Fiction River: Fantasy Adrift (15 page)

We had always come up with a solution before. There had to be one for this mess.

“Milkshakes?” a voice behind me broke the silence.

I turned around, surprised. Marge, the waitress from the café that this office was patterned after, came through the door. She was a superhero in the food and beverage industry, but I didn’t know she had the ability to cut through a time bubble.

“I figured we were going to need some thinking food,” Stan said, smiling at my clearly puzzled expression.

“Fries are down and cooking,” she said.

She put our standard milkshake order in each of our places at the table, then turned to Captain Craig. “Great seeing you again, Nick. What can I get you?”

“Madge, you are looking great as always,” the Captain said, moving to hug her as we all scooted into our places in the booth. Patty was beside me, Screamer and Stan across the table from us, The Smoke moved around to stand behind the center of the booth and Dan pulled a chair up to the end of the booth.

“How about one of those fantastic strawberry shakes?” Captain Craig said to Marge and she nodded, giving him a smile that said that they had some history beyond her serving him.

If his ship wasn’t about to be taken to the bottom with three thousand people on board, I’d ask him about it. But right now we had more important things to think about.

I sipped on my vanilla shake as Captain Craig pulled up a chair and sat at the front end of the booth next to Ben as Madge disappeared through the door leading to The Diner.

“Some questions,” I said to the Captain. “Anything besides one of the Qulupalik able to move that ship?”

The Captain shook his head. “Even if we got new engines, we couldn’t move it far enough and fast enough to meet that deadline.”

“No way to teleport it or magically push it?” I asked Stan and he shook his head. “Way too big even with a hundred of us doing it.”

“Can we teleport lifeboats?” I asked.

At that Stan nodded. “We could do that far enough to get them out of the Frigid Women waters. That will save the lives, but it won’t stop the coming war.”

“How bad will that be?” Patty asked.

Ben just shook his head as he sipped on his chocolate shake. Then he glanced at Captain Craig. “You remember the last war between the two water races?”

Craig nodded. “Killed half the humans alive. Major storms, frozen lands, tidal waves so high as to go hundreds of miles inland.”

“And it killed half of the Frigid Woman and the Qulupalik as well,” Ben said.

I sat there, staring at the two of them. What little bit of milkshake I had sipped was now threating to rebel from my stomach.

“So the ship sinks, even with no loss of life, and the war still starts?” Screamer asked.

Both Ben and Captain Craig nodded.

“And humans will be all over the wreck site,” Captain Craig said, “which will bring the humans into the fight and there will be nothing at all we can do to stop it. We might save the thousands on the ship, but millions more will die.”

“So in under two hours real time we must get that ship out of there,” I said.

“Got any ideas?” Screamer asked, looking at me.

“Not a one,” I said.

FOUR

We sat in silence until Madge brought the fries and set three baskets of the wonderful-smelling things in the middle of the table. They glistened in grease and seemed almost to be coated in salt.

Then she gave Captain Craig his strawberry milkshake and put a hand on his shoulder. There really was a story between the two of them that some day I would love to know about.

“What’s the disaster now?” she asked.

“Qulupalik pushed a huge ocean liner into Frigid Women waters,” I said. “We have two hours to avoid a world war with their two races and humans.”

“Oh, no,” Madge said, suddenly looking pale. “I always wondered when those two would get horny.”

She patted the Captain on the shoulder again and turned to head back to the diner before I stopped her. “Wait, Madge! What did you mean?”

She pointed at Ben. “He knows.”

Then she vanished back through the door to The Diner.

We all turned to look at Ben.

“Romeo and Juliet,” he said, “was based on the children of the two races’ leaders.”

“Juliet was a Frigid Woman?” I asked, feeling completely stunned.

“Ben nodded. “You met her earlier. She is now the leader.”

“And Romeo is a Qulupalik?” Patty asked.

“Green skin and all,” Lady Luck said, appearing in my office and pulling a chair in between Ben and Captain Craig as they both scooted over.

She took a few fries and started munching on them. “They are both the leaders of their people now.”

“And they both still love each other?” Screamer asked.

“We can assume that’s what this is all about,” Lady Luck said, nodding. “And the Fates have no idea what to do this time.”

I just looked at Patty and she smiled back, putting her hand on my leg and calming me a great deal.

I was having a very difficult time trying to imagine a green-skinned guy and an ice-cube of a woman together. Shakespeare had really dressed up that play a lot.

And clearly in real life they hadn’t died.

I squeezed Patty’s hand. We had only wanted to get away, have a trip together, no pressures, and we end up like this.

It seemed that trouble followed us. Luckily our love seemed to go through all the troubles just fine. At least so far.

Then suddenly I had the wildest idea I had had in a long time.

“Is it possible for me to talk with both the leader of the Frigid Women and the leader of the Qulupalik?”

Lady Luck turned to me with a puzzled look on her face.

“I’m thinking that if they are in love,” I said, smiling, “the wonderful suite that Patty I had on your ship, Captain, might be just the solution.”

Lady Luck started to say something, then she nodded.

She stood and I said quickly, “Patty needs to be with me.”

She nodded. “In the suite. Be ready.”

Lady Luck vanished and I smiled at the puzzled looks of my team around the booth. “Wish us luck.”

