.
Aika got out, "Book 'em, Alice", before cracking up completely.
"You two are really mean," Kagura accused.
"You two are mega idiots," Alice confirmed.
1.3 - Double Iniquity
Around dinner time, I slipped out to eat some fast food. I had Subway, of course, because sometimes you want a sandwich as sad as you feel.[5] By the time I got back, the sun's light was a dim pink glow off a few clouds to the west, and Tomo was waiting outside of the door to number 1. I had to hand it to her — she was much braver than I.
Tomo walked up to me, "You know, I'm still really sorry about earlier."
I returned her apology, "Me too. More sorry than you can imagine. Well, maybe you can imagine."
"Yeah..."
"Well, you don't deserve my temper. No one does."
"She told me off too, even worse. I'm like a hundred times more sorry than you!" Tomo declared.
"Is it a competition?"
"Yeah, for worst person in the world. You'll never catch up."
"It was just a lapse in judgment."
"I do that all the time, though. And the insults, I'm like…" Tomo shivered instead of finishing her thought.
"I think that trick of hers, the way she made us feel — it wouldn't have worked if we weren't good people. Like, you compare yourself to the way you want to be. You're a good person, Tomo Takino."
"As are you, Brent Laabs." She jumped on me and gave me a hug. And for the first time that day, I felt content.
We kept the embrace for far longer than I expected, over a couple of minutes, neither of us wanting to let go of the peace we found.
I finally broke the silence, "I think I know why people in the Bible always feared the angels at first."
Tomo agreed, "I know, right? If that's what self-reflection feels like, I'm gonna stick with consumerism and pop culture."
I tapped her on the head. "Idiot", I called her, snickering.
Saturday, October 15, 2016
The next morning, there was a knock on my door. And there she was again. Quelle surprise.
Tomo said, "Hey, I need some help with my ceiling fan."
"Oh, okay. Not working?" Finally a real issue!
"Yeah, it's going too fast, and I want it to go really slow so you can see it, like in film noir."
I slapped my hand to my forehead. "Really?"
"This is L.A. right? What if I need to catch a dame for life insurance fraud?"[6]
"Actually, how do fan speed regulators work anyway?"
Tomo offered, "Wanna find out together?"
Yomi walked into her apartment, and tried to make sense of why the ceiling fan was disassembled. "What are you two up to?"
I set down my soldering iron to tell her, "We're trying to make the fan run slower."
"Oh, I see," Yomi said. "May I ask why?"
"Because a moll like me needs to have the right mood, see?" Tomo declared.
"Oh, the film noir thing again. Up to no good, I see."
"Doll, I'm always up to no good."
"Don't complain to me when you get too hot, okay?"
I said, "Don't worry, it's almost the rainy season. It will start getting cold pretty soon."
Tomo said, "It still feels summery now."
"Not for too much longer," I said. "Around here, it starts to get cold by the end of the month, at least in the nights."
Yomi inveighed, "That's totally unfair."
"Huh?"
"We never got a summer this year, and I completely missed summer diet season. Now I'm just going to get even chubbier with the winter weight!" she grumbled.
"That is totally unfair! Missing the summer of the full flower of our youth!" Tomo despaired.
Yomi moped, "Rest in peace, my precious summer days, you left before your time."
People think of Koyomi and Tomo as opposites, but then there are these times when they're on exactly the same wavelength. "Oh, come on! You get a whole new world of the future, and like, we have smartphones, and like, remote-control ceiling fans and stuff!"
"That hardly makes up for the dwindling summer days."
"At least it's still warm now." And then Tomo got a look on her face. "Hey, I know, we need to have a summer festival while it's still summer! Let's roll Tanabata and Obon and a beach party all in one!"
"All together?" Yomi asked.
"Sure, why not, it will be mega fun!"
"Okay, 'Alice.' Well, we are at the beach, after all." Yomi looked at the weather forecast on her phone. "It's going to be a hot day tomorrow, so we better do it then. Looks like it starts to cool off after that."
