Chapter Thirty-Nine - RacerGirl

“Uh?” Diana said. She looked around the interior of... a cafe? A weird one, with wood and stuff all over. It looked like a place that was decorated to look like it was around a long time ago.

She jumped up and down on the spot a few times.

More or less Earth-normal gravity, she judged. No connections on any of her augs either.

“Are you okay?” There was a young--human?--woman by some counters up a little set of stairs.

“Yeah, give me a minute?”

“Sure?” the woman said.

Diana tried to connect with ChaOS, but that gave her a lot of nothing. “Hey, which planet am I on?”

“Oh, you’re not from this dimension,” the waitress said.

Diana blinked. “Wow, I must have been going really fast there. I’ve never dimension travelled before. Sorry, if I’m a bit lost.”

“It’s fine,” the woman said. “You’ll probably make it back to your own dimension just fine once you’re done here. That’s how it works out.”

“Here!”

Diana blinked. She hadn’t noticed the little girl sitting in one corner of the cafe until the girl slid off her chair and pattered over on bare feet. She lifted something up for Diana to take, a piece of... paper (really, paper?) pinched between little chubby fingers.

“Thanks,” Diana said as she took the paper. It was a pamphlet, folded carefully and with a colourful crayon drawing on the front of a stick figure falling into a portal, their head surrounded by moving questions marks. So You’re In Another Dimension: Now What? A guide by Pam.

Diana flicked it open, eyebrows rising as she took in the simple instructions. They were mostly about breathing carefully, letting go of stress, not thinking too much about it, and there were some instructions about things not to do when in another world.

“Who’s Abigail, and why shouldn’t I ask her for any sort of physical affection?” Diana asked.

The waitress sighed. “I’m Abigail, and that’s just Dreamer and Pam being jealous.”

“Okay,” Diana said. She held the pamphlet for a moment, then with a shrug, tucked it away in a pocket on the side of her jumpsuit. The pocket sized itself to fit the pamphlet just right. “Well, this is interesting. I kind of expected any place I dimension-hopped to to be more... high tech, you know? Are those gas lanterns?”

“They are?” the waitress said, or asked, she didn’t seem entirely certain about the question.

“Wild,” Diana said. “Yeah, if you accept Federation board credits, Core Bones, or like, gold, I’ll have whatever you can fab.”

The waitress grabbed a menu from next to the cash register (which Diana only recognized from some classic video games) and handed it over. “Pick whatever you want. We’re usually pretty generous with whatever currency a dimensional traveller has.”

“That’s neat,” Diana said. “Huh, the menu cover is made of paper too. How many trees died to make this place?”

“I don’t know?” Abigail asked.

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

“Bet some ecologist sorts would be freaking out right about now. Don’t really care that much myself,” Diana said. She tapped a few items on the menu, only taking a split second to figure it out. “That’s what I’ll have.”

“Oh, uh, I’ll deliver it to your seat,” Abigail said. “Sit wherever.”

“Thanks!” Diana said. She glanced over to the girl--Pam?--who had given her the bit of advertising and found her sitting in the corner again, head bobbing left and right as she drew something. “So, what’re you doing?” Diana asked.

“I’m making a pamphlet to replace the one I gave you,” Pam said.

“Oh, did you want it back?”

“No,” Pam said.

“Alrighty then,” Diana said. “You make all the pamphlets here?”

“That’s what I’m for,” Pam said.

“Neat. You know, I’m somewhat familiar with advertising myself,” Diana said. “Mostly when it comes to racing-related stuff, and sponsorship deals, but its all linked.”

“Advertising?” Pam asked. “I’m making pamphlets.”

Diana nodded. “Aren’t pamphlets a form of advertising, though? Like, what’s the purpose of a pamphlet?”

“I ask myself that every day,” the girl said in a tone that didn’t fit her age at all.

“Uh,” Diana said. “Well, that was somewhat rhetorical. I mostly meant to say that the goal is to tell people something, right? It’s like a glimpse of information on a subject. Not the whole story, but enough to tell people what they need to know and why they might want to learn more.”

“Yes,” Pam said. “Pamphlets have great limitations. It’s part of their form. They tell you only a little bit of stuff. It’s hard to fit all the things I want to say in them sometimes, but I think that that’s the way a lot of things in life are.”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s shorter than you want it to be, and you can only fit so much into it,” Pam said. She didn’t look up from the pamphlet she was colouring in as she spoke. “You can put some big things in, but then you won’t have space for as many smaller things. And if it’s all smaller things, then it’s all... weird and broken up. You need to be real clever, pick the right words, and know how to say the big things the right way so that they all fit.”

“I feel like this has somehow turned into a weird analogy for something,” Diana said. “Uh, I’m just a simple person, you know. I’m not fit for introspection or anything like that.”

Pam glanced up at her. “Maybe you’re not,” she said. “But maybe that doesn’t matter. The folds on a pamphlet don’t know that they’re folds, but they’re still there.”

“I genuinely don’t know what that’s supposed to mean, but it sounded real deep.”

Abigail appeared over her shoulder, a tray in hand from which she grabbed and placed Diana’s order before her. “Pam’s like that. She means well though.”

Diana shrugged. “Hey, we all need a hobby.”

“Hobbies are one of the things that can either give you meaning, or becoming the meaning for why you are,” Pam said. “Mine’s pamphlets. What’s yours?”

Diana chuckled. “I guess... going fast.”

***