2016-09-19: A Little Slice of Heaven on the Gulf
12-26-2022, 10:38 AM (This post was last modified: 05-27-2024, 07:32 PM by Bob Schroeck.)
12-26-2022, 10:38 AM (This post was last modified: 05-27-2024, 07:32 PM by Bob Schroeck.)
By Rob Kelk
with Robert M. Schroeck
Based on and incorporating scenes from a story by Rajvik
with Robert M. Schroeck
Based on and incorporating scenes from a story by Rajvik
Pensacola Beach, Florida, USA
September 19, 2016
3:44 PM CT
Shinji sat still for a moment, his eyes still closed. Whatever had happened, it had drawn so much out of him that he felt like he hadn't slept for a couple of weeks. But he'd just woken up, so that wasn't really true.
If he had been responsible for doing whatever happened when he decided how humanity was going to progress, he knew he didn't have the power to do it again. He must have been part of that sea of LCL, and he must have drawn on the strength of every living being on Earth to do what he just did. Kind of like that Dragon Ball Z episode or movie or whatever it was where Goku needed the power of everybody on Earth to launch an attack strong enough to defeat whoever it was he was up against. Shinji was pretty sure that that only happened once in the entire series.
Kami-sama willing, the circumstances that allowed Shinji to pull off something that magically changed other people's lives would never happen again, either. One sea of LCL was one too many.
He was sitting, not lying down, so he wasn't about to see an unfamiliar ceiling when he opened his eyes.
What he saw was an unfamiliar tour bus.
"Good morning, sleepyhead," Misato said from the seat next to his.
"Where are we?"
"Almost at our new home away from home. You've been asleep for an hour now, since we left Eglin Air Force Base."
"That was a great tour we got to go on!" That was Toji's voice coming from right behind him. "Who knew that there were so many different things people have to do in order to keep us safe from the Russians?"
"They didn't say anything about Russia or any other country during the tour, though." That was Hikari, and she was a couple of seats forward from Shinji.
"Remember Southern Chishima, before Second Impact," countered Toji. "When Russia's finished with Crimea, you can be sure they'll come for the rest of Hokkaido. Unless we're ready for them. Isn't that part of why we trained with the Evas back in Japan?"
"Dummkopf! They're more likely to invade the rest of Ukraine first, to consolidate their gains. They're not going to make the Kaliningrad mistake again." And that was Asuka.
"Kaliningrad mistake?" Shinji found himself asking without intending to.
"Kaliningrad is a Russian exclave located between Poland and Lithuania," replied Dr. Akagi from the front of the bus. "The people living there cannot get to the rest of Russia except by crossing through a country that is part of NATO."
"And you know that has to piss off the Russians," added Toji.
With habits honed by long repetition, Hikari immediately complained, "Suzuhara! Mind your language!"
"Sorry, class rep."
As the conversation continued around him, Shinji realized that he didn't remember a minute of the tour that everybody else was talking about. Or of arriving at Eglin AFB, or the United States. Whatever happened to everybody, he was just beside it; he wasn't a part of it. Yet. No more running away; he had to put in the work to become part of the group... and that was part of how he had set things up, he realized.
He was still trying to figure out how to ask what had just happened to everyone without sounding like he was insane, when the bus pulled to a stop in front of a wood-sided building surrounded by sand dunes. "We have arrived," said the driver (who for some reason had an English accent straight out of a BBC television drama). "Thank you for choosing Funtom for your transportation needs today, and once again we apologize for having lost track of your bags." They took turns getting out of the bus and into the heat of the Florida Gulf Coast.
As Shinji moved to step out of the bus, the driver quietly slipped him an envelope. Shinji looked at it in puzzlement for a brief moment, then slipped it into his pocket and got out of Misato's way.
Kaji was the last off the bus, and he asked the driver whether he'd be available later in the day to take the group to a mall where they could replace their lost clothes and personal effects. The answer he received left Kaji unhappy.
As the bus pulled away, a tall, slim man with a dark brown stereotypical biker's beard, biker's hairdo, and biker's leathers stepped out of the building to meet them. "Welcome to Gulfside Rest, everyone! I'm Harley Waters, and I'm in charge of this little slice of Heaven on the Gulf Coast." His voice didn't match the stereotype that he projected; Shinji, with his musical skills, pegged him as a tenor. And despite the fact that he spoke English, Shinji had no trouble understanding him. He noticed that the road signs were in English, too, and he had no problem reading them.
"I'm Misato Katsuragi," his guardian identified herself with a bow that caused some of her long dark hair to fall in front of her shoulders. "Please take care of us." Shinji realized that she was speaking English, too... and so was everyone else who had been on the bus, including himself.
"Mr. Michaelis told me to expect you, Ms. Katsuragi. He said something about you being in charge of the youngsters. I can't put them all in one apartment, but I can do the next-best thing. See me after everybody's picked where y'all want to live, and I'll give you duplicate keys to their places."
"I suppose that will have to do. And I'm surprised that our bus driver talked with you about us before we arrived."
Harley looked puzzled. "Your bus driver? The Michaelis I'm talking about is one of the higher-ups in the company that owns this building."
"Maybe they're related," Kaji suggested.
"What do we do now, Mr. Waters?" Asuka asked.
"Young lady, 'Mr. Waters' is my father. Call me Harley. And what we do now is get you settled in before we go shopping for a change of clothes for you. I can tell from none of you having even a backpack that you all showed up with just the clothes on your backs, and it's part of my job to fix that state of affairs. And after that we can have some beach time fun! It won't be fancy, but I can barbecue some ribs and cobs of corn for everybody, and I got some cornbread at the store just this morning."
