CLAN RIVERSTONES BIKER-JACKET
Hub looked bewildered at the crowd in the clubhouse.
"Disco-Attire?" he asked. "Have I died and reincarnated in the Seventies?"
The waiters wore shiny blue metallic jackets instead of their usual T-shirts, and even the VIPs and the other staff conformed to the new trend.
"Hey, Gram, what's up with all those jackets?" He asked the stocky new guy and the only one who wore a shabby, slightly familiar-looking mech-suit instead of the disco jacket.
"The boss's mom is up. That lady started a new fashion trend all on her own."
"Do you mean Auntie Flo? Small white lady with short hair and an unhealthy obsession with toasters?"
He nodded.
"I guess we have to buy some mirror balls."
TRAINING COFFIN
Mistress Lekaahine looked over her domain.
The cellar was barely lit, just enough to see the contours of the people who hung in chains on the walls.
The background sounds were groaning and exclamations of pleasure and pain accentuated by the snaps of whips, music to her ears.
"Mistress, I discovered a new toy." Her bare-chested favorite slave assistant knelt in front of her.
"Speak!"
"It is a coffin lined with tasers. The victim can get chained to it and stands on a vibrating platform."
"I love electroshocks! And you can do a lot of fascinating things with vibrations. Order it!"
STEHAUFMAENNCHEN GAME
Miles started his UFC Career one and a half years ago. Like many talented Canadian fighters, he went to the states for the big bucks.
His debut fight went well. He knocked out his opponent in round two without receiving significant damage.
The next appointment didn't go that well. Miles lost narrowly but tore one of the ligaments in his knee.
While he rehabilitated, a major change happened in the world of combat sports.
One of his coaches said, you can train for combat, but you can't practice combat. Martial arts destroy you when you perform them.
That changed with the advent of the brain-wave virtual technology. You can log in and fight to your heart's content without the fear of injury or overtraining.
The skill level of his competitors rose rapidly.
Eagerly, Miles ordered a capsule and logged in, only to realize that he sucked at virtual fighting and not only at fighting, but he failed even to walk a straight line.
The problem was his synchronization. He started at 23 percent.
Day after day, he did katas and hit the bags. First, the sync rose one point a day, then half a point, one point in three days, and at 48 percent, it stopped growing at all.
He researched and found specialists to help him. His sync grew again, albeit slowly.
Ballet lessons, balancing a pen on his pinky finger while standing on one leg, breathing exercises he did it all and paid more and more money for increasingly outlandish methods.
Finally, he hit 75 percent. The forums said that regular people didn't feel any discomfort at this rate. But he was an athlete and knew his body well. The small delays and imprecisions disturbed and distracted him more than his former inability to throw a straight punch.
When his last increase was over two weeks ago, Miles put aside his pride and registered for a beginner course in Jiu-Jitsu. His stand-up game was top-notch, but his grappling could use some improvement. While he was handicapped, he could use the time to firm up his foundations.
Furthermore, he hit the jerky bulletin boards again. He found a new entry by one of the most active members, RadLana Sorrow. She had tried as much shady crap as he with even less success and documented it.
This video was about a granny who explained that the crucial point wasn't what you did, but that you should communicate your intentions clearly to the system.
He laughed bitterly. Wouldn't it be great if it were that easy?
But then RadLana showed her numbers, and her sync had risen by over one percent!
'I'll give it a try. One hour. I've attempted so much ridiculous shit that one hour of talking to myself or this mysterious 'system' won't be my ticket to the looney train.'
"System. I'm going to train my sync rate."
One hour later, his synchronization had risen by half a point. In the next few days, it had gone up by three percent. Every few hours, he checked RadLana's feed for more information. He even considered hiring a private eye to find out the username of 'Auntie Flow'.
At last, RadLana posted a new entry. The auntie had developed a game for training.
