(no subject)
Highlights from a really odd dream:
Some class reunion or other, and it's my auld gaming group together again (no mean feat; we were scattered across two grades). For this performance, the role of Jase will be played by Christian Bale, Kyle will be Adam Baldwin, Candy will be some buxom blonde I can actually stand to be around, and just for kicks, we'll throw in the first girl to ever make me comfortable with the thought that we were in the same chromosomal boat. I remember the smell of her, just not specifically who she was. She was played by herself, though. Chris will be himself with a game left leg and a cane. Not an actual useful cane, one of those silver headed Bat Masterson things. It goes with his hat.
It goes like this. Chris has a car with VTOL capabilities that can go between worlds (some car. Yet somehow, I never think Spaceship). Jase has the blueprints of some building we can rob on some other world. They just need hands. And a driver--that, oddly, is where I come in. Are we in?
Sure, why not. Been a while since I visited $planetname, and I'd love for my next visit to be centered around ruining the inhabitants' day. Say, you think the gardai'll shoot at us this time?
Only if you hit one of their powerplants with the car or we get caught. Again. Says Chris. And I give him a "Who the hell asked you?" look despite the fact that I did. Some things never change.
Cut it out, says Jase, there won't be any shooting because there won't be any fleeing the scene. We're just going to drive away careful and not raise suspicion. Aren't we, Jess.
Well if we have to.
So off we go.
The power plant is something out of The Matrix. Its towers--not the reactors, where all the creepy is centred, but the scaffolds that hold wires aloft so power can be sent out to the masses--are every damn where and not regularly spaced, and I swear Chris bought this cramped little runabout because it could Just Barely slide between the wires. It's like threading a needle over and over and over, but I do it. When we land, I'm a little punchy.
The place we're here to knock over isn't a bank but a cleaner's, and we're all looking kindof dubious at Jase. "Trust me," he says. It's apparently the one place all this joint's wealth is sure to pass through. Round here, nobody empties their pockets and everybody has faith in the government (which subsidises and micromanages the cleaners) to give them back what's theirs. So alright, kemo sabe, lead on.
And he does. We wind up loading something like a ton of half-washed clothes into the back hatch of Chris's craft. You promised us money, man! is the general cry. "And you'll get it," he says. "We just have to go through all this. It's in there."
By now, somebody's done something just a little wrong (Not My Fault!) and alarm lights are starting to blink to life and ask for identification. We're half out the door and I'm itchy; I shoot the nearest "Please state your name" box and through the shower of sparks announce it's time to go now.
"But I wanted this to go easy!" Jase yells back.
"Too late now," says I, grabbing a bag of clothes in one hand and his lapel in the other.
"There's evidence of a crime now!" He's pulling back as if he's going to sit and wait for the cops. I heave him into the hold.
"Let the cleaners take the heat. Come on!"
And then we're up and off and out.
I remember the press of gravity as I put the car in gear and lift straight up up up till I'm clear of the local towers. Then SSHHHOOOOoof, and it's back to needlethreading.
Some time later, after all the loot's been divvied and we've scattered for a while, we get the call. Then it's a race to see who can assemble fastest--my little cadre of chicks or the guys. Just barely, by grace of the blonde playing Candy doing something blood-pounding to Chris and dropping him off balance, we win it.
Lots of general chatter, knocking around the next job without talking directly about it. I must be half deaf, because I keep missing a pertinent word. Then Jase leans in, presses his forehead to mine, and speaks. I feel the rumble of his voice as well as hearing him, and I understand what he says. I'm intensely grateful that instead of messing with me he did the bone conduction thing; he smiles this smile that says he knows, we've done this of old. I'm glad he remembers.
And then--now that we're all together--we burst into a Judy Garland song.
With five part harmony.
It's the singing that wakes me, because it's just not real enough for me to go along with.
I love watching my brain defragment.
Some class reunion or other, and it's my auld gaming group together again (no mean feat; we were scattered across two grades). For this performance, the role of Jase will be played by Christian Bale, Kyle will be Adam Baldwin, Candy will be some buxom blonde I can actually stand to be around, and just for kicks, we'll throw in the first girl to ever make me comfortable with the thought that we were in the same chromosomal boat. I remember the smell of her, just not specifically who she was. She was played by herself, though. Chris will be himself with a game left leg and a cane. Not an actual useful cane, one of those silver headed Bat Masterson things. It goes with his hat.
It goes like this. Chris has a car with VTOL capabilities that can go between worlds (some car. Yet somehow, I never think Spaceship). Jase has the blueprints of some building we can rob on some other world. They just need hands. And a driver--that, oddly, is where I come in. Are we in?
Sure, why not. Been a while since I visited $planetname, and I'd love for my next visit to be centered around ruining the inhabitants' day. Say, you think the gardai'll shoot at us this time?
Only if you hit one of their powerplants with the car or we get caught. Again. Says Chris. And I give him a "Who the hell asked you?" look despite the fact that I did. Some things never change.
Cut it out, says Jase, there won't be any shooting because there won't be any fleeing the scene. We're just going to drive away careful and not raise suspicion. Aren't we, Jess.
Well if we have to.
So off we go.
The power plant is something out of The Matrix. Its towers--not the reactors, where all the creepy is centred, but the scaffolds that hold wires aloft so power can be sent out to the masses--are every damn where and not regularly spaced, and I swear Chris bought this cramped little runabout because it could Just Barely slide between the wires. It's like threading a needle over and over and over, but I do it. When we land, I'm a little punchy.
The place we're here to knock over isn't a bank but a cleaner's, and we're all looking kindof dubious at Jase. "Trust me," he says. It's apparently the one place all this joint's wealth is sure to pass through. Round here, nobody empties their pockets and everybody has faith in the government (which subsidises and micromanages the cleaners) to give them back what's theirs. So alright, kemo sabe, lead on.
And he does. We wind up loading something like a ton of half-washed clothes into the back hatch of Chris's craft. You promised us money, man! is the general cry. "And you'll get it," he says. "We just have to go through all this. It's in there."
By now, somebody's done something just a little wrong (Not My Fault!) and alarm lights are starting to blink to life and ask for identification. We're half out the door and I'm itchy; I shoot the nearest "Please state your name" box and through the shower of sparks announce it's time to go now.
"But I wanted this to go easy!" Jase yells back.
"Too late now," says I, grabbing a bag of clothes in one hand and his lapel in the other.
"There's evidence of a crime now!" He's pulling back as if he's going to sit and wait for the cops. I heave him into the hold.
"Let the cleaners take the heat. Come on!"
And then we're up and off and out.
I remember the press of gravity as I put the car in gear and lift straight up up up till I'm clear of the local towers. Then SSHHHOOOOoof, and it's back to needlethreading.
Some time later, after all the loot's been divvied and we've scattered for a while, we get the call. Then it's a race to see who can assemble fastest--my little cadre of chicks or the guys. Just barely, by grace of the blonde playing Candy doing something blood-pounding to Chris and dropping him off balance, we win it.
Lots of general chatter, knocking around the next job without talking directly about it. I must be half deaf, because I keep missing a pertinent word. Then Jase leans in, presses his forehead to mine, and speaks. I feel the rumble of his voice as well as hearing him, and I understand what he says. I'm intensely grateful that instead of messing with me he did the bone conduction thing; he smiles this smile that says he knows, we've done this of old. I'm glad he remembers.
And then--now that we're all together--we burst into a Judy Garland song.
With five part harmony.
It's the singing that wakes me, because it's just not real enough for me to go along with.
I love watching my brain defragment.
