Amelta silently poured her own drink from the red bottle.
Everyone built their meal, got their drinks, and moved into the living room, using the coffee table as a real table since the one in the dining area was too small to fix six-and-one-sixth persons.
“This is exquisite!” Angelia said after taking a bite.
“I’ll say!” Katrina agreed, taking a bite from the hamburger that was almost half as wide as she was tall.
“Don’t talk with your mouth full. It’s rude,” Ken warned them.
Ken noticed Cassandra was still eyeing her cheeseburger suspiciously, not having taken a bite yet. She pursed her lips like making some sort of life-threatening decision, and bit into it. She then immediately stopped and stared down at her cheeseburger in shock.
Ken asked the obvious question: “What’s wrong?”
“The combination of additions . . . the delectable ballet of meat and cheese, the crisp feel of lettuce, all in a soft package . . .”
Cassandra looked happy. Really, really happy.
“Um, it’s just a cheeseburger,” Ken tried to tell her.
She wasn’t listening.
“Ken,” Angelica asked.
“Yes, what—You’re finished already!? Did you even chew!?”
“I did. It was good I couldn’t stop.”
“As long as you liked it. Go get another one if—”
She was already out of her seat and back in the kitchen.
“I was wondering, don’t you have any family?” Cassandra asked.
“You mean parents, brothers and sisters, etcetera?”
“Yes.”
“My parents died a few of years ago.”
The room came to a dead silence. It was not the answer anyone was expecting to hear. Ken immediately noticed it. Most people reacted that way; even the woman who initially came to give him the application. He decided to move the conversation forward. “I do have a younger sister who’s still alive. When the folks passed away, I got the house and some money, and my sister got money, and she promptly decided to take a trip through Europe.”
“Where is she now?” Angelica asked, having finally returned to her seat.
“That’s a good question. I don’t know the answer, nor care.”
“Seems a little cold,” Natalia remarked.
As if Ken needed anyone to remark on it. “Maybe. You may have gotten the hint, but you can probably tell I don’t have a lot of love for my sister. She’s too irresponsible.”
An uncomfortable silence came across the room again. It wasn’t the same as when he told his tenants about his parents, but the uneasiness wasn’t difficult to spot.
“What about everyone else?” Ken asked, trying to change the conversation away from his family.
“I have a brother and two younger sisters,” Angelica said. “My father’s a police officer and my mother runs a candy store.”
“I’m an only child,” Katrina said. “Both my parents are mechanics now.”
“What about that ‘time catalogue’ thing?”
“That? Well, that’s in my genes. See how the ends of my hair are white? That’s the sign of someone who’s sensitive to time.”
“My father is, of course, alive,” Natalia said. “My mother passed away when I was young. Most of my teachers and my nanny raised me until I was able to make choices on my own. I’m an only child.”
Alisa raised her hand to be next, surprisingly.
“Um . . . go ahead,” Ken said, hesitantly.
“My father is an electrical engineer, and my mother takes care of the home. I have an older brother.”
“Are they as quiet as you?”
“Quieter.”
Ken had trouble imagining that. Were they invisible phantoms or something? He could swear she didn’t even make sounds when she moved. She’d make an excellent spy.
Or axe murderer. Ken shuddered when he thought that.
“I guess I’m last,” Cassandra said. “I’m an only child. My mother and father are alive and healthy. My mother is retired from the military, and my father is a homemaker.”
“Oh! That’s what I wanted to ask you,” Amelta said, out of the blue with an excited expression.
“Yes?”
“I was reading about courtships on Talsenia. They’re really formal, aren’t they?”
“They’re normal to me, but I guess if you compare them to other cultures, they’re formal.”
“How so?” Ken inquired. “I mean, on Earth, one gives a ring to the person they want to marry, usually on one knee. Usually it’s the man that proposes. Usually.”
Cassandra considered what he said for a moment, and nodded. “I guess that’s mechanically similar, but there’s more symbolism on Talsenia.”
“Symbolism?”
Cassandra put her plate aside. “Let’s use my parents as an example. My father was my mother’s assistant in the military. I should tell you that Talsenian men are normally prohibited from entering the military without a specific skill set, and even then, only under special circumstances. But I’ll explain that at another time.”
Everyone was listening as she continued.
“They had been in a long campaign in an urban region where the government had collapsed. They had worked together for six years, and strived to rebuild the region.
“My mother was a very hands-on commander, and often took part in battles. My father voiced his concern at the time, for her personal safety, but it was her prerogative. Even when she and her command were accused of embezzling funds and stealing valuables, it was my father’s meticulous record-keeping that kept them free and clear.”
“So they worked well together,” Ken concluded.
“Yes. After those six years, the government made progress, and they were reassigned, being stationed on different planets.”
Everyone was listening intently.
“It would take some time, but my mother didn’t feel quite right at her new post. It wasn’t the station itself or even the people, but she felt something was missing. The missing piece turned out to be my father, and the connection they had made. She took the first opportunity she could to track him down, and actually proposed to him during a dinner party. She was in her uniform and everything.”
