Chapter 36: Overhand Throw of Opportunity

Nikki and Ethan returned back to the estate around 10 pm from a long day of work followed by some roleplaying mayhem. Jade greeted them at the door. "Hey you two, I have some important news to share."

Nikki looked interested. "Oh really? What kind of news?"

"Job news actually" Jade responded.

Ethan started to act interested finally. "I didn't want to say anything, but I had noticed how you weren't really going to work anymore. Did they finally correct some sort of oversight where you were still getting paid a check even though you weren't going to work anymore, what back at the Haunted Wine House or whatever?"

Jade shook her head. "Actually no they haven't figured out I'm not showing up anymore. I still go in every couple of weeks to pick up the checks. Until they stop giving me checks, I'll keep cashing them."

"Well if its not about your old job, what's your big news?" Nikki asked.

Jade continued "Well I was across town enjoying one of my favorite hobbies, cat chucking. I was just throwing some stray cats I found at passing cars. Apparently where I chose to chuck cats happened to be in front of some sort of daycare center. I guess my hair was looking more disheveled then normal and I got mistaken for some crazy cat lady."

Nikki and Ethan snuck a quick glance at each other.

"Well long story short, they offered me a job at the daycare taking care of days or children or some such nonsense. The kind of money they wanted to pay me was too hard to turn down. So I start tomorrow."

Ethan asked "Are you sure this is a good idea, what ever happen to that baby you got back when we were on that quest?"

"The delivery service messed up my order. I wanted a girl instead." Jade shrugged. "I took advantage of their no questions asked, full money back guarantee and just didn't bother to replace my order. Perhaps we can try again some other day."

Ethan squinted his eyes at Jade. "Let's hope your story checks out." He then noticed a multi-colored kitten sitting on Jade's shoulder like a cat-parrot or something. "What's with the shoulder kitten?"

Jade took the kitten off her shoulder and placed it on the ground in front of her. "This is Patches. She's a stray that came up to me when I was in town earlier. I was about to throw her at a school bus when the people at the day care distracted me. Well long story short, she followed me home and I just couldn't bring myself to leave her outside."

Ethan shook his head. "You were going to throw her into traffic and then you decide leaving her outside without food would be cruel?"

Jade thought for a second. "Yes."

Nikki asked "Why is she called Patches?"

"Oh that's easy." Jade pointed at the kitten's back. "It looks like she was patched together from a whole bunch of other cats. "

Ethan sighed. "You let an undead cat into my house?"

Shaking her head, Jade replied "She's not undead, probably just reanimated."

"Thanks, you've put my mind completely at ease" Ethan responded.

Jade smiled. "I aim to please!"

Chapter 35: High on MFB, yeah you know me

Sherri sharpened her blade carefully with a sharpening stone as her allies rested. Her sword had been dulled significantly as it cut her enemies down. It had been a long and dangerous journey so far today and she could still see town from here. "Why do we seem to keep running into random battles with all manner of creatures? First it was the lizard creatures, then those annoying little goblin things, and now a hoard of orcs."

Kurk dusted off his priest robes. "No kidding, the battles have been difficult thus far, and you all seem to think the best strategy to hold off the enemy is to throw your bodies at them. I'm having trouble keeping up with all the healing you all need to stay alive. It doesn't help either that our mage, Gary, keeps casting his explosive spells in the same area as the rest of the group."

Gary laughed. "The placement of my spells is selected by estimating the optimal damage distribution on the enemies. A bit of collateral damage is to be expected."

Sherri asked "Why does the optimal location for spells always seem to fall right around three inches from my face?"

Gary responded "Since you insist on being the one that runs out way in front of us to charge straight into the fray, you usually place yourself right in harms way in more ways then one."

Kurk continued "The only person I never have to heal is Rick, because he doesn't actually fight when we're in combat. As a matter of fact he's usually pretty far away from the excitement more often then not."

Rick shrugged. "As the official bard of our group, it is my responsibility to tell the tale of our adventures. Fighting with weapons seems so crude for an artistic genius such as myself."

"Yes as important as my legacy is, I'm sure in the middle of the heat of battle is not the best time to be composing any sort of ballads" Sherri said as sarcastic as possible.

