[Edited April 16 2012, October 16 2012 for minor inconsistencies, November 20 for perfection's sake]
13 reviews at the end of chapter 5. And the numeral at the front was not written in words, cuz HouseOf13lack is my name!
Chapter 6
March Twelth, Friday, 2517
Eridanus system. Elysium City, on Eridanus II. Mr Horie's Eston Mart.
"I thought you were going somewhere?" Parisa questioned Uncle Hayato as he handed her two gratuitously creamed, chocolate-laced shakes.
It was his treat today. Not for the drinks themselves, but for the copious cloud of cumulonimbus cream and winding streams of viscous chocolate. She had her own deal with Mr Horie – three milkshakes a week for the price of two. Uncle Hayato got off easy this time. He had only needed to pay a credit more for her extra chocolate and cream top-up. Oh, and for John's as well, of course. She made sure he paid for that too.
"Where to?"
"Somewhere, anywhere. How would I know."
"Well, if you can't think of anywhere, then it's nowhere."
Parisa sighed and thrust the shake at John.
"Incorrigible."
"Bet you can't explain what it means."
Parisa ended up losing half her shake to her uncle.
"Well, at least I'm happy," Mr Horie said, chuckling as his machine whirred itself into action, "that my milkshake machine won't be gone too soon."
Parisa grudgingly paid a dollar for the refill, missing the chocolate and cream, and they left with Parisa muttering darkly about how the world was unkind to young children.
John handed Parisa's bag over to Uncle Hayato, and crossed the road at an intersection. His tall frame cast a long shadow in the fading light of the setting sun.
"So, how did the everything go today?"
"Great," Parisa answered, voice trailing off in the direction of John's shadow, flickering under the eaves of upright trees.
Uncle Hayato snickered and sighed longingly.
"Great for John too, I suspect."
"Who said anything about John?"
"In my time, we actually tried to hide our feelings, you know."
Parisa snapped back immediately.
"Who ever said anything about love?"
"You did."
Parisa peered at Uncle Hayato through squinted eyes and scowled. He shrugged in response.
"Don't," Parisa jabbed her finger at Uncle Hayato, "be so candid. It freaks me out, to even think that I have such a shallow uncle."
He raised his brows. Parisa knew he would react to that. Especially after his girlfriend-type ditched him with the word "shallow" as her parting gift. It took place in Parisa's house, no less. There was a small lull in the repartee before Uncle Hayato picked up from where they left off.
"What do you call someone who gives his all for something?" He said.
"Shallow," Parisa pounced.
"Thought you might say that."
They passed under the shadow of Parisa's house as they reached the front yard. The sun was already starting to glow orange.
The front door slid open just as they turned into the pathway leading to her house.
Two men stepped out. The swish of long forgotten long-coats was the first thing Parisa noticed. It was majestic. It seemed all too familiar, yet there was no name Parisa could put to this particular fashion. It seemed... too unpolished. No, not quite, the garb was to her many times more styled than ungainly work-shirts and uniforms. Its unfinished, incomplete look was what gave it its charm. The right angled shoulder pads? No... The furled sleeves? The black against white? Then Parisa realised what stood out. Black against white. It wasn't the contrast that made her blink; that much was still common. It was the vivid separation of clothing that triggered the unusual response. Coat, shirt, pants. Three unwholesome articles coming together to form a motley match that looked good. What people wore rarely made her feel that way. One reason at least was plain to her. Clothing did not come in two pieces today; it had not since the twenty third century. Present clothing resembled what the men wore centuries ago – not the other way around. Parisa surprised herself by thinking like that. In suddenly clarity, she saw an infinitesimal change in her sense of style. The ephemeral sensation passed as quickly as it had come.
The men buttoned up their coats, and made their way out.
It was not one of those up and coming fashion trends, she could tell. Parisa could not put her finger on it, but the coats seemed used. She could smell it from where she was.
The no-haired one gave a curt nod as Parisa and Uncle Hayato passed. The red-headed one gave Uncle Hayato a pat on the shoulder and smiled wanly at Parisa.
