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TEST DRIVE MEME #7
1. before she hung up, she said she was a skeleton
[there is no note in your cabin. no forces stall your legs if you decide to walk anywhere but the atrium. in fact, for the first time in hundreds of years, newly arrived passengers on the Serena Eterna are waking up with absolutely no guidance. nothing but your fellow passengers in the halls - or maybe in your bed.
perhaps you end up in the atrium eventually anyway. it is where guest services is, and where Gal Friday… actually hasn’t been in a few days. until today. and she is visibly frazzled, her hair uncoiffed, her suit rumpled, something a bit like a bruise blossoming down from her hairline and over her smooth features. more papers than ever cover her desk, and when she turns to face you, her voice is as cheerful as ever, but audibly strained.]
Welcome aboard the Serene Eterna! [a pause] You know how to work a life vest, right? Everyone knows that! You don’t need me to teach you that!
[a light bulb burns out behind her head.]
… I’ll get right on that!
[freedom includes the freedom to not know what the fuck is happening. maybe you should reflect on that.]
2. grandma went and can't stop screaming
[it’s something about the lighting fixtures, this month. has the Bellona always had a massive chandelier? maybe. who knows. don’t ask questions. either way, in the stillness of the night, or day, or late afternoon, there is a noise like a cord being cut, and the chandelier plunges into the audience below.
it hits nothing, of course. no one is ever in the theater. and that, perhaps, is what the trouble is.
so, the chandelier starts to… travel, one could say. it starts to hang in various rooms: the dining halls, the bars, the clubs… sometimes, if you’re out on the pool deck and suddenly realized you’re under a shadow, you can glance up and see it suspended 20 feet above your head, securely fastened to nothing in particular and yet remaining perfectly in place.
until it isn’t. until it falls, crystal shattering on whatever surface it lands on: floor, table, person… and, wherever the chandelier goes, a lilting childish voice follows it, singing without any obvious source.]
Ring-a-ring of roses, a pocket full of posies… ashes, ashes, we all…
3. jeff bezos murdered the infinite tommy bahama
[the lights of the Infinite Tommy Bahama go out three days into October.
barely an hour after its closure, the lights go on again, and a new banner is unfurled.
physically, it is the same store. you can even see the old signs hidden behind the new ones. however, long gone are the tropical prints and khaki dress shorts. now, one can purchase any number of officially licensed or legally distinct Halloween costumes, decorations, and various other haunted accoutrements, leading back as far as the eye can see, and then farther still. is that a Gal Friday mask? spooky! well, at least you’ll be good and ready for the Halloween party at the end of the month, which is absolutely just a normal party and in no way whatsoever anything even remotely resembling a trick. there are only treats at The Infinite Spirit Halloween!
note: bahamanuel is still here! somewhere! it kinda looks like dan bongino.]
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Not that the enormous broadsword is a clue or anything, Cassandra.
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"Let's say that if we were, neither of us would be wrong."
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Fuck it, she'll deal with the stab wounds later. Gideon raises an eyebrow, making sure she is exactly as cool as she knows she looks right now, which is so incredibly cool. "Then let's both be right and cautious. It's hard to put a sword away once it's tasted blood."
Gideon is killing it. Suck it Crux, all of her skinmags were good for something after all.
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This woman is putting her in mind of a handful of other warriors she's met, and it's not an entirely comfortable comparison. She'd feel a little better about it if she had any idea who the swordswoman serves, and where they are now.
"Might I ask your name?"
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Maybe this isn't the cavalier afterlife.
"Yeah, all caught up." Gideon lies through her teeth. She'll figure out what the orientation speech is afterwards, because she is making sure to not look like an easy mark, even if maybe she's already blown most of that. "Figured I'd just walk around, stretch my legs, see what's all around."
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(She isn't sure Gideon is lying about that -- nor inclined to blame her if she is -- but it's the way she'd bet, if she were betting.)
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Thankfully, Cassandra's polite skepticism has given Gideon all she needs to bolster her lie. "Sure is. But since I did go there and get told everything, I can go anywhere I want around here."
And proof of that, Gideon simply picks a direction and walks in it, turning around halfway through to spread her arms in a told-you-so shrug. Why didn't Gideon get an orientation? Who knows, who cares, she's not looking a gift horse in the mouth.
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"So you can," she agrees cheerfully. "I don't know that I'd be the best choice to show you around, as I'm still learning the place myself, but would you care for company?"
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And, as a sign of good will, she offers an arm for Cassandra to hold onto. "And you can tell me which House you were from, if you're from the Houses."
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Cassandra takes the offered arm, with a tiny bob of the head and a flick of her hand along the line of her skirt, like a minimalist rendering of a curtsey. "My home has a handful of noble houses, but if 'de Rolo' doesn't sound familiar to you, I suspect you're from somewhere else and mean a different set of houses. Is that the case?"
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"Must be. I'm from the Ninth House, of the Nine Houses, ruled by the Necrolord Prime." Ninth of Nine - it sounds so stupid said out loud. Gideon is getting uncooler by the second. At least she's got a pretty girl on her arm, that's doing a lot of heavy lifting. "You?"
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A pause. "Necrolord?"
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Again, sounds stupid said out loud without all the somberness of the nuns as they chanted God's titles and deeds. But she didn't name any of it so it's not her fault.
"And he's been ruling ever since. I take it there's no Necrolord or Resurrection in Whitestone."
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"You'd be correct. There hasn't been a necromancer in Whitestone in some time."
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Gideon also becomes sliiiightly aware that maybe she's said something very wrong because Cassandra is looking at Gideon like she's just watched her eat a bug and now she's trying to be cool about it.
"I'm not a necromancer." Gideon says, very specifically and as nonchalantly as one can when attempting to insist that you metaphorically were eating a chocolate raisin, not a bug. "Honestly, I got shanghaied into the whole thing. My mother crashlanded on the wrong planet and I got stuck as an indentured servitude."
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More terrible than having your entire world ruled by a lich-turned-god? No, but more personal, and ... well, easier to express sympathy for. Especially as casually as Gideon speaks of the Necrolord, as just a fact of existence.
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Is that enough to get her out of the doghouse? Only time will tell. Also, maybe a distraction might be good. "But what about you?"
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(And that's an easier thing to pay attention to than the matter-of-fact way Gideon talks about her possible fate: cleric to a necromancer-god, serving out her life in a tomb-temple, reanimated after death to continue to serve, and if she thinks about that for too long it will become increasingly difficult not to start screaming.)
"I ... suppose I'm a free agent here as well," she says, with a faintly rueful quirk to her mouth. "Which isn't something I ever expected to be, to be honest."
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