As the group followed Charon up the beach towards her magnificent beach house, Jim found himself wondering how this world could have someone clearly recognisable as another version of Sharon and yet be so different from any other reality that they had yet visited. Not only was there the different language and the strange alphabet, but even more fundamentally there was Charon's dark blue hair, something that he would have thought impossible. He knew that it was her natural hair colour rather than dyed: when she had been facing them he had seen by the light of her lantern that not only was her pubic hair a perfect match to the hair on her head but also there were a few tiny flecks of blue visible on her arms and legs.
Meanwhile Rikki was wondering whether it could possibly be pure chance that had brought them into contact with yet another reality's Sharon, given that she had selected the co-ordinates for their transfer completely at random. She didn't see what else it could be but chance, and yet their arriving almost on top of another Sharon must surely have been millions if not billions to one against.
Charon led them inside the house and into what must be the living room. It was a large room, opulently carpeted and with expensive-looking furniture, most of it familiar items such as a sofa, chairs and a coffee table, but with one piece whose function they could not guess at. A huge screen at least six feet across dominated one wall. Either Charon was very wealthy or the standard of living was remarkably high in this reality.
Two of the chairs were occupied, but when the group entered both the seated people stood up. Both of them were naked young women. The new arrivals immediately recognised one of them as a Robin clone, for all that she too had blue hair - light blue rather than dark blue in her case. The other girl was unfamiliar. She was very pretty and had pure white hair. She wasn't an albino, though; her skin had a healthy tan and her eyes were a piercing blue.
The two looked at the newcomers, startled expressions on their faces. There was a rapid conversational exchange between them and Charon. This was of course unintelligible to the new arrivals, but they assumed that Charon must be explaining how she had discovered them. When it had finished, Charon pointed at the Robin look-alike and said "Rabyn". Then she pointed at the other girl and said "Zuzan".
Feeling slightly silly, Sharon took the lead, pointing at each of the others in turn and finishing with herself, and saying their names: "Sharon, Jim, Rikki, Sharon, Sharon."
Sun Nov 27 20:48:51 2016