The sun shined brightly on Tellus Tertius but Min barely even noticed. As usual she was staring at a computer screen, typing away.

“I can finish that for you, you know”

“I know, Tina. I just prefer writing it myself. You could probably do it better, but it wouldn't be mine if you did.” Min continued typing away, not looking up. Of course, looking up to talk to Tina wasn't really necessary. Tina was everywhere. She was the computer than ran the place and looked after everyone. She was both Min's dearest friend and biggest headache.

“Pappy says you need to get out and exercise,” Tina prompted her.

“I swam this morning,” Min told her.

“You swam two days ago,” Tina replied. “After I shut the computer off and made weird noises to drive you out of the house.”

“Two days ago? What's today? What time is it?” Min stared blearily at the computer screen. Sure enough, it seemed time had passed without her noticing – not that that was unusual of course.

“That's it! Out you go!” The computer shut off leaving Min to stare at the dark screen with horror.

“Please tell me --”

“It's saved – BUT only as long as you get out of the house.” The disembodied voice brooked no arguments.

Grumbling Min stood up from the computer and stumbled to the refresher to get cleaned up and dressed. Vaguely she wondered where she should go and what she should do. She didn't feel much like swimming. Oddly enough, she felt like a day out and about.

Kaffe was walking down the street back to his apartment. He didn't really feel like going home but, then again, he didn't feel like going anywhere else either. He just felt restless, like he needed to get away and clear his head for a while. Unfortunately he lacked both the time and the finances for that at the moment. He supposed that, as usual, when he got home, he'd log onto the computer and see if anyone he wanted to talk to was on line. Barring that, he had a couple of projects that he should be working on right now, he just hadn't been able to concentrate on them.

As he reached the apartment building, he wondered idly who would be there. The lack of alone time was pressing on him. Even as he reached out to grab the door, he realized he couldn’t go in there. He just couldn’t stand to be sociable when what he wanted was to be left alone. Sighing deeply, he leaned against the side of the building and tried to think of where to go.

“Hey!” Kaffe looked around in surprise, trying to find out who was calling.

“Hey!” To his astonishment, there was an attractive redhead hanging out a car window -- a car that had not been there just a moment ago. He wondered if she was lost.

“Kaffe, right?” she asked.

“I’m sorry, do I know you?” he responded, wondering how she knew his name.

Her smile was dazzling. “Lapis Lazuli Long” she introduced herself. “This is my sister, Lorelei Lee Long. You don’t know us but you can consider us friends of a friend. You call her Min?”

“Min? I’ve not talked to her in a while. She sort of disappeared off the forums a while back.” Kaffe was getting more puzzled by the moment.

“How rude!” Lor responded. “You should tell her just what you think of that.”

“I’d like to but there is the small matter of her living in the States and this being Sweden,” he replied with an almost unwilling laugh.

“She’s not, you know,” Laz told him. “She’s just taking a much needed break. You look like you could use one as well.”

“Well,” Kaffe hesitated. The two women seemed friendly enough and quite charming. They were identical twins. Both had long red hair braided down their backs and prominent noses. Their wide smiles were infectious -- as was their easy laughter. He had a little trouble with their mid-western American accents but managed to follow their conversation well enough.

“Come on, Kaffe,” Lor coaxed. “Min needs someone to pry her away from the computer and you look like you could use a little fun and relaxation yourself.”

“So you’re planning to drive me to America? You do realize there’s an ocean involved, right?” Somehow he couldn’t help but laugh at the idea.

“No,” Laz responded. “We’re flying there. And we’re not heading to the States at all. Where we’re going is both much closer and much farther away than that. It would be easier to show you than to explain it. Hop in.”

Kaffe was tempted more than he could say. He was curious about who they were and how they knew him. He wanted to know how someone could be both closer and much farther away all at the same time. Mostly, he just wanted to get away. Still, he might have found a likely excuse to bow out, if his flat mate had not chosen that particular moment to walk out the apartment building and call to him. Meeting his flat mate’s eyes, Kaffe made his decision and climbed into the car.