Immediately, he went to the marketplace and looked for it. With 50 VirDos, it was pitifully cheap compared to the fees he paid for the experts. Naturally, he checked the reviews, there were quite a few negative ones, but they all referred to the pricing of the seller, not the product. You could print it for only 1 VirDos or buy it in the Cetviwos-Shop for 2 VirDias. After Miles discovered that the seller was RadLana, he bought it from the marketplace. Five dollars was a good tip for all the work she put in for the jerky community.
The game was a colorful column with a creepy looking doll on top. On the packaging was printed in big letters: "You have to announce to the system that you are following the rules of the game to train your synchronization." He nodded; he knew the drill by now.
Miles checked the manual. It was short and easy to comprehend and boiled down to hit the glowing part of the tumbler with the body part the dolls indicates. When the knee of the doll glowed, and the blue stripe of the tower lightened up, you had to hit the blue area with your knee.
There was a warning at the bottom of the text: Do not make up your own rules without informing the system; otherwise, your synchronization may sink!
Miles thought that was pretty logical. If the system thought you would hit something according to the game rules, but you decided to hit something different, it will get confused whether it interpreted your motion in the right way.
"System, I will play the Stehaufmaennchen game according to the rules to raise my synchronization!" He declared confidently, before hitting the start button.
Until now, he had seen the sync training as a burden, but the Stehaufmaenchen-Game was fun.
Not only did he enjoy the normal tasks like hitting it with your foot or fist, but every time it wanted an impossible maneuver like tapping the top of the column with your butt, he grew excited. Those tasks made his rate rise like a rocket.
He wished that the Stehaufmaennchen could be bought in real life as well. The guys in the gym would love it.
'Flowing Flowers. I will remember your name, coach. I owe you big time.'
Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.
IF YOU HAVE NOTHING TO BRAG ABOUT YOU CAN STILL SHOW OFF THIS-TOASTER
"Ey, bro. You'd better bought something da pest with our last funds!" The barbarian decked out in fur threatened while gesturing with his ax.
"Relax. I've got you." The thief dressed in black answered and fetched the item from his inventory.
The barbarian, a perky witch, a sharply dressed magician, and a severe druid, looked at his hands.
"Are you kidding?" The dark-haired beauty with the broom asked.
"Is that ... no ... you wouldn't." the druid stammered.
"Bleep you, bleep your mother, bleep your father, bleep your sister, bleep your dog, bleep your bleeping goldfish!" The barbarian added.
The golden shine of the item and little rainbows from the diamonds graced their faces.
"This is the toaster of wealth and prosperity!" The thief announced it like it was the holy grail. Then he inserted two pieces of bread in the toaster an activated it.
"The item-description says, it is called 'If you have nothing to brag about you can still show off this'-Toaster. It seems fitting for our group." The druid stated.
"My nice shiny money! What has this idiot done with you?" The magician cried.
"Hey, hey, hear me out. This is our ticket to riches beyond your imagination."
The party rolled their eyes at him.
"We all know about the Diamond mines, right?"
"Sure, we went there, and what loot did we get? Pickaxes!"
"One diamond dropped for me!" The witch interjected.
Meanwhile, the thief spread peanut butter over the toasts.
"Because you are always lucky." The mage added jealously.
"And now we all will be lucky and rich!" The thief pointed at the toasts.
Name: Richly toasted Peanut-Sandwich
Description: Toasted by the most luxurious home appliance in the Cetwiwos and topped with a golden spread. This toast attracts everything gold or glimmering.
Effects: Buff. Increases drop rate of gold and especially precious stones.
The party stared again at the toaster, but this time with awe in their gazes.
GRANNY'S KNICKERS - SKATEBOARD
Ali Hawks leaned back on his chair, puffed on his cigar, and grinned.
Sales were looking good, and admissions of new skins spiked to an unprecedented high. Every popular designer had created a skin using the Simulation PP Collision Handling and the Intensity Meter, Flora's interface technologies.