The breeze blew stiffly, tunnelling into their coats while the coattails hopped on their boots, sharply crunching the gravel underfoot.
Some uniform that was. At least that was what they seemed like to Parisa – rugged soldiers' dress uniform. That did not explain the unrest she felt in the pit of her guts though.
She was tickled in the sides, making her cough as she gulped in cool climate-controlled air.
"The house is only a few metres away! You can make it!"
Parisa rolled her eyes, and brushing away her uncle, walked up to the door. Peeling off her shoes, she burst through the door.
A glint from the blade of the sword in her father's hands caught Parisa. She stopped short. A real sword. Although Parisa had grown up with seeing the katana being displayed in her father's working room, it was the first time she had seen it moved from its spot by the wall, much less unsheathed and being examined by her father. Not in her presence, at least.
"I'm home." Uncle Hayato said as he passed Parisa by.
"You go shower first, Parisa. Dinner will be ready soon, and your brother will be back any moment," Parisa's mother said from the kitchen.
Parisa hurdled up the stairs, her father's pale face still imprinted in her mind's eye. He had the edge in between his fingers, polishing it with a cloth. His mind was lodged elsewhere. His eye bags were prominent on his drained face, a lips pressed together grimly.
Why does the house smell so smoky, Parisa wondered as laid her bag down on the table. Sinking into a bean bag, she closed her eyes. John. Dad. They look so similar, and the feeling they give identical. Yet so improbably different. She rolled down the bean bag onto the carpet, on which she stayed a while before getting up to get into the shower.
Father and Uncle Hayato were already done when Parisa took her seat at the dinner table. She sat beside Takuma, who had one hand glued to a screen projected under the table so that mother would not see, and the other occasionally used to feed himself. His fingers flew across the screen, his vacant smile in sharp contrast with the flurry of activity happening underneath the table. No doubt the micro-speaker he had installed secretly in his ear was iterating the messages that were incoming. He had had it implanted into his outer ear without Father and Mother knowing. Parisa happened to know only because of insider information. She had forgotten what her brother had requested, but what he had traded had stayed with her.
Parisa looked over at him. He picked up the spoon once or twice with his right hand and lifted large chunks of vegetable into his mouth. A lull in activity above, and Parisa noticed his left arm moving even more fervently than before. His wrist muscles twitched one after another as he typed, but under his long sleeves they were not as visible. Parisa rolled her eyes up; a piece of sausage slipped from the fork and into his mouth. If she had not known better, Takuma would have been just the average dumb brother. He hid his secrets so well.
"Is the rice all right? I think I overcooked it a little. Get some vegetables, Parisa. And stop using your tablet when you are eating! I'll confiscate it..."
Parisa looked over Mother's shoulder into the living room. Father was hunched up in conversation with Uncle Hayato. He sighed and shook his head tiredly. Uncle Hayato seemed convinced about something. But Father was more convinced about something else.
The door slid open again, and Parisa surprised herself again by being unsurprised at seeing Red Head and No-Hair breeze right in, each with two cups of Horie's milkshakes. It was comical, almost ironical, to see two men in billowing black leather suits walking in from the night carrying milkshakes in white paper cups. Of all things! It took Mother's stone-faced glare for Parisa to cough down a guffaw.
The milkshakes were passed around the coffee table, and a calm settled as the adults sipped. Many spoonfuls of rice were decimated before someone spoke.
"Tell me something." No-Hair put down his cup and sat back on the sofa. He was the shortest among the four at the table. He was of the normal sort. Hair cut to the scalp, slight sideburns, neither fat nor thin, neither muscular nor skinny. But the matte sheen and sharp gestures of his left hand was distinguishable to Parisa. A teacher in school had the same thing. He said that he had gotten his new arm after he lost his to the uprising in the Eridanus system. It had happened almost five years ago.
"Convince me to."
The man gulped hard on the milkshake.
