R.S.V.P.
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Slimeworld & Galaxy Magazine -- All rights reserved -- |
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Chapter XLI
by General (Uncle Claude) Xxaxx
& General (E.J. Gold) Nunan PFC 1st Class Ret.
Exiting the apartment building, Woo was once again out of the sanctuary of her Sanctum Sanctorum, i.e. her two room converted attic apartment. Looking up and down the street, Woo saw nothing. That was normal; at this hour of the morning, one wouldn’t expect to see much. Houses neat and trimmed, lawns and hedges growing well and green. Up each sidewalk the morning newsvidee sat expectantly for the morning rush of game shows to subside. No one would miss a minute of gameshow to even peek out the frontdoor long enough to get the mornings newsvidee — or, view it even if it were delivered into their laps. Not until the morning episode of All My Money! was over, could one even hope to see a city resident.
Techno-note: Much technological development has gone into the design of staggered commercial breaks. If not for staggered commercials the electrical draw created by millions and billions of 15 watt refrigerator lights coming on at once would cause brown-outs and black-outs sufficient to shut down residential and commercial power throughout the country. This phenomenon is named after the famous twentieth century breakfast cereal that was so full of sugar and preservatives that biofunction shutdown was the immediate response to more than one serving at a sitting. This phenomenon being called the SuperBowl Effect.
The morning episode of All My Money! was the second highest rated show on the globe. The third highest rated show was the afternoon edition of All My Money! and the highest all time rated show around the world was the night-time version of, you guessed it, All My Money!
As if by clockwork, which it was, precisely at 9:59 each resident would emerge from their house walk over get the vidi and scan the coupon section. The newsvidee sections of deep and abiding interest to Citizins were the coupon section, comics, gossip & scandals, and then finally lotto & numbers. There was one other small section of the newsvidee, not that any Citizin would know much about it — it had something to do with news. But most of the articles had words in them and were there by ignored. As long as the eggheads were not too obvious they could sneak most any new they wished into this section since, no Citizin, with the possible exception of a bossperson or two, would bother viewing a news article — let alone read words. This is the section used by the eggheads to communicate with each other about daily events in the city and world.
Because the bosspersons might be viewing the news section, each article was in a cipher or used reference and innuendo. Since an egghead had no natural sex drive, any news reference to an eggheads love life, was of course referring to their xpearimints. If an egghead did have a sex life, the news would have the decency to not subject normal readers to such unnatural activities.
Professor Woo did not often visit a Citizins’ Burb. This was a special circumstance. She must get Little Roy to Ja Mere’s so that they could get some idea what Drak was up to. If Drak is not responsible for Little Roy’s recent behavior then it’s just possible that a bossperson has gotten to Little Roy. In that case it was imperative to determine what they were up to. For all Woo knew they could be coming for her almost any time. Wanting at least the possibility of relocating to parts unknown if such were the case, Professor Woo came down to Little Roy’s neighborhood in the hopes of observing something of interest.
And, observe something of interest she did — nothing to do with bosspersons or the justice league as one might expect. Woo observed something that no egghead or citizin could have anticipated.
Little Roy and a passel of goobers were emerging from the side door of an unused garage. The garage was not unusual. All suburb garages were the same — single car variety with a manual lift car door in the front and side door complete with window facing north. This was true both sides of the street. The exterior walls of the garage were bright yellow wood textured pseudo-stucco — just like the house. This was not the unexpected, unanticipated part.
The garage itself was quite as expected, there was, however, something very strange and highly unusual — the goobers were obviously coming from a meeting. What Woo saw was not a game or freeze tag breaking up or the end of a game of kick the can. This was a meeting. Woo had been in enough meetings to know what they looked like, even when one was trying to disguise the appearance — especially when one was trying to disguise the appearance.
Walking up the narrow sidewalk toward Little Roy’s house, Woo didn’t have to do anything special or use any unique powers to know that these goobers were coming from a meeting. It was obvious. And just as obviously Little Roy has seen her. Jumping up and down and pointing to all his friends, Little Roy’s egghead has come into his neighborhood. This could very well be the first time that any egghead has actually gone into their assigned goober’s neighborhood. Woo was well aware the eggheads have been on excursions into the bubbler suburbs in general. It was well within the eggheads’ self-interest to follow current trends in bubbler stratification. They had to be vigilant for the time when inevitably the trends will turn back to more active forms of egghead bashing. But as far as Woo new this was a first, to have an egghead go visiting her goober guard.
Professor Woo half expected the goobers to scatter into the various corners of the neighborhood hiding the fact of the meeting from Little Roy’s egghead. Not so, they had no shame. Little Roy waved the whole passel of them over to meet his egghead.
Little Roy marched right up to Woo and announced himself, “Hello, Professor. These are my friends, Joey Boy, Fred Dee, John Nee and Di Anne.”
“Good morning, Little Roy. You and your friends certainly look to be in a good mood.”
Little Roy, winked at this friends and winked at Professor Woo in conspiratorial fashion that he must have learned from a poorly acted vidi drama, “I told them about the surprise Happy Birthday party you were planning.”