It didn't take long for the folks from Tokyo-3 to decide who was going to live with whom - the longest, and loudest, argument was between Harley (who insisted that a teenage boy was not going to live with two young women if he had anything to say about it, and he did) and Misato (who insisted that Shinji had lived with both her and Asuka for months without any incidents, and Harley seemed surprisingly incredulous of her argument). That apparent impasse was finally solved by Kaji suggesting Shinji live with him.
Harley used the label-maker that he usually used to mark which wire was which on a bike's electrical loom to put temporary signs on the mailboxes. Apartment 1 was claimed by Kensuke Aida and Toji Suzuhara, the two male classmates of Shinji who'd made the trip with him; Misato Katsuragi and Asuka Soryu were in apartment 2; apartment 3 was of course already Harley's; Rei Ayanami and Hikari Horaki were in apartment 4, and finishing off the apartments on the (not as windy) Sound side of the building was apartment 5 where Dr. Ritsuko Akagi and her assistant Maya Ibuki lived. Shinji Ikari and Ryoji Kaji were in apartment 6, the westernmost apartment on the Gulf side of the building - Kaji chose it because the sandy soil right beside the building looked like a good place to start a watermelon patch. True to his word, Harley gave Misato keys to apartments 1, 2, 4, and 6... which annoyed Asuka when she realized that meant Misato had a key to Kaji's apartment and she didn't.
Then they had a quick vote: sleep or shop? The need for clothes won out over the need to recover from jet lag.
Shinji dropped the envelope that Mr. Michaelis had slipped to him on the bus onto his new apartment's kitchen counter in an otherwise bare apartment. A quick glance revealed a clean slate save for basic furniture - a table and chairs in the kitchen; a TV set, a couple of chairs, and a coffee table in the living room; and beds and chests of drawers in the bedrooms... but nothing to give the apartment any character. Would everything turn out the all the same once this unfamiliar new apartment was filled up? He hardly had a chance to ponder that before Misato called him out to join the others.
Together, they headed out to the nearest stores, in a minivan that just barely held them all.
"Hey, Shinji, how do I look?" Shinji turned to look at Asuka from the rack of shirts and beach shorts that he had been searching through to find something simple that fit, and found his redheaded classmate and Eva pilot wearing a skimpy red bikini similar to the one she had gotten for her trip on the Over the Rainbow.
"Umm, it's ... very nice, Asuka," he answered a bit unsteadily while looking around for someone, anyone else in their group. "But I don’t think Waters-san wanted us to buy expensive bathing suits, just something we can wear tomorrow to go get more, proper clothing."
"No, it's fine Shinji-kun," he heard the older man answer from behind him. "And didn't I already tell y'all that 'Mr. Waters' is my father? Call me Harley. One of the good things about living on the beach is that as long as it's warm enough, swimsuits are considered at least somewhat decent clothes, though you'll want a cover-up to protect your skin, as well as a pair of shorts and sandals." Shinji watched in amazement as Wa- Harley-san caused the redhead to go from scandalous with barely anything on to something that had all the necessary things covered completely but still look good - if pure tourist.
It didn't take long for everyone to find what they needed at the tourist shop, and Harley promised them that in the next couple of days they would all get to go up to the local mall or outlet store to purchase more clothes and some knickknacks to personalize their apartments. Shinji, Toji, Kensuke and Kaji had each gotten two pair of shorts and four shirts while the girls, Misato, Dr. Akagi and Lieutenant Ibuki had all chosen swimsuits of various styles along with matching cover-ups. The swimsuits ranged from Asuka's skimpy red bikini to something called a "Tankini" that Misato and Hikari had each picked up in different colors, to the full-on unitard type suits of Dr. Akagi, Lt. Ibuki and Rei. Shinji was further surprised when the man paid almost five hundred dollars American on just this little bit of clothing for them. "Are all the clothes around here this expensive, Harley-san?” Shinji asked with a cringe.
"Not in the least," he answered. "This is a tourist trap that over-charges for cheaply-made crap. When we go to a real store instead of this thieves' institute, we'll find things much more reasonably priced so long as we're not buying name brand."
The store manager shot Harley a dirty look and said, "Don't believe him, kid - this guy can't even tune his own bike without looking at a Chilton's, let alone tune mine." Then the store manager and Harley laughed and slapped each other on the back, leaving Shinji wondering just what the relationship between them was. After a moment of male bonding, the store manager turned back to Shinji. "I've told Harley a hundred times that it's the store's location that makes everything so expensive. Everything's cheaper on the mainland, but you're not on the mainland right now. That's Santa Rosa Island for you."
Eventually, Harley collected his change, passed the bags out to the people who chose the outfits in them, and walked the group outside and back down the parking lot to where their minivan was parked.
Gulfside Rest, Pensacola Beach, Florida, USA
9:45 PM CT
Shinji was finally alone. He decided that it was finally time to look at the letter that the bus driver had handed him. It was quite the read.
Quote:Mr. Ikari,
You are no longer in the same universe that you grew up in. Your desire for a normal life but also a life with magic caused the divine instrumentality that maintains your universe to have a glitch. The same instrumentality also maintains other realities, and there were other people in other universes who did other things that also caused glitches. It is not completely your fault that things happened the way they did.
Most of your classmates do not remember Third Impact. This is for their own sanity. When people arrive in this universe, causality has a brief moment when it is malleable enough to adapt to the presence of the newcomers, to make it seem like they have always been present here. We simply took advantage of that effect to ease your friends' minds in accordance with what you wanted. Rei Ayanami remembers Third Impact, but she is a very special case
The adults in your group - Misato Katsuragi, Ryoji Kaji, Ritsuko Akagi, and Maya Ibuki - also remember Third Impact. If you have any difficulty in adapting to the world you find yourself in, please reach out to whichever of them you trust the most.
