Season 1, Episode 4 - The Microwave XXXI - "The Sixty Percent Off"

The three rocketed down the avenue at the speed of an old man’s lightning. The streets appeared deserted, no doubt as a consequence of the raid. The sight of the empty district slightly unnerved Reed. She was always used to seeing hundreds of people on the streets, going about their daily business. It felt easy to blend into a crowd that way, spend time people-watching, become an anonymous member of the city. The body gets used to constantly being surrounded by people.

But right now, there wasn’t a single soul to be seen.

Yet the three-man rocket team continued on. With Reed giving directions, Domino directed the sword to send them down another avenue, this one just as empty. Trees shook below them as they flew overhead. When they approached the target, Domino curtailed his lightning blast and handed the sword back to Reed.

Reed found a sturdy tree on the avenue to magnetically attract themselves towards. However, since she was still pretty new to this, she could only produce a weak magnetic wave out of her sword. The three passed by the tree, still in the air, as the magnetic wave connected. It gradually slowed them down, but Isaac let out a cry as they passed the storefront to Dave’s Rentals.

The magnetic wave slowed to a sputtering halt further down the avenue. Both Reed and Domino stumbled down onto the sidewalk, feeling like a plane bumping along the tarmac during a high speed landing, while Isaac rolled right back onto his feet, did a 180, and sprinted down the avenue back toward Dave’s.

Reed and Domino rubbed some new bruises as they watched him go. They then raised their eyebrows as they saw the appearance of the store they landed in front of; its windows had been shattered, bullet holes forming a snaking line in its concrete walls.

“You know,” Domino said, looking at the State Police’s work. “Did we ever stop to consider if this Dave guy would still have his store open?”

Reed led the way down the sidewalk. “Of course he’s still open, he’s Dave,” she informed him. “He’s one of the nicest guys in the world. Determined. A real warrior who just happens to operate a VHS rental store instead of fighting bad guys.”

“Is he ex-military or something?”

Reed proudly shook her head. “Nope, he’s just a guy who likes movies. Same as me.”

Upon seeing the smile on her face, Domino supposed this Dave fellow was alright.

Fortunately, the State Police destruction ended about a block away from Dave’s. Demolished and tattered store-fronts gave way to untouched shops, though all of them were locked up, metal sheets over their glass windows. All of them, that is, except for Dave’s Rentals, which still had an unlocked door and the red-and-white OPEN sign facing the street.

The two looked through the big window next to the door and saw Isaac talking to Dave inside, Isaac nodding over and over again in gratitude. Domino headed for the door to join him, but he stopped when felt Reed tugging on his sleeve.

She pressed her face against the window, her eyes looking straight at an advertisement taped to it. When Domino saw the writing on that advertisement, he immediately pressed his face next to hers.

“Sensei...”

“Woman...”

“Are you seeing what I’m seeing?”

“It’s quite hard to believe.”

The two took a step away from the window, then exploded in excitement. “Sixty percent off!” Domino exclaimed.

“That’s ten more than fifty.”

“And sixty more than zero!”

Reed shook her head to drive away her dull-sounding giddiness. “Wait, wait, wait. Usually, these sorts of sales have some sort of fine print attached. And if there’s any sort of print that I hate to read, it’s fine print.”

The two examined the advertisement more closely.Domino read the fine print aloud. “To celebrate my daughter’s engagement, we are now offering a sixty-percent family discount for the next week.”

Domino sighed, ready to admit defeat. Instead, Reed looked expectantly at Domino. “...grandpa.”

Domino recoiled and stepped away. “Warn me before saying something like that.”

Reed looked at him innocently. “Is something wrong, jii-san? We’re just two family members going to get VHS tapes together, right, grandfather?” She narrowed her eyes. “I want this discount, Sensei.”

Domino collected himself, still feeling rather uneasy. “Right, right...let’s...let’s get going, granddaughter.”

“Grandpas don’t use granddaughter as a title,” Reed corrected him. “I’ll call you Grandpa, and – importantly, only if he presses you – you'd say I’m your granddaughter. But you'd still refer to me as Reed. There’s a difference in phrasing here. A sixty percent discount difference.”

Domino straightened himself out. “Alright, alright. Just make sure to get me a poliziotteschi movie out of this.”

“I thought you were more of an Asian cinema fan.”

“I’m expanding my palette.”

Reed observed the sweat on Domino’s forehead. “Are you sure you can pull this off? Is me being your granddaughter that off-putting to you?”

Domino looked away. “Quiet, woman. It’s a long-story. Let’s just go get some cop films.”

The bell to the store rang and Dave saw the new arrivals enter inside. “Hey, Reed,” Dave greeted. “Your friend here made it just in time...though he really just could’ve called me to let me know about your situation, a day late would have been no issue at all. Especially considering today's circumstances."

Isaac weakly smiled, the day's adrenaline leaving him now that he accomplished all of his goals. “You see, Reed? Good names are important.”

“Well, Hibiscus Reed is clearly the best name of all.” She waved to the man behind the counter. “I’m glad you’re alright, Dave.”

“Fortunately, the trouble ended before it reached my store,” Dave answered. “I almost had to hide in the saferoom. Though, since there’s crackers, wine, and movies in there, I guess it would've be more like a vacation than hiding out, though.”

“Hiding out in style,” Reed answered. “I’m glad you’re still open.”

Dave shrugged and pointed upwards. “I mean, I live upstairs. Might as well keep it open while I’m down here. My wife’s visiting family in New Hampshire. I have no doubt she would’ve had me close up by now.”

