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Snatches of sound playing all manner of music thrummed through the throng, a variety of vibrations in a cacophony of crowds, all of it indistinct and conveniently of little consequence; the rhythms, so nebulous in the riot, were unable to be picked out over the noise of the people anyway.
The roar of a win was still audible at their table, however.
A glimmering pile of gilded tokens cascaded into a glorious puddle in front of her, and the only way Addi knew her voice was going hoarse was by feel. She yelled out for another round of whatever was in the glass – was it even hers? – near her, and received one via some invisible system instantly. Ford looped his arm through hers as they each took a shot and when she opened her eyes again the world was swimming in a golden haze. The world did, in fact, consist mostly of Ford himself and the ludicrous delight in his muddled grin. She couldn’t decide whether she wanted to whirl around in the gambling fervour some more or find an out-of-the-way place to kiss him silly in; the latter option became substantially more attractive as he decided to beat her to the punch then and there, as it were.
Multicoloured explosions burst into being not five feet over their heads – miniature fireworks! They were adorable! Another shot to celebrate those too- and then the pulse of the crowds shifted and she and Ford were swept out to sea to discover more bounty!
Addi loved Lottocron Nine.
There were card games. There were dice games. There were drinking games. There were dancing games. There were fighting games, singing games, video games, games of chance, games of no chance, games of skill, of mettle, of courage, of instinct, of quickness of tongue of slight of hand of strength of stomach. There were games that weren’t even games – real estate! Shopping! Finance! Farming! Lottocron Nine treated it all just the same and she’d have a proper look at the notes Ford had taken down earlier in the day after- after she won this hand! Yes! Ford did you-
Addi turned wildly to look around for him and only then realised that he wasn’t there.
Now, she could worry and go searching for him. On the other hand, what were the chances he was already in trouble after only a day or so in the Gambling Dimension?
Pretty likely. He’d been counting cards and making no effort to hide it, the last she saw him.
But… but… the thing was, she reasoned deliriously, that she’d definitely know soon enough, right, if something was happening to him. Ford didn’t really do things quietly, the ridiculous man… she loved him so much…
She found herself stumbling around in a momentary recess of calm. Tiny little spaceships circled her briefly, each housing a tiny little crew, all partying hard. They bathed her in strobe lights and flew off again, waving bye. Laughing, she waved back.
Wait. Back to business. You’re on a mission, girl. The crowds swallowed her again.
“Have you seen my friend?” she bellowed to the first person she managed to grab a hold of. They were standing still – unusual, here. They shook their heads. Yep, heads. Addi let go, squinted, and lurched on to her next target.
“Have you seen my friend?” Wait a minute. How would they know who Stanford was? “He’s got… brown hair and it’s so nice and soft, and, like, really big glasses,” she tried to explain to someone who she wasn’t entirely sure wasn’t a mammoth, and who was also standing still. At another negative, she moved on. Wow, there were actually a few people who were just standing still around here. She could be sooo unobservant sometimes, it really was weird. They were all in a line, like dominos – that was something she hadn’t tried yet! When she found Ford, that’s what they needed to do – DOMINOS. On the basis that there was something important at the end of the line – the end, for one thing, at which might be some actual dominos – she grabbed herself onwards person by person until finally, she reached it – some great curtained tent with a glittery fairy outside.
“WHERE ARE THE DOMINOS?!” she screeched.
Hmm… that wasn’t right.
“HAVE YOU SEEN MY FRIEND?!” she corrected. The fairy – being – glittery goddess perhaps – stared at her. “He has a soft head and I love him very much!” she told her earnestly.
That was basically a complete sentence, Addi reflected. “One moment!”
She cleared her throat and yelled out for another drink to the invisible drink ghosts, who promptly made several more appear. Red, blue, yellow, purple, all down. Addi wiped her mouth, beamed proudly at the even glitterier fairy who seemed to be flashing now as well, and repeated her question. Maybe. She wasn’t entirely sure what she said. What had she been asking? Huh, the fairy was now above her, looking pretty bemused… as was the ceiling, and lights, and the people… Ahhh, she was on the ground, that was it.
