#now i just need to mount this giant paper fan i got for my wall and sort out my gallery wall frames

[stabbingandorbeingstabbed]

insane person mirror situation happening in my room now can't help being a leo

[katefiction]

Revolution, Part 1

by katefiction (Maria) / 2014

It was a boiling hot day, the day before. I remember because George’s cheeks were bright red all day long. I’d had to resort to stripping him down to a vest and his nappy to keep him cool. It didn’t help that he’d recently discovered how to run. Every fourth step, he would lose his balance and fall to the floor, but he was so happy using his legs, chasing Lupo around the apartment and screeching as he went.

‘George, come here!’ I shouted, grabbing his arm as he ran past me.

I wiped his face and back down with a cold flannel, and made him sip on some water.

‘Ok, go’ I said, releasing him into the wild again.

The air conditioning had broken down a month back, or been switched off. We didn’t know which, but suspected the latter. We had been strongly advised not to open any windows, it would be “inviting trouble”, they had told us.

We’d had to make do with a few portable fans, but that wasn’t enough to cool down our twenty-room home. We decided instead to use only the rooms we needed and it was beginning to feel like a cage. Of course, I would never say that out loud.

With George occupied by Lupo, I sat myself down on the couch with a glass of iced tea. I never thought I’d be this kind of person. A housewife with nothing better to do than sit at home all day and watch daytime TV. But there I was expertly flicking through the channels, deciding between a DIY makeover show and a chat show. The news channels weren’t an option for me, I was sick to the teeth of the constant discussion; the repetition; the poring over of every detail hour after hour.

It was only when George commanded my attention that I snapped out of my zombie like state.

‘Da!’ he shouted, throwing his blue rhinoceros stuffed toy at my feet.

‘Georgie, don’t throw poor Ronald, that’s not nice’ I grabbed the toy and cuddled it to my chest, prompting George to reach out his little chubby arms.

I handed Ronald back to him and he smiled for a second or two before throwing him down again. ‘Da!?’

Ronald was a gift from William, and had quickly become George’s favourite toy. So much so, that he sat in George’s cot every night, standing guard over him.

‘Da? Da! Da?!’

‘Baby, he’s not home yet’, I scooped him up off the floor for a kiss and a cuddle, but he quickly wriggled out of my grasp.

Much to my annoyance, George had said ‘Da’ before he’d said ‘Mu’, which were his names for us. William had revelled in the fact that it was his first word, taunting me about it with the perseverance of a woodpecker.

Forcing myself off the couch, I decided to start on dinner. When I opened the fridge however, it was all but empty. A few vegetables sat limply in the bottom drawer and milk for George was lined up on the shelves. I sighed and slammed it shut. In the kitchen cupboard were a few cans of soup that we could eat with some bread. It riled me to see our kitchen so barren.

William came home at five, just as I was deciding between tomato and leek and potato for the third time that week.

‘Hey’ he said, leaving the door ajar for a few seconds to let some air in. His face was so tired, with dark patches under his eyes as if a storm cloud were shadowing his face.  

‘Hey, how was it?’

He rubbed his worn face with his hand. ‘They won’t budge’

I sighed and turned away from him, ‘did you ask when our food would be delivered?’

‘I forgot’

For days I regretted how I acted next, wondering if it was that which pushed him over the edge.

‘William, I asked you to do one thing!’

‘I had more important things to think about’, he said, too tired to argue.

‘More important than feeding your son?’

‘Not tonight Kate, please…’

I slammed the can of soup down on the counter and tried to pull the ring pull back, but it wouldn’t move.

‘For God’s sake!’ I muttered under my breath.

William came over to me, his body hot from the searing heat, ‘leave it, we’ll order pizza’

‘We can’t live on takeaway’ I said unreasonably.

‘George’s got puree in the freezer; we can cope with pizza tonight. I’ll sort the groceries tomorrow, I promise’

I leant back into his chest and closed my eyes, ‘I’m sorry’

‘So am I’ he said, pushing his mouth into the top of my head.

‘So, what did they say?’ I asked finally.

‘The decision was final, all my engagements are cancelled, and I’m not to be seen in public until they say so’

‘Didn’t Jamie try and convince them?’

‘He was out-numbered; there was nothing he could do’

Over the last two months, our court had been slowly transformed with letters of resignation coming in every couple of weeks, until there was only Jamie left of our original staff. He was supposed to have all but left, but loyally, he’d stayed on. In place of our trusted advisers had come strangers who were now advising us that we shouldn’t even leave our home.

‘We need to get rid of them, we can do with just Jamie for now’ I said.

‘That would be admitting defeat; we can’t do without a court’

‘Do you trust them?’

‘I don’t know’. He pulled the pizza menu from the letter rack and sat down at the breakfast bar.

That was when I knew we were in trouble. William had always been so sure of the people around him. Like a sniper, he would seek out anyone he couldn’t trust and cast them out. But that night, he was worried and he couldn’t do a thing about it.

*

The history books will tell you that the Revolution began on May 6 2014, when the general election was called a year early. Britain had gone to the dogs with riots flaring up around the country over benefit cuts, energy prices and unemployment to name just a few.

Those of us that lived through it will tell you that it had started years earlier. The recession hit the country hard, and May 6 was the eruption of all those years of struggle. When the Green Party came into power that day, with its promise of a new prosperous Britain, it bought with it republican ideals.

The Republic had campaigned against the monarchy for years, but it wasn’t until that May that the British public stood up and took notice. The first months of 2014 were harsh and aggressive with rains and storms hitting our little island with no mercy. People were being forced out of their homes as the rain water crept in, ominously seeping under the doors and destroying everything it touched. Every penny was being whittled away by fuel and food, and the country had had enough of the government that had failed to protect them. By May, it was at breaking point, and the Republic seized their chance to use it against our family, so warm and dry in our fortified homes.

WE ARE PAYING FOR THE MONARCHY TO FEAST WHILE WE STARVE! They shouted, mounted on the lions of Trafalgar Square.

The protests intensified, with echoes of the 2011 summer riots rising once again. Outside all the palaces in London, masses stood, placards in hand, calling for the abolition of the institution that had served their country almost a thousand years. Little children who had once been so excited to meet us, now chanted along with their mothers and fathers. My little family of three hid behind our four walls, watching from the window as the police attempted to turn them away. But this wasn’t a violent protest; it was controlled, thought out and passive aggressive.

‘What do they think will happen?!’ I appealed to William. ‘We’ll just throw money out of the windows, chuck in some priceless paintings and jewels, and that will solve this country’s problems?!’

‘They want us to disappear’ he said gravely, stepping back from the window. ‘We represent sickening wealth, it doesn’t’ matter that we’re trying to help. Come away from the window before you’re seen’

We continued our engagements as best we could, our police protection bumped up just in case. But this only angered them more. The two princes, once so loved for their ‘normal’ personas and giving natures were now brandished all over the papers as spoilt and useless. No amount of PR could turn them back.

In June the Queen left for her summer holiday early under the cover of darkness. No one, not even William, knew if she was truly in Scotland.

That was when the Revolution hit us. With Her Majesty gone, our staff left one by one. Our engagements were cancelled and we were told to stay inside for our “own safety”.

It was the beginning of the end.

*

Unlike our groceries, the pizzas arrived promptly, Americana for me and Margarita for William. As I laid out the food on the table, I listened to him over the baby monitor putting George to bed.

‘Ok GB, it’s way past your bedtime’, he said, as George drank down his milk. ‘You are a greedy guts, aren’t you? Look how fast you’ve drunk your milk’

George babbled in reply.

William couldn’t wait for the day that he and George could have full blown conversations, and neither could I. I hoped it would stop William giving him a new name every week. There was ‘GB’ or ‘Team GB’, an acronym ‘Giant Baby’ in reference to our baby’s 8lb, 6oz weight at birth and ‘Grumplestiltskin’ was for when he was tired and grumpy.

Then there were the names he gave me. ‘Mum-a-tron’ was his current favourite.

‘Just like Daddy aren’t you, big appetite…now where’s Ronald?’

I heard him stand up, the creak of the rocking chair audible in our state of the art monitors.

‘Ah ha, there he is. Ronald’s going to look after you, isn’t he? He’ll protect you no matter what, I promise’

I heard him kiss George and put him into his cot. He didn’t leave the room right away, and I knew he was standing over the cot looking at his son as he so often did when he had something on his mind.

‘Dinner’s up’ I said when he returned to the kitchen.

We took it over to the couch and William immediately put on the news as he had done most nights for the last couple of months. I sighed inwardly.

‘Shall we put something else on tonight?’ I asked hopefully.

‘I just want to watch this for a bit’, he replied, ignoring me.

‘Will, please, can we just have one night without thinking about all this?’ I pointed to the TV, where a member of the Republic was arguing with the presenter about taxation.

‘This is my only source of information, they aren’t telling me anything’ he said scornfully.

I sat back into the sofa, defeated by William’s stubbornness. He was right, though, because an hour later, a breaking news bulletin flashed up on the screen.

PRINCE CHARLES AND THE DUCHESS OF CORNWALL LEAVE BRITAIN

I jolted up from my slumped state as the presenter read from the auto cue that had evidently just popped up in front of her.

‘Aides to the Prince of Wales have confirmed he has left Britain for an undisclosed period. They have declined to reveal his location but confirm that the Duchess of Cornwall is with him. It comes after the Queen left for her annual holiday two months early allegedly due to increasing pressure from the public and the campaign group Republic. Royal sources this evening have revealed that the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, Prince George and Prince Harry remain in the UK’

The TV was the loudest sound in the room, but my ears were focussed on William’s breathing next to me. He pulled his phone out of his pocket and wordlessly called his father. I watched as his eyes darkened and his breathing intensified. After a few seconds, he ended the call.

‘What happened?’ I asked cautiously.

He didn’t answer me, and instead called Jamie.

‘Jamie, did you see the news? … I just tried, his phone has been disconnected … did you know? … Should we be worried? … OK, I will, bye’

‘What did he say?’

‘It’s the first he’s heard of it. He hasn’t heard from Papa’. His face was so full of worry, I just wanted to reach over and comfort him. But I knew when William was stressed, he needed time to himself.

‘What now?’

‘We stay inside until they tell us otherwise’

My phone buzzed on the sofa arm. It was my mum calling.

