Spark Café

"The bookstore it is, then," Zeo mumbled more to himself than the others before preparing to trail behind Rose and Sabrina. "I've never actually been to a bookstore in Electown before. This will be interesting." In truth Zeo couldn't remember the last time he'd gone into a bookstore, but this way he was technically telling the truth while still avoiding any embarrassment or funny looks. Maybe I should do more reading...

"There's so much technology around, some people probably don't bother reading. Not that that's a good thing," ViralMan noted. Zeo nodded absentmindedly. "Yeah." His eyes widened for a split second as he focused again. "Kind of went off on a tangent there." He heard Sabrina mention money. "If it comes down to buying the book, I've probably got enough," Zeo offered. ViralMan frowned. "That's my upgrade money you're offering up, you know." Zeo frowned in turn. "It can't cost that much."

Sabrina's "last resort" didn't sit too well with Zeo, but he doubted he could pull off theft anyway. "Yes, hopefully the book is reasonably priced," he said with a slight sigh. "I wonder what the book's about. Probably the brain or something like that." ViralMan smirked. "Or it contains ancient writings for summoning an army of brains to destroy the planet." Zeo looked at his Navi, slightly unsettled by the prospect. "Don't even joke about that, please."

Getting serious again, Zeo suggested that the group start moving. "We should probably get going if we're going to get some or all of these items before we take too long," Zeo noted. He took a tentative step in the direction Rose had indicated.

Rose quickly caught up and began keeping pace with her friends, headed in the direction she'd pointed out. Talk of charging and upgrade money began, and suddenly Rose thought back to her own situation as far as that went.

She'd really been out of it a bit, as far as NetBattling went. She had just bought a book and redone all of her Navi's signature attacks. But she also hadn't been spending much time busting, or trying to improve him otherwise.

"Well, yeah, what a joke. I've got like, five hundred Zenny tops for upgrade cash. If this counts as busting related. I mean, I do have my other money, but I guess this is sort of busting related? I don't know. " Rose did have all her money for gas and whatever else she wanted or needed, compliments now of her jobs. But she didn't want to spend it if this was actually busting cash related.

So, unable to decide whether it was or not, she kept quiet on the topic of money. The concept of theft was a dangerous alternative, and Rose wasn't sure she liked it. "I mean, if we had to, we could. But I really don't think getting everything on the list is that important. And I really don't need anything like this going on my record for something so trivial. I mean, ruining my chances of getting into college over a Scavenger Hunt? No thanks."

However, again, all this was internal monologue. What she did manage to finally say aloud was "I'm sure we'll figure something out. Maybe she'll find it funny that we're on a Scavenger hunt and offer it up for free. I mean, it's not like we look like we'd have serious amounts of cash on us."

And then, on the topic Zeo and ViralMan had moved in: "Most likely the latter." she said in a fabulously chipper tone accompanied by a shrug. It was probably deadpan, but enthusiastic deadpan didn't usually play out well.

"And it obviously works, too. Haven't you seen the results all around? I can't remember the last time I saw the world undestroyed, or saw a street without any zombie brains wandering down it."

Rose wasn't too worried about the time. She'd tried to establish a timeline with the man, and he hadn't seemed concerned either. So she felt no hurry. She wasn't going to slow them up, though.

"I guess you guys have never heard of Maya Frasser too?" She ventured. "If she's having a book signing and she's not that well known, maybe she's like, a cult classic." Rose wasn't a huge Sci-fi person. She also wasn't a Neurosurgeon, or particularly interested in that field. So it was totally possible this woman was big news in some crowds that she wasn't a part of.

"A left at this next intersection," she informed her group, relaying what the screen of her PeT had told her.

"Nope, not a clue." Maya Frasser...never heard of her. She didn't know anyone named Maya, and she'd never heard of Frasser for a last time. "I mean, my best friend is named May, but Maya's not really a name you hear very often..." On the plus side, that'd make a Net search a lot easier. "SplashMan, can you run a search on her?"

"I could, but it's kinda pointless since you'll be there in a minute anyway...left turn! Now!"

"Huh? Oh, whoops!" Well, that would've been a really stupid move if she'd started going across the street. At least the light was red, so she wouldn't have been run over if she had. The last thing she needed was tire marks on her shirt. "I'm just wondering who the heck calls a book...'Neuronomicon'. I mean, I don't even know what that means!" Neuro sounded like something about the brain, but the rest just seemed like technobabble to her. And speaking of books, it looked like a bookstore was coming up. "Hey, is that the store she's supposed to be in?"

