The first thing that crossed Paige Guthrie's mind when she regained consciousness was that that must have been some fight. Her head hadn't felt this way since the time she'd gone toe-to-toe with the Abomination. She opened her eyes gingerly, wondering where she was about to find herself. Based on the dull throbbing in her back and shoulders, she wouldn't have been that surprised to find herself buried under a collapsed building.

Instead, it took her a few moments to realize that she was in bed. Not her own bed, that much was immediately apparent - she didn't own silk bedclothes, nor indeed any bedclothes that involved vivid black and white stripes. Now more confused than ever, Paige extracted herself (with some difficulty) from the tangle of sheet and coverlet she'd managed to wind herself into in her sleep, thrust the untangled covers aside, and sat carefully up. Her head swam for a moment, then stabilized, and she looked around herself with ever-deepening puzzlement.

The room, like the bed, was completely unfamiliar to her. It was huge, perhaps the size of a tennis court, with a high ceiling (down from which filtered a dim grey light) and slightly slanted walls leaning in toward the gigantic bed in the center (the thing had to be 10 feet square). Three of the walls were black and glossy, the distinctive sheen of blacked-out varicrys windows. The fourth was white and pierced by a gleaming alloy double door. The whole effect had something of the feel of a starship stateroom, except on a ludicrous scale. No starship designer would ever have wasted so much volume on a single bedroom unless the ship in question was a caliph's pleasure barge or something.

Paige went to the double door and hesitantly opened it. Beyond lay a sort of sitting room, fitted with a couple of plus white sofas and a corner desk. Out here was another double door at the far end, and a single door on either side. A little investigation disclosed that both of those doors led to bathrooms easily as palatial as the bedroom she'd just left, in the same sleek, supermodern style.

As she slowly regained more and more of her wits, Paige realized that the whole apartment had the very distinct air of a scene of recent mayhem. Articles of clothing hung haphazardly over the backs of the sofas, on the desk and its chair, and from various projecting surfaces and corners. The table in the middle of the sitting room was littered with an empty large pizza box and the remains of a cheese-and-crackers platter. And there were green glass bottles everywhere.

Flash: The sharp, festive pop! of a champagne cork.

Paige blinked, then bent and picked up the nearest of the bottles, examining its label.

"Dom Pérignon 2393," she murmured. Putting the empty bottle down, she went into one of the bathrooms and regarded herself for a moment in the floor-to-ceiling mirror behind the shining chrome pedestal sink. She looked better than she felt, apart from her wildly disordered hair. She found some ibuprofen, washed it down with a glass of water, splashed some more water on her face, combed her hair as best she could with her fingers, and then went back out into the sitting room to try and find her clothes among those scattered around the room.

Flash: Buttoning on a baseball jersey with the price tag still hanging from one sleeve.

There was such a jersey hanging on the back of the desk chair. Picking it up, Paige found that it was indeed her size. Number 24 - JOHNSON. She put it on and went back to the main room.

More empties... more clothes. Far more than could have come off one person. Was that a kilt?

She took a few moments to work out the room controls built into one of the bedside stands, then reduced the blackout on the far wall by 30 percent. Paige recoiled as even that modest change brought bright sunlight streaming into the room. Shielding her face, she walked hesitantly toward the window; then, as her eyes adjusted, she lowered her hand and looked out upon a scene she didn't recognize at all.

Far below, a neatly geometric pattern of red-brick streets and tidy ornamental gardens stretched off to a sunny horizon. It was a brilliantly sunny day without a cloud in the sky. Paige couldn't make out what anything down below was from up here, but the scene was entirely too green and low-rise to be any urban area she knew of, and it was definitely not New Avalon...

... wait a second.

She could make out one structure down below. Standing in the midst of the gardens and brick lanes, one building stood boldly into the azure sky, the sunlight glinting from its white stonework and the rich blue tiles of its wildly, cheerfully irregular roofline.

Flash: That same structure at night, seen from ground level and much nearer. A huge, architecturally improbable fairytale castle, powerfully floodlit from below. The flash and crackle and rich gunpowder scent of fireworks filling the night-black sky above.

Flash: The grinning face and sparkling, slightly unfocused eyes of her roommate, Jubilation Lee, as she holds up a full champagne flute and declares, "You're fallin' behind, Hayseed!"

Paige turned and went back to the bed. Sure enough, there - on the opposite side from where she had found herself on waking - was Jubilee, burrowed into her side of the covers with just the jagged crest of her dark hair showing. Suddenly and nonspecifically indignant, Paige pulled away the covers and shook her roommate's shoulder.

"Jubilee," she hissed. "Jubilee, wake up."

"hnngh," Jubilee replied, one hand fitfully grabbing for the coverlet again. "f'koff."

"Wake up," Paige repeated, a little louder.

"champagne's not korbel," Jubilee mumbled.

Paige put a hand to her forehead, closed her eyes, and said, "Jubilee, if you don't wake up and explain to me right now where the hell we are and why - let alone HOW - we managed to drink 34 bottles of champagne, there is going to be real trouble in here."