The customers were hungry for more, and the bulletin board had a whole new category for posting the attempts of maxing out the intensity.
"Boss, what I admire the most about you is your eye for people. You always find the best ones like this Flowing Flowers!" RollWithRock said while browsing the stats. He had long pink dreadlocks, wore a matching mini skirt, green leggings, and a yellow crop top. "And me. Can I get a raise?"
"Nope."
"Then tell me, at least, how did you find her? Nobody in the biz has ever heard of her. Her in-game-shop is brand new, and she offers no other skins than the ones she registered recently."
"You know her. You once trapped her chair with super glue."
"Unfortunately, that only narrows down the pool of suspects from several hundred to a few dozens." Satisfied RollwithRock leaned back in his chair with his hands behind his head. "Ah, my glorious misspent youth!"
"The last one. She was the last one you ever booby-trapped."
RollwithRock fell from his chair. "The ninja lecturer?"
Ali Hawks nodded remembered the good old times fondly.
"Listen up, you bunch of misfits. We need to behave like professionals if we want to be successful!" Gina, the web manager, screamed in an attempt to drown out the crowd of angry young men.
"We are plenty successful without a corporate lackey telling us what to do!" RollwithRock screamed back, and his colleagues hollered in agreement.
"Friends, read Sun Tzu. He said, Know your enemy and know yourself and you can sell a hundred skateboards without disaster." Ali said, grinning. "I contacted the agency to send us a real designer to tell us about design lifecycle management. No salesperson bullshit, no bookish bore, but someone who works with these methods every day. Give them a chance."
His boys and girls still grumbled, but the noise level in the room sank.
"And I want you on your best behavior! No childish pranks!" Gina added.
Regretfully, Ali shook his head. That was the wrong tone to talk to skaters.
Ali stood on the balcony and smoked a joint when he saw a woman with a small child in tow approaching his shop.
The woman wore a long woolen skirt and a blouse with a pink slip-on and jacket over it. Ali estimated that she was around 40 years old and the little boy maybe around six years. The boy had African ancestry and wore a ninja turtle hoodie and held a big can of orange juice in his hand.
The woman kneeled next to the boy and started speaking.
"Alright, sweetie. Do you remember what we talked about?"
"Ninja Turtles?"
"Regarding my work today."
"I will be silent like a ninja! And play and read and be even more silent!"
"Excellent! You know that you are the most important person in my life, but sometimes I have to pretend that other people are the most important. Now is one of those times. We will both pretend that the customers are kings, alright?"
"Do I have to bow?"
"No."
"Are they more important than toasters?"
"No."
"But, I'm more important than toasters?"
"Of course!"
"Good!"
"Alright, wish me luck!" She kissed the boy, while he calmly opened the lid of his can and poured it over his mother's pink slip-on.
"Why did you do that?" she exclaimed.
"It's a blessing! Hub told me they pour drinks over ships and babies for good luck!"
"Oh, sweetie, not over mothers... " The woman took out some wipes, but it didn't change the fact that her front was soaked. "Are you ready to listen to your first lecture about designing?"
The little boy nodded thoughtfully, and they walked towards the entrance of the job.
Amused, Ali shook his head and walked down to greet the guest speaker.
"Hello, I'm Flora Fluss, and this is my son Robby. The kindergarten closed unexpectantly. I hope you don't mind that I brought him with me."
"Of course not! Please come in. You can call me Ali. I'm the founder of this shop." Ali bent down to Robby. "And who is your favorite Ninja Turtle?"
"Leonardo," Robby mumbled with wide eyes.
"He is my choice, too. Katanas are the way to go!" Ali winked.
Instantly, the little guy looked at him like he was the second coming of Splinter.
Flora rolled her eyes. "Donatello is the smartest. You can't deny that!"
While comparing Ninja Turtles, they entered the facilities and walked to the conference room. When Ali opened the door, a thick cloud of sweet-smelling smoke wafted towards them.
