"Wandering"

020698.0856AM

# Supreme Beings of Leisure - "Never the Same"


        Ariana stepped through the mirror quickly, looking both
ways as she exited the other side.  "Good, no one around."  she
thought to herself.  After a quick survey of the room, she came
to the conclusion she was in some sort of inn or boarding house.
The furniture was plain, and obviously used.  The whole place
had an institutionalized smell to it, overly non-personal and
sanitized.  There were two beds up against one wall, seperated
in the middle by a small table with a drawer. There was a lamp
and a strange box with numbered buttons, zero through nine and
two with symbols, sitting on the table.  She picked up the
arm that was attached to the box by a cord and heard the
distinct sound of electrical currents and a tone.  "The wires
aren't very good."  she noted with disdain.  She pushed a few
buttons and heard different tones after each one followed by
a brief ringing sound and then the voice of an AI saying,
"Your call cannot be completed as dialed, please check your
number, and try again or dial your local operator for assistance.
If you feel you have reached this message in error..."  Ari
put the arm back in it's place.  "Some kind of rustic
communication tool."  she commented aloud.
        There were some books in the drawer, but nothing Ariana
could read.  She turned and looked at the chairs and table in
the far corner, nothing unusual there except for the design.
On the opposite wall was a chest with several drawers, all
of them empty.   A small mirror hung on the wall above it and
there was another lamp too, along with a large box.  Further
inspection of the 2ft. by 2ft., black synthetics and glass
box lead her to believe it was possibly a video monitor of
some sort.  She noted the buttons on the bottom edge of it and
pushed them one at a time until she felt the thing spring to
life.  "Ah, ha! Got it!"
        A picture faded in, a women talking about some sort of
explosion.  Pictures of a demolished building appeared behind
her as she continued to talk about the on-going search for
survivors.  A mental image of Sev lying on the ground, rubble
covering half his body, flooded Ari's brain.  She winced at
this and looked at the other buttons on the video box.  Pushing
the ones marked -CHAN UP- and -CHAN DWN- changed the pictures
on the screen.  She pushed the -CHAN UP- button a few times
and let the picture come to a stop on the image of several
children, various ages, standing in a fake location.  The tree
wasn't real, the grass wasn't real, nor was the background.
It was a painting of a primative town or city, very obviously
a painting.
        Ari noted the sick squeeky voices the kids were
speaking with and the phoney happiness they expressed.  It
reminded her of someone trying to pretend they were happy so
they wouldn't hurt your feelings.  It also reminded her of
the Expendables.  The children trained to go where others
couldn't because of their age.  Innocence was a great diguise
for a terrorist.  Her attention slammed back towards the screen
as the children began to clamour like talking-birds when a
feline enters the room.  To her disgust, a bright plush
monster appeared on the screen.  The colours were blinding.
        "Gah!"  she exclaimed.  "What the *hell* is that...
that *thing* doing here?!"  She couldn't believe her eyes, the
purple demon that had been making a pest of itself at home was
doing the same in this dimension.  "This isn't possible."
she thought.  "It has to be a coincidence, just some freak
coincidence."  Ari watched the purple plushy dance around and
slosh like a pile of primordial gel, the children following his
lead.  She made slight retching noises, felt her stomach churning
as the blob and his puppets stopped their too perfect dance and song.
She ran up to the video box, having sat on the edge of the bed
a few minutes earlier, and hit the -OFF- button.  The screen
blipped off with an electrical beep and it's static charge
faded slowly.  "That's about all I need to see, I think I'll
stick around this place for a while.  At least until I find
out what that plushy menace is doing here."  she said to
no one in particular.  "Something tells me it is the same
one that's been hanging about at home, not a coincidental
duplicate."
        Remembering suddenly that she had left her backpack
just inside the mirror, Ariana jumped up and went to retrieve
it but when she stuck her hand in, it wasn't there.  Cursing
softly, she stepped through to the other side.  "Where'd that
thing go?"  Looking around, she spotted it about 12 feet
away.  "Damn dimensional shifting." she grumbled.


        J-Rock walked down the corridor, keeping mental track
of the room numbers as he did so.  "406, 407, 408... here we
go, 409." he thought to himself.  He swiped the key card and
unlocked the door, took a deep breath, and proceeded to throw
the door open forcefully.  The room was empty.  Taking a quick
peek around and checking behind the door, he concluded the
room was deserted and chalked the phone activity up to a bug
in the system.  Wouldn't be the first time there was a bug,
certainly wouldn't be the last.  He shook his head, sat the key
card down on the bed and dialed up the security office.  "It
was nothing, probably a glitch in the lines somewhere."
He dropped the reciever into the cradle and headed for
the door.


         Ariana looked around to confirm that it wasn't just
somethings idea of a joke to move her backpack. Seeing nothing,
she shrugged and walked over to picked it up. While looking
to see that everything was still there, she felt a wave of cold
hit her. She shivered as the plane started to shift suddenly.
"Better get moving." she thought to herself, don't want to get
stuck here.  Mirror walking was a dangerous sport, it /could/ be
anyways.  Once a plane started shifting, you only had a few
minutes to get out before all the openings lead you somewhere
else.  Since you can't tell for sure where it's going to open
to next, a hasty retreat can mean the difference of a few
hundred miles and being lunch.  Ari had had just about enough
exploring for one day.  She turned around and headed back
towards the door, stepping through quickly.
	"What's this?" she thought aloud, spotting a flat, thin
piece of plastic on the bed.  Picking it up for a better look,
she was caught completely unaware when the doorknob turned, and
someone started to walk through the door.  Dropping the card, she
faded out of existance as the figure dived for her.  "Hold it
right..."
	"Spider shit," she cursed aloud "That was a
stupid thing to do, I've /got/ to be more careful."  She took a
deep breath, opened her eyes and started when she saw that she was
in another room just like the one she'd left.  Closing her eyes,
Ari listened for footsteps, alarms, anything that would indicate
she was being hunted for.
	"That wasn't a very smart thing to do." came the voice from
behind the plastic He-Man mask. A small and slightly sticky hand
lifted it to reveal the face of an 8 or 9 year old boy. "He could
have your finger prints now."
	"Yeah." sneered the fairy princess with one bent wing.
Ariana rolled her eyes and sighed. "I'll fix it, I'll fix it already.
Brats..." she added under her breath.


[tbc]