Were just seasons out of time

Several years ago…

An exasperated Kim drummed her fingers against the counter of the ice cream parlor she was working at. It was one of several part-time jobs she’d taken over the summer, and it was actually fairly easy, since she was on the evening shift.

Not a lot of people came by and bought ice cream at this time of night. Not even on the warm days. It was mostly just couples going on dates… which was its own kind of irritating.

Kim tried not to seethe with jealousy as she watched all the happy faces devour their ice cream.

I must become zen. Love and romance are not a part of my life. I shall dispose of those worthless human emotions and achieve transcendence. Yes. I am one with the ice cream. I am one with the scoop. I am a being that exists only to serve ice cream.

As she was in the middle of her daily purging of all earthly desires from her exhausted body, even though there were no couples in sight, the bell over the door rang. She looked up in confusion. It was dark and stormy outside, one of those typical July showers that plagued the pacific northwest. Who in their right mind would be coming to buy ice cream in this weather?!

The answer stood in front of her. She was a skinny woman with a stringy mop of black hair that clung to her pale face, dripping over her blue eyes. For some reason, she was clad in leather, like she’d just walked out of a sex dungeon. But Kim didn’t judge her customers. It was odd that she was soaked, because she was carrying an umbrella; but even a glance showed how useless the thing was- it was fully of tears that looked suspiciously like bullet holes. But that was ridiculous, right? Who would shoot at an umbrella?

Regardless, those were questions that Kim wasn’t paid enough to care about. She had one job, and that was to serve ice cream. Things like “curiosity” and “concern” and “minimum wage” weren’t part of the equation.

“Welcome to 32 Flavors! Where we like to go one step beyond the other ice cream shops!” Kim greeted the soaked woman with her best customer service smile. “How may I help you today? Would you like a bite of our summer special, ‘The Good, the Bad, and the Fudgy’?”

The woman blinked, and her bright blue eyes stared vacantly at Kim for a long time, while the beleaguered employee just clung to the counter and tried not to collapse from the sheer awkwardness of the tense air hanging over them.

Just order something already, damn it! She wanted to scream.

But again, the customer always came first. Maybe she needed a moment to gather herself? Now that Kim got a good look at her, she seemed rather haggard and tired, like she’d just run a marathon. Her clothes were slightly torn as well.

Kim started to get a bad feeling.

“…Hey, are you okay?” She asked, frowning. “Do you need me to call somebody? The police, or something?” She was starting to worry that maybe this woman had gotten assaulted and needed real help.

It was like the dazed woman suddenly came to life at the mention of the police. Her blurry eyes sharpened to crystal clarity and she straightened up immediately, looking at Kim in alarm. She shook her head quickly from side to side.

Kim was even more unnerved. “Okay… no police, got it.” She couldn’t say she exactly blamed the girl for not wanting to talk to the cops. She was alone late at night, and the police weren’t exactly the best around these parts, as any poor liberal would protest over, even the white ones.

“So… do you need anything, then?” Frankly, Kim just wanted her to get out. She had gone from concerned over the strange woman, to very, very unnerved.

Now that the dark-haired girl was no longer in a daze, she was far more animated. She paced back and forth in front of the glass, looking hungrily at the tubs of ice cream illuminated by the lamps. Kim saw her lick her lips on more than one occasion.

She noticed the girl hovering over the vanilla bean tub more than the others. Kim could sympathize, it was one of her favorites. Not that she ever got much of an opportunity to buy ice cream herself, after all. The most she could hope for was a tasting spoon or two before closing up, if nobody was looking.

“Vanilla bean, huh? You want cone of cup? One scoop or two?” Kim walked over to the tub and held up the scooper, but the woman didn’t answer any of her questions. She just continued to give Kim those big puppy dog eyes of hers.

Kim was really getting tired of listening to only the sound of her own voice.

“…Fine. One scoop, in a cone. Will that be all?”

The pale girl’s eyes widened, and she nodded. Kim served up the cone and walked over to the register to ring her up.

