by S. H. Marpel
“Because either way you could be happy. But how happy and how long you can stay that way is always up to you.”
With that, I left his hand on the counter while I put my own on my lap.
We said nothing for quite some time, just looking into each other’s eyes. Sending no thoughts, just enjoying the moment.
WHEN WE BROKE OFF, and I looked around the diner again, I noticed something different about our plates and saucers. They now had a thin green line around them. That had never been there before.
Molly cleared her throat from the center of the diner, inside the counter area that was her domain.
“May I have your attention, please? Our management has wanted to acknowledge and thank all our regular customers this holiday season. So we are bringing you each a Christmas dinner plate, all as our gift to you. Please accept this in the spirit that it’s been intended.”
At that, she started removing plates from in front of each customer at the counter, replacing them with full platters heaped with a large, typical Christmas dinner.
Teams of bus boys with rolling carts cleared the tables as a swarm of girls all looking remarkably like Hami came out with a platter in each hand to every customer in the booths.
Soon everyone was munching down on their dinner. Eggnog was served as well. Soon smiles were on everyone’s faces.
Well, except the Grinch’s at those two booths.
They were picking at their food, as if concerned it was poisoned or something.
I patted John on his back as I rose, letting him know that I’d be right back. He wasn’t concerned, as he was enjoying his platter of good food like everyone else.
I strolled over to the first table. “Hello fellas. How’s it going today.”
“What trick is this? We heard about how you treated the other fellows, what kind of deal are you pulling on us?”
I just smiled warmly and put my hand on the shoulders of the two guys on the outside. “Just Molly’s way of saying thanks. For me, I just wanted to apologize for how I treated your friends. It’s Christmas after all. Here – let me shake your hands. Let bygones be bygones.
By then they had sampled the cooking and had softened from the very first nibble. They lightened up and started wolfing it down. All those guys shook my hand in turn and my healer training again came into play.
Outside of the bad physical condition most of them were in, and the damage from years of substance abuse, I found the guy with the control box. Of course, he was sitting on the inside. And that control box in a hip pocket closest to the wall.
While they were filling up, I got a large container of eggnog and started refilling their drinks.
The effect on them was remarkable. Soon they were acting as if they were being given some alcoholic beverage. I’d had some, and knew it wasn’t.
I read the label. It came from some company called “Karma Beverages, Inc.” And I could sense one of Ben’s spells in it.
There were rules against weapons here, but nothing about what food you could serve in a diner or the plates it came on.
Molly had turned up the Christmas music and it wasn’t long before everyone was singing out-loud – in between chewing and swallowing.
Now Karma is exacting. And you only get as good as you give.
So it wasn’t long before these Grinch’s became a bit more than rowdy.
So much for Christmas spirits. One suddenly pushed another out onto the diner floor. It seemed something was literally burning a hole in his pocket that he had to pull out and get rid of before it left more of a mark.
Soon they started yelling at each other, even between the booths. Next they had all struggled out of those small booths, to stand and try to land punches on each other.
I “evaporated” to free up my powers, and to keep them from hurting anyone else by targeting me.
The simplest solution to their rowdy behavior was to pull their trousers down around their ankles, and their shirts (with any undershirts) up over their heads. Losing their balance, they soon looked like eight drunken flopping salmon in boxers – all writhing around on the deck of a fishing boat.
Next, the diner’s front door swung open on its own, and these poor drunks found themselves sliding out that opening as they wriggled. Their conga-line parade continued until those eight Grinch’s were all well away from the front of the diner. The front door closed after the last one exited in a squirm.
Red and blue lights started flashing outside, from patrol cars visible through the front diner windows.
Meanwhile, the bus boys re-appeared and cleaned up those booths of dishes. As they also wiped both Grinch’s booth tables down, plus any incidental mess that landed on the benches or floor.
No one else in the diner seemed to notice. They had just continued eating and singing along. Smiling and laughing in between bites, sips, and swallows.
Molly kept refilling everyone’s eggnog from behind the long counter.
And soon her famous pie ala mode was in front of everyone.
