Chapter 5: Breaking News, the Atien Civilization?

  The music on the radio of a scarcely plucked acoustic guitar brought about Conkenu a somnolent relaxation and he slept with his head down.  A bump woke him as they got on the bridge heralding to the larger city across the river.  The guitar went double time, louder and stopped with an awful note tracked by high static and a droning tone.  A voice disembarked on the radio.  "Is there any body out there?"  The voice asked.  "Do we have transmission?"  A faint voice settled these questions then a throat cleared with feedback that was followed by a cavernous chuckle.  "Okay, an exclusive diffusion that is about a planet not of this universe.  Am I verbalizing visibly?"

  "Use shorter words." A command appeared in the distance of the broadcast.  Gneiss changed the dial, but each channel had noise with two men consulting each other.  She left it there, being more fretted about missing what others would have heard than curious about the significance.  So, she kept driving.

  "Sorry, I will begin again. Stucha, how much time do I have?  The time is very well.  Down on a rounded clear region of the home world of the Atienians, Solum in a fresh universe that the people of Earth have not seen; weaved jungle, and cliffs of both directions contained a metropolis of ancient outline with in harmony with the animation of machinery seldom exposed unless consideration, of yet experienced eyes, were taken that this city had to be made by new equipment.  The chronicle of the civilization extended far before time of mortals, and many acknowledged rumours of mortal beings descending from the Demi-God, Ulysses.  The Legend of Ulysses took place when one of the first Atien culture emerged by the power of one of the Goddesses, Juno.  Juno disliked Gamma, her husband, for creating the Atien civilization to worship only him.  Too did the other gods, but they did nothing about it for Ocarina, god of fate, said, 'Only tyranny cities will worship Gamma, democratic will have free wills, and that will worship an Atienian.'

  Juno meditated on the prophesy Ocarina, but had no answers.  With no inspiration, she asked Ocarina how she could make a city to worship the rest of the gods.  He said in return, 'Make the city democratic, and give the Atienian's free will to worship themselves.  Take an Atienian, and reproduce with it, this will the leader of the new city.  They will worship this Demi-God.  The descendant of his Demi-God will resurrect the Gods to be worshipped when a distant offspring of the Demi-God is killed by an inferior outsider.'

  Ulysses, son of Juno and a mortal, created the divine power to kill and reborn the actions of the gods."

  "We're cutting..."

  The radio station returned, and soon an announcer apologized and explained that the views held by the hackers where not of the station or the sponsors.  The music returned after a lengthy commercial break, but Kita turned off the radio.  "This has been a surprising few days with some luck over shadowing the terms set from divine intervention.  Divine intervention means that some higher power in smarts has intended something to happen.  I will stand by what I said when pointed out your father had something to do with this, even the small unusual stuff that I will prevent from neglecting.  I'm sure you have stories to tell that you father will have already heard.  On the day I went to the market in the town we are heading to, I found a person with some relationship to you.  I knew his name, but did not guess he held it.  With this convenience during these hotel stays, with adventures of making friends and learning the mysteries of life in the hotel your father insisted on to follow bit-by-bit clarity for a pattern, that I will be sure to meet you with this relation of yours, which you already know, but I will point out what I did not see at first."  Adjusting the mirror, Gneiss looked to the backseat where Conkenu sat in his booster chair and where a while ago during her monologue, he had doze-off showing some signs of snorting.  She fixed the mirror.  "Maybe the bores have infiltrated the radio again.  Given the peril of capturing a full set of radio broadcasting owned by wealth possessed commercial gratifier, I will not forget this near improbability and their allusion to another universe does have allusion to what Icicil talked about with the gate keeper and adversaries.  Skimming the notes could have concluded this, and if there is some note on Atienians, without much coincidence I do not doubt, when I find this."

  She parked the car.  She looked on the passenger side and parked at the fence near a streetlight.  The street had detached houses on each side.  Paper was messed and dirt got into her nose and made her softly sneezed twice.  She found the paper and stared mindfully to the letter reading out loud the messy printing too hard to skim or read in thought.  It was hard to read in her thoughts because she sneezed and couldn't remind herself of the place.  Drool started trickling from the corner of Conkenu's mouth, and with a grin, he wiped his mouth.

  Half way through, she heard a knock on her window.  Standing there, a man in a hooded sweater asked her to roll down her window.  "I mustn't overlook this," she thought, and rolled down her window.  "Icicil must have known that radio broadcasting would make me stop, and talk to this guy.  I haven't read anything about the Atienians.  Opportunity has knocked."

  The man bent down and put his forearm on the window.  "Are you going to buy some," he said, "medicine?"

  "I have some," she put her hand to her nose to stop a sneeze but it never came, and so she cleared her throat, "medicine, but what does yours do?"

