Jake Barry
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Chapter 35
🕑 Added 2023-03-29 17:32:22 +0000 UTC"I still can't believe you've got a whole city in your bedroom. It's crazy no matter how you look at it!" Sara throws her hand up in the air.
"If you think that's crazy, wait until you see what the place used to look like. It was nothing more than a barren plot of land just a few months ago." I tell her while brewing two cups of our favorite teas. Chamomile for me and peppermint for her. I am in the kitchen and she's on the sofa, laying on her back with her legs stretched out. She's made herself comfortable despite being in someone else's home. Not that I mind, since she's always welcome here. My home is her home too. "They literally built it up from nothing, almost entirely on their own."
"They're pretty advanced. I can't deny that." She admits, pausing to think. "I've got a bunch of questions. For starters, how do they get water? I didn't see any tiny rivers or lakes."
"Mm. Good question." I tell her as I bring over the tray with our drinks. She sits up, giving me a place to sit next to her on the sofa. "I help out with those kinds of things. Every so often I bring them half a cup of tap water and pour it into their reservoir."
"No way. Their entire population only uses half a cup?" Sara speaks between sips of her tea. She holds her own cup in front of her, gauging its contents. "So, this tea would be enough to sustain them. It would be like a lake, or something..."
I cannot help but laugh at her sudden realization. "Naturally. I thought that much was obvious?"
"It is! It's just that I never really thought about it before." She shrugs.
"I don't blame you. I only recently got to see the world from the Lilli perspective. Most people don't think on the Lilli scale."
"Except for you." She pokes me in the side, causing me to flinch. I manage to keep my hand steady, avoiding spilling my tea. I give her a disapproving pout which causes her to laugh.
"I thought I did. That changed when I saw actual footage." I tell her, putting my half-finished glass down.
I reach for my laptop on the coffee table in front of us and open it up. It takes me a minute to connect it onto my living room TV. Soon enough, I see my desktop mirrored on the big screen. I navigate to a folder called 'MG' and open it up. Inside it are two subfolders titled 'pics' and 'vids', respectively. I think it will be more fun to start with the pictures, so I open up the first file.
An image of a city street appears on the TV. It was taken at ground level, probably sometime in the early afternoon based on the lighting. People can be seen walking on the sidewalk on the left while cars drive by on the right. I can just barely make out the dome atop city hall in the top right corner of the frame. It's difficult to see past the trees, but it's there. I am not sure where this was taken. If I had to guess, it would be just outside the commercial district.
"So, this is the Lilli city? Magna Gratia." Sara says, staring at the image curiously. "You’re telling me this was taken by a camera? A Lilli camera?" She pinches her fingers to signify something tiny.
"Bingo. I had my top engineers, Icarus and Daedalus, develop one specifically for us. That's why I asked you to wait so long before I could invite you over again. I wanted you to see this. The pictures and video clips were taken by my good friends Nick and Ori."
I notice a hint of amusement in her expression when she hears that name, but she does not comment on it. "Honestly, it looks a lot like the cities of New Brobdingnag. If you hadn't told me, I probably would've just assumed."
Her observation elicits a smile from me. That is exactly what I was hoping she'd say. Rather than focusing on the differences, she's identifying similarities. "I know, right? Even the people look the same."
"Eh, mostly. Their fashion sense is kinda off, you know? Looks pretty foreign and outdated to me."
"Maybe they should take notes from you?" I joke.
"Maybe they should!" She says, gesturing to her carefully selected outfit. She looks great, as usual. Of the two of us Sara's always had a much better fashion sense. I never go shopping unless she is with me.
"Seriously, though." She says, becoming serious again. "They really do look like us. Yes, I know that should've been obvious, but the only Lilli I've ever seen was the ambassador."
"That changes today. Strap in because we are just getting started!" I say, cheerfully. "I haven't looked at any of these yet. This'll be a first for both of us."
I scroll through the gallery, stopping whenever she asks me to. Some pictures are more interesting than others. We take our time with the shots of important landmarks and skip the ones of random strangers walking around. The population has grown to a point where I don't recognize most of the citizens, but my eyes light up every time I see someone I know. Sara stops me from time to time to ask questions. It surprises me just how many she has! She is clearly interested.