Shinji thought for a moment, and realized that the adult who he trusted the most, on or off that list, was Kaji.
Quote:If they are not able to help you, then reach out to your building manager, Harley Waters. As an outsider who is familiar with your life in Tokyo-3, Harley has an unusual viewpoint that might provide new insights into your troubles.
And if that doesn't work, ask Harley to put you in contact with people in the other residences that are owned by Funtom Property Management. That will definitely change your perspective, although that runs the risk of shattering your perspective to the point that you would be unable to cope with anything, so please do not make that request without careful consideration and planning.
Please know that you are liked and respected, and in some cases you are loved. You are the star of your own story - that phrase is a cliché, but in your case it is truer than you might think. Have faith in yourself and stand tall.
Belldandy.
Shinji read the letter again, more slowly.
Then he thought about what it said. He also wondered who Belldandy was.
10:10 PM CT
"Kaji," Misato said looking at the local news playing on the TV in the communal living room in apartment 3. "Something isn't right. This area should be under water so deep we should need helium rigs to sit where we are."
"Yet we don't," her boyfriend answered laconically.
"And none of the kids seems to think anything's out of the ordinary."
"Except Shinji. He has something on his mind that he isn't sharing with even me."
"I can't find anyone talking about the Angels," she said while shutting off the TV. "There is also nothing on about the UN, except for some crap about somebody claiming global warming is a hoax that they're trying to put over on everyone. Not a word about Second Impact; it’s like it never even happened, like the last fifteen years we lived not only didn’t occur, but something else completely different happened."
"It's definitely strange, Misato," Kaji answered. "What did you mean about somebody calling global warming 'crap'?"
Misato sighed. "The TV show was full of people saying global warming doesn't exist, or there's no consensus about it, and you know as well as I do that that's crap. That's why I turned it off."
"Actually, I don't. I'm not the one who was visiting a scientist parent at the Antarctic research base during Second Impact. You're going to have to explain to me why saying global warming doesn't exist is crap."
Misato smiled at Kaji's question. "You've got a girl all to yourself in a cozy room, and you want to hear her talking about science? Well, okay, I can do that."
"Thanks."
"You know the term 'greenhouse effect', right?" After Kaji nodded, Misato continued. "You should, since it was coined nine decades before Second Impact. But it wasn't until the 1930s that the effect was tied to carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, by... what was his name again... Guy Callendar. But nobody believed him until the 1950s when Hans Seuss presented supporting evidence."
"Seuss? Like the children's book writer?"
Misato smiled. "No relation. But that is why I remembered his name. After that, there was a lot of evidence for man-made global warming. President Johnson set up a science committee that confirmed it back in 1965. NATO picked up on it in 1969, and it was pretty much confirmed by the ice cores drilled at the Vostok Station. Confirming those cores were right was part of what we were doing in Antarctica when Second Impact happened."
Kaji blinked in surprise. "You never told me about that. So this is personal to you."
"In a way, yes."
"I'll look up everything you've told me once we're somewhere near a library, just so I can fill in the gaps that you don't remember and probably never learned."
Just then, Harley came down the stairs from his private apartment. "Oh, you're still here? When I didn't hear the TV, I thought you'd gone back to your own places."
Kaji smiled. "No, Misato was just about to tell me why saying there's a lack of consensus about global warming is crap."
Harley looked puzzled. "Isn't it? There's a lot of disagreement among scientists."
Misato shook her head. "There's been consensus that global warming is real since 1985 - those ice cores that the Russians drilled at Vostok Station convinced pretty much everybody."
"Just 'pretty much'?"
Misato frowned at Harley. "There's a difference between consensus and unanimity."
It was Kaji's turn to chuckle. "Yeah, my bosses are rarely unanimous, but they always have consensus before they tell me to do something for them."
"Oh. I guess you're using the word differently than the news folks do." Harley shook his head. "There's really consensus?"
"Since before I was born," Misato confirmed.
"But is there consensus about why it's happening?"
Misato nodded. "There's only one thing that could make that big a difference that fast. We did it. Humanity as a whole."
"But aren't there other factors involved? Like sunspots?"
"No, sunspots don't change how much heat the Sun gives off to any measurable extent. Claiming sunspots or solar variation cause global warming is like claiming a single drop of racing fuel in a full tank of gas will make your car - or bike - go faster."
"You'd need more than an entire tank of high-octane fuel to make a bike go faster. You'd also have to re-tune it, and ... Oh, I get it now. You're saying somebody needed to do something to make global warming happen."
Misato smiled. "To make it happen so quickly, yes."
"So quickly? It's been over a century."
"It's only been one century."
Harley thought for a moment. "Oh. I guess it depends on how you look at it. I don't suppose you're anywhere near done and I can lock up for the night?"
Kaji and Misato could tell that Harley didn't want to talk about the matter right now. Kaji didn't want to talk about it, either. "Sure," he replied. "See you tomorrow."
Kaji escorted Misato home, then continued to the apartment that he shared with Shinji... only to be surprised to find the boy was still awake. "What's up?"
"Oh, hi, Kaji. When we got off the bus today, the bus driver gave me a letter. I just read it."
"Anything special in the letter?"
"Yeah. I think you should read it, too."
Kaji did so, and realized that he wasn't going to be getting any sleep that night.
September 20, 2016
7:00 AM CT
"What are these?" Shinji asked as he picked up one of the cigarette-pack-sized plastic boxes. Apparently, while Shinji and Kaji had been talking all night, Harley had gone out and acquired these things for everybody; there was enough that they could have one each.
"Good morning, Shinji," Harley replied without taking his attention away from the fire that he was burning in the grill pit where he had roasted the corn and barbecued the ribs for yesterday's dinner. "Those are portable phones, so you can stay in contact with each other and me no matter where you are. They're also portable computer terminals that connect to the Internet. They flip open and one should have your picture on its screen, to show you that it belongs to you."