Actually, Kaffe stumbled into the car, which was much larger inside than it appeared to be outside.

“Greetings, Kaffe” A pleasant contralto voice seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere all at once.

“Hello” Kaffe stammered in reply, for once at a loss for words.

“I’m Gay Deceiver. If you’ll have a seat and buckle in, we’ll be off.”

Kaffe wasn’t certain how he felt about a car talking to him but he did as she told him. Taking his seat he buckled in. It wasn’t a normal car seatbelt. They waited very patiently as he figured out the five point harness system that would keep him secure on their journey. When he was secured, Laz checked him before buckling herself in and announced to Lor, the captain of the day, that all were ready for take off.

Kaffe found himself looking around curiously, wondering how the car could be so big inside and look like a normal midsize car on the outside. His mind wandered and he found himself looking out the window at the lights of the city spread out below them. It took him a few minutes to realize that he was looking down on Stockholm… from a car.

“We’re flying?!” he shouted.

“Well, of course, how did you expect us to get to our destination?” Laz responded reasonably.

“I thought, I don’t know…. Maybe we’d take a plane since planes fly and cars don’t…. er, usually don’t, that is,” he stammered, belatedly remembering his manners. He didn’t want to take a chance and insult the talking car. For all he knew, she was real and not just a program. He’d hate to be kicked out from this high up.

“We’re clear, Captain,” Gay Deceiver reported.

“Thank you, Gay,” Lor responded. “Take us to Ishtar, please.”

“We aren’t trying to insult you in any way,” Laz told him. “But we can’t take you to Tertius until Ishtar checks you out and gives you the all clear. We’ve been vaccinated but not everyone has. There hasn’t been so much as a case of the sniffles on Tertius since … oh, since those silly tourists from Terra came on a tour two years ago and brought their colds with them.”

Just as she finished speaking, the car came to a stop in front of a large glass front building. The car door opened leaving Kaffe squinting out into the bright sunshine. The air outside was quite warm after the wintry temperatures of Sweden -- too warm in fact for his hoodie. But he would have been forgiven for thinking the heat came from an altogether different source.

Their welcoming committee was tall, taller even than Kaffe. He was also blond and very muscular. It was quite easy in fact to admire his nice build, since he was also completely nude. All Kaffe could think, gazing at him was “He’d make a really cool avatar on IMVU”.

The twins ran from the car squealing “Galahad!” His lack of clothing did not deter them in the least from leaping on him with hugs and kisses and laughter. He hugged and kissed first one, then the other, then both at once while Kaffe was unfastening his harness and making his way out of the car curiously.

As he exited the car to join them, one of the twins (Lor, he thought) scolded Galahad, “You were supposed to be dressed when the visitor arrived. Europeans are a lot more relaxed about nudity than Americans but it’s still good manners to have clothes on for a first meeting.”

“Sorry, love,” he replied easily, not sounding sorry at all. “I just got out of surgery so there was no time to get dressed again. Mountain climbing accident. Broken back, crushed legs. Thought for a while there we were going to have to replace at least one leg but we got her back together again. By the time I stripped down and got cleaned up afterwards there was no time to dress again so I just came on out.”

He turned to Kaffe, holding a hand out in greeting. “You must be Kaffe. You can call me Galahad. It’s an old joke that’s still funny after all these years. Come with me and I’ll take you to Ishtar. She’ll check you out and get you fed and vaccinated so we can send you on your way to enjoy yourself.”

“That’s very kind of you,” Kaffe said politely, shaking Galahad's hand. “But I really can‘t be gone too long. I have rehearsal tomorrow afternoon.”

“What time?” Lor asked him.

“Generally between 2 and 6,” he replied. “The time varies.”

Lor looked at Laz and Laz nodded. “I’ll let Gay know that we need to have you back in time for rehearsal.” Laz ducked back into the car. Kaffe could hear her instructing Gay and the car acknowledging the order. Then the four of them continued on into the building.

“So, he’s the one that’s going to pry Min away from her computer?” Galahad asked the twins.

“That’s the hope,” Lor replied.

Galahad nodded. “It would certainly work for me.”