“You wanna get married or what, bro?” the fairy called down to her.
Ford! That was it! She was looking for Ford!
“Right!” she yelled up to her.
There were a bunch of clothy curtainy folds that felt nice when she went through them, and then a wide open space. Several more fairies were leading her around, but they didn’t look as fairily as the other fairy. They looked pretty normal actually, but they were also fairies, she knew.
“Have you seen Ford?” she asked.
“Nope!” one cheerfully said, bringing her to a stop. “Toss a coin!”
Addi would have, but her fingers were like sausages – and disobedient sausages at that. She compromised by more or less whacking the silver shard out a fairy’s hand. It thwapped into the side of the tent.
“Wall shot!” Cheered the fairies. “Ice cream cake!”
Hands pushed Addi around again, leading her to another area: a circular table was spinning around so fast that it was blurred; making out what was on top of it was impossible, until Addi reached out impatiently and stopped it.
A jar, firmly fastened to the table, knocked against her hand and the contraption rocked to a halt.
“Nice, bro, bubble-themed is a good one,” said someone appreciatively.
“Oh! Are we planning a party?” Addi gasped, understanding dawning. Laughter all around, and someone in a sombrero and stilettos threw his arm over her shoulders, almost unable to breathe.
“We sure are, man! And you’re in charge – well, actually the forces of chaos and chance are, but you’re channelling them tonight, baby!”
This time, Addi cheered just as hard as everyone else. Why not?
“Pick a colour!”
“Red!”
“Choose a hand!”
“The left one!”
“Rock, paper, scissors!”
“Alright!”
She had to admit, it was the easiest party she had ever planned. And the least stressful. Something about Lottocron Nine just encouraged you to let go and enjoy whatever the hell it was that was happening to you.
“THIS IS GREAT!”
The party planners whooped. It was rare that they didn’t.
Two more random decisions (which somehow led to Sombrero-&-Stilettos becoming best man and a feather boa minus the living owner becoming maid of honour) and the drinks were starting to wear off again, though.
“What if the party turns out horrible?” she wondered.
“Nah,” A robot dismissed, waving a metallic hand flippantly.
“Nah?”
“Yeah,” agreed the robot, the screen it had in place of a face blinking a thumbs-up at her. “There’s an inherent order to the raw, chaotic randomness of the universe. You know the slogan of Lottocron Nine! ‘Every party is a good party! It is utterly impossible for it not to be! It’s all about perspective! Go throw up in a toilet!’”
Addi threw a dart onto a massive, square dartboard and scored a pair of pretty white heels, then had the ghosties bring her another drink. Things seemed much less confusing after that, but she doubted she could win another set of proper party shoes if she tried. A rain of confetti fell from above and jostling, eager, and above all anticipatory faces hurried her to what she assumed was the last decision. The robot synthesised a fanfare. Assorted fairies whipped open some curtains to reveal a bunch of bags. But, like, nice ones. They were all long, and person-sized, and reached to the ground. Coat hangers protruding from the top, fastening them to a circular rack.
“Ah. Costumes. Essential for a party,” was what Addi tried to say. It got garbled up in her mind and came out more like, “I want another drink!”
“YEEEAAAH BOY!” whooped the party planners, and set the rack whirling. Sadly, the costume she chose was unlikely to be her size. She didn’t need Ford to tell her the odds on that. FORD. Right! She had to get back to Ford! Possibly she could find him by sending him an invite to this awesome party she was planning… and which she was going to look amazing at whatever the odds said.
“I would like…” she shouted dramatically, holding up a hand. There was a colour-coded sizing chart on the far side of the tent for some unimaginable reason. “A fwooping schipperoo! With strawberries, please!”
The bag rack spun on. The bags themselves had flared out, brushing her knees as they passed. It was like running through a field! That hadn’t been mowed! Without actually moving! She thought for a moment, then amended: it was like the field was running through her!
A vivid, layered, multicoloured drink making slight whistling noises rose up out of the floor and hovered in front of her until she took it and downed it one. Her burp sounded like a birdsong. The party planners cheered.