I became corporal again, and rejoined John.
After he’d finished, and as the music volume seemed to lowered, I leaned over and kissed him. He joined in, reciprocating, and we were awhile at that.
Much later, we cuddled for awhile – as much as we could on those diner stools.
Sure, we could probably blame “Karma Beverages, Inc.” for the romance. Probably.
AT LAST I WALKED HIM to the door.
Outside the diner we stopped.
“Mary, you aren’t from around here, are you?”
“John, do you believe now that I’m from your future?”
He grinned. “Yes. Because I saw some of what you did in there. Of course, you’re some sort of a guardian angel or a spirit-guide. And you came back to help me somehow. That much I know. And having you in my future is, well, something to look forward to.”
I smiled back. “You just keep to your decision to write and farm. Someone will soon be handing you all you ever wished for. Karma is exact. You remember that.”
“What about that time loop stuff?”
“If we did this right, it will be broken right after I go in there one last time.”
He hugged me again.
“Thanks, Mary. I owe you one.”
“That you do. I’ll see you later, but not much later. You can pay me back then.”
He smiled at that, pecked me on the cheek, and turned to go down the walk toward the bus stop.
I turned and opened the diner door one final time, I hoped.
IX
ON ABE AND STEFI’S booth table, there was a lump of fused plastic and metal. Now cooling.
I raised an eyebrow. “It that it?”
Abe nodded. “And the loop is still running.”
“But it hasn’t reset.”
Abe pointed behind me.
I turned.
There was Carol, who came and swept into my arms. She hugged me like there was now a tomorrow.
Over her shoulders, I saw a pair of red-headed young naval officers in dress whites. One male, one female. And they looked related.
“Who are your friends, Carol?”
She turned a bit pink. “Mary, Abe, Stefi, this is Finn and Erika.”
Finn came over and hugged Carol with one arm. Everyone shook hands.
About that time, the building itself shook.
“Abe is this normal for L.A.?”
“Mary, it’s normal for L.A. but not for us. This is what I told you about fixing that time loop.”
I looked around the diner and found everyone else was gone. Just a row of empty counter stools and empty booths. Plus us six people all standing around keeping our balance despite the shaking.
Carol had her eyes closed and was concentrating while Finn supported her.
At last the shaking stopped and she opened her eyes again, accompanied by a wide smile.
“We’re here.”
Abe and Stefi were also smiling.
“So
does one of you want to tell me what just happened?”
Abe was hugging Stefi and she let him answer.
“You’re on the moon, Mary.”
Outside the windows of that diner was now a large metallic-and-concrete dome that rose over us, replacing the view that used to show the L.A. sky overhead.
WE ALL SAT DOWN AT one of the booths and pulled over a couple of chairs that showed up, “conveniently”.
We’d already found that all the food left consisted of one last apple pie, most of a quart of ice cream, and a few quarts of eggnog. Everything else not bolted down was gone. Except the chinaware, napkins, condiments and cutlery.
I was waiting for the rest of the explanation.
Finn started filling and passing out mugs with eggnog, while Carol started telling us all her part as she served up dessert for everyone.
“Finn and Erika were stuck in their own time-loop-sort-of-bubble-thing. The battery that was powering their loop/bubble-thing was running down, and that was the project I couldn’t get out of in order to save John. So I brought them and you all here instead.”
“And John...”
Abe spoke up. “...Is fine now. He’s in good hands, someone who can help him make his own wishes come true.”
“But what happened to all the people – Molly, Hami?”
“They are all doing just fine back on Earth.”
I just looked at him and waited for the other shoe to drop.
“The only way we could break the loop was to make a duplicate of the diner and move it to the Moon, out of those other force’s reach. Everyone else is in the original diner just as before – but to them, we vanished. Not that they weren’t expecting it.”
“And that broke the loop for good?”
“Yes, and John is now in good hands.”
“You said that already. So I’m just supposed to take that explanation at face value?”