‘Tell her we’re ok, but nothing else’ William said, spotting the caller display, ‘we don’t know if our phones are being watched’

I reluctantly did as he said. I wanted more than anything to leave that place right then and go to stay with my parents. But something in William’s tone told me to leave my family in safety.

William, meanwhile paced around the apartment double checking every window and shutting all the curtains. He locked every door he could too.

 ‘Should we go to the panic room?’ I said anxiously when he returned.

The panic room was a high tech protected zone disguised as a normal room – in our case it was hidden behind our walk in wardrobe.

 Suddenly he softened, coming over to me and taking me in his arms, ‘don’t be silly, you’re perfectly safe’

‘Then why are you locking us in here?’

‘As a precaution. As long as I’m here, you’re protected. The only time you’ll need that room is if I’m not’

I knew he was trying to placate me, and I let him because I didn’t want him to know I was scared. Looking back, I know he was doing the same thing.

We went to bed that night anxious but comforted by each other’s presence. After touching base with Harry, I insisted we bring George into our room for the night and we placed his cot as close to the bed as possible.

‘I’m sure your father’s tried to get in touch’ I began.

‘Tomorrow…we’ll talk about it tomorrow’ he said quietly, consumed by his own thoughts.

Somehow, we managed to fall asleep. It was a sleep so deep that I didn’t hear a footstep or a whisper that night, let alone hear him leave.

*

I woke up to silence. It was 6am and my body clock told me that George would wake up and demand breakfast in half an hour. When I looked to my left and right, neither of my boys were there.

It wasn’t unusual for me to wake up and find William not there. He was a light sleeper, and often he would get up before George so he could be there as soon as he woke, allowing me half an hour extra in bed. Recently, he’d been waking up before the sunrise, unable to stay in bed a moment longer than necessary.

I told myself that they were probably in the living room in front of the TV, watching the news so I lay there for a peaceful fifteen minutes, letting my body get used to being awake.

Eventually, I got up and went straight to the living room, only to find it was empty. The kitchen merely had the empty pizza boxes and menu scattered on the counter. Lupo was asleep in his basket in the corner.

Confused and trying to push down a rising sense of panic, I headed to the bathroom, which was cold and lifeless.

George’s room, I thought resolutely, chastising myself for overreacting. I would sometimes find the two of them playing in there, toys scattered all over the carpet because George only had to point and William would get whatever he wanted down from the shelf. Never mind the twenty cuddly toys already on the floor.

The room was vacant.

It was then that my heart shot into my throat.

‘William?!’ I shouted to no reply. ‘George?!’

I rushed back into the bedroom, looking for a note, checking my phone, anything. William wouldn’t have taken George for a walk without telling me, not in the current situation and certainly not without Lupo.

I felt the bile start to rise to my throat, my body breaking out into a sweat with the panic. Stay calm, I willed myself, taking deep breaths and letting my heart slow down.

I closed my eyes, and organised my thoughts. I would go through every one of our twenty rooms methodically and then and only then would I allow myself to worry. Collecting the keys from the study, I went about unlocking every door that William had locked the night before, switching on the lights to make extra sure as William had drawn all the curtains.

When I finished without finding a thing, I went back to our bedroom and did what a panicked wife and mother would do. I tried ringing him.

His phone went off within seconds, still lying on his bedside table where he always left it. My face popped up on the screen as it rang, smiling brightly into the camera. I wanted to throw it against the wall.

What was I supposed to do next? Who was I supposed to call? My mind blurred with all the things I’d been told in my training for emergencies when I’d married William. He would know what to do, I thought, my frustration momentarily overtaking my fear. I had never felt as alone as I did in that moment, my child missing, and my husband not there to calm me down.  

We hadn’t planned what I’d do without him. ‘As long as I’m here, you’re protected’, he’d said the night before as if it was so simple.

Then, as if from nowhere, and in the most inappropriate of circumstances, a memory flashed through my mind. Every year we would join my family on holiday in the Caribbean. What I loved more than anything was standing in the crystal waters, the sun on my back, waiting for the warm waves to wash over my legs. No matter what was happening in my life – an imminent break up or a tough pregnancy – that moment was like hope rushing in.

Standing in my bedroom that day, sweat dripping down my face, the same sense of hope washed over my body, a force so strong it nearly pushed me backwards.

‘The only time you’ll need that room is if I’m not’

I hurled myself towards our walk in wardrobe. The door was closed and I knew immediately someone had been inside. We never closed that door.

Switching on the light, I hurried to the end of the long narrow room, which was lined top to bottom with shelves and rails of clothes, shoes and accessories. At the back end of the room, William’s suits hung immaculately in a row and I pushed them aside roughly to reveal a small, barely visible panel concealed within the wall.

There was a brass latch along the skirting board, and I struggled to remember where it was, fumbling my fingers along it until after what felt like an age, my finger landed on the piece of cold metal. Pulling it up, I heard the panel click and it jutted out, allowing me to slide it to one side.

Behind it hid a thick, heavy metal door. The last time I’d seen it was when we’d moved in. Security had shown us just how secure it was, the loud clunk of the four door latches filling the room. It did so again as I pushed down the handle, and breathed a sigh of relief as I found that it was unlocked. Pushing it open, I entered the room. The lights were cut out and the darkness engulfed me. My other senses strained to make up for the loss of my sight.

After a few seconds, I heard him, his tiny chest heaving in his slumber.

I stumbled around the tiny square room, running my hands clumsily along the wall until I found the light switch.

George was lying in the middle of the room. I hadn’t noticed when I rushed through the wardrobe, but the bottom draw from the large chest in the closet had been removed. It usually held my knitted jumpers, and now it held my baby.

I almost screamed with relief when I saw him lying there in his makeshift cot. Next to him was Ronald. I pulled him out as gently as I could but couldn’t help but squeeze him tightly.

‘Thank God, thank God’ I whispered, kneeling on the ground. ‘How did you get in here baby?’

George fussed in my arms, displeased to be woken up.

‘Where’s Daddy?’ I said trying to stay calm. ‘Where’s your silly daddy gone?’

Taking the room in, it revealed two phones, a radio transmitter, a box of emergency unperishable food, and a small portable toilet in the corner. But no William.

Taking George with me, I circled the apartment again, looking in every single room again for sign of him. I tried to convince myself that he’d just gone out for an emergency meeting or something, but the cold silence in our home told me different.

Returning to the panic room with a bottle of milk, some food and my phone, I decided we should stay in there until I decided what to do. After all, would it be overreacting to call the office, the protection officers even? He had only been gone a few hours at the most. I took Lupo with us too, who by that time, was just as awake as George, and I hoped that they would keep each other entertained while we waited for word from William.

George now fully alert and drinking his milk happily, climbed back into the drawer. If William were there, I knew he would’ve pushed George around in it, pretending it was a boat or a tank. I knelt beside him and noticed my hands trembling.

It was at that moment that I saw it, just as George joyfully threw Ronald from the drawer. Nestled between my knits; a note written haphazardly on a scrap piece of paper.

Don’t come looking. I’m sorry.

*

Jamie arrived within half an hour of my call; as if he was expecting it. With him were two of our new “advisers”. Steven, a tall lanky man in his early forties with sandy blonde hair and sharp features was calm and controlled. In comparison, the new press secretary, Alec, overweight and balding, had been loud and brash every time we’d had the misfortune to encounter him.

‘Ma’am’, they all said, Steven and Alec bowing their heads reluctantly.

‘What exactly happened Ma’am?’ Jamie said kindly, noticing my obvious distress to which the other two were oblivious.

I explained everything from start to finish, all the essential parts anyway. ‘There’s no reason that he would leave like this, something must’ve happened’ I said calmly as I could.

‘Let’s not go over the top here’ Alec said, his voice booming around the room, ‘there’s probably an explanation – have you tried calling him?’

‘Of course I have! He left his phone here’

‘With all due respect’ Steven said, chiming in, ‘it has only been a few hours, perhaps we should wait before jumping to conclusions’

‘I’m not jumping to anything; he would not leave us like this, not after yesterday’

‘And of course we’ll do our best to help’ Jamie said.

‘But we do have a lot on, you understand, we can’t go on a wild goose chase’ Alec looked pointedly at Jamie. ‘Tell me, where’s the little one?’

‘Asleep in the nursery’ I said cautiously. I didn’t like strangers getting too close to George, and as far as I was concerned, Steven and Alec were just that.

‘I believe the duke has been under a lot of pressure recently’ Steven said coldly, ‘perhaps his leaving has something to do with domestic matters?’

I grew hot with embarrassment and anger, ‘what are you insinuating?’

 ‘Did anything happen last night that might have encouraged him to leave?’

‘We had a tiny disagreement about not having any food in the house, but it was nothing’

‘Sometimes small arguments can cause people to re-evaluate things, especially with the big changes happening of late‘

‘My husband has not left me’ I said with a shaking confidence. ’Something has happened to him, besides he hasn’t taken a single thing with him’

Steven nodded patronisingly. ‘We’ll look into it’

‘Give it a few more days though’ Alec added.

I realised then that they were going to do nothing to help me find William. I looked to Jamie for back up.

‘I’ll be right behind you’ he said to the other two, who were making moves to leave.

‘We can wait’ Steven said, halting on the spot.

Jamie looked right at me, his eyes unwavering. It was as if he were trying to communicate something to me without words. ‘I’m sure he’s just fine, Ma’am’.

* 

The following days were filled with anxious waiting and little to no sleep. It had been seventy two hours since William had disappeared and I hadn’t heard a thing. I had tried countless times to convince Jamie that we should call the police. 

At first he told me that we had to wait twenty four hours before reporting a missing person. When those twenty four hours came and I rushed down to his office to make the call, he was apologetic, telling me we should wait a bit longer.

On the third day, I was back in his office yet again.

‘The problem is Ma’am, he left a note, so he’s not technically missing’ he said, wiping his brow, the heat still searing.

‘He’s been gone three days Jamie. You know as well as I do, something isn’t right’

‘I’m afraid the police won’t see it like that, they’ll agree that he left of his own accord’.

Stephen appeared from the adjoining office after hearing my voice. I had managed to avoid him and Alec for the past three days.

‘Is there anything I can help with?’ he said, his voice sending uncomfortable waves of nausea through me.

‘Nothing’ I said shortly.

