//------------------------------//
// Chapter 4 
// Story: No Reservations 
// by Snaproll 
//------------------------------//

I was playing the piano. 

In the disruption over the last few days, I'd forgotten to practice. Which was pretty bad of me, I'd have to admit. Music might just come naturally to some people, but I'm one of those guys who needs to practice on a daily basis, if for no other reason than it helped me relax at the end of the day. There's a lot to be said for making something beautiful, even if it wasn't one of your own compositions.

I was sitting on a comfortable bench before a magnificent glistening concert piano. A spotlight shone down on me from directly above, illuminating me in a pool of warm light and casting everything beyond it into deep shadow. I could sense, rather than see or hear, an audience listening to my music with rapt attention.  

As the final chord died away, a beautiful alto voice spoke over my shoulder. "That's a lovely composition." 

I felt a gentle hand on my shoulder and turned to see-

Wow

The woman from my dream last night was there again, listening to me play my music. This time, though, she was very different. Gone was the stuffy academic suit, though she still wore the crescent moon necklace. Instead, she wore a sheer dress of deepest amethyst, cut daringly low in front and almost to the small of her back in the rear. A curious glance showed the dress was long, almost to her ankles, but it was slit almost up to her hips. Her silver moon necklace rested against her pale collarbone, and she wore no other finery, but her dark hair hung loose around her shoulders. She had somehow worked fine rhinestones into her hair and dress, and as she moved she glistened in the darkness. Her expression was compassionate, if enigmatic. "See thee ought what pleases thee?" 

"Um...you're looking nice." 

She smiled and moved up to lean against the magnificent Steinway grand piano I was sitting before. "Thou art a flatterer, Finn Kelly, but we thank thee." She glanced down at the piano, then back up at me. "Woulds't thou play me a tune?" 

I briefly thought about what sort of music she would like, then my eyes landed on her necklace. I smiled up at her and said "Certainly. Let me know what you think of this." 

And then I played.  

I'd been working on this piece for a while, but somehow, I'd never quite gotten the precise fingering right, or the dynamics. But tonight...tonight the music poured out of me, gentle and beautiful and just vaguely sorrowful. I wasn't merely playing the music. I was a conduit for the music, as it flowed through me and the piano into the surrounding air. 

As the last notes vanished into the night, the beautiful woman sighed and leaned against the piano. I tore my attention away from her...necklace and met her gaze. Her expression was compassionate and just a bit wistful. "There is fine music in you, Finn Kelly." 

I shook my head, blinking back tears. "I..." I took a deep breath and composed myself. "I've never played it that well before." 

She nodded. "True, but the potential is there for greatness. Know you why I am here?" 

I ran through a few more chords, giving her a smile. "I'm guessing it isn't because you wanted to hear me tickling the ivories?" 

She smiled, this time showing teeth. "Nay. The weft and woof of this dream is all of thine own composition, borne from anxiety for missing previous sessions of practice. No, it is because I wished to speak with thee, Finn Kelly. Though, I will admit that music has been most beguiling." She shook her head, ebony tresses shimmering in the light around her. "Nay, I wanted to see how thou were getting on with thine companion." 

"Trixie?" I shook my head. "She's been..." I started playing again, just to keep my mind clear while I thought.  "I mean...she's been pushy and unhelpful. But...it's been...well, I wouldn't say it's been fun trying to help her out, but it's certainly been...well, It's been something. I'm damned if I know what, though." A stray thought occurred to me, and I glanced up at the woman. "This isn't one of my normal dreams, is it?"

She arched a dark brow, a smile playing over her lips. "Isn't it?" 

"Well, there's a distinct lack of My Teeth Falling Out, for one. Or the old favorite, Being Suddenly Naked in Public." 

Her smile became absolutely vulpine. "That last one could be arranged, if thou wish." 

"No no. That's quite alright." I stopped playing simple songs and just worked on my scales. "I mean, you've shown up in my dreams two nights running now. And you seem to have a pretty good idea of what's going on. Granted" I nodded, graciously, "this could just be my subconscious' desire to play havoc with me, but I'm fairly certain that isn't the case." I arched an eyebrow at her. "What should I call you, anyway?" 

