Behind a desk sat a large flat panel display attached to a mechanical arm. On the screen was the image of an attractive blonde woman with cute glasses. Pivoting toward the buildings opening doors, she smiled at the man in motorcycling leather entering and declared in a warm voice, "Good morning Issei."
"Morning 69," Issei called back in an off-hand tone as he walked through a side door into a small locker room. "Anything important I should know about?" He asked while tapping the keypad of one locker and opening it.
"The Prime Minister's meeting with Rick has been delayed again, we just got a report from world 18745 that they're should be unveiling the bridge there within a month, and Katsuragi is showing a new intern around."
Issei looked considering for a moment then with a grin asked, "The new intern's a cute girl right? No way Katsuragi would be playing tour guide otherwise."
"My human aesthetic subroutines have their limits, but the intern does have a figure that would be called curvy."
Issei pulled on his blue suit jacket and gave his tie a quick adjustment. "Hopefully I'll be able to judge for myself, assuming Katsuragi doesn't get impatient," he declared as he walked out the door.
One minute later he was standing in the elevator between Katsuragi and the new intern. Noting that the girl was indeed sporting a peppy double D chest that was almost as big as Katsuragi's he gave his fellow ETCHI a covert thumbs up.
"Um, is the carpet really self-cleaning?" the intern asked, clearly looking to break up the silence.
Issei grinned. "No idea how but yes. It's also really comfortable, I'd have no problems taking a nap on it if we didn't the break rooms for that. Ah, here's my floor, I hope you have a good first day," he concluded as the elevator doors opened. Stepping through he paused to turn back and flash a thumbs up while declaring "Get Lucky!" as the doors shut.
Shaking his head he walked down the hall, walked into the third room on the left, and after locking the door pressed his hand against a section of the wall causing another section of the wall to slide open revealing a large metal door with a large bass relief of a woman with large feathered wings on it.
Issei reached out to tap the woman's right breast, then leaned in so the scanner in her opened eye could scan his own eye. Stepping through the open doorway he entered the room it hid.
Taking off his jacket and putting it on a hook he gave his collar a quick tweak, causing the smartcloth of his shirt to shift to a loose shirtsleeve. Grabbing two wristbands off a shelf he slipped them on and nodded as the screen on the wall lit up and began displaying his vitals. Then he looked to the center of the room where two three foot high pillars suddenly opened at the top. Rising from the top of each was a mass of wires, twisting together in a six sided star around a large reptilian scale, each with a different rune carved into them.
"Well, let's see what there is to see." Issei commented as he walked between the two supposed Dragon Scales and reached out to touch them both. His body spammed as his mind expanded.
Issei took a few moments to adjust, contemplating the flow of possibilities around him, then with a thought he let his senses expand to encompass all of Tokyo. For a full second he considered, then with an exertion of will pulled his hands away from the Dragon Scales and locked his legs to keep from stumbling as his senses returned too normal.
"69!" Issei called as he punched a button on the wall. "Contact all the top brass, Destiny's preparing a huge move and we'll need to be ready!"
"Understood, will you be explaining via a message or will the meeting room need to be prepared?"
"Better be a meeting, but I'll want to do another dive and see how much I can actually figure about what's going on."
"Ah, I'll message the full local council and prime council representatives, and I'll contact the nearest rep to the meeting room."
"Yes, what is it?" Katsuragi's voice asked through the speakers.
"Ok," Issei proclaimed. "We've got a serious situation, I'll need the meeting room ready for a full council conference in fifteen minutes. Open the room, prep the remote conferencing, make sure the screens don't need rebooting. Oh, is you're intern still there?"
"Me?" a female voice asked nervously.
"You. Prep will be rough so go to the cafeteria and get me an onion bagel with cream cheese, a cheese Danish and coffee, black one spoon of sugar. I'll be having it in the conference room, Chop chop!"
Turning off the intercom with another press of the button, Issei turned and walked back to the Dragon Scales. He took a deep breath and exhaled then did it once more in an attempt to relax himself.
"Ok," he proclaimed as he dropped his hand onto the two runes once more.
Contemplating the flowing possibilities of Tokyo he looked closely at the mass encompassing everything, all it's possibilities already aligned with some hard to read pattern. 'No wait, part of the problem is that it's clearly entangled with something more distant,' he thought to himself. With an exertion of will he expanded his mind once more to consider the possibilities of the whole world.
'Ok,' he though as he considered the destiny polarization of the possibilities in and around a small island in the arctic circle. 'Something's happening here, I wonder what?'
"Head in the game Mio," A voice called, jolting a red haired woman to look behind her.
"Sorry professor," she declared in embarrassment as she leaned back over the slab of rock and moved some more dirt off it with her brush.
"And no need to rush either. Whatever this is it's been her thousands of years and will still be here for a long time more. If you're fine you can keep going but I'd rather you take a rest break if you need. . ."
"No no, I'm more than fine." Mio Kuroki responded as she once more started slowly working her brush to reveal more and more of the writing covered slab of rock she was looking over.
As the professor turned and walked to another worker, Mio paused to consider the character which didn't seem to match any known language. One hand rose to the beryl pendant around her neck as she heard herself whisper the word "Metallia", somehow certain that had to be what the writing on the slab said, though not understanding how she could know.
"As you know, this is a world where Destiny is drastically stronger than usual." Issei explained. He paused looking around at the shadowy figures looking at him from where they sat in the shadowy room, or were projected as translucent holograms to fill their empty seats.
Then the lights came on brightly illuminating the shadowy room.
"Thank you," Issei called to the workman closing a light fixture and stepping off his ladder.
"No problem, sorry I had to power down the lights to fix one bulb." The workman responded as he walked out of the room.
"Ok, bad building design aside," Issei commented as he turned back to the now well-lit figures watching in the well-lit room. "In my perusal of the world destiny pattern this week, I can conclude something really huge is happening that is centered around Tokyo, and a small island in the arctic ocean."
"I couldn't read any patterns that could nail down What is building, but we know this world is unusual among strong destiny worlds in that Destiny here tends to be so much more individual focused. So as we figure out what's happening and how to deal with it, figuring out who is at the center will be as important as what's going on."
"What's going on?" Usagi asked Naru as she looked at the three towering gorilla's wearing black suits and sunglasses standing in guard position outside the jewelry store her mother ran. "Did you know there was a world where apes wear suits?"
"Maybe. . ." Naru responded nervously, then taking a quick breath she strode forward, pausing just before the lead Gorilla who looked down at her.
"Um, this is my mother's shop. . ." she told the ape."
"Ah, Naru, your mother mentioned you might be coming home around now." The gorilla responded in a slightly unstable tenor with odd accent that seemed to mix Scottish and Russian. "I am very sorry to get in your way like this, but I am protecting an important diplomat who believes that the key to understanding a people is to see the day to day shopkeepers." He leaned down and whispered, "Plus he's had an argument with his wife and probably wants some jewelry as a conciliatory gift."
"Sir!" One of the other gorilla's suddenly called out, and the Gorilla who had been talking to Naru stood and pivoted toward the door. The door to the shop opened and a large sheepdog walked out.
"Ah such an excellent shop, It was a pleasure to shop here!" The dog declared loudly before stepping into the car who's door a gorilla had opened.
"That was different," Usagi commented as she watched the gorilla's get into the car with the dog and one other car and drive off.
"Yeah. . . I wonder if their world has talking cats?" Naru asked uncertainly.
"In an infinite multiverse anything's possible, even talking cats," Usagi responded with a shrug.
Mon Sep 12 19:09:13 2016
3 comments Last updated: Tue Sep 13 01:28:01 2016