AN: Well, still alive and kicking, to some of your disappointment, although I am slightly dead from a late night on both Friday and Saturday of last weekend—I'm in a high school marching band, and due to a stupid, evil Homecoming game that went into quintuple overtime (blame it all on W. Seattle vs. Cleveland) (why do they have to have football involved in this marching band stuff anyway?) OUR game started two hours late—at 10:00, and because of certain people obsessed with the way we put our uniforms away (Oh, dear LORD! The LABEL on your HANGER is facing the wrong WAY!) I ended up getting to sleep around 2… Anyway, so this is the chapter you've all been waiting for. Or not. Who knows. Here our poor protagonist is forced to accept his Situation. And you WILL understand the whole HG Corporation thing in the next few chapters, I promise. Oh, and please let me know if anything is getting Mary-Sue-ish. I'm working with a very dangerous concept here, and PotC fanfictions do have a tendency towards disgusting perfection. And a warning: Here in this chapter my writing style gets even more random and wandering around, deviating from the story and taking on an…erm…odd quality. Once again, shouts at the reviewers:
Tanuki Yasha: Glad you liked the line, unfortunately I've actually run across someone with that sort of voice. Even more unfortunately, that person is my French teacher. Dear Lord. It, um, makes it kinda hard to do the accent right. *sighs*
Mythical Assassin: WHAT?! You're in LONDON?! AAAAAH—No. I will be mature. I will not kill ANYone. Argh. I'm flattered! You're in London, and yet still reading this fanfiction? Egads! Feel not lame for using Internet cafés, I would too…if…I…was…going…anywhere…Making you crack up, eh? Happy days! Your specialness is now assured!
Getting on with it…I'm stalling for time…
Disclaimer: Don't own PotC. Belongs to someone else, not me. I guess I own Simon, Avery, Liana, any other OCs but it's not like anyone would take them anyway. Don't own Seattle. Don't own Port Royale. Don't own the Caribbean. Don't own anything except a computer, which is most likely the Antichrist. Oh yes, and the attack chickens with samurai swords. *evil laughter*
Since Simon was asleep, he wasn't actually aware of the exact moment when his Situation became a Predicament. It would have been hard to explain at any rate, being the kind of thing that, if it were in a book, would have required a Long, Descriptive Paragraph, which are the bane of anyone who does not enjoy reading certain passages of the Lord of the Rings in which the noble Tolkien is describing the precise shade of each blade of grass, and the reason why one of the aforementioned blades is slightly lighter because of its association with Such-and-So the Fair daughter of Something son of Someone in the House of A Personage in the Blank Age. But I digress. Our protagonist was unfortunately having a particularly odd dream involving penguins riding the Monorail, and didn't notice the cataclysmic event that would significantly affect his trip. Few people did, as the event was completed at about 2:30 in the morning, when few people were awake, and of those people most were out abusing their eardrums with impossibly loud dance music in clubs with ridiculous names (Polly Esther's??) or shut up in their rooms writing dark, angsty poetry.
Only a few were in a position to see the piers at night, wandering around or looking out the window of their condominium. Avery was doing the latter, and by chance happened to glance outside to see what looked like a gargantuan waterspout swirling like a tornado, rising into the sky, and then abruptly disappear into thin air. Of course, this didn't mean much, as Avery dismissed it as just another weird occurrence. He wasn't much for fantasy. Although, as a matter of fact, it was done by a computer. If he'd known this, he would have been more interested. But at the moment, he wasn't aware of that. Neither was Simon. Because Simon was too busy trying to get a grip on his physical existence.
~*~
Meanwhile, at the HG Corporation:
"It's called the Portal Effect," said an auburn-haired young woman brightly, pointing at her computer screen. "Look! See?"
An image of a large water cyclone spiraling into a clear night sky filled a window, which said 'Ominax 4.0' at the top, apparently the name of the program.
"No, you idiot!" said her coworker. "Gigi, you dummy! Where did you get this program? It's completely lame! I mean, obviously you can't use crap like this in the real world, where people can see it, and react to it. It makes people suspicious and has no point other than antagonizing the customer, which we do not want to do. Duh," she added as an afterthought.
"I downloaded it off of the Internet," Gigi admitted guiltily. "But you know, it's pretty nice. They've got an Ominous Voice From Beyond feature which I was going to use later—"
"Where did you download it from?"
"Oh, it's www.clichéfantasy.dty/downloadz/ominax4.htm."
"It's a .dty site?!"
"Yeah."
"What a disgrace. This whole deity business is going to the dogs. Stupid freakin' economy."
~*~
Morning started just like normal.
"Wha?" mumbled Simon groggily, slowly opening his eyes. He could have sworn he heard the ocean. What the hell? Since when does the freaking Puget Sound sound like the ocean?
Wait…
The cruise. Right. Duh. Somewhat relieved, he sat up in his bed, blinking as the world came into focus. Kind of a crappy bed, in his opinion. It felt like a slab of wood—
He looked around.
It was.
What. The. Hell.
He was sitting on a freaking slab of wood. Several slabs, actually. It rather resembled a…dock. Yeah. So he was sitting on a dock.
"I just got off the friggin' dock!" he muttered, not knowing what to make of this. "What gives, here? What the hell?"
Glancing around, he saw he was definitely on a dock, in a harbor or a marina or something. There were a significant amount of boats (not surprising) and the usual amount of people for such areas, strolling around and talking, arguing, etc. Not unlike the docks down at Lake Union, except, of course, they were on the sea rather than a lake. Simon was assuming it was the Caribbean, for some odd reason. Although there was really no reason to assume that, even though he'd just been dumped onto a dock by some magic portal or whatever the hell it happened to be, he was still in the correct area where the Caribbean Princess was set to sail. There was no sign of said cruise ship. And he was noticing something very off about the people who he had at first disregarded.
