Five taxonomites Arrivals That Will Probably Never Happen
The longcoats were just Extras, but they were intimidating nonetheless. (For one horrible moment, DG had recognised - or had thought that she’d recognised - the Extra that she’d killed during her glitch.) They’d marched her on to the balcony, and, if she’d been paying attention, she would have been able to enjoy a perfectly clear view of the sprawling Taxon skyline.
Azkadellia was waiting for her.
The witch was waiting for her.
“It’s been a long time, little sister.”
“Yeah, it has. And you’re still not my sister.”
But she was in there somewhere. DG had been in her shoes, thanks to the hamsters. The real Azkadellia - the Azkadellia that had gathered apples and skimmed stones and doted on her younger sibling - was in there somewhere.
“I know you’re in there, Az. I know you can hear me.”
“Your sister is dead,” she said, with a bark of dry, humourless laughter. DG ignored her.
“I’m sorry I let go. I’m sorry for what happened. But this city - this city, Az! - is the perfect place to start again. You can fight her, I know you can.”
The O.Z was a long way away. Taxon was a lot of different things to a lot of different people, but, most of all, it was an opportunity.
DG held out her hand. All she could do was hope that her sister would take it.
They made a strange pair. The green girl swathed in black and the pale girl dressed in denim and leather. Despite the odd looks they would have attracted if the Extras had been anything other than unnaturally curious, they managed to meet regularly for long conversations over coffee. (Just coffee. Elphaba didn’t eat a great deal. She crumbled bread and biscuits between long green fingers and pushed the remnants around her plate.)
They discussed everything. Philosophy, ethics, politics, magic. They discussed everything and, somehow, never reached the questions that DG really wanted to ask.
“Oh, you have got to be kidding me. What are you doing here?”
Of all the people in all the worlds, Elmer Gulch - Elmer Gulch - was standing outside the Sanctuary. Until she’d returned to the O.Z, DG had thought that the police officer was as close to a nemesis as she was ever going to get.
“I might have known you’d be involved in this.”
“Hey, don’t look at me like that,” said DG, putting her hands on her hips. His expression - the same expression he wore when he was about to give her a ticket - was all too familiar. “They don’t give out tickets for kidnapping.”
(The comment was ridiculously flippant, but she didn’t think for one moment that he’d actually blame his arrival on her.)
“No,” he agreed, “But they do send people to prison for it.”
“Oh, come on. You can’t be serious. You think I did this?”
“Who else?”
“I don’t know. How about the aliens who own the planet?”
Gulch gave a dry, humourless laugh. The same aliens, DG noted, had kindly left him with his handcuffs and his gun.
“You’re out of your mind!” DG snorted, shaking her head in disbelief. When he grabbed her arm, she pulled away without thinking.
“And you’re resisting arrest.”
She shook her head again. For once, DG was actually speechless. Officer Gulch had been a constant irritant, but this was the first time she’d realised that he was an idiot as well.
“What, nothing to say?” he said, as he gripped her wrist - she flexed her hand, feeling the warm glow of the mark on her palm and wondering how easy it would be to melt the handcuffs - and gave her a satisfied smile. “No smart comment to make?”
DG grinned at him.
“You are going to get yourself into so much trouble here. And I can’t wait to see what happens when you meet my friends.”
“Trillian!”
She didn’t turn around. In fact, if Zaphod Beeblebrox hadn’t known any better, he would have said that she was ignoring him.
“Trill, baby! Wait up!”
Nothing. Absolutely nothing. She continued to walk across the square without looking at him, tucking a book - must be a notebook, given her journalistic ambitions - into a battered black bag. He had to skirt past a figure on a bench and a man with a coffee cart to reach her before she reached her motorbike.
“Look, I know you’re still sore about the Vogons, but we got you out, didn’t we? Come on. What else do you want?”
“Are you talking to me?”
She’d turned around at last. Her wide blue eyes were … about as unimpressed as he’d expected, actually. Earth girls were always difficult, but Zaphod Beeblebrox always had a solution in mind.
He grinned, wrapping his arms around Trillian and kissing her hard.
DG reacted in the only way she could. She kneed him hard in the groin.
DG ran.
Round one corner, round another, past Tara’s shop and the mall and the coffee shop that served the best latte in the city. She tore through the streets until her chest was heaving and her heart was racing.
Taxon had never seemed larger, but she reached the Sanctuary in record time.
Cain and Raw - looking a little confused and a little irritated and very pleased to see her - were waiting outside.
Grinning, and laughing so hard that she wanted to cry, she threw her arms around them. Home was supposed to be where your heart was, wasn’t it? And that meant that, at long last, hers was right here.