The Read

They were back in the cell. Lithuania told them she needed to think over their offer of help before she made a decision. She had slept on it, twice, and she still hadn’t decided. So winfry and isa waited, trying to occupy themselves anyway that they could.

“umm, isa?”

“yeah?”

“ahh… Did we have sex?” winfry didn’t really know how that slip out, but he couldn’t blame the quilare. That night had been his mind’s chief occupation while he waited. But he could never get a good grip on the matter and he just kept slipping. He remembered planning to get the extra sheets for the couch he had seen in the living room. And then isa said something. “come sleep with me”? No, that wasn’t it. “let’s rest a bit, winfry”? Maybe. Not. And what did isa look like when they got up? Confused? Mad? Angry? Surprised? Her thighs were gorgeous. NO! Don’t think like that. It’s not right.

“No. We didn’t,” isa replied as she dropped her eyes to the floor.

“Really? Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

“Oh.” With perhaps a dash of disappointment. “How do you know?”

“My hymen didn’t get torn.”

“Oh.

…

I guess I didn’t need to think so much about that.” isabel, finally looked up, smiled and pushed winfry’s shoulder.


isa didn’t approve at first, but after a day of nothing else to do she agreed to help winfry’s endeavors. From the first day that they woke up isa had been looking through space to try to figure out what was going on in LusciousLocks. Unfortunately they didn’t really know where to look so the divining was only minimally productive. They had initially agreed not to use the librem because, well, they lied about that. But like a toddler with a new toy, winfriadoc couldn’t resist. Granted, he was only reading the librem but then again the librem was completely different when winfry read it. When he first started reading it during their imprisonment, he was very surprised to find no snarky comments and what appeared to be a novel. It was about two officers in the military who didn’t take enough humanities classes to have the balls to ask each other out so they spent ages bashing their heads against duty until one day they flew into LusciousLocks and this crazy weather phenomenon thingy came out of nowhere and crashed the Helo-Fleet and they both died but they both were alive somehow and it was all really confusing until winfry realized they had been spliced into two different universes or something crazy like that. And all the while winfry knew there was something strangely familiar about the female officer. Maybe it was here mask of bitch that she used to appear in control but winfry recognized her and it was only when he read about how the said female officer saved two people collapsed in the woods that winfry put the pieces together. But was it really true? With the librem, that question was constantly nagging. At least the part about her finding winfry and isa was true.

And the drama didn’t stop there. It also told about Lithuania’s two sisters: Latvia and Estonia. Estonia was this super uptight wench who didn’t do too much and Latvia was a super cool psychic lady who you knew you could be really good friends and maybe even go out with if you’re a guy or lesbian or bisexual or … anyways you couldn’t because Latvia had this boyfriend who was totally lame but in a way also kind of cool because of his lameness. (You can tell winfry got into the story.) And the crazy thing was that Latvia had a quilare! which was totally weird because how could a Foggistani have a quilare since all the myths, ALL the myths said the quilares would only find descendents of the nine. And anyways the three sisters had lots of parental issues but that’s an entirely different story and probably not one that should be told right yet (that might really, really piss some people off –as if they own the story just because they happen to be telling it first…).

On a more practical side, the librem also told about happenings in nilbmah and LusciousLocks. There was one story about the Green City going flaming hot red in some sort of Assmachestani war festival or something. The tricky thing about that was that isa looked through space to Green City to check but she didn’t see anything like this. What did that mean? Was the librem lying? Was this something that was going to happen? On the other hand, there was also a piece about jacob martin going complete traitor much to isa’s expectations and publishing pieces feeding the government’s war frenzy and when isa looked to nilbmah citadel, the nilbmah post’s office completely confirmed the librem. And then there was that really creepy story about them in a cell in another tower but they were acting very off. winfry had some how found the pants of the relationship and they had somehow become one of those couples that made you sad to watch. It was all so strange that isa actually looked through space to the other towers and in the tower just beyond theirs, she found them, just as off as in the librem. What was going on? Did Lithuania know about their doubles? It was all so unnerving.

There were also stories that didn’t seem to have anything to do with anything. There was the business woman who had been a huge hippie in college but majored in economics because she knew that to actually change the world you needed power, not just passion. She took that economics degree and rock climbed her way up the face of a cell phone company to become one of the most powerful persons in her nation, poised to finally change her world.

Unfortunately, winfry didn’t seem to have any control over what stories came out of the librem. He tried but then the snarky comments came back. So the librem opened lots of windows and a pesterance of gnats flew in hazing up everything.

And then it happened, making all the gnats worth it. The librem predicted a strike on the Foggistani presence in LusciousLocks. The strike would hit in between two of the towers splitting the force in two. It would be devastating. Like any good post-modern reader they were skeptical and isa double checked with the quilare. It checked out. isa was able to find a small group of assorted demons that included a black figure almost identical to the one in nilbmah. Why they were waiting she couldn’t figure out but the attack would be soon.

“What is it this time?” Lithuania didn’t even have to roll her eyes.

“We just thought you should know the enemies, whoever they are, are planning to make a strike along the tunnels between here and the northern tower. If we don’t move now, right now, we will be split. If we’re split we die. Also, even if we survive this attack there will be others and our only hope of long term survival is Marcos,” Lithuania’s eyes must have narrowed because isa went on to clarify, “your 2nd in command Marcos who must be in some alternative dimension Marcos. We might be able to get Marcos back if your sisters, Latvia and Estonia, were here.”

Considering the mountain of information isa dropped on Lithuania, her face was surprisingly smooth. Only a few facial twitches hinted at all the emotions triggering inside. After an extended silence Lithuania finally spoke, “You took quite a risk telling me all those things you shouldn’t even know. What makes you two so desperate?”