"See, smartphones!" I tried to stick up for my era.
Ignoring me, Yomi pointed out, "We don't have beach gear. Or swimsuits."
"We better get crackin' then!" Tomo cheered, "Let's go!" She bounded out the door, while Yomi and I followed behind.
1.4 - Boys and Girls
Yomi knocked on the door to Apartment 11; Tomo found the door unlocked and simply charged in, calling, "Hey, gals, we're going shopping for swimsuits. C'mon! You gotta look your best for the beach party!"
"What beach party, again?" asked Osaka, who just assumed she had forgotten.
"The one we're throwing tomorrow," Yomi said.
"I already have a swimsuit," Kagura noted. In fact, she had asked me for a drive to the sporting goods store to get a proper competition suit, cap, and goggles on the third day here. She easily would have had the title of the apartment's water fairy, except for those six undines who claimed it first.
Tomo shook her head, "Not that kind of swimsuit, a cute one!"
"Can I?" Kagura pleaded, looking at me, "You've been so kind of us already."
I thought about who my boss was, and how I didn't want to make false moves. "Yeah, of course!" Kagura in a two-piece would inspire lust, which was probably on Sebastian's list of acceptable uses. "The sexier the better, probably."
Yomi looked at me with half-lidded eyes. "Brent..."
"Okay, I was just thinking about what my boss would think and —ow!" Yomi reached up and offered a quick karate chop to the head. Yeah, I had earned that. In retrospect, I think this was the first time she called me by my given name, and her first tsukkomi for me too. Neither would be the last. Oh, far from it.
They headed downstairs to informed the rest of the residents about the plan, and were lucky enough to find the six undines just returned from an excursion of their own. They quickly drafted Athena to drive Rocinante[7] , or whatever we were going to name the van, to take them all to mall.
A few minutes later, everyone was ready, and Osaka called out "Operation Beachwear, assemble!" By this point, everyone but Kaorin had already assembled; she arrived about a minute later wearing a fresh layer of make-up.
As they made their way to the van, they began discussing all of the other things they would need for a party, like drinks, beach blankets, watermelons, and the like.
On her way out the door, Yomi called back to ask me, "Hey Brent, can you take care of that mess the two of you made in our apartment?"
"Yeah, sure." I mean, I didn't have anything better to do with everyone gone, and electronics work would probably go faster without Tomo hovering over me anyway.
And just like that, they were all gone. I wasn't invited to the swimsuit shopping expedition, sadly. They didn't even need me along to pay for things, since Alicia got the company card.
Everything I had learned about anime girls suggested that swimsuit shopping would be a fanservice-laden affair, which is probably why I got the boot, along with my dumb mouth. Damnit. At least, unlike Rob's group, there wouldn't be any boa constrictors involved in my group's swimwear shopping.
Actually, poor Rob. It was probably snowing up there in Canada, and here we were planning a beach party in California's serotinal days.
And had Snake Girl even shown up in the Frozen North? I knew there were a swarm of Index characters in Ottawa but I couldn't remember if that particular one had shown up. What was her name? Oh right, Kongou, like the warship.[8] That anime had too damn many espers coming out of the woodwork to keep track of everyone.
I hopped on my computer to search the forums for her. If this many people were going to keep showing up, I mused, we'd probably need more than a forum, we'd need a wiki to keep track of them all.
And looking at the size of my apartment building, I might need a page just to keep track of my own residents. Sure, the remodel wasn't finished, but was Heaven going to have empty rooms in their divine plan? Would my demonic boss waste money on empty rooms? I mean, inshallah our folks could go back to their own universe before it became an issue, but if God is having trouble willing things, who knows?
I distractedly wondered who would come to live with us in the future. Maybe Anthy Himemiya? Now that was a girl you trust to only bring smaller reptiles, like garden snakes, on a shopping trip. Much more sensible, that one.