The woman's smile shifted from something predatory and vulpine to something genuinely happy. "It is nice to see thou art not just a pretty face, but that there is a mind between your ears." She picked up a champagne flute from the top of my piano and brought it to her lips, studying me over the rim of her glass. "Thou may call me Luna, for the time being. And thou art correct. This is no ordinary dream of thine."  She straightened up, bent forward, and gave me a kiss on the forehead. My vision swam before me, and the dream faded to nothingness, but I heard the echoes of Luna's voice as I drifted into unconsciousness. "Sleep well, Finn Kelly. In the morning, all will be made clear to thee." 


~~~~~🌙~~~~~
~~~~~🌙~~~~~


I awoke on the couch under a duvet. Judging by the pale light edging past the curtains, sunrise was not far off. I yawned and stretched.

Or, at least, I started to. 

As I started to move, I became gradually more aware that the duvet seemed unusually heavy. Furthermore, my left arm and leg seemed restricted. And someone right by my left ear was emitting a sound that someone uncharitable would refer to as "Snoring." With an increasing sense of trepidation, I turned my head, already knowing what I was going to see, but knowing I would have to assess damage all the same. 

Trixie lay on the couch next to me, gently snoring, a small trickle of drool wending its way down the corner of her mouth. She was quite firmly wrapped around my left arm and leg and seemed at best disinclined to let me go. I surreptitiously checked under the covers to make sure we were both clothed. We were, so I was reasonably  sure we didn't do anything stupid last night. I couldn't be entirely certain until I spoke to Trixie, but even then, I wasn't that great of a moron to try and disturb her. 

I thought back to the previous evening. Neither of us had been terribly hungry due to the buffet the day before, so we'd settled in with a light dinner of chips and salsa. After some point, we'd changed over from marathoning Friends to...That's right. I thought.  Trixie was curious about the space program stuff, so we switched over to  Apollo 13.  And like an idiot, I'd fallen asleep because I'd seen it so damn many times. Another thought occurred to me then, and I started bludgeoning my thoughts into some semblance of order. So...that meant Trixie must have gotten under the covers with me. I mulled over that thought, holding it up to the light. 

I mean, I'm not complaining here. Far from it. But by the same token,  I thought to myself,  I'm not exactly a paragon of masculine appeal. At least, as far as I could judge, anyway. I shook that thought loose and decided not to think about it. There's a beautiful woman who snuggled up next to you. Granted, she might not be the most sane beautiful woman you've ever met, but still, nobody's perfect. You might as well shut up and enjoy it while it lasts.  

I was prepared to do just exactly that when a soft alto voice spoke from just behind and above my head. "Well well well. This is an interesting sight to see." 

I very suavely vocalized my surprise by saying "Wagh!" and leaping to my feet, turning. At my side, Trixie bolted awake and tried to stand. She got caught in the duvet, overbalanced, and fell sideways onto the couch with a yelp of surprise.

Behind the sofa stood the three women I had helped the day before, though they wore different outfits than when I'd met them first. The redhead-  Sunset, I recalled, had augmented her outfit an Aces ballcap, while her bookish companion had let her hair down from its tight bun and wore a fluffy UNR Wolfpack sweater over her otherwise sensible outfit. The third woman had gone full native. In addition to the Aces ballcap over her hair, she wore a pair of jeans so tight I'd have sworn they were painted on, and a T-shirt I'd seen before at the air races: a sky blue t-shirt with a high-winged plane flying over the words "Bush Pilots do it Low & Slow". She gave me a wink and a grin so naughty it should have been forcibly sent to military school. "Gotcha." 

I managed to recover my wits first. "What are you doing here?! How did you get in?! How long have you been standing there?! Can I get you ladies something to eat?!" 

Sunset leaned against the wall to my kitchen, her expression smug. "I'll answer your second question first." She started ticking her fingers off as she answered. "Your door was unlocked, we came to find Trixie there, about twenty minutes ago, and we already picked up some doughnuts for you." 

