"Grover's Corners, Grover's Corners, this is Golf Echo Lima Tango Echo. Do you have a docking bay free at this time, over?"
"Golf Lima Tango... whatever, this is Grover's Corners. We can have one cleared for you if it's urgent, over."
I scowled briefly. "I've got five fenkinder onboard who haven't had a chance to run around on the grass since before the Boskone War, Kat. If that's not urgent I don't know what is. I'll tell you about it when we land, over."
Shocking Katherine "Kat" Avins takes some serious doing, but I guess we managed it this time. "Oh Goddess! Make for the east garage, we'll have it cleared in five, over."
We moved most of our staff out to Arisia Station once it finally became fully operational a couple of years ago, but we keep a small presence in our old "temporary supreme headquarters" because Grover's Corners is much better suited to receiving fen -especially fenkinder- who've been through the wringer Earthside than a military installation like Arisia. (Haruhi also likes to make Noah Scott come here whenever they need a face-to-face meeting, to remind him that after getting kicked out of her fancy office on Stellvia she ran Great Justice out of four beat-up Portakabins, a marquee tent and Bob and Peggy's garage and ran it very well. Is 'platonic tsundere' a thing? Because if it is, it perfectly describes Haruhi's attitude to Noah now they're back on speaking terms. But don't tell her I said that!) Space Patrol moved into some of the offices we freed up and stationed a Youth Welfare team there for the same reason.
They were the ones I was preparing to get on the horn with next, just as Tom was returning from addressing our ship's other quirk; if at least one mug of English Breakfast Tea isn't made at least once every four hours, engine performance drops by a quarter. (We didn't notice that one 'til the first time I took her out unaccompanied.) "The kids are doing okay," he told me. "Barbara..."
"Tom, we haven't set foot in your house in a month. Hell, you only even keep the place because the property tax on that old wreck is cheaper than a PO Box."
"Then I'll put it on the market and find somewhere better. It's too small for all five of them anyway, even if we let Mike and Cataleya double up. Why not Serenity Valley? I could buy us a mansion there for what Uncle Greg's old place is worth on the British house market."
"And how much time would we get to spend there?"
"Every weekend, most evenings if we don't mind paying the fuel costs to use the afterburners."
"They'd be latchkey foster-kids, Tom. What good would that be?"
"Better than a motel room and a welfare cheque, which is all they're getting if we don't do this. You know how bad it's been since the war, Tanith was almost in tears over the phone last week. They've got nowhere else to go, and nobody else but each other and us."
"... ya know how many people got that many words outta Mikey the first time they met? Not many, I tell ya..."
I sighed. "Alright. If Youth Welfare can't find a better placement for them, and their parents can't or won't come Up, you can offer. If they say no, they say no; no asking Tanith or Haruhi or anyone to pull strings. And I have one other condition."
"Yeah?"
"If neither of us fucks this up after six months, we try for a baby."
"Deal!"
"Holy shit this place is awesome!" Frankie enthused. "It's like a Yes album cover only real!"
"Given that most of the owners are neo-Pagans of some sort, I doubt that's a coincidence," Tom replied.
"Okay, that settles it, I'm buying a house here!"
"Residential property is not available to Outsiders without the consent of all existing residents," another voice cut in. "Including me."
"Yes, thank you Gaia." Kat shot us an apologetic look. "So, would you kids like me to show you around? Tom, Barbara, I forgot tell you over the radio but your boss is at your offices. She'll probably want to see you straight away."
Haruhi peered at us stonily over the rims of a severe-looking pair of steel-rimmed spectacles that I'm almost certain she wears just for the intimidation factor. "The owners of the strip mall inform me that you destroyed a load-bearing wall, and the repair costs will likely run to a quarter-million US dollars," she said tonelessly. "The state police are also claiming that you, Tom, were verbally aggresive and unprofessional in your attitude towards their officers." Then she cracked a genuine smile. "See, I knew you two were real Troubleshooters!"
"Verbally aggressive and...? Oh, that's charming. That cop made a Taliban joke!" Tom grumbled. "And I'm sorry about the property damage, for what that's worth; I really thought those kids were serious about hurting Barbara."
"Kids?"
"I think we'd better start at the beginning..."
By turns, we told her everything we knew and everything we suspected. When we finished, Haruhi sat back in her chair, her expression so neutral you'd think we'd been talking about another tedious budget review... until you looked at her eyes. "I see," she said calmly.
For all Haruhi's infamous snappy and abrasive tendencies, it's all just surface noise; I guarantee she'll have forgotten about whatever she's yelling about in half an hour. When she gets really, genuinely angry she does it in a very cold, quiet and methodical sort of way. I'd heard about it, but never seen it before until now. And I finally began to understand why most of the OGJ top brass are not-so-secretly scared of her.
"You have the picture the girl said she could provide?"
"Not yet, ma'am."
"Get it, and bring it straight to me. I want a name to go with that face, and I want it on wanted posters from here to Pluto ten minutes ago. And clear your schedules for the next few weeks, because we are going to hunt this son of a bitch down if I have to personally kick in every airlock in Fenspace. Dismissed."
