Flannel

Everything’s fine, I’m just late! Lack of sleep caught up with me, and then I remembered I’ll be day-tripping a lot of the 3^rd, so I needed to catch up on the household chores, and then I had an idea about publishing the Romance chapters I have planned about Justin and Chloe’s pre-MIS:GO life on Wattpad, which sparked another one, so I had to get that down in bytes before I lost the inspiration, and then I had a better idea for today’s chapter so I had to put what I’d done aside, and then there was a lot of research to get the details and the mechanics underneath it right, but here it is! And I’m pretty happy with it. I hope you all enjoy it too.

Just a reminder, I'm switching to M-W-F next week. I think today's lateness underscores the need for it.

Chapter 22! Justin nearly kills Taiko and Tzo!

“Good, next,” Justin said. “Taiko, would you please try to desire an exact amount of something between 1 and 1000, as hard as you can?”

“You genius,” Tzo breathed, as quick on the uptake as Taiko for once. “If that works – the ramifications!”

Both Ougo and Norodo had come to a kind of subtle, quivering, professional attention as well. Justin concentrated on Taiko’s desires:

• serve the Dawn

  • by helping Justin

    • at least 567 times today

“Ahahahaha!” Justin cackled in delight. “Five hundred and sixty seven, yes? Yes?”

Taiko was staring at him with an amazement that exceeded his reaction at their first meeting like. . .like the full sunrise does the false dawn before it, Justin thought, even more grateful to Sol than he had been a heartbeat before.

“yes,” the old monk whispered, almost soundlessly.

Norodo stepped forward, her fists clenched. Justin, taking the hint, switched his Customer Sense to her. A moment later he blinked in surprise.

“That’s quite a – well, no, not my place to judge; you do you, Madam,” he said. “Just to confirm, though - eight?”

“Yes, Prominence,” Norodo said, her eyes wide. She and Ougo exchanged a glance; he nodded, and she quickstepped towards the door.

“One moment, please,” Justin called out. “For an initial demonstration, I am pleased beyond words, but there are a few key issues I want to address before we start recruiting and training a communications corps. First, I don’t know if Customer status will expire, or how long it will last if it does; second -”

Ougo held up a hand to stop him. “I appreciate your concern for my troops, Prominence,” he said, “but we will need to acquire such knowledge before we can sensibly discuss release terms with the Ling Fei regardless. Advocate?”

“Compared to this, the slip is a child’s bauble,” Tzo muttered numbly, lost in his distraction. “The military implications – the economics!”

“Advocate Tzo!” Ougo said, louder.

“Hmm?” Tzo said, looking up, his eyes glazed over. “Do as you think best, Captain,” he said. “I trust you explicitly. It was far too late to be having second thoughts about this affiliation when I had you and your company board anyway.” He looked at Justin, his attention returning to the present. “I. . .no, we should not – my advice, Prominence, as your Advocate, is that we do not act precipitously in strengthening your ties with the Ling Fei just yet.

“Much as I may desire to,” he added, flashing a smile. “It would raise suspicions and questions I do not think we wish to awaken. We should let them slumber as long as we can.”

“I agree, Prominence,” Taiko said. “We must be exceedingly careful in revealing this capacity. It is literally revolutionary. In the past, mass revelations from the Celestial Court have been used this way through both the Temples and the Churches, in times of emergency. But we discovered several years after the Court took over the Banks that certain deposits and withdrawals were being denied because those involved were attempting to do something like this with codes. The Gods were not deceived, however, and. . . .”

His face paled as his voice trailed away, and he stumbled backwards into the wall, then slid to a seated position against it as his legs failed him completely, staring at Justin’s face the entire time. He no longer looked amazed. For the first time, Justin saw genuine fear on the old monk’s face.

“. . .not just the Dawn’s – the entire-!” His gaze flickered across the others present as he cut himself off.

“You might as well tell them, Taiko,” Justin said. “I’ll explain what you mean if you don’t want -”

“N-no, I mean, ye-yes, Prominence,” Taiko stuttered. He took a moment to calm himself before speaking again. “Apart from the Dawn, the Prominence is – may be - outside the entire Celestial hierarchy,” he explained. “I thought the Dawn meant only His own sphere, but - if the Prominence can do this – the Celestial Court implictly forbade it - but the Dawn would never – so Father Sky at least must have consented – but then. . . .”

“It’s a good thing I dislike having authority over other people so much, eh?” Justin told the room as a whole. “Almost as much as I utterly loathe other people having authority over me. The Dawn was explicit about that, too. I have none. I have to convince people to do things.”