"Ooh! Stop here." She says, prompting me to pause my scrolling.
We both gaze at the image on the screen. It's a shot taken from atop one of the apartment buildings, looking up at the sky. It shows the rest of the room, beyond the city's border. It's hazy, but various things in my bedroom can be seen. A pair of shoes in the corner, my desk to the left, my bed in the distance, and so on. Everything seems so astronomically far away, even though I know these distances don't exceed a few meters.
"Gosh, they're small! Like, really small!" Sara laughs. "Your old shoes look like a mountain range from way down there."
"Yeah, I guess they do." I say, feeling embarrassed for some reason. "Let's move on."
Pressing the right arrow key on the keyboard cycles back to the first image once more. It seems we've reached the end of the picture gallery.
"Aww, that's it? And here I was just starting to enjoy the show..." She pouts.
"There were over three-hundred pictures, Sara. For your information, I only asked them for thirty."
Typical Nick, going above and beyond just to impress me.
"Fine, fine!" She brushes me off. "Now for the good stuff. Let's see those videos!"
"Yes, ma'am." I giggle. "Let's see here..."
I navigate to the other folder and pull up the videos. To my surprise, there are few. The total file count is three, and no clip exceeds a minute. I wonder whether that was deliberate or a limitation of their current technology? I'm inclined to think it was the latter. I can't tell what the videos will be about by their thumbnails either. I click on the first video and let it play on the screen, raising the volume so we can hear.
After some fiddling with the camera, I see a face come into focus.
"Should I hold it vertically or horizontally?" A feminine voice asks from behind the camera. She is aiming it at a smartly dressed Lilli with a familiarly bad goatee.
"Uhhh... Let's go with vertically! That was she'll be able to see all of me." Nick says, giving us a goofy smile. He clears his throat and begins to address us. "Hey, Jeannine! As you can see, the camera is working. I hope the pictures turned out okay. This is our first clip, so I'll keep it short. Ori, do you want to say hi too?"
"H-Hello!" She says, nervously.
"No, I meant while showing your face. Here, let me have that."
The footage goes out of focus as Nick takes the camera. There is a scratchy static resulting from his hand brushing against the mic, but it only lasts a second. He then turns the camera around, revealing a timid woman who just can't seem to look directly at the camera. She gives a wave and Nick zooms in on her face. A moment later, the video ends.
Personally, I found that to be incredibly cute. Ori can be very shy, so it means a lot that she was willing to appear on camera for me. Nick is just being himself, of course. I look at Sara for her reaction.
"I'm guessing those two are Nick and Ori." She says, unable to hide her growing smile. "You didn't tell me he was cute!"
"He'd be cuter if he'd listen to me and shave." I scoff.
"What? No. It totally suits him."
"No. No, it doesn't." I laugh. "Anyway, let's keep going. We have two left.
I pull up the next video. Not a moment later, my smile disappears as I realize what I'm looking at.
The screen shows the wrecked part of the city. It's not nearly as bad as I remember it, so this must have been taken a few days later. Most of the rubble has been cleared away and the area has been cordoned off with yellow tape. There are people on large vehicles with rotating brushes on the bottom, sort of like the ones used to clean basketball courts. They seem to be clearing away a clear slime, which can only be the remains of my mother's spit after she flooded them.
"As you can see, we're already recovering. The damages should be repaired by the end of next week, ideally." Nick says, standing in front of the camera with his back facing us. Beside him are Icarus, Daedalus, along with a group of construction workers. "And I've been working extra hard to get people to shelter. We have got the best community. The kind people in Block U are sharing their homes with the ones who lost theirs. No more tents, see?"
Indeed, there are no more tents. There isn't a single injured or displaced person in sight. Nick then whispers something to Daedalus, who whispers back.
"I'm going to unmute in a sec. As you can see, things are much better now! So, cheer up!" He then taps his earpiece and continues, looking up to the sky. "Alright, we're ready. You're good to go!"
