Chapter 132: Plop

FieryKathy

Sam and Max leave the three of us behind as they are headed for their anatomy class. As for us, we just keep sitting next to the marvelous fountain of awesomeness. 

“Still an hour and a half left.” Hailey sighs. “I’d rather we had our lesson now so we can go home a bit earlier. Because this really feels like a waste of time.” 

“We can always spend this time studying.” Carol replies, smiling at her friend. 

“No, let’s not.” Hailey sighs again. 

“Aren’t you supposed to be the responsible student out of the two of us?” 

“Yeah, but not today.” 

“Mhmm.” I chuckle as I start typing up a message to Hilda to ask the address or coordinates of our taco shop. 

“What about you, Ami? What’s your opinion on such a long break?” Hailey asks. 

“Give me a second.” I finish up my message and press send. “Sorry, I can’t really talk and type at the same time.” I put my phone away and start thinking of an answer. “I’m not sure. It’s fun to go home earlier, but I also don’t like rushing my lunch. And when it’s such a nice day, I don’t really mind relaxing for a bit.” 

“That’s fair.” Hailey replies. “But good weather isn’t guaranteed.” 

“Oh yeah, when it rains I’d definitely prefer going home.” I giggle. 

“Back in my home city we had this river running through the center of town with these historic buildings flanking it. It isn’t that far from the university. That place must have been awesome to chill at. I still remember going there when I was little.” Carol stares into the fountain. 

“Why have you moved here, Carol? If I might ask?” I ask my friend. 

“It’s just that my family found a job here… and probably because of the climate as well. They don’t really talk about it that much.” 

“Crossing the ocean must’ve been a big step to take though.” Hailey replies. “It was a big change for me and I don’t really live that far from here.” 

“It’s okay. It helped that I was younger. And it’s fun that there’s a lot of diversity here. We got people from all over the place in our classes. Gives everything a nice mix if you know what I mean.” 

“That’s true.” I nod. “It’s not always that easy to understand each other though.” 

“As long as you can get the general point across it’s fine, isn’t it?” Carol smiles. “And if you don’t manage by yourself just use a translation app.” 

“I always feel like it’s more effective to try yourself. Those translation apps are still quite rubbish.” Hailey shakes her head. “I really don’t know why that’s still so hard for the AI to do when we have things like FDVRMMO’s already.” 

“Human language just isn’t very AI friendly I suppose.” I give her a shrug. 

My phone buzzes, telling me Hilda has sent a message back, but before I can check my phone, I hear a ‘plop’ sound behind me. 

“Ah! Amicia!” I suddenly get hugged from behind. But I immediately recognize Gamma’s voice. 

“G-Gamma? What are you doing here?” I look behind me and see Gamma’s smiling face, her usual blue hair is now purple with a couple of strokes of green. “Oh, got a new hair colour?” 

“Yeah! Do you like it?” She quickly brushes her hand through her bangs a couple of times. 

“It looks nice.” I nod. 

“And what do you two think?” Gamma turns herself to my very confused friends. It probably doesn’t help that Gamma is talking even faster than she normally would. 

“It… looks good.” Carol gives her a nod too.

Gamma smiles and then walks over to Carol. “As for why I’m here. It’s you actually. You were Carol, right?”

“Uh, yeah, I am.” She shyly replies. 

“Veanya has asked me to make this for you as she might forget otherwise, what a klutz.” Tornado Gamma swiftly takes something out of her hoodie’s pocket. “Do you like this design?” In her hand she’s holding a choker, this one looks futuristic, black with neon green accents. 

Carol looks confused. 

I point at my own choker to which she quickly realizes what it is that Gamma is holding. 

“Ah! Uh… it might be a bit much with the colors, wouldn’t it?”  

“No no no no, not the colors, you can change those anyway.” Gamma seemingly doesn’t move but the choker in her hands changes colors and shows different patterns as well. “I’m purely talking about design here.” 

