“OK, this is totally unfair,” Kushal muttered. “Out of the three of us, I do the most work. I’m the most responsible. And yet it’s Richard who gets two chapters?”

“Hey, most of my chapter was about you anyway…” Gordon complained back.

Richard finished saving again and ignored their sniping as he stepped out of the train car. The train had come to a sudden but smooth halt at the edge of the jungle, and the trees gave way to lower bushes and scrubs. The ground seemed to be some kind of hard, dried mud.

Kushal stepped out after Richard, seeming eager to leave the mysterious train before it…fell apart or something. Gordon followed more reluctantly, though Richard couldn’t think why.

“Something wrong, Gordon?” he asked casually.

Gordon winced. “My shoes.” He pointed downwards.

Kushal and Richard looked at Gordon’s shoes. His perfectly ordinary sneakers, with hardly any dirt or dust on them, and with reasonably intact laces. The two of them exchanged looks. “Looks fine to me,” Richard said, shrugging.

“No, no, I forgot to bring the right shoes.” Gordon’s agitation was clearly visible now, although he was still struggling heroically to hide it.

Richard looked back at Kushal, at a loss. Kushal took the lead. “Look, Gordon, there’s nothing we can do about it now. Let’s just keep going.”

“Yeah…” Gordon dropped his hand from the back of his neck.

But Richard had only taken two steps more when suddenly a circle of brilliant light shone out from the ground at his feet. No, it was some sort of complicated insignia…and it was all around him. “Whoa, what the…”

“What the Degler is that‽” cried Kushal, stabbing a finger towards the opposite end of the clearing.

Some kind of monster with three arms and a value premise of Efficiency strode confidently into the clearing opposite the three Cooportinoans. (Exactly how it did that was somewhat questionable, given that its two legs were not the same length. Makes it difficult to stride at all, much less confidently.) Richard took a step forward, realized his mistake, and took two steps backwards to compensate.

And felt his heel bark up sharply against thin air. Make that rather thick air, Richard corrected himself, as he turned his upper body and felt the invisible wall that surrounded him. He was trapped within the circle of light.

You have two minutes prep time, said a disembodied voice. Richard looked up and saw a piece of paper fluttering down. Not knowing what else to do, he grabbed it and turned it over.

Anger

Richard felt his heart pounding. A speech? Here? Now?

“Gordon, can you give me a hand?” Kushal called. He seemed to realize that Richard was incapacitated for a moment.

“Forgot to turn off my cell phone,” Gordon muttured, putting his hand in his pocket.

The monster began to speak, in a harsh, grating, and extremely fast tongue that Richard could barely make out. “Your what?” said Kushal, gesturing with one hand and furiously flowing with the other. “I’m pretty sure those haven’t even been invented yet!”

“My headphones…” Gordon said, now brushing something away from his neck, his shoulder. And then back to his shoes, the same routine all over again.

Kushal gritted his teeth. “Richard, I’ll hold him off, but we can’t win this one!”

Richard tried to nod, to call back, but he was held within the beam of light. Fifteen seconds, came the voice, and a wordless cry rose in his throat. How could his time have gone by that fast? How could—?

There was only one option left.

“Yeah,” replied Richard, coming out of his daze. “Gordon, Kushal. Let’s go.”

Persia looked at him oddly. “Gordon and Kushal aren’t here.”

“What?” said Richard, surprised. “But they were just…” He trailed off and looked at her, confused.

“They must have gone ahead while you were doing that…saving…thingy.” Persia shrugged. “How should I know what they’re doing?”

Richard shook his head, trying to clear the disturbing buzz that said that Gordon and Kushal had been right there. “Okay. I’ll take Da Seul and Fritz.”

“What?” said Kellie incredulously, as if she couldn’t believe she hadn’t been chosen.

“It’s like getting picked for softball at school,” Ivy said idly.

Richard began to feel better. Things were going pretty much as expected; maybe nothing had happened to Gordon and Kushal.

