AW The Ghost of Ashville: Act 1

[Lijosu]

Josie stared like a hawk, looking directly at her the entire time, and watching the movements of her hands in the corner of their eyes.

"I'm Josie. What's your name?" Josie spoke midway into the scanning of the ginger beer.

As she took the magic orb, Josie stopped tapping and kept their finger raised. "...Now-"

Their thought was interrupted. Right before Josie felt themself about to abuse their secret talent, a vibration sounded from the woman's pocket. It was her smartcom. Josie's face suddenly changed from big-headed and excessively proud to perplexed and discerning. They withheld their prank. They wanted to see where this was going.

 

[P0rcelain]

She gestured with her other hand to her chest, unimpressed with Josie's attempt to socialise. On her breast was a nametag that said "Ọya". The toy was moments away from being scanned when she felt the vibration somewhere in her pants. Her train of thought was broken. She hastily swiped the toy over the scanner, hearing a phantom bleep, then hastily grabbing a pack of gum, scanning it four times, then patting around her hips, trying to remember where her smartcom was. It must had been important. She had silenced most feeds and did not have many contacts.

"Two thousand credits. Do you want a bag." She asked in a deadpan voice, ill-matching of her pseudo-frantic pocket-digging.

She soon found the phone in her back pocket and felt it for good measure. Josie would find no sign of the toy in the price she named. It seemed that she had actually managed to skip over it.

 

[LittleWasp]

Wendy stood as still as a statue behind and a little to Josie's left, staring with wide eyes as the items were scanned. Despite her skepticism, she was keen to see if Josie did indeed manage to 'steal' any of the stuff they had picked out. She hoped not, so she could tease them about it later. She watched with some bemusement as Ọya frantically searched for her smartcom at a pace opposed to her calm tone of voice. Wendy hadn't paid enough attention to know if the fee demanded by the cashier was indeed less than what Josie ought to be paying, so she kept a close eye on her friend to read their reaction.

 

[Lijosu]

"...Surreee..." Josie squinted suspiciously at Ọya.

They readied their card, waited for the approval message, then stood up from the counter, dragging their hand across it. They waited for their things to be bagged.

This was unexpected and bizarre to them. That wasn't them. They are certain they didn't see any green light, no matter how small. They didn't hear or feel anything either. As far as they could tell, that was just dumb luck. Josie kept squinting at Ọya without realising. They started running the odds through their head.

The average retail store loses a significant amount of stock to what is presumed to be petty theft, and this is not an issue Babel seemed to show any interest in solving. This nation is full of paperwork nuts after-all, the revenue lost from missing stock was usually built into the prices and paid for with insurance. But on the other hand, what are the odds that most of those are from employees trying to scan too fast without realising it? Surely most of that revenue was lost from actual thieves. Would the cashier being tired improve the odds? Probably. Ọya did seem tired. Although even all this considered, the percentage would seem to be somewhere in the single digits at most...

 

[LittleWasp]

Wendy began to feel faint, realising that she was holding her breath, and exhaled loudly before covering her mouth with embarrassment. She was certain she was acting suspicious and dumb, but felt comforted by the fact that Josie was also acting suspicious and dumb. And I'm not the one trying to steal stuff, she assured herself. Josie's unusually confused expression was odd, however. It wasn't often that Wendy saw her friend like this. She shuffled about anxiously, eager to know what was happening.

 

[P0rcelain]

Ọya rolled her eyes and began indelicately shoving the things into a disposable bag. These two kids were leaving a rather big impression. Whispering, squabbling, and now staring at her like she had róka ears or something. She dumped the full bag on the counter and then broke the silence.

"What." She impatiently growled.

She sold them the stuff they wanted. This was meant to be the part where they leave her alone.

 

[Lijosu]

"Oh, uh. Nothing." Josie suddenly became aware that they were staring at Ọya that entire time. "You just have rather pretty eyes. I guess...? Thank you?"

Josie scooped up the bag, then wrapped the handles around their fist so it would not scrape the ground as they walked. Their bewilderment started to end.

"Beautiful hair too. You must've been growing it out for quite a while." A comment that drew particular attention to Josie's own long hair.