Trixie had managed to extricate herself from the blanket and rose to her feet, though she was staring at the third woman with a mixture of awe, fear, and respect. "How...how did you find me, your high-" I had glanced over at Trixie, but I could have sworn I saw the tall woman and Sunset shake their heads slightly. Trixie recovered and continued. "I mean, how did you know I was here?" 

The tall woman smiled and said "I asked nicely." She turned and handed me a filled doughnut dusted with powdered sugar. "Come now, Finn, you should know a lady never reveals all her secrets."

Sunset rolled her eyes. "Luna told us, Finn. She thought we might want to have a word with you before we picked up our compatriot." 

The bookish looking woman stepped forward, dabbing something that looked suspiciously like custard from the corner of her mouth with a napkin. "That and we suspect you have questions." She gave Trixie a hard look, which the platinum blonde woman returned with equal intensity, and then sighed. "As troubling as Trixie might have been, you did help her out, and..." She took a deep breath, like she'd been preparing to jump into a frozen pool of water. "And the three of us decided that merited a certain amount of honesty on our part." 

"Within reason, Twilight." Sunset shook her head. "He wouldn't believe everything if you told him all of it." 

She sighed. "I suppose that's true." 

I bit into the doughnut and chewed contemplatively. Lemon curd. My favorite. The delicious doughy treat gave me a minute to think. Clearly, my suspicions had been correct. I had stumbled into something strange and bizarre. But just how odd was it going to be? Was exactly was I dealing with here? I swallowed and said "Alright, I'll bite. Why don't you ladies have a seat and start from the beginning." 

Sunset dragged a chair in from my kitchen while the bookish one- Sunset had called her "Twilight- took the armchair Trixie had taken the night before, but the third woman chose instead to stand over by one of my bookshelves filled and started perusing the titles. Sunset cleared her throat and spoke. 

"When we met you two days ago, you asked us what brought us to your city." 

I nodded. "I seem to recall you said you were headhunting. I figured you were recruiting." 

Sunset nodded. "That was, and is, more or less true. But we're looking for specific individuals. Individuals with particular talents that don't normally show up in your average job interview." 

Twilight nodded. "We were actually fortunate to find a few such individuals during our time here, as well, but our selection process isn't exactly easy to come by. I mean, we had to select a fairly isolated metropolitan area above a particular population threshold with a wide variety of professions and talented people, but even then we were limited by various factors, like sample size, the veracity of subjects responses-" 

"What my friend is trying to say," Sunset said, with an exasperated glance at Twilight, "is that...well..." 

From over at the bookshelf, the third woman spoke. "How do you feel about travel abroad, Mister Kelly?" 

"I mean, I studied abroad in college, but we broke up my senior year." 

That got a reaction, but not quite the one I hoped. Trixie glared at me and muttered something under her breath, Sunset rolled her eyes, Twilight blushed and said nothing. The fourth woman, though...she chuckled and turned from regarding the books to look at me, arching an eyebrow. I coughed and said "Sorry. Sometimes my mouth gets ahead of my brain. What I meant to say is that I've always wanted to travel, but...well, I've never found the time or money to do so." 

She nodded, as if expecting that answer. "You once wanted to travel quite a bit when you were younger, didn't you?" 

I gave her a close look. How did she know? "Yeaaah...I did. I tried to make it as a busker through and after college, but...well, you know how it is. Even if you make good money, it's not enough to really survive on. Not long term, anyway." 

She nodded and then gestured to the bookshelf. "Tell me, are these books entirely for show?" 

It should be said that I have a fairly large collection of science fiction and fantasy novels I'd collected through the years. Most of them are the classics: Tolkien, Foster, Heinlein, Pratchett...Most I'd inherited from my Grandfather, the rest I'd acquired gradually over the years. I shook my head at that. "No, I usually read most those at least once a year. Helps me relax when there's nothing else going on." 

She nodded and quoted "All that is gold does not glitter..." 

