this is a [test] of the emergency broadcast system

[titansno]

TEST DRIVE MEME

> The Park. Man, what a nice day out. Why not enjoy it? I'm sure -- shit, yep, there's some echo monsters.
> The Mall. Exactly what it says on the tin! Dodge the hordes of teenage mallrats or take part, whichever suits your tastes.
> Rainy Day. Agh, it's fucking awful out. And is it raining those vermilion things?? Now you've got an Echo to contend with on top of everything else. Find some shelter, quick!
> PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION, HOW FUN
> The most horribly kitschy Arts and Crafts Fair you can imagine.
> Wild Card! Make up your own.

Comments

[italktofish]

Arthur was in the process of checking out the bus to make sure he'd be able to go get kids that needed to get home somehow when his cell phone rang. Was it work? Something had happened at the school? He was so distracted checking the bus out and worrying over the fish that were now crammed into one unbroken tank that he didn't think to look at the phone and check the caller ID before he answered. "Hello?"

[pokebonnet]

"Artie!" The voice on the other side of the phone was unmistakable. It was his own Granny Curry. "Artie, are you all right? Are you alive? The TV said there were dozens dead! Or was it hundreds? Oh, it doesn't matter, are you all right? You weren't trapped in the rubble, we you? Oh, they don't build things like they should on the East Coast, they shouldn't fall down that easy."

(Having decades ago spent five years of her life failing to make it in Hollywood, Ivy Curry felt herself an expert in earthquakes.)

[italktofish]

"Granny! I'm alright, Granny, I'm alright! There's a little bit of damage to one of my fish tanks, but I'm alright! No rubble at all where I was!" Arthur hated to worry the woman, but he was glad to hear her voice after the shock of the quake. "I didn't have to dig out or anything!"

[pokebonnet]

"What about your bus? Will you even be able to drive it with all the cracks in the streets?" Of course, Ivy didn't know for certain there would be cracks in the street, but that did always seem to happen in movies and anyway, her imagination was liable to get away with her sometimes. (It was how you could tell that Arthur was her grandson.) "That city's not a safe place for you, Artie. Why don't you come home?"

[italktofish]

"I'm not sure, Granny, but SOMEONE has to get those kids home! They're DEPENDING on me, and I'll get them home any way I can!" He wondered if he should have the silverfish go check on that. "I can't come home, Granny, I've got a lot of stuff going on here--and the move would be hard on my aquariums!" As far as she knew, Arthur had simply found a sudden intense interest in a brand-new hobby, which was normal enough, right?

[pokebonnet]

But Granny Curry is not to be dissuaded. "We'll find movers, Artie! You only moved up there because of that girl, anyway, and she left you! And there was that bombing! That city's no good, Artie, you know it is."

[italktofish]

"But Granny!" Arthur protested, wishing he could at least tell her about all the outrageous stuff that had been happening. If he went back home, then he'd stop talking to the fish! He wouldn't be able to breathe underwater any more! And, most importantly, he'd be abandoning everyone else! "I can't just do that! There are people here who NEED me!"

[pokebonnet]

"What people? The kids? Oh Artie, there are plenty of people who'd like to be bus drivers! You'd be giving your job to someone who really needed it!" She frowns, a new thought occuring to her. "There's not a new girl, is there?"

[italktofish]

"Not the kids, Granny, my friends! And I just got a second job as a mall Santa, too!" He so wished he could tell her what was going on, but, alas, it was for the best this way. "There's not a new girl, I would have told you if there was!"

[pokebonnet]

"You were always good at playing Santa, Artie," Ivy says.

Obviously persuasion isn't going to work for this. That's okay, though, she can improvise.

And if she has to, she can go to Locke City and drag him home.

[italktofish]

"See, Granny, that's why I've gotta stay! So I can keep doing that!" Yes, yes, encourage her on this line of thought, that seemed safest.

He had no idea she might get other ideas.

[pokebonnet]

"What about your friends?" she asks after a moment. "How are they?" Besides ostentatiously in need of help, if that was the word she was thinking of.

[italktofish]

"Oh, they're doing OUTRAGEOUSLY!" At least, he hoped that was the case. He needed to check on everyone now, didn't he? And there had been that mess with the big drug bust at the high school, and he was worried about Karl, but there was no need to give Granny any more reason to say he needed to go back home. "Some of us had Thanksgiving together like I said we would, and it was really nice!"

[pokebonnet]

Ivy nods, even though she knows he can't see her. "But they need you to help them?"

[italktofish]

"Well, yeah!" Okay, so he wasn't one of the ones who went out and planned things, but he helped out on missions and things! And he was always willing to give the others a meal or a place to sleep if they needed it. That counted for something.

Not like he knew how to tell Granny Curry his trained silverfish were important to a team of people trying to save the Earth from hostile aliens. "There's stuff they can't do without me! I'm the best swimmer out of all of us, you know, and I'm teaching some of the others! I mean, what if they were going out on a boat or something and fell off and weren't wearing a life jacket?"