I glanced in the direction of his office, finding something to focus on that wasn’t his sharp, sly face. He stepped to one side as if to block the doorway from my view. Our old staff kept their doors open for us, happy for us to know what they were doing and discussing.

‘Where’s the little’un today?’ he asked with an informality that was clearly against every bone in his body.

‘He’s being looked after’

‘By whom may I ask? I didn’t see your mother arrive’

Stephen and Alec had CCTV monitors installed in that office. Ever since the protests outside the palace, the security had been intensified. George’s nanny had been let go too, we couldn’t let her stay with us in potential danger no matter how much George loved her. I wondered whether Stephen and Alec’s concern was not really about who was coming in, but who was going out.

‘George is fine. Thank you’ I said.

‘If you insist. Ma’am’ He nodded curtly and slid back into his office.

I bolted up the stairs the minute I left the office. How could I be so stupid to leave George with someone outside the family?

‘Antonella!’ I yelled when I got into the apartment. ‘Antonella, where are you?’

The comforting smell of tomato and basil wafted from the kitchen, followed by the shuffling feet of our some-time cook and housekeeper. Jamie had finally convinced Steven and Alec to let her return after weeks of her not being allowed “for security reasons”.

‘Yes Ma’am’ she said, her tone one of constant worry nowadays.

‘Where’s George?’ I said irrationally and out of breath.

‘In his cot Ma’am, where you left him’

Clearly, Antonella was confused by my sudden change of attitude. Ten minutes previously, I’d asked her to watch George while he was napping so I could speak to Jamie.

I ran into the nursery to check on him, where he was splayed on his front like a starfish, gentle snores escaping his mouth.

‘You should probably go’, I said to Antonella when I returned to the kitchen.

‘But what about the din-‘

‘I said go!’ I shouted this time, my steady façade gone.

She didn’t hesitate, gathering up her things and scuttling out of the door.

It was only when the door clicked shut that I let myself crumple into a heap on the floor. I gathered my knees to my chest and sobbed into them, great wells of tears that had been bursting at the seams for three days. I had no idea where William was and no hope of finding him. I had been convincing myself that he wouldn’t leave us, but spanning my mind back, my bitchiness over the food and his stress that night made me doubt myself. Maybe he just wanted out.

I picked myself up and tuned off the stove, where Antonella’s pasta sauce was close to burning. I couldn’t bear to eat anything now.

*

That night, I sat on my bedroom window ledge, unable to sleep. Scrolling through William’s phone for the fiftieth time, I flicked through his picture album. Before George was born, I would tease him for only having six pictures stored in his phone, compared to my two hundred. But now, his was as full as mine, with shots of George from the day he was born to just last week when he was trying to climb on top of Lupo.

I looked out into the black night, wondering how he could have left all this. I thought about where he might go to escape.

Scotland, Windsor? Too close.

Kenya? That was his favourite place on earth, after all. But people knew him there now.

William had once told me, ‘I’d love to move somewhere where I could lose my identity, to be small fish in a big pond, a nobody’.

I had just laughed at him and told him he’d have a hard job finding such a place.  

I shook away the thought of him being far from me and focused back on the night he left.

Did he leave through the front entrance, the darkness of Kensington Gardens engulfing him so he wasn’t seen? Or perhaps through the back, scurrying into a car while we were all asleep?

As if knowing which exit he used would help me find him, I chided myself.

I stopped my thoughts in their tracks. There was a way I could know how he left, of course there was.

I wrapped George in a blanket, careful not to wake him and tip toed out of the apartment. It was almost midnight and all the staff had gone home, at least I hoped.

As I unlocked the office door, I silently thanked Jamie for giving me a key when William and I had married. Those days of transparency were long gone now, I knew that much. I headed straight to Steven and Alec’s annexed office, where this morning, Steven had been so unwilling to let me see inside. Mercifully, it was unlocked.

Suspended on the wall was a plasma screen split into twelve, each showing a different entrance of the palace. Now, there was no movement, but I knew if I looked for the tape from the night William left, I may just have something to see. Swopping George to my other arm, I pulled open the heavy drawer of the filing cabinet under the screen and found rows of cds all neatly labelled with dates. William disappeared on the 12th and my heart pace increased and I spotted the July section.

10th, 11th,   13th.

George whined in my arms as if sensing my distress.

‘Shhh baby, shh, Mummy’s here’

I knew there was no point looking for the missing cd, it was gone, most likely destroyed. It only confirmed my belief that I was swimming against the tide. Not only were these new advisers reluctant to help me, they were actively hiding information.

‘Yes it’s getting in the morning edition’ a voice said, coming from nowhere and startling me. ‘Ha! Runaway Prince, I like it’

It was Alec, and by the sound of it, he was out in the corridor.

I panicked, ducking down under Steven’s desk. George didn’t like the sudden movement and let out a cry.

‘Shhhh!’ I said holding his head close to my chest, my heart beating like a drum.

Alec continued. ‘What? Yeh I told them she’s frantic, prissy little bi-‘

George cried, louder this time.

I crouched lower, ‘please baby, be quiet for Mummy’ I whispered desperately.

I heard the outer office door creak and after a long pause, his breathing low and heavy, he finally spoke again.

‘Oh nothing…just a cat outside. Anyway, make sure you get the message to Redfern tomorrow, we don’t want him staging a comeback…’

Alec’s voice trailed off as he shut the door and left. I breathed a sigh of relief, planting kisses all over George’s face for keeping quiet when he really needed to.

*

Back in the apartment, I paced the lushly carpeted floor. Who was Redfern and what did he need to know? I’d never heard of that name, and desperately wanted to call Jamie to ask him. But I now realised the lengths Steven and Alec were prepared to go, and couldn’t risk using my phone.

My eyes were tired, deep bags forming under them, but I couldn’t sleep. Out of desperation and insomnia, I fired up the laptop and typed ‘Redfern’ into Google. The first couple of results were meaningless; a publishing house and a photographer with the name.

But the third caught my eye.

Redfern, Iowa

I clicked on the link.

Redfern is a town is Iowa, United States. The population in the 2010 census was 104.

I looked up from the screen, not daring to believe it, or to let myself hope.

‘I’d love to move somewhere where I could lose my identity, to be small fish in a big pond, a nobody’.

*

The sun had broken by the time I had worked out a way to contact Jamie without using my phone, which William warned me could have been bugged. A niggling feeling warned me to be careful. Maybe I couldn’t trust him either. But he was my only hope of finding William.

I hunted around in my underwear drawer and eventually found what I was looking for. Tucked into one of my socks was my old mobile phone, a Nokia to be exact. It was the very same that had been hacked all those years back. William would’ve been mortified if he knew I still had it, with all those messages still stored on there. But I couldn’t let it go, it was a potent memory of the days when our communication consisted of love yous and miss yous, unlike the last text I sent to him, which simply said Don’t forget to ask about the food.

I prayed that after all these years the old thing would be able to switch on, let alone make a call. By the time the phone had woken up, I had finished packing mine and George’s bags. I had started as soon as I’d decided that Redfern was the place I needed to go. Our bags consisted of a few clothes, as much cash as I could find, toys – Ronald of course – but mainly were filled with food and water.

It was only 5am, and feeling bad for Jamie, I delayed calling him for fifteen minutes by looking at some old text messages from William.

09/05/2006 : I can’t wait to see you baby  

How true that was now. I felt a tinge of fear that maybe I was wrong, maybe Redfern was something totally unrelated to where William had gone. I pushed the doubt aside, it was all I had left to cling on to.

*

The car pulled up quietly at eight am. Jamie had been furtive on the phone, worried about my state of mind. But I insisted and pleaded with him, and something told me he didn’t think my idea was as crazy as he made out.

‘Ok Georgie, time to go’ I said to him as he sat on the kitchen floor rolling a ball into Lupo and then shouting as if he expected him to roll it back.

Distracting myself from the fact that I was leaving my home seemed so easy when I had packing and last minute calls to make. It seemed ironic that the same phone that was infiltrated was now being used to avoid that very situation. I had explained to my family what was happening but declined to tell them where I was going. My mother was frantic.

‘Catherine, you can’t just disappear! How will we know you’re safe?!’

‘I’ll get in touch as soon as I can, I promise mummy’

It broke my heart to hear her so worried and upset, but I reasoned that if would be safer for them to not know where we were. I still didn’t know what I was up against. Harry hadn’t answered his phone but Jamie had promised to let him know where his brother was once we knew for sure.

Lupo sat solemnly on the kitchen floor as if he had heard me ask my mother to take him in. 

‘Ok boy, time to say goodbye’ I nuzzled my face into his fur but he didn’t respond. ‘Say bye bye to Lupo, George’

George waddled over and imitated me by patting him on the head. I forced back the lump in my throat. 

Carrying all three bags and George on my hip, I opened the door and looked around our home for one last time. Lupo trotted up to us and started scratching at my legs.

‘No boy, it’s just me and Georgie this time’ I pushed him down and said goodbye to him and to the life we once lived.

 *

After creeping through the servant’s corridors and out of a side door, George and I bundled into the car that was waiting for us. On the seat next to me was not Jamie as I expected, however.

‘Susannah, what are you doing here? Where’s Jamie?’ I asked, strapping George into his seat.

‘We thought it’d be safer if I came, I pretended I was going out for a morning jog and met the car on a side street’ she said.

Jamie’s wife sat next to me, a worried expression on her face.

‘You think you’re being watched?’ I asked.

‘Jamie thinks so, these ex-military types are suspicious of everyone though’, she let out a wry laugh.

‘I know the feeling’ I said, thinking of William and his intense dislike of Steven and Alec. That time he was right. 

As we set off, I tried to make conversation, ‘how did Jamie organise all this? I thought the whole palace was being watched’

‘Let’s just say there’s still some loyal people working for your family’ she smiled.

We made our way through the streets of London, I had no idea where the plane was that I’d be taking to Iowa or how Jamie managed to get it, but I didn’t ask. I was relieved enough to be away from Kensington. 

Driving around Green Park, Susannah handed me a newspaper she’d been clutching.

‘I don’t know if you’ve seen this Ma’am’

I unfolded the paper and read the headline. Exclusive! Runaway Prince! Prince William walks out on Kate.

I shut it with haste. So this was what Alec was talking about last night.

