chapter three
I entered the building and approached the main desk. Another round-headed man was at the desk, he kinda reminded me of Mangosteen. Was that racist? I hope not. "Welcome t'the green tower!" he said.
"Um, hi. Connor, the river boat man, pointed me in this direction."
"Uh huh," the man said, taking out a notebook, flipping open to a blank page, and sifting through his desk to grab a silver pen.
"Well, you see, earlier today, I washed up on the beach outside the Welcome Center--"
"The welcome center, say it right," the man said.
"I don't know to say that out loud," I said.
"You just gotta not capitalize it," he said.
"Well, I washed up on the beach out there, I can't remember who I am, but I'm pretty sure this is not the body I had. I've got amnesia, I've been body snatched, Connor said you might be able to help me out."
"Yeah... yeah, we could, we got all of these empty rooms upstairs, you could rent one for a week or so, but after that you gotta pay."
"Oh, what's the currency here?"
"Ya need Dosh, kid!"
The man reached into his register and procured a dollar. An old man's image sat in the center of the dollar, with the name "Linus Linoleum" printed below. "D100" was written on each of the two ends of the dollar, and the front and back were the same. "And Dosh don't grow on trees!" the man continued.
"Well, thanks for letting me stay a few days, mister..."
"You can call me Flant," the man said, with a nod of his head.
"Thanks, Mr. Flant!" I replied, as I headed down the hall.
Along the wall was what looked like elevator buttons. I pressed the up button, and the door slid open, revealing a chair. I sat down in the chair, and the moment the door closed, the chair slid up the wall. I was a bit scared, to be honest, I was a bit high up off the ground now, what if someone were to fall? That'd probably be a safety violation somewhere, maybe in Australia. Suddenly, the chair came to a stop, and the door opened, immediately followed by the chair lunging forward off the wall, dropping me just outside the door, which slid closed. The key Flant gave me said "808, which I implied was my room number. I got up and headed down the halls, looking for 808. Finally, I found it, and stepped inside.
The first room behind the door had a couch facing a wall-mounted screen with a table in the middle, just past that was a counter with some chairs and a table further behind that, wedged between all sorts of kitchen whatsits. Off to the right was a pair of doors, one of which had a really soft bed behind it, another had a device that had only a single door and a plate that read "laundry device".
I emptied the bag of less-than-wet clothes into it and closed the door, and the machine came to life with the sounds of sorta quiet machinery. I headed back to the couch and sat down, appreciating how comfortable the couch was. Everything in the Afterward so far had been really comforting, I was glad that everyone here wasn't jerks. I looked at the screen on the wall, but it was empty, but I figured I could do something to make it not be empty. I got up and sifted through anything that I could look in, maybe something here had to make the screen do things. The cabinets with the kitchen whatsits were full of plates and cups, the counter drawers had utensils of all kinds (not sure for what on all of this, 90% of the food I was seeing being eaten were thouse pouches. Maybe Crazy Joel's is just that popular), so I went to check the room with the bed, perhaps we'll call it the bedroom.
Aside from the bed, there was a dresser to put things in (like empty nothingness, which filled all six drawers), a mirror containing an absolute cutie looking back at me (wait, that was me! God, have I been this adorable all day? Now I understand the hugs and kindness. Was I like this before, was I worse? I dunno...), and in one corner was some sort of vented box with no buttons. Maybe it was on the bed? I got into the bed and
couldn't find anything. Wait, why was there a paragraph break there? I must have fallen asleep the instant I hit the bed. Darn, what a comfy bed. I got up and headed back to the main room, to find the screen fully lit and a little stack of bluish-green reflective stones on the table. On the screen was a list of colors and prices: "Red: D10", "Green: D50", "Pink: D250", and so on. I walked right past that and into the room with the laundry device, grabbing the (now dry and warm) clothes out of it, changing, and putting yesterday's donations in there to get clean. Grabbing the red towel out, I headed back into the main room. I wasn't sure what I was going to do with this, could I send it back to Kroff? He was a nice guy, I kinda felt guilty for taking his towel. I turned back towards the screen, and the stack of stones was now in the air. One of them was shaped like a four-pointed star and had a black circle in the middle, with a few green lights to give the impression of a green "eye" in the middle. To its sides were a rounder shape, and further from those was another round stone each adorned with five thin, flat stones. "Hello!" The middle stone said, "I am Constantine, I will be assisting you for today. You're the amnesiac, am I correct in saying so?"
"Uh, maybe? I think," I said, putting the towel down on the counter.
"Excellent sense of humor,... human! I have been instructed to aid you in selecting a "food product" pouch for your morning meal. Do you need an explanation of your choices?"
I knew what pink did for a fact, and green I was pretty sure, but other ones, I wasn't entirely certain of. I could have the robot rocks guy explain it to me, I guess, that wouldn't hurt.
"Sure, what are my options?"608Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ8fbJ5U2xTT
"You have the option of seven "food products"!"
"That's it?"
"That's right!"