  "This medicine will take all of your anxiety away like pot.  Make you brave when you are not.  No pain with this product and this pill will enhance all feats.  Clearer vision comes with this, and I mean, not even temple monks who train day and night, for fifty years have this vision of the streets.  Truth is revealed, and illusion is lifted.  How is your stuff gifted?"

  "Just aches," she pulled a bill out of her purse. "And now I have what you have, sir."

  He took the money, and dropped some medicine containers into the car.  With a nod, he was gone.  "What luck I have to have no luck, without much coincidence I do not doubt.  This is looking very easy to have someone like Icicil already knowing what will happen.  And the last stroke of luck, I possess extraordinary medicine to minister to all areas of activity.  Such an overall drug is rare to have described with taunts given to the speaker."  She put containers away with the other medicine.  "But, his rhymes, no matter how well formal they are for respect, are too forced and weird.  'Make you brave when you are not' may be true, but he rhymes that line from 'This medicine will take all your anxiety away like pot'?  I would have liked 'This medicine will take all your anxiety away a lot', but he uses 'pot'… oh no.  Remember, you have already said without much coincidence I do not doubt, nothing will happen."

  A siren goes off behind her, and she looked in the side mirror to see a stout slow moving cop coming.  Frantically, she opened the containers and gulped the contents.  She took other pills from a container and replaced them.  The cop arrived to the opened car window and caught his breath as he panted and removed his cap to wipe his forehead.  "Oh, Mr. Policeman, blue shirt ballet master."  Gneiss merrily said and rubbed her nose.  "Ah, any problems?"

  "Yeah," he adjusted his belt.  "Drug dealing was seen here a few times, we have this guy on record, and I have to search your car for drugs." 

  She handed over the three replenished containers, which never had labels on them.  The policeman took them and looked at them.  "What are these?"

  "New birth control pills, I have two, one for the weekday and one for the weekend."  She explained with some roughness to her voice that was noticeably absent from the first remark to the official.  He picked up the third.

  "And this one?" 

  "That would be for my daughter.  She's in the back, wearing that dress."

  "Birth controls for her age?"

  "I am getting her into a healthy habit."

  "Yeah, I guess some out of town mother wouldn't have the need for drugs.  But, why are you parked out here?" He asked her.  The car door opened, and she got out ready to gather Conkenu from the backseat and head to the police car.  When the policeman touched her arm, she went down and kicked a flat into the back tire. 

  "I just wanted to show you that the back tire was blown out." She boosted her voice to a furious scowl that Conkenu woke up and started to cry.  He tried to help her back up and she pushed him away.  "Now you got my daughter crying.  This day has been horrible.  The back tire gets a flat, some strange man annoys us, and now Conkenu is crying because she can't see the baseball game."

  "Well, madam, I didn't want that for you.  But, you are in luck, because I happen to have extra tickets since I said that I captured Penguin Patrol; I got three tickets for each person in the team I'm in, way up front too.  I only arrested them, so I got some tickets from the Titans who had to get the game today."  He said with a smile.  The cop looked over to Conkenu who wiped his tears.  If he knew or didn't know what had happened, he had real tears to wipe.

  "What happen with the other two members?"

  "Couldn't come, they had to do paper work.  So come along, I am luckily I didn't have to arrest you, because I would have had to miss the game."  He waved as he walked to the cop car.  Gneiss opened up Conkenu's door, and in front of the door, she threw up the pills but she thought she had swallowed one that she couldn't recover; the egg had been misplaced too.  She stamped the pills into the ground, and got Conkenu out of the car.  She wiped his tears and carried him so his head could lie on her shoulders with one arm supporting him, so her other arm could carry the booster seat.  The door was kicked open and they made their way to the patrol car. 

  "Lucky, without much coincidence I do not doubt."  She said, and slowed down. "Conkenu, I will be in need for you to act like my daughter, not by son, or brother, or sister, but daughter.  Can you remember that?"

  Conkenu squeezed her harder.  "Should I call you mother, or mom?"

  "Either way, Conkenu."

  "Will my father be your husband?"

  "Very funny, he's with your mother even now."  She said.  "Sorry, I wish you knew her."

  "Are you here to see King Crimson in action?"  The policeman asked. 

  "The Titans have never lost a game," Gneiss remarked.  A traffic light stopped the patrol car at the corner of the stadium, and sirens went off and he drove through the light.  They were running late, and looking for a parking spot.

  "Oh, the Titans have lost games, once Yamacha gets kicked out of the game for fighting, there is a game.  Most people are betting on that Yamacha gets kicked out of the game now, and so do the opposing team." The cop parked the car and turned off the engine.  "Some teams bring in players, who haven't swung a bat in the spirit of baseball, just to enrage Yamacha to get kicked out.  He has some legal problems with that fighting, I heard, and with all of the payouts, he doesn't keep the most money of any baseball player, but I shouldn't feel pity for him; he is still paid more than years of doing my job."