Woo was caught by surprise. This was more than a little unexpected. Startled by Little Roy’s conspiratorial revelation Woo stammered, “You, ah, told them, ah about our ah . . . what?”
“I told them about the birthday party. I hope that it was okay to tell them. Everyone is invited to the party aren’t they?”
“So this,” Woo thought to herself, “must be why Little Roy didn’t turn us into a bossperson. Somehow the little goober has become convinced that we were planning a birthday party. Unless things have changed recently, the goobers are under no compulsion to inform the local bosspersons about birthday parties.”
By convention anyone can come to a birthday party that wishes to attend. Being aware of the party is considered invitation enough. Woo continued speaking to herself, “Well, Woo, ol’gal . . . Ja Mere and you must not have been talking loud enough for Little Roy to hear all of the details. Either that or...no that’s not possible.”
Forced to follow the lead set by Little Roy, at least temporarily, Woo spoke — loud enough that Little Roy, his club and anyone else listening could hear, “Yes, Little Roy everyone is invited to the party. Hopefully it will be one of the biggest parties that we have had for a long time past and maybe a longtime future.”
Pressed into a corner by Littler Roy’s misunderstanding of the events from the other night, Woo quickly let the mental wheel and gears spin. Woo considered her ability to roll with the punches to be one of her finer qualities. Something she learned from the dragons. In dragon games it is not uncommon for the rules of a game to be switched just at the moment when one or the other players was about to win. This switch could be something done by the potential winner or loser — with about equal probability. No dragons likes to see a good diversion crushed by something as unimportant as a win.
Not only does this new development give Woo a new and very interesting plan, it also gives her the perfect pretext to send Little Roy over to Ja Mere’s apartment where hopefully Ja Mere can uncover something of Drak’s plans as they involve Little Roy and the goobers.
“Would you mind delivering a message to Ja Mere, my friend from the dinner the other night? He needs to be told to increase the Happy Birthday party list to include all of the goobers. Can you tell him?”
Beaming at the chance to perform such an important task for the Happy Birthday party, and almost too overjoyed at how well AGOB’s plans were going Little Roy responded with delight, “Yes, I would like to do that.” Then his face fell as he remembered that it was his turn today to escort Di Anne back to her house.
Noting the disappointment spreading across Little Roy’s childlike features Woo asked with genuine concern, “What’s the problem?”
“I can’t go. Today is my day to take Di Anne home.”
“I would be happy to take her to her home it you just tell me where it is.”
“Oh, would you? That would be so great. Then I can go to do the Happy Birthday Party Thing.”
“No problem; I will enjoy the walk.” Woo replied to Little Roy and added to herself silently, “As long Ja Mere gets a chance to examine you, my little friend, it will be worth the diversion. Besides, now I’m curious why can’t Di Anne walk herself home?”
Almost as an afterthought, Woo asked Little Roy for directions to Di Anne’s house.
“Oh, you don’t need directions, she knows where she lives. It’s just when she lives that she has problems with.”
Little Roy said this with such off-handed candor and matter of fact certainty, that Woo didn’t feel there was any opening to ask for further elucidation.
Fortunately, Joey Boy piped up to supply a missing piece of the puzzle. “If you just stay with her she won’t get so confused about when it is.”
Fred Dee added with a hint of tolerance for Woo’s obvious ignorance, “Yeah, she only gets lost if she’s alone, Joey Boy made her a macaroni thing that helped for awhile, but her mom taped it to the box that keeps food cold and broke it. So now we don’t leave her alone anymore.”
“Oh, of course,” Woo agreed altogether certain that she didn’t yet understand a word. Turning to Little Roy, she finalized arrangements; “It’s all set, then. I’ll take Di Anne back to her house, and you go tell Ja Mere about the Birthday party plans. Here is his address written down in Cabese. Give this to a taximan and he can take you there.”
As Woo headed down the street following behind Di Anne, Woo glanced back to see Little Roy giving what looked very much like his own set of final instructions to the other goobers before he setting off for the local taxi stand. “Okay, Ja Mere. Do your stuff. This is getting weirder by the minute.”
“What did you say Mr. Professor?” Di Anne asked.
“You may call me either Woo or Professor Woo, Di Anne. I was saying lead the way, I’ll follow.”
“Okay, Mr. Professor Woo. Thank you for walking me home.”
“I am most happy to be of worthy assistance.” Woo responded in a semi-automatic second level degree of politeness. “Doen’t it seem a bit chilly? Seems like it got awful cold all of a sudden. Is that snow on the ground in early fall?” That was quite a sudden weather change. Must be something in the micro-climate circuits of this section of the dome. Many interest groups had tried to eliminate snow from the weather schedule as too expensive and not worth the sentimental hoo-haa. The ecno-thrifters argued that if they stopped making snow, in twenty-thirty years no one would remember snow, and no one would miss it. And in that same twenty-thirty years, they would have saved enough energy to build a second dome. So far though, the anti-snow lobby had been thwarted by a small pine-cone that needed to freeze before it could germinate.
