OOM

[obligatoryass]

Logan checked the door one last time, just to make sure it would continue to open to Neptune. How embarrassing would it be if it didn't open? Or worse, opened somewhere boring, like Indiana.

Fortunately, the Neptune Grand is right on the other side, and he leaves the door open a crack, just in case Bar should decide to play a cruel, cruel trick on them both. But it seems the trip is likely to go off as planned.

He turns as he hears a knock on the door and goes to answer it.

Comments

[obligatoryass]

Logan grins. "I thought that might be the case. I'm thinking a boat ride, how's that? Or we could go down to the beach and people watch, which is always entertaining. There are crazier places in California, but Neptune's got its own version of weird."

[kitchen_maid]

"Sounds good."

A pause.

"Own version of weird?"

[obligatoryass]

"Strange, odd, unusual," Logan explicates. "Mostly not terrible - you get more weirdos at say, Venice Beach, which is where the crazy tattooed and pierced people hang out. But there are a few oddballs in strange clothes and weird hair who sit on the beach in full Goth regalia for unknown reasons."

An idea strikes. "If you really want to see the American Teenager in action, though, one must go to the mall."

[kitchen_maid]

Amy blinks again, and then starts to laugh.

"You lost me after 'unusual,' she says, being from a world without weirdos, tattooes, piercings, oddballs, Goths (other than the Visi variety), and malls. "But whatever you think is best is fine with me."

[obligatoryass]

"Sorry," Logan says, abashed. "I think mall first, then boating and dinner. A mall is for shopping, kind of like a marketplace only...cleaner."

Logan hasn't had much experiences with marketplaces that aren't in third world countries.

[kitchen_maid]

The marketplace in Phanff is spotless (it would likely remind Logan of Disneyland), so this has Amy a little perplexed, but she merely nods, assuming it will make more sense when she sees it.

"I may ask rather a lot of questions," she warns.

[obligatoryass]

Ah, fairy tale kingdoms. No dirt or disease.

"That's fine," he says, leading her down the stairs. "I answer pretty well. Oh, and do you remember seeing cars last time you were here? They're big metal things, like carriages, without horses. That's how we're going to get to the mall."

[kitchen_maid]

"Yes, I remember," she says. "They're --"

But the sight of the Xterra brings her up rather short, and she stares at it for a long, long moment.

In addition to no dirt or disease, she's from a world with no synthetic colors.

"-- very bright," she finishes. "Does that color have a name?"

[obligatoryass]

"Yellow?" Logan offers. "I mean, what would you call it?"

'Fugly' is not an option. Logan will cry.

[kitchen_maid]

Amy stares at it, tilting her head as if viewing it sideways will make it make sense.

"Well, I suppose it's just . . . yellower than I'm used to yellow being," she says, finally.

She thinks she's call it YELLOW.

[obligatoryass]

Logan shrugs. "Maybe," he says. "It's pretty violently yellow, isn't it?"

He sounds proud of the obnoxiousness of it. Unlocking the doors and climbing in, he calls, "It's open."

[kitchen_maid]

It takes Amy a moment to figure it all out, as the door is not exactly like what one might find on a carriage.

Also, she doesn't often open her own carriage doors, anyway.

She sits with her hands carefully in her lap, somewhat afraid to touch anything.

[obligatoryass]

"I recommend the seatbelt," he says, demonstrating his own. "These things go fast, and if we get in an accident it'll keep you from flying out the window. Which would be an unforgivable incident."

[kitchen_maid]

"Is . . . is flying through the window likely to happen?" she asks, trying to figure out the buckle on the seatbelt.

[obligatoryass]

"No," Logan says. "It's never happened to me, anyway, and I've been riding in these things for years."

The fender-bender when he was 16 is probably not worth talking about. No one was hurt - anyway, no one in his car was hurt.

He reaches over and clicks the buckle. "There, now you are entirely unlikely to fly through the window."

Logan turns on the car and pulls onto the street.

[kitchen_maid]

Amy's eyes widen slightly.

"It's . . . interesting," she says.

Where interesting equals mildly unsettling and vaguely terrifying.

[obligatoryass]

"We won't be in the car long," Logan promises.

He's not exactly an unaggressive driver. That probably doesn't help Amy's vague terror.

Fortunately, he told the truth - the mall was not far away.

It's large. Concrete and glass. And called, of course, The Galleria.

[kitchen_maid]

Oh, of course.

It is the stangest building Amy has ever seen.

She's overused the word interesting, however, so she's having trouble thinking of something to say.

"This is a marketplace?" she settles for, finally. "It's all . . . covered up."

[obligatoryass]

"Yeah," Logan says. "Americans are big on controlling their environments. Inside, stuff's a little more mercantile."

He climbs out of the XTerra and walks to Amy's side of the car. Luckily, he found rock star parking so they don't have to dodge too much traffic. "Coming here is like, a hobby for some people my age. They just hang out and goof off, without even buying stuff. It's a time-honored tradition."

Well, sort of. If '30 years or so' equals time-honored.

[kitchen_maid]

Amy nods, stays close to Logan, and makes it across the street.

"And are you one of those people?" she starts to ask, but then they're inside, and the whole thing is rather overwhelming.

[obligatoryass]

"No," he says, answering her question. "At least, not usually. Sometimes my buddy Dick likes to come and hit on middle schoolers."

He kind of hope she doesn't understand that, or that she thinks it's a joke.

It's not.

[kitchen_maid]

Well, she understood everything except "hit on" and "middle schoolers."

"Oh," she says. "Is it always this . . . actually, Logan, I don't think I have adjectives for this."

[obligatoryass]

"Pretty much," he says, wondering if possibly he'd miscalculated. Logan is so mall-accliated that he never would have thought it possibly scary.

"We can go, if you want," he says earnestly.

[kitchen_maid]

Amy shakes her head. "No, it's fine, it's just . . . it's fascinating. I'm just not sure where to look first."

[obligatoryass]

Logan nods. "Okay, well, down there is the food court. You can get greasy versions of all kinds of food from my word. And the people are involved in all kinds of fun social interactions - those two, over there? On a date. He's interested, she's totally not."

The two in question are a pair of high school kids, probably freshmen. The boy is talking animatedly and the girl is picking at her salad and staring around the mall as if searching for a friend to save her.