Author's note:
We have here an offering from the same continuum of 'Christmas Cake' and Guess Who's Coming to Dinner,' among others. It is not a short story. The tale really doesn't go anywhere… it simply spins another yarn about our favorite characters. There are references to canon, and to previous stories that I have written.
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A short girl with platinum hair played with her perfect ponytail as she sat in a sturdy antiquated chair in Tokyo's best Western style restaurant, L'Effervescence.
She smiled, gray eyes sparkling in the luxury lighting. As someone who had been in miraculous rooms graced by Black Technology, on land, at sea, and even above the clouds, she was nevertheless stunned by the décor. The dining room, like all of the parlors in the fancy establishment, was quite meticulously crafted.
Not only that!
The waiters themselves were meticulous!
An army of inspectors with fancy German magnifying glasses and eager English eyes would be unable to find a single wrinkle in any of their Japanese spun suits. But, while clothes may make a man, these men were as well crafted as the garments that they wore. Even to an eye untrained in the epicurean arts, it was simple to see that the bright-eyed and friendly faced staff had undergone intensive training.
Of course, that was especially true of one 'waiter', a young man who had a lifetime of training, but tutelage in war and smaller skirmishes, not fricassees and flambes. No. Strike that thought. He did indeed have ample opportunity to flambe and fricassee, where enemy machines and combatants were the main course.
Sousuke Sagara was posing as a waiter, at the behest of an unseen unnamed uppity-up amongst the ranks of the reformed Mithril. More miraculous than his skills at combat and carnage was the fact that his outfit appeared to lack lint, lumps, and lopsidedness, despite the fact that he had guns, knives, mace, brass knuckles and assorted garrotes hidden under his vest, shirt, and perfectly pressed trousers.
But no, his slick and shiny black shoes did not have a hidden telephone or retracting knife blade like fictional spies. There was a light residue of clotrimaloe ointment on the inside of his pricey black socks. The soldier who could defeat any foe hand-to-hand or AS-to-AS, was fighting a much tougher fight with Athlete's Foot.
But, that incidental fact is neither here nor there.
The head chef of the establishment, Namae-san, was highly respected in the chef community, and some seasoned diners worldwide were in awe of the depth of Namae-san's knowledge of the science of cooking. But, he is not one of those stuck up artists who hides in the kitchen. He had personally visited Tessa's table to wish her a happy birthday, that December 24th.
The cheerful, bubbly and friendly girl, who deeply cherishes her subordinates on the Tuatha de Danaan and treats them like they were her own family, was truly touched by the famous man's gesture. She thanked the chef in Italian, German, French, Latin, Japanese, Russian, and her native English, grateful for his manners, and thankful for those men and women aboard De Danaan who had contributed funding towards the pricey meal, helping to supplant the modest funds available to her teenage benefactor.
"Better yet," Tessa said to herself, sitting alone at the gorgeous antique table, its fabulous woodwork partially hidden from a tablecloth made of the finest grade linen. "I get to see Sousuke dressed up." She smiled a bittersweet smile and let out a long sigh. She had once fooled herself into believing that she had a chance at winning the young soldier's heart; but she was not truly saddened to see her friend Kaname Chidori win his love instead. Nevertheless, with a mischievous and slightly self-deprecating smirk, she whispered "Not everything lasts forever." Tonight, the hurricane in human form would wait on her hand and foot, hopefully leaving the building intact in the process.
"I hope everything is to your liking," Kaname said, walking over the table, gracious in her defeat. The dinner that night could have been hers, seeing that the two Whispered girls shared the same birthday, as did all Whispered. But, she was the one who had lost their bet. The two girls were big Benedict Cumberbatch fans and had attended film night at the newly rebuild Mithril Operations Headquarters based in Sydney. Who would haves guessed where the visit to Austalia might lead her tonight?
The feature that night had been 'The Imitation Game,' an American period biographical thriller directed by Morten Tyldumand, written by Graham Moore, based on the biography Alan Turing: The Enigma' by Andrew Hodges.
