A Visit to the Dime Store

Aarti paced restlessly around the cave. Kerr and Kerri watched her, laying side by side for a change. She had to admit that it was a bit disconcerting to have six pairs of eyes following her every move. She only wished that it was seven instead.

Sebastian was sitting by the marble pillared gate. She had a feeling that if it wasn't for the dogs growling every time he looked at it funny, he would have thrown himself inside. While she didn't really believe in the Underworld, she had to admit that the whole gate with chained up dog added a certain truth to the myth. Aarti wasn't sure if he'd be able to walk back out if he went in.

"There has to be a way to get it back," she finally said, coming to a stop in front of Sebastian.

"I don't know how to get it back. I didn't study the manual," Sebastian grumbled.

"There's a manual?" Aarti blinked in surprise.

"There's manuals for everything if you just look," Sebastian replied. It sounded like something someone threw at him on a regular basis. He leaned back against the pillar. "I wish I'd read the manual."

"Maybe you glanced at it once and it's somewhere in your brain?" Aarti asked, vaguely remembering a discussion she'd had with Court over outlandish subjects. Court had thought that it was a feasible idea, but it was clearly so much rubbish. Now, she was willing to try anything. "Maybe you know but don't know? Perhaps there's a whistle or a phrase that brings it back?"

"That sounds stupid even to me," Kerri's alert head said. The other two nodded along with Kerr's three. "How would it hear Sebastian making noise wherever it is?"

Aarti blew out a breath and started to pace again. Then she paused.

There was a glowing dot in the cavern. Unlike Sebastian's almost arctic blue, this one was butter yellow, warm and inviting. Aarti looked at Sebastian who was looking at the dot with a strange expression as if happy to see it and very unhappy at the same time.

The dot elongated and expanded into a Kerri-sized door. Instead of an empty doorway, it had a simple wooden door complete with ornate door handle. It was set on a long, brass plate with a doorknob carved in the shape of a globe and a long keyhole underneath.

If anything, Sebastian paled as the globe slowly turned.

A girl sauntered through. She was wearing tight dark blue denim jeans and a lightly fringed brown and blue shirt. Her boots matched the shirt with swirls of blue across the brown leather. A brown cowboy hat rested on her long curling hair.

Aarti immediately felt underdressed in her chiton and leather armor. The girl made her feel just a little of what she felt when she was around her mother, Diana. Aarti stuffed down that little spark of anger and casually stood between Kerr and the girl.

"There you are! Do you know that Ree's been worried sick about you since you disappeared with that dog?" The girl stuck her hands on her hips and glared at Sebastian who lowered his head.

"And you are?" Aarti asked, gratified at the sight of the girl's startled look her way.

"And conversing with the natives!" The girl added as she fiercely turned her attention back to Sebastian.

"And this native will remove your head from your shoulders if you do not answer my question," Aarti said, calmly unsheathing her bronze short sword. She may hate the thing, but she still kept it strapped to her thigh. The extra weight was always welcome as part of her workouts. "I will give you twelve extra seconds since you're shouting at Sebastian. Perhaps now he'll stop panicking."

"Panicking? Just great, Bastian. Just great. I'm Joey, well Joanne, but everyone just calls me Joey for some reason." The girl turned back to her doorway. "I'm just here from Bastian and the dog. She has to get back. At least two people have tried to sneak through that gate while she's been here."

Aarti turned and looked at Kerr's gate. She honestly couldn't imagine why anyone would want to take a look on the other side of it, even if it was just for show. What if the stories were true? Would there be a way back? Kerr would probably eat whoever tried. Then she became a bit thoughtful. Just how much would that shave off of her dogfood budget? It was getting a bit tricky to make off with roasts lately.

"I should return. Until next time, Kerr," Kerri said, levering herself upwards. Her side heads snagged her bowl and pillow. "Nice to meet you, Kerr's girl."

Aarti rolled her eyes. The dog had never bothered to learn or use her name. Kerr didn't seem to mind. Aarti had the suspicion that Kerr preferred it that way.

"And you, too, Sebastian. This is dereliction of duty…" The girl's voice suddenly trailed off. "Where's your hat?"

"My hat?" Sebastian asked, pausing in the action of standing up.

"Yes, your hat. You know? The thing that opens doors to places?" Joey's voice got louder with every sentence until she was practically shouting.

"It got stolen," Aarti said, sheathing her sword. She had lost the taste for confrontation when reminded of Euphemis' abduction.

She'd been able to pretend that things were fine the night before, but who knew what would happen when roll was called for the cadets tomorrow. Tomorrow was technicals, and Euphemis was the acknowledged number one in tracking and swordplay. She'd never missed a test. Aarti was excused from them which didn't help her position among the younger Amazons.

