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 Posted: Sat Feb 18, 2006 10:01 pm
"Hey, Dixie! Do you know if anyone's dropped off a gas mask or something recently? Or like... ever?" Archie's voice was muffled due to the fact that he was deep inside the supply closet, but Dixie could hear him just fine. He was whining, and it might have made her laugh if it hadn't been so damn annoying.
She got up from a tall kitchen bar chair and joined her father in the darkened room. "Why do you want a gas mask? And I was eating, so make it quick."
Archie crawled out of the back of the closet and stood, only having to shift his eyes down a couple of inches to look into Dixie's. Stupid growing. "The kid." He waved his hands around, looking for the right words. "The kid that's coming today is a disease. It's going to kill us all."
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Posted: Sat Feb 18, 2006 10:14 pm
Cassi huffed slightly as she hurried over the frozen ground, both dismayed and annoyed to see her breath plume into gray fog at her lips. A firm believer in walking, she now wished she'd hailed a taxi or something, or at least brought a scarf.
She'd been twitchily waiting for her phone to ring for what seemed like forever. Finally it had, and it wasn't business related to the resort. A simple message had been relayed - "We have a child for you to adopt, come and get it."
Well there'd been more to it, but she'd already forgotten everything else. The building within sight she ran the last few paces, legs stretching out spindly. She snatched the doorknob and threw the door open with a BANG, rushing inside and letting it's momentum force itself shut again. She hunched her shoulders forward and clutched her elbows, shivering dramatically for a few moments before calling out.
"Hullo?"
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Posted: Sat Feb 18, 2006 10:26 pm
As if worrying about his impending doom hadn't been enough, the sharp sound of the door slamming open immediately after his death announcement did nothing for Archie's nerves. He yelped, a strangled, high-pitched sound, and backed into the racks of baby items.
"Coming!" Dixie rolled her eyes and extended a hand to Archie, who was now sitting in a pile of tiny coats.
A few seconds later they emerged, the yellow criminal immediately heading back over to her half-eaten sandwich. "Hey," Archie said. "Cassi, right? I'm Archie." He held out a hand, hoping that she would mistake his own shaking for a reaction to the cold, instead of a reaction to the thought of her future child.
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Posted: Sat Feb 18, 2006 10:33 pm
Cassi was observent and well in tune with the people around her, body language as all, she of course noticed the shaking, eyebrows creasing in worry as she reached out to take his hand and shake it. "Yes, I'm Cassi, nice to meet you. Are you alright?"
She let go of his hand and stood awkwardly. Her jacket made her a little hot inside the building, and she shifted to stand on one foot as she scratched the back of her knee with the other.
She couldn't help her bleeding heart.
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Posted: Sat Feb 18, 2006 10:45 pm
Sorry, not really. You see, your baby is a sentient virus that seems to enjoy laying waste to scores of humans. If I had still been a puppet, I might have been frickin' immune, but seeing as how I'm a person now... death. You too!
"Um, yeah, fine! We just had a little accident in the closet," Archie explained, gesturing toward the shoes and toys spilling out of the open doorway. "The pod should be along soon. They usually make a bunch of noise, so we should hear it just fine in here. Would you like something to drink? This is my daughter Dixie, by the way. Can I take your coat?" He only stopped talking when he ran out of breath, earning him a disgusted look from Dixie.
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Posted: Sat Feb 18, 2006 10:52 pm
Cassi pursed her lips together as she listened to his explination before nodded. "Yes, thank you." She shrugged out of her jacket and handed it politely toward Archie, who had been the one to offer to take it. "I think I'm fine thirst wise."
She awkwardly stood, looking over at Dixie, then Archie, then to the floor, Dixie's feet, floor, so on, so forth, cycle again. She cleared her throat gently. Well.. while they were waiting she supposed they should talk. Her mind wandered to the chores that awaited her back at her own job.
"Yeah... it's a really generouse thing you're doing here. Really kind of you as well to be letting me have one of these children..." A tricky plan was formulating. She looked up and smiled - Archie was openly finding homes for young things, Cassi did it secretly. What better chance than this? And she could get away scott free without looking weird.
She was a bit tired of always looking stark raving mad.
"Say... you know.. you look like you could definatly use some kind of a rest, yah?" She gave another sweet smile, fishing around in her pocket to pull out a crumpled piece of thin cardboard - a call card. She handed it over to him as swave as she could, like they always did in movies - between two fingers. "To repay your generosity I'll give you some in return! Come visit my resort some time if you ever want to get away for a bit. Just ask for me at the front desk and you'll have a room for free for as long as you want!"
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Posted: Sun Feb 19, 2006 11:13 am
A resort? Archie listened intently as he hung Cassi's coat on a rack near the door. He'd never been anywhere like that before. And for free? He wasn't about to pass that up. He resisted the urge to glance meaningfully at his daughter as he took the card. See, he could be well behaved.
"Thank you," Archie said, now much calmer than he had been moments before. He wasn't sure this woman was getting a fair trade, but it wasn't like she could back down now, right? A disease-ridden baby for a relaxing vacation. Who would've thought?
