by Max Barry

Latest Forum Topics

Advertisement

Post

Region: the Pacific

It is about 5:45 am in the royal palace, everyone but Fluff asleep.
He is making coffee getting ready for the day filled with relaxation,
but he realizes that he has the speech he has to make, he groans.

King Fluff VI: "Do I really have to do this.. uhhgh." He receives a call,
he doesn't have the number down but he has to take it, it is his duty.

"Hello, this is King Fluff VI, what do you need?" He sounds extremely groggy.

Miss Allen: "Your majesty, you do know that it is a four hour flight to get here right?"
"Also, a reminded.. we have lunch at Dominicks at 11:15... so if it is a four hour trip
and it is 5:46 right now, you do the math." "I'm excited to talk to you about the budget
of the DSO for that space base idea."

King Fluff VI: "Ah, yes.. wish I could use a rocket, it'd be much faster." Fluff chuckles,
then says
, "But I will be there, I can start going at six then I will be there by ten, so
I should be right on time." He hangs up the phone, drinks his coffee and gets on the plane.
Fluff Arrives a few hours later as expected, and goes to the restaurant early. It is a
lower end pizza place, much like Dominos. It is a favorite establishment of Fluff because
they have very good pan pizza.

Miss Allen: "Hello Fluff, I am happy you actually showed up." "When I asked a few members of
the Dushinan government before, they stood me up and didn't let me talk to them about the
budget of the department, I guess it was too boring for them."

King Fluff frowns, "It is sad that some people aren't interested in the advancement of.. well
just doing something that nobody has ever done before, a scientific breakthrough."
"But anyway, lets get to the main thing, how much money would it cost to build a lunar base?"

Miss Allen grabs a file folder from her bag and looks at the papers,
"Well, I have asked my researchers and it may cost about.. 300 billion Fluffs as an initial investment."
"However, it would perhaps cost 40 billion a year to maintain it indefinitely."

King Fluff: "Hm, I think with an increase in taxation we may be able to handle that." "I will definitely
think about that in the future, it would just be such a big boost of pride in the Dushinan government, perhaps
it could even bring in a new age for space."

Miss Allen: "Thank you for even thinking about it, we have many other projects that we could do with just
a little more funding." "Garfield and Odie were thanks to the large amount of funds that the government
has provided recently after the re-founding of the space agency."

The pizza comes out for King Fluff and Miss Allen's is close behind. The side dishes come out with the food,
unusual because they would have come out minutes before the pizzas would come.

King Fluff VI: "Mmm, love those pizza pies." "So how long till the launch of.. Garfield and Odie?"

Miss Allen: "Well, it is 12:00... so it will happen in two hours, you have time to eat."
"The speech will happen twenty minutes before the launch, so you have an hour and forty minutes until
we gotta give the speech."

King Fluff VI: "Nice, got some time." The rest of the meeting is pretty quiet, sparsely sprinkled with
talk about rocket programs and engines, ect, ect. It is about 1:20 when he gets to the launch pad,
and he gets to talk with the astronauts that will be going up with Garfield and Odie.

Daniel Jackson: "Greetings Fluff, thank you for approving the funding of the DSO so that I could actually go to space."
"My friends Chris Hall, Casey Webb, Martin Thompson, Anabel Hughes and Isaac Hinton thank you too, however they are
in the ship currently doing all the boring stuff, getting ready to go to space and all that Jazz.. I better get there
too, I gotta run.. but seriously, thanks Fluff."

Fluff walks up to the stage to start the speech, he has been waiting all day to do this,
"Hello people of Dushina, I am of course King Fluff and I am here to talk to you about space travel."
"I believe that people have ignored space travel, what.. the Apollo thing from the 60s?" "Why would we need that they say..."
"But we need it, oh we need it.." "The DSO has done such great achievements, given so many jobs to people and made so
many peoples dreams come true.. it is all worth it for that isn't it?" "But anyway, I have decided that Dushina needs a
space base, we want a space base, we truly need one." "I am planning on increasing the budget of the DSO so that we
can get a space base for the advancement of cat-kind, that is my dream." The crowd applauds and the speech has run a little
long, there is only 1 minute until the launch of Garfield and Odie, the time lower and lower, ten, nine, eight, seven, six,
five, four, three, two, one.. the sky lights up with beautiful colors of gray, red and orange.

900 words, might be a part three tomorrow but no promises.
It would be about the Astronauts in space, doing Astronaut stuff or about the work on the space base.

ContextReport