 

[LittleWasp]

The 'What' made Wendy shrink back like a whipped dog, staring wide-eyed at Ọya as if expecting the woman to vault the counter and bite her head off at any moment. The fearful look on her face was quickly replaced by a scowl when Josie worked their charm upon the cashier lady, feeling both embarrassed and vaguely jealous of it. "B-bye," was all the girl could manage herself, quickly hurrying to the door, where she waited for Josie to follow.

 

[P0rcelain]

Ọya was especially whiplashed now, and had grown a sudden awareness of the people she was talking to. She was rearing back slightly, her face instinctively contorted in a combination of shock and flattery. Who was this 'Josie' and their friend? Some tiny, big haired, vaguely gendered individual accompanied by a bookish, four-eyed introvert. She was not sure what to think of these compliments. Did they expect something from her? She pushed down an immature fear that they might had wanted some form of affection.

"...Thanks... Have a... day." She spoke absentmindedly.

She was too tangled up to put a 'nice' in there like her manager kept whining at her to.

 

[Lijosu]

Josie waved, turned around and began walking towards the door, and yet wasted no time immediately scrambling through the bag around their wrist to take out the magic orb that was not paid for. They stared at it as they paced towards Wendy, paying more attention to it than her.

 

[LittleWasp]

The bespectacled girl shook her head in wonder as Josie approached her, a wry smirk appearing on her face now that she was at a safe distance, and gave her friend a pat on the back. She waited until the two of them were outside before she asked in a hushed tone: "So? Did you get anything for free?"

 

[Lijosu]

Josie squinted, deep in thought, then passed the magic orb to Wendy. "You should ask it. I'm curious."

 

[LittleWasp]

Wendy frowned in mild irritation, but accepted this as an oblique answer to her question, taking the orb from Josie and holding it in her hand. She let out a sigh and squinted skeptically at it before giving it a shake and asking: "Did Josie just steal you?"

 

[Lijosu]

Once again, the storm began to stir within the orb. Lightning struck and a hammy voice crackled the speakers within.

"Most unlikely."

Josie rose an eyebrow at this. A flood of hysterical thoughts flooded their brain. "That's some strange phrasing. Is it talking about the odds that the cashier would forget to scan it? Is it referring to how I did not steal it, and instead got struck by random chance? Wait, it could be calling my attempt unlikely. Are desk toys sassy? What."

They gestured for Wendy to hand the orb back to them. "So, uh..."

 

[LittleWasp]

Wendy's magnified eyes radiated with mild disappointment and irritation at the vague answer. Ignoring Josie for now, the girl shook the orb again, more firmly this time, and asked another question. "Do you actually give useful answers?" she asked snarkily.

 

[Lijosu]

Clouds appeared in the orb, a snap of lightning and its "echo" simulated by the toy's speakers... Followed by a comically anticlimactic "No."

"Wendy. Wendy listen." Josie whined, "I didn't steal it. But she didn't scan it either. The odds of that happening seem very low to me."

The way Josie said it was watered down and child-like compared to the numbers they ran in their head.

"So either, that miraculously happened in a timeli- Uh. Either, that miraculously happened, at the same as me asking it if it would, or something weird's going on."

 

[LittleWasp]

Wendy barely acknowledged Josie's words. She slowly turned her head to look at her friend, eyes peering over the rims of her glasses with a tired, skeptical expression. "At least it's being honest," she remarked dryly, handing the orb back to Josie. "But if you're aware that she didn't scan the orb, and didn't alert her, you're effectively stealing anyway." The girl shrugged her shoulders dismissively.

 

[Lijosu]

"What am I going to do? Go back in and say "actually you forgot to scan this"?" Josie adopted the same laid-back attitude as Wendy as they conversed. "The thing costs less than your tea. It'd be a waste of everyone's time."

 

[LittleWasp]

"It'd be the right thing to do," Wendy answered in sarcastically pious tone, pretending to take the moral high ground while giving Josie a big grin. "Also, you're one to talk about wasting people's time when you're buying trash like that orb. Even it agrees that it sucks."

 

[Lijosu]

Josie jokingly asked the orb another question: "Am I going to be exiled for this?"

"Concentrate and try again"

"Pfff-" Josie almost snickered, then asked more sternly. "Am I going to be exiled for this?"

"The dead decline."

"...Reassuring. Hey, my parents are working today. As usual. Want to go to my house?"