Shinji flipped open the phone in his hand, to see a screen that lit up with picture of Hikari that obviously hadn't been taken last night. "That one isn't mine", he muttered. The sheer perversity of the universe resulted in him not finding his phone until he had looked at every other phone on the table. "Did you take all of these pictures yourself?"
"What?" Harley finally had a decent fire going in the pit. "No, I can't use a camera worth spit. I got them from the briefing package that Funtom Property Management sent me about all of you."
"Waters-san, I remember Third Impact. I know I'm not where I grew up. When were these pictures taken?"
"Please, Shinji, call me..." Then the rest of what the boy had said registered. "Oh. We can talk about Third Impact later, okay? The photos really did come out of that briefing package. I don't know where Funtom got them from."
"Where who got what from?" Misato asked, and she and Kaji walked over to the grill pit.
"Where my bosses got the photos of you in the portable phones over by Shinji," Harley answered as he put three large frypans onto the grating over the grill pit. "There's one for each of you," he continued as Shinji held out the appropriate phones to Misato and Kaji.
"Thanks, Shinji," said Kaji as he accepted his phone. "I was just telling Misato about our conversation last night."
"What he told me explains so much," Misato added. "You and Rei really remember Third Impact? None of the other children seem to."
Harley growled. "We will talk about that subject later. Not now, when any of those children could show up." He took a deep breath, and released it. "Now, who's ready for a good old-fashioned American breakfast?" he asked in his usual tone of voice.
"Lots of foods count as American," Kaji pointed out.
"I've got eggs, bacon, sausage, batter for flapjacks, and vegetable oil so that no lard makes contact with the flapjacks, for Rei's sake. And I've got grits in the slow cooker over there." Harley gestured toward the table that also supported the bread and toaster.
"Everything you said sounds good," replied Kaji.
"Just bacon and eggs for me," said Misato.
Shinji thought for a moment. "You don't have anything for a Japanese style breakfast?"
"Sorry, Shinji, but I only know how to cook American style. I don't have a clue how to do an Eastern style breakfast."
Shinji's reply was, "Let’s see what you have to work with."
While Shinji was doing what he could with what he could find, Harley cooked some flapjacks and fried eggs and meat for the two other adults. Quietly, he said, "Misato, Kaji, there is something I need to explain to you that I think you don't realize quite yet, and unfortunately I have very little to prove it. I need to tell the adults before I tell the kids because it's going to be tougher for you to believe. Maybe Asuka will be a bit difficult to convince, but that's mostly because she never paid attention to her teacher’s lectures."
"We're not on our Earth, or at least not in one that followed our original history."
Harley blinked in surprise at Misato's reply. "Maybe it won't be so difficult to explain. What convinced you of that part of it?"
Kaji smiled. "We're standing right here right now. We're not swimming."
"Yeah, that's a pretty obvious sign. This world never saw Second Impact, there was never a Gehirn project, never a Human Instrumentality Project, no U.N. Council on the matter. No such field as metaphysical biology, either." Seeing the astonished looks on their faces out of the corner of his eye, he continued as he flipped Kaji's flapjack. "The fact of the matter is that to this world, your world is nothing more than a story written by a clinically depressed man who had a vision that was tragically cut short by idiot television producers when they forced him to wrap what should have been the third season up in a two-hour movie using minimum resources. It wasn't the first and it won't be the last, unfortunately."
Misato was speechless. Kaji was better prepared for that news, after his late-night talk with Shinji. "So what happened?"
"I'll loan you the DVD set I have of both the original and the remake," Harley replied. "Tomorrow, while the kids are ... doing something else."
"Remake?"
"Greed of course won out on the producers' part, and because the fandom has been building over the years they decided a few years ago to go back and redo the series in a series of movies. I haven't even watched the remake, it hasn't been finished yet, but the fan arguments that started not long after the third movie came out haven't been giving me hope.”
Misato finally got her brain back in gear. "Who was responsible?"
"Responsible for what?" Asuka asked from right behind the small group. "Good morning, Kaji!"
"Good morning, everyone," Hikari and Toji added.
Harley sighed. "Looks like I don't have time to talk any more. We've got eggs, bacon, sausage, flapjacks, and grits for breakfast this morning, plus whatever Shinji's managed to whip up. Who wants what?"
8:15 AM CT
Asuka grimaced as she listened to the entirety of Harley's explanation of why they were here, and just where "here" was. She remembered enough about uncertainty theory and probability theory from her Institute courses in Germany to make sense of it all - Asuka probably understood it better than Harley did - but she could tell just by looking at their faces that her classmates had no idea what he was saying.
Except for Shinji and Rei. Wondergirl was Wondergirl, so it was no surprise that she wasn't showing any emotions. But baka-Shinji? Something wasn't kosher. But that was a puzzle for another time, when she could get the two of them alone and ask questions.
She tuned Harley out and started exploring the "cellphone" that he'd provided for her before breakfast. What else was she going to do before they all piled into the minivan to go prowl the local mall?
Settling in with the device, she poked at the virtual buttons for a few minutes with her thumbs until a screen that she didn’t quite understand popped up. What was she supposed to do with just a text input box?
She noticed that Harley's explanation was over. She also noticed that most of her classmates were also playing with their phones, so she decided to ask. "Hey, Harley..."
"Yes, Asuka? What's wrong?"
"What's a 'Google'?"
9:47 AM CT
As the others got into the minivan, Rei cornered Harley. "You are holding back information."
Harley sighed. "I've told Shinji, I've told Kaji, I've told Misato, and now I'm telling you. We will talk about Third Impact tomorrow."
"I see no reason for the delay."
