Re: Petty Squabble [ROUND 1] [Fort Ayers, New Atlantis]
06-05-2011, 01:06 AM
Originally posted on MSPA by Lord Paradise.
There was a panicked moment when Tom thought his steering had cut out... and then another panicked moment when Tom thought the brakes and the gas had cut out as well. Then he realized that something or someone had simply picked up the RV and was flying with it, like Superman.
He shut off the engine. No sense in wasting what fuel he had left, or in contributing to the hole in the Ozone layer.
“You got the baby okay, Alison?” he asked, glad that he could take his eyes off the road (or sky, as it was) for a moment.
”Yeah, dad,” said Alison, curtly. She was on her cellular phone again, of course. ”Hang on, I’m trying to hear this.”
”I thought you said you didn’t have any phone bars,” accused Tom, perplexed. “Who are you talking to?”
”Some telemarketer,” Tom’s daughter replied, waving him off. ”I think he’s offering to upgrade my phone, but I have to join the call list for some multiversal army.”
Tom chuckled. “Yeah, that’s where they get you. How’d this guy get your number, anyway?”
”It’s just a recording, dad—“
”Well they need to know what number to send the recording to!” Some ominous banging noises on the roof of the RV forced Tom to raise his voice. “Have you putting your number on chat rooms?”
”No, Dad, I don’t even—“
”She talks to boooooooys,” chimed in Ethan from behind a wall of couch cushions.
“Honey,” admonished Tom. “We talked about this.”
”You stupid little brat!” shouted Alison, shoving the phone between her chin and her collarbone and standing in attack position. She was prevented from smashing her brother’s fort when she realized she had Baby Emma sort of slung into the crook of her arm, and the baby began to cry.
“Alison, be more careful with your sister,” said Tom, rising uneasily from his seat as the RV rocked violently to one side.
”Yeah, Alison, be more careful with your sister,” teased Ethan, giggling.
”I know, I’m sorry,” said Alison, rocking the baby gently. “Here, can you take her? I need to figure out what’s going on with my phone.”
Tom nodded assent and walked across the angled floor of the flying RV to take the baby. He was distracted from comforting his infant daughter when a deranged-looking man in a visor crashed onto the hood, shook off a clip of machine gun rounds with a burst of blue energy, fired bolts of lightning at the soldiers on the roof, and disappeared.
“Hmm,” grunted Tom.
* * * * *
Jack shoved her walkie-talkie in Clarice’s hand as she and the other two surviving soldiers tackled the “super.” Whoever was at the other end of the talkie sounded angry--no, upset but not angry--flustered, that's the word. She put it up to her ear.
”Hello, is this Clarice Broderburg?” came the voice.
Clarice was a little offput by this. “Yes, uh, yes it is.”
”Yeah Clarice this is COFCA. The robot’s ours.”
Clarice nodded. “I see. Well, then. Could you tell it to put us down?”
From the other end of the talkie there was a sound of frantic whispering—apparently these COFCA folks couldn’t remember to keep their hands off the “talk” button. Then: “Yes, well, there’s been a problem with that. We picked you up because we thought we could help you escape the, er, the… super… soldier. The supersoldier.”
”Yes, but—“
”Yes, we know, we know, the supersoldier got up there with you. And ordinarily we would send Envoy to help out with the fight, but we can’t, um, we can’t do that without, you understand, dropping you.”
Clarice failed to see the predicament. “Well can’t you, I don’t know, put us down, and then get this thing out of our hair?”
More murmuring on the other end of the line. “Yes, well, there’s a problem with the, er, putting you down. You see, you and the soldiers, that is both the normal and super, er, soldiers, are being held to the roof of the RV through the normal force of the upward acceleration. If we were to decelerate any faster, that would, you know, sort of fling you out into the sky. So putting you down will take about twenty minutes, is what we’re—I’m sorry, I’ve just received a note that I ought to have said ‘decelerate any slower,’ which is just—that is completely incorrect. To clarify, Clarice—heh heh—what I meant was that we are in the process of slowing down, but we are slowing down slowly, which means that we are still going fast. To slow down more quickly, which would make us more slow, would—I keep getting these notes. People just pass them to me, I’m sorry Clarice, I—the consensus is that I shouldn’t be on, er, communications detail, so to speak.”