“Wow! That’s romantic!” Katrina said, flying around like a cupid.
“So, she proposed with a ring?” Ken asked.
“No,” Cassandra replied. She unhooked the sheath of her saber and held it forward. “She used a blade much like this one.”
“Come again? How do you propose with a sword?”
“Truthfully, you’re supposed to use a more refined saber for it, crafted specifically to court someone, but my mother felt she had too little time. Anyway, the first step is to unsheathe the sword. Next, both the unsheathed blade and sheath are presented to the intended.” She unsheathed the saber, and held it by the pommel in one hand, and the empty sheath in the other. She then oriented her hands so that she had both palms face up, and the saber and sheath lay on her palms, saber first.
“As a weapon is critical to the status of women on Talsenia, this positions herself at her most vulnerable, and thus trusting the intended with her weakness. The next step is for the intended.
“If he refuses, that is it, and it is highly recommended for the intended to state the reason why. However, if he does accept, he will take up the sword, sheathe it, and then turn the blade around and lay it back into her hands in the opposite orientation. In symbolic terms, the woman is the sword and the man is the sheath. The sheathing represents the intended accepting her weakness and faults, and while not in combat, her consort and confidant, the sheath being his ‘arms.’ It’s also appropriate for the intended to wear her sword until the wedding ceremony. It’s also culturally significant and ‘allowed’ for the woman to cry if her proposal is accepted.”
“Did your mother?”
“Almost. Especially when
she heard him say, ‘I had almost given up on you’.”
“Aww . . .” was the collective response.
“I wish I had a good story like that to tell,” Katrina lamented.
“Me, too,” Angelica agreed. “Nothing really that romantic happened to my parents.”
Ken stood up and started collecting the plates. “On that note, let me show you all the rooms, and you can make your decisions on which to take.”
“I want the largest room, naturally,” Natalia said.
Ken shrugged, assuming he wouldn’t be showing them any rooms after all. “Naturally,” Ken mimicked. “Then you get one of the two downstairs.”
“I want an end unit,” Alisa requested.
“Above or below ground?”
“Above.”
“Then you have the one toward the back there, on the left,” he said, pointing down the hall. “It’s the room right across from mine.”
“I’ll take the one below ground. I like to sleep well,” Angelica said.
“You have the other room downstairs then. You’ll be neighbors with Natalia.”
“I’ll take whatever’s left,” Cassandra said.
“Is a wood floor okay with you?”
“That’ll be fine.”
“You’ll have the one up here, right across from the bathroom. It’s right before Alisa’s, right down the hall.”
“Wait! Then where do I go?” Katrina asked.
“You’re the smallest, so why don’t you choose somewhere?”
“Um . . . how about out here?”
“Here? The living room?”
“I don’t have much, so if you give me the top of a cabinet, I’ll be fine.”
“How about up there on that display cabinet?”
“That’ll be good. I like high places. It makes me feel taller.”
Ken chuckled. No doubt.
“I think there may be a small bed in my sister’s old doll collection, so I’ll check in a little while. But it can get dusty up there. Are you sure you’re okay with that?”
“Sure! I can clean up when I need to.”
Ken nodded. “Okay. I’ll clean it off after I’m done with these dishes. Then you can set up.”
Ken showed them to their respective rooms, and where the bathrooms were. He explained the dining schedule, along with the laundry days. He then left them alone for a while to unpack and get situated.
Amelta started collecting her things.
“Leaving already?” Ken asked as he started pulling some figurines down from the cabinet.
“Yes. I should get started on filing the paperwork. I should have done it almost immediately after getting them, but it seemed like it was going to be fun around here for a couple of hours.”
“I hope I kept you entertained.”
Amelta giggled, and picked up her things. “Don’t worry about showing me out. Mister Goldwrite, I leave these girls in your hands. If you need anything, you know how to reach me.”
“See you the next time I see you,” Ken said.
She left down the stairs. When Ken finished cleaning off the top of the cabinet, Katrina started setting up her little area.
While all of his tenants were busy, he went into the kitchen and loaded the dishes into the dishwasher. After he started it up, he stepped back and leaned against the counter.
“This just might work.”
Chapter Three
Or, A (Not So) Healthy Dose of a Library!
Somewhere else, across time and space no less, a different kind of meeting was going to take place. However, it wasn’t going to be as nice. When people think of the word ‘meeting,’ they probably think of something between friends, acquaintances, or business associates, and most certainly not something hostile or dangerous, and those same individuals wouldn’t call it ‘nice’ to meet an enemy.
Regardless, it was about to happen.
There was a man of medium-build in a deserted landscape, sitting against a large rock about four feet tall. The sun was hanging halfway in the sky. It was sunset, or perhaps even sunrise, but as the sun never moved from that position, no one could ever tell. It covered the area in a warm, orange-red glow, and it illuminated his silver hair. It wasn’t the kind of silver that someone would say when someone had aged; it really was colored silver, as if his hair was made of that valuable metal. He wasn’t young, but no one he had met thought he was old.
