RACCCafe: A Return to the RACCCafe

[Phantasm]

On Dec 2, 4:41 pm, EDMLite <robroger... at gmail.com> wrote:
>     "I think I'll skip the Mr. Paprika after all," Malcolm said,
> the breeze from the bathroom door scattering the ash that had
> been Obsequious Man throughout the cafe.  "You about ready to
> go?"
>
>      "I'd say my work here is done," Lite said, folding up the
> newspaper.  "Just out of curiosity, what kind of pizza did those
> monks order, anyway?"
>
>      "The usual," Malcolm said, picking up the pizza as Lite
> paid his tab.  "They asked me to make them one with everything."

      "Lite!" a female voice called out as he and Malcolm were about
to leave.  They turned, as a girl their age with dirty blond hair and
wearing a suit of battered high-tech battle armor approached them.  A
rifle of some type was slung from her shoulder.
      "Twaeila?" Lite asked.  I haven't seen you in..."
      "Since Dad went net.dead," she replied.
      "You've grown up."  Indeed, that was true.  When she'd first
appeared, during the Melissa caper, Twaeila had been somewhere between
fourteen and sixteen.
      "A little. Dad decided to age me a few years, making me
eighteen.  This is the first time he's saying anything about it,
though.  If only he'd done that *before* he made me plant one on Rob."
      Waving to Malcolm, Lite took a seat at a booth with Twaeila.
"Which Rob?" he asked.
      "Master Blaster," she said dryly.  "I still can't get into the
whole 'code-name/super-hero' thing in the LNH universe.  And then
there are those imbeciles who used me without permission, knowing that
I don't like either code-name I got stuck with.  I've never worn the
outfit New Look Lass made for me since.
      "Dad won't admit it," she continued, sliding Lite a beer the
waitress brought over, "but your Writer is the only one he'll trust
with using me."
      "How did you get a beer if you're only eighteen?"
      "We're in interdimensional space," she said, smiling.  "They
don't card."

      Over at the bar, Phantasm smiled.  Yeah, his original alter-
ego's fictional daughter would be safe in Lite's Writer's hands, if
said Writer wanted to use her.  He turned back to his laptop, flitting
between the most recent unfinished HCC piece and the next issue of
Silver Arrow.  Still no sign of a writing partner - or his old one,
for that matter.
      "I *have* to start plotting and stop stream-of-consciousness
writing," he said to himself.  "Jack, another frappacchino."
      Off in the distance, another head exploded.