AN: Well, here I am again, and there is naught to say except 'sorry about the pathetically short chapters'. Really, I should just bang my head into a metal post. Fortunately, I end up doing that a lot, so it all works out in the end…oh, and sorry about the relentless Soggy Seattle references: I feel kind of bad because I've been reading about the aftermath of Hurricane Isabel, and all these people's houses are now half-sunk in water. I thought I was getting wet. Sheesh. My dear old Dad and his wife the artist were in Baltimore during said catastrophe for an art show, and although where they were wasn't affected, nobody came to the art show because they were too busy going, "Gee. Well, my house is completely destroyed. Guess I better do something about that." Can't blame 'em…Oh, and in advance, readers, you can spend that much time reading Megatokyo. Trust me. I know. And last but not least, I just realized that some of you college-attending people may be like "Hey, um, how did Simon get a house when he's in college." It's a long story, involving Avery and blackmail…I'm going to try to get Avery's misadventures out on FictionPress someday, but meanwhile, take my word for it.
Once again, many thanks to the reviewers:
Vana E: You enjoyed it?! Really? *wipes forehead* Whew…thanks so much. Sorry about the college; that must be dismal. I'm going to try to update this quite quickly because at the moment, it's really easy…of course, that's what I'm sayin' NOW…in a few weeks when I'm stuck for a plot point…by the way, I'm flattered to get a review from someone so much more reviewed than I. Thanks! Will update! Whahahahaa! WHAHAHAAA!! Eh, sorry. ^^;
Mythical Assassin: Yes, you are special! ^^ I'm sorry I didn't get this out soon enough. I am contrite; forgive me. …hold on, mon ami…the box is significant. It contains items that will be useful later…what these items are, you shall have to find out. *coughtellmecough* Yeah…
Tanuki Yasha: LOL! Thanks, ominousness is fun…and it actually might be deliberate ominousness on the part of—Hey, you didn't hear that. You didn't hear that…
Disclaimer: I own nothing. I don't even own one of those Megatokyo "b4k4^2" shirts. Which is something I really, really need. Damn…
Chapter 3:
On the morning of his departure, Simon woke up with a start.
"Wha?"
He blinked and glanced at his alarm clock. It read 5:15.
"Five-fifteen?! What the hell…" Why am I waking up at five-fifteen! That's insane! I don't have to be at the pier until, like, six…He sat up, feeling wide awake, acutely aware that his thoughts were actually coherent, something that didn't happen much before eleven. He had no clue what this was about…Simon wasn't prone to having any sort of dreams, much less ones so bad that it woke him up at such an ungodly hour, and besides, he didn't remember any dreams, period. Of course, he had got the sensation that big huge freaking waves were crashing in his ear. That he did remember, for some reason. How strange. Because there were no waves on Puget Sound, it was maddeningly calm, one of the characteristics that made it one of the most annoying bodies of water on the planet. That was definitely a factor in the 'Seattle is stupid' argument he'd been trying to make to his friend in St. Paul, who insisted that it was indescribably cool. Of course, Simon could see his point; living in St. Paul, which wasn't on any sort of body of water at all—Seattle was actually pretty nice compared to a lot of other cities, because of the port thing. Still, the piers weren't as interesting as they used to be…
Hell, why was he thinking about useless stuff like this?
He closed his eyes, intending to go back to sleep, but found himself completely energized.
This is weird…Shrugging, he clambered out of bed and got dressed in about 2 minutes. Another weird occurrence. Something was just off…He refused to make the connection to the trip. This was his only chance to get out of Seattle for a decent amount of time, and he was not going to miss it because of some stupid coincidental occurrences that meant absolutely nothing.
Nothing.
He poured some Life™ into a bowl, dumped milk on it, and proceeded to eat breakfast.
At five freaking fifteen in the morning.
Sheesh…
He went online afterwards for awhile, reading Megatokyo (something he would NEVER admit to doing) and at about ten, the phone rang.
"Hey, this is Simon…"
"Um…hi! I just wanted to ask whether the program was running?" This time it was that same uncertain female voice.
Simon stared at the phone. "Uh…what? Program?"
"The program that we—the omin—"
There were sounds of scuffling, as if someone else was grabbing the phone. And sure enough, the next voice Simon heard was different, and very exasperated.
"How am I supposed to make up for what you—um, your program is running? Then ya better go catch it!" the voice said, almost yelling.
Click.
I seriously need to get caller ID, thought Simon, wondering what the hell they were talking about.
Determined to not associate this weird behavior with the trip, he decided to call Avery, see if they could hang out today or something. He was completely packed, and now, he realized, completely bored, with nothing to do until the evening. He dialed Avery's cell phone, as he wasn't apt to be home very often. Avery picked up on the second ring.
"Yo, Avery here. Who is it?"
"It's me."
"Simon!" said Avery, sounding like he was in a good mood, which made Simon a little bit nervous. "Hey, what's up? Aren't you leaving on that cruise today?"
"Yeah, but not until six, and get this: for some reason I woke up at friggin' five fifteen AM this morning."
"AM?!" said Avery disbelievingly. "You?! That's…Jesus Christ, Simon, did you drink ten liters of Pepsi at ten or something? I mean, I'm up then, but I've usually been up for twelve hours, so that's not really an issue…" Avery wasn't all that big on the whole 'sleep' concept…and he didn't even drink caffeine, which never ceased to amaze people.
"Yeah, I know. Weird, huh? Anyway, I was wondering if you wanted to hang out and stalk people at Green Lake or something. I'm so bored…" Simon knew this was an opportunity Avery could never pass up.
