A
New Face Among Many – Chapter 1: A Few New Surprises
Damn. She was going to drop the box of figurines. It was
just too heavy. Oh, no...
"Can I help?"
"What?" Oh,
damn. The box slipped... and stopped. She blinked and looked up. Whoever
her hero was, he was cute. "Thanks. Do you think you could get the door,
too?"
"Gladly." Suiting
action to words the young man opened the door and helped her carry the box
inside her apartment. "I live next door. I'm pleased to meet you. My
name's Ken Ichijouji."
"Reliana Alexander.
I'm pleased to meet you, too."
"I don't mean to pry,
but what is in the box?"
"My hobby."
Opening the box she unwrapped the delicately carved figurine of a green baby
dragon. "Dragons. I have a few other mythological figures, too, but it's
mostly dragons."
Ken smiled. So did Reliana.
"You're looking a bit
frazzled. How about you take a break? I was going to meet up with my friends
for pizza. You could come too, if you want."
He was so gracious, so
kind. How could she resist? "I'd love to, thanks."
She set the figurine gently
on the mantle and grabbed her coat from the back of a nearby chair. "I can
unpack later. Let's go meet your friends."
The two left the apartment
leaving the small green dragon statuette standing sentry.
Engaging in small talk, the
pair traversed the short walk to the nearby park and stopped next to a shaded
picnic table seating three boys all seemingly engrossed in a free-for-all melee
blood bath. There is a muffled jumble of not nice words as one of the players
'died' a horrible, horrible death... again.
"Reliana, meet my
friends: Tai..." Well, that hair should be recognizable at least, next. "...Matt..."
A very attractive blonde, but not my
type. "...And Izzy." A
red-haired computer geek. Perfect. "Guys, this is Reliana."
Reliana smiled at each as
he was introduced to her, then she noticed Izzy's computer. "Oh, wow! Is
that a Sunsparc? With the special cache upgrade?"
Izzy just stared. So did
everyone else.
"Yeah. The memory
upgrade and a lot of hi-tech software. How you seen a digital modem before?"
Izzy had regained enough composure to respond.
"I've got one, but
it's not installed yet. I'm working with a Thunderbird processor that has an
upgraded one meg cache right now."
"One meg?!?!"
The conversation continued
in this vein until, by happenstance, Izzy shifted his seat slightly to allow
Reliana a better view of the computer screen. Izzy's Digivice fell out of his
pocket and Reliana picked it up.
"Oh, you have one of
these, too?" Reliana handed Izzy back his Digivice and took her own out of
her pocket. "Mine hasn't been much use as anything except a watch."
Violent sounds emanated
from the computers, but no one was paying any attention, they were all staring
at Reliana who was in the process of putting her Digivice back in her pocket.
"Anyway, as fun as
this has been, if we don't hurry we'll be late meeting T.A., Kari and the
others for pizza. Coming, Ken?"
Reliana started walking
towards the pizza place that was located about four blocks down the street,
leaving the others still staring after her in bafflement.
"I'll see how much I
can learn, and call you later." Ken rushed to catch up to Reliana and the
others stared at each other in astonishment not really knowing what to do.
Matt and Tai took a look at
each other, then at Izzy's dazed expression, and smiled in unison.
"Well, Izzy?"
"Well, what?"
Matt just winked at Izzy
and Tai smiled infuriatingly before they both turned their attention back to
the game they had been playing.