"Yes, ma'am!" we chorused.
Space Patrol came back with good news and bad news. "We got a name to go with that face, folks," said Officer Friendly, his digital avatar's eyes uncharacteristically hard. He was also in Space Patrol uniform, I noted with mild interest; he'd been deputised at some point in the war, and apparently it'd stuck. "Willard Peterson, also known as 'Willie Pete'. Age forty-seven, occasional dabbling Klansman and unofficial record holder for more meth labs blown up through his own hamfisted incompetence than any other lowlife in the state of New Jersey, hence the nickname. Last heard of on Earth some five years ago after receiving a suspended sentence for conspiracy to supply and second-degree burns over forty percent of his body when lab number twenty-three went kablooey, not in that order."
"Handwavium seems to have suited him better," Tom remarked.
"And then some. We don't know exactly when he went Up, but he's a known associate of Asmodeus Grey and believed to have played a role in developing the Catgirling Machine before they went their separate ways; why and on what terms we don't know, nor why he drifted back to Earth to open a pizza parlour of all things. Although it clearly wasn't a desire to go straight. He had an apartment in 1186 Turnera, but he wasn't there when your folks served a warrant on them."
"Maybe he was too much of a creep even for them and they tossed him out an airlock?" I suggested hopefully.
"If they didn't, his current neighbours sure will when this story hits the papers," Friendly replied. "And that's if they're in a good mood. Almost pity the son of a bitch."
I didn't.
A pick-up soccer game was starting up in one of the big grassy areas on the edge of "town". Cataleya was dragging a reluctant Mike and Frankie into the fray while Paul shouted encouragement from the wheelchair someone had found for him.
"Nobody's scared," Adam said as if to himself, watching from the sidelines. "We're the ghosts of murdered teenagers haunting animatronic bodies from a bad imitation of Showbiz Pizza, and nobody's scared. Fuckin' Fenspace, man."
"You feel especially dead?"
"I feel like an atrocity against God and Man with delusions of being Larry Bernstein's dead son," he said glumly. "That's a direct quote from my dad, by the way. Guess I shoulda left the webcam off at first."
"... I dunno who the fuck you are, but you sure ain't my son, kittycat. And I don't got a daughter, whatever that delusional fag tells his analyst..."
"Know the feeling," I replied. "And in my professional opinion as moderator-cum-den mother to the QueerFen BBS, your father is full of shit. You're still you, Adam. Your soul, your consciousness, your fundamental being; whatever you wanna call it, it's still there, and don't let anyone tell you different. Have the others called home yet?"
"Nope. Let 'em finish their game first, huh?"
"Golf Lima Tango... whatever, this is Grover's Corners. We can have one cleared for you if it's urgent, over."
I scowled briefly. "I've got five fenkinder onboard who haven't had a chance to run around on the grass since before the Boskone War, Kat. If that's not urgent I don't know what is. I'll tell you about it when we land, over."
Shocking Katherine "Kat" Avins takes some serious doing, but I guess we managed it this time. "Oh Goddess! Make for the east garage, we'll have it cleared in five, over."
We moved most of our staff out to Arisia Station once it finally became fully operational a couple of years ago, but we keep a small presence in our old "temporary supreme headquarters" because Grover's Corners is much better suited to receiving fen -especially fenkinder- who've been through the wringer Earthside than a military installation like Arisia. (Haruhi also likes to make Noah Scott come here whenever they need a face-to-face meeting, to remind him that after getting kicked out of her fancy office on Stellvia she ran Great Justice out of four beat-up Portakabins, a marquee tent and Bob and Peggy's garage and ran it very well. Is 'platonic tsundere' a thing? Because if it is, it perfectly describes Haruhi's attitude to Noah now they're back on speaking terms. But don't tell her I said that!) Space Patrol moved into some of the offices we freed up and stationed a Youth Welfare team there for the same reason.
They were the ones I was preparing to get on the horn with next, just as Tom was returning from addressing our ship's other quirk; if at least one mug of English Breakfast Tea isn't made at least once every four hours, engine performance drops by a quarter. (We didn't notice that one 'til the first time I took her out unaccompanied.) "The kids are doing okay," he told me. "Barbara..."
"Tom, we haven't set foot in your house in a month. Hell, you only even keep the place because the property tax on that old wreck is cheaper than a PO Box."
"Then I'll put it on the market and find somewhere better. It's too small for all five of them anyway, even if we let Mike and Cataleya double up. Why not Serenity Valley? I could buy us a mansion there for what Uncle Greg's old place is worth on the British house market."
"And how much time would we get to spend there?"
"Every weekend, most evenings if we don't mind paying the fuel costs to use the afterburners."
"They'd be latchkey foster-kids, Tom. What good would that be?"
"Better than a motel room and a welfare cheque, which is all they're getting if we don't do this. You know how bad it's been since the war, Tanith was almost in tears over the phone last week. They've got nowhere else to go, and nobody else but each other and us."
"... ya know how many people got that many words outta Mikey the first time they met? Not many, I tell ya..."
