An Order To Go (Kyte)

The phrase 'Terms and Conditions' hovered like a pesky little fly before him.

Oh dear, oh dear. This was a bad case, wasn't it. He'd heard powerful magic protected the establishment. But that it effectively amounted to a waiver was bumptious indeed. They weren't about to give even the illusion of options. Such poor taste. A no-play, out-of-bounds zone.

These people would be sore losers, he told himself.

"I suppose I agree."

The words fell away and the breezy comforts of the maid cafe lay before him. Like all the clones that had come before and since, he had mousey brown hair and a long face. He'd then swept that hair back with hair product, against its tendencies, and cultivated a promising goatee. The dress shirt he wore was open to show the barest beginnings of a nineteen year-old's chest hair, but was neither tucked properly or ironed. Of trousers he'd not found his fit.

The cafe before him was bustling. He'd caught the Wednesday lunch hour. There were gaggles of likely lads vying for the waitresses' attentions as they pranced about in mock servitude and suggestive garb. A thrill for the locals, no doubt. He liked diversity, but Japan had ever gotten the wrong end of the stick there. Trying a little too hard to escape reality.

Winding his way through tables, he reached an empty berth and balanced himself on the cushioned stool which greeting his arrival with its sudden existence. The dead beady eye of the pacman that the table was modelled upon stared up at him. He spent some time flicking through the holographic menu before finding a coffee and a sandwich to order, then he leaned forward, half on his haunches, and surveyed the clientele.

The maid that dropped off his order received a condescending smirk and gruff gratitude. She wished him a good meal and turned to leave, when the customer made a sharp noise for her attention, "What do you call this, girl?"

"Sir?"

Prising open the sandwich, the clone touched a finger to the meat filling and transformed it into something else before holding it up for her to see, "That's a finger, isn't it?" Predictably the waitress stalled. Severed fingers didn't appear on her entrees every day. The deliciously ironic thing was she was probably more conscious of the social scandal it suggested than any concern as to who might be missing a fresh digit, "Go on, touch it if you don't believe me."

She was halfway through a refusal when he lightly threw it into her hands. The sound she made alerted other tables that things were amiss, "That's revolting. What've you been doing to the food here? A finger!" Apologies from her now. Excuses. He wasn't interested in any of them. More an eye on the other patrons who shifted uncomfortably in their seats, putting down their spoons, "You can fetch the manager for me. I'll wait."

He'd wanted to meet this so called 'Lord of Order' on his terms. But he'd never seen her leave her little den. So he decided to bring his terms to her world. Everyone would be uncomfortable until he could finish his business and leave. He sipped his coffee. It was well brewed.

Cain was sat behind the counter as she usually was when the man came in. She could read his intentions when she walked in, and sighed lightly, finishing a few notes in her book before letting the scene play out. She rose and walked over to the girl and the man sitting at the table with his finger sandwich. She wasn't dressed in anything particularly illustrious today, but she was still keeping up appearances with her current outfit.


"Well, that was quite a dramatic entrance you made~," she said. A seat would align for her and she sat in it across from the man, leveling a nonplussed expression at him as she took her seat. "It's not every day a man walks into my cafe hoping to cause a scene. But allow me to humor you. I am Seras Arcadia, the owner, and operator of this establishment. What's your name, and what would you like to complain about?" She knew of course, already. But it was all about manners. Even if he was doing this and being rude on purpose. In the meantime, she would continue to tap his mind.

The manager seemed nonplussed by his actions. Even considering her choice of wording, it seemed he was either expected or clocked as one of ill-intent when he entered the door. Interesting.

"Ha. Very good. My name is something I'd like to complain about." As a clone, it might well be fitting to call him Eugene Sutton. He wasn't the myopically entrenched nursemaid who'd brought him into this world, but he shared the DNA, so he reckoned it a fair interpretation. Otherwise there was his given name. Jacob. But that name had lived its shelf life and he had no interest in reviving it.

"Just call me what I am. President of the Happily Ever After Club." He'd heard the lewd jokes before. Every iteration by now. He paused to sip his drink to allow time for his host to have her crack at it. See if she wanted the satisfaction of mockery.

The President took a nail file from his shirt pocket and began to twist it around his fingers for want of giving his hands something to do. They were itching again. "I thought I'd drop by and introduce myself. Seeing as I was in the neighbourhood. Which can't be uncommon, considering you're in many neighbourhoods." He was fully aware of the nature of the shop and its intricacies. He'd been well informed before he came. And spent a couple days more watching the traffic.

"A colleague of yours recommended you. Thought you'd be a fun game partner. I admit I'm quite partial to a good contest. Competition is the spice of life, don't you think?" The President slowly drew his eyes along the customers in their seats before returning to Seras with a placating smile.

Cain chuckled lightly when he said that he would like to complain about his name, and then introduced himself by a title. Likely made up, but Cain didn't care to dive further into the memories to pick through it. "Well, Pres, that certainly sounds like a name that you made yourself. If you would like to change it, you certainly have the power to do so," she said a little innocently, keeping her eyes locked onto him.