Good explanation.
"I dunno, I guess the green one?"
"Excellent choice, human! I will let Flant know of your choice."
The stack of rocks or whatever toppled over, back onto the table. What now? Do I take them to Flant? I guess I could? I grabbed a small bag from the laundry room and scooped the stones into it, and headed out the door, immediately stopped by Flant. "Constantine paid ahead to get this to you," he said, handing over a packet of green.
"Thank you. Do you, eh, need the rocks back, or...?"
"Wh-- Constantine? No, we don't need him back right now. I'm guessin... guessin' you threw him in the sack?"
"Yeah, I was going to return him."
"Don't sweat it. Just, eh, don't take Constantine outside of these apartments, alright?"
"Why not?"
"Fine," Flant said in a "what did I just say" tone, "don't listen to Flant, see... see where that gets ya!"
"I--"
"No, you don't need to apologize, I snapped. It's-- it's just we've all been worried, the lot of us."
"About what?"
"Ab... bless your heart. About the Nexus, it destroyed the last afterward and we had to build a whole new one on top to seal it away, but the guys on the big screen, the Linus Linoleums of the world think the Nexus is coming back, jus--- whaddya do in a case like that?"
"Oh, gosh, I didn't know."
"No, of course you didn't. Heck, we still aren't sure for ourselves, maybe it's just more fearmongering, who knows, bu-- I dunno why I'm venting about this to a kid who lost her brain, geez, I'm sorr--"
"No, it's fine, I totally understand your fears."
"Not totally, you don't even know what the Nexus does. But, y'know, I appreciate the sentiment, I do, I really do, you're a good kid deep in there, hope you get yourself back together and get back out there. I gotta head back to my desk, just... don't-- don't worry about it, alright?"
"Alright, thank you," I said, tearing open the pouch of green and forcing it down.
I really hoped all of these colored "food products" or whatever weren't all like this, it's still a thick, foamy paste that feels not unlike slurping some sort of window sealant, I hate it. But Connor said this one packet should last me all day, so I at least have that going for me. I figured I'd check out more of the town today there was a whole lot to explore.
As I walked out of the door of the building, I heard some muffled noise and got confused. That's when I realized I was still holding onto the bag containing Constantine, I had forgotten I was since I hadn't mentioned it in a while nor did I mention putting him back. I opened the sack and Constantine assembled himself in front of me. "We... we're outside the building?"
Constantine's voice sounded more natural, less forced, a bit deeper, too, which was odd.
"Yeah, I guess."
"Oh jeez, the heck am I supposed to do?"
"You spelled "jeez" differently from Flant, how di--"
"Hello, computer? Master server? Someone tell me what's goin' on! Hello? Hello? Testing, one, two, three, how do I work this thing?"
"Constantine, I--"
"This is Major Tom to ground control, anyone there? Yoo-hoo! Yo! It's real master server hours out there! Who up? Hit that frickin' like button!"
"Constantine!"
"I-- whaddya want, girl?"
"It's... it's, eh, Tammy, I guess, what's happening?"
"I'll tell ya what's happenin', Tambers, I can't find the Green Tower's server anymore! I'm on my own! I-- I've never been "on my own", it's-- hey, do you talk to a server at all?"
"Me? No."
I couldn't quite remember what a server is, I mean, I think the guys who brought you your food at restaurants were servers, maybe, they were there to "serve" food, after all. "So, you what? Y—you just start with the speakin' and such and whatever comes out just... bleh, there's some words? How do you-- oh geez."
"You're spelling "geez" two different ways."
"Hon, I'm doin' this for the first time on my own! We're lucky I can string together a big string of words like this without it veering off a cliff, crashing and burning, killing, like, 20 innocent lives and injuring the conductor, and, oh gosh, they can't pay for their own medical treatment, they've gotta have 30 smackeroos and all they brought was rubles, but, like, Little Timmy, y'know, who will help him out with his leg injury, he's just a boy workin' the coal mines at night to help pay for groceries, he's just a lad, debt collector, y'gotta help us out!"
"What."
"Oh, free will, it's... sickening! I have too many options! Tambourine, how the heck do you do it?"
"I..."
I paused for several seconds, I still was reeling from that whole tangent a paragraph or two up. No, seriously, go back and re-read it, how does a cluster of rocks like him know about child labor and debt collectors? Where did that all come from? Why is that, like, a thing I put on the page? Right, his question. "I... well, look inside yourself, Constantine. Who do you think you are?"
"I'm a bunch of Nexum floating point circuits that were only meant to offer a quirky bit of charm to an apartment block! We gotta go back in, Tamerind! I'm just hands, elbows, and a single eye!"
"Okay, but now, look inside yourself."
"Alrighty then."
His lights shut off and all of his pieces collapsed onto the ground. A handful of heads had turned to look towards the sound of clattering stone-glass-metal-whatever thingies. I quickly scooped them all back up and sighed, heading back towards the shops and such.
ns 15.158.61.8da2