I get a sense of Deja vu when I hear him say that. Suddenly, two pale pillars enter the shot. They descend upon the city, like the hand of god. Painted nails clamp down on the sides of a damaged building, pinching and pulling on it. Sounds of the foundation creaking can be heard as it tries and fails to resist the upward force. The building is then plucked out from it's place disappearing out of shot. Shortly after, the video ends.
"Jeannine?" Sara asks, looking at me in awe. "Was that...you?"
"It was." I shrug, thinking nothing of it. "I was helping them to fix a part of the city that got wrecked. The building would've been demolished, so I just, you know." I make a plucking gesture with my fingers.
"Oh my gosh..." She stares at me, wide-eyed. The look on her face tells me she is imagining some strange, likely inaccurate picture of me. "An entire building?"
"Well, yeah. I wasn't going to remove just half of it." I say, half jokingly.
"That's...wow." She says, shaking her head in disbelief. "Talk about power!"
"Power for the betterment of those weaker." I say, hoping she does not get the wrong idea. "Never for abusing them."
"I get it. The little ones are your friends. I wouldn't want to hurt them either." She smiles, nodding in agreement. I trust she means what she is saying. "Seeing them on video was pretty humanizing. It's funny to think that someone like your Nick is smaller than a bread crumb."
"That's why I have to be so careful around them." I explain, ignoring what she's insinuating. "A careless flick of my finger and I could topple one of their buildings."
"Woah. That's some goddess of wrath level stuff right there..."
"Call it what you want, but it doesn't change the fact that we have to be considerate."
"Mm. Makes sense." Sara crosses her arms and leans back on the sofa. "I'm guessing you learned that the hard way?"
Her question catches me off guard. "Come again?"
"You said that part of the city got wrecked. I'm guessing you had an accident?"
"N-No, not exactly." I sigh, the awful feelings from last week bubbling up to the surface. I try to remember Nick's encouraging words, both from our heart to heart and the video just now. Mayor Saverine's harsh words help too. "Last week, when my Mom was in town, she let herself into my apartment when I wasn't home. Long story short, she found the city and caused some serious damage."
"Seriously?" Sara sits up straight in her seat. "I thought I was the only one who knew your secret? Don't tell me she killed people?"
"Thankfully, she didn't realize the truth. I convinced her that it was a 'model for research purposes'. And no, nobody died. There were casualties, but somehow everyone survived."
"What about Nick and Ori?" She asks, looking genuinely worried about their wellbeing.
"You saw them just now, didn't you? They're both fine."
"That's good." She nods slowly. "I know you'd be devastated if anything happened to them."
"I'd be devastated if anything happened to any of them." I correct her. "They're my responsibility. I have to make sure my citizens are safe, happy, and at ease."
"Ohhh, I see." Sara grins mischievously. "Forget goddess Jeannine, you're more of a... mommy."
"Oh, stop it!" I say, a blush appearing on my face. "It's nothing like that."
"I know, I'm only teasing." Sara blows me a kiss. "Anyway, there's still one video left. Shall we?"
"We shall." I nod.
I click on the last video and watch it on the TV. The shot appears to be from a roof overlooking the plaza outside city hall. The camera pans upward, aiming beyond the skyline to my bedroom. Unlike the other videos, this one has no sound. I raise the volume to max, which produces only the faintest of noises. That changes when I hear a rhythmic booming that gets louder every second. I move to lower the volume back down as the noise gets to be uncomfortably loud. Suddenly, the source of the noise appears. It is me! Based on what I'm wearing, this must have taken place just yesterday.
I walk over to the city, causing light tremors throughout the city as I step over to its border. The camera pans upward, struggling to capture all of me in frame. The view is distorted, making my legs seem enormous, while everything above the waist seems smaller the higher you go.
"Hello guys! I hope everyone is doing well today." I say, my voice booming from the heavens in a way that I struggle to put to words.
I then begin to kneel, as I usually do. Another tremor rocks the city as my knee touches down. It looms over the northside like an oddly shaped hill of denim. The camera adjusts to focus on my face high above. The cameraman, who I'm pretty sure is Nick, struggles to capture my face from his position. For once, I cannot blame him. At his angle, my chest is blocking the lower half of it. Still, I can't help but cringe even harder, covering my face with my hands in embarrassment.