“Ah….” Carol inspects it more closely. For the rest it doesn’t really look that different from a normal choker. The only difference with mine is that Carol’s choker looks to be made out of metal. “Uh, it looks cool, but won’t the metal be uncomfortable to wear?” 

Gamma quickly shakes her head. “No, here, you can feel it.” And before Carol can move Gamma snaps the choker around her neck. Obviously nothing really happens as she isn’t a catgirl yet… but then again… since it’s Gamma we are talking about, maybe it does some other weird stuff instead. “So, whatcha think?” 

“It’s pretty comfy, it really doesn’t feel like metal at all.” 

“User experience is incredibly important so I pride myself that my work is always wearable for prolonged times.” Gamma smiles and as swiftly as she put it around Carol’s neck, she removes it just as fast. “Got any more pointers?” 

“Maybe you should add a small hole in the front.” Hailey answers. 

“Why?” Gamma quickly tilts her head. 

“For if she wants to attach a little cat bell.” Hailey smirks to which Carol almost immediately turns bright red. 

“Haha, good one.” Gamma laughs. “I can make it happen if you want to.” 

“N-n-no. I-it’s fine.” Carol denies the offer. 

“Alright, I’ll go back to work then? See ya.” And just like that, with another plop, Gamma is gone again. 

Silence descends over our group for a couple of seconds. 

“I feel tired just having spoken to her for a minute, blimey, that girl speaks fast.” Hailey wipes her forehead clean of non-existent sweat. 

“She does, but I’m a bit miffed.” I reply. 

“Why’s that?” Carol asks, still looking around to see if Gamma won’t pop up again behind her. 

“I’m a bit sad that your choker can change colors. Mine can’t at all.” I pout. “You got the fancy one.” 

“Are you really sad about that? Your choker is plenty cute too, Ami.” Carol chuckles. 

“But what if I want to have a purple choker for a day?” I keep pouting. 

“If you ask, won’t Gamma be able to make a choker for you too?” Hailey asks. “Surely, for a fellow Goddess, that shouldn’t be an issue. If you can’t find a way to make one yourself one day.” 

“I guess that’s true… But I want one now.” I playfully stick out my tongue. 

“Acting a bit spoiled now, aren’t we?” Hailey laughs. “Maybe we should call Sam back so she can deal with you.” 

“Was that supposed to be a threat? Sounds more like a treat to me.” I stick my tongue out once more. Resulting in the three of us laughing together. 

After we calm down a bit I finally look at the message Hilda has sent me about the taco place’s location. But her message is incredibly cryptic. That’s when I receive another question from her. “Hey Ami, sorry for being so vague. Scott tells everyone that if they want to give out the location of his shop that they should send this riddle. He really wants to have people take the effort to find his place.” 

“Oh! Thank you for explaining.” I message back. 

“What are you sending, Ami?” Hailey asks. 

“It’s about the taco shop.” I reply. “Hilda has somewhat sent me the location of the taco place.”

“Somewhat?” Carol tilts her head, confused at what I’d just said. 

“Yeah, here.” I hand her my phone and show her the messages.

“Oh great, I’m terrible at riddles.” 

“Can I see as well?” Hailey asks. 

“Definitely.” I show her as well. 

“Ah, I see…” She thinks for a couple of seconds. “It’s not that hard, is it? It’s just a basic math riddle.”  

“Do you call this basic?” Carol looks even more confused now. 

“Okay, not basic basic, but it’s definitely not hard.” 

I take a look at the riddle in more detail as well. While it’s been quite a while since I’ve had mathematics, I think I can see the solution pretty easily as well, if I had a bit of time to calculate it.

“So I’ll never be able to discover the taco secrets.” Carol pouts. 

“Don’t worry, Carol, I’ll help you.” I smile and dive into my bag to get a pen and some paper. “Let’s solve this riddle together.” 

“And I’ll give you two the solution once you two are done.” Hailey smiles. “I don’t want to ruin the fun by telling you the answer already.” 

“Thanks, Hailey.” I smile back. We still have quite a lot of time to spend anyway, so putting our brains to work will definitely help against boredom! 

FieryKathy