RE: [IC][Story] There's Nothing Better!
05-06-2018, 04:13 AM (This post was last modified: 05-06-2018, 06:43 PM by Labster.)
05-06-2018, 04:13 AM (This post was last modified: 05-06-2018, 06:43 PM by Labster.)
Of Channels and Canals
======================
Venice Beach, California
Thursday, September 16, 2016, 11:30 AM
"Now now, don't you think it's time to calm down? You've been angry for the entire walk home," I overheard Alicia say as she came up the steps to the first floor.
I glanced outside to the landing, and right behind her was Akira, looking right pissed off. "I know, I know, but every time I think about that man I get so angry!" she fumed.
Alicia gestured as if to hold something down. "Deep breaths, Akira. Deep breaths."
Akira obliged, taking four deep breaths while standing still outside on the east landing.
"All better?"
"Not one bit!"
"Ara ara ara," Alicia vocalized.
"The nerve! How could he say that to you, of all people!" Akira pounded her feet into the building, and announced quite loudly, "House meeting at noon. Everyone better come!" She looked at me, and said, "You too!" before storming off into her room to sulk for half an hour.
After standing there stunned for a moment, I asked Alicia, "Wow, what happened to her?"
"Akira and I… had a bad job interview."
"It sure sounds like it."
"It's been a long time since I've seen her this angry, but she'll get over it soon."
We decided to meet in No. 4, as Alicia had recently rescued a lovely set of carved wooden chairs from an antique shop, and thus was the only apartment yet to be able to provide seating for everyone.
It also provided us mortadella sandwiches on french rolls with some fresh grapes, thanks to the foresight of Alicia and Akari. After everyone's appetite was sated, we were finally able to get Alicia to discuss what happened earlier.
She explained, "So this morning, we went to talk to the harbormaster. He was a pleasant man, a sheriff in fact. I explained that we planned to operate a gondola service. He told us that there is no gondola guild here, and that we're free to start taking on clients on our own terms, once we obtain a simple business license."
"He also explained that there was already a gondola service in Marina del Rey. So we decided to check out the place, and see if we could work for that company. Unfortunately, I don't believe any such arrangement will be possible."
"Why not?" Athena asked.
Akira answered it, "Because the man there thinks only men can be gondoliers."
"What?" Alice blurted. "That's so lame."
"He told Alicia that he only hired men with the strength to be real gondoliers, not actresses researching a part."
"What the!" Akia slammed both hands down on the table. "How dare he! To say that to Alicia! To you too, Akira!"
"Now now," Alicia explained, "Thank you for your support, but I'm confident in my own abilities. And in all of yours, as well."
Akira took a deep breath, and managed to stay silent this time.
"So…" Aika asked, "Where does that leave us?"
"I guess we can just start up our old companies here." Alice said.
"It's kind of weird to compete when there's only the six of us."
Akira said, "Afraid of losing to Himeya, pigtails?"
Akari's face went blank. "Not really, but now I am?"
Athena was blunt: "Haven't you missed us, Akira?"
Akira's eyebrows disappeared under her chestnut bangs. "I suppose it can't be helped, we'll need to work together." The younger set looked pretty ecstatic about this idea, jumping up and down, while the adults looked at each other with a smile.
Aika proudly declared, "As heir to Himeya, I welcome you to my company."
"Wait, aren't you going to work for Orange Planet with everyone else?" Alice asked.
Alicia said, "I thought you were going to work for Aria Company."
It became clear pretty fast that we had a 2-2-2 tie for the winning company name, at which point a lot of eyeballs turned to me. I reasoned, "Orange Planet doesn't even make sense on Earth, and Himeya probably won't catch on with Americans," I reasoned. "But Aria Company… that sounds just about right."
"Meh. Makes sense, I guess," Alice assented.
"President Aria, you have the final say. Should we hire these four to Aria Company?" Alicia asked the white-furred cat.
"Punyuu!!!"
I started clapping, and so did Alicia, which made everyone else a little self-conscious.
Aika said tentatively, "This is a good plan and all, but I don't have to start wearing blue uniforms now, do I? It's really not my color."
Alice concluded, "We even don't have any extra uniforms, dummy."
"While I have everyone here, can I deal with a few things before you leave?" No one said anything, so I continued, "First, do any of you know how to drive a car?"
"Uh yeah, you just get in and enter the address into the screen." Aika gave me her best "no duh" look.
"I don't have one of those. I mean the kind where you steer and pedal the brake. Can anyone do that?"
"That sounds really hard~." Akari's face went blank.
"Can't you get a better car?" Aika asked.
"Uh, we don't actually have those yet. We'll probably get those in ten years or so. But for now, all of self-driving cars are prototypes."
"None of us know how to drive a manual," Akira said. I assumed she meant automatics too. "Can't we just get around by train and boat?"
"Well, Los Angeles is to cars as Venice is to gondolas. This is the city that fell in love with cars. So if you want to get anywhere in a reasonable amount of time, you'll need to drive, or take a bus or taxi."
"This century is gigantically stupid," remarked Alice.
"I heard that. So if anyone wants to learn how to drive, I'd be happy to teach them."
For a moment, they were mumbling to each other, until Athena stepped up, "Brent, I think I would like to learn."
"Great! We'll set up a time."
I continued, "The next thing is that Alice here is only sixteen years old, which means that she needs to be in school."
"Can't I skip it? I was just about to graduate from middle school."
"The law here is that you have to go to school until you turn eighteen."
"This century is gigantically stupid." Alice scowled.
"Yeah, I thought you might say that, so I looked into it. If you have a job -- like for a gondola company -- you can get away with only four hours of school a week. It's called 'continuation school'. The school year just started a couple of weeks ago. You can probably catch up no problem, Alice. Just uh, try not to mention "this century" or history that hasn't happened yet. Don't want you to be the Mysterious Transfer Student."
She rolled her eyes at me.
"With that attitude, I think you'll fit in with American teenagers just fine," I deadpanned.
"Wait a second, aren't you still seventeen, Akari?" Aika asked.
"Hehehe, only for a few months more. I'm getting an early birthday!" Indeed, while her birthday was coming up at the end of January, she had just skipped three months in the move between worlds.