He was dressed casually in a large white T-shirt to move in, blue jeans, and dark blue sneakers. There was a grey metal staff, four feet long, propped up next to him. The top was intricately designed, and was larger than the other end, curving back, up and over to the front, almost like a hook. In the center of the open area of this ‘hook’ was a large purple gemstone. Where this hook started along the shaft were three recessed bands, colored a light blue to contrast the grey of the metal.
He was looking through a small, leather-bound journal. It showed its age with many rough spots where the leather had worn down. The tops of the pages were dirty where it had been flipped through many, many times. There were many yellow stick-notes peeking out from the top, bottom and side.
All of the sudden, he looked up into the air, noticing something. He realized there was a change in the space-time field around the area. Not a natural change, but a forced one. Someone was meddling with space-time, and would be coming soon.
Silver, as he was called, glanced down at the staff and sighed.
“Looks like they’ll be here any moment.”
He closed the journal, and pushed it down into mid-air, where it vanished as if putting it into an invisible pocket.
He stood up, pulling the staff up along with him in his right hand.
A green whirlpool about six-feet tall appeared a hundred feet in front of him, and then two more, to the left and the right of the first one.
From the middle whirlpool, a muscular man in technological armor stepped through. He had rough features, his face bearing a few scars, and his hair was cut very short, like a military haircut. From the left, a woman in light armor appeared, with brown hair down to her shoulders. And finally, from the right, a thin, but obviously fit man walked out. He was unarmored, and his dark brown hair came to spikes in the front.
Silver quickly flicked his staff. The three ‘portals’ froze, and then shattered like glass.
“Impressive, as usual,” the muscular man said.
“Why thank you. Now, could you go away? I’ve got other things to take care of.”
“We can’t do that,” the thin man said. “We need you back,” he said with a smirk.
Silver shook his head. “How many times am I going to have to beat my answer into all of you?” He looked at the unarmored man. “By my count, this is the sixth time, right Schove? On a related note, how’s the arm?”
The smirk of the thin man, Schove, melted into irritation.
“Anyway, these impromptu gatherings are oh so fun, but I’m really busy. You keep running under the orders of that old man, so I can’t help you. At all. End of story.”
“Then we’ll take the staff,” the woman said.
“No. Go build your own. All of you can barter for the materials, spend a year testing your creation, and then another ten fine-tuning it.”
“We don’t have that kind of time. Plus, the staff tends to work only for a true time manipulator like yourself, and a Time Coordinator at that,” the muscular man announced.
“Streyes, have you even considered doing the work for yourself for a change?”
Streyes, the muscular man, smiled. “Once again, we don’t have that kind of time.”
“You could have started a long time ago, but it looks like the quick and easy route has replaced your sense of responsibility,” Silver said. He brandished the staff forward. “So, is this going to be round six?”
“It won’t go like last time,” Schove growled.
Silver yawned. “Yeah, yeah. You s
ay that every time.”
Irritated beyond all he could stand, Schove dashed with superhuman speed toward Silver, his legs not even touching the ground. A large, metal gauntlet formed over his right arm, sporting large blades over each finger. As Schove closed in for the kill, he slashed with his weapon.
Silver swatted the attack away with his staff. Schove dashed to the side after the parry. The woman followed up in a coordinated attack, dashing forward.
Silver pointed the staff at her. She immediately stopped, and was flung backward, skidding and rolling across the ground.
Schove tried to attack him from behind, but Silver moved even faster than him, landing on another large rock ten feet away.
Silver sighed. “I’m not breaking a sweat here. And the predictable attacks are getting boring. Eventually I’m just going to open to gate to a dimension of pure anti-matter on all of you and be done with it.”
The woman, back on her feet next to Streyes, stopped in surprise. Streyes was also visibly concerned.
“Sona, would he be able to do that?”
She fumbled for a reply, still staring at Silver. “Th-There’s no way he should be able to do that. But . . .”
Silver didn’t move, nor blink at the statement.
Schove continued the attack from the front. Silver parried three strikes with his staff, and then swung, catching Schove in the stomach. He was hurtled toward Streyes and Sona.
“I assure you, Sona, I am more than capable of doing so.”
“You’re bluffing,” Streyes laughed. “Otherwise you would have done it already.”
Silver laughed in response. “If I would have done it, you would never learn your lesson.”
His staff lit up in several different colors, and wisps of energy protruded from his back, taking on shapes similar to the bones in the wings of a bird. The bulb of the staff glowed with a purple light, the light taking the shape of a mace.
Schove struggled to get up. “Why won’t you help us!?”
Silver shook his head. “I’ve offered my help several times. You keep turning it down because it’s not enough for you, or your boss. He wants access to the Akashic Library, and thus you three do as well, but it will only lead to your doom.”
“Like hell!” Schove yelled at him. “Do you have any idea what it’s like to have your life ticking down to nothing faster than anyone else!? And you say you don’t have any time left!? We’ll cease to exist!”