Some Things Just Can't Be Understood

"Um, okay..." Maple replied, a little embarrassed. He experimented in moving the mop around in his new stance. It did seem a lot easier this way.

Pheobie moved around to stand behind him. She wrapped her arms around him to hold his forearms. "Move the mop in little circles when you mop. That way you get up what's stuck to the floor as well."

"Ah, right, right!" Maple replied, letting out a nervous little laugh. He was not used to this kind of thing at all.

"And when you put it in the water, make sure to wring it out really well." Pheobie continued. She let him go. "Try it"

"Alright..." Maple replied. He walked over and dipped the mop in the bucket of water, tried to ring out as much water as he could, and began circling a spot on the floor where he had spilled some of the ice cream before. It still wasn't coming up that well. He paused. "...Did I ring too much water out?"

"No, you did fine. You just need to press the mop down harder" Pheobie smiled.

Maple applied more pressure, and the mess came up much easier. He felt a small sense of pride over the little deed.

"There you go!" Pheobie grinned. "And that's all you really need to know!"

"Alright then! That does help lot," admitted Maple, working on cleaning up the rest of the mess. "Let's see...we'll arrive at the zoo in about fifteen to twenty minutes. So, uh...GS! That's what it was! I need to get you a GS once I'm done here!"

"Can it be colorful?" Pheobie asked. "No offence but yours is kind of dull looking"

Maple glanced at the black device on his arm. "...Well, I guess it is.They all are. But what does that matter? You can make it any color you want once you get it. Now where did I put...ah yes!"

He went over to the control room. He typed in a certain code and a small door previously invisible opened. Inside the small room were about 20 GS machines, all black. He picked out one and gave it to Kimi.

Pheobie accepted it. "Okay. Now how does it work?" She asked.

"Well, pretty much you wear it on your wrist and use these arrow buttons or the touch screen to scroll through your options," Maple began, using his own GS as an example. "Now the tricky thing is learning what all these options do. There's easily 50, so we'll go over a few basic ones today."

He scrolled down to number 25.

"This one is known as 'walk through walls'," Maple continued, activating the option by touching it again on the screen. He felt the usual hum briefly pass through his body, but he knew Phoebie wouldn't see any immediate effect. "Observe."

Maple walked toward the wall between the control room and the kitchen, passed through the wall, and then came back around via the kitchen.

"As you can see, it does as advertised. Though you can pass through many things besides walls, such as doors, windows, prison bars, and just about anything else solid. Just make sure there isn't a void or long drop on the other side. It doesn't make you gravity-proof, though another code does. We'll get more into that later.

(based on that, can you guess what GS really stands for?)

(no. I can't. I'm a little brain dead at the moment.)

"Oh. Okay. Do all the codes have obvious names?" Pheobie asked, trying to secure the GS machine to her wrist like a watch.

"Not all of them," Maple said. "But most of the basic ones do. Like number 7 is '2x fast', which doubles your speed. Very useful, but takes a while to get used to. There's also '2x slow', though I honestly don't know why you would want to use it on yourself. Things like 2x fast or slow can be used to affect things other than yourself. So if you use 2x fast on yourself and 2x slow on your pursuer, it's much easier to outrun them."

"Okay. Makes sense. Sounds easy enough" Pheobie smiled

"Most of these are modify codes, meaning you either alter yourself or something else," Maple went on. "Others can be used to summon certain items, like if you wanted gold or a ticket somewhere. The item asked for has to exist somewhere in the world, however. Main thing you have to keep in mind though is too not have too many codes activated at once. It's not good for the GS, and if it's self-modifying it's not good for you."

"I think I can remember that" Pheobie smiled.

"Good! That should about sum it up then," Maple replied. "Hopefully you won't have to use this too much, but just in case anomalies show up it's good to have."

The ship gave off a dismissive ding.

"Ah! We're at the zoo!" Maple announced. "Don't need to bring anything with us so after a quick scan of the area we should be able to go."

Maple went up to the control room and soon suspected a scan wasn't really necessary. People were everywhere, soon staring at the dimension ship newly arrived in the parking lot. Maple scanned anyway, and everything appeared normal.

Pheobie bounced to her room and put on a pair of bright yellow flats and a matching skull cap. She skipped out to join Maple. "I'm ready~" She announced cheerfully.

Maple debated whether he should change out of his usual lab coat and dark outfit. Upon glancing down and seeing the ice cream stains, he decided to would probably be a good idea. He rushed off to make himself look somewhat presentable.

When he came back a few minutes later, the dimension professor was dressed in a blue-and-yellow tropical shirt and casual black slacks. He didn't really like shorts, even in hot weather. He had wanted to get a hat, but had none available. He would just have to buy one later.

"Alright then, let's go!" said Maple, opening the ship door with a quick tap of his GS.

Pheobie followed him out, still bouncing on the balls of her feet. If one observed her carefully, they would notice that she dressed according to how she was feeling. Bright colors usually ment she was happy.

Windcrest Zoo was just as much a zoo of people as it was of animals, Maple mused. All kinds of tourists flooded the area, from little packs of youngsters to teenage couples to serene old ladies. If you wanted to study the race of man, you could come here and do so for $10.50. Maple casually paid the entrance fee for both him and Pheobie as they walked past the gates.

"So, where to first?" he asked.

"You pick!" Pheobie giggled. She latched on to Maple's arm, so they wouldn't get separated of course, and grinned up at him. "This is only my second time at a zoo after all, I don't know what there is!"

Maple jumped and flushed a little at her touch. He wondered if he would ever get used to it.

"Ah, well then! Let's go see..." he began, looking to see which exhibits were closest. "The monkeys! The monkeys are right over this way!"