#76: Banana Slug - Ernie’s

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Ernie Rodriquez owned and operated a restaurant. He called it the Three Amigos because when it had originally opened many years ago he’d had two partners.

One thing and another had happened over the years and Ernie had bought out his partners. He’d felt no need to jump thru bureaucratic hoops nor fill out acres of paperwork so he had never changed it’s name. The Restaurant was still called The Three Amigos.

He might have called it that but everyone else called it Ernie's. It had a pretty good clientele too, and with good reason. He offered good food and plenty of room to enjoy it. The loud and rowdy were kept separate from those who wanted peace and quiet. With the coming of the Maggi and the transformation to the Banana Slug, business had just gotten better.

Recently he’d installed a wide screen TV in one of his dining rooms. He’d put a sign over the door which read, ‘Choke and Puke’ . It was a humorous warning. Not everyone liked to watch TV with meals, or at all. His customers were warned by the sign that there were TV’s ahead so they could avoid it if they wanted to. Most avoided it. Tv was not only the mind killer but it was bad for the digestion. Ernie had only installed TV’s in the one dining room. He’d see how it went, so far it didn’t look too good. He suspected that he’d be removing it pretty soon.

Two young boys entered the room. They were in a heated discussion. Both had little dragons on their shoulders. They weren’t rowdy or anything but the discussion was definitely intense.

“I’m telling you Josh “ Cody said “If we alter the filler pack ratio of the extension rods by 20% then we’ll get an increase of..........”

They saw the sign and chuckled. Imagine that, a TV in a dining room, this was new. Curious as boys their age will be they went in it and sat down.

Ernie brought them coffee. ”Hiya Josh, Cody, your regular?”

“Hiya Ernie yeah, that’ll do. Thanks” Josh said then he and Cody watched the TV in horrified fascination. Joshua watched the TV news and became even more quiet and withdrawn. The more TV news he saw the more he thought the world was insane. The more he saw about the flood the quieter he became.

Cody, on the other hand, erupted in giggles and laughter. He couldn’t credit what they were saying as real. He thought it was fictional comedy. Bad comedy at that.

Joshua was a classic introvert and didn’t say much in the best of times. This wasn’t the best of times. He and Cody had become best Buds lately and Cody was becoming sensitive to his new friends nature. Most people would not have noticed.

Cody was Joshua’s polar opposite. Cody was a full blown extrovert. He’d never met a stranger in his short life, he defined outgoing. The two were as different as night and day, they should have mixed like oil and water, but they didn’t.

Joshua was the youngest Mage, and Cody was about ten years his junior. Joshua was still a teen and Cody was a preteen. They should NOT have gotten along, but they did.

Cody was a genius. Oddly enough Cody was that very, very rare example of a well integrated genius who was emotionally and socially mature beyond his physical age. He understood protective coloration also. When he was around kids his own age or adults that didn’t know him he talked and acted like a little kid. When he was around Josh he relaxed and acted MUCH more mature. Lately he’d been slipping up in public frequently as if he didn’t much care what other people thought anymore.

Joshua was also a genius by most standards but he was less mature in some areas. Social skills for example. He wasn’t retarded, not really, but he was no social butterfly.

Yvette, had been a Godsend to him, and so had Cody.

“What’s the matter buddy?” Cody, blunt and to the point, came flat out and asked Joshua. ”Those refugee’s getting to you?”

Josh said “Yes. I may get ill.”

Today wasn’t going so well, on the TV. The talking heads interviewed various people.

“The Government should DO something. I’ve paid my taxes. I should be protected from the flood......’

“I blame Bush...”

“.....you’re a RACIST!”

“......This is not who we are.”

“This is yuuuuuuuge!”

“In the nineteen sixties Kennedy made a Presidential decree that put a man on the moon.
“In the Twenty Teens Obama made a Presidential decree that put little boys in little girls bathrooms”

Joshua choked a bit at that last one.

“That must have been a really strange time to be a live.” Cody said.

“I was very young” Joshua said “None of it was my fault.”

The sound bytes went on and on.

“All those years people were complaining about the drought. I told them it was a bad idea, that they should be quiet. Now look what happened. Be careful what you ask for I always say, you may get it.”

“I don’t know how much longer I can take it,” the young mother said “ it seems we’re always moving. Just about the time we get settled down in one Flood Camp they tell us we have to move. The water just keeps coming, and coming and coming...!”

She, like so many others, was verging on hysteria.

There were also video’s taken by the major news organizations. Helicopters had flown, slowly in the fog, over the Flood Refugee camps that had been over taken by the rising water. Not much could be seen for the fog but bodies were usually visible. They drifted in the cold, slowly moving water.

The pictures were reminiscent of ancient photographs of the Great Flood of California of 1862.

Everywhere flash floods were spawned by failing dams. Flood control dams that had been stressed far beyond their design limits, failed. Much like the historical flood of Johnston Pennsylvania of May 31, 1889, it was happening everywhere. 2200 people died because of the Johnston Flood. Millions were dying all around the nation and the world due to similar disasters.

No, the news on the TV was not good. If not for the Maggi Joshua figured he’d be in the same boat. More than likely he would not even have a boat and he’d have drowned. He was grateful.

Speaking of the Maggi, they, and DragonForce tended to have breakfast here daily, it was about time they showed up. He and Cody, who was giggling uncontrollably, left the TV room. They went to the private dining room.

Minutes later the remaining members of DragonForce and the Maggi drifted in. Conversation was pleasant during the meal, small talk mostly, no one discussed much of importance. That ended when Shelby spoke up.

“There was an old boy who was considered to be a pretty smart guy when I was a youngster. His name was Einstein. Ya’ll may of heard of him?” Shelby said .

Some had, some hadn’t. It was pretty much an age thing.

“He was a Theoretical Physicist. He talked about a lot of things outside his field. Some of what he said has been remembered. He had some saying that were pithy and to the point. They were some times even correct.” Shelby said.

“One in particular, he said ‘Doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result is the definition of insanity” Shelby sipped on his coffee with a frown. “Seems kind of obvious you would think?”

For a moment no one seemed to understand. Then slowly comprehension dawned on the Dragon lady. She didn’t seem happy about it either.

“The whole point in Flint Island was to avoid socially induced insanity” she grumbled “and yet we failed.”

Everyone else was confused.

“Failed what?” Marc asked.

Yvette, had a clue. She turned to Shelby and asked. “The break away barges?”

Shelby nodded and so did the Dragon Lady.”Yup. When we built the Banana Slug we failed. We were doing the same thing, basically, hoping for a different outcome. It’s was almost as bad as building on a flood plain, or driving slow in the fast lane. Our world has changed. We need to change with it. We need to regroup as we used to say.”

“I still don’t get it” Captain said.

“We need to re evaluate the way we live.” the Dragon Lady said. “We have the new SSmoke technology. We should be using it to it’s full potential rather than using it to emulate what we had before. We should use SSmoke as itself instead using it to make copies of wood or plastic.”

“Exactly right” Shelby said “Rebuilding the Banana Slug the way it was or building something like it is the wrong thing to do. We need to become more parallel. More redundant and more widely distributed.”

Cody’s eyes were glazed over as were Joshua. They got it. They were designing and redesigning in their heads while the other’s talked.

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The Next Episode is
#77: Banana Slug - ReDesign…
The Previous Episode was
#75: Joshua and Cody Have been busy.…
The First Episode was
# 1 : Prologue…
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Book One: SoulStone
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