We All Scream for Ice Cream

“How come I’ve never heard of Mr. Fohlich’s Custard before!” Boimler questioned himself as he twisted his cone of vanilla custard around to get a good look at it. Your large group had rushed over to the convention center after the special announcement that a certain custard maker was setting up shop in the pavilion in front of the convention center. Boimler gave Mariner a questioning look, “you said they only sell once a year?”

Mariner stopped licking her cone of rocky road custard, “Yeah, they travel around planet to planet, selling for a few days before moving on to the next one.”

“It’s the best! Grandpa would get me some whenever it was close by,” Jessica exclaimed with her mint chip half on her face.

“I wonder how they got permission to land their ship back there,” you wondered, briefly looking back at the oddly designed ship that was converted into a custard shop. It was a very blocky looking ship, five times the size of a normal runabout type shuttle lengthwise and about three runabouts tall. The menu and options were on screens that fold out when in use and there was a section at the bottom that opened up to make the store section.

“This ice cream is almost like the cartons we have back home,” Diana commented. You laughed when you turned to look at her as you saw a strawberry mustache on her face. Her eyes raked the group trying to figure out what was funny until Boimler was nice enough to point out the problem. She wiped the mustache away, “Thank you.”

“It tastes similar, a little less creamy I think,” you replied as you dug into your raspberry custard ice cream with a spoon. “At least compared to Neo’s place.”

“Who’s Neo? A ‘friend’ of yours?” Mariner teased, already knowing your ways.

“She’s the acting manager of Neo’s Dessert Emporium, the actual manager disappeared while on vacation or something, and the owners never sent anyone to replace them,” you explained. “She gives me extra ice cream when I go by.”

“Yeah, she’s real big on customer ‘service’,” Laura snarked. Mariner snorted.

“I bet.”

“So her name is Neo and she works at Neo’s Dessert Emporium? That’s a kinda weird coinkydink,” Jessica pointed with a thoughtful finger on her chin. “Did she change her name to fit or something?”

“Nope, the place actually only hires people named Neo.” You informed her, causing Boimler and Tendi to frown at that information. Then you amended your statement, “at least for non-managerial positions.”

“That’s an interesting rule,” Tendi said diplomatically. “Do they um have a hard time finding people to work there?”

“Not really, there are plenty of Neo’s where I’m from, Neo is the name of a couple of famous movie characters,” you explain before you explain the plot of The Matrix and the story of Neopolitan from RWBY.

“Kir-lia ki ia,” Pixel pointed out. You nod at her.

“Sure, I should be able to download The Matrix on my PADD when we get back to the villa,” you turn your head to Mariner after moving around a tall blocky alien who decided to walk through the group without a word. “How much longer are y’all gonna be on Risa?”

“Three more days, the Cerritos is in dry dock while we retrofit new plasma conduits and a new shield matrix,” Rutherford reported. He visibly had a hop in his step.

“Then why aren’t you up there helping?”

“Oh, they’re running a baryon sweep right now,” Tendi shrugged her shoulders. “Unless we want to get irradiated and torn apart, we have to wait four more hours for the sweep to complete.”

“Huh,” you said eloquently before focusing on the convention center the group had walked into. You looked at a sign detailing the various events at the center (including a StarFleet symposium and a Technology and Engineering convention). “Why don’t we visit the—”

“Grandma!” Jessica suddenly shouted and waved at a group of StarFleet personnel who were leaving one of the halls.