Aika stood up, and walked over behind Alicia and Akira. "OK, I'm going to go be with my fellow adults over here."
"Awwww." Akari waved goodbye meekly.
"Actually, you're old enough that you can take the high school equivalency test and skip school. It sounds hard, but it's actually super easy, probably the same level as a high school entrance exam. But uh, how's your American history?"
"Ano..."
"When did the United States become a country?"
"Eto, the Meiji era?" Akari tried.
"Oy vey," I said. "You'll need a little help there."
"Eh? Am I undereducated?"
"Tragically so," Aika quipped.
"Eeeehhh?"
"Don't worry about it," I reassured her. "My grandmother never finished middle school, and she's one of the smartest people I know. But if you want a job that doesn't involve rowing a gondola, you might want to consider more education. Santa Monica College is really close, and doesn't have admission requirements. So all of you adults like Aika can start taking classes there in the winter, if you choose. Maybe some business classes would be helpful?"
"Hmmm, interesting." Alicia was obviously considering the idea.
"They have music classes too, Athena."
Her eyes perked up at that idea. "Ah."
"And if any of you need help, I can tutor you. I've tutored in math up to calculus, chemistry, physics, English — and also meteorology, astronomy, and sociology."
"Whoa." Akari was clearly impressed.
"Why are you even here? Can't you get a real job?" Akia teased.
I squinted back, "A wise man once said, 'It's the economy, stupid.'"
-------------
Now that things were beginning to settle down, and the internet service was started for the bottom floor, I took some time to look at the forum for the apartment managers that was set up by my company.
And holy shit, they all had other fictional characters in their complexes. It seemed that this whole job had some sort of connection to a dimensional crisis, and there were goddesses already involved. This was when I started to worry that I was in way over my head here.
On the other hand, the tenants from planet Aqua were pretty normal, all said and done. It could be worse. If I was running Ben's apartment complex, I might find myself inexplicably falling in love with Tenchi Masaki.
Yeah, I worried about falling into a harem, because all of the other questions were more worrisome: who's really in charge of the multiverse? Why are these people showing up in our universe? If they can come here, what's the nature of reality? Or even of writing? Was the moon landing a myth, but also real because it was on TV?
And honestly, what on Earth was I going to tell my tenants? I still didn't really know how they got here, or how they could get home. I didn't even know where to start. They claimed to have accidentally emigrated on a magical space train; even going that far, would they even believe what I had to say?
All of this started to seem plain crazy. What the other people are writing on the apartment forum sounds like some made-up story or just crazy rantings. It's all seems crazy, until you're staring Akari Mizunashi in the face.
Which, of course, I was unintentionally doing. Akari just came over to my room beseeching help. "Can you help me connect my laptop to the wireless network?" She pulled out her laptop, a small titanium gray device, its keycaps marked with both romaji and hiragana. It had a screen shaped like an elongated hexagon, which made me wonder a bit about how to design a hexagonal UI. But hey, not to worry if the monitor ran out of space, because a small holographic projector above the screen projected a couple of extra windows above. In short, future tech.
That said, interfaces didn't seem to have evolved too much in the past hundred years... and the command line was bash-compatible. Now that, I can work with. I fiddled around with the settings a bit, as Akari watched nervously behind me. Eventually, I found my problem, looking at the wireless driver settings.
"802.11wf?" I stated, as if I had said '802.11 WTF' instead.
"It's no good?"
"I think your laptop is maybe too advanced for, well, everything. Let me ask some of my friends if they can figure out what's going on here."
"Will that work?"
"With computers, all you need is enough time and you can solve any problem." Well, I hoped. Didn't I see someone making a voice call to Earth in Aria? I hoped the laptop's wifi used ordinary EM spectrum, and not something dumb like tachyons.
In any case, it looked like I had a use for this apartment managers' forum after all.
Friday, September 17, 2016
The sun rose the next morning to another beautiful summer day. Along the Southern California coast, early summer is usually cool and cloudy, subjected to the May Gray, June Gloom, and rarely the July Gray-Sky. But this was turning out to be one of those pleasant days in the late summer and early autumn, where the sky and ocean shared a brilliant blue hue.
Of course, I wasn't awake to see the sun rise, having set my alarm to wake me at the still-ungodly hour of nine. Alicia wanted to go through the remodel plan with me in the morning, and I sure needed the help.
She showed up outside my room just on time, wearing a cheap set of drugstore reading glasses in front of her blue eyes.
"Thanks for offering to help!"
"It's no problem at all. I just decided that if we're going to live here, we might as well make it really nice."
"Well, thank you. And wait, are you saying that this place is a dump?" I smiled.
Alicia giggled a little.
"We do need to get this place in livable shape, and fast. I'm not sure, but I get the feeling that we might get more... travelers, like you."
"I see. Of course. Maybe by solving our issues, we can prepare for more tenants better. There are some issues that we'd like to address, like the quality of the appliances, and the issue of the bidets."
"Oh, right, bidets. I'm not sure about the plumbing, and—"
We were about to sit down, when we heard the piercing beep of a truck's backup alarm. We looked out the window to see the front of a pickup with some sort of trailer making a couple passes to parallel park next to the apartment. We headed downstairs to get a better look at exactly what was going on.
What stood along the alley, just under the southern balconies of our building was a trailer bearing a thirty-foot long wooden gondola, covered by three tarpaulins.
A short black woman with long, natural hair got out of the large truck, which had just finished parallel parking the boat trailer. She called in her Texan accent, "Is Alicia Florence or, uh," she read the form a little more carefully, "Akira Ferrari one of y'all?"
All of the tenants were downstairs by now, so Alicia and Akira dutifully went to sign receipt of the boat.
"Oh, that's right, I've got a letter for you too. She opened up her posse box holding the form, and pulled out an embossed envelope. "Someone really likes you gals."
Akira answered, "Oh, you know men, always trying to make up for things with their gifts."
The deliverywoman let out a belly laugh at that, "Heck, wish I could find me one of them that'd buy me a make-up boat!" She started unhitching the boat while I helped the younger undines in removing the ropes and covers on the gondola. A couple of minutes later, she drove off in her truck, leaving us one gondola richer.
