D3RP & PR0XY (Early Preview №4)

Eventually making it to the restaurant, I saw Jayden’s VW off to the side and her and Rhys Morgan sitting at one of the picnic tables. Rhys had her cigarettes out and both had something to drink. The other picnic tables were mostly empty, save for someone on the other end of the patio using the place like a coffee shop.

“You know why we’re here, right?” Rhys Morgan said.

I looked the jackal in the face as she lit another cigarette before turning to Jayden, “You were right about sleep.”

“No, I know when I’ve screwed up,” she said, heading to her car, “I think I should just go.”

“Stay at Ruby’s house for a few days before doing anything big,” Rhys Morgan said, “Give you some time to cool off and think about this. You good to drive?”

“Y- yeah.”

As soon as the car was gone, Rhys Morgan pointed at me and flicked her finger to the table, “Now.”

“Let me guess,” I said, sitting down, “I was the asshole who did all the wrong shit and Jayden is a perfect little angel.”

“Not exactly,” she said, pulling back her brown hair as her dark, violet eyes met mine, “Honestly, if you did that to anyone else, I would’ve laughed my ass off.”

“Uh-huh,” I said, taking one of her cigarettes and lighter and inhaling the smoky flavor.

“Hey, I know about the Travis and Jolene situation,” she said, taking a drag from her own, “I knew before anyone else here did. Why do you think I’m so great at espionage?”

“Hm.”

“I talked things over with Jayden, but she still wants to move out of the park. That being said, she’ll stay with me and Mom for a few days to think about it, but I’m not expecting her to go anywhere. Her class, trips to Asia, everything she’s banked on for you. Oh, and getting you to go to bed after two-and-a-half days. Big achievement.”

“No grand speech about how I was wrong and she was right?”

“I’d probably have done the same thing, so no. Give her a few days, take her out to lunch, sort it out then,” she said, “Though, about Travis and Jolene, if my car didn’t feel like it would break on the interstates, I’d go over there and kick their asses myself.”

“Why do you still drive a ‘95 Yugo Florida?”

“Because I’m not paying $25 to get a new parking tag that I’ll use four times in a semester.”

“Makes sense,” I said, “Wanna head east in the Jetta?”

“Wait, really?”

“No smoking inside it.”

“Alright,” she said, “You good with stick?”

“Not the best, but I can manage.”

“How much printer paper do you have left?”

“I put the last ream in yesterday.”

“Alright,” she said, “We’ll take your car back to your house and I’ll go with you in mine to Walmart so you can get a feel. I’ll start packing tonight for the trip.”

“Sounds good!”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Rhys Morgan and Penelope/Tan Pingning are two very similar personalities. Thankfully, there's only one that has Penelope's mind, am I right? Still, here, we get a chance to see how most of the latter's big problems get solved, generally relying on the former's people skills (Unless Jayden isn't involved in the actual problem. Above is the exception, not the rule.). Here, we can see Rhys Morgan show Penelope how to resolve a problem that came up between her and Jayden the day prior, as Penelope's usual approach of "Brushing it off while you get out" isn't exactly appropriate (as Rhys Morgan hints at).

Most of the other solutions presented to Penelope involve her going and apologizing, basically, then-and-there, while Rhys Morgan (being the same personality, but going to parties) suggests maybe wait while things cool down, then go and talk it out. Put in a sentence, Penelope's conflict-resolution skills border that of an eight-year-old that's only been let out of a ten-by-ten-by-ten box fifteen months prior. They ain't great!

Rhys Morgan, on the other hand, knows not to go nuclear on one of the six people in the world who would truly come and save her butt if she needed it, though a lot of Penelope's "going nuclear" manifests more as being manipulative in Rhys Morgan, much like a vampire drinking blood (which she may or may not have had a night with, take that as you may).

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Now, for the third part of this blog post: I'm working on a few additional titles right now. In no particular order, they are Þrolyana, My Childhood Home, and Υμμίδα (Ymmida). What does this mean for D3RP & PR0XY? Nothing substantial, though I won't say that I'll be making progress on it at the same rate as I am now (that's also not to say it's going fast enough for me to have a good feeling about it at the moment). The first and third titles are going to be published here, on my Fur Affinity page, and on Kobo as a free download. My Childhood Home, however, will follow the regular schedule (I give short previews of it as I'm working on it before releasing it on Kobo for a few bucks/quid). Whether or not I give previews of the first and third is up in the air, though I'm thinking that they'll get previews released publicly, but it's just gonna be filler, should I have nothing else on-hand. Either way, I hope this goes well.

