Game of Two Halves, Chapter One

It looked like turning out hot again as Mini-Flash Juniper and Flashsatsumas proceeded along the camp’s bustling plaza bright and early.

“Today I need to try and find my friends Pat and Maureen,” Juniper explained. “To thank Pat again for last night, and also to see if there’s anything I can do for them. I’ve helped other residents of this world who Lasser had exposed to those horrible confections.”

“What should I do, besides not overexert myself?” Flashsatsumas asked. He hadn’t meant for it to come out that way, but still felt as any boy might have done about the previous evening.

“Scout around,” came back the reply. “Yesterday I bounced the Flashball right into Lasser’s court, and I’m confident he’ll want to deal, just as soon as he comes up with a proposal nasty enough. He however answers to Yon, who as a rule doesn’t give anything away. The thought of our sowing dissension among these creatures is frankly provocative, and can only be of advantage to us. So, see if you can overhear anything from them about the state of affairs. Big boys, Flashsatsumas,” she added very seriously. “That’s their preferred disguise around here. Observe, but by no means approach. Although I’m sure you’ve sense enough already not to do that.”

Once Flashsatsumas had sighed compliance and his bright orange back was lost among the other holidaymakers, Mini-Flash Juniper stood a minute.

Her plans were as she’d stated.

Something however was picking at her knicker-elastic, and it had to do with the low wide open-fronted shack across the street, from which numerous different refrains of jangly music were drifting her way. By night the place would spill phosphorescence as well as melodies, but the bright morning sun negated its luridness for now. Even so, Mini-Flash Juniper knew about arcades. She and those noisy inappropriate dens went back as far as her amnesiac tenancy in Boston. That was where their embattled relationship had begun.

In an instant Mini-Flash Juniper was decided. She turned and strode for the arcade entryway, as towards a showdown.

There where the carpet met the pavement stood a love-tester machine.

In her Earth-clothes it took a little wriggling to extract ten pence from where Mini-Flashes customarily kept their change, but once Juniper had wrested the coin from three overlapping waistbands there were no delays dropping it into the slot. A hunk of crude terrestrial technology rose before her like a slab, and there were two receptacles sunk into it at hand-height, each with illuminated lettering to indicate which was for boys and which girls. Above these the tablet was halved vertically by a dividing-line, and either side bore twenty different gender-specific single-word descriptions of character-types, every one accompanied by a cartoon illustration. Forty boys and girls, rendered in two dimensions and twice as many colours, made up the sum of this electric encyclopedia on the mysteries of Earthling romance.

Mini-Flash Juniper knew what to do. In an instant her hand was where it needed to be, palm pressing down on the warm button within.

It was over as soon as that.

Even though she’d seen these machines take time to make up their mind.

That was a big part of the antagonism. She’d seen her half of the slab fairly dance for fellow females, all the options chiming contemplatively for five seconds or more.

For Juniper though, an instantaneous ping every time, and a verdict of…

TEASER!

Every time, as now. And now, as every time, Mini-Flash Juniper went through the futile motions of trying to stare out the single lit panel in disbelief.

The smug cartoon girl smirking back at her even had fair hair, and looked a little like her.

Juniper drew her hand out of the hollow, though she felt like banging it against the machine of which it was part. She’d always been at an utter loss to explain that particular recurrence. The theory she tended towards the most was that in Boston it had been related either to her missing memories or Special Program powers, one or the other of which somehow scrambled the primitive operational matrices of such Earth-devices. That seemed likeliest to Mini-Flash Juniper. Here however, was it possible this latest one was passing comment on her conduct last night without having first acquainted itself with certain facts? The thought made Juniper frown.

“Don’t judge me,” she told the love-tester machine aloud. “I’m playing a dangerous game. You don’t know what the stakes are.”

A very small boy, holding a stick which speared a very large cloud of pink candyfloss, was looking at her with his mouth open.

“Because that’s all it is,” Juniper informed him, as from knowledge.

An outdoor roller-skating rink, whatever one of those was, seemed to Flashsatsumas as good a place as any to find big boys.

Not that he felt quite ready yet to tie little wheels to the sides of his feet and totter around the expansive corral, as seemed to be the custom on Earth. A male Mini-Flash didn’t need reminders like last night’s to be aware of his limitations. Going on holiday with Mini-Flash Juniper would have been enough in and of itself. Luckily there were also things to hire such as Flashsatsumas had never seen before, but which to human eyes would have suggested a broader-than-average green bicycle seat with handlebars to match, on which you knelt and pushed with your toecaps to crawl about the course.

Starting out on hands and knees seemed safest by far to Flashsatsumas, and modesty a small price to pay, for all that the required posture and containment-suits didn’t mix.

So Flashsatsumas commenced his circuits amidst the other skaters and turtles, as he’d learned the green things were called. His progress stayed squarely on the fits and starts side of smooth, and his pants were an endless source of anxiety, but he did his best to keep his eyes and ears open. It was a pity he wasn’t collecting snatches of laughter and giggles, as he heard plenty of both from those who skimmed by.

The terran sun was blazing down and making it more than warm if you were wearing rubber and vinyl. Flashsatsumas was about to take a break, when a hand gripped the inflatable hemline of his suit from behind.

END OF CHAPTER ONE