I took the time to reassemble the fan, and tested out the new speed. I pointed a floor lamp at the fan, and watched the shadow of the blades make a lumbering arc across the ceiling. It was nice and atmospheric. Finally, I took a permanent marker to the fan's remote control, labeling the buttons, "UP HIGH", "DOWN LOW", and "TOO SLOW".
With that done, the apartment building suddenly felt very quiet. With our construction crews gone for the weekend and most of the residents away, it felt a little lonely. The low afternoon sun flooded through the windows, and I realized how long they had been shopping. Well, that was fine. Anyway, if all of the girls were gone, I was going to have my very own sausage party right here with all of us guys left behind. After a quick trip to the kitchen, I came out with a tray and headed to the other end of the hall.
After knocking, I called out, "Hey Aria, you want a bite of some summer sausage?"
I heard an encouraging "Punyuu" from the other side of the door, followed by the latch unclicking. I have no idea how that white cat could open the door, but he did enjoy the sausage. "Come on, let's grab Tadakichi and head out on the town."
I wouldn't say our walk around the neighborhood was as fun as my imagination of that bathing suit shopping trip, but it was probably more fun than the reality. And Tadakichi-san definitely had more fun sniffing random trees and nibbling on sausage bites than he would had in a clothing store, that was for sure.
- BL: While American fans picked up the term "persocom" from Chobits, that's just the normal Japanese word for PC, their shortening of "personal computer." The translation effect doesn't translate fandom mistakes.
- BL: Pushing the big red button is something Tomo did in canon in her dreams, but how it turned out in reality looks dangerously like character development.
- BL: This is Japanese English (wasei-eigo), where they use donmai as short for "I don't mind", which can sometimes be used in a "don't worry" context. Your main exposure to this word is likely through Danbooru.
- BL: This section is inspired by that one chapter of the Symphony of the Sword where Corwin said that Belldandy disappointed is even worse than her being upset.
- BL: I stole this joke from my ex-girlfriend, who I believe wrote it originally (and probably meant it literally).
- BL: Tomo liking film noir is probably a carry-over from my last major fic, Interpol Manzai. But early Lupin III (green jacket) is rather noir, as are Jigen-focused episodes, so it's not that much of stretch from canon. The movie she's referencing about insurance is Double Indemnity, which is a true classic.
- BL: Don Quixote's horse, but also the name of John Steinbeck's truck camper, the latter of which is inspiring me here.
- BL: Her name just sounds like the warship. Her surname means "marriage-queen", the warship means "vajra".
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| if you can't pay - you don't breath. |
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Posted by: Dartz - 11-17-2024, 04:09 PM - Forum: General Chatter
- Replies (2)
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Imagine if you will, a Martian Colony. Elno station.
Founded and funded as a tech-billionaire's offworld paradise, for tech-billionaires and those hardcore enough to be willing to work there, as hard as it takes to make it work.
Imagine a walled garden with walls 85 million kilometres tall.
Imagine oxygen, water - the basic necessities of life, being a subscription service. Pay as you Breath.
Imagine what happens when our Benevolant Dictator for Life is appalled at how much water all the plants waste. Water is expensive and sooo Heavy So he rips the plants out of the O2 generator and airlocks them.
Imagine landing on the damned wreckage of Elno's dreams,
It'd be like lord of the electric flies. Rapture for techbros.
A world of air piracy, where the necessary infrastructure to keep the station afloat is crapping itself out because the one person who could maintain it - couldn't hold their breath. Where Moving the Needle, expanding the habs and making New Shit is more valuable than keeping the water flowing and keeping the air inside the old.
Water, meat and biomass are expensive. While the only thing that's cheap, is human life.
Because if you can't pay - you don't breath.
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It'd make a hell of an Novel/RPG/Game/Bioshock sequel.....
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| The Imperial Presidency |
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Posted by: Labster - 11-15-2024, 04:59 AM - Forum: Politics and Other Fun
- Replies (16)
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At risk of actually creating a thread #2 on this year's election after it's pretty much over, it's time to create a new thread about Donald J. Trump: the man, the myth, actually it's pretty much all myth.