I said nothing and focused instead on our journey. The drive seemed to be taking us down the Mall and towards Buckingham Palace. As we got closer, a strange noise caught our attention. It was a mass cheering of some sort, but not the type I was used to when standing from that famous balcony. It was more like jeering. 

Getting closer to the palace, my eyes connected to the sound. 

Up on that balcony, which had been used for so many scenes of celebration was a large group of people waving their arms in victory.

Replacing the red and gold trimmed banner so often used on big occasions was something very different hanging from the the balustrade.

Blue, with a shocking pink cross struck through the middle. The Republic.

‘Good God, they’ve taken the palace’ Susannah gasped. 

From the windows of the palace, Republic flags were dotted around, flying proudly. 

On the ground, gone were the uniformed guards in their famous bearskin hats. People stood behind the golden gates cheering and shouting, and on the other side, members of the Republic pulled at the chains to let the masses in. News vans were just arriving to the scene.

We watched as the flag rose from the top of the building, where the royal standard used to fly, signifying their final victory.

‘We have to turn around, go a different route’ I heard Susannah say to the driver in panic ‘if they spot Their Royal Hignesses…’

‘Don’t call us that’ I said blankly.

Susannah looked at me but said nothing.

I kept my eves on the palace even as the driver turned the car around. Although I had only been royal for three years, the pain of watching the palace being seized throbbed through me. It was where we’d spent our first day and night as a married couple, where we’d danced all night on the wave of love and affection of the country. And now they celebrated, and no-one; no police, not even Her Majesty’s Armed Forces were there to stop them. 

‘It’s over, isn’t it?’ I whispered to no-one in particular.

George let out a long yawn, snapping me out of my daze. I turned to smile at him, he was looking out of the window, with not a care in the world. He was the spitting image of his father. It was then that I finally allowed to let myself think the unthinkable – what if we never found William, what if he was gone.

I held George’s hand, enclosing his chubby fingers in my palm as we escaped from the city.

It was just the two of us now, we were going to have to do this alone. 

‘Come on then’ I said, leaning in to him, ‘let’s go find your daddy’.

[ask-de-writer]

PARADOX PLANET : World of Sea : Science Fiction : 1 part

Return to the Master Story Index

PARADOX PLANET

by

Glen Ten-Eyck

This is an excerpt from a novel in progress called GONE TO SEA

2579 words in chapter 1

copyright 2012

writing begun 2005

All rights reserved. This document may not be copied or distributed on or to any medium or placed in any mass storage system except by the express written consent of the author.

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Copyright fair use rules for Tumblr users

Users of Tumblr.com are specifically granted the following rights. They may reblog the story. They may use the characters or original characters in my settings for fan fiction, fan art works, cosplay, or fan musical compositions, provided that such things are done without charge. I will allow those who do commission art works to charge for their images provided that I receive a copy of each image for my archive. I will further allow the use of printed copies for educational use in school classes. No charge of any kind may be made for this use, whether paper, ink, binding, packaging, distribution or any other charge whatsoever.

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1. Paradox Planet

This was going to be difficult, thought Captain Alain. In the wardroom of his ship, the ESA 14, he faced Mr. Torres, the leader of the colonial expedition. Mr. Torres was not a happy man.

“This is an outrage!” he said ferociously. “I can read clocks and calendars as well as any! We were to be awakened from Crossover Sleep on arrival at the system. It has been over a year, local time, since you got here.” He paused to breathe heavily, angrily and went on, “Now, only I have been awakened! What are you up to?”

Captain Alain Looked over at the gray painted metal bulkhead relieved only by pictures mounted to the wall. The duty crews painted them as a hobby to fill the long empty years of the passage. Even faster than light Crossover Drives had limits. Stars were still an unimaginably great distance apart, many of them were years apart. This expedition, two hundred and eighteen light-years distant from Earth, at just over twenty one years of flight time, was no exception. Unless some further distant worthwhile planet had been found in the passing years, this was the longest colonial run that the ESA had tried.

Captain Alain looked down at the pile of files, data disks and crystals in front of him and back to Mr. Torres. He decided to be blunt.

“You know that due to energy constraints, this had to be a one way trip for you and the other colonists. We were trying to find a way to save your expedition’s lives. We failed.”

That brought Mr. Torres up short. “Trying to save us? You failed?” His eyes went wide, “Did my people die?”

“No, they are all well and asleep. The problem is not on the ship. It is the target world. It is everything that the probe reported. We need to report back and have the probes reprogrammed. Nobody expected a world like Sea.”

“C?”, asked Mr. Torres, puzzled. “Is it because it’s the third world? Why call it C?”

“Sea, as in ocean,” said Captain Alain reaching into his pile of data and handing over a crystal. “Look for yourself.”

Mr. Torres activated the viewing controls and knit his brows in concentration as he examined the picture and data flowing beneath it. “Where are the land masses? On the other side? It says that I’ve rotated the view but it’s no different.”

“It did rotate, Mr. Torres. There is no land anywhere on Sea.” Captain Alain paused to collect his thoughts. “So far as we can tell, the last island sank for good between one and a half and two and a half million years ago.” He gestured at the image. “If you boost the magnification far enough you will find floating weed mats and shallow areas that you can use to follow the rotation of the globe.”

Mr. Torres looked again, at high magnification. The skilled ecologist in him rebelled at what he was seeing. “This is not possible. Without land masses to break up air flows by both barrier and convection effects the atmosphere should turn into high speed bands of wind.”

“My crew and I are well aware of the problem, Mr. Torres,” said Captain Alain with the air of one who wished that he had not found the answer to a puzzle. “The reason that the atmosphere does not band is every bit as bad as what you have just seen.”

Once again he removed an image crystal from his pile of data. “As you watch this, bear in mind that it is a direct recording of an actual event. You can change the time compression to suit your own taste. It won’t alter what you will see.” Wryly he added, “We have already said that it’s impossible. It will spare you the effort.”

In utter disbelief, Mister Torres stopped the crystal playback and restarted it several times. It showed the birth of a storm. A large rotating depression was forming at about sixty five degrees South Latitude. Sympathetically, Captain Alain said, “Go ahead and let it play. It only gets worse.”

The storm swept north along a large curve that appeared to be dictated by Coriolis force. The warmer seas of the tropics fueled the storm and it grew into a monster with a core of powerful storm cells over a thousand miles across. The vastly aberrant storm’s clouds did not limit themselves to the troposphere. They towered high into the stratosphere, where no sane cloud mass, let alone a whole cyclonic storm, belonged. The wind speeds achieved over three hundred and twenty kilometers per hour.

The counterclockwise rotation of the storm should have killed it when it crossed the equator to the Northern Hemisphere where the same Coriolis force would now try to make the storm rotate clockwise. Instead, the storm broke apart into individual thunderstorms that followed precise vectors across the equator and reassembled themselves into a giant clockwise rotating storm, all angular momentum preserved, and with no loss of wind speed.

It followed a Coriolis arc north and finally cold northern waters robbed its energy. It broke up into thunderstorms, squalls and fogs about sixty five degrees North Latitude.

Captain Alain said, “Hard to believe, isn’t it? We have observed eight of those aberrations of nature and they ALL do that. Because of the form of the path that they follow, we are calling them Coriolis Storms. It’s as though there were a guiding intelligence handling the storm. Lovely fantasy. It would take at least nine of the most powerful synchronous orbit Weather Sats with a fleet of Low Orbit backups to get even one of those storms across the equator. It would be touch and go, even with equipment like that. All that we have here are the three moons and the primary star. We just haven’t figured out the natural mechanism yet, that’s all.

“The worst part of this is that while the spacing and placement of the storms appears to be completely unpredictable, statistically every part of the planet will get hit at least once every five years by one of these monsters. The crew has a betting pool on where and when the next one will occur. The sample is still too small to be sure but it is beginning to appear that the storms are not completely random in their occurrence.”

Mister Torres surprised Captain Alain. He accepted the statements without comment and quietly sat, thinking. At last he spoke thoughtfully, “I’m not an engineer but perhaps we can deal with the storms by going under them. Build domes or habitats on the reefs maybe. The water is calm only a few feet below the waves.”

Captain Alain gave Mister Torres points for being quick on his mental feet. Gently, he said, “My crew and I ARE engineers. We did think of that. Unfortunately, it can’t be done. A dome is an engineering nightmare. The buoyancy is massive. The pressure gradient from top to bottom is all wrong. The air pressure inside the dome is controlled by the depth of the lowest part of it. That means that the dome will try to burst at the top because the water pressure is lowest there and the inside air is at the pressure of deepest part where the water pressure is highest. Small habitats would be possible except that we don’t have the materials to build that many of them and can’t get what we need from the environment.

“We brought equipment to mine on land or in space. We can fabricate almost any device except for a tiny problem. There’s no land to mine and the rest of the system is metal poor. This world does have quite a lot of high quality ores. Unfortunately they are under about fifty to over nine hundred meters of water. We can’t get at them. Captain Alain inhaled heavily and added, “We can’t even get useful silica sand on this planet. It’s in the same situation as the metal ores. The common coral sand is useless for glass making.

“What we can do is process the local coral and coral sands into a form of concrete. It is possible to get useful amounts of aluminum, magnesium and small amounts of titanium from the seawater. We can go to the three moons for silicates to make glasses. They even have small amounts of available iron and some other useful metals. The silicates make structural glass a real possibility. Fiberglass is also practical. Many of the local seaweeds will process to yield various useful plastic resins for both the fiberglass and to mold directly into useful objects.

“In this environment, only the titanium and structural glass are durable. Corrosion will destroy the other metals in short order. Concrete made from coral is subject to long term erosion by the water, not to mention the many animals and plants that will attack it. Even the fiberglass will have a limited life due to long term water absorption. Of course you can recycle the fiberglass materials.”

Now it was Mister Torres who spoke. “You know about the nutritional deficiency issues of this world, um … Sea? Good name, by the way.”

Captain Alain accepted the compliment with a nod and replied, “Yes. You will be short a pair of critical amino acids, a small raft of vitamins, and there’s a carbohydrate problem of some sort.”

It was Mister Torres who spread his hands now. “You are right. We brought the solutions to all of that along in the form of crop seeds and embryonic animals. We did not expect to have no place to raise them. Hydroponics could answer the plant problem, perhaps. The animals are a different matter altogether. They have to have a certain amount of space for proper development.” He paused and looked thoughtfully at a painting of Mt Fuji, back on Earth, “Could we bypass the growth of the animals and do a carniculture system? I ask because that is more an engineering problem.”

