|| -------- -- -----  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 33--"GOD'S BLINK" <-------  ||  Severe Repair  ||  Foreman Ittener Pier  ||  -------> (Cup SRfi033, Created v2 (6/7/99), Copyright 1999) = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = Later... "Prince Ferrajalt to see you." the receptionist said into the intercom. "Tell him to come in." Walker Fantive replied. "You can go in." the receptionist said, staring at Ferrajalt. She wore so much makeup it was hard to tell if she was actually pretty or ugly. "I heard." Ferrajalt said, passing by the woman and opening a huge, thick wooden door with some effort. "Prince..." Walker said, standing up, as if readying himself for any eventuality. "Hi Walker." Ferrajalt said, advancing toward Walker's desk. It was a beautiful office--full of lush furniture and plant life. There was even a fireplace with a roaring fire on one side of the room. "Have... have a seat, won't you." Walker said, wearing a worried and stressed-out expression. He was a tall man with a neatly trimmed black beard and mustache. He wore his hair in a trendy, feathered kind of way. He had on a dark blue suit, with that life-vest-looking thing that was part and parcel of conservative business wear on this Earth. He had an aura of confidence and power, and also wore glasses. "Sure." Walker sat back down as well, and he clasped his hands in front of him, resting them on his desk. He stared right at Ferrajalt with his very blue eyes. "What's going on?" he said, with a sense of urgency, cutting through the bullshit. "Um... it's kind of a long, drawn-out, complex story. I don't even know if I can tell you all of it." Walker sighed. "Okay. So let's start at the beginning. First off, what is your personal condition?" "Me? I'm fine. I feel pretty good in fact." "Good. Now... an incident occurred at our Derolbam Base about a month ago. This is classified information by the way--you understand that." Ferrajalt nodded. "Fine." Walker continued. "Now you were stationed at Derolbam at the time of the incident." Ferrajalt nodded again, slowly. "What happened was, we experienced a severe reality distortion systemwide. But it was especially bad on Timber Serious." Ferrajalt raised his eyebrows and made a tense smile. "What do you know about this, Prince?" "Um... from what I understand, reality collapsed." "Yes?" "Yeah. We all wound up in this weird, deserted version of the world. Injure Bodoni knew the most about what was going on. After all this stuff happened, we figured out that we had to destroy this certain building, so we--this is gonna sound really strange--we dragged an ocean liner down the river and let it fly over the bay. We had to do it to bring reality back." "What do you mean by that?" "Injure tested it--destroying the building--and it showed that it would work. It would bring reality, uh... back." Walker leaned back in his chair and took a deep breath. "Let me share something with you. On Timber Serious, right at the moment of the disturbance, an ocean liner disappeared from Derolbam and reappeared immediately many miles away in Doscovor, in the ruins of an office building--which had been fine a moment earlier. There was massive damage all over the area, as well. It all happened in the same instant. The locals call it 'God's Blink'." "Huh." "Now hearing what you're telling me... Oh, so what about the others?" "Most of them disappeared--only a few of us were left." "Look at this list." Walker said, handing Ferrajalt a piece of paper. "How many of these operatives survived?" Ferrajalt scanned the list. "Um... this looks like all of us who made it. Yup." "Okay. Now Prince... do you mind telling me what the hell happened last night? Where are Mammock and the one posing as Rallity?" "What do you mean?" "That wasn't Hilltop Jone Rallity with you." "It wasn't?" Walker smiled and took a cigar out of the ornate humidor on his desk. "Ferrajalt--you're a terrible liar." Walker said, examining the cigar and then staring at Ferrajalt. "Yeah?" "Yeah. I'm not so concerned with the impostor. What I'm really concerned with is the other operative I saw you with." "Look Walker--I know it looks bad..." "It does." -------> ------------------- ----------- -------- -- -----