So one of the first things Trump did was to say that he expects the new Senate leadership to bring back recess appointments. Any new majority leader would have to say that he (definitely he) will let Trump do it. And honestly, I think he's probably right?
So the background is that the Senate has the right to review all Presidential appointments above a certain level, unless the Senate is in recess, in which case the President can appoint someone on an interim basis. This makes sense, right? What has happened in practice is that the Senate would just not confirm people, hold appointees forever until some political compromise was made. And then just, like, never actually go out of session. Even when everyone is gone from DC, to have one or two members of Senate leadership on the floor to like pretend that they still had quorum (which they do until someone makes a quorum call, even if there are obviously only two guys there). No one gets voted down, they just get eventually withdrawn. This system sucks.
But what will Trump do with this power? Well, remember the spoils system of the 1800s, where bureaucrats were given offices based on their support of the candidate? Basically that. Our country survived a century on a political bureaucracy, so not so bad, right?
Except, well, let's look at the quality of people Trump wants to nominate:
- Marco Rubio, Secretary of State - "Little Marco"
- Robert Kennedy Jr, Secretary of Health and Human Services - thinks vaccines are bad and once left a dead bear in Central Park, as you do
- Matt Gaetz, Attorney General - resigned Congress to take this job, just a few days before the Ethics Committee's report would have been released
- Doug Bergum, Secretary of the Interior - some state governor I don't know, name sounds like an ingredient in Earl Grey tea
- Elise Stefanik, Ambassador to the United Nations
- Tulsi Gabbard, Director of National Intelligence
- Pete Hegseth, Secretary of Defense, veteran and Fox News host
- Sources say: Kristi Noem, Secretary of Homeland Security - this former rodeo queen and former governor is best known for securing her home by killing her family dog
This list of cabinet members has been carefully crafted to own the libs. So lets just focus on one of the people above, Tulsi Gabbard.
I think I've made it known for years here that I consider Gabbard a Russian agent, or at least a Russian asset. She was once Democratic congresswoman from Hawaii, but she's always been something of a thorn in the side. She's anti-war, anti-American imperialism, and in favor of an isolationist United States. Oddly enough at about the same time as RT news switched from promoting left-wing causes to promoting right-wing causes, Tulsi Gabbard also switched and started having more right wing talking points. What a coincidence.
So basically, of anyone you want associated with intelligence, why not someone who share's Russia's values? What can go wrong? Since I've been doing WWII parallels, this is kind of like Churchill becoming PM and appointing Unity Mitford as head of MI6. The mind boggles.
Shall I add a bit more fuel to the fire? The Daily Beast here refers to The Daily Mail's report that Tulsi and her husband are tied to the Science of Identity Foundation (SIF), described as an alt-right branch of Hare Krishna, who apparently has a man-god leading them named Chris Butler. I mean, this report could be tabloid crap, but "alt-right Hare Krishna" was not a phrase I was expecting to hear, ever.
The national security establishment is unimpressed, with an off-the-record comment describing her nomination as "a left turn and off the bridge." W.'s UN Ambassador called Gabbard the "worst cabinet-level appointment in history." Well, until the next day when Matt Gaetz was nominated. If I were FVEY country, I would really consider stopping intelligence sharing with America, to avoid having their own agents compromised.
Honestly, I have no doubts in my mind that I could to a better job than Tulsi Gabbard -- in fact any of the forum regulars here would be a better choice to serve as our intelligence director. Including the Dutchman and the socialist Irishman, who at least would still have a chance of actually serving the interest of Western civilization, unlike this lady.
So that's what we have right now: a whole list of cabinet members designed to own the libs, make money, and reduce our republicanism. Oh, and without needing the Senate to approve them.