Meanwhile, Alicia read the letter aloud:
"Freaking sweet!" said Aika, with her characteristic grin.
"An authentic gondola of Venezia, here in Venice. Wow!"
"Are you sure about that, Akari?" Alicia quizzed.
"Hm..." she looked over the craft, "Oh, wait, you're right. I guess I still have a lot to learn to become a prima," Akari said as she scratched her head abashedly.
"Huh? What is it?" Aika asked.
"Look at the prow. There are nine rebbi instead of six." I looked too, and saw that Akari was right -- it looked like there were too many tines on the front of the boat.
"That's really weird," Alice said.
"Why would someone do that?" Aika's question was seeking an answer, but simultaneously rhetorical because she didn't expect one.
"Is that a number associated with this city?"
I answered, "Not that I know of. I can't really think of a number that represents our city. Maybe three-one-oh? It's an area code. For phone numbers." They looked at me like I was from another planet. "Yeah I don't get people either."
Alicia stepped up to the boat, and started inspecting the craft closely. "It looks like it's in pretty good shape, for how long it's been sitting around. I'm not seeing any dry rot."
Aika blew at the thick layer of dust atop the gondola's seat, causing a brown cloud to drift in Alice's direction.
"Hey!" Alice coughed. "Watch what you're doing."
Aika stared at Alice across the gondola for a few seconds. Then she blew again in the same direction, even harder this time.
Alice's skin tone roughly matched the color of Athena's; her eyes finally reopened when the dust cleared. "Ok, that's it, I'm gonna get you!" Alice chased Aika counterclockwise around the boat for next couple of minutes, while the rest of us focused on inspecting the boat itself (and avoiding getting hit by the running girls).
Akira was examining the hull. "What's this black stuff? Where in the world did Sebastian take this boat?" The boat itself was painted the traditional black, but an even darker layer of soot lay affixed to the bottom of the hull, giving it a stygian hue.
Akira finally tired of the squabble and grabbed Aika and Alice by the collar, one by one, as they passed. With a scowl on her face, she roared, "Looks like you two have plenty of energy for cleaning, so get to it!"
Alicia looked to Akari, adding, "If you please?"
"Hai!"
And so with cleaning tools and buckets scavenged from inside the house, the junior team set to scrubbing down their new gondola in the alley behind the apartment; the only interruption to their task was an intramural water fight with the garden hoses.
By the time lunch time rolled around, I came back downstairs with the primas to see how things had progressed. Although they gave the impression of leaving the hard work the their trainees, I had seen them work just as hard on the task of decorating their rooms upstairs. But as I saw in the anime, the art of the prima undine was to make the difficult task of rowing look effortless, a quality they brought to all of their work.
Alicia walked out first, bearing a box of sandwiches. "Okay girls, break time. Who's hungry for sandwiches?"
Akari raised her hand, which made the rest of the washing crew follow suit. And Athena too, for that matter, whose stomach emitted a low rumble.
As we sat atop a floral print blanket on the next parking space over, while everyone was eating, Alicia said, "It looks like you did a good job." She turned to Akira, "Does she look ready to float?"
Akira responded with a teasing tone, "Hmm... I'm not sure. Well, let's ask a potential customer, as they are the most important judges of our service. What do you think, Brent? Would you pay for a ride in this gondola?"
I looked it over. The boat looked like a proper gondola now, rather than a relic of the 1800s. Much better. "With you? Any day of the week," I said.
Akira made a Mona Lisa smile, Akari gave a wide grin, and Alicia simply giggled. "Sounds like our customer approves, Akira."
We finished eating, and decided that there was no time like the present for gondola launches. I hopped in my truck, and lined up to hitch the boat, poorly. After maneuvering the truck forwards and backwards a few times, I eventually managed to get the trailer ball positioned right.
Alice asked, "Are you sure you've done this before?"
"Yes, and I'm still terrible at it." Actually hitching the boat trailer was the easy part, taking only about a minute to drop the hitch, link a chain, and plug in the light cord. The prima undines all hopped into my truck, with Athena and Alicia squeezed uncomfortably into the back seat.
"Okay, we're off to the boat launch," Akira called over the roar of the white Ford F-150's engine.
"We'll meet you on the canals!" Akia called back.
A quick drive to the other side of Marina del Rey, right next door to Venice Beach, it took less than ten minutes to get to the boat launch. Not many people were here today, so I started lining up the trailer with the water line almost immediately.
Akira reasoned, "I suppose it makes the most sense for Alicia to try it first."
Alicia nodded. Going by the manga, Alicia was the virtuosa gondoliera, a prodigy of the nautical aspects of being an undine. It was her oar-work and graceful boat control that cemented her status a one of the Three Water Fairies of Neo Venezia.
"I'd like to get out try it out, too," Athena added.
"It's really tight back there, isn't it?" I asked. Athena made her confounded face, which was even funnier in reality than it was in anime linework. This truck was not going to cut it for transporting all of these people in the long term, but it was the right tool for the job now.
Everyone got out of the car, and all three undines hopped up into the gondola. I started rolling the trailer slowly into the water. And… it floated!
"We have a gondola!" Alicia started clapping, and then all of us joined in.
Athena untied all of the ropes, and Alicia took up her post standing at the stern of the boat. The blonde took the gondola on a quick loop around the dock with graceful strokes of the oar, as if she could move the 700 kilogram boat without any effort at all. It was just beautiful. As she came back around, she called out to me, "It handles wonderfully! We'll meet you back in the canals."
I pulled up the ramp, secured the straps and ropes, and raced back to the apartment.
After I parked, I walked across a couple blocks to the canals. About a block or so "upstream" the junior undines were hanging out, so I went over to join them. "Why are you all hanging out here?"
"Hi Brent! Akari convinced the owners to let us berth here. I take it the gondola is in good shape?"
"The gondola split into four pieces, there were no survivors," I deadpanned.
"Ridiculous remarks are forbidden."
It didn't take long for our gondola to start making its way up the Grand Canal, a long, mostly straight natural waterway of the former Ballona wetlands. This end of it was lined with a mix of two and three-story houses, but past the wide concrete bridge for Washington Boulevard was a primary school and a few more apartment buildings. Alice was the first to spot the gondola, pointing past the bridge and uttering a simple, "There."