She smiled lightly when he said that the Sconehenge was in multiple neighborhoods. Many, even. "You're giving me a little too much credit. It's in two neighborhoods, in this universe. And what friend of mine dropped my name to you? " Her smile turned from one of little intensity to one of a wry nature. "I don't have a lot of competition, it turns out. But I am interested to see in what way you would like to compete."

The President's mind went back to the short encounter he'd had with the colleague. It was his first real confirmation that something fundamental in this reality was also broken. Something crooked and driven to ruin. Pieces he could pick up and run with.

"Well I hate to name drop. Let's just say a little child with a red balloon and leave it at that. She told me everything you'd need to know about this cosmic struggle you've got going on. Order verses Chaos. I was delighted to hear of it. It's very me. So I volunteered to come over here and sort out this woeful imbalance which you wickedly allow. Look at this place!" He tossed his head around from right to left taking in the grand three-tiered cafe.

"No one has any free will here. If I was so motivated to gouge the eyes out of that provocatively inflammatory goth," He spoke loud enough for the customer to overhear him, and startle in surprise, "you've taken the choice entirely out of my hands. Oh cmon, lad. Dress for attention, get attention." The nail file continued to flip across his hand, as he offered the customer a sinister expression. At length he turned back to his drink, "So I thought I'd run your shop out of town."

Cain allowed her expression to become that of a happy nature, a Thai iced tea- wait, was that there before?- stirring absent of any hands next to her in the air. "Well, the next time you see this mutual friend of ours, you should tell them they're welcome to come by. I'm better at comfort foods but I'm sure she would like to try my ice cream."

"But come now. Can you really be so entitled?" The box with the terms and conditions popped up once more in front of the Pres. "You speak like you're the victim of some cruel dictator. You speak of free will. Yet you walked in, ordered a beverage and a sandwich, and then you decided you wanted a finger sandwich instead of a regular one. I did not take your choice. No, all I did was establish a punishment if you attempt to harm someone. And if your complaint is that you are unable to harm my customers... then you clearly did not grasp the Lord of Order detail very well, now did you?"

She sipped the iced tea, still smiling to the Pres. She didn't seem to be taking the remark that he would be trying to run her business out of town very seriously.

No mention of the threat? At least this would be a game worth playing. Someone worth breaking. If she could be cool, he would be no less. Though inwardly he was nettled. He was still reacquainting himself with taking dismissal, bravado, and like mistakes. But he couldn't be too himself. He had to be considerate towards his fellow 'protagonists', as they liked to be known.

"I disagree. There's a lot of order in harm. The food chain. Darwinism. We should see your order as a perversion of the natural sort." He claimed, jabbing the nail file in her direction, "There is nothing natural or sporting about negating an attack landed in good faith and yet still punishing the perpetrator for it. You're a casino. Rigged in your favour."

He'd gotten the gist that she could do worse. Much worse with all her power. But there were 'rules'. If there weren't she wouldn't be relegated to such a hideaway as this, "Question is, do I take this rigging as a template as I move forward with my own designs?"

Her smile only intensified the longer he thought to himself. Seeing every thought that coursed through his mind, and reading them fluently. "Well, Pres. About the only thing the United States government and I have in common is that, frankly, we don't care about making violence natural or sporting in my establishment. If you're so upset about it, the door is plainly visible. Perhaps you should go complain about the judicial system on the White House steps. I'm sure the sun-dried fool and you would have a grand time complaining about what you think is fair," she said with a bit of lighthearted laughter.

"Well, if you made a place with the opposite rules, that wouldn't require any magic at all. It would just be a normal place."

"Fun thing about normal places. Everyone can join in." There was a fine art to the threat. The President preferred his implicit but didn't stint on the necessary explicit when the time came for one. He wasn't feeling explicit today. Sconehenge reduced his ability to follow through if challenged.

"The world's changing, Seras. Order doesn't adapt. It grows stale. I'll give you the week to stop being - existing - residing in this city. Then we're going to bring a little change your way. I don't know what yet. It'll strike me on the day. I can say your employees will thank you for choosing discretion over valour. I won't." The President wanted her to take the fight. To not go quietly into the night. He wanted to feel the rush of confrontation again. There was very much a deep seated lack of concern for the state of the prize he would claim. The city meant little to nothing. The game, everything.

He scraped back his chair as he stood, drawing the eye of the room again, "But what do you care? You read me like a book. Don't you?" As if from the ether he'd received a vague impression Seras was learning more from this interaction than he was. Best to cut the visit short. Didn't want to overstay his welcome. He'd trapped the nail file between two knuckles. His coffee, half finished, still steaming away.

Cain's smile persisted. "Anyone can enter the Sconehenge, Pres. Your barbs are lacking bite."

She practically grinned at him. For a moment, he could see two halves of the same whole; to his right, the curvy, beautiful Cain sipping the Thai iced tea she was so proud of, and to his left, a tall man with dark hair and violet eyes. And then the images snapped together and the male remained. "You misunderstand me, Pres. And perhaps Order as a whole. Change is the natural order of things. And I will not work to impede that. But the deliberate change that you and your ilk are so fond of- that we will be less passive about."

"As it stands, you are welcome to try." When the Pres said that Cain read him like a book, the male gave him an uncharacteristic grin. "Thank you for coming to the Sconehenge! We hope to see you again soon~."