by J Jordan
“What do you mean? You can’t guess.”
“Well, blue is good right now. But sometimes red is a good color too. There are times when I prefer red over blue.”
“I’m picking blue.”
“No, pick red.”
“Too late,” snapped Cora. “Next question.”
The card was a gradient of various shades of blue. It drifted to the right side of the screen and landed on top of the first two choices. Maybe Cora was right about these Vocks. The animations really did seem magical.
“Fish or chips?”
“Hang on, isn’t that offensive to Camerrans? What kind of questions are these?”
The cursor moved to the golden fried potato on the right, but Romney reached toward the screen to stop it.
“No, choose fish. I like fish more.”
“Okay, fish it is. No fingers, please. This is not a touch screen.”
She took a cloth from the desk and wiped away Romney’s fingerprints. The next two cards rose from the bottom of the screen, one a sprawling beach and the other a mountain vista.
“Dream vacation,” said Cora. “Beach resort or mountain escape?”
Cora nudged the mouse toward the beach.
“You strike me as an aspiring beach bum. Your dream vacation is you, on a beach, with some bikini babes and a cooler filled with beers. No plans but to drink and be merry.”
“Actually, I love the idea of a mountain retreat. Just me, maybe a couple of close friends, and a nice log cabin somewhere quiet. Doesn’t even have to be a mountain. No oiled-up jerks, no sunburns, no awkward glances. Just me and the quiet serenity of nature.”
Cora chose the mountains. They joined the other decisions, neatly fanning along the edge of the screen like a hand in poker.
“I guess I had you all wrong,” said Cora. “Now, this next question is going to be tricky. You need to be absolutely positive about your answer.”
The two cards that appeared were suspiciously simple in their design. One was a typical moneybag with several Ontaran note symbols around it. The other was the silhouette of a man, like the kind commonly found on bathroom signs, with an infinity symbol emblazoned across his chest.
“A trillion ON or the ability to live forever?”
“Live forever,” Romney answered.
It was almost immediate. Cora looked flabbergasted by this.
“What do you mean? You don’t really want to live forever, do you?”
“Of course I do,” said Romney. “Time is money, right? Sure, it would take a long time to reach over a trillion notes, but I’ve got unlimited time. Therefore, unlimited money.”
Romney was proud of his answer. He continued his explanation.
“Plus, I could enjoy several retirements. Some people fight their entire lives to live a good thirty years of peace. Me? I can live thousands of them.”
“But what about all of your friends and family? You have to watch them die in front of you, while you go on as some ageless sham of a person, never tethered by the ultimate inevitability that is mortality.”
Romney stared at Cora. She looked concerned by his answer.
“Sure,” she continued, “the first hundred or so years are fine, but by then you’ve learned the true nature of your existence. You will always go on, alone. Changing your name every century or so, always moving to some new place where no one will recognize you.”
“You would have to use your infinite money to buy new disguises, new aliases, new homes. I think that would be a horrible, lonely existence. No real friends, no place to call home. You wouldn’t even have the solace of dying alone. Just a lonely, drifting thing. Existing, simply because you can’t do anything else.”
They turned to the two cards on the screen. One was the bag of a trillion Ontaran notes, a bag that was really worth under half a trillion after taxes and various brokerage fees. But the other was the cursed forever man, his face blank, mirthless, friendless. Cursed to drift forever on the mortal coil, alone, never granted the sweet release of death.
“The money,” said Romney.
Cora nodded. It seemed like a no-brainer at this point.
“You would choose that one instinctively.”
The forever man fell away to wallow in endless oblivion. The bag of money joined its new friends on the right. The cards shuffled around a bit, flashed silver, then disappeared beneath the right edge of the screen. They had finally reached the desktop of the computer, a nice blue affair with fine-crafted icons for documents and applications. This was interrupted by a sleek, shiny progress bar.
“And now we have to update all of the core apps,” said Cora.
“We can’t use it yet?”
“Nope. The update should be done in a couple of hours. Then we can use the computer.”
“What should we do until then?”
Cora glanced at her phone.
“Tykeso said he wouldn’t be back until five, and it’s almost noon right now. Do you want to grab lunch somewhere? I was thinking Andaran.”
The idea struck a chord in the pit of Romney’s stomach, where it echoed hollow for a time before it disturbed a gas pocket. The result was a singing, rumbling sound. Cora didn’t hear it.
“No Andaran for me, thanks.”
“How about Tambridesian? Fewer spices. There’s a place down the street that looks good.”
◆◆◆
Mordo’s Hungry Castle looked nothing like a castle on the outside. It looked just big enough to house half of a restaurant, assuming the food was cooked somewhere else. The inside was just as small, and littered with random Tambridesian fare.
The dining room walls were lined with fancy watercolors of lakes and fish, and women ladling water out of said lakes, and robed men brooding along their shorelines. The placemats were woven strands of plastic, made to look like bamboo. And lights hanging above each table were covered in a thin paper sheath, made to look like a lantern.
Cora was quick to note which items were mistaken as Tambridesian. For instance, the golden Lucky Cat by the cash register was Azerran, as was the portrait of the brooding men. The placemats were Desridanian.