"What a lewd angle!" Sara reaches over to pause the video, bursting out laughing. "The cameraman deserves a raise."
"Moving on!" I yell, reaching to un-pause the video.
Thankfully, I lean over slightly, allowing my face to be seen better. I smile and continues speaking, my voice becoming noticeably softer. I do not even need to adjust the volume this time. "I'm looking forward to hearing about things. I'm going grocery shopping tomorrow, so don't forget to send in your requests."
The camera then turns to a large, spherical object to the right. A hatch opens up, revealing the interior. It's the cabin, or rather, my earring. The video becomes shaky as we're taken inside. The hatch closes and Nick moves to the front, close to the viewing window. The camera is aimed upward again, putting me back into the shot. My gaze is now fixed on the cabin as I reach for it. There is no shaking as it's lifted up high into the sky. My huge, smiling face can be seen just before the video ends.
"I'm starting to understand why Lillis fear us." Sara says. "If I ever saw a woman that big looming over this city, I might just faint."
"Even if you knew she was nice?"
"Well, that would help, but still. It's scary to think about. You were like one of those titans from myth."
"I'm just an ordinary woman, Sara. Same as you."
"My brain knows you're right, but my eyes refuse to agree." She says, taking the laptop from me. She goes back to the second video and pauses at the part when I am plucking up the building. "No 'ordinary woman' can do that."
"Funny you should say that..." I reach over to the table, picking up the tiny object near its corner. I bring it over to Sara, holding it before her eyes. "...because that entire building is just this little thing. Anyone could have done what I did. It was easier than plucking a hair."
Sara gasps when she sees it. She reaches to take it but stops herself. "Um, can I..."
"Absolutely. I would've thrown it away, but I kept it specifically for you." I say, handing it to her. She holds it gently, turning it around to inspect it. Bits and pieces crumble away like dust, but that is only natural considering it was already in bad shape. "What do you think?"
Sara continues her inspection for a while longer before answering me. "I can't believe that this is an apartment building. It fits in my hand! Yes, sure, it's probably on the smaller side, but still! People used to live in here. Actual people..."
Hearing her say that warms my heart. She has not referred to any of the Lillis as specks today. That is progress! Sure, she may not see things exactly as I do, but I'm sensing a growing compassion in her. It makes me very happy, if not proud.
Just as I'm beaming with pride, I see her reduce the building to dust. The structure snaps in half, most of it crumbling away into her lap. She looks at me with a shocked and very guilty expression. "Sorry! I wanted to test it and I squeezed too hard. It is more fragile than I expected..."
"Don't worry about it. Like I said, it was due for demolition anyway." I reach over and sweep the remains off her lap like fallen crumbs. "It's more important that you understand how fragile these things are. If you can't handle a building with care, what do you think will happen if you try to hold a tiny?"
"I see your point. Probably best that I don't do that anytime soon."
"And that's assuming they want you to hold them. Most Lillis don't go around looking for Brobs to lift them several kilometers into the air. Them being small doesn't mean we can pick them up and drop them whenever we please, either. They're not toys. "
"I wonder if any of them would let me?"
"Considering their first interaction with you involved the suggestion of 'disposing' of their city..." I remind her.
"Oh, right." She frowns. "I wish I hadn't said that. They must think I'm a monster."
"To be fair, the population was fairly small back then. Most of the citizens have never seen you before." I remind her.
"Are you saying I should make a new first impression?"
"I'm not saying anything. What you do is up to you, so long as I'm there with you." I tell her, standing up and gesturing for her to follow. "Speaking of which, it's time for the best part. I think you are ready to see the city for yourself. Properly, this time."
I expected her to seem more excited, but it seems that she's still hung up on what she did last time she was in my room. With some anxiousness, she stands up and follows me inside.
"Don't worry, I already told them you would be coming over. So long as they know that you're supposed to be here, it won't be scary. Just watch your step. We're not trying to cause an earthquake."
