Part: I|II|III|IV|V|VI|VII|VIII|IX|X
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Previously on the Beginner’s Guide to Everything: Mary Brown, the most normal girl in the multiverse, escaped Hazard, the danger dimension. Only for herself and her four companions to get immediately arrested upon entering the eighth ring of Mobius. The megacity that surrounds the center of the multiverse. Mary, A-2, and Jerry got off easy, the latter for unknown reasons. Triz and Ronnie, as an ex-con and current fugitive, respectively, were not so lucky and made a break for it at the first opportune moment. Knowing trouble when she sees it, Mary decided to stop being involved in the two. Instead, she planned to work towards getting back to the Beginner’s Guide office to begin her plain, boring life anew. Not that she knows how to get back…
~--~
Triz and Ronnie raced down the streets of Mobius’s eighth ring, the MPD8 on their tails. Ronnie was looking for an alley or path to duck down into, but the pink-haired fugitive was well aware Mobius’s odd architecture made that a challenging prospect. Triz was more focused on the road ahead of her, the lizard woman deathly afraid of running into an impassible obstacle.
The MPD8 officers were furious at the two for attempting such a bold escape. However, being very familiar with the area, they had already planned on how to surround and recapture the two using an intersection up ahead. In only a few moments, the impromptu escape would be quashed.
‘Shit, shit, shit,’ Ronnie swore in her mind. ‘We’ve got minutes before they’re piling on us again. Why doesn’t this stupid city have any obvious alleys?’ The fugitive’s gaze darted all around the area, searching for an escape route she knew she wouldn’t find. ‘Wait…Just think in 3-D Ronnie,’ her eyes wandered down.
“Well, thisss isss the end,” Triz bemoaned. “I hope you enjoy…What are you doing?” The ex-space pirate witnessed Ronnie veer off to the side and start parkouring up the side of a building. The lizard woman shrugged and followed suit.
The MPD8 were left in an awkward position; their heavy equipment made it difficult to follow in the two women’s acrobatics. Chasing them would be a difficult prospect at this point. That left them with but one recourse.
“Screw it,” the lead officer exclaimed, “set weapon from stun to…more painful stun!” They aimed their weapons and released a hail of laser bolts.
“Follow my lead,” Ronnie told Triz as they climbed atop a roof before getting hit by a laser and falling over the other side. Out of sight from the officers.
“What?” Triz was confused as she got hit by another bolt and fell over as well.
“Retrieve the suspects…or bodies if they landed on their heads,” the lead officer ordered. The squad charged forward, soon the two runaways would be in their grasp.
~--~
“We’ll never get back at this rate,” Mary sighed as she and A-2 sat on the steps outside the MPD8 HQ. The sound of lasers going off in the distance left her with little hope for Ronnie and Triz’s fates, but her pity well for Ronnie had run dry long ago.
“That sucks. Now you have nothing to distract yourself from your inevitable mental breakdown,” A-2 commented.
“Thanks, I finally forget about that,” Mary moaned. The bland woman recalled that her whole home universe was destroyed, and she had almost died at least four times today. The constant states of shock, horror, and adrenaline Mary had been through all day had kept the reality from sinking in. Whether or not she has mental scars was no longer up for debate; how badly it’ll affect her for the rest of her life was the real question. “First thing I do when…if I get back, is get a therapist.”
“You could always have your memory wiped. That’s what most Beginner’s Guide employees and executives do,” A-2 suggested.
“I’ll take into consideration,” Mary accepted the advice. ‘I just wish that I could get in contact with those idiots…’
~--~
Mere moments ago, while Ronnie and Triz were still running, Mary had politely asked to use the MPD8’s front desk phone to make a call. The person at the desk shrugged and handed it to her. Thankfully, the number and address to the Beginner’s Guide office were printed right in the guide itself, in frustratingly tiny print. Mary had hoped she could get in contact with her new workplace and arrange transport home, unfortunately before she could get a word in…
“Hello, you’ve reached the front desk to the Beginner’s Guide to Everything,” the familiar bored sounding voice of that six-armed secretary came through the phone. “I see you are calling from a law enforcement agency; I’m sorry to inform you, officer, that Beginner’s Guide employees are forbidden from speaking to law enforcement. Please direct all questions to our legal and marketing departments, goodbye.”