Captain Alain considered in his turn. Mister Torres let him think. A thousand lives hung in the balance. At last, Captain Alain said, “It could be done. It has been done before. There is a nutrient limitation. You have to be able to supply the culture tissues with the necessary amino acids. The whole animal would manufacture its own from the crops fed to it. The culture can’t do that. I think that with the available resources, you are stuck with raising the animals whole. I can ask. We didn’t think of that solution.” He dictated a note for his ship’s system engineers to look into it.

Suddenly Mister Torres exclaimed, “Those storms all follow the same pattern! That means that if we build a platform, we can design it to be strongest in a direction that will resist the storms best! What sort of tidal variation are we dealing with?”

Captain Alain thought a moment and consulted his data. His brows knit as he worked through the problem. “When the sun and the moons line up unfavorably, the sea level can drop until the shallows become shoal-water. At the other extreme, the water depth can go to twenty meters. A storm depression coupled with a low tide can actually bare the upper parts of the coral. That kills the coral and limits upward growth.”

Mister Torres shook his head. “Between storms, coral should grow on the skeletons of the dead coral and cause island building. Why doesn’t it?”

Captain Alain realized from the form of the question that Mister Torres was giving him credit for intelligence and was pleased. He answered, “There’s a common fish with a hard beak. It seems to think that the dead coral is a delicacy and mows the reef down as it grazes. It chews up the stone to get the dead organisms. That’s what makes the coral sand.”

Mister Torres nodded. “Like the parrot fish back home. Makes sense. The same fish attacks our concrete too?”

Captain Alain just nodded. Then he had a thought. Excitedly he said, “We could put titanium mesh in the outer layers of the concrete. That would keep the fish out of anything structural. Once the platform was built, you could process more concrete on your own. You could re-plaster the areas that the fish attack.”

He subsided, “You’d have all your eggs in one basket, though. The thing would have to be huge. We can only marshal the resources to build one.”

“It’s not really that important,” said Mister Torres softly. “There’s no possible way for us to survive until a ship can return with what we do need. Still, we have to have the platform for morale reasons. My people need hope. It’s all that we can really do for them.”

Captain Alain suggested, “We can request a recovery expedition as soon as we get back. It is ESA policy to have a colony ship ready for just such an emergency.”

Mister Torres shook his head negatively. “I fear that the war that was shaping up will be long over when you get back. I pray that you will be able to survive your return. I do not think that there is any possibility of our survival.”

Captain Alain looked compassionately at Mister Torres. He shook his head. “You’re right. The war will change everything back home. We received messages from Earth before we got The drive up to threshold energy. The shooting did start. We were ordered to return but disobeyed. I can only hope that some form of the ESA has survived.

“As for your platform, even with the Crossover Drive to push us faster than light, we can’t get back to you in time. No platform that we can build will survive long enough. It is going to get hit by at least five and probably more of those Coriolis Storms. One of them will sweep it away. Without its facilities, your people will die of malnutrition in fairly short order.”

Mister Torres looked back at Captain Alain and said bleakly, “I know that. What we are going to do is simple. We will lie to your crew and my colonists alike. We will fake evidence to show that the necessary nutrients can be found in the ecology. We just can’t localize them well enough from space. The search will keep hope in them to the last.”

Captain Alain closed his eyes in pain. This was indeed difficult. Why couldn’t Mister Torres be angry, rail at fate or just cry? This calm acceptance, this cold blooded planning to deceive a thousand doomed people was beyond him. He shook himself and said, “Very well, we will follow your lead. Two of my crew will have to be in the conspiracy. They are needed to create the false data.”

That simply, the decision was made. With massive labor, a platform was built with all of the best systems, electronic controls and computerized communications. It held laboratories, shops, apartments, docks for boats, recreational and farming spaces. All critical exposed areas, like the upper levels of the farms, could be closed over with locking domes in bad weather. On the platform, a space one kilometer by one and a half kilometers, several stories thick, a thousand people were left on a planet that could not support them. Only one of their number actually knew what had been done.

-The End-

[ridleykemp]

Battlebots Season 5 Episode 3: A Little Controversy To Go With The Carnage

Hey, you! You like spoilers? Good! Read on! If not, then scram! I’m literally going to spoil the entire show starting with the next paragraph, so if you don’t want to know what happened, get outta here!

Alrighty, welcome to fight night 3 of season 5! The first two shows were heavy on brutal action and light on judges decisions. That’s not the case the time. Will it be “Duck was robbed” redux? You’ll just have to read on and find out.

Fight 1: Copperhead v. Gigabyte

Zach Goff’s Copperhead is probably the closest thing the fans will get to seeing Minotaur this year. It’s a 2-wheel drum spinner that hits hard enough to, well, we’ll get to that. John Mladenik’s Gigabyte is the Mother of All Full Body Spinners, a big, inverted wok with lots of bits mounted on the sides to smack you with. The only prediction I made for this one was that it wasn’t going to the judges.

It didn’t go to the judges.

Copperhead looks much the same, but the motor is definitely more impressive even if it doesn’t make the hornet-swarm buzz of Minotaur. The two bots spun up quickly and met in the middle of the arena. The self-righting bar on Gigabyte popped off almost immediately, apparently affecting their driving and allowing Copperhead to back them into a corner. A full-body spinner does not want to be backed into a corner.

The next few seconds were marked primarily by Gigabyte bouncing off the sides of the arena. Copperhead had some time to spin up and hit Gigabyte hard enough to remote the shell from the body. My guess is that the self-righting bar was probably structurally important because that really shouldn’t have happened. The Copperhead folks were nice enough not to clobber Gigabytes exposed innards ad the judge counted the decapitated bot out.

Winner: Copperhead (Knockout)

Fight 2: SubZero v. JackPot

Logan Davis is at the helm of Team SubZero this year. It’s a flipper that is best known for being able to take absurd amounts of damage as opposed to dealing it out. JackPot, driven by Jeff Waters, is a four wheel vertical spinner with two unusually large bars making it a sort of mini-HUGE. Interesting.

The bots came out and met head on, with SubZero getting under JackPot and driving it around the arena. It seemed like a good time to use that flipper, but it never fired for some reason. JackPot was struggling to move in any meaningful way and couldn’t do a lot with the weapon except when it was riding on top of SubZero and whacking the top of the bot.

It would have been interesting to see this one go three minutes to see how the judges would have called it, as SubZero was in complete control of the match but the primary weapon wasn’t work (note: this is foreshadowing). Eventually, SubZero’s motor gave out or it got hung up on an obstacle (it was hard to tell which) and it just stopped moving, giving JackPot the win in its first fight.

Winner: JackPot (Knockout)

Fight 3: Gemini v. Uppercut

Oh, Gemini. Ace Shelander’s multi-bot, a pair of 125 lb. bar spinners, looks good on paper but it’s had serious problems in the arena. Alex Hattori’s Uppercut debuted last year and had a shockingly good run for a new bot. It’s an unusual vertical spinner, with a single “fist” and a counterweight, so there’s only one “side” to the weapon and, of course, it hits up instead of down.

There’s no way I can make this recap a longer one. Gemini split to try to flank Uppercut, but Uppercut just went after the left bot and punted it twenty feet across the arena and over the wall. It turned, faced the other bot, and split it in two with one hit. Game over. After the match, Chris Rose asked Hattori about the fight and he just grinned and said “My bot is fun.” Yeah, it sure is.

Winner: Uppercut (Knockout)

Fight 4: Rotator v. BETA

Victor Soto’s Rotator is a contender for the Giant Nut. It’s a well-armored bot that can mount weapons on either end and Victor is a fantastic driver, as he showed when he dismantled Tombstone last year. This is the time we’ve seen John Reid’s BETA in a while. It’s the apex hammer bot, really hard to hurt, and it can actually cause a little damage with the hammer (which, for a hammer bot, is really impressive).

The bots came out of the gate quickly and BETA just started pushing Rotator around. BETA had a huge armored wedge on it and Rotator couldn’t do a thing about. BETA just drove around shoving Rotator into the wall over and over. On the other hand, Rotator had a top-mounted disc spinner and the idea was that if the hammer hit it, the hammer would take more damage than their bot. The BETA folks agreed, and never fired the weapon.

So, it was essentially a wedge bot pushing around a spinner that couldn’t do anything about it. Eventually, BETA shoved Rotator into a corner and the the spinner bot bounced off the wall and into BETA’s hammer, knocking the head of the hammer off. That was literally the only big “hit” of the fight and BETA immediately resumed shoving Rotator around.

This one went to the judges and it was…not a popular decision. The judges split 2-1 in favor of BETA. I won’t get too deeply into Battlebots lore here, but, in order to discourage wedge bots, the scoring rules are heavily weighted in favor of bots that use their primary weapon. You can get 5 points for doing damage with your weapon, 3 points for aggression (and aggression with the weapon is favored), and 3 points for control of the match.

Was this the correct decision? I think so, but it was tight. The only damage that was done was one hit by Rotator when it was bouncing around and on one wheel, and the rules state that the only damage that counts is damage inflicted by “…deliberate, controlled action,” and it would be a real stretch to say that was the case. On the other hand, BETA absolutely dominated the other two categories. Rotator might as well have been immobile for how easily BETA pushed it around. This wasn’t DUCK v. Bombshell part 2: Bombshell landed some massive hits with its weapon.

The result also passes the eyeball test: Watching that fight, there was only one bot in it. Team Rotator reacted to their one hit like that hit would guarantee a judges decision and a lot of people agreed with that take. Is getting knocked around for three minutes but getting in one hit enough to win the fight? Should it be enough to win the fight? I don’t know. But, to my eyes, the better bot won.

This video will probably be taken down, but it’s a good watch if you can still see it.

Winner: BETA (Split decision)

Fight 5: Tantrum v. Valkyrie

I was rooting for both of these bots. Aren Hill’s Tantrum has made huge strides from the days when it was a cute, but utterly ineffective flipper bot. The “punch spinner” idea, where they launch a spinning drum into the opponent, is really interesting and I hope they continue to refine it. Leanne Cushing’s Valkyrie looks like it should be a top-ten bot: It’s a low, horizontal spinner that can hit really hard, and the low, armored body is tough to damage. It just hasn’t been as reliable as it need to be up to this point.