Upon examining the story of her mother's birth, she understood why. No one knew whether or not she'd manifest anything spectacular in the future, and it was safer to just keep watch over her than to try to piece together a bisected Amazon.

It was after hearing the story that she'd started consciously restricting her own strengths in public. She'd had enough illicit conversation with Court and Lucy to know that standing out was a bad thing.

"What do you mean it's been stolen?" Joey asked.

"There was a fight. They picked it up. The door opened and they got kidnapped by very scary people," Aarti explained.

"An Amazon is calling someone else scary? That's a first," Joey muttered.

"You don't know the half of it," Sebastian muttered. He glanced at Aarti from under his lashes. "We should bring her along."

"Bring her along? Why?" Joey opened the door wider to let Kerri by.

"Because she knows about the people who have the hat, and this might be worse than you think."

***

"Omigod! How can my day get worse?" This came from the woman behind the counter.

The whole place reminded Aarti of a giant gas station store. There was even a bank of drink machines dispensing everything from soda to smoothies to milkshakes to kombucha. She'd blinked at the kombucha before her attention had been snagged by one of the drink cases that had a vast variety of what looked like fruit sodas in various alphabets, some long lost.

The woman ran a hand through her curly hair. Unlike the three people standing in front of the counter, she wasn't wearing a cowboy hat.

"You let your hat get stolen?" She asked Sebastian.

"I didn't let it get stolen! There was a fight, and it got knocked off!" Sebastian protested.

Joey, standing at one side of Sebastian rolled her eyes. Donovan, as he'd introduced himself when they all came through the doorway, turned away with coughs that sounded suspiciously like laughs.

"Once it's on your head, it's not supposed to come off," the woman, Ree said, her face planted firmly in the palms of her hands. "Just why didn't you secure it, fight or no?"

"Uh," Sebastian began, starting to fidget.

"Can't you just track it?" Aarti asked, walking back up, munching on a chocolate bar. She'd been surprised they had them. As far as she knew, the last heir to the company had blown it up during the Liberation fracas when they found out that their last living relative had died at the hands of the overlords. "It must have a tracker of some sort on it?"

"It does, but we can't go. The only one who could go is Bryant and he's on assignment." Ree looked at Aarti and shook her head. "That will be five kronas, you know."

"Do you take septims?" Aarti pulled an old coin out of armor. She'd found it lying around Kerr's cave.

"We do, and here's your change," Ree replied, taking the coin and handing over a small pouch. "It'll adjust to wherever you are at the moment until they're all gone."

Aarti eyed the pouch thoughtfully. Suddenly the whole store setup was making a bit more sense.

"Could I track it and get it back for you?" She asked as she tucked the pouch away. "I don't have any interest in your little hat. Just want to get it out of the way wrong hands."

"Wrong hands?" Ree repeated before nailing Sebastian with a sterner stare than earlier. "Just who has the hat? I was under the impression it was a fight between youngsters and that the holder was just mistakenly sent elsewhere?"

"Let me explain," Aarti began.

Several minutes later, Ree was swearing, Joey was hitting Sebastian with her hat and Donovan was simply shaking his head as he stared at the faraway ceiling.

"The evils that people do," he kept repeating in his mellow voice.

"So, see, I'm the perfect person to go get your hat back. And Euphemis as well," Aarti added reluctantly.

"I can't, in good faith, let you go alone," Ree said, calming down just a little. "Joey, you're in charge of watching over Sebastian. Don't let them make contact with him."

"Make contact?" Aarti asked.

"If they think of it, they can get here," Donovan explained. "What the girl they took has is just a temporary connection. A little blood, and boom! They get a door. They get Sebastian? They can go anywhere, anywhen, any dimension they want."

Ree rummaged under the counter.

"I can't let you have many, but I can give you two," she said, pulling out two little round tokens. "This will send you wherever you please in your plane of existence, home, whatever," she tapped one. "And this one will take you to wherever Sebastian's hat is. You should be careful because they're both one-way trips."

"I'm tougher than I look," Aarti assured her.

"I believe so," Ree said, giving her a somber look as she pushed the tokens to her. "If you get the hat, we'll give you a reward for your service."

"And what if I can't get the hat?" Aarti asked.

"Try," Ree said, glancing at Donovan.

Donovan grinned and snapped his fingers. A doorway opened next to him, showing not the rolling green hills of Themyscira, but the bustling streets of what looked like Central City. From the looks of it, it was Halloween.

Aarti glanced at her outfit and grinned. She'd fit right in.