"So the story goes: Once there was a boy, who lived in a village. He was a shepherd –"
"Give the shepherd story a rest, will you?" The other man said. This was the red headed one. His hair seemed naturally coloured, but natural red-heads were so rare now it was more logical to think that he had had his hair dyed. It was long and wispy, the man's hair. And it hung to the man's shoulders at the very least. What a show-off.
"I assume both Mr. H and Ryuusei have heard of it?"
Father and Uncle nodded.
"I just can't seem to connect the dots. You certainly placed them far apart." Father intoned to the men on the opposite side.
"We are here to connect them. To aim your course, whence you would fly, thinking, for the paths less trodden, may they be thoroughly forgotten."
"Quite the poet you've turned out to be, Michel," Father said, looking deep into the Red-Head's eyes, not with compassion, yet not with coldness either. It was simple evaluation.
The man looked away in displeasure.
"I take that as a compliment," He said in a soft drawl. "Que pasa, pretty?"
Parisa realized the man was speaking to her.
"Don't even try, Michel. My daughter –"
Father stopped short, then waved the unfinished sentence away. He continued, ignoring Parisa, who silently watched and listened from the table.
"I just cannot think of a situation like this that will turn out right."
"This is not the Academy any more, so try to think a little bigger, will you? Sir?"
"Point that guilty finger at yourself, Michel. You're the one doing the dirty stuff that no one else has to do, while I, on the other hand, am a successful businessman."
Uncle Hayato coughed in between a sip of milkshake.
"Damn, we even forgot Section One was here. That's what I call being successful in your job. Eh, Ryuusei?"
"Aren't we all."
The mumbling died down among the men for a moment, and they sobered up.
"Why don't I start explaining the crap that is happening now, in simple terms," No-Hair said as Parisa finished off her rice and polished off the last of her fish.
"So firstly, a boy was sent to look after sheep on a faraway hill after wolves attacked and left four farmers from the village dead. They thought the wolf dead, having injured it badly years before. The boy cried out, "The wolf is not dead!" many times over the years, but nobody listened. And there were no attacks. But still the wolf lived, but only the boy knew. So the boy, who saw the wolf lurking somewhere in the woods, went up to it and made friends, believing he could kill it later with a smile in front and a knife behind the back, but he found out something." No-Hair licked his lips.
"It was impossible, to kill the wolf, which now had full grown children, as strong as the old wolf was. The boy grieved in his heart, thinking why had he not come earlier, to kill the wolf when it was still weak and in hiding. Only thing was, the villagers had not found the cave in which the wolf hid. The boy would have stepped over it himself if he had not gotten the wolf to take him there. So the boy, when he came to the cave again he smiled still, but this time he had meat with him, not a knife.
"He could not tell the villagers; they did not believe him. Nor could his brothers help him; they were weak scholars who hated direct action. So he led his band of friends to the travelling weapon-smith, hoping he could convince out of him a good, big bomb to blast all the wolves to hell."
There was silence.
"Does the brother here know about this?" Father asked Uncle Hayato.
"Nope. Not at all. I truly thought the jokes played were part of a plot to break me away from my current job, but I had no wind of the situation at all." Uncle Hayato was just as distracted as Father, rubbing his chin while contemplating the situation.
Parisa hovered over. She had put the dishes in the wash, and was now edging nearer and nearer the milkshakes. She squatted down and took a gulp from Father's cup.
It just like normal milkshake, foamy and sweet, but this was slightly bitter too, and it left a burning sensation in her throat, much like the Burn Bomb sweets Uncle Hayato had given her. Her sight started to blur and lose focus. She took a deep and urged herself to keep her vision steady. She remembered this feeling. She had almost failed a Maths test when she first tried one of those in class.
"Ryuusei, you should have warned the girl."
"No, I am not so mean as to deny a girl what she loves."
"You might just lose your job, allowing children to drink alcohol in front of her father."
"I'm sure my brother would take it in good humour."
"Wrong humour at the wrong time make people lose their jobs all the time."
