#85: Welcome Aboard

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“Glad you could make it Chad” Kamiko Akiyama, the mayor, greeted Chad Crowder as he stepped into the day room at the cop-shop on Flint Island.”

“In case you don’t know everyone let me make introductions.” She said. A small dragon flew into the room with a cup of coffee and handed it to Chad. He accepted it gratefully. “I understand you drink real coffee? Not sugar water?”

Chad was a little overwhelmed. He didn’t say anything. He nodded and accepted the coffee. He took a sip. “Whoa! This is strong. Just the way I like it.”

“ Yup, like they say, Black as night, bitter as death, hot as hell, strong enough to wake the dead and scare the living. ... call it cowboy coffee because it's said that you could float a horseshoe in it.” Kamiko replied. She began to make introductions.

“Those two Orcs are my enforcers. The dark one is Marc TwoFeathers.” She said.

Marc and Captain sat on the other side of the table. Their dragons had fetched them coffee also then perched oh their shoulders.

Marc raised a hand in a slight wave.

“The light one is his brother, Jason Parmalee.” Jason nodded.

“I’m Kamiko Akiyama, for my sins I run this LashUp.” She said. Her little dragon finished serving coffee. She was the last to get a cup. “These Ya’hoo’s call me the Dragon Lady. I play that part when I need to but I was born and raised in Amarillo. Among ‘just us folks’ I’m a down home Texas Gal.”

“I believe you know Shelby Winslow?” She said. “ He’s the reason we’re all here. I think we’ll start calling him the Wiz....or more specifically the ArchMage. He hates that. That’s why we might do it, keep him humble.”

She smiled at Shelby to take the sting out of her words. Shelby looked pained...and resigned. He’d never admit it but secretly he liked being called the ArchMage...or as she said, “The Wiz.”

“Last but not least is Elvira” Kamiko indicated the little dragon sitting on Shelby’s shoulder.

“ I believe you have a Daemon also? You have that in common then?” Kamiko nodded to Akatsuki who was sitting on Chad’s shoulder watching intently.

Chad had noticed that. Everyone else had dragon’s too so he thought nothing of it.

“Another thing you four have in common is that you are all combat vets and you have all been grievously injured. “ She said

“Oh?” Chad said. Everyone was sitting down, their injuries hidden by the table. Death and injury from IED’s and thus lower extremity amputation had become most common in the recent actions. “Yeah I was involved in the latest unpleasantness. Where were ya’ll?”

“Captain and I were in the SandBox.” Marc stated.

“I was in Viet Nam.” Shelby said.

“Viet Nam...wow.” Chad said “I’ve read about that. I wasn’t even born then.”

“Yes.” Kamiko agreed. “What did you find in Viet Nam Shelby? It’s the reason we’re here today.”

“Not really sure what it is.” Shelby replied.

“It has to do with Dragons” Elvira preened .

“A big scary dragon?” Akatsuki was curious. “Yeah...we met him too.”

Captain, Marc and Kamiko were definitely interested. This was the first time they’d heard about that.

“Oh?” Captain said “So there’s a bigger reason that you chose a Dragon Avatar?”

“Yup.” Shelby said, sipping on his coffee. “Sure is. One day when you guys are buying the drinks I’ll tell you all about it. Right now we have bigger fish to fry.”

“Oh?” now it was Chad’s turn to be curious. “What fish are those?”

“MonkeySphere” Shelby said.

Marc, Captain and Kamiko nodded. This was not news to them.

“That’s Kamiko’s area of expertise” he nodded to the Dragon Lady.

“We can go into the fine details over those drinks, like Shelby said” Kamiko grinned. “Some other time. The executive summary is that when too many people are crowded too close together for too long a time.... bad things happen. Flint Island is our attempt to fix that problem. Captain, Marc and I have enjoyed some moderate success in the last few years. Now with Shelby is on board, and you too if you so choose, perhaps we can do even better .”

“It’s like Cheers.” Elvira said “a place where everyone knows your name.”

“Exactly right dear.” Kamiko agreed. “Here’s how it works. Consider Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs. We’ve known about them for over a hundred years. Consider it to be a pyramid with multiple levels. At the bottom level are the most fundamental needs dealing with basic survival. Environmental concerns such as Food, Water, Air, Hygiene and Shelter.

“Those are primary. They are fundamental. Without them nothing else matters. Non fulfillment of those needs leads to death.” she told them.

“Above that, the second tier is Safety. If you don’t have Security, Stability and Freedom from fear, to put it crudely you go nutz from stress related issues. After the Physiological needs the Psychological needs are absolutely required.” she told him.

“Next, there are the Sociological needs. Man is a social animal...in a manner of speaking.. We need such social interactions as friendship, family and sex.” she smiled.

All the men’s ear’s perked up at that. Elvira and Akatsuki smiled too.

“There is also self esteem. Everyone needs to feel good about themselves. Everyone needs and desires confidence in themselves, respect of others and respect by others.” she told them.

“A synergy of all the levels provides Sanity. A sane person is creative, moral, spontaneous, a problem solver and isn’t prejudiced. A sane person accepts facts and reality as they are.” She said

“Not very many sane people are there?” Chad asked.

“Nope.” Kamiko said “Our mental hardwiring is a result of the environment we evolved in a long long time ago. That environment rarely exists anymore. Most people today and for the last ten thousand years are not and have not been sane. Not really.

Our goal on Flint Island is to provide that type of environment. Our goal is to be sane.” she finished. “You four can bear witness to that. You were injured in war. War is insane. History is all about war. The history of mankind is the history of the insane.”

“That’s reasonable I guess “ Captain said.

“The added complication is that crowding complicates things even more. We’ve known all about that for over a century also. Studies have shown that overcrowding causes irrational behavior, even if the fundamental needs are met.” she finished.

“That’s crazy.” Chad said.

Everyone nodded in agreement.

“It certainly is.” she concluded. “Flint Island and the Factory was an ongoing attempt to address the situation. Flint Island has plenty of room so that no one living here is over crowded. We have avoided RatUtopia. The population is arranged in neighborhoods which addresses the MonkeySphere limitation We’ve had some success over the last couple of decades. We learn from our experiences. We’re getting better.”

“Our internal crime rate is zero” Captain said “Marc and I see to that. We also take care of any external intrusions.”

“The Factory was our Jobs Program.” Kamiko continued. “Many of our residents worked there. Doing so avoided commute-stress. Even here that’s a problem with other residents who work off island.”

“We are likely to be loosing the factory.” Kamiko said “Those jobs are at risk and will probably not last much longer. That’s a huge problem. Many of our residents have low income. With those jobs gone they will be in dire straits. I can carry the load for a little while but my funds are definitely limited. With the help of the Mage and the ArchMage we will attempt to find a solution.”

“Shelby’s the ArchMage?” Chad said. Shelby nodded reluctantly.

“Who’s the Mage? “ he asked

“You are.” Elvira said. Everyone nodded in agreement.

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The Next Episode is
#85: I'm not a MAGE…
The Previous Episode was
#84: Beat Cop…
the First episode was
#1 : Prologue

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