"I think I've seen the name Maya in a game I played once..." Zeo said automatically. He tried to remember the name, but couldn't come up anything. "Oh well. If it's a name they'd use in a video game, that sort of indicates it's uncommon anyway." He unconsciously continued walking forward before realizing where the party was actually going. He abruptly darted left, cutting off numerous other pedestrians and giving muttered apologies. "That was close; I probably wouldn't have been able to find you guys again..."

"Probably not," ViralMan agreed. "Hm, I think I detect some hypocrisy here. You tell me to focus like this is a mission, then you go daydreaming? I hope that doesn't become a trend." Despite speaking seriously, ViralMan smiled afterwards. Zeo looked away sheepishly, which turned out to be a bad idea. He had to quickly step around another throng of people and meet up with Sabrina and Rose on the other side. He glared at his PET. The Navi shrugged dismissively and smirked.

When Sabrina pointed out the bookstore, Zeo put a hand to his eyes to get a better look. "Definitely looks like a bookstore." He turned his head slightly to look at Rose while still focusing on where he was going. "Is this the place?"

As they continued walking Sabrina mentioned that she'd also never heard of the place. And Zeo got separated and lost. A couple times. Rose slowed down and looked around whenever she noticed him missing. He made it back fairly quickly, though, so she hadn't had to slow up for long.

Then, surprisingly enough, his Navi made some snide comments.

"Wow," thought an interested Rose, "Those two really go at it."
"Wow," thought a thoroughly uninterested SummonerMan, "That Navi's a tool and his Operator is a Nerd."

Rose may not have agreed with how SummonerMan had phrased his thoughts, but the latter part may have crossed her mind a bit when Zeo mentioned a game character named Maya.

He was nice, though. That was a good trait.

Then Rose was asked questions. Being able to read just as well as most, she confirmed that the place was indeed named the CornerStone Book Store, like the site had said, and that her GPS agreed that this was the correct location. "Yep, looks like it." she said.

"I guess we should probably check it out then." she suggested with a smile, as she darted past various people and slid in the front door.

For some reason, Zeo's repeated fading in and out of the group was starting to worry Sabrina. What if he somehow got separated or something? Sure, it was kinda hard to imagine losing him completely that easily, but still...it was slightly disconcerting. Oh, and referring to a video game character like that?

NERD!

But she had no time to dwell on the fact, as it was confirmed by both her own eyes and Rose that the bookstore in question was the bookstore they were looking for. "Well, guess we should head in, huh?" But first, Sabrina reached over, grabbing the group's last member alphabetically. "But first...we're doing the buddy system, so we don't keep getting split up! It won't be fun if we're not all together!"

And thus did Sabrina walk into the store, preferably dragging along another member of the group as she did so.

Once Rose confirmed that they had reached their destination, Zeo stretched a bit. "That didn't take that long. Pretty lucky." He looked at the building once they got a bit closer. It didn't look too special, but considering they knew next to nothing about the author that didn't necessarily mean anything. Echoing what Zeo thought next, ViralMan spoke up. "Now, time to find out just what that Neuronomicon is." Zeo quickened his pace slightly in response. As they neared the door, he wondered how they were going to pick her out. Probably a table or-

His thought was cut short when Sabrina grabbed him. Something about a buddy system or some such. Zeo figured this was a result of his numerous deviations from the group during their short walk, and kind of regretted it now.

Sighing to himself, Zeo allowed Sabrina to drag him into the store. She would probably let go in a minute anyway. Probably.

...I hope that Frasser woman is easy to find.

The bookstore was fairly large and spacious as the three entered the establishment. A large walkway penetrated through to the middle, where cashiers stood at their stations and helping customers to their reading material. Radiating from the center were many branches of bookshelves, placed at a comfortable distance from each other. The decor was seen to be mostly made of either some kind of expensive wood or really well-made faux-wood, with lighting adequately placed everywhere.

Looking up, a pretty-looking banner stared down at the three, proclaiming that it was indeed the place they were looking for: the CornerStone, as it was called. Furthermore, it detailed the particulars of a certain Maya Frasser being present for a day to sign her latest book, Neuronomicon, and that the book was of a series of some sort, aptly titled NERVE. The banner was quite helpful in another way as well, in that it showed an arrow to the right, indicating the place where their attention should be focused.

