“I didn’t have family and the base put out a campaign for us to spend Christmas in the province we were stationed at. I was just out of my first training. Too young to be jaded.”
I smile. “You’re still too young but you’re not jaded.”
She pulls my shirt and I go with it. “Ol’ ladies teach each other these moves. I swear I see them all do this one. I like where it leads.” I kiss her hearing Brothers laugh.
“Food!” Someone is loud enough to get people moving.”
I start walking then stop. “When the hell did a stage go up? I wasn’t gone that long.”
She laughs. “You should see how fast they put up a tent city. Asa has drone shots of it.”
I don’t ask. I walk, I see kids, Brothers, Bits and the stage that apparently is getting audio set up. I keep looking until I see tables of food. Pres looks like he’s in shock. I nod to Falcon carrying two huge square hot bags from the big white box truck that has three pigs on it. I thought it was pizza. “Logan?”
He turns fast. “I didn’t order all this.”
I nod. “They did, apparently they do it all the time.”
“Thank fuck. You think they got drinks?”
I shrug. “If they didn’t, we have a dining room and we all have phones.” I point. “Forget it.” A big guy for the three pig place is wearing the pink shirt and logo pushing an ice machine that must have ice in it over the walkway. The stage has electricity so it must be by the table he left it at.
Pres looks at me and we laugh. “They’re fuckin’ crazy.”
I nod. “But you knew that. Where’s your dad?”
He points to an older version of him. I walk that way pointing my destination out for Sophia who got snagged by Seren.
§*§*§
Liminal Rising
Sophie
Alder stands in front of me. “You help talk for me.”
I nod. “Sure.” Hud watches me with a smile. “Who are we talking to?”
“Drone. This go to all Badass Club. Robot cheap, more Clubs buy, Dreng say we make service announcement.” He’s serious? He goes up the stairs and Tyson comes from the back. “Barney explain service announcement. Boss Sophie from Canada. USA weird.” Alder walks away annoyed at weird US public service announcements.
I crack up with Tyson. “He thinks the siren announcements are logical and anything explaining new products or warning of them is just weird. Asa already put it on the maintenance tutorial.”
I nod. “I was on the camera that day.” The little no-nonsense VP was nothing short of himself. He was straight forward, sounded like he was reading it from a prompt and looked pissed while ordering the thumbprint signature. When I played it back, he loved it. Someone added example clips breaking up his shots so it did work out and got added to the tutorial the next morning. Because of that, I wonder why we’re doing another but don’t ask. I’ll find out soon enough and it’s afew minutes to make the little President happy. He needs more happy.
Tyson shows me to the stage manager otherwise known as Dreng. He checks appearance so the kids seeing this will take it seriously.
“What kids?”
Tyson touches Dreng’s shoulder. “I need to get the Brothers in place to say their parts. We should have made a clip to show them all because they’re all going to ask.” He never looks back.
I smile at Dreng. “He’s right. Alder asked if I’d talk for him then had Tyson explain why but not what I’m doing. Do I get a script?”
He laughs. “I’ll get him to do that. He didn’t give me what we’re doing just that he needs us to organize and record the Brothers for a service announcement but not what the announcement is or why we need like ten people to give it.”
I nod slowly. “I need food. You set up whatever you’re setting up and let me know when the parts are ready so I can read it before you point a camera at me.”
He’s distracted but nods as he’s scanning the crowd.
I go look for Gunnar, or Spook, as I called him. I smile seeing Hud and Spook sitting at a table with Pres and the trainer from Rescue that Pres Stan sent over. The Presidents take care of each other here. I weave around people smiling because they’re all happy and I bet only a few of them know why they’re here. I don’t know why they’re here, so smiling feels like the thing to do.