This one turned out to be a pretty good fight. Valkyrie was well on top early on, getting in several blows with their 65 lb. disc. But, as is often the case for this bot, the spinner stopped working and Tantrum went on the attack. Every now and again, the little puncher bot was able to get under Valkyrie and sparks flew. Actually, there were a lot of sparks in this match, even if there weren’t too many big hits.

Valkyrie was dazed and it looked as though Tantrum might take the W, but the drive stopped working and an it wouldn’t move anymore. I’m glad to see Valkyrie get off to a good start, but sad to see Tantrum take the loss when they were this close to a win.

Winner: Valkyrie (Knockout)

Fight 6: Big Dill v. Atom #94

Two rookies facing off in this one !mmanuel Carrillo’s Big Dill, which just invites all kinds of terrible puns and Kenny Rose tried to use them all, is a lifter with unusually long forks. Atom #94 (Plutonium, for those of you who don’t want to look it up), captained by Yash Deshmukh, is a vertical disc spinner of the Hypershock/Witch Doctor body type, so it looked like it could do some damage.

Unfortunately Atom #94 struggled with movement right out of the box. It just sort of wiggled around without any speed or direction, which is catnip to a lifter bot. Big Dill was able to pick the exact spot to make contact and just started carrying Atom #94 around the arena like a cat that was presenting a captured bird to its owner.

Big Dill wasn’t able to get Atom #94 out of the arena, and eventually, the forks got caught in the other bot’s weapon belt and the fight had to be stopped and sent to the judges. This was an easy one for them.

Winner: Big Dill (Unanimous decision)

Fight 7: Hypershock v. Gruff

What a fantastic matchup for the headliner, although I did comment to Nicole that the matchup was kind of unfavorable for both bots. Will Bales’ Hypershock is one of the fastest, most powerful, and best-driven bots in the tournament although it has had serious trouble finishing fights. Sam McAmis’ Gruff is the polar opposite: It may be the most rugged, reliable bot out there, but as a lifter (albeit a lifter with a scary torch, too), it’s not the biggest offensive threat.

It turns out the immovable object has the advantage over the unstoppable force, or at least it did last night. Hypershock dashed out of the box and tried to find somewhere to hit Gruff that wasn’t armored, but, failing that, just smacked it a couple of times. Gruff was able to function primarily as a ram, but it did manage to lift Hypershock and turn on the heaters and after that? Hypershock was cooked.

Winner: Gruff (Knockout)

For me, the quality of the fights wasn’t quite as high as it had been over the first two episodes, but we got a lot of drama, and that was certainly interesting. With a lot of rookie bots this year, you’re always going to get a mixed bag. Any time there’s a new bot, my thought is that the best you can hope for is that it will work. Not win, not even compete, but just do the things it’s supposed to do: move, attack, dodge, etc. If you can do that, you’re doing it right.

That’s it for episode 3. It occurs to me that the bot I’m not interested in seeing, Chomp, hasn’t fought yet. Surely next week, right?

[voidsettle]

København: Christmas Markets

                                                                                                      December 2017

I hate traveling during winters to anywhere that's not over +20. Excluding Copenhagen. Because really, how can you not fall in love with it immediately?

Christmas decorations on display and for sell at Tivoli

Have you ever experienced a Julemarked? You should; it's here that you get the best holiday spirit even as a grown-up. Sweets, hot wine with spices, knitted sweaters. They have everything to keep you warm, body and soul.

Who wants to be happy anymore when there's hygge? That's special Danish word that means you don't care there's cold and wind that get everywhere - you still feel warm and totally relaxed. Gløgg for everyone!

Plan your trip tight but relaxed - Denmark is not the country that likes to be treated touristy. Copenhagen has it all: castles from different eras, vivid architecture, traditions big and small.

But don't forget to relax just like the Danes do. Grab a beer or a gløgg. Take a blanket. Sit outside. Apparently, you have no right to call yourself a viking if you're afraid of cold.

Walking Down Strøget

We arrived to Copenhagen deep into the evening. Our hostess lived quite far away, so we decided to take a walk in search for some food into our empty stomachs - and were immediately enveloped in the soft warm lights of the night city.

Kronprinsensgade, Copenhagen

The bad thing about most European cities (especially as you move north) is that life nearly dies out in late evenings. The pedestrian zones that are usually crowded seem abandoned and empty - but there are brightly lit window-cases and Christmas lights to keep you company.

This first glance at the night Copenhagen is probably why I fell in love with the night city - that's what I remember best when thinking of the Danish capital. Next morning was dull and grey, as winter mornings tend to be. We fought through the chilling wind with coffee and Danish pastries from the small local store.

Downtown was busy and bustling as we took a walk around before our free tour started. I love these tours since guides are usually really enthusiastic about their cities. (And somehow they are usually not natives? Part of the charm I guess). Our guide, a youngish boy originally from London made us remember a couple of things about the city. First, the fires ravaged through it near half a dozen times (we were literally asked to cry out loud what happened to the city in that year or the other, and it was always 'it burned down!'). Second, written Danish is as far away from spoken Danish as possible. And, finally, Copenhagen is full of angry cyclists who will definitely crush into you if you stand in their way - and they'll be right.

I can still see the image that was painted before my eyes: a guy mounted on his bike, with a Christmas tree clasped under his arm, screaming 'What do you want for dinner!' into a cell-phone while trying to navigate the busy crowds of downtown. You don't want to be in his way, whether he wears a horned helm or not.

The rest of the city is just what you know about old European cities. Narrow winding streets, slim brick houses in bright colors glued together, peaking churches as you move from square to square heavily clad in history. You will lose yourself somewhere in between them - I'm not sure I remembered the name of at least one of the squares aside from Kongens Nytorv. But at least it's easy to find your way in the triangle between the domineering castles (count in the gloomy Baroque-Neoclassical Christiansborg, the witty Renaissance Rosenborg, and the current royal residence, Rococo Amalienborg).

And then the're's the city's symbol, Nyhavn. This place looks like an open-sky museum piece - which it actually is. The popularity of the place is nearly frustrating (even outside of the summer season you cannot get a decent photo without other people popping into the frame).

Nyhavn, Copenhagen

It appears the Danish superstar Hans Christian Andersen fancied Nyhavn so much that he moved from one house to the next - we've counted three of them where he lived during his life.

Oh yes, Andersen. There's no place in Copenhagen you can go without his name mentioned. Museums of his name, sure; we've seen the places he lived in, the shops he frequented, and dined at one of his favorite places. One of our favorite places now, as well.

Evening Entertainments: Street Food and Tivoli

Smørre­brød with smoked salmon and cream cheese

Copenhagen in early December is a place of winds, but also street food - they have a whole island dedicated to that purpose alone. We walked along the river bank to get to PapirØen, or the Paper Island and get us some of those delicious smørre­brøds. The only dispiriting part was the crowds - we had to wait for half an hour to get our hands on a couple of those beauties. Maybe we should've planned our visit outside the weekend.

And we didn't stop on sandwiches. The best part of visiting old Europe in December is that, roaming the streets, you will find food, and the smells beckon you to eat all the time. For some time we completely forgot about the architectural beauties of the city, too busy enjoying the food. The Christmas market on Kongens Nytorv got us tipsy and happy with some gløgg and lots of sweets, from caramelized apples to nougat, the Danish specialty.

As our sated bodies finally refused to accept any more food, the night fell, and we headed off toward Tivoli, the oldest amusement park in Europe. I'm not usually a big fan of this type of attractions, but Tivoli is famed not only due to its rides but also the beauty of the Christmas decorations. It's like falling down into a fairy tale - the attention to detail and the craftiness is astonishingly meticulous.

If you're like me (not a fan of rides, that is), there are still things you don't want to miss in Tivoli: the food, the souvenirs and the absolutely gorgeous light-and-water show that runs every hour from dusk till 11PM. This year, they staged Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker, so beautiful that it strung every string in my heart. Or maybe that was gløgg speaking.

The Three Castles

Frederiksborg Slot, Hillerød

Three castles in one day is a bit too much. Alas, when you only have 2 and a half days in Copenhagen and a burning desire to 'see it all', you sacrifice your comfort in favor of your curiosity.

We started our castle run at Rosenborg, a former summer residence of the Danish royalty. Veiled in a sleepy atmosphere, the palace boasts an impressive collection of armory, artworks and some really spectacular crown jewels in the dungeons. Curiously, it does have the feel of a summer house, with its surrounding gardens and cozy secluded rooms at a stark contrast with the bustling city outside its walls. We were eager to see the next castle to make our comparisons, and that's when a sudden challenge struck us.

Keep mispronouncing the words. That's the Dane way.

Despite the cold winds, people in Copenhagen are surprisingly relaxed. That's probably why they don't bother to pronounce the whole word - they start saying it, and than, meh, you know what I mean. For tourists, that's exactly the trap you don't want to fall into. Riding on a train, we had to learn how our stops are written - and read the names on one of the many scoreboards. We would never get off where we needed otherwise.

Do I even need to spell out my happiness at the parking habits of the Danes?

It's a miracle we didn't get lost in the whole train system - but we arrived at Hillerød and even found our way to Frederiksborg Slot.

Mind the names. Frederiksborg Slot (castle) is not the same as Frederiksberg Palace. Yep, I'm still confused.

The castle is huge (the largest Scandinavian Renaissance residence), full of impressive artwork, architectural decoration and - my personal favorite and an addition to the collection - features the sculpture of Uranus consuming his child. Gives me the tingle every time.

Also, Hillerød is that typical small European town full of medieval-to-renaissance architecture that we all love so much. Definitely worth a stroll.

Yet it was the next place that served as a cherry on the top - Kronborg, the famed castle of Hamlet. Well, not really, but that's what they advertise it as, so let them. Besides, it was an extremely thrilling experience that I wouldn't expect from a marketing trick like this one.

The reason's simple: it was genuinely spooky. We left it for last since it was open the longest, already after the sun set and the spectacular dusk fell onto the small town of Helsingør. The wide roadway to the castle was aligned with large bowls of cracking flame, a fine replacement for the torches under the seaside winds. The castle itself was engulfed in the Christmas atmosphere - but given it's huge chambers, it was half empty, with people clustering in the small souvenir rooms. The place looked ghostly, adding to its charm. We wandered around the half-lit rooms set in medieval entourage, looked through the fogged windows upon the gulf facing Sweden (with cannons aiming at the potential attackers) and listened to the loud echoes of our footsteps. As the darkness settled in, we came out to the square courtyard. The soft sounds of Christmas carols from the warm tents, the set of windows with flickering lights inside, the gusts of wind throwing snow into our faces - the ambiance of the place was impossibly authentic.