Of course, it would not be really all that hard to spot, since the CornerStone was currently populated by many people, which could be observed to be crowding around to an area to the three friends' right. Through the thick crowd, even Zeo, as the tallest of the group, didn't really have a chance to actually see what all the fuss was about.

Ah, a crowd. They probably should've anticipated that, if this author was famous enough to do a booksigning. Sabrina looked on, trying to find a possible route through the mass of people...but failled. "Well, we COULD wait, but I'm not really interested in wasting my day like that..."

"I guess, but unless you can fly, I don't think you're getting past that crowd..." SplashMan was deep in thought over the matter, but as usual, he couldn't come up with anything.

"Fly? No way, I'm wearing a skirt!" Yeah, THAT was the problem with that scenario. "Okay, how should get through them..." Through...hmm, an idea was formulating in her head...aha! But, she wasn't really large enough to pull it off. But then again, did she need to be when she already had someone bigger than her right next to her. There was no way he'd agree to do it, though. Of course, there was a way to do it without his agreement...okay, deep breath. "I got an idea, guys. Rose, get ready to move. And Zeo...sorry about this!"

In the blink of an eye, the Netopian girl released her grip on the group's lone male, only to grab the back of his jacket a moment later. And with that, she began to push him forward, into the group of people crowding the area. Unfortunately, she couldn't quite tell how much progress she was making, or how badly poor Zeo was getting squished. She'd have to make it up to him somehow, since this really wasn't fair to him...

Zeo was talking quietly with ViralMan as he got dragged into the store. "...not a word about this. She's too persistent for me to bother trying to stop her." ViralMan glared back. "Get a backbone, then. Maybe then you'll be able to stop a girl from dragging to around when she's smaller than you!" the Navi whispered harshly. Zeo countered more skillfully than intended. "And I'm so sure you could just push off Seli if she started dragging you around!" ViralMan was silent for a few seconds, thinking.

"I... well... just zip it," he conceded. Somewhat satisfied, Zeo looked up from his PET to see what was happening just as Sabrina relinquished her grip. Well, it's about-WHOA! he exclaimed mentally as Sabrina grabbed him again on his back and started pushing him headlong into the crowd he'd only just registered as being there. Rather than trip and fall, he simply focused on keeping pace with the pushy girl behind him. This is overkill, I think... Zeo sighed in his head. They were making their way through with a number of dirty looks, but nothing bad had happened so far. Unless one counted Zeo's nose taking some damage as Sabrina indirectly used it as a battering ram.

Rose took in the crowd and took the whole scene in. It was fairly impressive. "These people are probably here to see Maya Frasser, I guess." The sheer volume of people there was more than she'd expected though. "I guess she must be a really big hit among whoever her target audience is."

She turned to notice Zeo and Sabrina coming in, the latter dragging the former. Although she did have time to smile, she didn't have time to comment, as the drag quickly turned into a shove.

Or, more accurately, a plow. The smile dropped into a somewhat amused smirk at the antics, before dropping into an entirely neutral face. She wasn't sure how to react, and certainly didn't want to cause a scene that could negatively impact her. So she didn't smile or communicate or anything like that.

However, after the first moment of shock her senses caught up and she realized that Sabrina had requested that she follow. As it seemed fair enough, Rose made to do so. Quietly, without much of a racket, and unassumingly, making sure to keep a couple steps back and making sure to avoid bumping into the likely already aggravated people, Rose followed her friends.

"If Maya Frasser isn't on the other side of this crowd, though, they're going to get some dirty looks when they just turn around and leave. " This amused her. She managed a smile now, as she shook her head in appreciation of the silliness of the situation.

As they faced the mammoth task of having to wait a few hours in line, Sabrina and her friends were stuck for a bit, before the girl in question had the brilliant(?) idea of plowing through the crowd by force. Of course, she had no such plow on her person at the moment, and used the next best thing, which happened to be one Zeo Yamikagi. Naturally, the trip ended up being more than a little rough for Zeo; the two were bashed in both physical and mental methods.

After a while, through a little bit of determination, the two finally forced their way through the crowd to their destination, with Zeo and Sabrina being a little worse for wear, the former even having a few scratches on his arm, most probably from some rabid fan he forced aside. On the other hand, their opportunistic friend Rose was completely fine, having used the trail of force as her own private walkway. Discreetly, of course.