"Rei, look at your classmates. Everybody's having fun. Why ruin their day by bringing up bad memories? Tomorrow is soon enough."
She thought for a moment. "That is acceptable, as long as we have the conversation."
Pensacola, Florida, USA
10:44 AM CT
"This isn't a mall," Asuka griped as she, Hikari and Rei walked through the central thoroughfare of the mall again. "It's so small it would barely register as a shopping arcade in Tokyo-3."
"Soryu-san," Rei said softly, "I have looked at the maps of this region. This is not a large city and is obviously very spread out. This is likely all that the local population needs."
Asuka snorted, and Hikari shook her head, "Rei is right, Asuka," the class representative added. "These people don't exactly seem to be ..." at that point. Hikari struggled for the words to describe the situation. "They don't seem to be pretentious about how things are set up. They're very relaxed and relaxing."
"I am sure there is a logical reason for the way things are," Rei commented causing Hikari to nod. "I wonder what Lt. Ibuki is doing." Rei's apparent non-sequitur caused the other two girls to look the same direction Rei was facing only to see the back of Maya Ibuki going into a store across from FYE.
"Asuka, your English is better than mine," Hikari commented with a grimace at the admission, not realizing that she'd been speaking English fluently for nearly a full day. "What store is that?" Turning to look at her friend, Hikari could see the beat redness of the redhead's face.
"Oh, that would be Victoria's Secret," said Asuka with a slightly sharkish grin. "It's not a place for good little girls like you, Hikari. Unless you're not as much of a good little girl as you pretend to be. Although I must admit, I never figured Maya to be the type."
"Toji, we gotta go into this store!"
"What's got you all excited, Kensuke?"
"They sell wargames that we can play indoors!"
Toji took a look, and supposed that board games that simulated military battles were better than wargames played outside. There was less chance of getting hurt, for one thing. "I suppose..." Then he notice the price tags. "No. Look at that - a hundred bucks for a single tank."
"That's not so bad."
"That's American money. The equivalent of ten thousand yen."
"Oh..."
"And I'm not going to let my roommate spend that much money on a game when you don't have clean clothes to wear yet."
"Awwwwww..."
Kaji pushed his plate away. "Harley, you know some good people around here." The spy had just finished eating a large lunch of sushi and ramen from one of the mall restaurants and was pleasantly stuffed. "How do you know so many people around here?"
"Well, it helps that I grew up here. Also, since there are so very few things to do around here to pass one's dead time, you tend to talk and get to know people instead of just pass them by on the streets. Even if they don't ride. That said, while I know a few people in the area, I don't know everyone. And the strength of who I know is in each individual's strategic locations."
"So," Misato said, "it's not so much how many people you know but who you know that can help us."
"Somewhat," Harley answered. "Choosing lunch while the kids looked for things they needed was easy; Chuck is the best sushi chef in town and I've been eating at his place for years no matter where it's been. That said, there are some things, documents mostly, that you're going to need, that'll help you guys blend in. It's going to be difficult enough since most people are going to figure you and the kids for major geeks."
"Why do you say that, Harley?" Ritsuko asked. She'd left the lab coat at home and was wearing a pair of men's shorts (primarily for the pockets, it looked like) and an oversized t-shirt, but it was obvious that she wanted to change into the pantsuit that was in her shopping bags. "Is there something else we should know?"
Harley nodded. "Plenty, and I'll tell you all of it over the course of the next few weeks simply because dropping it on you all at once would be too much for me to explain, let alone for y'all to digest." He noticed that everyone else had finished their lunches, too. "That said, let's collect the kids and get the groceries so we can go back to the beach, I think we've inflicted enough damage on your benefactor's bank accounts for one day."
As the others gathered their purchases, Harley paid for the meal, making sure to tip well and make the busboy's job as easy as he could. Chuck liked Harley as a customer as much as Harley liked Chuck as a cook; they both knew that what goes around, comes around.
Shinji was carrying a bag with the basics of a wardrobe, added to what Harley had bought him the day before. He didn't really need anything colorful like a Hawaiian-style shirt; the white shirts he had were good enough.
He was looking at something more important than clothes. He couldn't cook with clothes.
The store had some basic items on sale, so he started with dinnerware service for six. While Shinji and Kaji could probably live with service for two, he knew they would end up inviting Misato, Rei, and Asuka over eventually. Also, the kitchen in their apartment really looked empty. Then he added a dish drainer and a washcloth, a "starter" set of knives, a small cutting board, a kettle, a wok, and a couple of bamboo steamers. He wanted more, but he could make do with what he had. Adding up the prices, he saw that he had just enough money left to cover everything.
But he'd forgotten about the sales tax.
Luckily, Kaji found him in the store before he had to put anything back. "Harley was just saying we'd spent enough of our benefactor's money for one day, so don't tell him that I helped you out," he whispered as he added a canister labelled "Tea" to the pile.
"Right. And thanks."
They had barely returned from the mall with their purchases when a small band of motorcyclists pulled up to the building and parked. Harley grimaced. Thanks to an email he'd gotten two days prior from Heather Raven in Philadelphia he'd known they were coming, and he'd prepared for their overnight stay. He didn't know the anime they came from, and figured he didn't need to just to play host for a night. But in all the excitement of the last day or so he'd forgotten to let his new residents know that there would be other displacees joining them for dinner and breakfast. Oh, well, nothing for it now.
He stepped out into the lot. "Welcome to Gulfside Rest," he called out. "I expect you'd be the Okanoue Girls High School Motorcycle Club? And butler?" he added with a nod to the elderly man who accompanied the girls. Harley hoped he'd pronounced that right.