Jubilee opened one eye and regarded her blonde roommate blearily for a moment, then rolled slowly onto her back, sat up, rubbed at her face with both hands, and said, "... Thirty-four?"

Paige folded her arms and nodded. "Thirty-four."

Jubilee stretched, causing her back and neck to make satisfying-sounding cracking noises, then shook her head and muttered, "Damn... we got ripped off. There were supposed to be 36."

"I hate you so much," said Paige.

"Wait, you mean you don't remember? Anything?" Jubilee got reluctantly out of bed and made for one of the bathrooms. "Damn, girl," she remarked from the doorway. "I mean, A, I thought you were invulnerable, and B, you had the best time of any of us. That just doesn't seem fair."

Paige sighed her I'm-being-patient sigh. "Still waiting."

For several seconds, there was no answer but the sound of running water. At length, returning from the bathroom, Jubilee discovered a Stark Industries T-shirt over the back of one of the sofas. It was much too large for her, but she put it on anyway, then returned to the bedroom and said, "OK, well, last night was Game 5 of the World Series, right?"

Flash: Knights Field. Floodlights and crisp autumn evening air; Paige can see her breath and Jubilee's as they cheer for the Big Train.

"The Knights won, so we went out to celebrate," Jubilee went on.

Flash: Chucking-out time at McLeary's on 12th. Jubilee remarking, "Oh, come on, we're not done yet, are we?"

"One thing led to another, and, well... " She gestured. "Here we are."

"Where?" Paige demanded.

"The presidential suite of the Ultramoderne," Jubilee replied offhandedly.

Paige blinked. "... On Disney's World?!"

"Yep."

"How can we possibly afford that?"

"Eh, we know people," Jubilee replied. Crossing to the bed, she climbed back onto it, kneewalked across to the heap of covers in the middle, and draped herself casually across it. Then, to Paige's infinite surprise, she flicked back the edge of the coverlet to reveal that what she was leaning was not just a mound of bedding; it was, in fact, a third person whose presence Paige had not suspected. "Right, Chief?"

Without really waking, Gryphon replied, "hmn," and replaced the coverlet over his face.

"Aaaahh!" Paige cried, recoiling in dismay.

"What?" Jubilee asked.

"What's he doing here?!" Paige demanded.

Jubilee regarded the Chief's mostly-concealed profile for a moment, then replied dryly, "I believe the Earth phrase is 'sleeping it off'." Then, yawning, she doubled up a fold of the vast bedspread over herself and settled down against his back, as if he were a windbreak. "Which I gotta say is not a bad plan."

"I - you - we - ... " Standing next to the bed, Paige sputtered for a moment, then put her face in her hand.

Flash: Flushed and laughing, already well-lubricated, walking down Main Street UFP after the fireworks. Gryphon grinning like he won the World Series himself, Paige on one arm, Jubilee on the other. They pause, laughing so hard at something that they have to lean together in a sort of human tripod to keep from falling down. In that moment, they get their photo taken by one of the park's official photographers, with the castle as a backdrop and Goofy photobombing behind them. "Thanks, Chief!" says the photographer. "This'll be great for the website!"

"We're going to end up on the front page of the Post," Paige moaned. "Sam's going to kill me."

Jubilee hitched herself up on her elbow again and regarded her roommate. "For what? Having an awesome time? News flash: Sam is not a monk." Smirking a little, she added, "Ask him about the Kryptonian girl sometime." While Paige was taking that on board, she gestured to the other side of the enormous bed and went on, "Grab a corner and get some more sleep. You worry too much."

Paige hesitated, then sighed and, for lack of any better ideas, did as advised, pausing only to black out the window again.

"So... " she asked the darkened room after a few quiet moments.

"Yeah?" Jubilee replied.

"How much do you remember?"

She could hear the smirk as Jubilee answered, "Enough."

"Then do you know why my shoulders are so sore?"

"That is not our fault," said Jubilee. "We told you to leave the Cosmosphere where you found it, but noooo, you thought it would look better on the other side of the lagoon."

"... I'm sorry I asked."

"For what it's worth, you were totes right, though."

"Well, that's consoling," Paige grumbled.

Before Jubilee could say anything else, the double doors suddenly burst open with a great splintering crash and the room filled with light and submachinegun-toting men in pointed black hoods.

"Just as we were informed!" the red-hooded Q-boss in the lead declared. "Strike now, men, while he's vulnerable! Together, allegiance or death!"

"Big Fire!" the Black Hoods chorused.

The bed's three occupants sat up, blinked, and looked at each other in bemusement.

"OK, who invoked Chandler's Law?" Jubilee asked.

Then all three of them smiled conspiratorially, hurled aside the covers, and charged.

"Bottle Service" - a Future Imperfect mini-story by Benjamin D. Hutchins
title by Janice Collier
special to the Eyrie Productions Discussion Forum
© 2012 Eyrie Productions, Unlimited