“Women, amiright?”

As Reed and Dave laughed at Reed’s joke, Domino stood awkwardly to the side, wiping sweat off of his face.

“It would be for my own safety, though,” Dave supposed. “Can’t complain.”

Reed looked at the clock on the wall. “Speaking of closing up by now, do you mind if I take a few minutes to get a few tapes?”

Dave nodded. “Sure, I don’t mind. Just don’t take too long and get caught up here. The radio says there’ll be a curfew tonight.”

As Reed scurried off to find her tapes, Domino kept sweating, while Isaac talked with Dave.

“Is your saferoom like a fortress or something?” Isaac asked, highly curious about anything with bunker-like qualities.

“It would be a tough nut to crack,” Dave told him. “But if the walls couldn’t hold, I would’ve had to use this.” Dave pulled out a shotgun from below the counter. Fluorescent lighting glinted off the metal barrel. “I like to keep this handy for close encounters.”

But then he sighed. “Thank God I’ve never had to use to it. Just loading it today gave me a heart attack. Speaking of that, step away, Isaac, I’m going to unload this now so nobody gets hurt.”

Before Dave removed the slugs from the gun, he realized there was a sweaty man standing off by himself in his store. “Apologies, I should’ve introduced myself. I’m Dave.”

Domino recited his name as if it was a poem he memorized. “...Derek.”

“Glad to meet you. Are you a friend of Reed’s?”

Are you a friend of Reed’s?

Someone had asked him something similar to that, more than fifty years ago, when Derek was just a hotheaded youth seeking vengeance on those who had wronged him. While traveling on the road from his destroyed village to the Wachusett Sect of Rddhi users, with nothing more than the Domino Sword on his hip and a backpack over his shoulders, he and his friend saw a girl resting under a tree on the other side of a meadow.

Both youths grinned and raced for her. His friend, Theo, stumbled somewhere in flowery depths of the meadow, giving Derek the victory. He burst through the flowers and tall grass, arriving in front of that girl and her tree, panting, his hands on his knees.

The girl, with an annoyed look on her face, opened her eyes. “Are you a friend of the Reeds?” she asked, her eyes narrowed.

“The Reeds?” Derek repeated. “You mean that merchant house on the coast or whatever?”

“Don’t play dumb,” the girl scolded. “Are you working with my father to bring me back home?”

“What? I don’t know who your father is. Or who you are, for that matter.”

The girl crossed her arms. “Then why’d you sprint at me?”

Derek was starting to feel annoyed. “I’m on a wilderness road in the middle of nowhere and I see a girl sleeping under a tree, what else am I supposed to do?” He scratched the back of his neck. “...I didn’t mean that in a creepy way. More like, this is unexpected, let’s go see what’s up kind of way.”

The girl looked him up and down. “Well, I don’t think my father would hire someone as small or stupid as you.”

“...I’m not opposed to hitting women, you know.”

The girl stood up, stretching. She was short, with shaggy brown hair; well, you could call it brown, but the color looked faded, as if the life had somehow been drained away. In contrast to Domino’s rough hands of an apprentice blacksmith, her hands looked smooth, as if they had never done a day of manual labor before. She had dark eyes that seemed bored of being her family’s plaything, eyes that signified her readiness to become her own person, not her father’s tool.

…well, that’s what she would tell you, anyway. Domino would come to learn that she just always stayed up too late reading imported English dime novels by candlelight and never got a good night’s sleep.

“Who are you?” the girl asked.

“I asked first.”

“I don’t care.”

Derek sighed. “I’m Derek Domino.”

“...pfft.” The girl started laughing.

Derek regretted sprinting over to her in the first place. “What’s so funny?”

The girl shrugged. “It’s just a funny name. Derek Domino.” She started laughing again. “Most people have normal names. Normal names aren’t cool. They’re just names. Normal names for normal people. But you don’t have a normal name. Derek Domino. It’s a name for a folk hero or cowboy or stagecoach robber or cowboy stagecoach robber or something like that.” She looked him up and down again. “I guess, looking at you, I expected a normal name for a normal person. But with a name like that, I guess you’re destined to be a folk hero.”

Derek grew tired of this girl’s roundabout, dull way of speaking. “And what about you? What’s your 'normal' name?”

“I’m glad you think I’m normal. I wish I was normal. But, unfortunately, I have an aristocratic name for an aristocratic daughter.”

Dressed in a workman’s clothes, she performed a mock curtsy.

“Viola Reed.”

Domino looked her up and down.

“...pfft.”

That had been fifty years ago. Who would've guessed that this would have been the girl that Derek nearly started a family with, if it weren’t for the Presidential Restoration that sent her to an early grave? Domino never married; it’s not like he was stuck on a girl he met fifty years ago or anything, it was more like his wartime experiences had soured him on humanity as a whole.

So, to one day meet the spitting image of Viola Reed in the form of Hibiscus Reed...Reed earned that sword on her own, but Domino would have always have a soft spot for her. She made him think of the daughter he and Viola dreamed of having the night before the fateful attack on Quinsigamond at the climax of the Restoration.

Domino knew Reed told him to pretend to be her grandfather, but he decided to indulge himself, just this once.

“A friend of Reed’s?” he repeated. “More than just a friend. Why, I’m her father!” He leaned over the counter and nudged a startled Dave. “We’re very close,” he added with a wicked grin. “Close enough for a sixty percent discount. That’s the kind of close we are.”

David looked blankly at his shotgun. “Her father, huh...”

He pointed it at Domino and fired.