In some bizarre twist of fate , the whole affair started with an argument between Melissa Mao and Kurz Weber, which had seen those on-again off-again lovers making a bet involving beer, more beer, and impossible sexual positions. In some manner that neither Whispered girl had been unable to follow, by means of convoluted comments and cock-eyed collusions, that bet gave birth to their own wager: the first one who responded to any gesture, action, or utterance by Sousuke during the flick would lose. Opinion uninvited, Commander Mardukas suggested the winning prize, and a gaggle of high-ranking eavesdroppers seconded and thirded his suggestion.
Kaname had well known that she was like a stick of dynamite and Sousuke was like a match, a butane lighter, or better yet, a full on volcanic eruption. But she had been putting in great efforts, and rarely flew off the handle in response to his moronic military mutterings nowadays. Tessa, ever the unlucky optimist, was likely to say something cute or complimentary in order to win Sousuke's approval, right? Of... course... she... would. She imagined what it would be like to dine at century old Kikunoi restaurant in Kyoto, run by Super Chef Yoshihiro Murata, the only chef in the world to hold seven Michelin stars.
That would have been her chosen place to sup.
But, Fate always has a funny way of intervening, especially where the blue-haired brainy bombshell was involved. Sousuke had been embedded in a combat team of American Arm Slave pilots a few weeks back, as an instructor, not a pilot. They were first class fighters, but were cut from a rough and rude cloth. Very rough and very rude. During one patrol, they spent a drunken evening telling Polish jokes while tea-totaling Sousuke listened innocently, blissfully unaware how stereotypes can be hurtful to entire peoples and their culture, despite having grown up in a world where all too many peoples put one or another type of person down. His experiences in that regard would prove the lichpin.
The key human hero in the movie was, of course, Alan Turing, a man that some called a genius…. because he was felt to be the father of theoretical computing…. and others called a nutjob… because he had chained his coffee mug to radiator pipes to prevent theft, and had ridden his bicycle to work wearing a Word War I style gas mask because he had hay fever. The key mechanical hero in the film was the bombe, an electro-mechanical device used by British cryptologists to help decipher German Enigma-machine-encrypted secret messages during World War II. The British bombe was developed from a device known as the bomba, which had been designed in Poland at the Cipher Bureau by cryptologist Marian Rejewski, who had been working at breaking German Enigma messages for the previous seven years. The initial design of the British bombe produced by Turing in 1939 at Bletchley Park had gone on be a real game changer: historians estimate that his work in breaking Enigma shortened the war by over two years, saving over 14 million lives.
Sousuke had known all those facts prior to watching the film, and could have make any number of well-informed factual comments during the film that 'old' Kaname Chidori would have smacked him with a halisen for, but that 'new' Kaname Chidori was well prepared for. But, while she was waiting to hit his fast ball, he threw her a wicked curve ball. Bombe. Bomba. Poland.
Polish jokes.
"Did you hear about the Polish terrorist who was sent to blow up a car," he had asked nonchalantly at one point during the film, the Devil making him do it. Hearing no response, he quickly finished by saying "Well… he burned his lips on the exhaust pipe…."
Kaname had reacted verbally, physically, verbally again, and then full on physically. Game. Set. Match.
Tessa could have been gracious, and called off the bet, knowing that A Saint would have had great difficulty staying silent after the young soldier's gaffe. But, despite seeming innocent and air-headed in nature, Tessa was also a very competitive girl. As Kurz once pointed out, whenever someone tells the little Captain that she can't do something, she takes that as a point to prove that she can. Part of this is due to an inferiority complex she has towards her late twin brother, Leonard, who would always one-up her when they were children. She still had nightmares about his solving a complex problem when he was four years old that she could only do when she was six.
A bet was a bet. A win was a much needed victory, and not an invisible one at that. Kaname should be happy she was merely paying partly for dinner. Kurz had suggested that the loser run laps naked. Mao had suggested nude swimming. But, the two bettors had seen that cliché types of wagering before.
"I said, I hope everything is to your liking," Kaname repeated, feeling mildly perturbed by the other girl's blissful countenance.
"Everything is wonderful so far," Tessa replied happily, slurring the word 'so' ever so slightly.