The menus were unmistakably Tambridesian. Romney could tell the moment he opened his. The descriptions of each dish left something to be desired, like what was in it. And the names gave no hint either. Eventually, he leaned over the table and asked Cora about pollos rhocanos.
“Grilled chicken that usually comes with rice and black beans. You should try it.”
Romney considered this, and then decided to ask about another one.
“Grilled fish,” said Cora. “This isn’t like Ontaran grilled food. They use special herbs and spices to blacken it. Not burn it per say, but the way they do it—grilled steak— it really traps the flavor in. And the rice… grilled vegetables. Just say the number.”
“The chicken sounded good,” said Romney, folding the menu up.
Then he opened the menu again and tried saying it aloud.
“That’s the grilled vegetables,” corrected Cora. “I’ll order.”
Pollos rhocanos. When Romney’s food came, it was a blackened chicken breast on a bed of long-grain rice. He cut off a small piece, heaped on some rice, bit down, and traveled to lands of flavor he had never imagined. There was grilled chicken from Ontar: usually slathered in barbeque sauce and burned in places. This was grilled chicken from Tambridan: spices and ground peppers dancing around each other on the floor of his mouth. Cora smiled from her pescos rhocanos.
“You like it.”
Romney looked up from his plate. The chicken breast was already half gone.
Like? How weak and sad. The word could not stand against the splendor on his tongue. Romney shuddered to think the end of his meal was nigh. He scooped up more rice, tasted the sweet and somewhat tangy flavors. Like lime and herbs he couldn’t distinguish. The black beans, earthy yet fresh and zesty. Try as he might, the pepper-crusted chicken was shrinking before his eyes, until it was a nub on his fork.
With a mental salute, and a tear in his mind’s eye, he ate the last bite.
“You were hungry.”
He looked up again from his plate. She was a quarter of the way through her fish.
“It’s pretty good, isn’t it?”
Romney nodded. He took a sip of water from his glass and looked around. Mordo’s castle was now a magical place, where you could order more pollos rhocanos if you wanted.
“Yeah. Really good.”
Cora was smiling.
“You’ve never tried Tambridesian food before, have you?”
“Was it obvious?”
“The menu gave it away,” she said. “Start with remembering the number first. Then slowly venture into pronouncing it. Then try something else.”
“Where did you find out about this?”
“College,” she said. “You get pressured into going to new places every now and then. Lanvale Prime had a strip along the main campus, all restaurants and bars, any food or drink you could think of. If you had the money.”
Romney nodded.
“Didn’t you say you worked near Lanvale Prime?”
“Yeah,” said Romney.
Cora frowned at this. She chewed a piece of fish thoughtfully before speaking.
“But you never went down Foodie Row?”
Romney straightened in his chair. He was on defense now.
“No. I usually went downtown to eat out. I’ve eaten at plenty of fancy places. Fifty ON a plate kind of places.”
“Calm down,” said Cora. “I was just curious.”
He deflated instantly, looking down at his empty plate. Of all the restaurants Romney had ever been in, he couldn’t think of one that had food of this caliber.
“Finances, right?”
“Taxes,” he said. “Finances and investments too. But it was mostly tax stuff. Professors wanting breaks, college students wanting maximized refunds and whatnot.”
“So you know a lot about money.”
“I know enough,” said Romney. “I never played stocks before. But I can show you safe investments, long-term stuff.”
“Have you ever tried?”
“To play the market?” said Romney. “No.”
He crossed his arms and said nothing else. Cora returned to her meal and didn’t press the subject.
It was a simple logical jump to make. Romney knew the way to find safe investments, which meant he knew how to spot the dangerous ones. It wasn’t a matter of knowing where to risk your money, but when to place it and when to remove it. Having the necessary knowledge and mathematical formulae would help one determine the answer to these two questions. Insider info helped too.
Romney had the same tool belt as any other broker. And he had an established history of stealing from people. He stole a valuable artifact and unmarked Ontaran notes from a bank. That was thievery in a nutshell. But for whatever reason, Romney never played the market. Cora could plainly see that he didn’t want to share the reason why.
Cora learned that Romney’s weasel-like exterior did not match his interior. He appeared to be a man in transition. Sure, he had the bravado down, but there were other parts to him that seemed unpolished. A true career thief would have more swagger, boasting about all the people he or she had conned. Romney never boasted.
His spirit animal, she concluded, would be a turtle.
Cora talked about some of the other fine cuisines on Foodie Row. When the waiter returned, Romney ordered another pollos rhocanos. To go. For Tykeso. In case he was hungry.
Tykeso Vandesko and the New Student
The funny thing about history is that some of its greatest moments, even the truly pivotal ones, happen by chance. For instance, we look to the first cinematic camera: the Cinematomotographonic camera.
In 1903 ME, Dr. Hana Amana wanted a camera that could capture a series of pictures and do so automatically. Specifically, she wanted this special camera so she could record the growth of a blade of grass. With some help from a local photographer, she devised a way to feed several sheets of photo film through a camera’s aperture and expose them with a special shutter that could engage automatically. The idea was simple enough, seeing as cameras had already made the necessary strides by 1901. They no longer used the choking flash powder or the heavy glass plates. Dr. Amana was taking a strange step forward, but no one could know how important this step would be.
