[JimmyDimples]

Ya want a rainbow, cpbell, ya gotta put up with the rain.  😛

Hey, seriously, glad to see the story's on the move again.  We're closer to more T-chan soon!  ;D

[JimmyDimples]

Excuse the double post, but this one was too good to keep.

You like computerized law simulations?  You like the Frantics?

Then today's your lucky day! ;D

Phoenix Wright takes on… My Last Will And Temperment.

[JimmyDimples]

Of course it'll go on!  ;D My stories will.  I just have more than one iron in the fire, if you know what I mean.

[JimmyDimples]

If youwant to incorporate it, go to it!  If you've already got a game plan for your story series, though, it's all right.  To be honest, I liked it so much, I was thinking of using it for other characters (COUGH cough kofftetsukokoff).  Still, I can do an homage/shoutout/in-joke if I do.

It's yo' thang, do whatcha wanna do.  8)

[JimmyDimples]

Glad you like, guys.  And yes, stmercy2020, I had based a good bit of this off folks I already know, and my own life experience, so that's why it seems a bit realistic.  Someone once said a person that properly lives life has enough story to make five characters.  There's so much inspiration even in the everyday world around us. 

Glad I made it believable.  Thanks.

Oh, and 00tree, by "look forward," did you mean you simply wanted more writing, or to hurry on ahead a few days in the timeline?

[JimmyDimples]

Cute story, and fun, as always.

I like the idea of trashing a big fat jerk's pickup truck or SUV, but (1) truly, that's just not Sylph, and (2) it's already been done.;-P

However, I remember something from my college days for charity or student organizations during our Homecoming weekend:  a CAR SMASH! 

The idea:  a junkyard contributes an old beater that still looks decent on the outside.  Then the organization grabs a sledgehammer, pick axe, adz, some safety goggles, and a sign:  "BASH A CAR!  Three Swings for a Buck!"

Of course those are 1991 prices, but hey, set the price to what's reasonable.  Folks would come along, pay the cash, and demolish the thing one smack at a time.

What I've got percolating… the Student Org's Car Smash is going a bit slow since customers trashed the lights and windows… nothing to instantly wreck.  But Sylph, glad to be able to trash something for a GOOD reason, pays her cash, dons the goggles… but doesn't take a handled tool.  Instead… she simply uses her fist.  WHAM! One section of the car is devastated.

The Org's members is stunned… and deflated, seeing their gimmick is going to be over in two more swats, and all they got for it is a buck.  But the org's leader thinks very, VERY fast, and stops Sylph for just a minute or two, and tells the others to get something made of steel for her to wreck.  Then two others make a quick thermometer sign, and the org's leader grabs a megaphone and really pitches it:  "Sylph, Co-Ed of Steel, will demolish a car barehanded before your very eyes!"  And to show he's not joking, she crunches and demolishes a smaller but solid item, like a steel garbage can, or something that size.  But to get her to wreck the whole car, he's asking for contributions to help meet the org's goal.  Once they fill in enough for the thermometer card, she'll start pounding.

They make TRIPLE the amount they'd planned for.  Sylph crumples up the car for everyone's amazement and applause.  And Sylph gets a share of the proceeds for her time and demonstration.  And she has the deep thanks of the student organization and it's leader.

It's your story, of course.  But how's that strike you?

[JimmyDimples]

Nice picture!  And cute, clever story behind it!  Thanks for sharing it.  🙂

[JimmyDimples]

Happy birthdays to SkreBa and Prophet.  And if you wanna real feel-bad birthday song, you should turn to … who else?  Weird Al!

Well it's time to celebrate your birthday
It happens every year
We'll eat a lot of broccoli
And drink a lot of beer
You should be good and happy
'Cuz you're someone who can eat
A million people every day
Are starving in the street!
Your dad's in the gutter
With the wretched and the poor
Your mom is in the kitchen
With a can of Cycle-4
There's garbage in the water
There's poison in the sky
I guess it won't be long before
We're ALL gonna die!