As she emerged from under the bridge, Athena, who was now the gondolier, waved to us -- and we all waved back.
And that was when Akari started crying, still wearing a wide smile on her face. "I thought that -- I thought that everything was lost because of me -- for all of you."
"No, Akari," Aika interjected.
"It's okay now, you see. That's our old life, coming up the canal to meet us." Akari drew all of us into a group hug, even me. "Everything's going to be okay now." Tears were streaming down her face.
With wide eyes, Alice said, "Yes, it really is."
President Aria summarized, "Punyuu!"
"Why am I crying now?" Aika complained.
By the time the gondola arrived, everyone had gathered their composure. They moored the boat next to the rose-colored house, and disembarked.
"It moves like a dream," Athena said.
Alicia agreed, "It's in excellent shape."
Akari begged, "Our turn?"
"I'm afraid not; how can I offer our only gondola to trainees when Akira has a customer waiting?" Alicia gestured at me.
"Huh?" Akira stared into Alicia's smiling eyes.
Alicia giggled.
Akira sighed, then boarded the gondola.
"Ah!" Aika's interest was piqued. Somehow, saying that I was just making a joke earlier didn't seem like the best idea right now.
Akira held out her hand, a practiced gesture that was still warm and inviting. "Please take my hand as you step aboard, sir." I did just that. Somehow, it didn't even seem like a joke any more.
---
Akira piloted the boat up the Grand Canal, to the waters she hadn't yet navigated. It didn't make much difference to an experienced undine like herself, shallow waters like these were nothing to worry about. Especially in the absence of other boat traffic.
"What do you think of our canals?" I asked her.
"Strange. But not in a bad way. Just unfamiliar."
She rowed on for perhaps twenty more strokes, before adding, "I haven't faced anything this unfamiliar since I was still a Single. But, you know, it feels good to face a new challenge."
We passed a rowboat and a canoe tied up in front of a house, which bobbed just the slightest bit in our wake. "I'm glad you're enjoying yourself, Akari."
---
"Normally, I would tell my passenger about all of the sights they were seeing, but I'm afraid I know so little about these waters." Akira's smooth and steady stroke refuted that statement -- she knew plenty about the waters, it was the shore she knew little about. "Would you care to tell me about this city?"
"Well, I don't know a whole lot, I didn't grow up here," I began. "These canals all started because a land developer called Abbot Kinney traveled to Europe, fell in love with Venice, and decided to turn some of this swampland into a tourist attraction. I imagine the story was the same in Neo Venezia. Anyway, Kinney had all of these canals dug, built a pier to attract tourists.
"All that was before cars took over Southern California. Then they started filling up the canals to turn them into streets. Ended up filling in most of them."
"What a shame!"
"That's Los Angeles as it used to be, always looking forward, without thinking about what came before. Anyway, about the time I was born, people started wanting to save the canals, because they made the place special. And, as you can see, lots of fancy homes are here now, so they must have done something right."
---
Akira's easy stroke propelled us through the Howland Canal, making but the smallest of splashes. It was quiet in the heart of Venice's canal district, until a passing seagull decided to let out series of loud cries.
"He must be looking for some friends," Akira posited.
"More likely looking for some chum."
"Heh, so he is."
"You are different on the water," I said. "More calm and composed."
"So are you."
I thought on it a few seconds before replying, "Got me there. We have so much to do back at the apartment."
Sensing my mood becoming more stressful, Akira added, "When I'm in a gondola, I'm able to let go of all of those things on land, and just live in the moment. There are so many things to worry about, but out here it's just the water and the sun and the clouds, and I move forward one stroke at a time."
"So, it's not just because you're really good at this, Crimson Rose?"
Akari laughed. "It will be good for everyone else to get some time on the water. They all love the gondola -- almost as much as me!"
Now it was my turn to laugh. "They can't compete, can they?"
"Nope, but they can try!" She twirled her oar like a quarterstaff, striking at imaginary opponents.
The thought crossed my mind that maybe Alicia asked Akira to take me out as the first customer because she was the one who needed it the most. Maybe I did too. Or maybe Alicia was just being nice. All I know is that if I asked her, all I'd get is a giggle in reply -- or if I really pressed her, an "ara ara".
---
A passenger jet taking off from LAX banked across the sky in front of me, turning all the way around to fly over the land.
"You know, I haven't taken a customer in a black gondola for a long, long time. It brings back memories."
"Why's that?"
"In Neo Venezia, prima undines ride in white gondolas; the black gondolas are reserved for single undines. It's so that our customers know what they're paying for."
"I always thought all gondolas were black."
"In old— well, in Venezia, gondolas are black because the water is dirty. On Aqua, it's a sign of the purity of our water in Neo Venezia."
"You know, you're rowing through muddy seawater. This used to be a swamp."
Akira nodded, and kept rowing. "Maybe we'll use the tradition of black gondolas in California."
"Probably a good call."
---
I leaned back in the seat a bit, and looked at the nearly clear sky, with only a few long contrails coming across. It was a beautiful day with a kind sun, casting enough light to make your skin feel warm. But then a little gust of salt air would come up from the ocean to cool you right back down. Growing up in a beach city, I almost never notice the smell of salt in the air any more, but I noticed it then.
I noticed lots of things I don't normally notice, like sound of the soft splash of the water against the sides of the gondola. I saw the intricate patterns chiseled into the black wood covering the forward end of the gondola, right below the curved bow. We passed by a bush in full bloom, covered with deep red roses. And of course, I saw the tall, strong woman in white behind me, rowing the gondola with a joyful smile.
And I never pulled my phone out of my pocket the entire time.
---
By the time we returned to our newly adopted mooring place along the canal, it seems that everyone had already gone home, so Akira and I walked back to the apartment together.
"We never decided what the fare was, did we. I'm supposed to be your customer, right?"
"It's not important. I don't even know what we'll charge," Akira shrugged. "You've done a lot for us already."
"I know, but that was really special. I feel like I owe you something."
She thought about it for a while, and then her countenance suddenly turned grumpy.
"How about a installing a bidet already?"