“That’ll be $2.99. Cash or card?” Kim asked, eager to just get the woman out of here. The sooner she left, the sooner Kim could close up shop and brave the storm back to her mom’s flat.

The girl stared blankly at her and tilted her head to the side.

“Uh, hello? Money?” Kim tapped the cash register impatiently.

Then the wet woman made a face Kim recognized all too well. It was the look of a person who couldn’t afford something they desperately wanted.

Kim sighed and hug her head. “…You don’t have any money, do you?” Now that she thought about it, the woman’s leather outfit didn’t have any pockets.

The dark-haired girl somberly shook her head, looking longingly at the ice cream cone Kim held just out of reach.

Great. Now I feel like the bad guy! This isn’t my fault! It’s stupid capitalism’s fault! Don’t blame me for not giving you your ice cream if you don’t have any money! And yet even though Kim knew how the world worked, her heart went out for the poor woman. She’d clearly been through a lot, and even though it was practically a hurricane outside, she’d braved the weather all for a single cone of vanilla bean ice cream.

And Kim was gonna deprive her of that over $2.99?

As much as Kim needed to save up every cent, she also needed to be able to sleep at night. (Or, well, the 3 hours of nap time she got between part-time jobs.)

Sighing a tired sigh, Kim handed the cone over to the girl. “Okay, here. It’s on the house.” She typed something into the cash register and deposited some of her own money into the machine to finalize the purchase. All that cash… and completely out of reach.

She raised her head, and flinched. The look of amazement and adoration coming from the ghostly woman was really creeping her out.

Not sure what to say, she slammed the register shut and went to go sweep the back corner, not raising her head until she heard the familiar “ding” signaling the woman had left.

“…And that’s about what happened,” Dakota finished, setting down her cane. “Can’t believe I missed that part. It wasn’t really anything major, just one night in a long life of miserable late-night customers, I suppose.”

Everyone stared in disbelief at Kim. But that couldn’t compare to the feeling of utter shock the sweaty girl was feeling herself.

“Is… is that… did that really happen?” Gina shook her head, trying to clarify the memories that Dakota had conjured for them.

“Wow, that… dang. You had to work in the middle of a rainstorm like that?” Said Vivian, completely missing the point of the story.

“Kim, was that story true?” Nick asked, even though he could tell just by the look of horror on Kim’s face that at least part of it was.

“I… I completely blocked it out…” Kim stammered, shaking her head. “It didn’t even occur to me. Dakota was right on the money, she was just one strange customer in a massive wave of them, so I… I forgot about it…”

She looked at Augmented Synthetic Humanoid Assassin with renewed notice. The girl looked a little hurt for a moment that Kim didn’t remember her. But when their eyes met, she was suddenly all smiles again like it was nothing.

Kim’s heart did an awkward flip-flop.

“Err… so that really was…?” She asked again like a moron.

Augmented Synthetic Humanoid Assassin nodded, beaming up at her.

“Aww that’s so sweet!” Sylvia gushed. “You two finally found each other, after such a long time! Awwwww!”

“H-hey, don’t make it sound weird!” Kim snapped. The way Sylvia was talking, she made it sound like they were childhood friends reunited at last. But she had barely interacted with the assassin for fifteen minutes before she came to the island!

Did… did something so small and pointless really mean that much to the girl?

Nick nodded, understanding Kim’s confusion. He’d felt the same way at first, in regards to the assassin girl. What had, for him, been just a simple act of kindness, had meant so much to a woman who had so little.

When he thought about it that way, he could understand why Augmented Synthetic Humanoid Assassin had gotten so attached to him. And why she was so attached to Kim, as well.

“So wait, can we see more, then?” Gina asked.

“Huh? More of what?” Kim asked, confused. “Because I’m telling you, that ice cream parlor was one of the most boring jobs I ever had. I actually-”

“No, nobody cares about that,” Gina groaned, rolling her eyes. “I meant more of Augmented Synthetic Humanoid Assassin’s past. You can do that, right, Dakota? Show us flashes from our past like you just did just now, right?”

Dakota raised her eyebrow. “…I certainly could,” she acknowledged. “But I don’t think I will. Don’t you think that’s a bit of an unfair edge?”

