The line of zoo animals crept along on tiptoes, one by one, hugging the shadows behind the cages.
Dead ant, dead ant, dead ant, deeaad ant… Dead ant!
The panda turned to the panther and signed, [what’s with the background music around here?]
The unlikely-coloured panther just shrugged. The bewildered animals looked at each other, then resumed their stealthy tiptoeing in time to the odd music.
A cage door opened with a slam. “Hi guys! What’s happening!?”
The animals cringed, turned around and unanimously shushed the newly arrived cat.
[We’re escaping,] the Panda signed and flipped, [are you with us?]
“Okay, I guess,” the cat shrugged. Then he pronounced boldly, “it never hurts to help!”
The animals shushed him again, then the panda signed to the coyote, [are you sure this will work?]
The coyote signed back, [trust me. I am a genius!] and pulled out a graduation diploma, and doffed a square hat, to demonstrate that fact.
“So what’s the plan, guys?” the little fat cat asked eagerly.
The animals cringed, and shushed again. The genius coyote then produced an easel with the game plan, tapping it with a pointy stick to highlight the details of plan A (the catapult), plan B (the slingshot), plan C (dynamite propelled rocket skates), plan D (giant springs), plan E…
“Meh!” pronounced the gray hare. “I still say we should go with my plan.”
[Trust me,] the panda signed, [crossdressing never helps.]
The bloodhound turned to the forth wall and monotoned, “you know what folks? This isn’t going to end very well, is it?”
“Maps as we knew them are quite useless now, Goshujin-sama,” Maid Ami explained, while browsing through the library. “Inside an Anchor, the landscape is held stable only by an Anchor person’s Will, and can change at her whimsy.”
“Outside is much worse; outside all is in Flux. Anchors seem to float in the Flux like bubbles in wine. Some are small, some large, most growing or shrinking, some are isolated, others clustered, all drifting, often changing. There might be some sense to it, but hasn’t been all that long since the collapse and hardly anyone wants to explore except a few craz— uhm, that is, – hardy souls. The Flux is very dangerous after all, and only those with mage talent can survive unchanged, let alone navigate.”
“So how do they navigate without maps?” Ranma asked, while balancing a book on his nose.
“Well occassionally a wizard might expend the effort to forge a road from one anchor to another to send emissaries through,” Ami stated, “but most travelers have to use quantum connections in the Flux stretched from one anchor to the next by explorers.”
While balancing a book on his book, Ranma had to ask, “so, what you think you’ve just explained is…?”
“They use intangible magic strings,” Ami simplified.
“Right, gotcha,” Ranma pronounced. “That makes sense.”
“Hmm…” Ami mused, wondering if he was sarcastic or not, and being slightly distracted by how he ballanced the column of books on his nose. “So anyway, Goshujin-sama, what maps we do have are digraphs. …Points connected by lines representing known anchors and the strings between them… It’s very simple, but it’s all it can be. There’s no landmarks, because there’s no land to mark. There’s no ground under foot, just a vague sensation of a surface to walk on. Wander from the string and you easily become lost in Flux. Light and sound don’t carry that far, and nobody seems to be able to make a radio work outside of an anchor.”
“The Flux is a dark and lonely place,” Ranma nodded sagely, and the books fell into a neat pile.
“Quite,” Ami agreed, while reshelving the books. “From what I’ve read, it’s eerie stuff alright.”
Twirling a pencil between his fingers, Ranma asked, “and you want us to go off into the wild red yonder… because?”
Ami pursed her lips. “Well…”
“Ranma Goshujin-sama!” Maid Minako interupted from the library door, “I’m sorry to interupt, but Nodoka-obasama wishes to remind you that it’s time to feed your pets and to take them to bed.”
“I think you mean ‘put them to bed,’ Minako-chan,” Ami sighed.
“I wish,” huffed Minako darkly and turned to leave.
“Right,” decided Ranma quickly, and asked Maid Ami “so when do we leave?”
The little black duck ran around wildly, whooping and hooting, and clutching his smoking bottom until the bloodhound produced a bucket of water for him to sit in. “Ahhhh…”
[Right,] signed the badly singed and heavily bandaged panda. [Moving on to plan P.]
The coyote shaped full body cast signed back, [plan P: The wolf huffs and puffs and blows the wall down.] He sighed and flipped the sign around. [(How very scientific.)]
“That’s it! I’ve had enough of this crap!” announced one of the three pigs, then charged the wall to deliver a karate chop. “Hiiiiiiiii… Ya!”
[Now, why didn’t I think of that?] signed the panda.
[You did,] signed back the coyote. [Plan H: panda uses coyote as battering ram, remember?]
[Ah, yes.]
“She’s sttrroonger than the aaverrage pig!” pronounced the bear as the animals hurried through the pig shapped hole in the wall.
The kangaroo sprang over it and hopped after them.
“So what’s the plan?” Minako asked when they were alone in the maids’ quarters of Ranma’s wing (which was so conveniently placed next to his appartment). “How are we getting away when we leave?”
“Why should we leave?” asked a bewildered Setsuna as she folded the bed linnens with maidlike precision. She bounced a coin off the matress, snatched it out of the air, and nodded in satisfaction. “Everything is just perfect here.”
She looked at the coin and blinked. It was a twenty Ranma piece.
Minako opened her mouth to form some sort of protesting reply, when the door burst open in sudden interuption, letting in an excited little Hotaru. Hurrying to her bunk she yelled, “pack your bags! Ranma is taking us out on a three hour tour.”
“Taking us where?” Setsuna wondered.
“Out into the Flux on the Minnow,” Hotaru hyperventilated as she proceeded to follow her own advice. “It’s going to be lots of fun. We’ll play at sailing and practice our flux powers and maybe dream up a little deserted isle do a little fishing and have a picnic lunch and …”
“The Minnow?” echoed Minako.
“His fluxship,” Hotaru explained. “You know that!”
“Right … no, I don’t.”
“This is most ominous,” said Sestuna.
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(Posted Fri, 05 Dec 2008 10:07)
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らんま1/2 © Rumiko Takahashi
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