The Gaming Outpost

Waking up stiff and sore, in your cot, under the church. Hey! You remember being tranq darted and collapsing on the stairs. Maybe you crawled down here in your sleep. That’s silly.

You open your eyes and as expected you see one of the pretty girls in the room. She’s got her legs tucked up, and she snoring lightly across the basement in a movable chair.

You sit up, still fully dressed, but feeling scuzzy, and she comes awake with a startled flap of her arms. She looks at you, and then holds up a thin computer screen which forms words on it.

“The pastor wants to talk to you. Get ready.”

You nod, and she looks puzzled. But then she gets up, and strolls across the room to the stairs and exits.

Another visit to the claustrophobia inducing shower, and a rinsing out of your mouth, and you don’t feel so disgruntled or unacceptable for human company.

A grunt from behind you. You leap around. The pastor takes several frightened steps back, and you unclench your fists.

He holds up the computer panel.

“Police say you threatened a girl at the Omi.”

You shake your head in disagreement. He looks sad and dissapointed in you. So you try the other way, to say ‘yes’. Now he looks puzzled.

“Yes, or no.”

You touch the screen ‘no’, or begin too, and then you recall how scared she had been, and how frightened the pastor had been when you whirled about to take on an ambusher.

You shrug your shoulders and frown and wobble your right hand back and forth. The pastor stares at you as you wipe the water off your face. He looks upward.

“That is your wallet? Yes or no.” He holds up the computer screen, and then points at your wallet laying on the floor next to your shoes.

You’re fully dressed except for socks and shoes. You walk over to it, and clasp it.

He points to the ‘yes or no’. You touch ‘yes’, of course.

He asked the question again, and then nods his head negatiively and positively. And then gestures for you to do likewise. So you nod ‘yes’.

He smiles in enlightenment and vindication, and over the next several minutes teaches you that wherever you are, a vertical nod means ‘no’, and and a side to side head shake means ‘yes’.

He then ushers you up the stairs, and smiles reasuringly at you as he motions for you to leave with him. You do, not happy, but he looks quite willing to wait a good while. And just standing here while a grown man gestures for you to exit the door for the next thirty minutes does not appeal. Especially because the other one of the pretty girls comes up behind you.

So you step out. A police mini-helicopter floats down, obviously waiting, stalking you.

“Sanctuary. I ….garble, garble.” The words you understood did not come out clearly, but with effort you could make them out. It seemed to pass muster with the flying bot, and it floated off into the sky to look for other enemies of the state than yourself.

The pastor, and what seemed to be one of his daughters took you through several back streets, seeming to know that new sights would freak you out.

They ushered you into the apartment home which was crowded with people everywhere. And it was filled with wonderful odors.

But all the people here made you want to run screaming out of the room. However, you were pretty sure that a police mini-copter would be on top of you in minutes. So trembling a bit, you stood near a wall as the food began to be laid out on a large table.

An hour later, you have another of Bill Gate’s Home-cooked Delites. This time its a slice of country ham rolled around a filling of tomato relish, chopped up jalopeno, and black olives with a dessert of rhubarb pie.

You quench your thirst by walking over to the sink.

“Rise.” It lifts itself up to a convenient height to you. “Water.” You declaim. The sink begins to fill with room temperature water. You drink your fill from the faucet, and then thoughtfully say to it.

“Colder.” The temperature drops twenty degrees.

Now at last not panicked, not hungry or thirsty, and not too badly injured, and a lot dirty you have time to think.

A flash of light at your computer. Electricity and water did not mix you were only too aware.

Shivering you shove that aside for a less painful mystery. You can deal with that later you decide hurriedly.

The waitress had babbled in some foreign tongue and then served an omellette with parsnips. But you had been able to read the words on her menu.

And the water sink seemed to understand you. With a flash of memory you recall the police mini-copter chasing you, and yelling at you in good clear English.

Why was the writing and the machines English, but the people were not?

It made no sense.

The too-low toilet was run by a handle, but the sink and the freezer chests were run by voice command. And your voice is decidedly different than the locals.

Plus there was that dog that spoke clearly to you.

Your head is beginning to ache a bit, and you walk over to the sink and get water to gently slosh over your face and the scabbing wound.

Other needs make themselves apparent. Food that comes in, must come out. So you go to the bathroom, and for a second you stare at the strangely low toilet with the ruffle around it.

Curious, you decide, and with a small grin say a word.

“Up.”

The toilet rises to a height appropriate for an adult and not a toddler, and the fringe expands under the bowl to cover the new height from the floor.

Simple.

Once down, you go back outside. The toilet flushes on its own. And with a sudden grin, you understand part of it.

You’ve known more than a few girls who were embarrassed about their bodily functions being heard. So no one wanted to say ‘flush’, but other voice commands were standard.

Which still left the problem how the appliances understood the locals language which had to be somehow based on English, yours.

Experimentally, you speak one of the few Spanish words you know to the sink.

“Agua.” This meant water.

Water came.

What was Spanish for hot? Ah.

“Caliente.”

The temperature jumped about twenty degrees to a nice warmth. After stopping it, you tried the other English word for water.

“H2O.” Dihydrogen Monoxide flowed in a clear stream from the faucet.

You tried to think of another word for water, and all that came was ‘loch’ as in Loch Ness Monster. Loch was the Scottish word for lake.

“Loch.”

Nothing.

You cast about in your mind for some French or Russian or Japanese word for water, but nothing came. With your mind fully fixed on water, you grumbled trying to get a word out somehow.

The water flowed.

You stared in amazement. Apparently ‘rmgrph.’ qualified as water in some language. But that was highly unlikely you intuited with a chill wind going down your back.

You envisioned water again and spoke.

“Sinork.”

Water flowed.

“Masprit.” Water.

“Dokar.” Water.

And for the last test you envisioned as strongly as you could ‘Water’ while saying ‘Stop Water.’

Water flowed.

The sink was reading your mind.

Goosebumps ran up and down your arms, and your throat felt suddenly tight as you found yourself gently dropping to the floor to sit there for a while, rocking back and forth.

The sink had read your mind.

Ohhhh….wow.