R.S.V.P.
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Slimeworld & Galaxy Magazine -- All rights reserved -- |
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Chapter LI
by General (Uncle Claude) Xxaxx
& General (E.J. Gold) Nunan PFC 1st Class Ret.
Entering her apartment, Woo was too tired to be hungry, but she knew from experience that when her head was buzzing like this her blood sugar was dangerously low. She checked the battery charge on her diary and made her way into the kitchenette to make a quick meal of hand-prepared potato pancakes. For some reason, food — magically prepared foods — tasted no better to Woo than bubbler canned pablum. Something about the care and attention of actually handling the food, bringing it from the state of raw vegetables into a state of cooked food, supplied those elements of etheric sustenance that she needed so much. Blood sugar is blood sugar and not to be ignored, but it is her higher being food that actually keeps her going.
Settling into the couch, plate of potato pancakes balanced upon her knees, Woo’s thoughts raced first one way, then the other.
“Getting about the business of finding Little Roy and Ja Mere was not going to be as easy today as it might have been yesterday.”
“If my resignation from the cownsil didn’t guarantee a complete lack of sympathy from them, my rather insulting last conversation with chairman Alan Hale will. Besides under the odd circumstances of my leaving, I must look like a rat deserting the ship. No help there.”
“Come to think of it, even if the Cowncil did listen to a plea and have the inclination to help, it wouldn’t matter. The cownsil has a policy of never looking for eggheads abducted by bosspersons. Six decades of unsuccessfully trying to find abductees would dampen anyone’s enthusiasm for efforts along that line.”
“I can’t go to the lifezoids. Maybe the good citizins of New Jaij would help? Yeah, right, and maybe Little Roy’s parents will help. That’s a joke. They will be so relieved to be rid of the goober and their public humiliation, no way would they do anything to help get him back. If anything, they will make efforts to insure failure of any such rescue.”
Citizin Anthropology (Subhead: Guilt of Goober Parents) — Even though Citizins have been told through hospital lecture and Vidi specials that goobers are a biological accident that could happen to any bubbler couple, the majority of Citizins believe goobers are a plague visited upon the unworthy. It is believed by 96.45 percent of all bubblers that it is a curse of just retribution in compensation for unknown misdeeds and failings. The other 3.55 percent believe that goobers are a curse of just retribution in compensation for known misdeeds and failings.
Citizin Antropology (Subhead: Game Show Contestants & Goobers) — It is a curious fact that not one mother or father of a goober has ever made it into the finals or even the semi-finals of any recognized game show. In the few apparent exceptions to this rule the goober offspring were shown to have died of accidental means within 24 hours of prior notice to appear on the game show. Parents of egghead babies don’t have the same problem; eggheads are taken away from bubbler parents at birth. It’s the law.
Everywhere that Woo mentally cast her attention, scanning for help, she was frustrated in her efforts. No avenue held promise. Woo briefly considered turning to her diary for solace and help, “No, I’m not psychologically prepared for the ordeal, not to mention the fact that the little bundle of cyberware and net-link wouldn’t offer solace even if it was hard coded as part of its boot-up profile. Besides, any help offered would be ineffectual, at best.”
Quoting from her studies into early twenty-first mysticism, Woo quoted, “As the great Saint Holmes, the progenitor of all scientific thought, is renowned to have said, ‘When you eliminate the impossible, that which is left, no matter how improbable, is the answer.’”
Woo set about eliminating the impossible sources for help, “Following form, I may as well eliminate Ja Mere, Little Roy and bosspersons for obvious reasons. I can’t afford to divert Stan Lee from the tasks I have set him. And Drak? As weird as he has been acting of late I can’t afford mixing his duplicity and hidden agendas. Cowncil, lifezoids et al have been eliminated just a moment ago. In which case, the only option left, no matter how improbable it seems, is . . . The only option left no matter how improbable is . . . What?”
“Who’s left? Who haven’t I eliminated? Let me see . . . why goobers, they haven’t been eliminated. Well, maybe they’re not such an improbable source of help at that. Judging by the meeting that I interrupted and the odd way Little Roy was issuing orders, it just might not be that odd to enlist their help.”
Apologizing to the second to last morsel of potato pancake for making it wait so long, Woo placed the bite of food into her mouth, letting it partake of her ambient presence, and see from her eyes a moment, as she chewed just before its absorption into her overall sense of self. The last bite of potato pancake, the nicest bite, she saved for a special friend by sending it into the compost bin and back into the garden.
“It’s time to accept the improbable and find some goobers.” So saying. Woo left her apartment for what may be the last time.
Not wanting to encounter Citizins, Woo made the trip back to the suburbs and Little Roy’s friends on foot. Even so, she was sure she could make it to Di Anne’s house just before dawn. “It’s wonderfully most fortunate that I escorted Di Anne home. The bosspersons are sure to be watching Little Roy’s house. I can’t go there. But Di Anne, that’s another story. Di Anne is going to be my ticket into the goober’s network.”
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R.S.V.P.
|
Slimeworld & Galaxy Magazine -- All rights reserved -- |
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