As 譚平寧 would sign:

Good luck!
祝您生活富裕！
ゆたかなじんせいをおいのりします！
나는 당신에게 풍요로운 삶을 기원합니다!

D3RP & PR0XY (Early Preview №3)

Rhys Morgan was loading her bags in the trunk of my Jetta as I came out with my own and loaded them as well.

“This thing can haul ass, right?” Rhys Morgan asked.

“Never underestimate power of das Deutsche Engineerische,” I said.

She cocked her head at me, “Alright, so do you have the address or no?”

“Follow me,” I said, heading into the store with her, “I’m one of the few people to keep a Rolodex in 2023.”

“I’ve never seen you have a Rolodex here.”

“It’s in Windows Cardfile,” I said, going through my floppy disks for the one labeled 名片夾, 『Here it is!』

The floppy drive clicked away as it scanned the contents of the diskette before finding only two files: CARDFILE.EXE and ROLODEX.CRD, both files taking up considerable space on the thing, though ROLODEX.CRD was by far the largest with a reported file size of over a hundred fifty kilobytes.

“Of course you’d do something like this,” Rhys Morgan muttered as I probed the thing for “Travis & Jolene Turner”.

“Limited desk space and 7-Zip is very useful,” I said, eventually finding their address and copying it into Google while Rhys Morgan did the same thing on her phone, “Here’s their address!” I said, showing the virtual card to her.

“Found one,” she said after a moment.

“Already?”

“I’m not on Dial-up.”

“Neither am I.”

“It’s called the Manhattan Grand Hotel,” she said, “Three stars, walking distance, and the price isn’t too bad.”

“Sounds good to me,” I said as a new mixture of emotion built up inside of me, “You need to use a computer to book it?”

“Can that thing even take a credit card number?”

“I have something else doing the heavy lifting entirely,” I said, getting up and motioning to the chair, “Have at it.”

“Ladno,” she said, taking the seat and booking the hotel.

I could tell it had been years since she’d sat down to a keyboard like this. Me, on the other hand, I enjoyed the hollow-sounding clack-clack-clack of the older boards (part of the reason I kept my docking setup in the cave). She was obviously having a time trying to get everything to show up properly on the old 800-by-600 screen, assuming the constant scrolling was anything to go by.

I wasn’t about to troubleshoot a driver to get the monitor to properly show an XGA-size picture.

“Got it,” she said after a few minutes.

“Got it?”

“We’re all set,” she said, “I may have to call and push the check-in day back, but I think we’ll be fine.”

“How long?”

“A week.”

“Oh that’s good.”

“I just need to print out the confirmation and we’ll be ready to hit the road!” she said, downloading a PDF and sending it to the printer which happily whirred E-flat at middle-C.

While we were walking back to the car, the feelings I had while Rhys Morgan was booking the hotel went away, though something was still amiss. Sure, the two of us weren’t trying to show up the other like usual, but there was something different that I just couldn’t put my finger on.

“A week should be enough time to figure out everything that we need to,” Rhys Morgan said as I went through my house and turned everything off, “What do you think Travis and Jolene are gonna try to do?”

“Probably lie their way out of this,” I said, “If Travis is your dad-”

“Expect to be treated like hot dog shit,” she finished, “Got it.”

“Everything’s off,” I said, tossing my key to her, “You drive then we swap every six hours.”

As soon as the car started up and Android Auto connected with my phone, Rhys Morgan put in the address of the hotel to Google Maps.

“You got their address?” she asked.

“It’s in my notes app.”

“Good,” she said with a smile and putting the gearshift to the right of drive.

“What’s that?”

“I drive a stick,” she said, “This is so I don’t put it in Neutral on the highway.”

“Just remember you gotta shift through eight of them instead of five.

“Got it.”