Happy Birthday!  Happy Birthday to you!
Happy Birthday!  Happy Birthday to you!  ;D

[JimmyDimples]

Yes, well, I had read in a dieting brochure way, way back that encouraged exercise and healthy eating in the long haul that 2 lbs. a week was the way to go.

Also, I'd mentioned in my very first post ever here, that I remember a Vitality Magazine article saying that a woman's typical healthy weight was 100 lbs. for an even 5 feet tall, and add 5 lbs. for every inch taller.

The thread's right here: some of the other posts might be useful.

[JimmyDimples]

Chapter 5:  Necessities

With one hand, Hogan quickly swept a shelf's worth of toilet paper, batteries, and bottled water into his cart without looking at the prices.  Then he speedily wheeled his load toward Xavier, barely stopping before they collided.  "I think we'd better check out now," Hogan whispered lowly. 

Xavier discreetly scanned the store.  Many mothers were hurriedly zipping through the aisles, and the milk and bread were vanishing like Ma's pancakes on Sunday morning.  And he saw a lot more minivans, station wagons, and SUVs screeching to a stop in the parking spaces outside.  Snapping to, he quickly found the shortest line to a register. 

As the cashier scanned the stuff, Xavier tried to watch and listen to the nearest TV monitor, but then Weird Al sang, "Losing my sight, losing my mind, wish somebody would tell me I'm fine," from his shirt pocket.  He fished out his phone:  it was David calling from Taiwan.  He grimaced; he understood the stress, but what could he do for his friend halfway around the world?  He hit the button.  "Yeah, Dave?"

"Xavier!" David's breaking, near-tears voice was almost drowned out by a lot of background noise:  screams and explosions. 

"You okay?"

"Me?!" Xavier stammered.  "What about YOU?!"

"Please!  You okay, not okay?"

"Yeah, I'm fine, I'm fine!  What about you?"

"We attacked!  I call, say goodbye!  You very, VERY good friend!"

"What?!  The aliens are attacking you?!"

"No!  Not space girls!  From northwest!  Missiles from mainla–"

And then the connection dropped, and after one second's silence, a steady beeping. 

Xavier stood there, gape-mouthed.  Then he quickly cycled through to the dial-back feature and hit it.  And he hit it again.  And again.  He got the same thing each time:  the standard computerized "sorry, your call could not be put through, please try again later" message. 

Just as the horrible dread settled in, he heard some local unrest:  some screeching from two aisles down.  Peering around, he saw two working class women grabbing and tugging at a canister of baby formula. 

"I saw that first!" one of them wailed. 

"That's not my problem!" growled the other. 

The first pulled on the other's hair with one hand, and snagged the cansiter with the free one.  The other then clawed the first one across the face with her fingernails.  Ms. Talon, the heaver of the two, then shoved Tuggy into a disposable diaper display, knocking the works down.  Tuggy then shot a foot into Ms. Talon's midsection… and a clerk and the manager dashed up to try to talk sense into them.

Xavier then felt a tug at his elbow.  "Get your credit card," he said.  "No telling how long our cash is gonna have to last."

***

"Missles from the mainland?" Hogan asked as he shifted gears. 

Xavier nodded quietly, miserably.  "Oh, merciful God, please," Xavier begged, bowing his head.  "Spare David."  His head whipped back into the headrest.  "Do we really have to drive this fast?" he demanded.  "Jackrabbit starts burn more gas than–"

"Just shut up and let me drive," Hogan snapped.  "And turn on the news."

In the oncoming lane, a patrol car rocketed toward the Wal Mart.  Once the passing siren dopplered out and faded, Xavier checked the radio's clock.  It'd been eleven minutes since Summa Matrei's warning.  He hit the button.