======================
Venice Beach, California
Thursday, September 16, 2016, 11:30 AM
"Now now, don't you think it's time to calm down? You've been angry for the entire walk home," I overheard Alicia say as she came up the steps to the first floor.
I glanced outside to the landing, and right behind her was Akira, looking right pissed off. "I know, I know, but every time I think about that man I get so angry!" she fumed.
Alicia gestured as if to hold something down. "Deep breaths, Akira. Deep breaths."
Akira obliged, taking four deep breaths while standing still outside on the east landing.
"All better?"
"Not one bit!"
"Ara ara ara," Alicia vocalized.
"The nerve! How could he say that to you, of all people!" Akira pounded her feet into the building, and announced quite loudly, "House meeting at noon. Everyone better come!" She looked at me, and said, "You too!" before storming off into her room to sulk for half an hour.
After standing there stunned for a moment, I asked Alicia, "Wow, what happened to her?"
"Akira and I… had a bad job interview."
"It sure sounds like it."
"It's been a long time since I've seen her this angry, but she'll get over it soon."
We decided to meet in No. 4, as Alicia had recently rescued a lovely set of carved wooden chairs from an antique shop, and thus was the only apartment yet to be able to provide seating for everyone.
It also provided us mortadella sandwiches on french rolls with some fresh grapes, thanks to the foresight of Alicia and Akari. After everyone's appetite was sated, we were finally able to get Alicia to discuss what happened earlier.
She explained, "So this morning, we went to talk to the harbormaster. He was a pleasant man, a sheriff in fact. I explained that we planned to operate a gondola service. He told us that there is no gondola guild here, and that we're free to start taking on clients on our own terms, once we obtain a simple business license."
"He also explained that there was already a gondola service in Marina del Rey. So we decided to check out the place, and see if we could work for that company. Unfortunately, I don't believe any such arrangement will be possible."
"Why not?" Athena asked.
Akira answered it, "Because the man there thinks only men can be gondoliers."
"What?" Alice blurted. "That's so lame."
"He told Alicia that he only hired men with the strength to be real gondoliers, not actresses researching a part."
"What the!" Akia slammed both hands down on the table. "How dare he! To say that to Alicia! To you too, Akira!"
"Now now," Alicia explained, "Thank you for your support, but I'm confident in my own abilities. And in all of yours, as well."
Akira took a deep breath, and managed to stay silent this time.
"So…" Aika asked, "Where does that leave us?"
"I guess we can just start up our old companies here." Alice said.
"It's kind of weird to compete when there's only the six of us."
Akira said, "Afraid of losing to Himeya, pigtails?"
Akari's face went blank. "Not really, but now I am?"
Athena was blunt: "Haven't you missed us, Akira?"
Akira's eyebrows disappeared under her chestnut bangs. "I suppose it can't be helped, we'll need to work together." The younger set looked pretty ecstatic about this idea, jumping up and down, while the adults looked at each other with a smile.
Aika proudly declared, "As heir to Himeya, I welcome you to my company."
"Wait, aren't you going to work for Orange Planet with everyone else?" Alice asked.
Alicia said, "I thought you were going to work for Aria Company."
It became clear pretty fast that we had a 2-2-2 tie for the winning company name, at which point a lot of eyeballs turned to me. I reasoned, "Orange Planet doesn't even make sense on Earth, and Himeya probably won't catch on with Americans," I reasoned. "But Aria Company… that sounds just about right."
"Meh. Makes sense, I guess," Alice assented.
"President Aria, you have the final say. Should we hire these four to Aria Company?" Alicia asked the white-furred cat.
"Punyuu!!!"
I started clapping, and so did Alicia, which made everyone else a little self-conscious.
Aika said tentatively, "This is a good plan and all, but I don't have to start wearing blue uniforms now, do I? It's really not my color."
Alice concluded, "We even don't have any extra uniforms, dummy."
"While I have everyone here, can I deal with a few things before you leave?" No one said anything, so I continued, "First, do any of you know how to drive a car?"
"Uh yeah, you just get in and enter the address into the screen." Aika gave me her best "no duh" look.
"I don't have one of those. I mean the kind where you steer and pedal the brake. Can anyone do that?"
"That sounds really hard~." Akari's face went blank.
"Can't you get a better car?" Aika asked.
"Uh, we don't actually have those yet. We'll probably get those in ten years or so. But for now, all of self-driving cars are prototypes."
"None of us know how to drive a manual," Akira said. I assumed she meant automatics too. "Can't we just get around by train and boat?"
"Well, Los Angeles is to cars as Venice is to gondolas. This is the city that fell in love with cars. So if you want to get anywhere in a reasonable amount of time, you'll need to drive, or take a bus or taxi."
"This century is gigantically stupid," remarked Alice.
"I heard that. So if anyone wants to learn how to drive, I'd be happy to teach them."
For a moment, they were mumbling to each other, until Athena stepped up, "Brent, I think I would like to learn."
"Great! We'll set up a time."
I continued, "The next thing is that Alice here is only sixteen years old, which means that she needs to be in school."
"Can't I skip it? I was just about to graduate from middle school."
"The law here is that you have to go to school until you turn eighteen."
"This century is gigantically stupid." Alice scowled.
"Yeah, I thought you might say that, so I looked into it. If you have a job -- like for a gondola company -- you can get away with only four hours of school a week. It's called 'continuation school'. The school year just started a couple of weeks ago. You can probably catch up no problem, Alice. Just uh, try not to mention "this century" or history that hasn't happened yet. Don't want you to be the Mysterious Transfer Student."
She rolled her eyes at me.
"With that attitude, I think you'll fit in with American teenagers just fine," I deadpanned.
"Wait a second, aren't you still seventeen, Akari?" Aika asked.
"Hehehe, only for a few months more. I'm getting an early birthday!" Indeed, while her birthday was coming up at the end of January, she had just skipped three months in the move between worlds.
Aika stood up, and walked over behind Alicia and Akira. "OK, I'm going to go be with my fellow adults over here."
"Awwww." Akari waved goodbye meekly.
"Actually, you're old enough that you can take the high school equivalency test and skip school. It sounds hard, but it's actually super easy, probably the same level as a high school entrance exam. But uh, how's your American history?"