"That's us!" replied a girl with a mop of curly black hair held back from her face by a white scarf tied into a headband. "I'm Onsa," she continued, "and this is Hane, Chisame, Rin, Lime, Hijiri, and Mister Hayakawa!" As she named them, each one acknowledged their name with a wave or a nod.
"I'm the manager here, Harley Waters," he said. He glanced over at the motorcycles. Nothing made by Harley-Davidson, he noted, nodding approvingly. "Oh, by the way, nice bikes," he added, which got him a chorus of "thank you"s from most everyone, and a silent bow over clasped hands from Lime. "Come on in, take a load off, and we'll get you set up with beds for the night."
"Oh, that would be wonderful," Hane, a sweet-faced brunette in jodhpurs and jacket, said. "We've been on the road all day, since Atlanta."
"Didn't help that the route sent us right through the middle of the city," groused Rin, a blonde in a pink one-piece riding suit with a prominent Suzuki "S" logo centered on her generous bustline. "What was so important that we had to go halfway around the Centennial Olympic Park and its amphitheater?" she demanded.
"I would not be surprised if it had added an hour to our travel time," Hayakawa noted placidly.
Harley waited patiently as they gathered up their rucksacks and backpacks while most of them griped and complained about the mysterious itinerary Heather had told him about. Only Hane and Lime, a girl with black pigtails who had yet to take off her helmet, didn't contribute. Behind him, he heard doors opening and realized the situation he was suddenly in.
"Ladies," he said quietly, then nodded to Hayakawa, "and gentleman, my tenants just arrived less than a day ago and I haven't been able to explain matters to them yet. They know something odd is going on, but I want to break the details to them gently. Can you please not mention your origins -- or theirs -- during your stay?"
They glanced among themselves, then Hane chirped "Sure!" which triggered a chorus of agreement. Lime said nothing, but gave a thumbs-up.
Onsa added, "You're our host -- what you say, goes."
Harley let out a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding. "Thank you." He looked over his shoulder to see the pilots and Misato approaching. "Time for introductions, then. Try not to react if you recognize them."
An hour later the Bakuon!! girls were lounging around Apartment 3's living room, talking with the Evangelion teens while the adults clustered closer to the kitchen to chat with Harley as he cooked. Dinner that night was fried potatoes and onions, a staple of Harley's, along with genuine Conecuh sausage on the side for the meat-eaters. It was something quick and easy to make, and allowed him to talk while he cooked.
It was obvious that at least some of the girls had recognized the Evangelion cast, but true to their promise they said nothing. Harley was thankful not only for that, but for how easily the two groups had blended. His own high school years weren't exactly typical by any measure, but he thought he remembered there being a lot more of a social divide between fourteen-year-olds and seventeen-year-olds. Apparently not here. The older girls were waxing enthusiastically about motorcycles and cycle touring, and the younger teens eagerly responded -- even Asuka, who seemed to want to be above the discussion even as she took part. And to his surprise both Rei and Shinji were more than just politely interested; he'd have to look into that later.
That one girl, Lime, still had yet to take her helmet off, though. What was up with that?
She still hadn't even as they ate dinner, and Harley was getting very curious. As the chatter about cycling and trips drew in the adults, and Harley shared his own experiences as a biker, he occasionally glanced her way. Every time he looked there was less food on her plate, but he never actually saw her eating anything. Nor, he realized, had he ever seen her holding a knife or fork, although they too were never in the same place twice. By the end of the dinner Lime's plate was empty, her utensils laid neatly atop it, and she was delicately wiping the bottom front of her helmet with a napkin. At that point he gave up trying to understand, suspecting that doing so might cost him what little sanity this job had left him with.
"Looks like everyone enjoyed dinner," he said instead, to vigorous agreement from all sides.
"That's been one of the best parts of this trip!" Hane exclaimed.
"Yeah," Chisame said. "All the delicious new food we've gotten to try along the way."
"Thank you for cooking," Hijiri said in a very formal manner.
"You're welcome," Harley replied as he began to gather the plates. "Now I normally close up between ten and ten-thirty, but until then you're free to stay here and talk, read or watch TV if you want. Oh, and I'd like to talk with the adults for a few hours tomorrow. Rei and Ritsuko each reminded me that I have to have a discussion about a few things, and I want to clear things with at least Misato before I talk to everybody."
"What are we going to do while you talk with the grown-ups?" Toji asked.
"We have a beach, right across the road. Have fun!"
The adults groaned; they wanted to have fun, too. Rei asked, "May I join you for your talk?"
Harley thought for a moment, then answered, "Sure. It was your idea." He winked at Shinji when he said that, and hoped that the teenager would get the hint that he was invited, too.
Gulfside Rest, Pensacola Beach, FL, USA
September 21, 2016
9:00 AM CT
The motorcycle girls left right after breakfast, but not before a round of goodbyes that included unexpected hugs for everyone who wanted one. Toji wasn't going to complain about that, but he was careful to not let any go on too long when Hikari was watching. Not that he got any long hugs, unlike the apartment manager (which was odd) and Shinji (which was odder). And after Shinji's second hug, the Demon made a fuss and hung back from everyone else.
With the goodbyes finished, they all got on their bikes -- the girl with the glasses jumping into the sidecar on the one driven by the butler -- and they all took off. "For Kissimmee!" Hane had said during breakfast. "The friend who arranged this trip got us all passes to Disney World!"
Which sounded cool, but for once Toji thought he was getting the better deal.
"What a view," Kensuke said, looking at the white sand of the beach and the bright blue waters of the Gulf of Mexico.
"You said it, buddy," Toji said beside him, the jock's gaze never leaving the swimsuited girls in front of them who had immediately broken into a run for the water as soon as it came into view.
