Four Painful Years

Resist the urge to pat his head, settle for shaking his hand.

He’s like a child… An incredibly well spoken, white-skinned, noseless child with a voice befitting the host of a nature documentary. He’d probably take it pretty poorly if you patted him on the head, so you return his handshake instead. He has a strong grip, but it feels artificial and weightless, like he isn’t really there.

An indentation appears in the wall. Your eyes well up and your head throbs uncomfortably as it slides open, flooding the dimly lit room with sunlight. Ushered towards the opening by Cottonhelm, you’re able to see what lies beyond the cramped conference room you’ve been occupying for the last forty-or-so-minutes. You blink a couple times. You see the front door of your apartment building.

---

[left]JULIE: “How…?”

COTTONHELM: “We were in Gudrun’s limousine.”

JULIE: “Oh.”[/left]

---

A familiar face approaches from around the corner. It’s the cute nurse from before, but this time he’s in a black suit and tie. He’s carrying everything you had on you before the scuffle at Grosvenor, as well as your clothes, freshly laundered and folded. With a light bow, he beckons you outside.

Your heart races. This is not the same planet you grew up on. Everything looks the same, but it all feels so different... Untamed, bristling with energy. Before you step out onto the sidewalk, you duck back into the doorway to both say your goodbyes and catch your breath.

---

[left]
JULIE: “Well, uh… It’s been real.”
JULIE: “Will I see you guys again?”

GUDRUN: “You can count on it, hon. I’ll be checking in every so often to make sure Cottonhelm hasn’t spoiled you rotten with his incessant ‘counselling’ and ‘positive reinforcement’.”

VERMILLION: “YES, COTTONHELM IS BIG PANSY. YOU CAN COME TO THORNS HEADQUARTERS FOR PROPER TRAINING WHEN SCHEDULE PERMITS.”

COTTONHELM: “Alright, alright, that’s enough you two. I’m going to see Miss Mitchells up to her flat. Won’t be long!”

GUDRUN: “Take care, Julie. Thank you for your cooperation!”

VERMILLION: “HERE. ONE FOR THE ROAD.”[/left]

---

A flick of Vermillion’s wrist sends a large bottle of something flying out the door at you, heavy enough to knock you off balance as you catch it. It’s full of swirling liquid, ribbons of blue and purple dotted with twinkling lights. The label on the bottle is written in a language totally foreign to you. Both he and Gudrun wave their farewell as the door slides back into place, and you wave back. It’s only after the door fully closes that the opulence of Gudrun’s limo becomes strikingly apparent, its windows tinted darker than black, its unmarked chassis practically free of seams. The roof of the vehicle is a lot lower than you thought it would be… You’re having trouble imagining how Vermillion managed to sit upright in there.

Before you can make a fool of yourself by trying to carry all this crap at once, Cottonhelm accepts your belongings from the nurse(?) and opens the door to the foyer for you. You nod your head in thanks. Both hands are required to carry Vermillion’s hefty last-minute gift.

---

[left]JULIE: “The heck is this?”

COTTONHELM: “Third Century Blackberry Himmelsdraaft. A luxurious liqueur brewed from fermented fruit, whole cream, and the distilled essence of a moribund star.”
COTTONHELM: “Goes down smoother than you’d think. Be sure to enjoy responsibly!”

JULIE: “Gosh, and here I thought the idea was to avoid killing me...”
JULIE: “...”
JULIE: “Hey, Cottonhelm?”

COTTONHELM: “Yes?”

JULIE: “About this whole ‘Marauder Monthly’ business… I’m not going to have to go around killing people, am I?”
JULIE: “Like, I’m all for self-preservation, and straight-up pacifism never worked for me in the past... You’d be surprised how many kids think it’s okay to pick on you just ‘cause you’re on TV.”
JULIE: “But I shot my neighbor in the head the first time he attacked me, and for a second I thought I’d killed him and it just felt so… wrong. Yeah, sure, he was trying to kill me, shooting him is totally justified, but… ”
JULIE: “I felt bad about it. I still feel bad about it. Even after my friends got involved and I had to ram him with the counterbalance… I should feel happy that it worked, that I could save them. Instead I just feel sick...”

COTTONHELM: “That’s a good sign.”

JULIE: “How is that a good sign!? What does it say about me that I can’t help but play devil’s advocate for dudes who wanna cut my head off?”

COTTONHELM: “You possess a righteous heart, my dear. Willingness to forgive the transgressions of your enemy is quite an admirable trait indeed!”

JULIE: “Please. I’m not ‘forgiving’ anyone and I’m far from ‘righteous’. I just don’t wanna be the gal that puts someone’s dad six feet under.”

COTTONHELM: “Heavens, leave some altruism for the rest of us!”

JULIE: “Fuggin’...”

