|| -------- -- -----  A E R I E   O B L I V I A N A . singular book of text wandertainment by Frank Edward Nora ------------------- ----------- A ROAD MAP OF ARCTICA--CUP 3--"JANNITER GONE" <-------  ||  Severe Repair  ||  A Road Map of Arctica  ||  -------> (Cup SRrm003, Created v2 (6/7/99), Copyright 1999) = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = His name was Janniter Gone, and he was this weird consultant kind of guy, "the man who made things happen". He was hired by various corporations, police departments, high-profile individuals, etc. when they had some intractable dilemma. Somehow, he always seemed to make things work out. There were suggestions, in the various news articles, that he had some sort of supernatural ability. "Gone" was a fairly common surname in Arctica, but still, it seemed an awfully strange coincidence that both his mother AND his step-father also had the surname Gone. If Daptin's mother had a different maiden name, or his step-father had a different surname, Daptin would now have one of those names, depending on what Arctican traditions his mother embraced. But as it was, it seemed that fate had hammered the name Gone into him, totally. There was one article about Janniter Gone in a magazine called "Sameday" that tried to probe into his past, intimating that he had something to hide there, that being the reason that no one knew anything about where he came from. They also opined that his death--a heroic rescue of kidnapped children from a building immolated in flame--was staged, that he was still alive, somewhere. Daptin's mother had contacted the reporter, who had actually come over to the house when Daptin was 3 or 4, and he expressed great remorse over the story, saying that he was very insensitive to the possibility of hurting people who were connected to Janniter Gone. Daptin's mother was Janniter's secretary for about a year. Toward the end of that year, they had an affair for about a month, and the next month, Janniter was killed, after saving the lives of a dozen children... going back into the burning building to search for more kids--he didn't know that there weren't any more--and he never came back out. The fire was of such an intensity, that there was no possibility of finding any remains. So Olga Gone and Janniter Gone were never married. She found out she was carrying his child less than a week after the tragedy. She hid her pregnancy from the media so that she wouldn't become some sort of throw-away celebrity. When she contacted the "Sameday" reporter, she insisted he keep the secret, and he obliged. She was rather surprised that he did keep the secret, since Daptin did look a lot like Janniter. But at that point, years after the death, there was little continuing interest in Janniter. So Daptin stared at the map, wide eyed and innocent, dreaming of his grand pre-death journey. And then a tear came to his eye when he realized that death would be an even greater journey. For a moment, Daptin felt blessed to be such a magnificent traveller, but in the next moment he faced reality, and realized that he'd rather live as a normal kid than be any sort of weird traveller. But then, faced with certain death, the whole travel angle might make things more bearable... Suddenly he saw something out of the corner of his eye and looked up... some sort of animal was running away from the basement window, at the top of the wall. All he could see was a big bushy tail as it slipped away... orange, like a fox... -------> ------------------- ----------- -------- -- -----