Fiction: Daisy and Dhahka Kaan!

 I didn't have a lot else today, so I decided to trot out a bit more of the salvage job that is the adventure of Percy the Robot Cop. Here's a very early demo I had already rewritten to death, also with some extra detail for the city settings (see the retro future buildings posts). I wrote it up mostly as an introduction for Daisy and the fairly obvious villain. So, here goes...

We approach a city. From above, it does not appear large, about 36 kilometers in span, plus another dozen kilometers in any direction of cropland, airfields, reservoirs, and a couple larger clusters of outlying development. But it quickly becomes apparent that what it lacks in size, it more than makes up for in density and perfect planning. The gridwork is so perfectly laid that the main city forms a perfect circle, with several concentric rings inside. It is subdivided by two dozen surface roads radiating from the city center, and an array of elevated roads whose ellipses and parabola give the whole the appearance of a lidded eye.

Now look just to the north of the city's center, to a great building. It towers almost a kilometer in the air, still only eight times its total span. Its form is crystalline, laid out as a cruciform core filled out into something like a diamond with its corners shaved off. In place of each corner are four square secondary spires, adjoining the main structure like buttresses, and between each of them is a separate building. Footbridges span the space to the central building, and more extend to lesser structures in all directions.  And if you look through a window, you may see a man…

 

Westley worked in Data Analysis, and he would have been at a loss to explain more than that. Every day, he went to an office full of tiny cubicles in the same towering complex where he worked, and tried to decipher or at least organize whatever data they put in front of him. There was no assigned seating, but he usually ended up next to Janxi and two down and kitty corner to Daisy. Daisy was tall and brunette, Janxi was an oviraptorasaurid with a boxy head and a mouth like a boomerang. Usually, he talked to Janxi and watched Daisy. But today was different… He looked at Daisy, and looked away when she looked back. She smiled, and he covered by smiling back.

“…I said,” Janxi said in his nasal but perfectly inflected voice, “do you think he’s really coming?”

“Who… him?” Westley covered rapidly.  “I don’t know. What’s the big deal, anyway?”

Janxi made a honking noise. “No big deal, only the owner of one-tenth stake in the City Administration! And a fifth of the South Arc! And his own building! No big deal! Only Dhahka Kaan!” He began to whistle in anxiety.

“There’s lots of people worth more than the lot of us put together,” Westley said. “We’re bound to run into one of them sooner or later…” And already, he looked at Daisy. She was humming something…

He had been working with Daisy close to a year. If he had been pressed, he would have counted her as a close friend, at least on his own part. He knew her real name was Diellza Mladic, from a language called Siptarese. He was also sure she was rich, or from a rich family, because he knew she lived in a residential floor only 20 stories down from the 140^th-floor office where they worked. If it came to that, he knew there was another explanation, but he didn’t, couldn’t believe it…

It seemed the next moment when Janxi hissed. Zebrowski was approaching, a manager whose height and slender build were his only distinction, and another figure was with him, a meter and a half tall, stout and seemingly headless. There was a rhythmic thudding, and an odd clicking. Westley fixed his eyes on the spreadsheet. In the corner of his eye, he saw the pouch in Janxi’s throat flutter rapidly. The thudding and the clicking grew nearer, and it became apparent that the thudding was the sound of a heavy walking stick, while the clicking was very much like the sound Janxi was making as his clawed fingers tapped the desk. Finally, he turned his head.

His first impression was of a solid mass of black wrapped in an operatic scarlet cape, with two amber points of light deep within. Then the cape parted and a long neck extended, revealing the folded wings and nearly bald head of an enormous bird. “Westlake Powell,” it said crisply.  It shifted its weight, producing a clopping sound with the walking stick clasped in its left wing. “I read your analysis of the demographics of the stacks. You do good work. Mr. Zebrowski agrees. I look forward to seeing more of your reports.”

“Thank you, sir,” he said.

The bird clacked its beak in reciprocal gratitude. “Ms. Mladic, and Janxia Tulatan, your work is also excellent, of course. All three of you are among our best performers, and possibly even better as a team,” he said. He then addressed the office. “I was just explaining to your supervisors, we are expanding our offices in the South Arc. Anyone applying for a transfer can expect due consideration. Further accommodations will be made for those with domestic partners. If any of you are interested, we will consider your applications.”

With that, the creature moved on. Westley caught a vivid parting glimpse of a clawed foot that could surely have torn him open like an envelope, clad in a white spat with a ruby button. He turned to Janxi, whose mouth gaped as wide as his limited gape would allow. Beyond him he saw Daisy, whose eyes were wide. 

“See?” he said. “One of the big shots stops by, and all he bothers to do is say a meaningless pleasantry.”

“That wasn’t meaningless,” Janxi said. “He wants recruits for his office. He wants you!”

“No,” Wes said, shaking his head. “It wouldn’t…”

“He wants all of us,” Daisy said. “That includes you.

“No, they want you,” Janxi said. “They think you’ll say yes as long as they put her in the bargain!”

Daisy looked at him coldly. “What are you talking about?” she said.

Janxi shook his head. “Look, it’s no business of mine what happens between the two of you,” he said. “I just don’t understand why you haven’t sorted things out like civilized…” He punched a button for a break and waddled off.

Wes looked at Daisy, visibly flustered. “I’m really sorry about that,” he said. “I don’t…”

That was when Daisy smiled again, the way that always made him nervous. “Oh, don’t be,” she said. “We just don’t want loose talk, do we?”

A few awkward moments passed. Finally, Daisy looked up again. “You know,” she said, “I do have a housing credit from Domestic Services. It would go up, if I had a partner.”

“Yeah… I figured you had something,” Wes said, shifting uneasily. “I have a credit, too, except it’s more like… therapy.”

“Really,” Daisy said. “So anyway, I was thinking, maybe we could pool our… credits.”

“Yeah,” Wes said. “It’s something to think about. We could talk about it. After work.”

“Sure,” Daisy said. “Or we could take a break and go to the Therapy Room. You know, with your credit.” As she spoke, she laughed. And as she went back to work, he could hear her sing softly, “Today’s the Daisy…”