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Forum Name: Undocumented Features General
Topic ID: 2378
Message ID: 0
#0, The Parts Drawer: CSINA episode 6
Posted by Gryphon on Jul-31-19 at 05:24 PM
Years back, we (IIRC mostly Geoff and I, specifically) started a sixth episode of CSI: New Avalon that would have begun immediately after the end of the fifth. Between one thing and another, it didn't get finished, and the A-plot has since been overtaken by events, so it's unlikely now that it ever will be; but something reminded me of it, and I reread the unfinished draft earlier. There are a couple of scenelets that still fit into the timeline, and which I'd be sad to lose.

This one takes place on the afternoon of the same day that episode 5 ended, when various people taken to the edge of exhaustion by the Great New Avalon Crime Wave of the previous day are finally starting to think about possibly becoming functional lifeforms again.

Kara Zor-El was getting herself something to eat, having concluded that she'd be on her own for dinner, when someone came downstairs and into the kitchen. That someone wasn't the (ostensible) master of the house, Kara's foster father - the man known to his driver's license as Benjamin Hutchins but almost universally otherwise as Gryphon—but that neither distressed nor particularly surprised Kara. The someone it was instead was a familiar visitor in her own right.

"Hi, Sara," said Kara cheerfully. "Have you been here all day?"

Sara Sidle ran her hands back through her dark hair, presenting the aspect of someone who isn't quite 100% awake yet, and nodded. "Uh- huh," she said. "And don't go giving me that look, either," she added, giving the Kryptonian teenager a reasonable attempt at a stern look. "The hound and I were in the guest room."

"What look?" Kara replied innocently. "I wasn't giving you any look." She turned, opened the refrigerator, and started delving within it, remarking back over her shoulder as she did so, "Besides, I'm fine either way." Turning back, she shouldered the fridge shut and offered Sara a bottle of root beer, adding with a grin as she did so, "I signed off on you months ago."

Sara snorted and thumbed the top off the bottle. "I'm so relieved," she said dryly. Then, sniffing the air, she went on, "Is that chili? I'm starving. I haven't eaten since... " She paused to consider this. "... I think I had a hot dog at the Crescent? But that would've been about 2:30 this morning."

"Whurf!" added the tan and white dog at her feet.

"Almost six o'clock," she added with a fond smile. "Beagle-feeding time too."

"Well, let's see what we... yeah, there's another pack of chili in the freezer," said Kara without opening it. "You want it? Supposed to be Pop's, but if he's going to stay in bed all day..."

"Seriously," Sara agreed, rolling her eyes. "You'd think he processed a dozen crime scenes yesterday."


Gryphon finally dragged himself out of bed an hour later, got dressed, and went downstairs to find the living room full of colored light, thunderous beats, and explosions. Kara and Sara sat side by side on the couch, hunched forward in near-identical postures of concentration, playing a Z-Mover game that was a particular favorite of Kara's (but of which Gryphon, in what he took to be one of the many official signs that he was getting old, could make neither head nor tail). It reminded him a little of Tempest, only without the webs and with considerably more psychotic pacing (something he would not previously have thought possible), and it had a long, convoluted name he could never remember, except that each word in it began with E.

And, he was reasonably sure, it was never designed to be played by Kryptonians or people with super-speed. Walking into the living room when Kara was playing the game with Sara or Wally West was a little like finding oneself unexpectedly dropped into hyperspace, albeit without the "instant death" part.

For his part, Wolfgang (Beagle of the Lens) seemed to find the experience hypnotic. He lay on the rug in the center of the room, head on paws, nose pointed straight at the holovision set. Only occasional twitches of his ears or tail hinted at whatever went on inside his head while being subjected to the sensory onslaught.

Kara noticed Gryphon's entrance and thumbed the "pause" button, causing the frantic action to stop abruptly. So all-encompassing was the game when it was running that its sudden halt gave the momentary, disconcerting illusion that time itself had hit a bump. Wolfgang actually raised his head and gave a stifled bark of confusion at the interruption of the cosmic fugue.

"Well!" she said, mock-annoyed. "I was starting to wonder if you were ever going to get up."

"Sorry," Gryphon replied, rubbing his face. "Long couple of days. How are you?"

"Oh, just fine," Kara said.

"We ate your chili," Sara informed him.

"You snooze, you lose," Kara confirmed.

(The game Kara and Sara are playing is an amped-up 25th-century descendent of Every Extend Extra Extreme.)

--G.
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