|| -------- -- -----  A E R I E   O B L I V I A N A . singular book of text wandertainment by Frank Edward Nora ------------------- ----------- OFFICE COMPLEX--CUP 21--"EVENT-WHASTION" <-------  ||  Severe Repair  ||  Office Complex  ||  -------> (Cup SRoc021, Created v2 (6/7/99), Copyright 1999) = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = Injure looked at his instruments. "That's true, but with setup I have here, the best I could do is test event-whastions to see if they'd work--but it could take 40 to 50 minutes to test each one!" "What exactly is an event-whastion?" Emily asked. "It's just something that happens!" Injure said impatiently. "Saying hello to your mother! Throwing a soda can out a car window! Skipping a stone! Anything!" "So effectively," Hate said, "there are an infinite array of event-whastions available at any time." "Well, effectively, but remember Corridor--in any situation, only a tiny subset of all possible event-whastions will be apparent as options." "Okay." Hate said, thinking. "Okay. Back at the Noyage Parlour, the payphone rang. I picked it up and some old woman told me something like, to get my life in order and get rid of Office Complex at Gumhanshire. Then she said something about an operator." "Look I don't understand!" Emily shouted. "Why not ask Hypergod here or the fuzzball over there? They obviously have the technology!" Injure was annoyed. "I already did ask Ann, and though helpful, she doesn't have the capacity. I assume Amnifaoz doesn't either, since Ann's at a higher technological level." "That's true." Ann said. "Fuzzball! Ha ha ha!" Amnifaoz bellowed. Ann sneered at the Hypergod. "But this old woman!" Injure yelled. "What did she say again?" "To get my life in order by getting rid of Office Complex at Gumhanshire--you know--that huge building down in Doscovor." Hate said. "I know it." Injure said. "But get rid of it? As far as we know, it may already be gone--a lot of buildings here in Derolbam are gone, you know." "Well, I'm just saying, getting rid of that building, however it might be done, would be an event-whastion, right?" said Hate. "I guess so." Injure said. "But I still don't understand exactly what 'getting rid of' means." "Destroy it!" Emily said. "Blow it up or something!" Injure turned to look at Emily. "First of all, blowing up a building takes months of preparation. Secondly, the ruins of the building will still be on site. So are we getting rid of the material of the building, or just its pattern integrity?" Ferrajalt turned to Amnifaoz. "Um, Amnifaoz--could you destroy a building?" The beast regarded the Prince. "My personal arms and explosives can mete out wild levels of destruction. But the demolition of a huge building is tricky work. I have tried. Like it or not, I am about as small as you when compared to such a behemoth construct." "How 'bout, y'know, like mass destruction?" Ferrajalt suggested. "Like atomic or strong force or whatever?" "We don't have any here." Injure said. "And even if we did--destroying all of Doscovor and its environs is different than destroying a single building." "Well feed it into your machine--just blowing up the building or whatever--and see if it's the right event!" Prince Ferrajalt said. "Why else would we have gotten that call?" "I can think of lots of reasons." Injure said, fiddling with his instruments. "But I guess it's worth a try. Only problem is, it's such a pain to get the datum into my models." "Well do it." Hate said. "If it turns out to be the right thing, we'll figure out some way to destroy it." "Remember Ledrant--the specific phrasing was 'get rid of'. That's what I'm putting into the model, and that's what we'll have to do." "Agreed." Hate said. An uncomfortable silence fell over the room. Prince Ferrajalt looked around and thought: This loser Dolthethmen, now curled up into a fetal position, was still sobbing a little. And what he would become, this gorgeous but superpowerful and corrupt woman, Emily, sitting in a big chair, looking kind of happy. Then there was the huge armored monstrosity of Hypergod Amnifaoz--he seemed far badder even than anything from Hell. And the little yellowfur cat lady in the black dress--"shook out of the pepper shaker" she said--who had befriended Injure Bodoni. Yeah, that Injure. He had a better grasp on bridging and Aconck tech than almost anybody. But he could be a real dick at times. Then there was Ledrant Hate--cool and collected as usual. Ferrajalt wondered if Amnifaoz bore any resemblance to the monsters that tormented Hate as a child. And Ferrajalt thought back to the palace, the royal family he so gladly abandoned. And now this. Not too exciting. The prospect of being stuck in this messed-up failure of an Earth for the rest of eternity was not too appealing. But he took the risk by joining Overwhelm Associates. Still, he wished he was home, and he felt bad that he hadn't contacted his family in so long. He could only imagine what the tabloid press had concocted as the reason he had effectively disappeared. He supposed his parents thought he had joined a cult or something, but they would never suggest such a thing to the press. No, there were probably some really awful stories about him back home. -------> ------------------- ----------- -------- -- -----