Gary Underwood

I woke up to the feeling of being poked, I yawned and opened my eyes. Pari was hunched over me with a suspicious look on her face. I was then promptly poked again, she got close to me and sniffed me, I calmly let her continue her poking.

"I assume you want breakfast? There's some pancake mix and water, I guess I could make us some more."

After dinner she had gotten emotional and just let it all out, her frustrations, her loneliness she stopped talking in english during portions of her rant, and then after all the screaming, crying and off letting she got tired so I gave her a tour of the Madonna and let her talk some more. Eventually she exhausted herself so I led her to one of the dorms and let her pick a bed. Now she was poking me.

"I am getting u-"

"You're real?"

I looked around the captain's quarters there was a sewing machine around here somewhere, maybe I could make something or-

"Am I? Perhaps the world is just an illusion, I might be a fevered dream, a-"

She took a pillow and lightly smacked me in the face.

"You're real, you're too annoying to be fake."

I shrugged.

"So want me to show you were the showers are?"

She bit her lip.

"It will give you something to do while I make breakfast."

"I... I can have a shower?"

"It only gets tepid hot, but yes."

I got up and showed her to the room, then I looked for the sound system and played another CD from the fallen sailor who had donated his extensive music collection to me. I put on an arpron that had a picture of a fox on it, and started cooking the pancakes. I could never get them to be perfect circles no matter how hard I tried. It would have to do, I made some more and got the syrup ready, There was a large supply of it mixed amongst the care packages that had been strapped to the ship in blinking boxes. It wasn't the best stuff but it would have to do, I started ringing the dinner bell. It took awhile but my guest arrive with wet hair and not smelling as bad.

Her eyes scanned everything and I showed her her breakfast, or lunch or dinner, time was a nebulous concept on Pluto. She poured some syrup over her pancakes took a bite and started crying again. I found that she cried a lot and just continued eating.

"It's real, it's-"

"Would you like some coffee, the pancakes are a bit dry."

"Thank you."

I got up and mixed some more instant and poured her a cup, she looked fragile. She was thin, gaunt, a little on the short side but she was company for the lack of a better term.

"So you're a parahuman? What's your power?"

She looked up from her coffee.

"I can do anything, well actually I can use any one skill I want, I can borrow more skills but anything over one causes my head to hurt."

I nodded my head as she savored her coffee.

"So, um what do we do now?"

I thought about it.

"Roam the sea of nightmares, explore the world, study the animal and plant life and be free."

She kind of stared at me.

"Really?"

I shrugged.

"If you have a better plan?"

She bit her lip and sighed.

"I really don't, I mean, my old life is over and yeah... I guess that's something just don't leave me alone, please never leave me alone I can't go through that again, I won't."

"It's going to be ok."

I sipped my coffee.

"But first we need to set up a trading spot with the World tree."

She tilted her head.

"What?"

"Well eventually were going to run out of coffee and that's just unaceptable, but this world has things no one else does, lots of potential trade goods. If we appeal to their greed we can get supplies from the rest of the solar system. Namely coffee."

"They sent us to this nightmare world."

I nodded.

"This is true, but it would be easier to start a new life if we had some trade goods, a rigged game is better then no game at all, and anyway it's something to do."

"You want to set up an interplanetary trade network for fun?"

"It beats accounting."