Addi grinned and wiped her mouth. “Thank you invisible ghosties!” She squinted at the spinning bags. The party planners began a chant.
“Dress! Dress! Dress! Dress!”
The drink kicked in… and the X-Ray vision side-effect available for humans whose favourite colour was red activated as well. Addi’s grin widened, and her sights narrowed on the whirling costumes, or more accurately, the tags attached. Lessee… she was looking for a blue with an H for human according to the size chart.
“DRESS! DRESS! DRESS! DRESS!”
The first one she saw, she grabbed, a word that made her actions sound a lot more controlled than the flail and dive and tackle that they actually were.
“DREEEEEESSS!”
The world spun around her again as various hands hoisted her up off the floor and bore her on a kind of tidal wave to the rear of the tent. Addi happily let it all happen. She went through a curtain and came out the other side feeling much lighter. Her arms felt cooler- ‘cos her jacket was gone- her feet were harder to walk in and she would have pitched forward if the party fairies hadn’t caught her- ‘cos her comfy old boots were replaced with some kinda wobbly stilts- and her hair was falling in her eyes ‘cos that’s just, like, what it did. She kicked muzzily. How annoying. Some kind of tablecloth was draped over her legs-
The cheering fairies racing passage down the tent jolted to a stop, silent and breathless. The momentum somehow carried up vertically through Addi’s body, whipping her head up to see-
A picture-
A photo-
No, a mirror-
-image of a blonde, dizzy-looking, half-focused, lightly scarred, swordless, Adeline Marks in a (hella good-lookin’) wedding dress.
Her grin froze.
Ahahah… she’d made some sort of mistake somewhere, hadn’t she?
“Um…” she said as fairies hustled her, shouting joyfully, towards the exit.
“What…” she said, as a blindfold was whipped over her eyes and fastened tightly behind her head.
“So…” she tried, as her heeled feet stumbled over uncertain ground back out into the roar of Lottocron Nine at large.
“Wedding…?” she managed weakly as one of her hands was guided firmly to wrap around someone’s- Sombrero-&-Stilettos’, it felt like- arm and she was drawn inexorably forward and her shoes touched upon a surface that was slightly softer than the rest of the ground and extended ever forward- an AISLE oh no this was happening-
“No! No, no, no. No. I can’t do this!” Addi said loudly and firmly, digging in her feet and dragging all forward motion to a halt. The musical cacophony of some sort of variant on the “Wedding Sprint” stumbled but kept going. Her free hand went sluggishly behind her head, trying without any luck at all to remove the blindfold.
“Thank you very much, but no,” she maintained, giving up on the knot and attempting to walk off to the left, but failing to escape Sombrero-&-Stilettos’ hold on her arm.
“What? Why not, bro?” he asked disappointedly.
“Because,” said Addi with dignity, facing his voice and straightening her spine and almost falling over until she got her balance back. “I’m not…” she searched for a word. There had to be a reason. “Engaged!” she said triumphantly.
“Engaged? What’s engaged mean?” She heard someone mutter in confusion.
“That’s okay, bro!” said Sombrero-&-Stilettos cheerfully. “No one here is!” Then to the supposed audience. “It’s okay, the show will go on!” There was another cheer.
“Remember the motto of Lottocron Nine,” he advised Addi, propelling her onwards.
“Resistance is futile?” said Addi, getting more and more panicked as she felt the end of the aisle approach and all her muddled efforts to escape fail.
“Right on, bro!”
They stopped again.
“Dear beloved random citizens, we are gathered here today-” started a new voice.
“Oh NO,” Addi shouted.
“Better make it quick, Priest-Bro,” advised Sombrero-&-Stilettos.
“Alrighty then mate. Let chaos theory bind these two- whoever they may be- together! You may now choose your groom!”
“What?!” exclaimed Addi.
About half a dozen voices suddenly said, “’Sup.” The grooms. They seemed to be lined up to her left. Where was her SWORD.
“Go on. Just reach out and pick one,” encouraged Sombrero-&-Stilettos. There was a great pushing-out of chairs, and Addi felt an uncertain amount of people close in around the grooms and her like a ring. Holy HELL she hadn’t even been given any sort of RING.