And that's not to mention the dungeons. We went looking for the legendary giant Holger sleeping under the castle - the one destined to wake up to protect Denmark from the foes. I found him in one of the rooms (although I am tempted to describe it as an underground cave), and then I got lost in the dungeons. Low ceilings, dirt-to-sand ground, no lighting whatsoever and a labyrinth of uneven rooms used for storage of food and prisoners. In the middle of my way through the labyrinth there were footsteps behind my back, and a convulsive beam of light chasing the shadows: the castle was closing for the night, and the officers were tasked with catching all the tourists out of the premises. But well. It literally was running through the dungeons away from the castle guards.

That sticky feeling at the back of your head when you're drowning in the darkness and feel the chill creep up your spine - yes, that's what all castles should have.

It was only natural that after such a thrilling chase I needed to wash away the adrenaline. So, teaming up with another tourist, we found our way to the shore and dipped our hands into the freeing waters of Øresund. Quite satisfying and integral to our north experiences.

The Weed Freetown

There's a place in Copenhagen that absolutely screams of modern democracy. I've seen some freetowns around Europe (the idea's gaining popularity, eh?), but it's Christiania that made me think they might've gone a bit overboard. Can you even imagine a whole neighborhood selling weed just like that, in the open? The air in this place is sweetly intoxicating.

Don't try to take photos of people selling the goods. You'll be asked to delete the photos if not stripped of your phone.

Church of Our Savior, Christiania, Copenhagen

But that was not the main reason we came to Christiania. Instead, our major goal was the Church of Our Savior and its winding staircase.

Proceed with caution! The staircase around the spire is dizzying. It narrows down with each step, the rails are frail - looking down is not for people afraid of heights.

Jamming away our ennui on leaving Copenhagen with some Danish flæskesteg sandwiches, we roamed the streets for the last time. Wandered into some nerd merchandise stores, bought some sweets for souvenirs, and gave away our last krone to the carol singers just because they were that good. Truly a trip worth of a lingering nostalgia.

What to see:

Nyhavn

Tivoli

Strøget

Rundetaarn

Frederik's Church

City Hall

Kongens Nytorv

the Little Mermaid (but only if you want to be disappointed)

St Alban's Church

Copenhagen Opera House

Amalienborg

Rosenborg Castle

Christiansborg Palace

Kronborg (the famed castle of Hamlet, the Dutch prince)

Frederiksborg Castle (Hillerød)

Freetown Christiania

Church of Our Saviour

Copenhagen subway (it's not fancy but it's autopiloted)

Paper Island (this one strictly for street food)

What to eat:

traditional roasted pork with a crispy crust (flæskesteg)

apples in caramel

gløgg (spirited, naturally; otherwise you cannot experience hygge or anything close to comfortable)

pickled herring

smørrebrød (Denmark is the birthplace of this fishy sandwich)

traditional nougat

Pickled herring

So what?

Danish nougat. Christmas market at Kongens Nytorv

Not sure how this happened but I would definitely repeat a trip like this. Despite the cold weather, the wind under your coat, and (let's be honest) the crippling prices, it's one of the warmest experiences I've ever had. In short: you don't need to spend months in Denmark to learn about the most important part of the Danish culture. Just Keep Calm and Hygge.

[mosylufanfic]

The Permission Slip

Because @anghraine mentioned PTA AU, and her brain went one place and mine went another.

The Permission Slip

Jyn opened the door as quietly as possible and slid into the school library. Not that she really should have bothered with stealth. The big room echoed with chatter and laughter and suddenly, happy shrieking as something went pop!

She leaned her back against the wall, looking around. She vaguely remembered coming here on a long-ago Parent Night. At the time, the posters had been dusty and faded, the shelves looming, and the tables dirty. Not to mention a sour librarian who'd been quick to tell her that Lyra refused to stick to books at her grade level, and hadn't taken it well when Jyn had snapped back that maybe the librarian shouldn't be giving her kid boring-ass shit she didn't want to read.

Now it looked bright and warm, the tables all pushed together at one end, sunlight streaming in through the windows. The new librarian had been making changes. Impressive considering he split his time between here and the high school.

The top half of the shelves were empty, all the books moved down. She wondered where the rest of them had gone. Still, there were enough books to make her itchy. She'd kicked the dust of school off her Doc Martens ten years ago, and while she'd gotten her GED, she still wasn't a fan of scholastic environments in general.

Lyra, she reminded herself. She was here for Lyra. For Lyra, she’d walk over hot coals and swallow live scorpions and -

And take the afternoon off work to tell her kid’s school librarian a thing or two.

She examined one poster that said, "Join the Rebellion - Read!" with a picture of some cheesy sci-fi movie. Then she drifted over to study the certificates and photos mounted above the desk. The photos showed the same man, different ages, but always dressed in a cap and gown. The first one was the cheap plasticky gown that she remembered seeing in people's high-school graduation pictures. But they got progressively fancier until the last picture showed him in the heavy black gown and colorful hood of movie academics. She glanced at the diploma next to it. University of Arizona, Masters' of Library Science, it read.

She snorted.

He was pretty good-looking, though. When he smiled.

A couple of sharp claps brought her head around. At the tables, the older version of the man in the photos called out, "It's ten to five, ladies and gentleman, time to clean up!" He had a faint accent, an angle to the vowels and pressure on unexpected consonants. It was nice. "I want your wrappers in the trash, your crumbs swept up, and all your materials put away. Let's go, vamanos!"

Most of the teachers at Yavin K-8 were pretty casual, but he wore a button-down shirt with a tie. Who wore a tie anymore? And those shiny shoes. Jesus.

He looked around and his eyes met hers. His brows pulled together. "Can I help you, ma'am?"

"Mom!"  A tiny rocket in a blue t-shirt burst out of the crowd of kids, sprinted across the library, and slammed square into Jyn's side.

Jyn wrapped her arms around her nine-year-old daughter. "Heya, stardust."

"Where's Bodhi?" Lyra Erso's face scrunched. "Is he having one of his bad days?" she said wisely.

After two tours in Afghanistan, their neighbor and his PTSD had a hard time holding down a steady job, but he could usually manage to look after Lyra until Jyn got home from work. Jyn thought they probably traded off looking after each other, but she still paid Bodhi Rook a little money every week. It was cheaper than daycare, it supplemented his disability checks, and it kept CPS off her back. Wins all around as far as she was concerned.

Jyn brushed her daughter's hair out of her eyes. "No, he's just fine. He had some appointments at the VA today. Remember? I told you I was going to come pick you up."

"Ohhhh yeahhhhhh," Lyra said.

"Ohhhhh yeahhhhh," Jyn mocked her gently.

Lyra twisted around, then peeled herself away from Jyn's side to jump up and down, as if to catch the attention of the man already walking over. "Mr. Andor, Mr. Andor! This is my mom."

She suddenly wanted to tug at the frayed cuffs of her flannel shirt and check her worn cargo pants for dirt. She stiffened her spine. If a woman in honest work clothes wasn't fancy enough for him, screw him and his shiny shoes.

"Yes, I see that, Lyra." He held out his hand. "Cassian Andor."

"Jyn Erso," she said, shaking it. His hand was warm, and more callused than she would have expected from someone who read books for a living.

"Have you come to see what we do in Science Club?"

"Actually, I came to speak to you about this." She rooted in her back pocket and pulled a many-folded piece of paper out, unfolding it so he could see what it was.

Of course, he knew what it was; he'd sent it home two weeks ago.

His eyes dropped to the paper. She thought he might have sighed, but it also might have been her imagination.

"Of course," he said. "I have to supervise cleanup and walk the kids out to the late bus. But after that, I'd be happy to hear your concerns, if you don't mind waiting."

"I got nothing but time," she said.

His brow quirked, as if he could hear the sarcasm she thought she'd buried.

He turned to her daughter. "Lyra, go clean up your spot, please," he said. Without protest she dashed off. "No running!" he called out and shook his head.

"Lost cause," Jyn said. "She came out running and hasn't stopped since."

He looked over his shoulder with something that might have been a smile or might just have been a grimace, and turned back to the kids. Wading back into the fray, he called out, "Poe Dameron, this is not the soccer pitch. You go walk and put that trash in the trash can."

A curly-headed boy looked up with a giant, face-splitting grin. "Aaaaahhh, Señor - "

The librarian said something stern-sounding in Spanish. Poe sighed deeply, but didn't seem abashed in the least. When he dropped a ball of trash into the can, Andor paused in the middle of pulling a tiny pink jacket right-side-out to nod to him.

Jyn noticed that the small acknowledgement made the boy beam as if he'd just been handed the World Cup. Apparently her kid wasn't the only one who thought Mr. Andor had hung the moon.

Feeling extraneous, she looked around and found a chair behind the desk. She settled herself into it, watching him herd children toward the door. Lyra came dashing over again. "Mom, you're in Mr. Andor's chair."

"It's all right, Lyra," Mr. Andor said. "You can stay here with your mom while I take the others out, okay?"

"Okay!"

"I'll see you in a bit." He nodded at Jyn, then reached out and tapped Poe Dameron's shoulder. The boy, who'd been half-draped on the desk staring at the graduation pictures, blinked and grinned again, then rushed to follow Mr. Andor to the front of the line.

Jyn watched the other kids pile out after the librarian, all chattering and giggling and shoving and wiggling and generally being kids. He moved along at the front of the line as calm and cool as a shark with a school of guppies on his tail.

She turned to her daughter. "So, kid, tell me, how was school today?"

Jyn listened to Lyra telling her all about Science Club's latest experiment, and the math test she'd aced, and the deadly dull Social Studies lesson, so dull she'd wanted to fall out of her chair and diiiiiiiiiie. "Oh, and Kyle was being a total jerk to Poe on the playground so I tripped him."

"Did anybody see you?"

"Nope! And Kyle will never admit that a girl took him down, so it was the perfect crime."

"Good work." Jyn held up her hand for a high-five.