"– are sending shafts of light all around the planet.  In the USA, many bases getting hit all over the Dakotas and in the Rockies.  So far, only certain military bases are being attacked.  We've also gotten reports a lot saucers over the oceans around the world shining their killer lights on… this just in.  I must stress, this is unofficial, this has yet to be officially verified, but we just got reports that the Eugenian saucers have sent a huge light blasts into the cities of Moscow, Russia, and Beijing, China.  We repeat, we do not have confirmation from our news bureaus there, but we are getting many eyewitnesses calling and reporting that the capitals of Russia and China have just gotten city-size light beams similar to that which reportedly hit and vaporized Pyongang, North Korea and Tehran, Iran.  No other world capitals have been so assaulted as far as we know.  And while this is strictly unconfirmed, we got reports from satellite pictures that some activity had been spotted within the intercontinental ballistic missile sites, all of which are reported to be lit up and destroyed by the Eugenians."   

Xavier stared forward numbly.  He couldn't bend his brain around that.  Tiananmen Square.  The Great Hall.  The Forbidden City.  The Temple of Heaven.  The Summer Palace.  Gone.

He'd seen them all last summer on vacation.  In fact, he remembered his host, David's father, apologizing for bad traffic and not arriving to Mao Zedong's Memorial Mausoleum until after it had closed.  Xavier took it with a chuckle, saying not to worry until next time; Mao wasn't going anywhere.

That joke stuck in his throat now.  He hoped and prayed against hope that David's dad hadn't been in town.

And Moscow.  He'd now never get a chance to see the Kremlin, Lenin's Tomb, Red Square, or GUM Department Store.  Or countless other stuff there.

To avoid a mental shutdown, he quickly catalogued the groceries, and thought of where to store them when they got home.

***

"Hey, folks," Keith's voice on the answering machine said, "Just a fast call letting you know I arrived safely to my destination.  Can't say where we're at right now.  Security reasons.  But I'm alive, well, and soon to be munching on some cold MREs.  Hope everybody's okay.  Remember me in your prayers, and Xavier, Hogan, you take care of Ma and Dad, all right?  Gotta go, there's a line for the pay phone and a time limit.  Bye, love y'all."

Jets from Redd Howard roared overhead from the east very steadily, some heading southwest, others turning north.  Xavier kept putting the foodstuffs into the pantry.  He'd lost his boyhood habit of looking up all the time at the F-20s, F-16s, F-15s and bombers.  Though he felt like going out like old times, he had to make space on the shelves for everything.  Thank heaven for that particular problem.  He worried that the family would solve it pretty quickly in the next few weeks.  His stomach thankfully seriously ran on empty before, even between checks, but…

Run on empty?  "D'oh!" he exclaimed.  We didn't gas up the Jeep!"

Hogan looked up.  "Or your car!" And remembering at last, he tossed his brother the hatchback's keys.

***

Xavier grimaced.  The line to his favorite convenience mart stretched to the next block.  They checked the convenience marts and service stations in the next neighborhood, but they were just as bad.  Cars, pickups, and other vehicles were backed up to the next intersection.  His cellphone then played Weird Al's mangling of "Last Resort."  He sighed as he hit the hands-free setup; he had to change the ringtone.  "Yeah, Logan?"

"Bad news, good news.  The Satan Store doesn't have any lines." 

Xavier grimaced again.  He hated to resort to Gene Gray's Con-Vee-Mart, but he wanted to get home before the sun set.  Then as he neared, he saw the price sign, and saw exactly why there was no waiting. 

Unleaded:    $9.799/gallon
Unlead Plus:  $9.899/gallon
Premium:      $9.999/gallon

"Uh, Xave?  Did I say good news?"

"Yeah, I see the sign." He punched the wheel.  "Typical Gene.  I wish he'd wash his neck so I could choke it.  Going to Exxon."