"You're not getting tipsy are you?" Kaname raised one eyebrow and cocked her head, looking for any telltale sign that the short Captain was getting lit.
"Me?" Tessa tossed her pony tail this way and that. "Of course not." A bit too much sibilance on the 'course.' Why, such sweet sibilance you ask? Her meal had started with sake in a gorgeous golden cup, an unexpected surprise at a French restaurant. She had then eaten a decent but not exemplary amuse-bouche, followed by more sake. The four-hour cooked Tokyo turnip was soft and at the right temperature, and was quite beautiful, but she didn't like it. She did however adore the grated Daikon with grilled fish that followed. And, of course, more sake.
The main course was a duck from Kyoto served with a port sauce, beet puree, sauteed spinach and shaved truffles. The duck was prepared quite lean… barely any fat was left under the wonderfully crispy skin. Tessa was not really a fan of duck in general; but. this was a pretty good dish. If she were to nitpick, she would have preferred it to be juicier and less chewy. On the positive side, she quite liked the sauce, spinach and truffles that accompanied the protein.
And, it went very well with sake.
Stifling a small belch… and looking around sheepishly to make certain that no one noticed… the Captain's eyes widened when more food made its way to her table. The tasting meal would be food, food, and more food… followed, of course, by food. Was this a secret hideout for aliens, fattening her up before they dined on her favorite personal body? She shivered, remembering the Twilight Zone episode 'To Serve Man.' That had not been a creed of the benevolent seeming spacefarers… it had been the title of a cookbook! She chuckled. Of course there was no such thing as aliens!
"What have we here," she muttered, looking down at the plusly carpeted floor. She wobbled her chain as she bent over, and retrieved her errant napkin, which had fallen to the floor unnoticed. "Eh hemmm. What don't we have here." Her gold cup was empty. But her plate soon wasn't.
Ravioli filled with duck thigh meat and scallops was served in a 'soup' made from duck consomme and celeriac. The broth was a bit light in flavor, but the ravioli were quite lovely, having a good meat taste and toothsome spices. Those ravioli played the part of the traditional 'rice dish' at the end of Japanese meals, in the sense that one could ask for multiple helpings until one was full. Tessa was pleased to see how this useful Japanese tradition carried over to a French setting.
"Yes pleassse," Tessa purred, when a waiter came by with more sake. "Already?" She gasped when more food was placed on the table in geometric perfection.
A cheese course contained five different cheeses that were all made in Japan - ranging from brie via blue cheese to aged mozzarella. The cheeses were each served with a matching drop of honey or sauce, all very light in flavor. The accompanying fruits that had been soaked in alcohol went in the opposite direction - they tasted quite strongly of alcohol. Just what the petite girl needed, right? The cheeses were all pretty good and Tessa appreciated their Japanese provenance; she did not feel slighted in the least, seeing how small the serving size was. In a sense, the waist of her fancy full length skirt already feeling tighter, it was a blessing.
Wiping the corner of her mouth with the embroidered napkin, she eyed the other diners askance. She recognized one man in particular. Short. Stout. Balding, with a bushy mustache and eyebrows like large furry caterpillars. That man was the current chairman of the General Council, having replaced the unflappable Lord Mallory following the elder gentleman's destruction at the former Sydney base, during Amalgam's initial onslaught. "Charles Moriarity." Tessa hoped he was nothing like Professor James Moriarty, the fictional character and criminal mastermind created by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle to be a formidable enemy for the author's fictional detective Sherlock Holmes. "He is from London, that great cesspool into which all the loungers and idlers of the Empire are irresistibly drained." She giggled, pleased at her cleverness, remembering the detective's famous quote.
The real life Moriarity's dessert course… and that of every other diner not named Tessa, Teletha, or Testarossa… was made from chestnuts that had been aged for more than one month in below-zero Celsius temperatures. The dish contained chestnut mousse in noodle form, chestnut pieces, crunchy apple skins and ice cream made from Japanese Oolong tea. The chestnuts were soon followed by a round of petit fours. A chicory cream puff topped with shiso flowers and lemon peel had the man smiling, with the cream covering the hair beneath his nose. The peanut financier made with brown sugar and salt had him scowling momentarily, but a Much lighter apple mousse with mint on a soft cracker had him chuckling, recalling a pleasant childhood memory. A rosemary cookie sandwich filled with butter cream and a fig compote provided a more savory bite. A chocolate tarte with dry ginger came along with a cocktail incongruously called 'World Peace' made from peanuts, milk and Japanese soju.
