Tuesday, September 14, 2010

Maiyuki - Chapter One : Ghosts Drivers

Beautiful Snow
{Maiyuki}

It was a cold winter that year at Detroit Lake. A very cold one, so cold that the lake that is formed by Detroit Dam froze over. The ice was like a table cloth spread out over the lake. Because the ice was so thick, we could place one of the Mars Habitat Modules on the sheet of ice, right above where the old town of Detroit lay, submerged for all these many decades. The whole thing looked like some big magician's act, waiting for the table cloth to be pulled.

Chapter 1 - Ghost Drives

"I am here, live, reporting from Mongold Day-Use Area”, gushes the TV News reporter, on the monitor, just as a chilling wind blows flakes of snow past her. “As you can see behind me, ”she continues, “the lake here, Detroit Lake, in Oregon, has frozen over.

“But!” she exclaims, pointing her right gloved hand to the right of her, “this is why I am here. ”The view pivots, following the reporter's gesture. “Cars, just like these have been left abandoned, all around the lake. There are at least FIFTY of them scattered around the lake, with more appearing daily. Most of them are in parking lots but some are just left on the sides of the road, making it difficult for the snow plowers to operate.”

“Well,” says the news anchor, siting at the desk in the warm studio back at the TV station, “that's an interesting story. I guess,” he passes for a bit and continues, “why all of the excitement though?”

The co-anchor, sitting next to him quips, “sounds to me like somebody has had too much coffee this morning, trying to stay warm while on storm duty, tee, hee.”

“GUYS!” screams the TV reporter, as yet another chilling blast of super cold air blows past. She walks towards the camera, shivering and says in a growling voice, “ this is a LIVE feed and I do have a story here.” She grabs the camera lens and points it directly at her face and shouts, “if you two will just shut up and listen to me,” she pauses for breath and finishes, “ you might understand why I am so EXCITED!”

“A humph” interjects the anchor, trying to calm everyone down a bit, because he realizes that if the ratings go down any further, he will get sacked. He turns towards the co-anchor and says, "maybe we shouldn't tease the new girl right now and let her continue; after all, you're here because someone gave you a break once too."

"OK," consents the co-anchor, remembering how hard it was for her to get the job she has now, "tell us what you found out."

“WELL, I asked the county and state officials what they were going to do with all of these abandoned cars, they told me that they were in the process of getting in touch with the owners, to find out what they are planning to do but they are having problems doing this,” she says and pauses.

The anchor, picking up the conversation and asks, “What sort of problems are they having? It seems pretty easy to do, they just have to look up the car titles don't they?”

“You would think so but that's just the problem is; even though all of the cars are registered,” says the reporter, who has regained her composure and is standing upright again, "the owners can't be found"

"HUH?" says the anchor.

"What?" says the co-anchor, equally confuse.

"Do you mean to tell us," says the anchor, also calming down a bit, "the owners of all of those abandoned cars can't be contacted?"

"That's right!" confirms the reporter, nodding her head up and down a few times, " these people can't be reached.

"When I went to the state police and the sheriff's office, nobody could confirm being able to contact the owners. They even refused to tell me why and just gave me the old no comment routine and told me to go to the DVM to find out who is registered as the owners of these cars because it's the DMV's information that they are using to track them down."

"Maybe there is a glitch in that overpriced computer system that they are using at the DMV that's at fault." says the anchor.

"I thought of that one too," says the reporter, shivering as another gust of wind threatens to blow her away. "With all of the data privacy policies that they have now, they refused to even let me check even one of the records."

"Even when you showed them your Press ID?" asks the co-anchor.

"Ya, even then, they said it could easily be faked and didn't have time to check with our main office to find out if I was legit," says the reporter, wishing she could hurry up and finish this up soon because ice was starting to form on her exposed hair.

"However,” continues the TV reporter, “I did get an anonymous tip from someone who works in the DMV that the real reason why they wouldn't give me the addresses was" she pauses dramatically and continues, "all of the addresses are wrong!!"

“Are you telling me that the records for all of those people have errors in them?” says the anchor, indigently.

“DAMN!” blurts out the co-anchor, “OOOPS, sorry, but they had me jumping through so many hoops to prove that I was eligible for a state license that I almost caught fire. It just makes me angry that they would be covering up something like this.”

“It sure did get me to asking questions,” says the TV reporter, shaking her head up and down, “my source told me that the street name or house number were wrong. I went to a few of these places just to confirm what I was told and found out that it was exactly what it turned out to be.

“What is even more bizarre is that some of the registered owner's have families and there are no school records because they are all home schooled. All of them have their mail delivered to PO Boxes and none of them have land line phone service.

“It's like all of these cars were driven here by magic,” concludes the TV reporter, hoping that she would not have to stand around in the blistering cold for too much longer.

“Well,” say the anchor, summing up the segment, “that is certainly a weird story. It looks like we have an invasion of cars that drive around by themselves."

The co-anchor agrees, “it sure does.”

The reporter signal the cameraman to cut the signal and makes a mad dash to the waiting van near by. AH, MERCIFUL WARMTH!

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