Abe shrugged. “Mary, you appreciate details. OK: The china were actually little pendants like you’re used to using in your Ghost Hunter Library training. That connection weakened the time-loop spell. The food came from Hami’s through a little door that connected right through. (Actually, the door is still there, and you can use it to get to Hami’s when you’re done here if you want.) And that eggnog wasn’t alcoholic. But you saw when you read those ‘Grinch’s’ that they had been doing a lot of bad things for a very long time. All that food and drink just accelerated what was coming to them. With their rap sheets, they’ll be in the system for a good long time paying their dues.
“The duplicate diner then further weakened that spell, since it was only designed and cast for a single diner, not two of them at once. Carol brought us here and somewhere in those couple hundred thousand miles, the sheer distance finally broke that spell. So now we are safe and so is John.”
Smiles all around.
Then the quaking started again.
Abe looked at Carol, who shrugged in Finn’s arms.
Erika shouted, “It’s the A.I.!”
A round glowing object had been left on the other booth table, close to the fused control. With the quaking, they both shook together.
A blinding flash resulted.
When everyone got their vision back, there was a scorch mark on the booth table, but no thing remained of the two objects.
Abe looked at Stefi and she nodded.
There was nothing left to do but get back to work.
Carol with her Finn, Erika, and I all headed to the back door to get to Hami’s. From there we could get to the Library to debrief.
Abe and Stefi said they were safer on the moon for now, so they were going to meet with the people running that dome.
DEEP BELOW THE DOME, in a tunnel leading even further down, the glowing orb rolled on its uneven sides. Something inside was giving it inertia.
Turning through various branch tunnels, it kept itself rolling until it finally stopped right up against an upright metal frame. That frame was holding a series of horizontal devices.
A bright flash from the orb, and those devices lit up. They were computer drives, and started flashing with activity. The orb flashed in sync with those drives, but eventually faded and went dark.
The drives then started pulsing in a common rhythm, like the beating of an electronic heart.
Book Universes Notes
The universes of these stories can mix and merge. They’ve become large and complicated through their various series and crossovers. So we’ve begun the process of adding Book Universes Notes to each of them. This allows you to get the earlier materials that explain the character’s backgrounds and abilities.
Also, as short stories, some intrinsic plot/character points can flash by in a single paragraph or sentence. These have been highlighted here.
Please enjoy.
AS MENTIONED, THIS pulls two previous stories into this story as sequel to both - “Nan” and “The Case of a Cruising Phantom“. This story was written to occur simultaneous to the events in “The Case of the Time Bent Beau“.
These are where you first met Abe, Stefi, and Mary. (Abe actually first appeared in “The Girl Who Saved Tomorrow.”)
Carol was first introduced in “Time Bent“.
Ben, Granger, and the Library were first introduced in “Ghost Hunters“.
John was also first introduced in that book. This story takes place as a prequel to that, where here we learn some of his backstory.
The diner itself first appeared in “The Case of the Walkaway Blues.”
The mentioned Rochelle first appeared in “The Lazurai“, her training clinic was first described in “The Case of the Forever Cure.”
You’ll see a large amount of dialog returning from “Walkaway Blues” above, but that’s because the time loop was built on that story. (Feel free to look up the various author and title references that are mentioned.)
Molly reveals herself to be Hami’s adoptive mom. While you were introduced to Hami in “Ham & Chaz“, the Lazurai preference for adopting babies was first discussed in “Forever Cure” above. (Don’t worry, we have Molly scheduled to reveal her own backstory - and that of her baby Hami in a later story...)
The reference to the U. S. S. Sea Quest is from “Cruising Phantom” above.
The green rim around the plateware, along with the mention of pendants stems from “A Case of Missing Wings“, where pendants were first introduced.
The sequel to John’s story here is found in “Walkaway Redemption.”
This story ends with a crossover event found in “Time Bent Beau“.
Finn and Erika first appeared in “The Saga of Erotika Jones 01“. The A.I. was first mentioned in “Time Bent Beau“.
The door in the back of the diner was first explained in “Enemies and Bookends.”
The dome on the moon was first discussed in “The Moon Cleaner“.
YOUR WORLD IS FILLED WITH STRANGE SECRETS
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