“I believe you,” Tzo said, also looking shaken to his core. “And yes, that is a good thing, and a tremendous relief.”

“You – don’t even answer – to Father Sky!?” Ogou gasped.

“Oh, I probably would,” Justin said. “Even if it’s just as a favor to the Dawn, who’s like my number two guy right now -”

“That is not funny!” Taiko suddenly shouted. “Do not say such things!”

“All right, fine, calm down, you’re my number two, chill out,” Justin said, patting at the air. “I apologize. I’m sorry I gave you precedence over the Dawn, and I promise I won’t do that again.”

“You had better not,” Taiko growled, glaring at him, before he remembered what he’d just discovered, and said, in a much less peremptory tone, “Prom- er, that is, Brother. Uh – please.”

“I gave you my word, Taiko,” Justin said mildly. “I do respect some limits.” Respect, yes, he thought to himself. Obey? That’s another thing entirely.

“Prominence?” Norodo said by the door out.

“Captain?” Justin said.

“Advocate?” Ougo said, blatantly passing the ri.

Justin saw the temptation to say Kyoku? pass behind Tzo’s eyes before the man extended a hand in acquiescence, saying “Prominence.”

“Brad, Rocky, unh!, go, Norodo,” Justin said, noticing as he did that the names translated perfectly. None of them would get the RHPS reference, but he couldn’t resist. “Next is pricing. Your thoughts, gentlemen?”

“Not less than a thousand ri per ounce, Brother,” Taiko said, “and if you wish to use sales to estab- no, I will be honest, deceitfullly implant an effectively undisclosed pseudo-intelligence network - I suggest a single ounce purchase per customer per. . .hmm, month limit.

“The price is severely on the low side for the potential value,” Tzo said, “but that could have its advantages. I do concur with and recommend the Kokyu’s limit as well, intelligence gathering or not.”

“Yes,” Ougo said, stroking his jaw and looking upwards. “The price is almost low enough to arouse suspicions among the wary of a hidden benefit to you , but not quite. And if you – or maybe better Kyoku Taiko – were to make charitable donations to the deserving through the Temples, that would reduce their numbers to the most wary.”

“I’d planned to, and they’d suspect anyway?” Justin asked. Ougo nodded once.

“All right, let’s see. . .” Justin said, eyeing the Fountain.

“Approximately three hundred gallons, Prominence,” Ougo said, which Justin’s head translated into 1400 liters. Ounces to grams; divide; times a thousand. . . .

“Fifty - million - ri?” Justin spat out. Now it was his turn to boggle. That was a factor of a hundred times his original best hope. Probably more that the market could bear.

“Perhaps a tenth less,” Tzo said, “but nevertheless far more than the entire local population could afford to purchase in a year, the High Court included. However, if it ships well, without losing potency. . .yes, if you had your own - trustworthy - agents, you could clear that much, mmm, quarterly, once you had a reliable supply chain established.”

“I guess I can stop worrying about funding in the near future,” Justin said dazedly, adding a footnote to his mental list entry about investors.

“I think you can stop worrying about funding forever, Brother,” Taiko said. Ha, you have no idea what kind of funds I may need, Justin almost said in his astonishment. Only his years of experience as an attorney kept his mouth reflexively shut, by habit.

“Taiko, what do I want?” Justin said, moving automatically to the next item on his current roster while he tried to recover his composure.

“I don’t know, Brother; as soon as you fired me, I could no longer sense your desires.”

“Good,” Justin said. “Have to test that too. . .not now, though. Next should be. . .oh, yes, the seeds. The seeds! Back to the Stores, gentlemen!”

# # #

The vanilla, cocoa, and coffee beans were fine, fresh and healthily colored; mostly green, but some browns and red among the cacao pods. And also plentiful. Sacks were piled high and strapped down with rope on pallets in their respective sections of the warehouse-like stores. Justin did some more fast math, concluding there was enough to supply the Shop’s estimated average customer base for a month, as agreed. And he didn’t even need to do sampling – the varieties were conveniently labeled. Not only were there a dizzying array of coffees, but a plentiful amount of Criollo, Forastero, and Trinitario pods, and vanilla planifola, tahitiensis, and pompona.

None of them useful until after the drying, roasting, processing, etc. involved. But that was fine too.

“Brother,” Taiko said hesitantly, looking at the rows of pallets, “this is many, many times more than I anticipated, when I said -”

“No worries,” Justin assured him. “We’ll work it out. The important thing is to get a broad selection stowed in the Temples before Dawn tomorrow. Probably another reason why he gave me that estimate. Such a bro he’s turning out to be! I gotta do something else nice for the guy.”

