|| -------- -- -----  A E R I E   O B L I V I A N A . singular book of text wandertainment by Frank Edward Nora ------------------- ----------- FOREMAN ITTENER PIER--CUP 13--"LUCK" <-------  ||  Severe Repair  ||  Foreman Ittener Pier  ||  -------> (Cup SRfi013, Created v2 (6/7/99), Copyright 1999) = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = About six weeks later... Hilltop stared at me and I stared back. In my hands was tomorrow's newspaper. It was the headline that had set our imaginations afire. NO WINNERS IN 30 MILLION DOLLAR LOTTERY--EXCITEMENT BUILDS AS GRAND PRIZE CONTINUES TO GROW! WINNING NUMBERS INSIDE (SEE IF YOU GOT CLOSE)! My little tock hound puppy, Whale, yipped at us. His companion, Jilt, gave us a quizzical look. "It's okay, boy." I said to Whale, smiling and scratching his head. Me and Hilltop had been following Lunatether's instructions in the proper raising of our tock hounds. Every morning, I'd take a Waver to a secluded spot on the beach and walk a few miles to a newsstand on the boardwalk, to get a daily newspaper. (I used the money I stole from that ice cream store.) The idea was to slide the newspapers into a slot in a sealed room. The only way into this room was a small opening that only the tock hound puppies could fit through. Once Whale and Jilt were a few weeks old, we started playing fetch with the newspapers, and showing our approval for the puppy returning the paper to us. Then we started sending them into the room to stimulate their instinctive time travel abilities--to get the newspaper that wouldn't be there till the next day (we put a paper into the room every other day). Surprisingly, after the pups were barely a month old, they began returning from the room with the newspapers from the future. And it was after about a week of this that we saw the lottery headline. Now, since Stormbolthouse Lunatether was woven, it's where me and Hilltop have spent most of our time. Our relationship had been going on pretty smoothly, and it was strictly platonic. I didn't exactly know why she wanted it that way, but hey, that's her prerogative. Anyway, we had separate suites--but otherwise we spent most of our time together. I also spent a good deal of time talking to Lunatether, or rather, the voice of Lunatether. She seemed to be a fully conscious, sentient being--but insisted she was just a complex computer program. It's funny--we got on the subject of sex one night, me and Lunatether, and she said that there were sex androids that she could animate to have sex with me. I wasn't too keen on the idea, and she dropped it. But I tell you, day after day with Hilltop was starting to drive me nuts. I don't know. I guess I may as well tell you that eventually I gave in and Lunatether, looking like a fully human young woman, walked into my suite and we started playing around. Damn. I feel so embarrassed, doing it with a machine. What kind of pervert am I? There's no way I was gonna tell Hilltop. I mean, no way. But yeah--Lunatether in that form visited my room every night, and damn if I didn't start to develop feelings for her. Jeez. What a confusing time that was. And it was about then, after a few weeks of this, that we saw the lottery headline. My life was Hilltop, Lunatether, Whale, Jilt, the boardwalk, and now... the lottery. "So whattaya think?" I asked Hilltop. She laughed. "Isn't there something wrong about that? About using time travel for financial gain?" she said. Lunatether joined in the conversation from a speaker on the wall. "That's one of the main uses of time travel--personal gain." Hilltop sighed. "I guess--but it still doesn't seem right!" Recently I began asking Lunatether about her relationship with Hilltop. She said that her and Hilltop did talk in private sometimes, but that Hilltop was nowhere near as talkative as me. Lunatether even told me that she started asking Hilltop about her love life and Hilltop told her that since she wasn't married, she didn't have much of a love life. I asked Lunatether whether she had offered Hilltop a male sex android, but apparently, the subject had never come up between them. What a life I was leading. We were staying near the entry point of Stormbolthouse Leitmotif in case it came through again. Even though it'd be in the world of the ghosts, we still might have been able to pick up its signal, or so Lunatether said. One weird thing Lunatether told me was that Injure Bodoni and Ann Saply were her grandparents (along with Warhome JK-46745), and that she'd like to meet them someday. Apparently, those two created the Leitmotif from scratch with the Warhome JK-46745 matter handler. Huh. -------> ------------------- ----------- -------- -- -----