COTTONHELM: “Besides, Marauder Monthly articles are dedicated to the exploits of adventurers, militant or otherwise. July’s covergirl was selected for her recent contributions to the field of dungeonology, and her predecessor is known for pragmatically diverting several Mars-bound meteors into the astral plane.”
COTTONHELM: “I fully expect you to come up with non-fatal solutions to difficult problems. Vermillion runs a mercenary guild. Soldiers of sentiment can earmark morally repugnant targets or try to scoop up all the escort jobs, but eventually, someone is going to have to either kill, fake it, or go unpaid. We at the School are under no such obligation. We are free to experiment, and that makes us versatile. Indeed, conflict has become a necessary evil in these troubled times... but put the work in, and nobody has to die.”

JULIE: “Cool...”
JULIE: “Can you teach me how to do a full nelson?”

COTTONHELM: “Darling, by the end of the year I expect to see you perform a ‘Full-Point-Five Nelson’.”
COTTONHELM: “Ah, this must be your apartment. Let me get that for you…”[/left]

---

Cottonhelm stacks your belongings into the crook of his arm and uses his free hand to grab the doorknob. Before you can tell him where your keys are, his image abruptly distorts, then snaps back to normal, and the unlocked door swings open. Strangely, the little hovering disc thing that follows him around remains perfectly solid. You think you know what’s going on here…

---

[left]JULIE: “A hologram.”

COTTONHELM: “Pardon?”

JULIE: “You’re a hologram. The little floaty disc is your projector.”

COTTONHELM: “Exemplary observation, Miss Mitchells! ‘Hard Light’, they call it. Makes travelling abroad a relative breeze!”
COTTONHELM: “But in all seriousness, I would’ve loved to come down to meet you in person had I the capacity, but past events have left me physically unable to leave the School. My precious holodisks are the only method of travel I have access to these days.”

JULIE: “Oh… I’m sorry to hear that.”
JULIE: “Living with a disability is the worst… The ‘mass’ used to affect my motor functions, so I know where you’re coming from.”

COTTONHELM: “Hmm… I suppose you could describe it that way. Though, if I had to give it a name I’d sooner call it a curse.”
[/left]

---

It’s nice to be back home… for however long that’s gonna last. Everything’s just like how you left it. The bread, for example, is still just as left open as it was when you made those sandwiches, and now it’s growing a little green crew cut. That’s a perfectly good loaf down the toilet.

After standing the Himmelsdraaft up on the counter to marvel at the swirls inside, you turn around to find Cottonhelm rifling through your bookcase. He’s only examining the covers and occasionally uttering a fascinated “Hm!”, but he’s also getting his grubby little holographic fingers all over everything. At least he’s putting them back in order…

Your belongings have been deposited on your bed.

---
[left]
JULIE: “Look, you opened my door without keys, fine, I can deal. Touching my stuff, though?”

COTTONHELM: “Oh! Goodness me, I only meant to swap these two XDrive comics! Got carried away, sorry!”

JULIE: “Hey! I’d finally sorted the core series by chronology, put those back!”

COTTONHELM: “Actually, your issue five is a misprint.”

JULIE: “Huh?”

COTTONHELM: “The Mundane branch of Whole Horse comics purposefully misprinted issue six as issue five. The original issue five was printed with subliminal codes that hinted towards DaiRuby’s eventual betrayal of the EcoSpace Rangers in issue ten, but those codes were written with illusion runes.”

JULIE: “I… EcoSpace Ranger XDrive is a Flipside thing?”

COTTONHELM: “The fear was that Mundane readers would see the runes and cross over prematurely, so that issue was delayed and replaced with the then-current Flipside issue six while issue five had to be reprinted en mass for Mundane audiences.”
COTTONHELM: “If you’ve read issue ten already, the core series will make much more sense sans runes if you give it a second read in this order. Follows its real-life inspiration much closer, too, though some would call that a ‘missed opportunity’.”

JULIE: “I thought the romance between DaiAqua and DaiSpinel felt rushed…”
JULIE: “Wait, the EcoSpace Rangers are REAL!?”

COTTONHELM: “Butter my biscuit! I’ve gone and made myself terribly late for a very important interview! Oh, I hope they’re still waiting for me…”
COTTONHELM: “I’m afraid we must part ways for now, Miss Mitchells. Don’t worry about your apartment, my people have spoken to your landlord and he will have your damage deposit mailed to you tomorrow.”

JULIE: “H-Hold on a sec…”

COTTONHELM: “Make sure to pack up everything you would like to take to School with you, Luca will be by shortly to relocate you somewhere less obvious.”

JULIE: “But I…!”

COTTONHELM: “Toodle-pip!”
[/left]

---

With that, Cottonhelm disappears into his holodisk and takes off, escaping through the crack under your door. You are left alone in the silence of your apartment, and for a moment it feels like the last few days never happened. Then you hear the rustling of your scrubs and see the huge bottle of space juice sitting on the counter, and everything feels new again.

God damn it. You really wanted to ask him a few more questions... Whatever. You guess you’ll do some packing up? Or maybe you’ll take a look at that gigantic application form? You can even lay back and bask in existential uncertainty for a while, because this week’s been a shit show.

What do you do?

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995 Influence

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