They were dressed…oddly. Historically you might say. They all looked like they stepped out of the age of George Freaking Washington. Or whenever. 1700s? 1800s? He had failed his history class in a rather dismal fashion, so he had no idea when these garments came from. However, for some reason, the style looked as if he'd seen it before. And the area, as well. There was something about the port that seemed very…familiar.
In fact, it almost looked like—
"NO freaking WAY! Oh my God! OK," said Simon in a little softer voice. "I haven't been eating right, or something. I'm delusional. There is a logical explanation for why I've been dumped on a dock in the middle of the Caribbean, if that's where it is. I'm a freaking schizophrenic, if that's the case, but there is no goddamn way that I have landed in freaking Port Ro-"
"Ahem. Sir?"
A curt, British voice startled him out of his rant, which was probably a good thing. Simon glanced up. Looming over him was the slightly disapproving face of a man, in about his early thirties, wearing a rather ridiculous red British navy uniform.
Uh-oh.
This is kind of the wrong time period for this sort of thing, thought Simon. But it's not really that likely that I've traveled back in time. Besides, I remember Liana's friend saying that Pirates of the Caribbean was wrong, because the real Port Royale was blown up or something before the time period depicted in the costumes…therefore this has to be some elaborate joke of the HG Corporation. Thanks, guys, I really appreciate your screwed sense of humor. Can I go now?
"What are you doing down there?"
"Sitting, what does it look like," replied Simon sarcastically, looking up. "Sir," he added, just in case it actually was a real, live, obsessive Navy sort.
"I wouldn't advise it," the 'officer' said abruptly. "You might be in the way." Simon stood up. "Might I ask what your business is here in Port Royale?" He arched an eyebrow. "You don't look like you exactly come from here," he added with disdain, looking Simon up and down, taking in his appearance, which, Simon admitted to himself, was out of place with all the Navy uniforms and petticoats and other obsolete items of clothing adorning the rapidly moving forms of the 'citizens' of 'Port Royale'.
Let's get this over with. "Let's disperse with the unnecessary interrogation, sir," said Simon, looking the 'officer' straight in the eye. "Where is this really? Is this some sort of a joke or something? If it is—I know it is—it's not actually terribly funny. Now look, I don't know who you are, some HG Corporation employee, but I doubt you have a permit for time travel, so therefore we must be in our time and therefore, the disgustingly named cruise ship is somewhere in this vicinity and by law you should take me right back to it. Capiche?"
The 'officer' blinked. "I don't know what in God's name you're talking about, sir, but I assure you that in those outlandish clothes someone will undoubtedly become as suspicious as I already am, someone who has a higher rank than I and will prosecute you in some way, shape, or form.
"Furthermore," he continued, "with the problems we've been having with pirates these days, you might be arrested as said type of offender and be hanged. I myself am a forgiving man, and don't like causing unnecessary paranoia, and would be perfectly happy to overlook your suspicious presence as pure coincidence, and your appearance as your misfortune. However, if you do not state your purpose in Port Royale, where you have come from, and who you are, I shall be forced to take you to my superiors. And speak English; you're obviously capable of it."
Simon wasn't expecting such a long reply, nor such an intelligent-sounding, and though it was somewhat interesting, despite its many words it didn't answer a singly question. Yet he was growing more and more uneasy and getting an uncomfortable sense that he was, actually, in Port Royale sometime before the twenty-first century. He had no idea how to deal with this, but even worse was that there was something nagging at him in the back of his mind that there were further problems than the ones already presented (i.e., being in the past, no way of traveling, no money, etc. etc.) and that he was missing something important about his Predicament which was growing into more of a Dilemma, and threatened to achieve Disaster status if something miraculous didn't occur soon.
"Um…" He thought for a moment. Maybe if he played along he'd find that it wasn't actually what he thought it was. "I'm Simon Donaghy. I'm here on vacation and I'm from Seattle."
The officer—he no longer was sure enough to think of the title in quotes—looked skeptical. "I have never heard of such a place. Might I ask where specifically this 'Seattle' is?"
"Um…America," said Simon helplessly, realizing his mistake. If indeed this was the 1800s or whatever, Seattle wouldn't be a common name here in the East Indies. "In the northwest."
"Is that so? Well, Mr…Donaghy, was it?" Simon nodded. "I think that perhaps you are not being quite…truthful in your explanations. I regret to inform you that I shall have to-"
Luckily, he didn't have to inform Simon of whatever it was he was so 'reluctant' to say, because just then another ridiculously dressed Navy guy approached the first one sounding out of breath. "Thurston, we've got—to go up to the fort," he gasped, leaning against a post. "Commodore—wants us to go and—hear about some assignment. Something about—god-damned pirates again, I'm sure. Wish they would shove--off and go loot France. And the Commodore's still after—bloody Jack Sparrow when they know—how likely it is—"
He paused, taking a deep breath, and spoke again. "You've got to get up there. I don't know what the bloody hell you're doing down here, anyway. Been drinking again?"
"Let's just go," said Thurston shortly. "The fort?"
"Yes."
They left in a hurry, but Simon didn't even notice, as something had just clicked. Ominously, you might say, like taking off your seat belt while about to go on a fifty-foot drop on an insane roller coaster. The same phrase the second sailor had said kept replaying in his head.
Bloody Jack Sparrow.
WHAT?!
They said…
'Bloody Jack Sparrow.'
"Holy shit!" he yelled, attracting many shocked and disapproving glances from surrounding citizens of freaking Port Royale.
This is impossible! We're talking fiction here! Fiction!
However, unfortunately for Simon, 'fiction' and 'impossible' had just become obsolete terms in his currently fictional and impossible situation.