She nods silently, a slightly happier expression appearing her face. I am sure my words bring her relief. The two of us approach the city, standing by its border. We keep our distance, just in case. If there's any debris still on Sara's clothes, it could fall on the city and hurt someone. Slowly, we kneel until we're low enough to see things better. I remain quiet as Sara surveys the tinies' home. She can't help but smile, appreciating the complexity and detail of it all. She's never been one to stay upset for long. While that can be a bad thing at times, it perfectly fine today. I want her to be as comfortable and friendly around the Lillis as I am. In fact, I need her to be. Mayor Saverine made that abundantly clear to me.
"Magna Gratia really is beautiful." She whispers. "I'm amazed."
"I know what you mean. I never get tired of looking at it."
She leans in closer, and I stop her before she gets too close. Her long hair threatens to fall into the city, which would be catastrophic. She realizes this and promptly holds her hair back. "My bad."
"It's alright. That's why I'm here." I reach my arm around and pull her close for a side hug. I turn my head and whisper in her ear so the Lillis don't hear me. "Thank you, Sara. It means a lot to me that I have someone to confide in."
She looks at me and smiles back. I turn my head to allow her to whisper back.
"Your secret is safe with me."
Comments
G
Thanks and don’t leave me in the dark who would you have cast it would honestly make imagining what the characters look like easier for me And maybe others and it’s fun too please!!!!!!🥺🥺
Jake Barry
You put a lot of thought into that :0 I would probably have gone with some different choices but its a cute fancasting!
G
Okay Like I said fancasting by me I wasn’t sure how the character where supposed to look exactly so I went with who could match there energy or give that energy in their performance the best but let me know what you think and if you have someone else in mind this was so much fun. Honestly I think this would make for a great show I wonder if Amzon willing to listen to the pitch (you never know). Nick - Jack Champion (Avater 2) Jeannine - Jenna Ortega (Wednesday, Scream, Scream VI) Ori - Emma Watson (Harry potter, The Perks of Being a Wallflower) Louis - Divine Love Konadu-Sun (Black Panther 2 - Tchalla Jr) only kid actor I could think of that really worked for me. Sara - Sadie Sink (The Whale, Stranger Things) Icruis - Jake Gyllenhaal (Brothers, Spider-man far from home) Daedalus - Peter Capaldi (Doctor Who, Paddington, The Suicide Squad) Rin - Michelle Pfeiffer (Batman Returns, Ant-man trilogy) what not to like about her Professor Lam - Charlize Theron (MAD MAX fury road, F8, F9) Jeannine’s mom - Catherine Zeta-Jones (Wednesday) Celine - Zendaya - do I even need to explain
G
Okay Nice pick on amazon shows like the Boys and Invincible yea Disney do be doing some annoying things although I love their animated showas like the Owl house, Amphibia, and gravity Falls loved those Now I got to do some fan casting.
Jake Barry
Miniseries, live action, probably amazon? Not Disney because they ruin things
Jake Barry
Thanks!
G
Okay, sadly I got no predictions this time but I got three questions instead that could require some serious thought. 1 - If you were a producer, writer, or Director for MG what type of entertainment Media would you make it A) Movie OR B) TV Show 2 - What way would you make it? A) Live action OR B) Animated 3 - What studio/company would you want to distribute? A) Walt Disney Studios/ Disney plus B) Warner Bros/ HBO MAX C) Paramount Pictures/ Paramount plus D) Universal Pictures E) Sony Entertainment F) Amazon Prime
G
Dang, that's a really good chapter seeing how Jeannine is already changing another Brobs perspective and view of Lilies and Sara has come a long way from how she was earlier finally understanding that Lilies are people as well I really hope she meets Ori and I still can’t wait for her and Nick encounter and will probably lead to a deep and heart to heart conversation and hopefully Jeannine can change her mom too one step at a time will always lead to a bigger prize, in this case, changing the majority of the population of Brobs to see lilies as humans and people. Again this was a great chapter can’t wait for next week’s chapter.
Jake Barry
I am glad you liked it!
Acrophite
Such a nice, feel-good chapter! Love that she is starting to change people now. I’d be down to see redemption for her mom too but that’s probably far off if it could happen at all.