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| 2016-10-25: Twain |
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Posted by: Bob Schroeck - 11-12-2024, 07:23 PM - Forum: Stories
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Twain
A "KanriKyara" Story
by Brent Laabs
Penguin Park, Tomoeda, Japan
March 29, 19981
9:15 PM Japan Time
Beneath the stars and under the branches of the cherry blossom trees, the people of Tomoeda Town had strung paper lanterns, illuminating the delicate blossoms above. The whole park glowed with the pale pink light of the sakura blossoms, as dozens of the town's residents soaked up the spectacle and partied with sake and sweets. This was Penguin Park's annual Flower Viewing festival — or Hanami — but it was the first time a particular group of sixth-graders got to stay up late for the yozakura.
This group had set up an elegant red and violet print curtain2 behind them to block out the sound of the street, along with a bento five boxes high full of various sweets atop a blanket on the grass. The setup was the envy of all of Penguin Park, but nothing less could be expected from the rich girl of the group, Tomoyo Daidouji, who would give nothing less for her priceless friends.
Still, it was getting kind of late for kids that age to stay out, especially as the adult parties around them began to increase in volume and decrease in sobriety. Looking at her namesake flower, Sakura Kinomoto was still in reverie when Naoko and Rika excused themselves. Yamazaki was in the middle of a fascinating history of the hanami curtain until Chiharu made him walk her home right in the middle.3
And so it was that the group was down to three young people, Sakura and her Chinese boyfriend Shaoran Li, and Tomoyo. Make that four, as Sakura's backpack flipped open and a yellow stuffed-animal said, "Ah, finally! I get to see the flowers!" He was not a real stuffed animal, but Sakura's familiar and Beast of the Seal, Kerberos. Kero had managed to sneak out a cup of amazake to enjoy with his new view.
Sakura said, "I still don't know why you wanted to be inside my bag the whole time, Kero-chan."
"Oh, that's easy," Tomoyo explained, "He's another example of 'dango before flowers'."4
"I think he had a whole tray of dango!" Shaoran complained. "I kept seeing that toothpick poking out of the bag to fish for sweets."
"Don't worry, I budgeted for Kero-chan."
Sakura said cheerfully, "This is great being out here with you all. It's so nice just to take a break and look at the beauty of the world. And all of the flowers."
"Sakura is so beautiful." Shaoran said.
Sakura replied, "Thank you!"
"I mean, the flowers, I mean… I didn't…" Shaoran turned beet red.
Sakura laughed, and kissed him on the cheek.
Tomoyo said, "It is a nice day to relax, under the trees. Now that you've captured all of the Clow Cards, and made them your very own Sakura Cards, we don't have to go out at night so much." She paused for a moment, and watched a sakura petal tumble to the ground. "I wonder what the future holds for us now."
A light went off in Sakura's head, "Ah! Maybe I could try a divination again!"
"With all the cards, Sakura will be super-accurate now!" Kero said. "Especially on a night like tonight."
"Let's give it a try," Shaoran agreed, "and find out more about our future."
Before taking out her magical cards, Sakura did a quick look around. Most of the adults still relaxing around the park were too involved in their friends and their sake to notice much of anything, so she proceeded to withdraw an arcane deck of 53 cards from her bag.
Kneeling on the blanket, she brushed away the sakura petals in a flat section of fabric to make room for her divination. Sakura shuffled her cards three times, thought for a moment, cut the deck, and gave it one final shuffle.
She dealt a spread of seven cards, three in the middle row first, then two below, and finally two above.
She turned over the first card on the left, "This is my past, Woody."
"That means that you've grown a lot, Sakura-han!"
Tomoyo added, "I thought the same, Kero-chan, she's like a budding flower starting to bloom."
"Hoe?" Sakura uttered, but then turned to the middle card. "This is the present:" she flipped, then named, "Time, inverted."
"That feels wrong," Shaoran shuddered.
"Something in our time is broken," Sakura divined. She moved forward to the rightmost card. "Our future is: Twin."
"So, we have a choice of two different paths," Kero explained.