With that I jumped Patty and me back to our suite on the big ocean liner. We were still frozen between instants, so there was no rocking to the waves and the ship had not moved any closer to the shoreline.

Our suite was still dark and very cold and it smelled like spilled perfume.

Patty and I quickly gathered up our scattered stuff and I sent it back to her apartment.

She came over to stand beside me, our backs to the big sliding glass door, as suddenly the suite filled with a really nasty fish smell. Rotting fish smell.

We turned toward the bedroom door to face a tall, very green, very naked man with seaweed draped over his shoulder. He had gills on his neck and yellow eyes.

And honestly, he was built in a certain area like a porn star. Either that or he used it as a rudder when swimming through the water.

Beside me Patty managed to not gasp.

Lady Luck was standing to one side of him. “Poker Boy, Front Desk Girl, this is the great leader of the Qulupalik.”

We both bowed. “Our honor.”

“I have heard of your exploits,” he said.

I have no idea how we managed to not start coughing and gagging from the smell of rotted fish combined with sewage mud. I had a hunch gagging and coughing would not have been a smart thing to do.

A moment later the room froze down and everything coated in white as, on the other side of Lady Luck, the naked, white-haired woman appeared.

“Poker Boy, Front Desk Girl, this is the great leader of the Frigid Women.”

Again we both bowed and said that we were honored.

I managed to not start shivering. I think I went instantly from cold to frozen.

I noticed that the two glanced at each other, but then seemed to be afraid to look at each other again.

Considering that they were both naked, I could understand that. I wasn’t sure where to look at them either.

Lady Luck nodded for me to say what I had in mind.

I had said a lot of stupid things over the years, and I just hoped this wouldn’t be one of those things. Way too many lives at stake.

“Front Desk Girl and I are very much in love,” I said, taking Patty’s hand, which calmed me a great deal. I really loved that superpower of hers. “We have been fortunate to be able to spend our time together.”

Neither leader moved or flinched, which I took as a good sign for the moment. I could read people at poker tables, but reading leaders of ancient races was another matter completely.

“We have spent many wonderful nights together in this suite on this ship.”

I indicated the suite around us all.

“I realize this is a human suite, but it is fit for royalty. We would like to offer this suite to the both of you to share in this time bubble, where no one from either of your races can spy on.”

“No time outside of this room will pass,” Lady Luck said, “for as long as you would like to have it. And none of your people know you are here, I can promise you that.”

The guy was the first to break. He looked over at the woman he loved.

She saw his look and looked back.

Then she turned back to me. “Why would you offer such a thing?”

“We understand love,” I said, again proud that my voice didn’t shake from the cold. “We also understand politics between people that are older than all of us.”

Lady Luck nodded. “We can offer you more as well,” she said. “Every major human liner such as this that comes near your waters, we will freeze time around it and allow you to spend private time together as often as you want.”

“Your motives?” the green man asked, his voice sounding a little like it was being pushed through water.

“We do not want a war between your fine people,” I said. “The last one killed far too many of all three races.”

Both leaders nodded slightly so I knew I had them.

“And we hope that with the two powerful leaders of such powerful peoples spending time together,” I said, “there may come a chance for a more lasting piece given enough time.”

I felt it would be rude to add the words “…and sex.”

“You are a dreamer, Poker Boy,” the leader of the Frigid Women said.

I bowed slightly. “I am honored.”

Both leaders smiled, or at least I think what they did was smile.

“We will give you time to decide,” I said “and spend time together.”

I was about to jump us away when the leader of the Frigid Woman walked over to the leader of the Qulupalik and took his hand. I was amazed he didn’t turn into a block of ice, but her touch didn’t seem to bother him other than make the rudder move in a way I didn’t want to notice.

“We need no time, do we, my love?”

He kissed her and then looked at me, then Lady Luck. “We accept your kind offer. It will allow us, for the first time in centuries, to spend real time together.”

“It is our honor,” I said, bowing.

Lady Luck also bowed.

“Give us one full day of time in this time bubble,” he said, “and then we will move the ship out of sacred waters.”

“Thank you,” I said and this time both Patty and I bowed as deeply as we could in the cold.

Lady Luck also bowed again. “And there will always be a suite waiting for you both in any human ship passing,” she said. “Your privacy will always be respected.”

They both nodded, standing there naked in each other’s grasps.

“Call for me when you would like to return to normal time,” Lady Luck said.

And with that we were back in my office floating over Las Vegas.

FIVE

The warm hit me like a hard brick and beside me Patty seemed to collapse. I caught her and we slid back into the booth. In all my life I couldn’t remember being that cold.

Lady Luck smiled at us and we both warmed up almost instantly. Amazing how having Lady Luck smile on you can make you feel warm and comfortable.

That was a nifty power and some day I would have to ask her about it.

She reached onto the table and took a couple of fries from one basket. “These things are killers on a girl’s figure.”

She popped one of them in her mouth, then smiled. “Tell Madge I’m joining you guys here for dinner tonight. I’ve got a few people to tell what just happened.”

With that she vanished.

Outside I could see a plane still stuck in the sky, frozen there because we were all inside a time bubble. The same time bubble we needed to maintain to allow the two leaders to do what they wanted and clearly needed to do.

Twenty-four hours in this time bubble would be a small price to pay for stopping a war.