Gina shrugged. “I mean, yeah, but think about it. She can’t talk, right? So wouldn’t us seeing stuff from her perspective be what’s best for everybody? She can’t share it any other way. We would be able to really get to know her and connect to her that way.”

Nick was surprised to hear something so cogent from Gina’s lips. Apparently, the punk girl was really empathizing with the assassin. At the same time, though, her suggestion had a few issues with it that he wasn’t the biggest fan of…

“D-don’t!”

The objection came from the last person anyone would have suspected… because everyone forgot she was there.

Ella had come out from under the picnic tables, and her eyes were wide with panic.

“You… you can’t just show that stuff to people,” Ella said, shaking her head frantically. Her eyes were wide as she played with the rubber-band on her wrist. “It’s an invasion of her privacy. If she doesn’t want you to see her past, then…”

Nick winced. Ella of all people would know how horrible that was. After all, when they first met, she’d been subjected to exactly that.

“I would have to agree,” Amelia said quietly, nodding in solidarity with Ella. “As valuable as seeing a first-hand recounting of Augmented Synthetic Humanoid Assassin’s history would be, it is still an invasion of her privacy.”

Gina looked shaken. Her face turned a little green and sickly with guilt, and she pulled her coat a little tighter over her body.

“S-sorry,” she stammered, looking down contritely. “I really wasn’t thinking about it that way… I just kinda said it without thinking…”

She looked at Augmented Synthetic Humanoid Assassin. “…I’m sorry,” she said, a little more directly. “I didn’t mean to say that.”

The assassin herself looked a little shaken. But she nodded cautiously, even while glancing at Dakota and quickly shaking her head.

It seemed clear that she wanted no part in any plans to reveal her past to anyone. Not even Nick.

And as curious as Nick was… he wanted to respect that. He doubted he’d be able to stomach the horrors he’d see anyhow.

She’s out of that life now. It doesn’t matter. What matters is who she is and what she’s going to do moving forward, Nick reminded herself. That was what was best for everybody.

An awkward tension fell over the beach. Nobody really knew what to say after that.

“…Well, that sure was something!” Vivian suddenly declared, loudly snapping everybody back to reality with a clap of her hands. “Octavia, I just had a hankering to let off some steam! If you wouldn’t mind fetching it for me?”

“Of course, Miss Carrington.” Octavia had been standing at quiet attention this whole time, and only now reminded everyone of her presence with a sharp bow. She stepped aside and went to go fetch this mysterious “thing” Vivian had asked for.

She walked over to the tables where Vivian had prepared all the supplies they’d need for a fun day at the beach. Everyone watched curiously as she found a long object wrapped in cloth.

Octavia presented it to her mistress, and Vivian happily revealed it to the crowd.

“Fuck! Holy fuck!” Kim sputtered, slipping on her sweaty feet and landing on her ass as she stared at the shiny barrel of a long hunting rifle in Octavia’s hands.

“A gun!?” Nick exclaimed. “You brought a gun here!?”

He had half a mind to duck in cover as a matter of course, even though he knew there was no way Vivian would just go an open fire in the middle of the beach like that.

Amelia reacted with slight alarm as well and Ella froze solid. Gina and Augmented Synthetic Humanoid Assassin, on the other hand, leaned forward, interested.

“Relax, it’s not a real gun!” Vivian laughed. “No way Dakota would have let me have one of those, right?”

She turned to Dakota, who shook her head.

“Even if it’s impossible to injure anyone here, it would be best if there were no temptations of any kind,” the host said, tapping her cane on the sand.

The knowledge that the gun wasn’t real helped Nick calm down. Now that he was thinking clearly and not in such a frenzied panic, he realized that made sense. No wonder Sylvia and Dakota hadn’t reacted when they saw it- they would know it wasn’t real.

“I had Nola get this for me,” Vivian explained, flashing the leprechaun a smile. Nola beamed, just glad to be acknowledged for the first time in what felt like forever. “It’s nothing too fancy. Just a modified prop gun. It fires cartridges or something, right?”