Traveling cross-country was as relaxing as it always was, though there were plenty of idiots on the interstate that didn’t know how to drive. Both me and Rhys Morgan tended to stay in the left lanes keeping the car going at well over a hundred.

Despite the high speeds we were pushing the car to do, it was still easy to keep control on the roads, though I took control of the wheel when we were coming into Manhattan. The streets were still how I remembered them, though when I made it to the hotel, I had to drop Rhys Morgan off and find a park.

That was the hard part.

Rhys Morgan had gotten us checked in and showed me the room. Two beds, comfortable, spacious, and almost nicer than my house. Not quite, though.

As soon as the door shut, we dropped our bags on the floor and took a moment to relax and see what New York Cable Television had to offer after nine years.

“What’s the plan?” I asked after we’d deduced that there was nothing good on.

“Mom sent me a text and says that Jayden’s gonna stay at her house until the trip in June, then she’ll make a decision,” Rhys Morgan answered, sinking into a chair with her laptop, “Maybe it’ll be long enough when we get back to smooth things over with her.”

I had to concede when Rhys Morgan was right about something, something I’m sure she picked up on when I fell back on my bed.

“I don’t know if what we’re about to do is something she should see or not.”

“Probably not,” Rhys Morgan said, raising up her arm and smelling underneath, “Ew, I need a bath.”

“I’ll bathe in the morning.”

“It’s 10:00,” she said, “Do you wanna get lunch or something?”

D3RP & PR0XY (Early Preview №2)

Inside, it was the same as it always was: tables and a few booths, some of which were occupied with patrons ranging in age from highschool freshman to college-age. Janice's duiwu was all there, my old bully (Molly Ackley) included. How anyone came to like being around that bitch was and is beyond me. Granted, I suppose having to fight for survival before you turn eighteen does have an effect.

“What can I get for you today?” the barista said.

“Uhm, Robusta Red Eye,” I said, “French vanilla creamer, and don't go easy.”

“That'll be $3.50,” she said as I swiped my card, “Name?”

“Tan Pingning.”

“We'll call you when it's ready,” she said as I took the receipt and sat down at my usual booth.

I propped up my glasses on my head while my computer loaded, though it only took a moment. Linux, unlike Windows, uses a monolithic kernel, much like my ancient work computer with Windows 98 and DOS 7. A kernel, in my experience, tended to run much faster on equivalent hardware when it was just one block of code, rather than having certain modules run in the kernel mode and others in user mode, not to mention that it made coding much easier. Microkernels? Just hell no. One big mess and nothing else.

“Hey, Penelope,” Molly said, coming over to the table and sitting down as I raised an eyebrow expectantly at her, “So, I know things haven't been the best between us.”

I adjusted myself and crossed my arms.

“Anyway, I was hoping we could get together one day and catch up.”

If this girl thinks I've forgotten everything she did to me in school, she shouldn't have graduated with advanced honors.

“Penelope?”

“Tan Pingning,” the barista said.

This place used to feel a little more personal, but I also had little-to-no reason to ever come into town anymore if groceries weren't involved, so it could've easily been a skewed perception on my part, but I didn't see any reason to make a fuss, apart from the fact that Molly was still trying to get me to brush everything under the rug.

“Please?” she asked as I took a sip from my coffee and sat back down to my laptop, “I've tried to tell you for years that I'm actually sorry! Of course I was Molly Megabitch, but that doesn't mean I haven't changed since then! I think that if you just gave me a chance, I could prove it to you! Please, I'll do anything! Jayden forgave me and-”

“Bitch, you stay the hell away from me and Jayden. You're just like the assholes from Manhattan. If I ever catch you fucking around either of us, I'll personally turn your life into a living hell. Got it?”

If she knew when to quit before her ass was handed to her, then it would be a different story. What really happened was that Jayden had a friend who was a good athlete, the quarterback. Molly picked a fight with me, I dodged a few punches early on, and won the fight as soon as I was able to use my Wushu against her. Clean fights didn't exist, however, because she had her lackeys knock me off of my feet and get her a metal pipe. The quarterback jumped in moments later and within moments I had her pinned down by the pipe yelling “Umjig-iji ma!”.

That was the most satisfying day I'd had since I moved here, even if it was in Korean.