“Yes, yes, and yes,” Di Anne replied with something of concern. Usually when she was with another she could keep to one time by staying where they were. This person, Mr. Professor Woo, was following her, rather than staying still in time. This was not good, people were supposed to stay still, so she could anchor herself temporally around them.
“Di Anne, Little Roy said you know where you lived but not when. Can you tell me what he meant by that?”
“Yes.”
After a pause that was sufficient to allow her to volunteer the information if that was her intention, Professor Woo added, “Well, what did he mean?”
“Little Roy was saying that I knew where I lived but not when . . . “ Di Anne looked up at Professor Woo with such an expression of delight at her fulfillment of this small request for information that Woo couldn’t decide if Di Anne was making fun of her. Was perhaps it possible for someone to be this ingenuous?
A previous occasion that this occurred to Woo was as a student in dragon magic, during an instructive game of follow-the-leader that lead across time, space and alternate planes. The game finished only after a near accident with a prehistoric beastie. Restrained from using weapons of any kind by her vow to the dragon clans, Professor Woo was forced to make use of a passing meteorite to dispatch the rather large carnivore. Given the relatively high number of meteors and smashed dinosaurs there was little chance of anyone detecting her injection of a minor anomaly into the time stream. All of this couldn’t have any bearing on the present situation since in that case it had required the full participation of nine dragons etherically linked to supply the plasma-vortex necessary for Drak and her to go gallivanting about time and space. This must be a simple case of weather manipulation or manifestations of minor substances. Saying so to herself, Woo dismissed the issue for the moment.
If this Mr. Professor Woo followed her lead in time as well as along the suburb streets, Di Anne was going to have to either find a way to trick Woo into being the leader or get someone else to be the anchor. “Mr. Professor Woo, do you know the way to Little Roy’s house very well?” Maybe some of the gang are still sitting around.
“No not particularly. I have been there just this one time today.”
Dismissing that, Di Anne thought to try a ploy that might trick Woo into leading the two of them back to her time as a starting point, “I bet you know the way to your apartment.”
“Quite well. I could probably find my way there blindfolded.
“Could you please take me to your there. I’ll follow you.”
Di Anne seemed so calm and plaintive that it was not possible for Woo to deny her request. Apparently it was something wrong with the micro-weather modules. As they started walking toward Woo’s apartment, the snows began to clear so that by the time they made it to the apartment building, the they were once again experiencing the bright and balmy weather of early fall.
Apparently Di Anne was not set on visiting Woo’s apartment per se, since as soon as the two of them arrived, Di Anne asked Woo to take her home to the address on the inside of her coat label. The street and address were easy enough for Woo to find. They were in the same district the two of them just came from. Funny thing though the weather modules must have been fixed because no snow or other hints of premature winter were left by the time they returned to Di Anne’s street. Di Anne’s house was just like all the other houses on the block and in that district. Yellow pseudo-stucco, neatly trimmed lawn and single-car garage sitting off to the south of the house. All of the buildings in the district were quite well maintained the result of an xpearimint by the eggheads in the use of soap-operas and game shows for cultural influence. All it took was a washer and dryer to be given away once a day to inspire thousands of bubblers to compete for the most common house on the block. To win, the house had to be neat and trim and match the televised sample home to the tee. The thought was, through subtle manipulation, to get the bubblers to compete in math and science type games.. But, when the level of challenge exceeded a low threshold, the viewers slipped into an apathetic “I couldn’t do that”, and chose to watch rather than compete.
All this was for the better. The citizins were beginning to get very suspicious, and if they found out that their holy of holies were being monkeyed with, for beneficent reasons or not, the backlash would have been major. So now the egghead cownsil had one piece of strategy that it could pull out on that occasion when it might be needed.
“Professor Woo, that is my house. You have been very kind in giving me a way home.”
“Happy to oblige. Before I go, could you possibly let me see that macaroni thing that Joey Boy made you?”
“I can’t — my mother boiled it after she accidentally broke it one night. Sometimes we don’t have as much food in the house as other times. Mother says it’s because father is gone and she can barely make ends meet.”
Woo had given little thought to the econo-structure of the bubblers. An overriding aura of sameness had given the bubblers a quiet look of success. I suppose, Woo thought to herself, without the thread-bare and crumpled clothes that down-on-their-luck eggheads wore, one social structure of eggheads would be indistinguishable from another. A bubble on a rich citizin looks much the same as the bubble on a poor citizin. Gelatinous and round is gelatinous and round.
Leaving Di Anne to her house and mom, Woo began the walk back home to her apartment for the second time today. It was nice getting out like this for a change. Too much of her work was inside. The smell of the tree-lined streets was refreshing. The downtown streets had no equivalent. For awhile the city managers tried to pass laws providing that every citizin would maintain at least one flower box. Didn’t work. Without fertilizer the little patches of dirt couldn’t support much. The citizins had forgotten everything about chemical fertilizers, and without domestic or ranch animals, there was no other fertilizer — leastwise not from the bubblers.
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R.S.V.P.
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Slimeworld & Galaxy Magazine -- All rights reserved -- |
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