I sighed. "Alright. If Youth Welfare can't find a better placement for them, and their parents can't or won't come Up, you can offer. If they say no, they say no; no asking Tanith or Haruhi or anyone to pull strings. And I have one other condition."
"Yeah?"
"If neither of us fucks this up after six months, we try for a baby."
"Deal!"
"Holy shit this place is awesome!" Frankie enthused. "It's like a Yes album cover only real!"
"Given that most of the owners are neo-Pagans of some sort, I doubt that's a coincidence," Tom replied.
"Okay, that settles it, I'm buying a house here!"
"Residential property is not available to Outsiders without the consent of all existing residents," another voice cut in. "Including me."
"Yes, thank you Gaia." Kat shot us an apologetic look. "So, would you kids like me to show you around? Tom, Barbara, I forgot tell you over the radio but your boss is at your offices. She'll probably want to see you straight away."
Haruhi peered at us stonily over the rims of a severe-looking pair of steel-rimmed spectacles that I'm almost certain she wears just for the intimidation factor. "The owners of the strip mall inform me that you destroyed a load-bearing wall, and the repair costs will likely run to a quarter-million US dollars," she said tonelessly. "The state police are also claiming that you, Tom, were verbally aggresive and unprofessional in your attitude towards their officers." Then she cracked a genuine smile. "See, I knew you two were real Troubleshooters!"
"Verbally aggressive and...? Oh, that's charming. That cop made a Taliban joke!" Tom grumbled. "And I'm sorry about the property damage, for what that's worth; I really thought those kids were serious about hurting Barbara."
"Kids?"
"I think we'd better start at the beginning..."
By turns, we told her everything we knew and everything we suspected. When we finished, Haruhi sat back in her chair, her expression so neutral you'd think we'd been talking about another tedious budget review... until you looked at her eyes. "I see," she said calmly.
For all Haruhi's infamous snappy and abrasive tendencies, it's all just surface noise; I guarantee she'll have forgotten about whatever she's yelling about in half an hour. When she gets really, genuinely angry she does it in a very cold, quiet and methodical sort of way. I'd heard about it, but never seen it before until now. And I finally began to understand why most of the OGJ top brass are not-so-secretly scared of her.
"You have the picture the girl said she could provide?"
"Not yet, ma'am."
"Get it, and bring it straight to me. I want a name to go with that face, and I want it on wanted posters from here to Pluto ten minutes ago. And clear your schedules for the next few weeks, because we are going to hunt this son of a bitch down if I have to personally kick in every airlock in Fenspace. Dismissed."
"Yes, ma'am!" we chorused.
Space Patrol came back with good news and bad news. "We got a name to go with that face, folks," said Officer Friendly, his digital avatar's eyes uncharacteristically hard. He was also in Space Patrol uniform, I noted with mild interest; he'd been deputised at some point in the war, and apparently it'd stuck. "Willard Peterson, also known as 'Willie Pete'. Age forty-seven, occasional dabbling Klansman and unofficial record holder for more meth labs blown up through his own hamfisted incompetence than any other lowlife in the state of New Jersey, hence the nickname. Last heard of on Earth some five years ago after receiving a suspended sentence for conspiracy to supply and second-degree burns over forty percent of his body when lab number twenty-three went kablooey, not in that order."
"Handwavium seems to have suited him better," Tom remarked.
"And then some. We don't know exactly when he went Up, but he's a known associate of Asmodeus Grey and believed to have played a role in developing the Catgirling Machine before they went their separate ways; why and on what terms we don't know, nor why he drifted back to Earth to open a pizza parlour of all things. Although it clearly wasn't a desire to go straight. He had an apartment in 1186 Turnera, but he wasn't there when your folks served a warrant on them."
"Maybe he was too much of a creep even for them and they tossed him out an airlock?" I suggested hopefully.
"If they didn't, his current neighbours sure will when this story hits the papers," Friendly replied. "And that's if they're in a good mood. Almost pity the son of a bitch."
I didn't.
A pick-up soccer game was starting up in one of the big grassy areas on the edge of "town". Cataleya was dragging a reluctant Mike and Frankie into the fray while Paul shouted encouragement from the wheelchair someone had found for him.
"Nobody's scared," Adam said as if to himself, watching from the sidelines. "We're the ghosts of murdered teenagers haunting animatronic bodies from a bad imitation of Showbiz Pizza, and nobody's scared. Fuckin' Fenspace, man."
"You feel especially dead?"
"I feel like an atrocity against God and Man with delusions of being Larry Bernstein's dead son," he said glumly. "That's a direct quote from my dad, by the way. Guess I shoulda left the webcam off at first."
"... I dunno who the fuck you are, but you sure ain't my son, kittycat. And I don't got a daughter, whatever that delusional fag tells his analyst..."
"Know the feeling," I replied. "And in my professional opinion as moderator-cum-den mother to the QueerFen BBS, your father is full of shit. You're still you, Adam. Your soul, your consciousness, your fundamental being; whatever you wanna call it, it's still there, and don't let anyone tell you different. Have the others called home yet?"
"Nope. Let 'em finish their game first, huh?"