He stood mostly still for a second after pocketing the card, and might have quickly descended into asking strange questions if Dixie hadn't stood up and made for the coat rack.
"It's here," she said, before grabbing her jacket and hat and opening the door.
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Posted: Sun Feb 19, 2006 2:36 pm
Cassi blinked in suprise as Dixie took her jacket down from the rack, turning her head toward Archie but keeping her eyes on the other girl. "I thought you said we'd hear it?" She finally focused her attention on the man in front of her, an eyebrow quirking in confusion.
She didn't have an qualms with this, persay, she just had been waiting for a giant KABOOM or something, you know, earth shaking, make a few things fall off the shelves. Despite Archie JUST putting her coat on the rack, she moved over to take it off again, slipping her arms into the sleeves.
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Posted: Sun Feb 19, 2006 3:10 pm
Now that Dixie held the door propped open, Archie could hear it too, an extremely faint humming getting louder by the second. Of course, he knew what to listen for, and Dixie had giant ears, so it was understandable that Cassi hadn't yet heard the telltale sounds of a pod careening toward Gaia.
"Yeah, it's here. A couple of minutes now." He grabbed his coat and made his way outside. "It sure is cold," he said to no one in particular. He clasped his hands together and blew on them to try and save them from the chill, but that only served to cover them in a fine layer of condensation, which just made them colder.
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Posted: Mon Feb 20, 2006 1:56 pm
Cassi stepped out, instantly shoving her face into the neck of her jacket and stuffing her hands in her pockets in her attempt to stay warm, grumbling darkly about always being half frozen. She was distracted, however, as she began to hear it to, a low hum that almost seemed to pass through her and send her molecules vibrating.
"What's that?" She looked upward in confusion, a low flying jet? She clenched her teeth together to keep them from chattering as she continued to search skyward.
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Posted: Mon Feb 20, 2006 3:22 pm
"It's... it," Dixie non-explained. She made her way around the pocked and muddy bullseye and just stood there, waiting.
"She means, it's your baby. That's how they come," Archie clarified. The pod was louder now, and a thin trail of green smoke could be seen following a now-visible white dot. Green? Archie had never seen green smoke before.
"It should land right over here," he said, pointing at the bullseye painted on the ground.
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Posted: Tue Feb 21, 2006 12:29 am
Cassi gasped as she spoted the trail of green rocketing down from the sky, and then again as she realized how close they were to the bullseye. She looked at it cautiously, edging over to stand near Archie, who seemed confident. "Have they ever missed...?"
Dred thoughts of a rocket ship with a baby inside crashing into the house behind them sent a shiver down her spine.
Wait, rewind that.
..."What exactly is my baby in?!" Her expression changed to one of dismay. Wouldn't crashing into the ground from heaven knows how far up and hell knows at what speed cause most things to go BOOM in some way? That's why they had spaceships land in the ocean when coming back from trips to the moon, right? That ship better be made out of some amazing alien version of titanium!
As the white dot got closer and closer she was soon unconsciencly gripping Archie's arm in panic, eyes fixated on the vessel.
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Posted: Tue Feb 21, 2006 2:11 pm
"Once or twice," Archie said. "But you can usually get out of the way fast enough. When they get close, they get parachutes," he said, making an upside-down cup with his hands and trailing it around a little. "The pods. I don't know exactly what they're made of, but they don't crack, and I don't remember being flung around or anything. Sometimes the lids get stuck, but that's fixed easily enough."
He smiled to reassure her, suddenly going wide-eyed when she latched onto his arm. First green smoke, now clinging young women. This day was getting weirder and weirder.
"See," Archie said, pointing up. The pod slowed considerably as a white parachute flared out behind it. Then it sped up again as one of the latches holding the chute to the pod broke. Dixie's muffled curse was the only audible indication that anything had gone wrong, but Archie suddenly tensed, his mouth hanging open in an 'o' of surprise. What to do, what to do.
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Posted: Tue Feb 21, 2006 9:45 pm
Cassi was put into a false lull for the durration of Archie's little lesson on how safe it would be for her new little baby to land. Then the girl was cursing, and Archie was tensing, and the pod was lurching and twisting in a way that made Cassi's heart drop out.
She let go of Archie, rushing forward, head tilted back and arms half raised as though she could somehow reach into the sky and catch the preciouse rocket and craddle it in her hands. There was so much injustice, this life hadn't even begun yet and now...
She whipped around, voice hoarse from panic. "What's wrong?!" It was almost a scream in her terror for the infant. She would have done something herself but she had no idea what she could do to even begin to help.
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Posted: Wed Feb 22, 2006 9:36 am
Archie let out a hysterical chuckle of terror. "Nothing! Don't worry!" He started to motion that she should get away from the bullseye, but then noticed that the pod was no longer headed there. Long experience with watching these things land led him to believe that it was headed for their currently vacationing neighbor's yard. Hopefully, it would land in the above-ground pool. If not, there was going to be a lot of splattered baby to clean up.
"Dixie! We've got to get the cover off of... the pool." He tried to whisper the last part, but Dixie was across the yard and Cassi was standing between them, so he failed miserably. "I think that's where it's headed," he muttered to Cassi. "One of the parachute latches is broken."
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