When they pulled into the line, the clerk put up a hand-made cardboard sign in the store window:  SORRY, NO MORE UNLEADED. Thirty minutes into the wait, the clerk put up a new one:  SORRY, PREMIUM ONLY.  And finally, when the boys finally pulled up and topped off the tanks, and pulled away, the sign read:  SORRY — NO MORE GAS!  He glanced back forlornly and sympathetically to a GMC Yukon.  Boy, if the driver was gonna take it in the rump before….

***

"–And please, Lord," Dad prayed over his plate, "protect our boy Keith, wherever he is, and keep him in the palm of Your hand.  And be with David, too.  Please be with us all, our town, our nation, our President, and watch over us.  In Your Son's name, amen."

"Amen," went Ma, Xavier, and Logan.  And they started passing around the plates, and plopping the fridge stuff Ma wanted to use before it spoiled.  Xavier picked at his chicken teriyaki.  "So… how'd your days go?" he asked.

Ma shook her head.  "Volunteer office was a madhouse, even by the usual standards.  Everybody was gathered around the computers, checking up on all their IM friends, making sure they were all right.  Didn't get a lot done.  Had to lean on the candystripers to stay on task."  She shook her head.  "Bessie Sue hasn't heard from her husband.  Very frantic, I let her go home early."

Xavier's stomach grew tight.  He knew her husband Jack was a seaman on an aircraft carrier.  "Dad? How about you?" 

"Bank was a bit saner than the hospital," he said.  "Got called into a meeting with the VPs.  Senior VP said we'd have to be prepared in case customers make a run on the ATMs and tellers, and pull out all the cash we have on hand.  Haven't run out yet, and no panic just yet, but we're trying to make up a plan on how to make sure the bank doesn't dry up and blow away on them."  He dug into his salad.  "How about y'all?"

And Xavier and Hogan told them about shopping run, the incident in Wal Mart, the gas line-up… and Gray's gouging.  Dad scowled in disgust but muttered, "Frankly, I wouldn't have put it past him.  I woulda thought he'd have waited until gas was scarce, though."  Then he clapped a hand to his forehead.  "Dangit!  The Buick's only got a quarter tank left!"

Ma put a gentle hand on Dad's forearm.  "It's okay, dear," she offered.  "We've got three other vehicles all full.  We're really, REALLY lucky." 

He nodded.  "Anyhow, boys, I guess it's pretty obvious:  we'd better not go gallivanting or cruisin' the boulevard until the crisis is over.  Ma and I may be hitting YOU guys up for a ride to work before too long."

And they craned their ears to listen to the news on the TV, which had already broken out the stars and stripes/red, white and blue motif for their broadcast.  The word was, the aliens were sending craft out left and right from the city saucers around the globe.  The city saucer nearest to Jones Meadow was thanfully two states away in southwestern Georgia.  Most of the action were around the Indian Ocean nations, but everywhere, alien craft were on the move.  Xavier had to pull away from the table to check it all out:  many more skiffs like the one in the Sudan webcam at church.  A bunch of them lined the sides with their shields up like an Ancient Roman "tortoise" formation.  But there were women readying and nocking arrows and releasing energy blast after energy blast from He also saw what looked like SUV-sized flying chariots with wings and jets instead of wheels.  Only one or two Eugenians piloted each one. 

The forces of Earth weren't having a good time.  Rockets and missles aimed right at them suddenly veered off course and spiraled away from the aliens aimlessly.  Bullets and shells weren't having much more luck with the flying craft:  most of them seemed to stop ten feet short.  Was it a force field?  A few were hitting, but were pinging off the maidens' shields and craft.

And the reports backed up Xavier's suspicions:  the war EVERYWHERE was now conventional.  Every craft, base or vehicle reported or suspected to have nuclear, chemical, or biological warheads was allegedly disintegrated.  No words whether the crews fled in time or went down with the ship.

Finally at 8:00, there was an announcement from an undisclosed location:  "Ladies and gentlemen, the President of the United States."