Rick shrugged. "What can I say, that is when the inspiration hits me."

"You can say 'I'm sorry, I'll pay attention to the dangers around me from now on and help fend off the enemy'" she retorted. "Or else inspiration won't be the only thing that will be hitting you in battle."

Stacy the pixie flew over and landed on Rick's shoulder. "I really enjoy the songs he writes, they make me happy." She giggled and then started playing with Rick's hair.

Sherri groaned. "Well if you want to keep him around a little longer Stacy, I guess we can keep him. After all, we all need a good laugh from time to time. Every time even the smallest bit of ale hits Rick's lips, that's when the real fun begins."

Rick looked over at Kurk embarrassed. "Do I really cause as big a scene as she implies?"

Kurk laughed. "I would say some of your best performances have been once you get hammered. Don't worry though, we usually keep you mostly out of trouble. The girl in that last down won't be forgetting you for a while."

Stacy giggled again. "No I doubt she remembers anything either."

Sherri stood up. "Enough rest, I think we should get going, we still have a long ways to go."
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"Hold up, what's the rush. We're trying to role play our characters here" Nikki asked.

Millie frowned. "I'm just trying to keep things moving. It seems like we're just sitting around talking and I want to get on to the next fight."

Brian cut in. "My character is a world renowned bard who.."

"You're not world renowned" Nikki interrupted, "You're not even Sherri, Stacy, Gery and Kurk renowned, you're just Rick, that guy."

Brian frowned. "OK fine my character is just 'that guy' who everyone so eloquently put, does not have much in the way of combat prowess."

"By not have much, you mean has none" Ralph added.

Brian examined his character sheet closely and then nodded. "Right, I do not have the capacity to fight and so I really excel in what I do within the role play aspect of the world. So give me the opportunity with my words and stories to paint an interesting environment since in a fight I just paint the ground with my blood."

Millie said "I have built my character to have maximum combat abilities for her level, I am essentially a perfect killing machine."

Heath said "Hey that's my line!"

Nikki asked "Millie, how is it that role playing games are the only thing you demonstrate any level of competence in?"

Millie threw some of her dice at Nikki "I am too competent in other things like.....uh....."

Ralph laughed at Millie. "Epic fail Millie, epic fail." He picked up some of her dice and added them to his own collection. "Thanks for the new dice."

Ethan shook his head. He was waiting patiently for the players to figure out what they were doing. He had grown impatient with the players bickering though. "In a stroke of unlucky happenstance, a large airship build by some gnomes high on mind flayer brain dust, accidentally fly their ship into the side of the mountain you were resting next to. In a large explosion that vaporized the airship in the process, they managed to dislodge a large amount of rocks perched precariously overhead which roll down the mountain. Rocks fall, you die!" Ethan then reached over and set Millie's character sheet on fire with a pocket lighter. He then started to move around the table to incinerate the other player's character sheets.

Nikki frowned as Ethan reduced her character to ash. She then pulled out an identical copy of the sheet and placed in in front of her. Ethan set to burning that one as well. She pulled out a third copy which he also burned. Then she pulled a fourth copy out and said "We can do this all day if you'd like brother, though I'd suggest you move on."

Ethan frowned but moved on to Heath who had already managed to build some sort of viking burial ship out of some extra construction paper. "My character deserves a proper burial at sea."

Ethan pulled out a flask of lighter fluid and doused the ship and Heath's character sheet in it. "More like burial at FIREBALL" Once lit, there was a quick flash incinerating both the sheet and the ship in a small fireball.

When it was Brian's turn, he finished jotting down some journal entries for his character before handing his character sheet over to be cleansed. "May his memory live on in his writings."

Ethan finally moved on to Ralph's side of the table. Ralph motioned Ethan to stop for a moment. "Actually I don't think I would have been killed when the rocks fell upon the camp my allies and I had set down to rest at."

Ethan said "Explain."

Ralph continued "Well before we left town, if you remember I went ahead and got a boulder flu shot at the local healer so that I could build up a resistance to boulders. I should be resistant to boulders by now and so the rocks would not have killed me."

Ethan thought for a second. "Yeah you're right, except medical technology still sucks. You got your boulder flu shot with a rusty used needle." Ethan then incinerated Ralph's character sheet. "Tetanus happens, you die."