Taiko was mostly back to taking Justin’s distressingly familiar attitude towards the god in stride, but that example of it made all three of the other men twitch, flinch or shudder.

“What?” said Justin. “He is! Wouldn’t it be ruder for me to not acknowledge it?” He wasn’t even joking. So far, Sol had been an absolute mensch among menschen.

The others exchanged glances easily interpretable as variations on No, I can’t believe him either. Justin let it pass. He had the feeling his casual camaraderie with Sol was something the god enjoyed for its rarity as much as its eccentricity - maybe even more - and could stand to have some more of, but the others’ relationship with their actual, no-kidding, utility-service-provider of a deity was also about as personal as personal business could get.

An issue with the Customer comms occurred to him, and he used it to change the subject. “Timekeeping – scheduled checks - is going to be an significant effectiveness multiplier with the network if we can arrange it. Do we have means for that?” He tried to say watches, then clocks, but the translation failed both times.

“We don’t have – mechanical means of marking time?” he asked, talking around the problem.

“No, why?” Tzo said, puzzled. “One simply prays to Father – no don’t!” he ended on what could only be called a scream of protest.

“Yo, Big Daddy! Can I get a hours-minutes check here, please?” Justin said - because Justin - while trying to recreate his mindset when intentionally reaching out to Sol. .

AT THE TONE, THE TIME WILL BE 1:31 AND ZERO SECONDS.

Sky Father’s voice needed to be that large and powerful, to be heard in the planetary emptiness in Justin’s mind that framed it. It was also freezingly, bitingly cold, and Justin could somehow sense it absorbing an incalculable amount of Sol’s presence.

Then there was a combined rising-falling sound, similar to the old THX pre-movie sound effect,

and as its volume ramped up in his head, louder, and louder, and louder, Justin had just enough time to think ohhhhh ssshh-

- before it cut off and he heard the tone.

He sat – dropped, more accurately - onto a empty space on the shelving nearby, speechless.

“Jusutin!?” Taiko cried, leaping forward and gripping his shoulders. “Jusutin! Can you hear -”

Justin facepalmed with one hand and reached up to pat one of Taiko’s with the other as he began laughing helplessly. “I’m – hahaa! I’m – I’m okay, Taiko – he ahaahahahaaa! He just – just – ahahaha! I see where, where, Sol gets his humor from, or at least some – ahahaha! Man, he got me good! He really nailed me!”

Tzo was clutching his chest. “Jasutin,” he said, before pausing to gather himself, “Jasutin – you are going to be the death of me.”

Ougo was fractionally shaking his head from side to side in astounded awe. “You must have the biggest stones of any man I’ve ever met,” he said. “Of any man in the world. Of any man in the history of the world. Or even in the world to come. Even my grandfather would never dare. . .you surpass my ability to. . . .” he trailed off, his head finally stilling.

Justin got himself under control, let go of Taiko’s hand, stopped palming his face, and tried to stand up. Taiko pressed him down. “Jusutin,” he said, his voice shaking. “You must not – even you must not -”

“Aaah, calm down, Taiko,” Justin said. “The big guy wouldn’t have pranked me if he was upset. Come on, let me up, there’s still a lot to do today.” He took looked the monk straight in the eyes and said, “We’re wasting time.”

Taiko stepped back so quickly he almost fell over.

“Right!” Justin said, popping up. “So, if we’re going to do distance comm checks, that means I’ll have to leave – was planning to anyways; gotta do that beans transport, get some troops in here for that, please, Ougo? And I need to speak with Pei about the Chloe’s construction and weight – did Nuti pass you the docs, Tzo? Good! So while all that is being arranged, I need to figure out if I can get some personal offense-defense options set up before I leave, which means searching my new Alchemy and Spellcraft knowledge, so I’m heading up to the Lab next, since it’s closest. Onwards!”

Flannel

Yeah, like it says in the description on the Fiction page, Ribe definitely isn’t ready for Justin.

Favorite line in this chapter -

Spoiler

- before it cut off and he heard the tone.

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So, anybody got any romantic comedy/musical/light operasuggestions for the Here theater's second round of productions? I know the first 3.5 already (Arsenic and Old Lace, Kiss Me Kate, and either Shall We Dance or Swing Time, all in no set order) but after those it gets hard to pick.

Give me enough and I’ll do our first poll!

One of the great advantages we have over here compared to That Other Site is that we can put links in our story text. Scribble Hub for the win!

See you all Monday! Have a great weekend!