Behind his desk, the President folded his hands, and furrowed his brow.  "My fellow Americans:  I am coming to you via satellite from a secure location on what is indeed a day that has gone beyond our wildest and darkest imaginings.  What has been relegated to the fantasies of science fiction, has arrived in a harsh, atrocious reality.  We are faced with a powerful foe which has struck this planet with stark, quick, unheeding brutality.  While it is true that two countries that should not have been considered representative of us had passed on the first strike for whatever mad excuse to their own ends, the Eugenian Hegemony has struck us all without hearing from the rest of the rational on this Earth.  They have treated all of us, Americans and Russians, British and French, Pakistani and Indian, Japanese and Chinese, Christian, Jew, or Muslim, with inhuman terror we would not wish on our mortal enemies. 

"The whole planet has lost a lot of life.  But in the face of this, these ogresses have made a major mistake.  They have made us see that we must put aside whatever differences or grievances to repel this menace.  If we are to survive, we must become allies against these monsters in a grotesque female form."

"The first item all American citizens must remember, is not to panic.  Yes, we must be ready, and prepare to sacrifice.  We must give full support to our military and police.  We may have to take emergency measures to protect the peace.  But I am urging everyone to cooperate and be neighborly.  While we may have to do without, we have done it before when the world was under threat of oppression and domination over 60 years ago.  And we will do so now. 

"Yes, the new other-worldly enemy is large and strong and seemingly powerful.  So was Goliath.  And we all know what David did with him."

"Stay strong.  Stay confident.  Stay safe.  Thank you, and God bless America."

***

Xavier stepped out into the back yard, taking in the fresh air.  The woods between the neighbors' yard and the U.S. highway behind them had grown a lot.  Enough trunks, foliage and distance to keep out much of the noise.  It was quiet enough after rush hour anyhow.

"Hey, man," called the neighbor.  "Haven't seen you here in a while."

Xavier hadn't seen him, either.  It was an older man with long, dark hair and mustache and beard with graying ends, wearing a loose green T-shirt, a buckskin vest, ratty blue jeans, a belt made of colorful beads, and army boots. 

"Bogie Irontree," Xavier said.  "Haven't seen you in a while, either."

"Yeah," Bogie nodded.  "How was China?"

"Fun, and a challenge.  Great to be back home, though. Or it was."

"Yeah, man.  Looks like the day of the white wolf's on us."

"Mmnh.  Had to rush into town to get supplies and gas up the cars."

Bogie shook his head.  "Slave to the grid.  Shoulda gotten yourself a hybrid, man."

Xavier exhaled through his teeth testily.  "Don't start, Bogie.  It costs more per gallon when you factor in the extra couple of thou in the sticker price.  Do the math."

"Yeah?  Not after the gas dries up, man."

Xavier glared.  "I'd have traded it in, but I was out of town, okay? Besides, it's a little late for swimming lessons when the flood's here."

Bogie held up his hands.  "Easy, easy, don't be hostile.  Me, I got myself something better just in case."  He patted the VW Microbus behind him.  "Converted this puppy to bio-diesel.  Runs on old cooking oil." 

"No joke?"

"Yup.  Just talk to yer mom before she throws out the grease from frying.  Pennies per gallon, and I'll be glad to help y'all with rides in case the Machine breaks down.  Hey, I got some buffalo jerky from the Blackfeet Indians in Montana.  Want come in and get some?"

Before Xavier could offer to trade him for some Pocky or ginger candy from China, a low whoosh sounded.  It was a little like a jet plane… but it was too hushed.  And too low and near.

Bogie looked up.  "Whoa…."

"What?"

He looked back at Xavier.  "Uh, nothin'."

"No, what?"

"Better not tell you, man.  You'll think my 30 years of being clean and sober are over."

Xavier decided to look where Bogie did.  After seven seconds of searching, he gasped.  "Whoa."

"So you see it, too, huh?"

Xavier nodded.  And he wished he WAS seeing something chemically induced.

Through the trees, well lit by the moon, was a gliding Eugenian scout pod.

To Be Continued

[Author]

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