“Um…” she said, desperately stalling for time. Her heart was in her mouth. Her pulse was in her ears. The chaotic, Vegas-dialled-up-to-eleven, sounds of the gambling dimension were all around her, but none offered her any ideas of how to get out of this. Wait. Wait. There were sounds of a ruckus in the distance. If she wasn’t mistaken, they were getting closer. With any luck, it could serve as a distraction for her to ditch and run and find Ford… oh, this was really not good…
“Uh,” still stalling, she took a step to the side, edging closer to the sounds of the disturbance. “Uh… the laws of chance…” Shouts were nearing. “…and, and the general weirdness of the universe…” Something crashed in the distance. “…say that whatever my choice is- my, er, completely random choice is, haha- has to turn out in everyone’s favour, because- right! Because in Lottocron Nine, it is impossible not to have a good time!” Mixed in with the cheer of the happy audience, Addi heard footsteps, thudding closer and closer. She tensed her muscles, ready to launch herself through the ring of spectators. “So, my choice is-” The footsteps were not ten feet away.
A shriek went up as some unfortunate person was collided with. By the sound of it, they’d been knocked down. Addi grabbed a handful of skirt in one hand to minimise the already high chance of tripping. She sprang for the exit amidst a few groans and an apologetic explanation-
“Just running for my life, you know how it is- I’m usually better at it, sorry.”
Addi froze.
“Oh. Ah. A wedding. I just interrupted. Right. Carry on! Mazel tov! Drinks on me!”
There was the sound of a drink being summoned, but Addi paid it no attention, abandoning the undoubtedly re-closed gap and instead making a beeline for the voice, that wonderful rich voice more familiar to her than the last sixteen dimensions they’d passed through combined, that voice that had arrived in the nick of time on so many occasions before and now had again, that voice that always made her feel so happy and comforted but had never summoned the sheer amount of relief she felt right now, that voice, belonging to the one person in her life that could make her smile as much as she was now.
Addi collided with Stanford, almost bringing him down.
“Oof!”
“Sorry!”
“Adeline?”
“Yes! I am so glad you’re here!”
“You… are blindfolded. And… in a wedding dress?”
“Yes! Yes I am!” Her hands had found his arms as they steadied themselves, and his were on her waist. “I really need your help! I’m drunk, and I can’t get it off!”
He cleared his throat. “You mean the blindfold?”
Despite the urgency of the situation, Addi laughed. “Can you please just help me?”
“Of course I will,” he said, and then kissed her.
It was good, and it wasn’t just the alcohol saying that.
A massive Hooray! went up around them. Addi’s eyes went wide under the blindfold. Oh no. Then light filled the world once again and Ford was beaming at her, leaving her in no doubt that he understood exactly what he’d just done. Any remaining thoughts that he wasn’t thinking clearly and just made a spur-of-the-moment choice because he was at least as drunk as her vanished when he dropped the drink in his hand and stamped it firmly into shards. The shattering noise elicited another cheer, and confetti and bubbles rained down.
Ford’s grin faltered a little. “Was that alright?”
Addi looped her arms around his neck. “That was exactly right.” She considered. “Kind of skipped the first step, though.”
“Ah! I’ve got it here somewhere… been meaning to ask for a while…” Ford said, holding up a finger and digging around in his coat pockets with the other hand.
Disbelief spread across Addi’s face, but before Ford could find it, a blare rang out.
“Stanford Pines! You have been caught card-counting in violation of the One Rule of Lottocron Nine: You Cheat, Get Beat! Remove yourself from this dimension or face the randomly-assigned judicial consequences!”
“I knew there was something I was forgetting.” Ford’s hand fastened around hers. “Ready to run?”
“Maybe not in these heels,” Addi mused, before smiling broadly at him. “But always with you.”
And really, the chaotic nature of their abscondment was not nearly as annoying an occurrence when Addi considered how the occasion could have concluded. As was the titular aphorism of Lottocron Nine: no such thing as a bad time here! No really! This is not up for debate! Good things guaranteed!
Strangely, they were.