"Sake… Sake… sake…." Tessa chanted as her gold cup was refilled. "Mmmm-mmm-mm-m, nice." She tossed her ponytail again. "It's almost time." Even more than the alcohol, she looked forward to her personalized dessert. The reason for that was twofold. One, she had always heard about baked Alaska growing up, but never came close to sniffing such a delight, much less satisfying her sweet tooth on one. Two, by another strange series of events, it was not going to be cooked by Chef Namae or any of his bakers; rather, it was going to be baked by a part time gourmand and full-time UN High Commisioner: Shunya Chidori. Shunya was an long-time friend of the chef, and routinely dined at the establishment whenever he returned to the homeland.
"It's s-s-sort of ironic," Tessa said to no one in particular. "Bombe got me the win. And bombe is the prize."
What did the woozy Whispered winner mean? The answer to that comes in the form of another question: "What Is an Ice Cream Bombe?"
An ice cream bombe, known as bombe glacée in French, is a round dessert with an ice cream center. That type of dessert often features a cake or pie crust base and an outer layer of toasted meringue, hardened dark chocolate, or jelly roll slices. The most complex bombes have multiple layers of ice cream and add-ons like chocolate mousse, fudge, caramel sauce, or liqueur. One of the most famous bombes is Baked Alaska, which classically featured a sponge cake base, strawberry ice cream filling, and meringue outer layer.
Now, an astute reader might know that Baked Alaska was no longer the big deal that it once was. Once found only at fancy hotels, it could now be found at relatively simple restaurants, when it could be found at all. But an even more astute reader would know that Baked Alaska was making a comeback, thanks to a modern reworking by Marcus Eaves, head chef of the Michelin-starred L'Autre Pied in London.
So, why did almost every chef know what Baked Alaska is, but outside of catering college, few will ever make it? Why had it slipped off the culinary radar? Partly because meringue desserts went out of fashion. Partly because the basic recipe wasn't suited to modern service. And partly because of a lack of panache. Once, it was a dish where a waiter could enter the dining room with pomp and circumstance and the admiring onlookers could all say "Gosh!" Now, cooking show aficionados might simply say "Meh," and opt for a simple and healthier repast.
"Stripped of the theatre and its concept, it's pretty basic," Shunya had admitted to Tessa earlier. "It got left behind as much by chefs' imagination as by their evolving technical know-how. Bringing it back in a way that makes it both viable and exciting was a miraculous achievement by chef Marcus Eaves. He has studied the components and reworked them. Instead of the sponge base he has substituted an almond biscuit. He has replaced the bland ice-cream core with more subtle shades of flavor."
"I have to head to the kitchen to help my father with the final touches," Kaname drawled briefly, orbiting around the guest of honor again. Her father hade roped her into this, deciding that she would be a better partner in crime than her beau, even though he had enjoyed his time cooking with Sousuke before and after the younger Japanese man had been forced into action to save 'The City That Never Sleeps' from the crazed Habu brothers. "It shouldn't be too much longer." She strode gracefully across the room, leaving the squiffed submersible Captain in her wake. Before she pushed through the swing doors into the backroom, she caught a vigilant Sousuke's eye and gave him a look that said 'No trouble, Mister' with not one tiny bit of uncertainty.
Sousuke merely shrugged and struck a 'Who, Me?' pose. He couldn't help but feel a bit disappointed. He wanted to help in the kitchen. But, his dedication to duty was a soothing salve. It was immensely important to keep an eye on the surroundings out here, making certain that Tessa was safe and secure. Just the same, he wanted to personally make certain that no serious shenanigans might befall Kaname or the Counsillor. He would have to trust his fellow soldiers, situated throughout the building.
"Urzu Seven here," he said into a cuff link radio transmitter. "All clear on my end."