  The game was unexciting with no triggers setting off Yamacha, who had restrained himself without discipline but curiosity as he sat the game as the designated hitter on the bench sometimes getting up to get walked but stole each base to get home and on the bench quickly to the radio he sat on his lap.  Even Pwar perked up her ears to each distortions of the radio.  Sitting on the bench, King Crimson sacrificed his usual routine of sleeping, which fans dubbed as deep mediation, to tweak the antenna.  The other team lost, and both teams dispatched to the dresser room.  A cup of beer almost hit Conkenu in his front row seat, as fans started throwing objects onto the field, or in the direction of the field.  "Maybe we should go elsewhere." The cop suggested.  "I know the security guards here, so we can go meet the winning players.  I don't think any fan believes that Yamacha is playing unassisted anymore by the look of this mess."

  At a door in the cement hallway under the seats, a security guard took the hands of the officer.  "How are you Cal?"

  "I'm fine, and it was a decent baseball game, but Yamacha seems to take the fun out of the game with how good he is."  He said, and they had a laugh.  "He's in a league of his own.  By the way, has he exited the change room yet?  I have some guests who would like to see him.  This is Gneiss, and holding her hand is Conkenu, her daughter."

   "Good evening."  The guard took off his hat and nodded.  "I'm sorry, but he has not come through here, and I heard players place him at the dug-out still.  There are a lot of fans angry at him, but he has nothing to worry about compared to sore egos of the fans.  Oh, my mistake, he is coming down the hall now."

  Yamacha with Pwar on his shoulder, walked with the focus on the radio that he held in his hand.  When got to the door, he looked up and saw Gneiss. "Oh, yeah, we met a few days ago."

  "It would be hard to forget me."  Gneiss smiled, and lifted up Conkenu.  "This is Conkenu, and she was amazed by your talent Mr. Yamacha.  You made this first game a memorable performance." 

  "I'm just fooling myself, but I wished the pitchers would start pitching to me.  They just do that so they have more time to annoy me."  Yamacha said.  "I was sort of more interested in the radio to care about banter this game."

  "Cal, do you have any clues on that strange radio disturbance."  The guard asked.  The police were submerged with questions about this radio hacking emerging all around the world.  There was no official word, and silence crept into the hallway.

  "I'm not worried." Yamacha said. "I'm not interested in the message; I have some investment in the tune that was played." 

  He opened the door, that let a dense fog of all the sense past into the hallway.  Some cheering was heard, and some quips about how King Crimson didn't get into a fight this game.  The door closed.  "I'm sorry, that he all you will be seeing of him.  He doesn't talk to the fans anymore.  You should be honored he sprouted those few words, since most people want to twist his words to make it look like he is doing some stupid, like saying he likes that tune and some newspaper will think that he is coming out with a rock album."

  "With his temper and bad actions, a rock star will be a welcoming profession."  The two men laughed.

  Cal dropped them off at the police impounding lot, and got them the keys to the car.  With a farewell, he left.  "So, have you decided Conkenu?"

   "He didn't use his strength of good."  Conkenu commented.  The dimly lighted chain fenced area offered no shelter from the cold coarse winds.  He disappeared from the wind behind her shirt.  "People don't like him because his talents don't have room to be sports, but need to be used to protect people."

  "I agree."  Gneiss settled then remembered her experience.  "He did protect me from the Penguin Patrol.  That deserves respect.  For whatever reason he covets his powers to himself, to make money, Yamacha has an uncomplicated reason to help people; he knows that it is dishonest to play silly games with such power, but he does not have anything more polite to do.  Heroes like him have a dishonest past, so they never know if they could ever repay society for what they have done and sometimes, they sense sometimes in a good motive that society had not paid them for giving them a bad life and driving them to live by crooked means.  This may be the case, but I think if he knew what you have decided then he would have gained some light in his dark past that he would be looked after for once.  That is what I have to say.  In what I didn't want to say may ring true.  He might never want anyone to look after him or anyone to look after.  The stir to my rescue has some possibility to being self-motivated."

  They escaped the cold that still whistled and screeched harder as they entered the car.  The headlights turned on, and the car drove out of the parking lot.  Soon, they would be on foot for a long journey to the northern mountains of Yunzabit including a crossing of the channel that separates the main land from the northern island, but first a drive to the Snowy Forest and a walk. 

thanks to wind (http://www.fanfiction.net/profile.php?userid=231964) for the suggestion about the formatting.  An extra long chapter for you.