I smiled. "Not all who wander are Lost. Fellowship of the Ring. But what does this have to do with why you're here in Reno?" 

Her smile became equal parts satisfied and enigmatic. "A great deal." She glanced at the other two women. "I am sorry I trod on your explanation, girls, but in my experience, cutting right to the chase tends to yield the best results." 

Twilight nodded. "Of course...you're right." She looked back at me. "What I was getting to, Finn, is that despite the interference of some overly pushy, interfering busybodies..." She shot Trixie a dirty look. Trixie stuck her tongue out in return as Twilight continued. "It seems that you would be an ideal candidate for what we're looking for." 

"Well that's just ducky...what is it you're looking for then?" 

Sunset leaned forward, her expression intent. "How familiar are you with theories on The Multiverse?" 

I felt my eyebrows climb up my forehead and try to vanish into my hairline. "What, you mean, like...Alternate Realities? The Butterfly Effect?" 

Sunset nodded. "Yes, exactly. What do you know?" 

I snorted. "Well, nobody  knows for certain, but the theory is that for every action someone does, a parallel universe or separate timeline thingy spins off where that action doesn't happen. For instance, let's say I take a bite of my doughnut here, " I said, holding mine up and taking a bite out of it by way of illustration. I choked it down before continuing, thus proving I wasn't entirely absent the qualities of a gentleman. "Theoretically, I've just created a couple of different timelines. There's the one we're in now, where I just took the bite out of my doughnut. There's another one where I didn't take a bite out of it, one where I did but choked on it, another where I took a bite out of it and then burst into flames...you get the idea. And the further back you go, it can create more significant differences. You could have a universe where, say, Pants hadn't been invented, or where the Roman Empire never fell. In those cases, the timeline would appear to be vastly different." 

This time it was Twilight's turn to speak. "Reasonably accurate. But there's more." She gestured to the bookshelf. "All those books over by there are fiction, yes?" 

I nodded. "Pretty much, Unless there was an undead outbreak in Chicago a few years ago nobody told me about." 

"The thing is..." Twilight said warily, watching me closely, "Is that everything in those books, somewhere, somehow, DID actually happen. There's a universe somewhere where the, ah, Fellowship of the Ring is historical fact." 

I frowned at that. "But...how would that even work? I mean, let's use that as an example, say. Assuming it's true...and I'm not copping to it, mind you...Does that mean that Tolkien received direct inspiration about all those events and then published them, or that somehow, through his act of creating them, it caused this whole universe to just...I dunno, Poof into existence?" I suppressed a shudder as another thought occurred to me, equally terrifying. Assuming all that, who's to say that this universe wasn't dreamt up by some loon writing bad fan fiction?

Sunset nodded, as if she'd guessed the direction of my thoughts. "Exactly. That's what we're trying to study, actually. And," she said, with a glance over at the third woman and Twilight, who both nodded, "And we'd like to offer you a position with our organization." 

I felt like my eyebrows were going to keep trying to climb over the top of my head and not stop until they'd reached the back of my neck. "I-wait...What?" 

Sunset smiled at that. "I understand you might have some reservations, but I'm reasonably certain that we can offer you a position commensurate with your current abilities and salary. If not more so."

I frowned at that. "What would it entail?" 

Twilight stood up. "Well, the position would require a decent amount of travel, with your expenses paid for, of course. Not to mention a good bit of research, excellent communication skills, attention to detail..."She coughed and added "And discretion." She shook her head. "I'm getting ahead of things though. There would be a rather lengthy orientation process, for which you would be compensated as well." 

"I...uh...I mean, that's very generous...could you please give me a couple of minutes to think it over?" 

Twilight nodded. "Absolutely! We'll just wait in the kitchen." She rose from her chair, grabbing Trixie by her upper arm and marching the blonde into the kitchen, followed by the other two women. They began a whispered conversation, that, while I couldn't make it out, sounded like a combined chewing out and interrogation of Trixie. I simply sat, ate my doughnut and contemplated.

