Morning all! The good news was: we won! South Africa stay in the hunt, and my nails are now green and gold. :P ;D The bad news is: I'm winding this up today :( so here's the epilogue...
Epilogue
“Up in the air – there’s a fielder underneath it – he takes the catch!” the commentator was saying excitedly. “That’s Dale Steyn’s third wicket – he’s on a roll! Pakistan in a spot of bother here, 119 for four…”
Saffa looked at Cricket South Africa’s giant screen, grinning and doing a small whoop. It had actually been quite a satisfying day; apart from this fantastic score, she had also been to see Richard earlier and had gotten rid of Lewis Miller’s wireless teleporter, which she had discovered at the bottom of her suitcase when she had unpacked back home.
Richard had marvelled at the ingenuity of the device, shown it around to every RAFian who had been present at the time, and then taken it to his profile thread.
“You know how dangerous this technology can be…” he had begun.
“Yeah, yeah. I think we went over that one already.”
“Exactly. So I think it’s best I keep it here,” Richard had decided, locking it in a cabinet in his room. “It will be safe here, until we decide if we need to do anything further with it.”
“Like what? Destroy it?”
“Oh, no, no. It can be a useful thing in emergencies,” came the reply. “Now you shove off. There’s been enough melodrama in your life, you might as well go enjoy yourself. And that’s an order, Saffa!”
So Saffa decided to go watch the match in a place she wouldn’t have to fight with Rose over the TV remote. She was enjoying herself, having snagged some cheddar cheese popcorn and a tall glass of cold coffee from a cookery website and lounging in the chair behind the newsreel desk watching the match, when she felt the air shimmer behind her.
She whipped her head round to see that a man had appeared from the direction of the ‘Player Profiles’ area. He was well-built, not very tall, good-looking in spite of his balding crop of brown hair and scruffy beard, with well-set teeth and twinkling eyes. In other words, he looked exactly like the man in the life-size portrait of one of the SA captains on one side of the desk.
Saffa shook her head and grinned. Not AB de Villiers.
“The Ellimist,” she said matter-of-factly.
“Funny you should be back here, Saffa,” the Ellimist said, in a South African marbles-in-the-mouth accent.
“Funny you should be here, and you didn’t fool me. The captain’s on the field, directing his troops,” Saffa shot back, gesturing at the giant screen. AB – the Ellimist – smiled. “I just took a form that would suit this site.”
“Uh-huh. Thanks for making me suit this site. Lookie me! I’m glowing!” Saffa said sardonically. When she got no reply, she turned her attention back to the score, and got a commercial break instead.
“There was a line in Julius Caesar,” she mumbled offhandedly. “Cowards die many times before their death… the valiant taste of death but once.” She turned to the Ellimist. “I was a bloody coward, wasn’t I? Going after him on my own and kicking the bucket here.”
“That depends on how you look at it,” the Ellimist said simply. “In the end, everything worked out, didn’t it?”
“Very funny. I should be counting how many strings you pulled. I’m pretty sure you twisted the investigation appropriately. And when we fought the kitty monster? No one even noticed we were gone.”
“You are quite a bright one, Saffa.”
“Tell me something I don’t know,” Saffa retorted. “Like exactly why you are so enigmatic about everything.”
“The same reason you are so blunt about everything.”
“Ha-ha. Hilarious. Clears up everything.” Saffa paused for breath. “I’d like to know something.”
“Yes.”
“Why did you let me live that day? You could’ve easily left me where I was and not changed anything the Drode did. So why did you do what you had to?”
The Ellimist stepped forward. “You humans are a surprising species,” he said. “You divide your planet into countries. And your countries’ governments fight wars, human against human. It becomes the same everywhere, it spreads to the common people, the idea that people of various nations are meant to dislike each other.”
“And we fight, we win, we lose, and we all live happily ever after. So what?”
“So when one human comes along, and forsakes her own country’s ties to save another, for the common good of the world – there are some I’ve seen thinking that way. And the majority, I’ve seen, are here on RAF. And you had just proved your worth by defending South Africa from a barrage of pro-apartheid posts that would’ve been initiated had it been too late…”
Saffa shuddered. “That just spells chaos.”
“It does. And you stopped it from happening.” The Ellimist turned around to leave. “Does that answer your question?”
“Yeah. Yeah, it does.”
Saffa went back to the chair and took a sip of the coffee, when she stopped herself. She turned around. AB – the Ellimist – was still there. Good. It was the opportune moment.
“May I have his autograph?”
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It's been awesome fun writing this, and huge thanks to everyone who read it and loved it - guests included! I love you guys. :)
Oookay, now this is starting to sound like an Oscar acceptance speech! :P For the record, I'm three chapters down on my next - tentatively titled "The Lake Of Secrets" - which is a slightly X-Files inspired RAFfic set mostly here. (Since alien invaders usually seem to have a liking for the US and south central London, why not bring them to India, eh? ;) ) My plan is to draft out how much ever I can, coping with university schedules, as possible in Word - it's a work in progress as it gets posted, since I am such a bladdy perfectionist with my writing. :)