Chapter 34: The New Guy

"Here we are, back to the lab again for another exciting day of work" Ethan said as Nikki and him entered the building through the glass doors. "Sister dear, are you ever going to, oh I don't know, get a job or something?"

Nikki shook her head. "No of course not. Following you around all the time is so much more fun. After all, who is going to keep everyone else in line if I don't?"

"What would we ever do without you" he said as sarcastically as he could.

She flicked him in the head with her finger. "You know you love me!" As they walked towards the lab assistant desk she asked "Who's that sitting at the desk?"

Ethan looked at the man sitting behind the desk. "I don't recognize him, he must be new. I'm going to introduce myself." Ethan walked over behind the counter and sat down in the open seat. "Hi, my name's Ethan. I don't recognize you, are you a new employee?"

The man turned around to face Ethan. "Yes I guess you can say that. My name is Jerry."

Ethan grinned. "Hi Jerry, are you a student worker here at the university trying to get some experience before you get out in the real world?"

Jerry shook his head. "Actually I'm a highly advanced robot sent from the future to protect you, the future leader of the human resistance. Goggle's network becomes sentient in the near future and declares war on Switzerland. It all kind of spirals downhill from there, with the near decimation and eventual enslavement of humanity. It all happens the same year that a famous TV judge gets elected president known infamously as Judge Judy Day."

"I don't think so." Nikki laughed. "I find your story unbelievable."

Jerry frowned. "Really, what part gave it away?"

Nikki responded "Nothing really, I just find people tip their hands really easy if you challenge them. And besides if you were really sent from the future to protect Ethan or whatever, where have you been. The boy is accident prone."

"I am not!" Ethan objected, "I think I just hang out with the wrong crowd. So Jerry, you're new here then?"

"No I've been working for IT for years now."

Ethan said "You haven't been working for our IT department, I know everyone that works in our department."

"I mean I worked for a different company before this" Jerry added.

"For what company?" Nikki asked.

"I worked at Mac-o-soft for 5 years before coming here."

Nikki said "One second, they post their employee records only, we can verify that in a moment." Nikki started to type away vigorously on one of the computers at the desk.

Jerry looked around nervously "Or I wanted to work there, but they were offering too little salary for an expert like me. My skills deserve a pretty sizable amount of money."

"Which is exactly why you took this close to minimum wage job instead" Ethan said laughing at Jerry.

Nikki went and found a seat at another computer and started to browse the Internet. A few minutes later, a girl came up to the desk where Ethan and Jerry were sitting. "Hi, can I get my laptop registered with your wireless network?"

Jerry shook his head. "Sorry, our network is full. We aren't accepting any new users. If you'd like, we can put your name on the waiting list. We'll also need you to write out a check for $100 to me to pay up front your initiation fees into the wireless network. "

She frowned. "Oh really? Let me get out my checkbook real quick and we can get things rolling through the process."

Ethan turned in his chair to face the girl standing at the desk. "There's no wait, I can get you registered real quick. We don't require any fees either." Ethan took the laptop and ran a scanner looking device over the top of the laptop. "There you go, all registered."

The girl took her laptop back and started to pack it up. "Thank you."

Ethan added. "I must warn you that people recently registered do experience occasional data loss. Our scanner works on industrial magnet technology. You should probably check to see if it works."

The girl turned her laptop back on to test the Internet connection. "Yeah the wireless is working, I seem to be missing my operating system though."

Ethan said "Yeah that happens on occasion, better go catch it" as he pointed to the exit. The girl picked up her stuff and ran out that way. "Another satisfied customer."

"So I wanted to come clean about who I am. I'm a disabled clone war veteran and times are tough even for me. That's why I took this job. You can't see it, but I actually have a mechanical device to help me breath."

"The force is all kinds of messed up with this one" Nikki said as she unplugged Jerry's computer. "Try again Jerry."

Jerry shrugged. "Talk show host?"

"No"

"Secret Agent"

"Nope"

Jerry asked one last time. "Pathological liar?"

"Ding ding ding." Nikki patted Jerry on the head and then went to go sit down again.