”I think you’re doing a fine job,” lied Clarice, indignantly. One of Jack’s soldiers had a hole punched through some muscles that he had probably worked very hard to maintain, and he staggered over near Clarice’s feet to die. The sound of the air was awfully loud. “We’re all a little stressed out,” Clarice added.
”Oh, you can say that again. You wouldn’t believe the week I’ve been having, Clarice. It all started when my niece—I’m sorry, I’ve just received several notes telling me not to tell you about my—get your hands off me, I have the mic—about my week. One of them is written in blood, so—oh, real mature guys—“ The walkie talkie went quiet.
“Maybe some other time then,” said Clarice into the mic. Ignoring the nearby corpse and the nearby threat of the supersoldier, she laid down on the roof of the RV and shut her eyes, remembering a carnival ride she’d been on with Tom a few years before Alison was born.
* * * * *
While her dad was taking care of the baby, Alison made sure not to stop talking, so as to ensure that nobody could ignore her. Alison hated being ignored.
“Yeah this guy downloaded something onto my phone somehow. It’s all different.” She shot Tom a glance out of the corner of her eye—he and Emma were playing peekaboo. The word “sluts” popped into her head and she ignored it, continuing to tinker with her phone. “Hey, my contacts are gone! Vandal whatever replaced them with a bunch of his own people, I guess. Who’s ‘Magog?’ Oh, this is bulls—this is nonsense. There’s a contact in here called ‘Red.’ That is not a person, that is a color. Jesus.”
”Easy with the Lord’s name there, Alison,” said Tom. The moment of attention passed quickly, and Alison suddenly felt very alone. She flipped through the contacts’ list again. In the interest of science, she figured she ought to call one of them. But who?
Ethan popped out of his cushion-fort. “Daddy, look, I’m in Fort Ayers!” he shouted gleefully. ”I’m the human army, and I’ve got all sorts of guns and explosions. But the robots are stronger, and they’re gonna—“ --he popped out of the fort for dramatic effect, sending cushions sprawling everywhere— “They’re gonna send all their robots and ninjas and they’re gonna blow us up and kill all of us!”
”Peekaboo!” replied Tom. Baby Emma giggled.
”Did you hear me dad?” Ethan begged. ”We’re all gonna die in explosions, did you hear?”
There was a panicked moment when Tom thought his steering had cut out... and then another panicked moment when Tom thought the brakes and the gas had cut out as well. Then he realized that something or someone had simply picked up the RV and was flying with it, like Superman.
He shut off the engine. No sense in wasting what fuel he had left, or in contributing to the hole in the Ozone layer.
“You got the baby okay, Alison?” he asked, glad that he could take his eyes off the road (or sky, as it was) for a moment.
”Yeah, dad,” said Alison, curtly. She was on her cellular phone again, of course. ”Hang on, I’m trying to hear this.”
”I thought you said you didn’t have any phone bars,” accused Tom, perplexed. “Who are you talking to?”
”Some telemarketer,” Tom’s daughter replied, waving him off. ”I think he’s offering to upgrade my phone, but I have to join the call list for some multiversal army.”
Tom chuckled. “Yeah, that’s where they get you. How’d this guy get your number, anyway?”
”It’s just a recording, dad—“
”Well they need to know what number to send the recording to!” Some ominous banging noises on the roof of the RV forced Tom to raise his voice. “Have you putting your number on chat rooms?”
”No, Dad, I don’t even—“
”She talks to boooooooys,” chimed in Ethan from behind a wall of couch cushions.
“Honey,” admonished Tom. “We talked about this.”
”You stupid little brat!” shouted Alison, shoving the phone between her chin and her collarbone and standing in attack position. She was prevented from smashing her brother’s fort when she realized she had Baby Emma sort of slung into the crook of her arm, and the baby began to cry.
“Alison, be more careful with your sister,” said Tom, rising uneasily from his seat as the RV rocked violently to one side.
”Yeah, Alison, be more careful with your sister,” teased Ethan, giggling.
”I know, I’m sorry,” said Alison, rocking the baby gently. “Here, can you take her? I need to figure out what’s going on with my phone.”
Tom nodded assent and walked across the angled floor of the flying RV to take the baby. He was distracted from comforting his infant daughter when a deranged-looking man in a visor crashed onto the hood, shook off a clip of machine gun rounds with a burst of blue energy, fired bolts of lightning at the soldiers on the roof, and disappeared.