The first test run started in her lab, in a well-lit classroom in Universitia Yuma. Dr. Amana sat in front of her assembly and made sure the feeding system was working. It did, but not quite the way she wanted. The problem, she decided, was that the automatic shutter was activating too quickly, although she did note that the feeder had kept up without a hitch. The final results would come when the film had been properly developed.
All fifty of her test photos came out in perfect clarity. Dr. Amana was pleased with her work. She stacked the photographs together, flipped through them for fun, and then stopped. She started again, flipping through each photo one by one, until she reached the end. Then she fixed the edges of the stack, gripped the right edge, and began to shuffle through the photographs.
The little black-and-white Dr. Amana in her hands was staring back at her. Then she blinked. The Dr. Amana in the photographs slowly leaned to her left to check the automatic aperture outside of the border. Then she leaned to her right to check the automatic feeding assembly.
Her first movie was called La Elfa Cuella, or The Neck Lady. Critics and film theorists rave to this day.
The Neck Lady is considered the seminal movie of all modern cinema. It didn’t bother with characterization or plot. It went straight for the neck, delving into the elven psyche, dredging out our greatest hopes and fears, and it showed them to us in all their raw nakedness.
Most amateur film students who see The Neck Lady for the first time see it as nothing more than an elf with a long neck, looking from side to side. They are forgiven this, only once.
It wasn’t the invention of the video camera, but Tykeso Vandesko was faced with a similar happenstance as he pulled up to Cresdale Martial Arts. Perhaps it was chance that he arrived at his dojo just as his newest student was walking through the door.
He made it to the door first and he held it open out of habit. This got him a dirty look, which he noted. Don’t hold the door open for Kimberly Arinson. And then he entered.
Mrs. Ransmith was already in her training robe, called a gi by most Tambridesian traditionalists. Tykeso never corrected her when she called it her training robe. She was making progress. Mrs. Ransmith—who insisted he use her first name, Helen, or Hel if the mood struck him—had come a long way in her training. She could punch hard, kick high, dodge, and grapple better than any retired school teacher Tykeso had ever met. And at this particular moment, she was practicing stances. He decided to leave her to it. Her form was good anyway.
Meanwhile, the new student was practicing strikes on a dummy that Tykeso had recently named Romney. Romney had a new smiley face that beamed no matter how hard she punched. And she was hitting pretty hard using a non-Tambridesian method. She was in a boxer’s stance. Tykeso bowed to Mrs. Ransmith and tried his best to move casually over to his new student.
This proved difficult since she was one of three people in the entire dojo. Tykeso tried all the same. As he approached, he took mental notes on her stance: light footwork from left to right, quick jabs alternating in sets of three, no locked elbows, each hit quick and clean, on the mark. She was strong, her athletic build visible in her formfitting gym clothes. He could see every muscle in her arm contract, tighten, release, and return. She didn’t belong in a small dojo for kids and retirees. Tykeso stood at her periphery and watched her box the smiling Romney. After another salvo, she stopped with her hands at her sides and stared at Tykeso. She was beautiful, no doubt.
Tykeso would describe her as having a slim and muscular frame, auburn hair tied into a knot on top of her head, a broad Camerran jaw, full lips pursed in a frown, an
d high cheekbones. But what really caught Tykeso off guard, what really captivated him, was her eyes. They were green, but not like the typical olive associated with most irises. Her eyes were green like the dark spots on camouflage.
Tykeso smiled his best smile and motioned for her to continue.
With his initial advance defeated, Tykeso retreated back to Mrs. Ransmith and checked on her form. She moved gracefully from one form to another, from Apt Pupil to Rushing Warrior, and then to Sweeping Subject. Then, with one leg out in front of her, she moved to everyone’s favorite stance: the Balancing Crane. She looked at home in her new blue belt.
The new student looked better suited for a gym in East Lanvale. It was the kind of place where people glared at each other and kept to themselves, and yelled when they lifted weights. It was the kind of place where no one wanted to grow; they only wanted to prove what they already possessed.
Her punches had more weight now and she was adding knees into her combos. It seemed like Romney’s fixed smile was fading. And even Mrs. Ransmith was losing her composure, as the loud slaps of fist against dummy echoed through the dojo and permeated her serenity. She gave a loaded glance at Tykeso to do something. Tykeso decided to intervene. This would be a place where students grew. He approached her, smiled, and waited for her to stop and glare at him again.
“It’s good to see you again, Kim.”
“Kendal.”
Kendal. He filed the name again into his memory bank, this time avoiding the last teller.
“Did you want to join Mrs. Ransmith and me for stances? We could even get you started on your first belt.”
She said nothing.
“The first one is the easiest,” said Tykeso, fighting back a sudden intense discomfort. “I bet it would be no problem for you, judging by your boxing technique. You normally use a modern striker stance, am I right?”
“I picked this up in the navy,” she murmured.
Not in any official capacity, noted Tykeso. The Ontaran Navy trained close-quarters grapples and throws. They didn’t train scrappers.