“We’ll be back in a bit!” Fritz called, though he didn’t sound so sure of it himself.

The trip down the passage was faster than Richard had expected, and he didn’t seem to notice many details, even though the cutscene had made the rock-arched pathway look very interesting. It was almost as if he had been there before and was being spared the details again.

Just as they emerged from the walkway, a train arrived. Richard felt a chill somewhere on the dorsal half of his body. I knew that train was going to come…

“Are you sure we should…” Da Seul began hesitantly, but Fritz drowned her out.

“Whoa!” He leaned forward. “The door’s a Golden Rectangle! Or nearly, in any case.”

“Fritz, wait!” Da Seul reached out a hand in vain. Fritz had already stepped inside the train, examining the Fibonacci spiral on the wall.

Nothing happened.

Sighing, Richard stepped in after. “You coming?” he said to Da Seul, a bit vaingloriously.

Da Seul hesitated, then decided to step in after them, probably to save face. The second she was inside, however (possibly sooner), the door slid shut and the train began to move at an astonishing speed. Her face clearly began to turn to a clear “I tried to tell you” look.

Richard ignored her and slumped onto a seat, wondering what had made him chose the two of them. (He did not wonder why he was choosing at all; that seemed perfectly natural.) Fritz seemed disappointed at something…perhaps the fact that the curvature of the wall of the train made the spiral imperfect. Yes, that was probably it.

Ugly thoughts were dancing inside his head, the foremost being if we’re on the train, where are Gordon and Kushal? There was a problem here, and Richard hadn’t yet figured it out. Something was still bothering him, something kind of like déjà vu, maybe another vu. Hmm. Richard knew someone named Vu.

The train stopped suddenly and smoothly and the door opened again. They had reached a clearing at the edge of the jungle, and Richard got the feeling once again that some of the descriptive details of the scene were just being—left out.

“What’s that?” said Da Seul, pointing to a half-piece of paper floating on the breeze in the clearing. Fritz stepped out next to her and grabbed for it, then smoothed it out on his leg.

“It’s someone’s flow,” Richard realized aloud, and took a few steps forward. “But it isn’t finished—”

Too late he sensed the danger, and tried to spring back as the invisible barrier and the shining circle sprung up around him. Da Seul and Fritz jumped back. “What’s going on?” Fritz cried. Then his eyes grew wider and Richard turned around.

Some kind of monster with three arms and a value premise of Efficiency strode confidently into the clearing opposite the three Cooportinoans. (Exactly how it did that was somewhat questionable, given that its two legs were not the same length. Makes it difficult to stride at all, much less confidently.) Richard took a step forward, realized his mistake, and took two steps backwards to compensate, coming right up against the invisible wall.

“Can you guys handle him?” Richard cried, and was surprised to find his voice still worked. Then he was surprised at his surprise. A sort of meta-surprise. Interesting. Anyway, why should he have been surprised in the first place?

You have two minutes prep time, said a disembodied voice. Richard looked up and saw a piece of paper fluttering down. Not knowing what else to do, he grabbed it and turned it over.

Birds

Da Seul was shouting. “No, I don’t think we can hold him for long. Fritz?” But Fritz had stepped back (perilously close to the train tracks, actually: beyond the yellow “DO NOT CROSS” line) and was frantically reciting every prime numberth digit of pi.

Richard’s mind was blank. How was he supposed to think about birds at a time like this? Instead, he watched numbly as Da Seul was hit by the impact (correction: impacts) of her opponent’s unyielding contentions.

“Richard!” she cried, “You have to use your—” A particularly plosive conclusion cut her off.

My…talent? And suddenly it all made sense. He had been here before. It explained his odd feelings and the curiously short descriptions. And given the situation before him, it really was no surprise that he would choose to use it.

Fifteen seconds, said the voice.

There was only one option left.

This entry was posted on January 12, 2008 and is filed under S&D story.