"Ano..."
"When did the United States become a country?"
"Eto, the Meiji era?" Akari tried.
"Oy vey," I said. "You'll need a little help there."
"Eh? Am I undereducated?"
"Tragically so," Aika quipped.
"Eeeehhh?"
"Don't worry about it," I reassured her. "My grandmother never finished middle school, and she's one of the smartest people I know. But if you want a job that doesn't involve rowing a gondola, you might want to consider more education. Santa Monica College is really close, and doesn't have admission requirements. So all of you adults like Aika can start taking classes there in the winter, if you choose. Maybe some business classes would be helpful?"
"Hmmm, interesting." Alicia was obviously considering the idea.
"They have music classes too, Athena."
Her eyes perked up at that idea. "Ah."
"And if any of you need help, I can tutor you. I've tutored in math up to calculus, chemistry, physics, English — and also meteorology, astronomy, and sociology."
"Whoa." Akari was clearly impressed.
"Why are you even here? Can't you get a real job?" Akia teased.
I squinted back, "A wise man once said, 'It's the economy, stupid.'"
-------------
Now that things were beginning to settle down, and the internet service was started for the bottom floor, I took some time to look at the forum for the apartment managers that was set up by my company.
And holy shit, they all had other fictional characters in their complexes. It seemed that this whole job had some sort of connection to a dimensional crisis, and there were goddesses already involved. This was when I started to worry that I was in way over my head here.
On the other hand, the tenants from planet Aqua were pretty normal, all said and done. It could be worse. If I was running Ben's apartment complex, I might find myself inexplicably falling in love with Tenchi Masaki.
Yeah, I worried about falling into a harem, because all of the other questions were more worrisome: who's really in charge of the multiverse? Why are these people showing up in our universe? If they can come here, what's the nature of reality? Or even of writing? Was the moon landing a myth, but also real because it was on TV?
And honestly, what on Earth was I going to tell my tenants? I still didn't really know how they got here, or how they could get home. I didn't even know where to start. They claimed to have accidentally emigrated on a magical space train; even going that far, would they even believe what I had to say?
All of this started to seem plain crazy. What the other people are writing on the apartment forum sounds like some made-up story or just crazy rantings. It's all seems crazy, until you're staring Akari Mizunashi in the face.
Which, of course, I was unintentionally doing. Akari just came over to my room beseeching help. "Can you help me connect my laptop to the wireless network?" She pulled out her laptop, a small titanium gray device, its keycaps marked with both romaji and hiragana. It had a screen shaped like an elongated hexagon, which made me wonder a bit about how to design a hexagonal UI. But hey, not to worry if the monitor ran out of space, because a small holographic projector above the screen projected a couple of extra windows above. In short, future tech.
That said, interfaces didn't seem to have evolved too much in the past hundred years... and the command line was bash-compatible. Now that, I can work with. I fiddled around with the settings a bit, as Akari watched nervously behind me. Eventually, I found my problem, looking at the wireless driver settings.
"802.11wf?" I stated, as if I had said '802.11 WTF' instead.
"It's no good?"
"I think your laptop is maybe too advanced for, well, everything. Let me ask some of my friends if they can figure out what's going on here."
"Will that work?"
"With computers, all you need is enough time and you can solve any problem." Well, I hoped. Didn't I see someone making a voice call to Earth in Aria? I hoped the laptop's wifi used ordinary EM spectrum, and not something dumb like tachyons.
In any case, it looked like I had a use for this apartment managers' forum after all.
Friday, September 17, 2016
The sun rose the next morning to another beautiful summer day. Along the Southern California coast, early summer is usually cool and cloudy, subjected to the May Gray, June Gloom, and rarely the July Gray-Sky. But this was turning out to be one of those pleasant days in the late summer and early autumn, where the sky and ocean shared a brilliant blue hue.
Of course, I wasn't awake to see the sun rise, having set my alarm to wake me at the still-ungodly hour of nine. Alicia wanted to go through the remodel plan with me in the morning, and I sure needed the help.
She showed up outside my room just on time, wearing a cheap set of drugstore reading glasses in front of her blue eyes.
"Thanks for offering to help!"
"It's no problem at all. I just decided that if we're going to live here, we might as well make it really nice."
"Well, thank you. And wait, are you saying that this place is a dump?" I smiled.
Alicia giggled a little.
"We do need to get this place in livable shape, and fast. I'm not sure, but I get the feeling that we might get more... travelers, like you."
"I see. Of course. Maybe by solving our issues, we can prepare for more tenants better. There are some issues that we'd like to address, like the quality of the appliances, and the issue of the bidets."
"Oh, right, bidets. I'm not sure about the plumbing, and—"
We were about to sit down, when we heard the piercing beep of a truck's backup alarm. We looked out the window to see the front of a pickup with some sort of trailer making a couple passes to parallel park next to the apartment. We headed downstairs to get a better look at exactly what was going on.
What stood along the alley, just under the southern balconies of our building was a trailer bearing a thirty-foot long wooden gondola, covered by three tarpaulins.
A short black woman with long, natural hair got out of the large truck, which had just finished parallel parking the boat trailer. She called in her Texan accent, "Is Alicia Florence or, uh," she read the form a little more carefully, "Akira Ferrari one of y'all?"
All of the tenants were downstairs by now, so Alicia and Akira dutifully went to sign receipt of the boat.
"Oh, that's right, I've got a letter for you too. She opened up her posse box holding the form, and pulled out an embossed envelope. "Someone really likes you gals."
Akira answered, "Oh, you know men, always trying to make up for things with their gifts."
The deliverywoman let out a belly laugh at that, "Heck, wish I could find me one of them that'd buy me a make-up boat!" She started unhitching the boat while I helped the younger undines in removing the ropes and covers on the gondola. A couple of minutes later, she drove off in her truck, leaving us one gondola richer.
Meanwhile, Alicia read the letter aloud:
Quote:Dear Undines,
Here is the first of the gondolas I promised. This was actually my own gondola, but it has been in drydock for quite a long time, so I give it to you. Please take good care of it. As for the other gondolas, they will take months to complete; the next one will be delivered to you by mid October. Such is the price of having gondolas for which you can truly be proud.