"So nice," Kensuke added from beneath his own bundle of burdens. Harley had handed the group a cooler, two beach umbrellas, four beach towels, and all the little things that a trip to the beach requires. The cooler held a picnic lunch along with the selection of drinks, and Harley had also provided a trash bag for the debris that the contents of the cooler would generate. The problem, as far as Toji and Kensuke could tell, was that they as boys were the designated pack mules for the trip.
Their reverie was broken as Asuka yelled back to them, "Hey stooges, are you going to stand there all day or are you going to come down here and set things up?"
"When did we get designated as your servants?" Toji called back with a smile.
"Toji," Hikari called from the water's edge, "no arguments today, please. We have a marvellous, beautiful day to ourselves out here and I intend to enjoy it. So no fighting."
"All right, class rep," Toji answered with a sigh. "Just... get her to keep things civil, please."
Hikari nodded and then turned to the redhead. "Asuka, you know Toji doesn't like being bossed around," the class rep continued. "Please don't antagonize him; I want us all to enjoy this trip."
"All right, Hikari," Asuka replied. "Let's find a good spot and set up; the day isn't getting any longer."
The pigtailed brunette nodded and waved the boys toward the girls while looking up and down the beach itself, "What do you think about that spot over there?" she asked the rest of the group while pointing a slight bit to the west of where the boardwalk through the dunes let out onto the beach itself.
"We should be easy to find there," Toji commented. "Does anybody know why Shin-kun and Rei didn't come with us?"
As Toji asked that (and didn't get an answer), Shinji, Rei, Misato, Kaji, Ritsuko, Maya, and Harley were crowded into the latter's living room - which was quickly becoming the building's common room.
"The first thing we need to talk about," Harley announced, "is Third Impact."
"I remember it happening, and I remember that I had to decide what was going to happen to everybody," Shinji replied. "What do you remember, Rei?"
"All of it," she answered. "I hurt you by making you decide. I gave each individual exactly what they wanted in their existence. I destroyed the entirety of humanity and pooled what was left into one entity that had no sense of individuality."
Nobody else said anything for a long moment.
"I don't remember that much," said Kaji, finally. "I do remember my existence as an individual ending. What I don't remember is my existence as an individual starting again. That just... happened." The other adults, save for Harley, nodded in agreement.
"It's obvious from the way the other children have been behaving that none of them remember a thing about it," offered Ritsuko. "I suspect that they don't want to remember it. Humans want to remember good times and forget horrible times. There are several names for the condition; the kindest and most accurate, in my mind, is 'Selective Amnesia'."
"Are you saying we shouldn't tell them?" Misato asked.
"That might be the kindest course to take," suggested Maya.
Harley sighed. "Normally, I'd agree with you there. But your situation isn't normal."
"That's right," Shinji added. "The letter mentioned that you're familiar with my life in Tokyo-3."
"Letter? What letter?" Harley asked before Ritsuko could.
Shinji pulled it out of his pocket. "This letter. I got it when we first arrived here."
Kaji put his hand on Shinji's shoulder. "Maybe you should read it to everyone."
Shinji did so, adding, "I don't know who this 'Belldandy' person is."
"I do," said Kaji. "She's a goddess. A made-up goddess from a manga that I read when I was not much older than you, but still a goddess."
Harley nodded in agreement. "And she's as real as you and I are. That's the second thing that we need to talk about, and it ties in with why we can't leave the other children ignorant of Third Impact."
"You are implying that we are also made-up people," Rei stated tonelessly.
"I can believe that," Shinji said slowly.
Harley nodded. "I'm not implying it, I'm outright saying it. And from what I've heard from other people doing the same job as me, you aren't the only ones." He opened a box that he had pulled out of his collection earlier, and pulled a DVD from it. "Here's the proof: the TV series that was made about you." He kept talking as he loaded the disk into the player. "I'll give you five warnings before I start this. First, what you're about to see is what my world has been told has happened in your world. Each of you have your own perceptions of what occurred since Shinji's arrival in Tokyo-3, however this is probably the most impartial view of it all. That said, it is the vision of a clinically depressed mind, so it's going to be biased.
"Second, the entire story was written to destroy the entertainment tropes that had cropped up in the giant robot genre. The Oedipus complex, the hotshot-foreign-pilot love interest, a whole slew of other things.
"Third, since you lived this, you know the contexts of any decision you made in any scene that shows something where you are involved. I don't. Honestly, this mostly revolves around the children, but I figured that I could show you first and get your help in explaining these things to the children since you know them better than I do.
"Fourth, there will be scenes that will embarrass you, scenes that will show your deepest, darkest desires, and those times and reasons why you hate yourselves so much that you don't think you get to have any happiness. When you see them, remember to keep them in context, and if you're feeling particularly vulnerable about any of your memories from that world, now or while you're watching, be sure to discuss it amongst yourselves.
"Finally, and the reason why we can't keep this from the children, this isn't the only copy of the series in Pensacola Beach, let alone in Florida. There is no way we can keep them from finding out everything in the series, including how they died during Third Impact. Now, if you are ready, I'll start the show."
Nobody noticed Rei leaving partway through the fifth episode.
11:30 AM CT
Malcolm Reynolds was not panicking. Panicking would reflect manic action, at least motion, or maybe yelling to cause others to take action. Instead, he was laying on something soft but firm that moulded to his body, with Inara snuggled against him, and he was staring up at the edge of an umbrella and a bright blue sky beyond it.
"Cap'n?" he heard Jayne say off to his left.
"Yeah, Jayne?" he replied in a low voice, trying not to wake Inara.
"I thought Wash died when we was running from the Reavers to Mister Universe?" The question caused Mal to sit up, dumping Inara to the side as he looked around, first at Jayne, and then at the rest of his crew. Surprisingly, it was his entire crew, even the ones who had died. To his left, Jayne sat in a chair that he just barely fit into beyond where Wash and Zoe lay on a blanket under a large umbrella, spooned together. To his right, Kaylee and River were both snuggled up to Simon under another umbrella, Shepard Book asleep in a chair beyond them.