Dakota nodded. “It’s a perfect replica of a gun,” she confirmed. “Right down to how it handles. It should even have the same recoil and range as an actual rifle. But of course, the cartridges it fires are completely harmless.”

Octavia cocked the rifle back and pointed it at Vivian. She pulled the trigger without hesitation, shooting the heiress in the stomach. The moment the bullet hit her skin it lost all momentum and fell harmlessly into the sand, lying there limp and impotent.

“Confirmed,” the butler said, lowering the rifle and handing it to Vivian. “Harmless.”

“Been wanting to do that for a while, eh?” Vivian smirked. “Thanks.”

“Okay, but you still didn’t answer my question,” Nick said, frowning. “Why would you bring a gun to a beach party!?”

“Yeah, that’s right!” Kim nodded. “A beach party is no place for a gun, this isn’t an elementary school!”

Nick shot her a look. Now was not the time for her dark humor.

“What? I don’t get to enjoy myself too?” Vivian puckered her lips into a scowl. “Boo! Target shooting happens to be one of my favorite hobbies!”

Nick winced. He remembered their date to her estate, and how much fun she’d had shooting those projectiles. So he could understand where she was coming from, but at the same time…

“Still, don’t you think that’s a little too much?” He asked warily.

“You yanks are so weird about guns,” Vivian scoffed, rolling her eyes. “Half of you can’t stand the sight of ‘em, half of you love ‘em so damn much it’s like you wanna shag ‘em! A gun’s a gun, nothing to it, that’s what I think anyway.”

“You realize that we have stricter gun laws then they do, yes?” Amelia pointed out with a scowl.

Vivian shrugged. “What I do on my estate’s my business, nobody else’s,” she pointed out right back.

Amelia didn’t have a good response to that, and honestly, she didn’t really care.

“Come on, Nick!” Vivian turned to him, her brown eyes sparkling in the sun. “I can even teach you how to shoot, if you’d like!”

“Uh… yeah, no, I’m good, thanks,” Nick said, shaking his head. He wasn’t so anti-gun that he thought they should be outlawed or anything, but he really didn’t want to learn to shoot one NOW of all times. That would just feel weird.

Vivian looked obviously disappointed, but it passed quickly enough. She turned to her butler. “Octavia, can you set up some targets? I want to line up a few practice shots.”

She glanced over at the other girls. “Nick’s out, but what about you ladies? Anyone want to try firing a gun?”

“I’m in!” Gina cracked a crooked smile. “That sounds pretty badass, honestly.”

Augmented Synthetic Humanoid Assassin didn’t have to say a word. She nodded excitedly, her eyes shining at the idea of getting to handle a firearm for the first time in a while.

Vivian smiled back at her. Secretly she wondered just how good of a shot this assassin was. She was pretty proud of her own abilities, not to toot her own horn. It could be quite a fun little competition.

But it was a competition that the rest of the group wanted no part in.

Amelia shook her head at the inane suggestion, and Ella just shook in general. The idea of holding a gun, of holding a weapon of any kind… it terrified her down to core.

Absolutely not!

“Eh… I’m gonna pass… it sounds kinda… yeah.” Sylvia had never used a gun or anything like it, except for a transformation gun. She couldn’t imagine it going well.

“Ah well, I expected that,” Vivian sighed. She turned to Kim. “What about you?”

Augmented Synthetic Humanoid Assassin also looked at Kim with those pleading eyes, clearly wanting to shoot with her.

Which was definitely a bonding experience of SOME kind, but Nick couldn’t say he thought it was a great idea.

“Sorry, I’ve kind of had my fill of guns,” Kim said, shaking her head. “There’s only so many would-be stick-up artists you can blow away before you start to get sick of them.”

Nick looked at her and his jaw dropped.

“Kidding, I’m kidding!” Kim smirked. “…Maybe.”

She wiggled her eyebrows suggestively, and Nick had to wonder just how much of what she was saying was true.

Probably none of it, right?

Regardless, that dark humor of hers showed just why she and Augmented Synthetic Humanoid Assassin might be a better match than Nick ever gave them credit for.