Best of luck,
Sebastian
"Freaking sweet!" said Aika, with her characteristic grin.
"An authentic gondola of Venezia, here in Venice. Wow!"
"Are you sure about that, Akari?" Alicia quizzed.
"Hm..." she looked over the craft, "Oh, wait, you're right. I guess I still have a lot to learn to become a prima," Akari said as she scratched her head abashedly.
"Huh? What is it?" Aika asked.
"Look at the prow. There are nine rebbi instead of six." I looked too, and saw that Akari was right -- it looked like there were too many tines on the front of the boat.
"That's really weird," Alice said.
"Why would someone do that?" Aika's question was seeking an answer, but simultaneously rhetorical because she didn't expect one.
"Is that a number associated with this city?"
I answered, "Not that I know of. I can't really think of a number that represents our city. Maybe three-one-oh? It's an area code. For phone numbers." They looked at me like I was from another planet. "Yeah I don't get people either."
Alicia stepped up to the boat, and started inspecting the craft closely. "It looks like it's in pretty good shape, for how long it's been sitting around. I'm not seeing any dry rot."
Aika blew at the thick layer of dust atop the gondola's seat, causing a brown cloud to drift in Alice's direction.
"Hey!" Alice coughed. "Watch what you're doing."
Aika stared at Alice across the gondola for a few seconds. Then she blew again in the same direction, even harder this time.
Alice's skin tone roughly matched the color of Athena's; her eyes finally reopened when the dust cleared. "Ok, that's it, I'm gonna get you!" Alice chased Aika counterclockwise around the boat for next couple of minutes, while the rest of us focused on inspecting the boat itself (and avoiding getting hit by the running girls).
Akira was examining the hull. "What's this black stuff? Where in the world did Sebastian take this boat?" The boat itself was painted the traditional black, but an even darker layer of soot lay affixed to the bottom of the hull, giving it a stygian hue.
Akira finally tired of the squabble and grabbed Aika and Alice by the collar, one by one, as they passed. With a scowl on her face, she roared, "Looks like you two have plenty of energy for cleaning, so get to it!"
Alicia looked to Akari, adding, "If you please?"
"Hai!"
And so with cleaning tools and buckets scavenged from inside the house, the junior team set to scrubbing down their new gondola in the alley behind the apartment; the only interruption to their task was an intramural water fight with the garden hoses.
By the time lunch time rolled around, I came back downstairs with the primas to see how things had progressed. Although they gave the impression of leaving the hard work the their trainees, I had seen them work just as hard on the task of decorating their rooms upstairs. But as I saw in the anime, the art of the prima undine was to make the difficult task of rowing look effortless, a quality they brought to all of their work.
Alicia walked out first, bearing a box of sandwiches. "Okay girls, break time. Who's hungry for sandwiches?"
Akari raised her hand, which made the rest of the washing crew follow suit. And Athena too, for that matter, whose stomach emitted a low rumble.
As we sat atop a floral print blanket on the next parking space over, while everyone was eating, Alicia said, "It looks like you did a good job." She turned to Akira, "Does she look ready to float?"
Akira responded with a teasing tone, "Hmm... I'm not sure. Well, let's ask a potential customer, as they are the most important judges of our service. What do you think, Brent? Would you pay for a ride in this gondola?"
I looked it over. The boat looked like a proper gondola now, rather than a relic of the 1800s. Much better. "With you? Any day of the week," I said.
Akira made a Mona Lisa smile, Akari gave a wide grin, and Alicia simply giggled. "Sounds like our customer approves, Akira."
We finished eating, and decided that there was no time like the present for gondola launches. I hopped in my truck, and lined up to hitch the boat, poorly. After maneuvering the truck forwards and backwards a few times, I eventually managed to get the trailer ball positioned right.
Alice asked, "Are you sure you've done this before?"
"Yes, and I'm still terrible at it." Actually hitching the boat trailer was the easy part, taking only about a minute to drop the hitch, link a chain, and plug in the light cord. The prima undines all hopped into my truck, with Athena and Alicia squeezed uncomfortably into the back seat.
"Okay, we're off to the boat launch," Akira called over the roar of the white Ford F-150's engine.
"We'll meet you on the canals!" Akia called back.
A quick drive to the other side of Marina del Rey, right next door to Venice Beach, it took less than ten minutes to get to the boat launch. Not many people were here today, so I started lining up the trailer with the water line almost immediately.
Akira reasoned, "I suppose it makes the most sense for Alicia to try it first."
Alicia nodded. Going by the manga, Alicia was the virtuosa gondoliera, a prodigy of the nautical aspects of being an undine. It was her oar-work and graceful boat control that cemented her status a one of the Three Water Fairies of Neo Venezia.
"I'd like to get out try it out, too," Athena added.
"It's really tight back there, isn't it?" I asked. Athena made her confounded face, which was even funnier in reality than it was in anime linework. This truck was not going to cut it for transporting all of these people in the long term, but it was the right tool for the job now.
Everyone got out of the car, and all three undines hopped up into the gondola. I started rolling the trailer slowly into the water. And… it floated!
"We have a gondola!" Alicia started clapping, and then all of us joined in.
Athena untied all of the ropes, and Alicia took up her post standing at the stern of the boat. The blonde took the gondola on a quick loop around the dock with graceful strokes of the oar, as if she could move the 700 kilogram boat without any effort at all. It was just beautiful. As she came back around, she called out to me, "It handles wonderfully! We'll meet you back in the canals."
I pulled up the ramp, secured the straps and ropes, and raced back to the apartment.
After I parked, I walked across a couple blocks to the canals. About a block or so "upstream" the junior undines were hanging out, so I went over to join them. "Why are you all hanging out here?"
"Hi Brent! Akari convinced the owners to let us berth here. I take it the gondola is in good shape?"
"The gondola split into four pieces, there were no survivors," I deadpanned.
"Ridiculous remarks are forbidden."
It didn't take long for our gondola to start making its way up the Grand Canal, a long, mostly straight natural waterway of the former Ballona wetlands. This end of it was lined with a mix of two and three-story houses, but past the wide concrete bridge for Washington Boulevard was a primary school and a few more apartment buildings. Alice was the first to spot the gondola, pointing past the bridge and uttering a simple, "There."
