Well, here I go. There is this entry then one more, covering Bob’s rescue attempt. But as we’ll see, is it really a rescue?

I’m about 3,000 words ahead, just at the close of Part Two. Notes are ready for Part Three. It’s been a long time since I have had first-person-female-normie. This should be interesting.

Enjoy my content? Buy me a beer! 

Not tribe Tohsaka’s construct, he was sitting outside of a café under a breathtaking blue sky.  A sea or ocean stretched off to his left, with small canals leading to it.  Some building, including the café he was outside, were to his right.  There were several other customers, a mix of White and Oriental, but he sat alone.  The buildings were of a Mediterranean design and plastered in a variety of light pastels.

A look up showed a bright but slightly smaller sun that what he was used to.  Oddly, what looked like small villages floated at least a half-mile up, connected to the ground by what might have been guy lines.  Something to do with Aqua?  I read Princess Kira’s report of her first time over, when she nearly died.  Something like a Mediterranean villa.  But this is a city.

“Correct.” A soft, woman’s voice. 

His eyes came down fast and he looked across the table.  Pretty!  Long, golden hair well past her shoulders.  A white summer dress with something like an ivy green pattern across her shoulders and down her chest.  When she took off her sunglasses, the ivy accentuated her one green eye.

One green eye.  The other was black.

“Hello, Cousin Kalí,” he tried.  “Never seen you cleaned up before.”

With no response other than her continuing to stare at him, knowing she was reading his mind, Bob pressed on.

“So,” he waved about.  “Aqua’s construct?”

“No.  This is the city of Neo-Yokohama, but three hundred years in the future, on what you called Mars.  You will help me recover your mother and brother.”

From anyone outside of family, he would have laughed, imagining he had fallen and hit his head in the real world.  Now, he did not laugh at all.

“What happened?” he demanded.

“Which time?” she said with a tiny tilt of her head to the left.

“With Mother and Edward,” he clarified.

“Our Cousin, the Regent, was gifted the answer by the Lord after looking into your girlfriend’s soul.” Kalí said this as easily as if talking about the perfect weather around them.  “A waterfall came rushing over a cliff near where their team was observing.  Empress Faustina saw something machine-made exposed in the rushing water.  Telling her staff to remain…”

No surprise there, Bob thought.

“…she and her son approached the object.  I do not know what it is or how it works, but an angel ghosted the phrase ‘degenerate matter’ into my soul.  Sounds bad.”

“And now they’re here?” He stood.  “Let’s get them and go back.”

“There is an issue, Robert,” Kalí said, also standing.

“Which is?”

“They like it here.”

I cannot, I cannot imagine either of them shirking their duty, he thought, frozen in place.  Mother is the imperium!  Still, even now!  And Ed has his new wife!  Is this place some kind of mental poison?

“To someone like you – and them – raised on nothing but conflict?  Yes, it is, Robert.” She blinked at him.  “This is as close to Heaven one of you can come without passing.”

“Take me to them, please.”

“They are not together,” Kalí replied, waving her left hand at the buildings and her right to the sky.  “You mother dabbles in politics and is at the Council Chamber.  Your brother plays engineer as a Fire Drake, in the sky villages.”

Ignoring whatever she just said, Bob declared, “Please take me to the Empress.”

She extended her hand to him and turned, walking at a good clip for a girl.

“Robert?”

“Kalí?”

“She’s not Empress here.”

Many narrow streets where they walked in single file, some broad roads and open plazas.  None of the buildings were over four stories tall and all painted in those same pastels.  A few clouds and fewer gulls rode in the sky.  They crossed over a canal with yet another bridge.  This is more like Venice than Yokohama.  Movement to his left brought him up, pulling his cousin to a halt.

“That…that’s a gondola,” he pointed, a bit rudely.  “And it’s being sculled by a girl.  That’s not physically possible.  Android?”

“Things have Changed on this world, too, Cousin.  Come.” She tugged, but the gondolier, the image of perfection with cream skin, lime colored hair just past her shoulders, a long white dress to her ankles with a complex green pattern, with a tiny white hat, looked up to smile and wave.  He waved back.

I see what Kalí meant about this place.

Across a huge, open square, one corner of which was dominated by a massive clock tower, the only tall structure he’d seen, they went into a colonnaded building.  Down a few halls, she opened a door and waved for him to enter.

“No security?” he asked, surprised.

“No.  People here are different.  Go in.”

Dark wood paneling covered the walls, except for where long, narrow windows let the bright light in.  A massive, oak, I think, table was in the middle.  Opposite him, seated, was his mother.  Her hair is down but kept out of her face by a band.  I’d call what she’s wearing business casual.  Focused on the papers before her.  Why?  Why not just handle things with her lines, as she always does?

Bob took five quick steps into the room and stopped.  No one else was there.

“Mother!” he called.  “I’m here to rescue you!”