"Urzu 2 here," Mao belched, tossing away her fifth contraband beer. She was nowhere near tipsy yet. She might as well have been drinking water or soda pop. "Crystal here, too." She was parked outside in an M9 Gernsback, ECS running perfectly.
"Urzu 6 here, and prettier than ever." Kurz was serving as a bus boy. He was making it a habit to bend over servicing tables in just such a manner than he had a good view of customers' cleavage. "Getting my jollies, pushing my trolley." He was collecting finished plates, dishes, glassware, and utensils on a buffed mahogany serving cart. "Yes, this is my 'Street Car of Desire,' oh yeh!"
"Can it, horn dog!" Mao, as usual, was in no mood for Weber's nonsense. "You can do some nice shit for Tessa, can't you. Without causing a fucking scene..." She swore under her breath. What was it with her feelings towards her lanky teammate? One moment she wanted to fuck him…and the next she wanted to thrown him naked into the spinning blades of TF39 turbofan engine.
"Roger that, Sis." Kurz sounded sonorous, sober, and sorry. But, that didn't last more than a millisecond. "I guess I can enjoy the vivacious view for me and Tessa, too! Whoo whooooo."
Sousuke ignored the following heated repartee, helping the other servers with their duties. He nodded unconsciously as Urzu 9 Corporal Yang Jun-Kyu, Urzu 5 Sergeant Roger Sandraptor, and Urzu 1 First Lieutenant Belfangan Clouseau also checked in, the latter in the kitchen, and the others in civilian vehicles patrolling the surrounding city blocks.
Sergeant Sandraptor broke cover in unexpected fashion. This assignment was dead on boring, and idle hands are the Devil's playground. "Did you ever wonder-" the soldier began. "-If white wine goes well with cooked fish, do white grapes go well with sushi?"
That quip opened the floodgates.
"Did you ever wonder-" it was Corporal Jun-kyu's turn at bat." "-When cows laugh, does milk come out of their nose?"
"Did you ever wonder," that was Sandraptor again. "Why people pay to go up tall buildings, and then put money in binoculars to look at things on the ground?" That was quickly followed by "And did you ever wonder, can fat people go skinny-dipping?"
"Did you ever wonder," Jun-kyu was not to be outdone. "What disease did cured ham actually have?"
"…" That was followed by a period of silence on the airwaves.
"That's enough with the bad jokes, gentleman." That was Clouseau. It sounded like he was ready to chew someone out. He wasn't. "If you're going to break protocol, at least tell good ones." There was a pause. "Did you ever wonder, why the third hand on the watch is called the second hand?"
Sousuke twitched. He bit his lip, clenched his teeth, and even tightened his sphincter. He was going to resist the urge jump in himself. At least, that had been his good intention. But, he couldn't help himself. The words practically flew off of his tongue. "Did you ever wonder, do you need to use a silencer when you shoot a mime?"
WHOMP, whomp whom whomp. The kitchen doors swung wildly, threatening to fly off of their hinges.
Kaname had burst back out of the kitchen. She marched over to Sousuke, arms swing strongly, thunderstorms in her eyes and transmitting inserts in her ears. She had heard everything.
"NO!" Kaname tugged toughly on her boyfriend's right earlobe. "Bad Sousuke! Bad." It sounded as if she viewed him as some kind of pet wolf. "No more jokes. This is serious business." She didn't refer to Tessa's dinner and the security precautions. Instead, she was speaking of her and her father's efforts to make the delightful dessert.
Then, she disappeared quickly to whence she came.
Sousuke rubbed his earlobe without wincing too much. Kaname had changed a great deal, but still had her domineering moments. Domineering… demonstrative… deprecating… dismissive… a long list of D's. What was the saying? 'A Leopard never changes its spots.'
He checked his watch foolishly, feeling more on edge now, simply because he had seen Kaname disappear from his sight again. More time passed. If he had been a kid in the back seat of a sedan, he would have started saying "Are we there yet?"
He wished that he had his trusty FN P90 in hand. A student of military history, he knew stories where bad things had happened in restaurants.
Even well-guarded ones.