Their little trip brought them to a moderately large table, with a timid-looking woman sitting in a small chair. The table and its sides were lined with the book they were looking for, "Neuronomicon", as it were. The book's cover was... slightly graphic for family consumption, having a bit more blood depicted on it than seemed appropriate for the average ten-year-old or so. Shifting focus to the person herself, Maya Frasser looked to be somewhat small, with sharp-looking glasses. Dressed in a conservative jacket of some sort, the woman glanced up from her position at Zeo, her hand already at her pen and an opened copy of the book. Her other hand was resting at the back of her head, propping it up against the table.

She twirled the pen in her hand with an amused look on her face as she said, "The lady behind you seems to have a fair bit of gall, bursting through the line like that."

After successfully traversing the throng of patient customers by rudely forcing them out of the way, Zeo was feeling a bit self conscious with all the people standing around watching him and Sabrina with obvious displeasure. He was vaguely aware of several minor injuries he'd sustained during the short trip, but figured they would end up as par for the course if he didn't do damage control now. He wondered what could possibly appease them.

Nothing came to mind, so Zeo instead tried to compose a response to the author herself. ViralMan attempted to help. "Run?" he proposed frankly. Perhaps he wasn't trying to help. Zeo was briefly distracted by the imagery around the author's table and didn't really pick up on ViralMan's pointless assistance. The op wasn't too good with blood, and immediately cringed mentally. Someone else would definitely be carrying that book back if they got out of here with the ability to walk. Finally shaking off the temporary surprise at the book cover and his own self consciousness, Zeo tried to respond to the author again. The response came in a sheepish sounding voice.

"Ugh, you don't know the half of it," Zeo mumbled quietly. "I'm starting to get used to it, which is a little unnerving." He rubbed a new bruise on his arm as he turned his head back a bit. "Why don't you come introduce yourself?" he said to Sabrina. Zeo followed that up with a whisper probably only audible to the bulldozer operator behind him.

"And save us from getting lynched."

As she walked over next to Zeo, Sabrina could feel the rage being visually relayed to her, like some sort of fire laser to her back. Hopefully her shirt wasn't too flammable. And that book cover...ugh. That wasn't exactly how you sold her a book. She wasn't a big reader anyway, but...yeah. Looked like a horror book. Not her cup of tea.

But before she could continue her thoughts, requests to avoid mob beatdowns and compliments about her gutsiness entered her ears. Looked like she needed to clear some of the air before it turned toxic for them.

"Yeah, uh, sorry 'bout that..." The Netopian girl rubbed her left shoulder, not entirely unscathed from the incident herself. "It's just...a friend of ours really wants a copy of your book, and we heard you were doing a book signing today. So, we thought a signed copy of it would really make his day! Then I saw the crowds, and sorta worried that we wouldn't make it in time...really, I'm sorry about all this. But please, we just wanted get a present for a friend!" ...Well, that wasn't really a lie, but it wasn't quite the truth, either...but that it wasn't a lie was more important. She did a small bow, since Electopian people did that when they said they were sorry, or something. "I'm sorry!"

Speaking of which, Zeo was being a pretty good sport about being her own personal battering ram. She should do something nice for him later.

Rose found her fears unfounded, as they crossed the crowd. They now found themselves far closer to Maya Frasser and the trip had even gone quite smoothly.

For her, at least.

There had been some craziness and jeers and even glares and scratches pelted at the other two parts of the trio. Rose had managed to avoid it by not quite associating herself with the human bulldozers. "What are we going to do if the author's mad?" she thought suddenly, realizing this may not be good at all.

Deciding that it was totally possible (seeing as they'd angered half the other people in the store), that Maya Frasser may have been offended by Sabrina and Zeo's antics, Rose figured it would be in all their best interests to stay unrelated to the situation.

"I guess this makes me Plan B," she mused, "but I hope Plan A works out. It would be nice if this didn't get much harder."

After deciding not to move forward and lump herself in with the others, she looked beyond them at the author and the books. The woman looked small, librarian, and anti-climatic; all this crowd and she was expecting a movie star, she exposed. But she didn't seem mean. She may, in fact, have been nice enough or easy going enough to fulfill Sabrina's wish.

The book was, on the other hand, more interesting than she'd expected. She wasn't sure what it was, and it was from a series, apparently, but the graphic cover and the demographics of the crowd hinted that it may be more interesting that the name suggested after all. She made a mental note to consider checking it out.

SummonerMan kept quiet, holding his judgments of Sabrina's ballsy moves until he saw how they turned out.

Rose decided that if the other two managed to get a copy of the book, she may try to get one, too, anyway. For investigative purposes, of course. . .