I contemplated for a full five minutes. I mean, let's be honest here; It sounded too good to be true. Not that I felt any loyalty to the Payne Corporation. Lord knows I'd thought plenty of unkind things about the jerks from corporate every time they'd changed the bonus structure to something more convoluted and labrynthine, or when i'd pull a back to back double shift during the holidays. And it wasn't like I had any upward mobility left to me. At least, not unless someone died or was fired. Sure, I had some friends at the job, but most of the good ones had seemed to either move on to bigger and better things, or eventually get burnt out. I thought of some of the veteran employees, and most of them were in their late fifties and had been with the company for thirty years. Which was great for them, but when I thought about spending another three years at that job, never mind a decade...

I shook my head.  Ok...so your current job sucks. It sucks hard. So why haven't you prostrated yourself before these ladies and accepted their offer?
Well, the cynical voice in my head I liked to think of as my Common Sense piped up that job does sound too good to be true. What if it's a scam? You've been down that road before. Or do I have to remind you about that Amway experience?
I snorted at that. This wasn't some multi-level-marketing scheme. At least, it didn't have the usual trappings of one. But what if I wanted to back out? What if they stranded me in some god-forsaken third world country? Or worse, what if this is some sort of human trafficking scam? I could accept their offer, then wake up the net day naked in a bathtub full of ice and missing my kidneys. 

"Penny for your thoughts?" 

The third woman was sitting on the back of my sofa, gazing down at me. I arched an eyebrow at her. "You'd be overcharging."

She laughed, and, I swear, somehow, the whole room seemed brighter when she did. "I'm guessing you're trying to figure out if we're on the level, or if you'll wind up waking up unconscious somewhere, naked and missing vital organs." 

I nodded. "You can see why I'd be cautious. In my experience, things that are too good to be true usually are." 

Her smile became wistful as she cocked her head to one side. "I suppose that is true, isn't it? You have more questions, I take it?" 

I grimaced. "It's not that I'm happy with my current job. But, well...I'd have to make arrangements. I don't have a passport, for one. For another, I'd be concerned on your account. This hasn't been...well, let's be honest, a very in depth job interview." 

"Hasn't it?" She arched an eyebrow, her expression enigmatic. 

I shrugged. "I calls 'em like I sees 'em." 

Her smile became more amused. "And you would undermine your own chances of...employment?" 

"Well, ordinarily, I wouldn't, no. But then, this isn't your garden variety job interview, is it?" 

"Well, you're right about that, I suppose. But you have more questions." 

"Well, more concerns. Suppose it isn't a good fit, employment wise?" 

She made pensive sound. "I don't think it will be a bad fit, but I could see why you would think so." She held a placating hand up. "Rest assured, should you desire to...terminate your employment, you will be returned home. We will even make arrangements for you to resume your current employment." 

I blinked at that. She laughed at the expression on my face. "You are trying to find the downside, Finn Kelly. There isn't one, frankly. Well..." She rolled a wrist, artfully. "As they say, 'The reward for work well done...'"

"Is more work." I finished for her, an shook my head. "I must be out of my gourd...Fine. Fine! I'll come and work for you." 

"Excellent!" She turned to the kitchen and addressed the other three women. "He's in, girls." 

The three women trooped out of my small kitchen. Sunset passed a handful of coins over to Twilight, who pocketed them with a smile as she turned to us. "Well, that's great news! We can start immediately!" 

"Not  quite  immediately. For one thing, we'll have to return the car to the Airport. We'll also have to make some more arrangements." 

"I'll have to pack, too, for starters. What's the dress code? Shirt and tie, or business casual?" 

To my surprise, Twilight and Sunset giggled, while the third woman suppressed laughter. "We'll provide you with your, ah...uniform. Though, if you would like to pack some keepsakes, that would not be inappropriate." She extended her hand "Welcome aboard our enterprise, Finn Kelly." 

You know, how when Wiley Coyote runs off a cliff, he has a brief moment where he feels around just before he plummets to the desert floor? 

I know how that feels. Just what have I gotten myself into?