"I don't... somehow I don't think so." She moved to the bottom right card, and flipped two cards over. "Hooeeee?" She pushed at the remaining cards, and sure enough, each of them were now a stack of two cards. "I tried to deal it right," she apologized.
"I think the cards are revealing two different destinies, Sakura-chan," Shaoran offered.5
"Oh, okay. So the top card is Erase, and the bottom card is Jump. These cards are supposed to be the obstacles in my path. Maybe it would make more sense if think about the top cards all together, if they represent different paths of fate."
"The first path will clear something important to me." She moved to the top left card, and flipped it. "And I will be aided by Change, something that has a different form. What is hidden from me" — the bottom right card — "is the Shadow, someone that wished to remain cloaked. Finally, my goal will be, Create, to make new what has been taken from me."
"You're uh, getting good at fortune telling, Sakura-chan," Shaoran said.
"Thank you, Shaoran-kun!" Sakura said with a smile, which caused the heat to rise in Shaoran's cheeks, just a little. "And for the other path," she continued, "Jump, a sudden movement to a new place, will block me. I will be helped by — Watery, which maybe means I need to go with the flow. What's hidden from me is: Return, inverted."
Kero explained, "That means that if you go down that path, you can never come back. Be careful, Sakura."
"Thank you, Kero," she nodded. She flipped the final card in the top right position, "Sand. Huh."6
"Is that a trap?" Shaoran asked.
"Nuh-uh," she shook her head. "If it was in the the bottom row, it would be a trap, but up here, it represents the infinite. Grains of sand are like the stars in the sky."
"Water and sand remind me of the beach," Tomoyo said.
"I could use another beach trip!" Kero declared. "I need to work on my tan."
And out of nowhere, Shaoran yelled, "Sakura, the magic!"
"I feel it!" She jumped up, and went into an alert pose. Two of the cards on the blanket in front of them began to move of their own volition, Through and Time. But only one of them activated. "What's ha — "
Venice, California, USA
Tuesday, October 18, 2016
8:15AM PT
The next thing Sakura knew, it was morning. Sakura saw everyone else still sleeping on the floor of Tomoyo's limousine — Shaoran, Kero, Tomoyo, Nii-san, Papa, Yukito, Sonomi-oba-san...
"HOOEEEEEEEE!?!?!"7
It didn't take long for everyone to wake up.
- BL: Since Touya was born on February 29 and cell phones were still rare, and Touya is age 18 in my story, mathematically it could only be 1998.
- BL: Traditionally you'd get something more like a kouhaku maku — a red and white striped curtain — at a Hanami. Tomoyo has to go above and beyond in anything fabric, so her display is inspired by the red and purple curtain of the hanafuda deck, in the sakura suit of cards.
- RK: But I wanted to know how they stitched the flower petals together without tearing them...
- BL: Some of you may recognize the phrase Tomoyo uses here through the manga Hana yori Dango — like Rob — but I'm hardly the first to give it its literal meaning.
- BL: Twain is a card that doubles the hex in a card game called Hex Hex, which IIRC sends a hex both directions around the table. One path leads to the Clear Card arc, the other leads to our story. Just be happy I didn't name it "Arc Twain".
- BL: If you got lost, the spread of Sakura cards was:
Aid Goal
Past Present Future
Obstacle Hidden
WATERY/CHANGE SAND/CREATE
WOODY ^TIME TWIN
JUMP/ERASE ^RETURN/SHADOW
After a little bit of research on Tarot fortune-telling and card spreads, I'm convinced that it's entirely junk. Most of the advice is to do whatever feels right at the time, and while I'm as big of a fan of thelema as the average guy, it's just weaksauce here. Learning what the cards mean to you personally totally prevents exploiting research on Jungian archetypes, I mean, like, come on!
- BL: Just a reminder to those who haven't watched Cardcaptor Sakura that Sakura is not talking about the garden tool. Both the "O" and "E" are pronounced in "hoe", with no dipthong. It is one of her peculiarities, and Tomoyo thinks it makes Sakura extra-cute!
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