Immediately, Flora pulled Robby back.
"Open the windows. We have a child as a workshop assistant present."
"Did you hear that sweetie, you just got promoted to workshop assistant."
"May I douse the fire?" Robby asked enthusiastically.
Al needed a second to understand what Robby meant, but then connected the dots and chuckled. The little guy thought that the conference room was burning down because of all the smoke.
"Of course, you may. Come on. We fill up a bucket of water in the kitchen." Ali held out his hand and glanced at Flora. She nodded at him.
"I'll stay here and prepare the presentation." She entered the room confidently.
For a moment, Ali doubted that he should leave her alone, facing the mob that he called his employees on good days. But then he remembered that she was a woman who wasn't fazed when someone baptized her with orange juice shortly before a customer meeting.
They filled half a bucket with water, and Robby carried it proudly back. He had to exert himself, but his small face scrunched with determination to see it through.
When they entered the room, Flora was verbally ripping apart a picture of three naked men having sex with the title, "We don't need no education!".
Without interrupting her scathing review, she ALT+TABed the picture away when she saw Robby approaching.
"To summit up: the rule of three in conjunction with the golden ratio would elevate the design to a professional level." She concluded her lecture.
Her audience stared at her with remarkably wide eyes if you consider the amount of weed they had to have consumed to produce the thick clouds. Now all the windows were opened, and the air was clear with only a bit of smell lingering behind.
Ali smirked. He thought the lady had them under control until he noticed the chair glued to the back of her skirt when she stood up.
The skaters giggled, and someone clapped RollwithRock on the back.
"I see you wanted to introduce me to a new invention, the inbuilt chair," Flora stated while striding along the stage. "Not bad. You can sit down comfortably everywhere you go. Now, who can help me find my real presentation? Maybe the gentleman with the pink hair?"
Smirking, RollwithRock walked to the desk. Considering the child, he didn't pull up the other spoofed powerpoints but the real one.
Meanwhile, Flora arranged a pillow, some books, and action figures in the corner of the room for Robby.
When RollwithRock wanted to go back to his seat, Flora turned around fast. The chair crashed against the shins of the pink-haired man. He groaned and rubbed the hurting area.
"A drawback of huge accessories is their unwieldiness," Flora stated calmly and swang her hips again. This time she hit the bullseye, and RollwithRock went down crying.
The whole room took in a collective breath. "You never know what you will destroy by casually moving."
Ali was equally horrified and, at the same time, filled with admiration. He pointed at the midsection of RollwithRock. "Just empty the bucket there, Robby. He needs all the cooling he can get."
Dutifully, Robby walked over.
"Put some water in his face as well, sweetie. It is red colored. That can't be healthy." Flora added. While Robby watered the sobbing guy, Flora stepped out of her skirt.
With her head held high, she stood just in blue tights with pink knickers shining through them and her orange juice strained pink top in front of the mostly male crowd of tweens.
"Scissors or a knife and a stapler, please." She commanded.
When RollwithRock heard the word knife, he crawled with unprecedented speed back to his seat.
A few moments later, Flora had cut free her skirt and stapled the resulting hole close. With a few more tactical placed incisions and masterful stapling, she transformed the boring dress into a piece of art.
The rest of the workshop was a success. The Huffgrin employees didn't hang on her lips because they were busy watching Robby simulate fights with his Ninja Turtles. Still, Ali had the impression that everyone profited immensely from the lecture.
Even RollwithRock rated the workshop positive. "If I could have watched someone play with Ninja Turtles during class, I wouldn't have quit High School!"
After everyone went home, Ali Hawks crafted two skateboards. One with Ninja Turtles for the adorable child and one with the granny's knickers pattern Flora used during the presentation for her. He sent it to her together with a voucher for a new skirt.
Ali put the lady firmly in the two highest categories of his internal rating system: People who can get the impossible done and people you don't ever want to piss off.