Chapter 33: Technical Difficulties

Zane sat at his new desk waiting for something to happen. After his run in with the Russians, he realized it was definitely time for a change. The whole lawyer thing wasn't working out for him anymore, and he didn't enjoy the work he did on the side getting rid of bodies either. Lawyers have such a bad reputation and no one likes them. Zane had finally achieved a positive change of environment, or so he thought.

Suddenly the phone next to him rang. This was his first call at the new job. He grinned and activated the headset.

"Thank you for calling IT Services, this is Zane, how may I help you today?......"
You can't get your Internet to work, well that does sound serious......
Yes sir, can you tell me what OS you're running?.........
No sir, I'm not talking about a race, do you have Windoors or Macintoast?.....
You don't know, OK well what brand of computer do you have?......
You're not sure, that's fine, does the side of your computer have any words written on it?
Excellent, can you read me what those words are?......
Etch-e-sketch, no sorry sir that's actually a toy that kids draw things with...
Yes that's why it 'reboots' whenever you shake it hard....
No sir do not try that on any other electronics....
Yes no problem sir, have a nice day....."
-Click-

Zane groaned. "What have I gotten myself into?"

Ralph walked over to Zane's desk. "You get used to it after a while. Your willpower gets broken pretty quick and after that it gets easier as hopelessness sets in."

Zane slammed his head against the desk. "Thanks for the pep talk Ralph." Zane looked at the clock to see how much time he had left. The clock read 8:02 am. "I'm already ready to go home. I got a new home recently, had you heard? And this one is actually mine legally, unlike the last ....uh, never mind."

Ralph nodded. "I had heard. I'm looking for a new place to rent myself. My last apartment came down with a bad case of burned to the ground yesterday. Ethan said he had a door that leads somewhere, and he offered to rent me what ever is behind the door."

"What is behind the door?" Zane asked.

"I don't know actually, but for the cheap rent, I can't imagine why that would be important. An apartment is an apartment after all."

Zane lifted his head from the desk saying "What if there's a brick wall behind it or it drops off into a cave or something? Does the door say anything on it like broom closet or depths of the earth?"

Ralph nodded. "Yeah Ethan said it reads something like 'Abandon hope all ye who enter here!' which just sounds like a luxurious, spacious, and welcoming apartment to me."

Before Zane could respond, Ralph's phone began to ring. Ralph hit the activate on his headset.
"Thank crkshhh IT crkshhh shhhrkices how maykrrkk help you. I'm sorrkkksh you're breakkkkkin up." Ralph then hung up the call. "If anyone asks, my phone line is having problems today."

Zane smiled. "Can I do that too?"

"You need to be here a few days before your phone starts to have connection problems" Ralph replied.

"This sucks. My last call was horrible."

Ralph laughed. "Unfortunately that wasn't the worst call I've ever received either, they get much worse."

Zane banged his head against the desk again. Ralph walked over and dumped his entire coffee on Zane's phone system. "Zane, I think your phone is having problems today, you might have to hang up on the customers if it gets bad." When Zane looked up, Ralph winked and walked back over to his desk.

A few minutes later Ethan and Nikki came walking into the phone center. They were heading over to Ralph's desk when Nikki noticed Zane. "Hey Zane, I didn't know you were working here."

Zane waved. "Yeah I just started today. I'm having phone problems today though. So the calls don't last very long before they disconnect."

Ethan turned towards Zane. "How's our old house working out for you?"

"Great, though I'm a little concerned with some of the things I'm finding around the house that you all had left behind. I found a pile of spent uranium fuel rods and what I hope is a dud torpedo. I'm pretty sure the reason my lawn mower exploded yesterday as I mowed was the result of a landmine buried in the front yard."

Ethan smirked. "Right should have mentioned the front yard, incidentally that was why I never mowed up there. As far as the fuel rods and torpedo go, I wasn't aware of those." He then shrugged and turned back to Ralph. "So Ralph, stop on over later. We can talk about signing a lease if you want to rent that space from us."

Nikki pointed towards the door. "Let's go Ethan, you're going to be late for work."

"Catch you boys later" Ethan said as he followed Nikki out the door.

A minute later, Zane's phone rang.
"Thanks kkshhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh help shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh"
-Click-

Zane leaned back in his chair. "I can tell, this day is turning around already."