"Stalking? I am so there!" replied Avery, a hint of maniacal laughter in his voice. "Yeah. How about I meet you by the community center at like ten-thirty or something?"
"'K. Oh, and will I recognize you, or has your look changed since I last saw you?"
"Nah…not too much. It's green and spiked now. No more Mohawk, that got old pretty fast. I think I'll keep it this way for a while, although I may change the color. Capiche?"
"Got it. See you then."
"Adieu, mon ami."
He hung up, and grinned in anticipation. Watching Avery stalk people was always an enjoyable experience.
~*~
Approximately eight hours later Simon had returned to his domicile, and was scrutinizing his luggage. Not much, really—unlike Liana, he generally packed light, so his baggage was limited to a medium-sized blue duffel bag and a backpack; the former contained clothing, the latter, other essentials such as a portable CD player and CDs, a few books, a notebook, his laptop, a flashlight—oh, and that weird metal box that came with the congratulations letter. He figured maybe it would be explained when he arrived at the pier—or he hoped so.
He checked over everything one more time, then switched off the lights, locked the door, and paused for a moment in front of his house, trying to remember if he'd forgotten anything. He mentally went over everything he'd wanted to bring…Nope. Grinning in anticipation, he tossed his stuff in the backseat of his car and drove off, hoping to God he'd missed rush hour on I-5.
No such luck.
Crawling along, he cursed the Seattle transportation system's incompetence. "Why don't we have goddamn rapid transit?!" he yelled into the highly polluted air. "God!"
"Do not say the Lord's name in vain!" yelled a brown-haired man in a green Subaru Forrester.
"Christian road rage," muttered Simon. "Lovely." He swerved into the next lane, hoping it might be moving faster…alas, no such luck. In the time getting in between two exits, he had time to read the Christian guy's bumper stickers, of which there were about twenty, proclaiming things like "God is my co-pilot", "Trust Jesus", "Christ Died For Sinners", etc. etc. Being an atheist, this annoyed Simon to no end, and he was thoroughly sick of reading them by the time he finally reached the downtown exit. No doubt, if Avery had been driving, he would have yelled a plethora of blasphemous statements out the window as the highway disappeared from view. However, Simon just thought in R-rated terms and stepped on the gas, running a red light amid numerous honks as he pulled onto Denny Way. He checked his watch. Crap! I'm going to be late! He maneuvered his way throughout the Seattle streets, desperately searching for a street that did not forbid him to turn left. At last he gave up, provoked law-abiding drivers again, and zoomed into a parking space by the piers without looking to see where he was. Miraculously, he didn't crash into any posts. Must have been fate…
He got out of the car, grabbed his luggage, and blinked. He'd walked around the piers dozens of times, but he'd never seen this one before. It was large and expansive, lit with hanging candelabras that looked amazing against the darkening sky. There was a large building, not unlike the terminal for the Bremerton and Bainbridge Island ferry although it looked much newer. He couldn't imagine how he'd missed it before—it was rather prominent. Uncomfortably he noticed that people walking by on the sidewalk didn't seem to see it.
This was getting to be a rather obvious Situation.
With the determined ignorance that only a Seattleite can achieve, he shook his head and decided to discount the annoyingly mysterious aspects of the pier, and the whole sweepstakes business in general. There was the huge freakin' cruise ship. He was going to go on it. NOW. "Screw this," he muttered. "I wish I knew what was going on…"
As he walked out of the parking lot he heard an overenthusiastic female voice calling out to him.
"Hello?! You're here for the Caribbean cruise, aren't you?!"
He saw a rather petite woman in a fluorescent green dress waving her arms standing at the beginning of the walkway to the cruise ship. She was easy to notice, being the only person there, although Simon wished she wasn't. She was the type of person whose voice put you in mind of a Canadian goose with laryngitis singing something from 'Carmen' while getting run over by a train.
"Um, yeah…"
"Splendid?! Come here?!"
He did so.
"Hi?! My name is Marie?! Welcome?!"
"Ah, thanks," said Simon, wincing. "Might I ask you a question?"
"Sure?!"
"Why aren't there any other people here?"
All of a sudden Marie's happy, question-mark-exclamation-point attitude seemed to evaporate. "Dammit," she muttered, and then something Simon couldn't hear. Immediately after that he felt a wave of dizziness and staggered back against the railing. He shook his head to clear it and looked around.
There were scads and scads of people, all carrying luggage, heading down the walkway onto the cruise ship.
"What are you talking about?!" said Marie, her voice a bit strained. "Now, go and get on, you don't want to be late?! Your cabin number is on your ticket?!"
Simon was completely baffled. "What the hell—"
"Have a nice vacation?!"
Shrugging helplessly, Simon boarded the cruise ship, which he had to admit was exceedingly nice. He showed his ticket to a bored-looking man in his mid-fifties, then checked what was left of it. Cabin 9A. All right. Shouldn't be too hard to find, he thought, convienently forgetting the Caribbean Princess was roughly the size of New Jersey, or at least it was similarly easy to navigate without a map or any signs to speak of. After wandering the many hallways for twenty minutes he finally found someone who appeared to be on the staff and got some vague directions that, after another few minutes of searching, led him to his room on the Tropical Deck. He dumped his luggage on the floor and suddenly realized how early he really had gotten up this morning, after staying up until twelve. Five hours. No wonder he suddenly felt like falling over. He was going over the few options his exhausted brain could come up with: explore the cruise ship and find food, try to think through all this crazy crap that was going on, or get some extra sleep.
Easy choice.
Opting for choice 3, he collapsed on the bed and stared up at the ceiling. His last coherent thought was Tomorrow all this—stuff will get sorted out, I guess.
Wrong assumption there, pal. Definitely, wrong assumption.