The same line was repeated no matter how many times Mary called and no matter what she said. The bland woman began to suspect the secretary had recorded an automated message that filtered out any and all calls from law enforcement. With attempts to contact her new job fruitless, Mary gave up on the phone call and left the HQ to go have a mental breakdown on the stairs outside.
~--~
“So, after your mental breakdown, what next?” A-2 inquired.
“Maybe a good Samaritan will let us use their phone,” Mary half-heartedly suggested as she viewed the streets before her. The creatures roaming the streets reminded her of the bizarre beings that occupied the cubicles back at the Beginner’s Guide office. Some humans, some rubber foreheaded aliens, demons, little green men, strange horrors, and other weird-looking beings filled the streets.
Mary would like to solve her problems with a simple conversation. However, she didn’t know whether or not she could communicate with half these beings, let alone ask them for something. Also, her social anxiety combined with existential dread made the idea of talking to strangers unpalatable regardless.
“Oh, who am I kidding? I don’t even know the language here,” Mary slumped. “Except for the fact, all the officers seem to speak English.”
“Nope, they don’t,” A-2 corrected.
“What?” Mary was taken aback.
“Some kind of nano implant helps you speak to any other person,” A-2 explained, “that or they’re a wizard using a translate spell. Pretty sure Ronnie, myself, the GOTM and MPD8 officers, and everyone on the factoid team have the implant.”
“How convenient,” Mary pointed out.
“I know, right? Communication sucked before that,” A-2 laughed. “Here,” A-2’s finger folded out into a needle, and she pricked Mary.
“Ow, what was that?” Mary squealed.
“Nano implant, just told you,” A-2 giggled. “All the A models can do that. So can the B and C and…actually I think almost all the models can.”
“Wait, a universal translator is something so basic that its standard feature?” Mary was astounded.
“Yeah, what you thought universal communication was some highly complex invention?” The cyborg asked.
“Um, yeah,” Mary shrugged.
“That’s what you thought about flying, computers and the self-cooking hotdog, but look where they are now,” A-2 pinched Mary’s cheek. “Humans are so silly.”
“Right,” Mary’s mental breakdown was stemmed by a fresh flood of humiliation.
“You two still here?” Jerry floated by.
“Oh, hey Jerry,” A-2 looked up at the gas cloud. “What to go back to the office?”
“Nah, I got to visit some old friends,” Jerry stated, “need to pay them back for a recent favor.” The sentient gas cloud drifted away.
“Okay, have fun,” A-2 waved him off.
“Old friends? Recent favor?” Mary wondered. ‘You know what, I won’t touch that with a ten-foot pole.’
~--~
“I can’t believe that worked,” Triz commented as the two women sat on a pile of musty-smelling treasure. The rancid stench of sewer waters surrounded them completely, mainly because they were in the sewers. The stomping feet of the MPD8 officers could still be heard on the streets above, but they would likely not find the two anytime soon.
“Told you to follow my lead,” Ronnie leaned back. “Sure, their lasers stung, but those MPD8 guys are soft. They like to stun you and shake you down for the location of your stolen loot.”
It was quite a miraculous escape. After the two fell off the roof, Ronnie nimbly avoided a painful death by bouncing off a nearby fire escape and landing on a dumpster. While she might have broken a bone or two, she was alive and conscious enough to locate a nearby sewer grate. Thankfully, Triz was a buffed-up lizard woman who could effortlessly pick up the heavy object, and the two dived inside.
“To think we’d land on a pile of treasssure as well,” Triz chuckled, “mussst be our lucky day.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure,” Ronnie gulped as she noticed the owner of the treasure entering the room. The large skeletal creature coursed with evil energy; a swarm of zombie rats followed in its wake. It stood tall over the injured women, with a vile anger in its eyes. The sewer lich had come to inspect its treasure horde, and it didn’t like visitors.
To Be Continued…
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Working abroad has its challenges, language barriers, local customs, strange encounters, etc. It's important to work through these problems and not wander about where you shouldn't, less you enrage some random person for no good reason.
Until next time, Read, Comment and Enjoy
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