All around them was fine sand, dunes behind them and a beautiful blue expanse five meters in front of them. "Jayne, I'm afraid we might be dead." Mal said as the people around him started to stir. "Because this sure looks like Heaven to me."
"You are not dead," a calm voice said from behind them. Mal and Jayne shared a look and then looked behind them to find a blue-haired girl standing on the top of one of the dunes. "And while this is a public beach, I don't think the local authorities allow camping here."
Inara was grumbling beside him as he got up and shaded his eyes while looking at the girl. "You say we aren't dead," he replied, and the girl nodded. "But two of my crew who were dead are now here with us and healthy; how do you explain that?"
The girl smiled, "You were probably picked up by the same multidimensional confluence that deposited my friends and I here," she answered. "This means you are probably the other group of people our host was expecting.
"What the hell is it that she just said, Mal?" Jayne asked.
The blue-haired girl addressed the mercenary with a flat look on her face, "Someone with a lot of power had an accident that caused multiple realities to overlap, dumping you here."
Jayne, eloquent as ever, said, "Huh?"
The girl facepalmed in frustration, "God went oops, you were dropped in a world where you never really existed and are stuck here until they fix it."
"Oh," Jayne answered, "Is there someplace we can get something to eat nearby?"
"Oh God, Harley, turn it off." Misato buried her face in her hands.
"I sometimes forget how much we actually put those kids through," Kaji commented beside her while Harley stopped the DVD player and ejected the disk.
"I think we can leave it there for now," agreed Harley, sliding the disc into its sleeve. "But you need to see the rest of the series at some point." Setting the multi-disk case aside, he picked up a serving tray with almost enough glasses to go around. "Sorry, Shinji and Rei, you don't get one of these. Bourbon's only for the grown-ups... Where's Rei?"
The front door opened to reveal the girl in question... leading eight adults and an older teenager, all of whom Harley recognized as being from a series called Firefly. "I found them on the beach. Can we keep them?"
Harley downed his own glass in one drink. "I think we're going to have to take them in."
9:30 PM CT
Kaji and Misato were walking on the beach, much to Asuka's displeasure.
"That anime series..." Kaji couldn't finish. But he didn't need to.
All Misato said in response was "I wonder how much Maya knew. About the project that Commander Ikari was running under everyone else's noses and Ritsuko was helping him with."
"That's what you're worried about?"
"She is Ritsuko's assistant. But I didn't notice her acting oddly at all, back in Tokyo-3."
He took her hand in his, holding her as comfortingly as he could while in public. "You didn't have any reason to look."
They walked like that for a few minutes, neither saying anything.
September 22, 2016
9:30 AM CT
Kaji knocked on Harley's door. It didn't take long for the door to be opened.
"Kaji! What can I do for you?" Harley asked.
He held up the phone that Harley had given him. "The screen on this phone isn't very big. I'd like something larger for reading this world's 'internet'."
"I guess we can get you a proper computer and a desk to put it on. I think we can get you a desk at the Lowe's in Gulf Breeze, and if all you want to do is surf the web, one of the cheap laptops from the Walmart next door to Lowe's would be good enough."
So they headed into town, joined by Ritsuko after Kaji told them where they were going. Kaji picked up a Chromebook, Ritsuko bought a desktop computer, and they each bought flat-pack desks to put them on. "Looks like I've got to assemble some more furniture," Harley mock-complained.
Once they were back, Maya connected the computers to Harley's WiFi while Harley put together the desks. It was only then that they realized they'd forgotten to buy desk chairs.
"I'll just use a kitchen chair," Kaji offered before Ritsuko could ask to go out again.
"I suppose that'll do until we can get something better," she said grudgingly.
Once Kaji was alone - Shinji and the rest of the kids were enjoying the beach along with River - he decided to find out just how much the world knew about him.
He spent the next two hours reading EvaGeeks, and marked the site for further study.
Then he decided to find out whether there was anything on the internet about the people who had just moved in the day before. which lead him to spending another hour and a half reading "the Firefly and Serenity database" wiki.
Then he wondered whether it would be a good idea to find out who else was in this reality. Throwing caution to the winds, he searched for reports of fictional characters showing up in real places. There were more results than he expected.
And then he got his first email in this reality.
9:30 PM CT
Misato and Kaji's evening walks were becoming gossip fodder at Gulfside Rest - but they didn't care.
"You're not going to believe what I discovered today."
Misato raised one eyebrow. "I had a front-row seat for Second Impact. I can believe a lot."
"Okay. Do you remember a pre-Impact anime called Sailor Moon?"
"I loved that show! I really connected with the title character."
"She's in Ottawa. And so are her friends."
Misato blinked in surprise. "Okay, I wasn't expecting you to say that. How did you find that out?"
"That's even more unbelievable. I was sent an electronic mail message about it. There's a self-aware computer connected to the Internet in this world. It monitors the 'World Wide Web' that CERN invented back in 1991, looking for people like us, and when it saw I was doing the same searches, it got in touch with me."
"If I hadn't spent most of my recent life working with Ritsuko and the MAGI, I'd ask how much you've had to drink."
"Not a drop, I swear! Although I need a freakin' drink," Kaji admitted.
"Oh? Why?"
"That self-aware computer is out of a movie. It's HAL 9000."
"Really?"
"Really."
"Okay, now I need a freakin' drink, too."
--
Rob Kelk
Sticks and stones can break your bones,
But words can break your heart.
- unknown
Rob Kelk
Sticks and stones can break your bones,
But words can break your heart.
- unknown
