Sunday, August 4, 2013

Chapter 13: Farming Floor

<=Chapter 12 {Table of Contents} Chapter 14=>

“Alright, so let's review,” said Georgina. “We have equipment for, ploughing, planting, and harvesting, and seeds for various crops we will grow. Charles and Josephine have scouted out a good spot for the farm nearby down by a river. I think we're ready to begin,” Georgina said this very matter-of-factly. She seemed to be gaining confidence in her new situation. If you recall, which you probably don't because I know I didn't; I had to look back and check, Georgina was pale with round features and long brown hair, which seemed to rapidly be becoming somewhat unkempt. I had originally characterized her as quiet but she seemed to be defying that characterization almost intentionally now.



“That's awesome,” said Samantha. “So I guess we can start by loading some of these seeds into this planter-machine thingy. What should we plant first?” Samantha was psuedo-asian, if that was a term that made sense here, which it isn't. Medium skin with freckles and soft brown eyes, her voice reflecting them.



“I'm thinking wheat,” said Josephine. “How hard could that be? Probably a good crop to start with.” Josephine was much taller than the tiny twins Stephanie and Samantha, and all of the others in the room. Tall and dark, she had a sort of amazonian vibe to her.



“Umm, that's great, said Charles. He was looking around the room quizzically. Charles was smaller than everyone there save Samantha and Stephanie; he had dirty blonde hair and currently wore a puzzled expression on his oval face. “Only one problem. How are we going to get all this stuff outside?”



The rest of them joined Charles in looking around the room. It was a large open space filled with farming implements, tractors, large bags of seeds, and other such things. It smelled vaguely of fertilizer, but not in an overly unpleasant way. They were high up on the 2ᘔ (two-dozen tenth, or thirty-fourth for those of you who insist on base ten) floor. Through the south-facing windows they could see the aforementioned river, and a mostly clear, irregularly rectangular spot beside it that seemed ideal for their new farm. To the east was a mixed carnivorous and deciduous forest, the north was more of the same but the countryside grew hilly, and in the west the forest gave way to plains and grasslands. The elevator in the centre of the room dinged.



“We could use the elevator?” suggested Stephanie. She was a bit less ordered than her sister.



“It's a big elevator, but not that big,” said Charles. Jessica got out of the elevator and walked over to them. Although a large elevator even by the standards of cargo elevators, it did not seem big enough for the majority of their farm equipment.



“Hey Jessica,” said Josephine. “We've got a bit of a problem here. How are we going to get these tractors and things down to the ground?”



“I dunno,” said Jessica. “Airplanes? Anyway, I've been looking for Toaster-Man. I doubt any of you have seen him, have you?” The five others looked at each other and a silence confirmed Jessica's doubts.



“Sorry,” said Charles. “But if we see him we'll let him know you were looking for him. Wait, so you said something about airplanes?”



“Well, yeah,” said Jessica. “Just requisition the floor above to be an airport and then load the tractors into airplanes, and fly them down to wherever you want to start your farm.” Everyone looked at her strangely. “Well it was just off the top of my head, I didn't say it was a good idea.” Jessica sat down on the floor, seemingly dejected.



“We weren't criticizing your idea!” said Josephine, walking over to her.



“Yeah, it might work,” said Stephanie. The two girls went over to comfort Jessica.



“No, it's not that,” said Jessica. “It's just that I've looked on every single floor on the tower now. Or at least every defined floor. No sign of him whatsoever. It's like he's just disappeared.”



“Maybe he actually did!” said Charles. Now everyone looked at Charles like he was the crazy person. “No, I mean, he is a superhero, isn't he? Maybe he has the power to be invisable.”



“I don't think he has any powers,” said Stephanie.



“At least, he hasn't demonstrated any,” said Samantha.



“Anyway,” said Charles. “What you need to do is focus on something else for a while. You're kind of obsessing, it's probably not healthy. Maybe you could help us with this airport idea.”



“Maybe you're right,” said Jessica. “Well, we just need cargo planes big enough to load the biggest of these farm thingies onto. May as well make some more planes, say we can use them to explore the rest of Danada and stuff. The government will probably approve it. Also leave some rooms as like, hangers, so that we can make more planes later. We can just fly them out the window.” She paused for a few seconds. “Landing them back inside the tower would be tricky though...”



“Seems like a plan,” said Josephine.



The six of them spent some time fleshing out some of the details. Suddenly the elevator dinged and 7ollion walked out of it.



“Jessica!” he said. “I heard you were up here. I've seen Toaster-Man.”

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