Saturday, August 24, 2013

Chapter 17: Secrets and a Calendar

<=Chapter 16 {Table of Contents} Chapter 18=>

Jessica and 7ollion took the stairs down a floor. It was filled with pipes and water systems mainly. There was a white noise of a whooshy watery sound in the air. “So what should we do?” asked Jessica.


“About what?” asked 7ollion. He was admiring the machinery.



“All this,” Jessica gestured to everything around them. “I still think we kinda need to tell the others.”



“What are we, cops?” asked 7ollion. “I'm sure they'll find out soon enough. Toaster-Man was planning on telling them remember?”



“Yeah I know,” said Jessica. “But...” she frowned, clearly wrestling with morality.



“Look, they'll probably go easier on him if he tells them himself anyway.”



“True,” said Jessica. “But I still think we should tell everyone before he converts the entire tower into his vision of Toastopia.”



“Fair point,” said 7ollion. “But I think he's pretty content with what he has.”



“I still think it's the right thing to do.”



“Well I'd suggest voting, but there's only the two of us.”



“Flip a coin?” asked Jessica.



“I would if currency existed yet,” said 7ollion. “We should probably get on that.”



“If for no other reason than to have coins to flip.” Jessica made a little flipping gesture with her right hand and tilted her head slightly as she did it.



“I have a six-sided-die.” 7ollion produced a die from his pocket. “High number – 4, 5, 6 - we tell them, low we don't.”



Jessica nodded. 7ollion rolled the die. It was a 1.



“Well I guess that die is pretty vehemently against it,” said Jessica.



(PS I actually rolled the die in reality.)



“Anyway I wanted to go down to the first floor to show the government my time systems. You're free to join me if you'd like.”



“Sure,” said Jessica. They walked over to the elevator and 7ollion pressed the button.



“Just need to make a quick stop on 5 to pick up the calendars.”



“You made calendars too?”



“Well yeah, that's part of time, isn't it?” said 7ollion.



The elevator arrived and they got in, 7ollion pressing the button for 5. But I really didn't need to tell you that. I just feel like being thorough with my descriptions today.



“This elevator is inordinately fast, isn't it?” said Jessica.



“I dunno,” said 7ollion. “How fast are elevators usually?”



Jessica shrugged. “Well it feels like we're going pretty fast. I much prefer going down to up.” Jessica's hair was behaving strangely, rising up a bit, but then it sagged back down as they decelerated and arrived.



“Yeah, that was fast,” said 7ollion. “But then, I've never traveled that many floors at once before. Must have had more time to gain speed.” They arrived on the fifth floor, and went in the storage room filled with the boxes with yellow question marks. “It was one of these quantum boxes. Ah, there it is.” It was an open box on the floor.



I don't know why I described all that in retrospect; kind of redundant. Oh well. In any case 7ollion and Jessica went down to the first floor.



* * *



“So how about for article three of the Danadian constitution: “We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all Danadians were created equally by Dan and as such have equal rights,” said Nathan. He, Zandria, Kristina, Jeffery, Fredrick, and Zach were huddled around the table. There was a huge scroll in the middle with the heading Constitution of Danada, and not much written on it below, but what there was was scratched off, altered, and generally changed a lot.



“Equal rights are good,” said Jeffery, and I just remembered I was describing all the characters again when they first appear this episode. Jeffery seemed somewhat wistful. He was ostensibly interested in the proceedings but was looking in another direction entirely, his sharp nose pointed upward and dark brown eyes wide; chin, which was starting to grow some stubble, resting on his hand.



“What about aedanists?” asked Zandria. Ever the contrarian, Zandria as you'll recall had a look that matched her personality, which made sense considering people chose which body they would get. Wild red hair, and short, especially for an alpha type. She was currently sitting on her knees and leaning forward to get a better view of the document.



“What?” asked Zach. I'm sorry, Zach, that's not significant enough of a line to warrant a description. Besides, the rhythm of this chapter is too slow as it is. You can just imagine Zach however you feel like; I'm sure he won't mind.



“You know, an ae-Dan-ist. Someone who doesn't believe in Dan.”



“There are no aedanists,” said Jeffery.



“There could be someday,” said Zandria.



And it was at this point that 7ollion and Jessica arrived. “I have the time system finished!” 7ollion said. “Here are your watches,” he distributed watches to everybody. “And here are the calendars.”



“This seems like a good time for a washroom break,” said Kristina, and she left to use the washroom, mainly because I think there's too many people in this scene as it is. Also, I'm not describing her again either.



Nathan opened a calendar from the calendar box. “Wait, calendars, we said time, like time of day,”



“Calendars are part of time,” said 7ollion. “Anyway, the first day in existance was Danuary first. It's currently Danuary third of year zero.



“Fair enough,” said Nathan. “Wait, is says here Danuary fourth is Danada Day?”



“Yeah, I figured we could use a holiday,” said 7ollion. “The calendar looked boring without holidays, so I made some.”



“You don't really have the authority to- well I suppose we could put them to a vote,” said Nathan. He inspected the calendar for a little while more. “Also your weeks only have six days.”



“Yeah I figured no one would miss Wednesday. Six is a much nicer number. And working 5 days a week sounds like tedium.”



“Why not get rid of Mondays then,” said Fredrick. He was sitting next to Nathan currently, leaning over to look at the calendar. He was tall, but you couldn't tell as much when he was sitting because it was mostly in his legs, with skin a bit tanned and icy blue eyes.



“Well if you got rid of Monday then Tuesday would feel like Monday. And then all the days would just be out of whack. Wednesday is the only day you can get rid of and still have all the other days feel the same.”



“That's assuming we have weekends,” said Kristina, coming back from the bathroom. “We don't really work in the traditional sense.” Damn that was a fast bathroom break. Fine, I'll describe her. She was tall with long wavy, flowing hair, and had apparently decided to jog back from the bathroom so she wouldn't miss anything else. Her eyes were piercing and forest green, with a hint of sarcasm in them currently.



“Well I think everyone would agree we want weekends,” said Nathan.



Everyone agreed.



* * *



The rest of the day passed, as days tend to, and new laws were voted on at sundown. I'm not going to tell you what they all were; that would get boring very quickly. Of course 7ollion's calendar passed as well, and with it all of his holidays. The Danadians were excited in the evening for the hitherto unexpected holiday to come, although to be honest none of them really didn't know what it would entail. But that didn't matter. Tomorrow was Danada Day, and anything was possible.

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