Mr. Andor came back in, sans guppies. "Thank you for waiting, ladies," he said. He went behind the desk and pulled out a giant, heavy book with a shiny foil cover that read Guinness World Records. "Lyra, this just came in. Would you like to sit over there and review it for me?"

Her eyes widened, and she took it like she was handling the Ark of the Covenant. Without a glance at Jyn, she took it to the set of tables across the library.

Mr. Andor pulled over another chair and sat down. "Now. How can I help you?"

Jyn tapped the permission slip. It was a list of book titles and a short block of text at the bottom, telling her that she could choose to allow or deny her daughter the privilege of checking some or all of them out from the library. "Like I said. It's this. I'd like to know where you get off, sending something like this home."

He said smoothly, "Mrs. Erso - "

"Ms," she snapped. "Never married, don't care to be."

"Ms Erso," he said. "The books on this list are recent additions to the library." He waved his hand at a shelf behind them, lined with shiny-new volumes. "They are here for your review, if you choose. If you would rather Lyra not have access to them, all you have to do is sign the second line - "

"Lyra is getting access to every book on this list, and every book in this goddamn library. The ones you haven't managed to throw away." She glared narrow-eyed around her, the empty shelves suddenly sinister. "What is this bullshit?"

"We're in a school, Ms. Erso, please don't curse." He studied her. "You want her to read these? You know the topics?"

"Do I know the topic of this book?" She poked at one of the titles, which was It's Perfectly Normal: Changing Bodies, Growing Up, Sex, and Sexual Health. "Uh, yeah, I think I can sound out all the words."

"It's just that all the parents who have already spoken to me would rather - "

"Listen, bub, attitudes like that are how Lyra got here. My foster parents told me all the contraception I needed was abstinence, and you see how that worked out for the two of us." She crossed her arms. "I wouldn't trade my kid in for all the gold in Fort Knox, but I also don't want her knocked up before she's legal to vote, like I was. Now maybe that's how you get your jollies, but locking information about her own damn body and how it works into a vault is the opposite of helpful. I don't know the stats - "

"I do," he said.

"Okay, so you know this stuff is basic as hell - "

"Ms. Erso, please - "

"My kid's heard worse and she's the only one here. This stuff is basic as hell. What happens when she wants to know about things you can't even bring yourself to buy a book for? Sex isn't a dirty word, Mr. Andor. In fact, done right it's a whole hell of a lot of fun. But I wouldn't expect you to know that."

He didn't rise to the challenge, at least not with words. But he shot her a single, sizzling glance that made every nerve in her body leap to attention.

Holy shit. A librarian should not be able to look at a woman like that.

While she was still trying to battle back her blush, he said, "As it happens, Ms. Erso, I agree. Every child in this school should have access to these books, to information about their body and their health." He tapped the paper. "This is bullshit."

She blinked at him.

"But this is the bullshit compromise I've managed to drag out of my principal after six months of fighting to be able to buy these books in the first place."

All she could think to say was, "You shouldn't have settled."

"Six months ago, I would have agreed. But would you like to hear some of the other things I'm fighting for?" Without waiting for her answer, he ticked them off on his fingers. "A budget that's not a wad of singles and a coupon to Borders. Permission for a special ESL collection at both schools. Weeding and updating two libraries that still had books about East and West Germany. Computers that aren't from the 20th century. And did I mention the budget? Of course I care about access to information. It's one of the things I care about the most. But right now, I've got to fight the battles I can win." His eyes dropped to the paper again. "Unfortunately, this, I have to count as a win."

She screwed up her mouth. "So your principal is the one I need to be raking over the coals."

"Principal Draven's not a bad man. He's fighting his own battles, is all. It was quite a concession he made, considering this whole thing might be a moot point next month."

"What does that mean?"

"I don't know if you've seen the agenda for the next school board meeting - "

"Hey, buddy, I'm a little busy working my ass off trying to keep food on the table and a roof over my kid's head. I don't have time to read every flyer and email that gets sent home."

"Even if you did, you might have missed it. They've been very quiet about the whole thing."

"What whole thing?"

"At the next meeting in three weeks, the school board is going to vote on an abstinence-only sex education policy for all the schools in Scarif County."

Her mouth fell open. "Fuck that noise!"

Across the library, Lyra looked up, her brows crinkled warily. She'd heard Jyn swear before, of course. Pretty much since birth. But she knew her mom's mad voice.

"It's okay, baby," Jyn called to her. "Just talking. Go back to your book."

Lyra, not actually stupid, looked at Cassian, who gave her a little nod. She went back to her book, shaking her head at the mysterious ways of grown-ups.

Jyn said, "How long have you known about this?"

"Since a faculty meeting at the high school last week."

"And? What are you doing about it?"

"There are some teachers besides me who object. There's one, Leia Organa - she teaches government and history, and oversees the debate team. She's working with her kids to speak at the meeting. But the parents are a harder sell. A lot of them think abstinence-only is the way to go. More so at this age." He waved a hand around the library. "And the ones that don't, well, they don't think they can win the fight."

She pressed her hand to her stomach. "So it's just going to happen."

"It's certainly not going to be brought down by a few teachers." He gave her a long, considering look. "What this really needs is a parent to speak up, and a whole lot of parents behind her."

"Oh," she said. "Wait. Uh-uh. You're not volunteering me for this."

"Why not? You had no problem getting in my face. You were even looking forward to spitting in the principal's eye. What's the problem staring down a school board?"

"It's different," she mumbled. "And it's not just that. You're talking about me going out and, like, inspiring people - I'm not inspirational, okay? I don't have a herd of Facebook mommy friends to whip into a frenzy. I go to work, I hang with my kid, sometimes I drink with my neighbor, and I go to sleep. That's my exciting life. I'm not a hero."

"Don't you know anybody who might be slightly concerned?"

She fiddled with a button on her shirt. "The whole school district is going to adopt this policy?"

"The whole school district. K through twelve."

"My bosses," she said slowly. "They have a foster son up at the high school. You might know him - Finn? Shit, I can never remember his last name. Good-looking black kid?"

"Junior? Transferred in at Christmas? Attached by the hand to Rey Skywalker?" When she nodded, he nodded too. "He's a good kid."

"Considering everything, he's a great kid. Anyway, his foster dads, Chirrut and Baze, they lived in San Francisco during the AIDS epidemic. You wanna talk some war stories. Not to mention, the way they're going, their son and Rey aren't going to stop at hands. They'd probably have something to say about sex ed."

"Okay," he said. "It's a start."

She rubbed her hand over her mouth. Oh, Christ. She was going to do this. How had he talked her into this?

"Do you think this can be done?" she asked him. "You think we can actually yell loud enough to keep this backwards, Puritanical garbage out?"

"I don't know," he admitted frankly. "There's a lot of support on the other side. Plenty of parents, and the big church in town - but I'll tell you what." He leaned forward a little. His hair fell over his forehead and he suddenly looked five years younger. "I like our chances better than I did half an hour ago."

She found herself smiling. He smiled back.

"I have to warn you," he said. "I don't have a lot of personal clout with the school board. Half of them think I'm overpaid and overqualified, and my contract is only for this year. I'm going to do my best work behind the scenes."

"I'll take that," she said. "I'll take whatever you got."

"You're welcome to it."

She found herself asking, "Would you like to come home with me?"

His eyes went wide. "I - uh - I don't think that - "

She squinted at him, then played back her own words and gulped. "Oh my god! I meant for a strategy session over mac and cheese, not - " She stole a glance at Lyra. She was still nose-deep in the book. Still, Jyn lowered her voice. "Not to play the beast with two backs while my kid is in the next room. What the hell do you think of me?"

"I have no idea what to think of you," he said. He'd gone red, rubbing the back of his neck.

"Join the club," she said. "They have t-shirts."

He snorted, very softly, in a way that was almost a laugh.

She rubbed her palms over the knees of her cargo pants. She suspected that she wouldn't have been half so embarrassed if the idea hadn't sounded quite so amazing. She wondered if that was why he'd reacted the way he had

"Look," she said. "You said you know the stats. You sound like you know the players, too. I don't know any of that. And I don't know where to start."

"And we only have three weeks."

"Exactly. So? Mac and cheese and plotting the downfall of the school board?"

"That sounds . . ." He nodded a couple of times, then met her eyes. "Yes. I would like that."

"Good," she said, scrawling her address on a scrap of paper and handing it to him. "Because that's all that's on offer." She looked at him through her lashes. "At the moment."

His eyebrows went up, and just when she thought he was going to poker up on her again, he grinned. It wasn't the triumphant smile of his graduation pictures, or the supportive smile of a few minutes ago, but something sly and sexy and - oh. Oh wow. She might be in over her head.

Her favorite place to be.

She went across the room to tug at her daughter's ponytail. "Hey, kid," she said. "Turn your book back in and grab your stuff. We're bugging out."

"Awww," Lyra said, but she shut the book and carried it to the desk. Cassian - when had she started thinking of him as Cassian? - waved at her from his office, where he was shutting down his computer and packing books and folders into a satchel.

Jyn felt heat touch her cheeks again as their eyes met, and she looked away first, glancing down at her daughter as she wrestled with her backpack.

"Hey, so, um. Mr. Andor's coming over for dinner. Is that going to be weird?"

"Wait, what? Really?" Lyra bounced with excitement, then stopped and peered up at her. "Why?"

"He's going to help me with - uh - with a project. Boring, grownup stuff."

"Do I have to help?"

Jyn ruffled her hair. "Not tonight. You focus on your homework."

Lyra flicked her bangs out of her eyes. "Are you going to start making trouble, Mom?"

"Probably."

She grinned. "Awesome."

"Seriously?"

"Bodhi says you've been cruising too long. He says everyone needs to cause trouble now and then."

She thought of the fight ahead of her, and found herself smiling. "Bodhi may not be wrong."

It took many, many strategy meetings, about a billion emails and phone calls, enough stats and studies to choke a horse, and even a few Saturdays going door to door. But the vote on abstinence-only in Scarif County was deferred twice and finally, definitively struck down in favor of a more comprehensive sex-ed program. Not perfect - what was? - but not as bad as simply telling kids not to do something they were going to do anyway.

After the third, victorious meeting, some said that they'd spotted the school librarian and the fiery parent that had led the charge against the proposal, making out against his car like a couple of horny teenagers.

Even if they were, Leia Organa said, so what? They were adults.

FINIS