“Hmm,” grunted Tom.
* * * * *
Jack shoved her walkie-talkie in Clarice’s hand as she and the other two surviving soldiers tackled the “super.” Whoever was at the other end of the talkie sounded angry--no, upset but not angry--flustered, that's the word. She put it up to her ear.
”Hello, is this Clarice Broderburg?” came the voice.
Clarice was a little offput by this. “Yes, uh, yes it is.”
”Yeah Clarice this is COFCA. The robot’s ours.”
Clarice nodded. “I see. Well, then. Could you tell it to put us down?”
From the other end of the talkie there was a sound of frantic whispering—apparently these COFCA folks couldn’t remember to keep their hands off the “talk” button. Then: “Yes, well, there’s been a problem with that. We picked you up because we thought we could help you escape the, er, the… super… soldier. The supersoldier.”
”Yes, but—“
”Yes, we know, we know, the supersoldier got up there with you. And ordinarily we would send Envoy to help out with the fight, but we can’t, um, we can’t do that without, you understand, dropping you.”
Clarice failed to see the predicament. “Well can’t you, I don’t know, put us down, and then get this thing out of our hair?”
More murmuring on the other end of the line. “Yes, well, there’s a problem with the, er, putting you down. You see, you and the soldiers, that is both the normal and super, er, soldiers, are being held to the roof of the RV through the normal force of the upward acceleration. If we were to decelerate any faster, that would, you know, sort of fling you out into the sky. So putting you down will take about twenty minutes, is what we’re—I’m sorry, I’ve just received a note that I ought to have said ‘decelerate any slower,’ which is just—that is completely incorrect. To clarify, Clarice—heh heh—what I meant was that we are in the process of slowing down, but we are slowing down slowly, which means that we are still going fast. To slow down more quickly, which would make us more slow, would—I keep getting these notes. People just pass them to me, I’m sorry Clarice, I—the consensus is that I shouldn’t be on, er, communications detail, so to speak.”
”I think you’re doing a fine job,” lied Clarice, indignantly. One of Jack’s soldiers had a hole punched through some muscles that he had probably worked very hard to maintain, and he staggered over near Clarice’s feet to die. The sound of the air was awfully loud. “We’re all a little stressed out,” Clarice added.
”Oh, you can say that again. You wouldn’t believe the week I’ve been having, Clarice. It all started when my niece—I’m sorry, I’ve just received several notes telling me not to tell you about my—get your hands off me, I have the mic—about my week. One of them is written in blood, so—oh, real mature guys—“ The walkie talkie went quiet.
“Maybe some other time then,” said Clarice into the mic. Ignoring the nearby corpse and the nearby threat of the supersoldier, she laid down on the roof of the RV and shut her eyes, remembering a carnival ride she’d been on with Tom a few years before Alison was born.
* * * * *
While her dad was taking care of the baby, Alison made sure not to stop talking, so as to ensure that nobody could ignore her. Alison hated being ignored.
“Yeah this guy downloaded something onto my phone somehow. It’s all different.” She shot Tom a glance out of the corner of her eye—he and Emma were playing peekaboo. The word “sluts” popped into her head and she ignored it, continuing to tinker with her phone. “Hey, my contacts are gone! Vandal whatever replaced them with a bunch of his own people, I guess. Who’s ‘Magog?’ Oh, this is bulls—this is nonsense. There’s a contact in here called ‘Red.’ That is not a person, that is a color. Jesus.”
”Easy with the Lord’s name there, Alison,” said Tom. The moment of attention passed quickly, and Alison suddenly felt very alone. She flipped through the contacts’ list again. In the interest of science, she figured she ought to call one of them. But who?
Ethan popped out of his cushion-fort. “Daddy, look, I’m in Fort Ayers!” he shouted gleefully. ”I’m the human army, and I’ve got all sorts of guns and explosions. But the robots are stronger, and they’re gonna—“ --he popped out of the fort for dramatic effect, sending cushions sprawling everywhere— “They’re gonna send all their robots and ninjas and they’re gonna blow us up and kill all of us!”
”Peekaboo!” replied Tom. Baby Emma giggled.
”Did you hear me dad?” Ethan begged. ”We’re all gonna die in explosions, did you hear?”