"There's just one more thing, and then we're done," Wei said once we were half way done with the first game. I was doing decently well for an amateur, but I was doing particularly badly compared to my usual games. Bianca was doing as expected for someone who had never bowled before, and Helen had scored three spares and one strike.
"Thank God," I said, sighing heavily. We had been working for five hours, and I still felt like the job was only half done. Wei would have to do a lot more work later.
"Now, we just need a medical unit for the brigade," Wei said.
"The guy treating Vultee is a military doctor, right?" I asked rhetorically. "I think his name was Dr. Nabokov. I want to put him in charge of our medical unit."
"Okay," Wei muttered. "I don't know who that is, but I'll hold the spot open for him. Why him?"
"When he told me that Vultee was in a coma, he was upfront with me. He didn't try to hide Vultee's condition behind kind words and skillful artifice. More than anything, I want the leader of our medical unit to be honest and direct," I said.
"I see," Wei said as he wrote Nabokov's name at the top of the paper he was working on.
"You're up," Helen said to me as Bianca sat down next to Wei.
I went up to the lane and grabbed my bowling ball. A large blocky 16 was written on its side, denoting its weight as a sixteen pound ball. The survival of the Imperial measurement system in that one particular context surprised me. It had been more than a hundred years, but they still measured bowling balls in pounds. Helen and Bianca both used 12-pound bowling balls, which was typical in most women's leagues.
In fact, I was the strange one for choosing the heaviest legal ball. My philosophy in bowling was a bit antiquated. I just tried to put as much momentum into the right place as possible and let physics do the rest. Most other high-level bowlers had moved over to a more technique-focused style that relied on spin more than weight. In my opinion, if force didn't work, you just weren't using enough force.
I rolled the ball forward, putting the full weight of my 86-kilogram body behind it, and all ten pins exploded outward. Finally, I had hit the pocket, and physics had rewarded me with a strike.
"You did it!" Helen shouted loudly. Before I could take a single step back toward our table, Helen had grabbed me in a deep hug. The sudden contact surprised me, and I almost fell to the ground. If she had approached me with a violent intent, I probably would have seen the contact coming. Since Helen did not intend to hurt me, my Newtype senses did not activate at all.
"It's no surprise," I said with a smile. "I'm good at this."
"You sure 'recalibrated' quickly, Seb," Helen said.
"Seb, that's a new one," I said, smiling and moving my face closer to hers. "Should I call you Hel?"
"You'd better not," Helen said with a quiet laugh, lightly tapping me on the chest in a gesture of mock offense. Her face drew closer to mine, and I could feel some invisible, magnetic force drawing me towards her. I pressed my lips against Helen's for a brief moment, and a surprised laugh escaped her lips.
"Is that all you got… Captain?" Helen said with inviting eyes.
"Ahem," Wei cleared his throat loudly. "Can this wait ten minutes? We're almost done."
"Uh, yeah," I said, pulling away from Helen. I returned to the table as Helen went up to bowl, looking back at me with a significant gaze.
When I returned to the seat, Bianca glowered at me and said, "If you ever hurt her, I'll…"
Wei cut her off, saying, "If you finish that sentence, I'll have to report it to the police, and I have enough paperwork to do."
"There is only one thing I would reasonably do that would hurt Helen like that: die," I said. "If I survive, you have my word as an officer and knight of Zeon that I would never hurt her."
"You'd better," Bianca said as Helen returned to her seat, conspicuously pressing her body against my arm.
As Bianca went up to the lane, a voice came on over the intercom, saying, "Sebastian Dogwood, there's a call for you from Diego Ramos. Please come to the front office."
"Excuse me," I said with a smile, extricating my arm from Helen's grasp. "If Ramos needs to reach me, I'm sure it's important."
I walked to the front office, leaving my jacket draped over my chair. Once I was back there, an employee handed me a telephone.
I held the receiver to my ear and said, "This is Dogwood."
"Captain," Ramos said through heavy breaths. "We were just attacked. They were looking for you. There were three insurgents wearing masks."
"What?" I asked, surprised. "Is everyone okay?"
"Yeah," Ramos said. "Stradivari killed all three of them before they could do anything. That bastard is a real cowboy. Anyway, keep an eye out. They're probably after you, too."
I looked out toward the table where Helen, Bianca, and Wei were sitting. A powerful, irresistible feeling of dread filled my body. For the first time since I had arrived in the Earth Sphere, I was truly happy. It was the perfect time for the universe to tear me back to my natural state of misery. Finally, something was going well in my life.
"Everybody! Put your hands up!" Someone shouted from outside of my field of vision. "Where is Sebastian Dogwood!?"
A burst of gunfire echoed through the bowling alley, and a chorus of fearful screaming filled the air. I dove behind a nearby wall as the sound of frantic footsteps called out to me from all directions.
We were under attack, and the only weapon I had was the butterfly knife in my pocket.