As she emerged from under the bridge, Athena, who was now the gondolier, waved to us -- and we all waved back.
And that was when Akari started crying, still wearing a wide smile on her face. "I thought that -- I thought that everything was lost because of me -- for all of you."
"No, Akari," Aika interjected.
"It's okay now, you see. That's our old life, coming up the canal to meet us." Akari drew all of us into a group hug, even me. "Everything's going to be okay now." Tears were streaming down her face.
With wide eyes, Alice said, "Yes, it really is."
President Aria summarized, "Punyuu!"
"Why am I crying now?" Aika complained.
By the time the gondola arrived, everyone had gathered their composure. They moored the boat next to the rose-colored house, and disembarked.
"It moves like a dream," Athena said.
Alicia agreed, "It's in excellent shape."
Akari begged, "Our turn?"
"I'm afraid not; how can I offer our only gondola to trainees when Akira has a customer waiting?" Alicia gestured at me.
"Huh?" Akira stared into Alicia's smiling eyes.
Alicia giggled.
Akira sighed, then boarded the gondola.
"Ah!" Aika's interest was piqued. Somehow, saying that I was just making a joke earlier didn't seem like the best idea right now.
Akira held out her hand, a practiced gesture that was still warm and inviting. "Please take my hand as you step aboard, sir." I did just that. Somehow, it didn't even seem like a joke any more.
---
Akira piloted the boat up the Grand Canal, to the waters she hadn't yet navigated. It didn't make much difference to an experienced undine like herself, shallow waters like these were nothing to worry about. Especially in the absence of other boat traffic.
"What do you think of our canals?" I asked her.
"Strange. But not in a bad way. Just unfamiliar."
She rowed on for perhaps twenty more strokes, before adding, "I haven't faced anything this unfamiliar since I was still a Single. But, you know, it feels good to face a new challenge."
We passed a rowboat and a canoe tied up in front of a house, which bobbed just the slightest bit in our wake. "I'm glad you're enjoying yourself, Akari."
---
"Normally, I would tell my passenger about all of the sights they were seeing, but I'm afraid I know so little about these waters." Akira's smooth and steady stroke refuted that statement -- she knew plenty about the waters, it was the shore she knew little about. "Would you care to tell me about this city?"
"Well, I don't know a whole lot, I didn't grow up here," I began. "These canals all started because a land developer called Abbot Kinney traveled to Europe, fell in love with Venice, and decided to turn some of this swampland into a tourist attraction. I imagine the story was the same in Neo Venezia. Anyway, Kinney had all of these canals dug, built a pier to attract tourists.
"All that was before cars took over Southern California. Then they started filling up the canals to turn them into streets. Ended up filling in most of them."
"What a shame!"
"That's Los Angeles as it used to be, always looking forward, without thinking about what came before. Anyway, about the time I was born, people started wanting to save the canals, because they made the place special. And, as you can see, lots of fancy homes are here now, so they must have done something right."
---
Akira's easy stroke propelled us through the Howland Canal, making but the smallest of splashes. It was quiet in the heart of Venice's canal district, until a passing seagull decided to let out series of loud cries.
"He must be looking for some friends," Akira posited.
"More likely looking for some chum."
"Heh, so he is."
"You are different on the water," I said. "More calm and composed."
"So are you."
I thought on it a few seconds before replying, "Got me there. We have so much to do back at the apartment."
Sensing my mood becoming more stressful, Akira added, "When I'm in a gondola, I'm able to let go of all of those things on land, and just live in the moment. There are so many things to worry about, but out here it's just the water and the sun and the clouds, and I move forward one stroke at a time."
"So, it's not just because you're really good at this, Crimson Rose?"
Akari laughed. "It will be good for everyone else to get some time on the water. They all love the gondola -- almost as much as me!"
Now it was my turn to laugh. "They can't compete, can they?"
"Nope, but they can try!" She twirled her oar like a quarterstaff, striking at imaginary opponents.
The thought crossed my mind that maybe Alicia asked Akira to take me out as the first customer because she was the one who needed it the most. Maybe I did too. Or maybe Alicia was just being nice. All I know is that if I asked her, all I'd get is a giggle in reply -- or if I really pressed her, an "ara ara".
---
A passenger jet taking off from LAX banked across the sky in front of me, turning all the way around to fly over the land.
"You know, I haven't taken a customer in a black gondola for a long, long time. It brings back memories."
"Why's that?"
"In Neo Venezia, prima undines ride in white gondolas; the black gondolas are reserved for single undines. It's so that our customers know what they're paying for."
"I always thought all gondolas were black."
"In old— well, in Venezia, gondolas are black because the water is dirty. On Aqua, it's a sign of the purity of our water in Neo Venezia."
"You know, you're rowing through muddy seawater. This used to be a swamp."
Akira nodded, and kept rowing. "Maybe we'll use the tradition of black gondolas in California."
"Probably a good call."
---
I leaned back in the seat a bit, and looked at the nearly clear sky, with only a few long contrails coming across. It was a beautiful day with a kind sun, casting enough light to make your skin feel warm. But then a little gust of salt air would come up from the ocean to cool you right back down. Growing up in a beach city, I almost never notice the smell of salt in the air any more, but I noticed it then.
I noticed lots of things I don't normally notice, like sound of the soft splash of the water against the sides of the gondola. I saw the intricate patterns chiseled into the black wood covering the forward end of the gondola, right below the curved bow. We passed by a bush in full bloom, covered with deep red roses. And of course, I saw the tall, strong woman in white behind me, rowing the gondola with a joyful smile.
And I never pulled my phone out of my pocket the entire time.
---
By the time we returned to our newly adopted mooring place along the canal, it seems that everyone had already gone home, so Akira and I walked back to the apartment together.
"We never decided what the fare was, did we. I'm supposed to be your customer, right?"
"It's not important. I don't even know what we'll charge," Akira shrugged. "You've done a lot for us already."
"I know, but that was really special. I feel like I owe you something."
She thought about it for a while, and then her countenance suddenly turned grumpy.
"How about a installing a bidet already?"
"Kitto daijoubu da yo." - Sakura Kinomoto