"Of course," Maya simply said, replying to Sabrina's request. "I can't possibly refuse that kind of politeness, now can I?" She went about twirling the small pen between her fingers even faster into a blur, a small smile added to her face to compliment the amusement still on it. Then, with a sudden movement, she brought it down onto the opened page in front of her and penned a rather large signature down. Closing the book with an audible thump, she slid it over to the other side of the table, smiling all the while.

"There we go, dear," she said. "Though, um, you might want to do something about that rather burly man behind you two. He looks quite flustered about something," she continued, pointing behind Zeo and Sabrina with two fingers outstretched and holding the pen, using it as a pointer. Of course, it wasn't really that hard to miss, since the huge figure behind them was making pretty impressive knuckle-cracking sounds. Estimation of the muscular man's height was about maybe six and a half feet. Behind the man, a smaller woman crossed her arms, looking at them with what seemed to be disinterest.

That was probably unlikely.

"Are you done?" the man asks, a leer directed in their direction.

...Yay! Her pleas hadn't fallen on deaf ears after all. With a smile of her own, Sabrina graciously picked the book up, and took a look at it for a moment. "Thanks! He'll really like this, I know it!"

CRACK!

The Netopian turned around, to find a HUGE muscular guy, who seemed more than capable of beating up both herself and Zeo simultaneously. But, he wouldn't hit a girl. Would he? But that didn't help her friend at all. And speaking of friends, where did Rose go? ...Oh, there she was, out of harm's way. Lucky her.

"Uhh...again, sorry about all this!" Sabrina quick stepped in front of Zeo, deciding that the odds of him getting his face punched in would be drastically reduced if a girl was right in front of him. Especially since she was on her tiptoes now, and closer to his height. Of course, it might also raise the chances of her own face becoming concave, but it was a chance she had to take. "Um, I guess we should get going..." A frantic look around revealed the exit to be to her present left. "Thanks again, Ms. Frasser! And, uh...we'll be seein' ya!" She quickly started to take wide sidesteps to the left, but not before a single remark to her friend, which she made sure to be quiet enough that only he'd hear it.

"Move left with me! Quick!"

Since Rose had kept her distance from them, she figured that she'd be okay. They could just meet her outside. It might have to be in another country after this, but they'd be a trio again.

They got the book. Thank the gods that author had a sense of humor. Of course, Zeo's divine thankfulness disappeared as he turned where Frasser had indicated. That guy was really big. Zeo was no slouch when it came to height, but he definitely wasn't the fighting type. Nor did he desire to start and fight and ruin the event for the generous author. Instead he watched as a girl shorter than him came between himself and a definite bruising. Then the frightening man asked a question. Zeo barely heard it through his nerves, but managed to reply as Sabrina affirmed that they were going.

"Yes, sir," he uttered over (or rather, under) Sabrina's words. Whether his own had been heard or not, Zeo didn't particularly care. When Sabrina moved to leave the establishment before someone got their face rearranged, Zeo was only too happy to comply. "Right behind you," he mumbled back to the girl with a sullen look. He moved left as ordered along with Sabrina, soon getting within range of the door. Trying to keep from sprinting out, Zeo exited the bookstore with Sabrina and looked around for Rose to meet up with her again.

"So... one down, right?" ViralMan said almost cheerfully, trying to lighten the mood.

That had gone startlingly well. The woman seemed very cool, and had given Sabrina a copy of the book.

Then a rather large intimidating man came up and questioned her friends about whether or not they were ready to leave. Rose watched as he cracked his knuckles intimidating. He was incredibly tall, and large, and apparently didn't need to crack his knuckles too hard to give off that scary impression.

Rose wasn't particularly worried, as she felt fairly secure. And she assumed nothing bad would happen. Still, she must have been somewhat worried, at least, as she felt a wave of relief when Sabrina stepped in front of Zeo and the two hurried off.

Rose made a mental note to return to them quickly.

First, she planned on getting a book. She hung behind the couple, assuming they'd be ordering a book next. She didn't want to accidentally cut them and cause another issue. "I think our group has caused enough trouble here today."

She made sure she'd be after them, though.

A little later, Rose met the author for herself, with similar circumstances as her two friends. Well, except for maybe the few dozen leers directed in one's direction. That wasn't important now, of course, as she approached the table. Maya was still smiling, twirling her pen idly. Another book of the same kind as the ones in stacks around her was sitting on the table in front of the author.

Adjusting her glasses, the petite woman asked, "Right then, person number forty-nine. What do you want from me, now?"