Her criss-crossing steps and stumbling feet caused the four men to look towards the hallway.
"I must say, our dear Mr. Horie really uses the finest doesn't he? Look how fast she goes."
Parisa hiccuped, and nearly tripped herself as she turned back around. The room was getting blurry, and the lines warped and twisted, before they became too fuzzy to make out. Father had come to catch her, and she melted in his arms, blissfully losing control of her limbs. She vaguely heard the scrap of conversation though.
"Well who ever knew Prof Horie was such a connoisseur. Can't believe it's already been five years since he landed his milkshakes on Eridanus. It feels like my first cup was yesterday. Too bad we weren't his students, else these drinks would probably be free."
"Maybe you report directly to Parangosky as well, then."
"And maybe Mr. H should start making malt milkshakes too."
"Is Parisa really okay like this? She did go quite fast."
"It's better like this, having her asleep. Kids these days. You can't tell what they know and don't know any more."
The others around her nodded, and she lay down heavily on the couch, and slept.
The Wolf smiled to Parisa and said, "Que pasa, pretty?"
Another Wolf came through the clearing, and said, shaking his head, "I think you should have warned the girl."
A third Wolf appeared from the darkness of the cave and howled, "No! It's better this way."
Then the hunter came from behind, and shot the Wolves, each one once in the head.
Parisa repeated in a limp murmur, "No, it's better this way," and she felt sorry for the wolves.
"Why did you kill the Wolves?" she asked.
"It's all part of the game, missy."
"What game?"
"The balancing game, dear."
"Why?"
"To win the game, you must remain in control."
"Why?"
"That's just how it's been all along, little missy. Why do you even ask?"
Then the hunter faded, and a fox emerged from the quickly dissipating haze, leaping towards Parisa. Her first reaction was to hug it, and it cuddled her back. But it quickly brushed its tail against her and bit her hand. She flung it to the floor, cradling her hurt wrist.
"Why?"
But the willy fox just smiled, and darted past under her, and into the forest.
"Mr Horie again, huh?"
"Don't tell me you did not expect it. Section Zero knew the rebels even before us, just that they chose not to say. The boy came later. Parangosky just wants to tighten her grip on the Eridanus Section Three subdivision after the disastrous Trebuchet ground op. You know about that one."
Two glasses tinkled as they came together lightly, producing a soft but clear pitch piercing the night's silence.
"He was the best. Probably still is. Why Horie?"
"ONI classified. But we can guess. He has done some things that worry the ONI on Eridanus."
"So you guys do have something to do with him being here."
"Only half correct. You know how everyone now works from that woman down. He was her operative here from years before. Now that Parangosky's got the chair, Mr Horie is now part of her control umbrella. They want to reign the Section Three here in. Why else would Zero be concerned with Eridanus? Only thing that is stopping her from pulling the plugs is that if Section Three desists here, the ruse is up, and shit will hit. Very hard. That is how precarious the balance is."
Parisa found herself on the reclining chair beside her father.
"I had an inkling, but no clear idea of how bad it was."
"You didn't know? That tells a lot about how different these guys are acting, compared to the last round. They are going to come hard and fast, if Section Three here fails."
"Wonder how much we can expect from those two. It's a big task."
Father released the glass from his grip, and arched backwards onto the sofa. He saw Parisa rub her eyes open.
"Want to go to your room?"
Parisa shook her head sleepily, but got up all the same. Her feet were starting to feel cold, and she wandered towards the stairs.
As she padded her way up, Uncle Hayato's voice seemed to boom and echo throughout the house.
"Will you help?"
There was a long pause. Parisa ground to a halt before the last step, listening for her father's reply.
"Yes. I will."
Parisa felt as if her Dad had just released her, released the house from the web of tension that had been hanging since she got back. She started towards her room again, and upon reaching her bed, she pulled on her socks, rolled up into her blanket and fell promptly asleep.
Another Chapter. Sorry it took so long! No guarantees the next one will come faster, but I will try my best .
