Dinosaur
A few days after the Fish Sale Chad floated into the Wizard’s keep. He’s serious about something.
“Shelby” he said “I’ve got something that’s buggin’ the hell out of me. Would you mind taking a look at it.”
“Sure” Shelby replied. “whatcha’ got?”
Chad opened a display in Augmented reality.
“Lookit this.” he said

“Have you ever seen anything like this before?” he asked.
“Nasty looking little guy isn’t he?” Shelby examined the display. He rotated the strange creature in front of him so that he could see it from all sides. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything like it.”
“Me neither.” Chad said “It’s one of the ‘trophy fish’ that Henry and Wilbur sold at auction when the Sue came in. I thought something was odd about it so I bought it. I had to pay a pretty Groat for it too. There were a lot of other’s bidding for it. It’s not little either.”
“Maybe we should call the other’s in here to consult.” Shelby said. “It’s got me curious. Maybe call Henry and Wilbur also?”
“Good plan.” Chad said “I’ll set up a VR conference.”
Sometime later the Maggi, Dragon Force, Cody, a few of the RowdyBunch, Carl, Wilbur and Henry were online.
“I bet you’re wondering why I called you all together like this.” Shelby said. He loved that line.
“Lookit this.” he displayed the beastie in question.
The DragonLady took a deep breath when she saw it. It must have meant something to her. The other’s expressed interest.
Henry said ”Oh. I remember that bastard.”
“Me too” Wilbur replied. “We liked to NEVER have landed that thing. It fought like a demon!”
“That’s right.” Chad replied “It’s one of the Wall Hanger’s you sold at auction there at the end after everything else had sold. That was a pretty smart idea ya’ll had getting Wall Hanger’s. If what I paid for this thing was any indication you made a mint off those.”
“Yup.” Henry replied. It had been his idea. “We got ten times more per pound for the Wall Hangers than we did anything else. I’m tempted to take the boat out just for fighting fish.”
“Might not be a bad idea” Joshua replied. “Hmmm. That looks familiar”
“Dinosaur” Cody said “That’s a dinosaur.”
Everyone perked up at that.
“Devil Fish.” The Dragon Lady said in an odd voice. “There are ancient legends of such.”
“Right off hand do you remember where you found it?” Chad asked Henry.
“ Oh yeah. It’s seared into my memory.” Henry replied “Seared. It was the last one we caught just before we saw the sea monster.
Total silence.
“SeaMonster?” Captain said. “Did you say SeaMonster?
Yeah.” Wilbur said “ like a huge Kraken. It was attacking that Coastie that’s been trying to find us. We distracted it and the Coastie killed it. We have a sample though.”
Wilbur displayed, via VR, a very LARGE piece of tentacle. “It’s bigger than a giant squid I think. Bigger than Fluffy even.”
Everyone was silent and in awe.
“Thank you gentlemen” Shelby said in obvious dismissal “You’ve been a great help.”
“No problem.” Henry replied. ”Any time.”
“Don’t hesitate to call if you need anything else.” Wilbur replied.
They signed off.
“Dinosaur” Cody breathed “We found a dinosaur and a giant Kraken. It’s for real!”
“Or something that looks very much like one” Shelby replied.
“The ocean is a much more dangerous place than it was a few years ago” the Dragon Lady said.
“Wow!” Weldon said.
“What’s the matter dear?” Sherry said.
Weldon and his wife Sherry were spending a quiet evening at home. They were sitting on the porch on the balcony overlooking the pool with drinks. A two hundred by fifty foot barge had a LOT of room for the porch. When they transplanted their house to the barge Weldon had seen to it that the house had been properly positioned to take advantage of it. Sherry was watching something on VR and so was Weldon, different channel.
“Oh nothing.”Weldon said uncomfortably. Clearly it was not nothing.
“Reading the ‘ads are you?” Sherry asked. Her voice held a smile.
“Um yeah” He said. How did she know?
“ Reading the Sex Wanted Ads are you?” She ignored his question with another of her own. Her grin was positively evil.
“Um Yeah” he admitted. She’s a mind reader he thought.
“Pretty Cool aren’t they?” She said “ I was thinking of selling some memories. Perhaps introduce the kids to a little dark meat.”
“WHAT!” Weldon was SHOCKED, for about ten seconds until he thought about it.”Ummmm?”
“Yeah. When I saw that I was shocked just like you are. I called Kamiko and got the full lowdown.” she said.
“What was that?” Weldon didn’t know if he wanted to know this much but he couldn’t help himself.
“Why don’t we let her explain?” Sherry said “I see by her VR widget that she’s available and taking calls.”
Weldon wasn’t really sure how Sherry did that with the VR. He was learning, but every time he thought he had it figured out something new popped up.
“Um, yeah. Why not?” He said.
“Ok” Sherry said.
Seconds later it Kamiko joined them in Augmented Reality. Weldon and Sherry were still lounging on their balcony overlooking the pool, drinks at hand,and to all appearances the Matriarch was there too.
“He found it did he?” Kamiko asked Sherry.
“Yup. He didn’t react too bad.” Sherry said proudly.
“He’s a good Lad” Kamiko said.
“Hey!” Weldon feigned shock “ I’m right here. Your talking about me as if I’m furniture!”
“I told him that I’d already found the Sex Wanted Ads.” Sherry said slyly.
“Did you tell him HOW you found them?” Kamiko asked
“Er, no. Do you think he’s up to that? He’s apt to go into the whole ‘Daddy Thing’. It might take him a while to calm down.” Sherry warned.
“What? What ‘Daddy Thing’ Weldon said. ‘Daddy Thing!’ LUCY! Do you have some ‘splaining to do?’ Weldon bellowed.
“He’s a bright lad too.” Kamiko said approvingly.
“I’m proud of my hubby.” Sherry said “It only took a 2 x 4 between the eyes to get his attention.”
In truth Weldon did look like he’d been smacked between the eyes by a club. He was stunned. That didn’t stop his brain from working though. After the initial shock wore off he began to grin.
“See! I told you.” Sherry was proud. “He can be trained.”
“I see that” Kamiko said with approval “You have a right to be proud. Some males would still be ranting and raving. Some fathers would be rampaging around the house looking for their shot gun. Very good dear.”
Weldon grinned. “No STD’s or pregnancy in VR huh?”
“Nope” Kamiko agreed. “Believe it or not VR can be a lot more exciting too, a lot more. Out of this world actually. I expect that any day now some enterprising young ‘artist’ will go beyond the bounds of reality. I intend to keep a close watch on which direction. Some are healthy but some are indications of underlying problems and I’ll nip them in the bud when I find them.”
“I can see that.” Weldon and Sherry both nodded.
“Sell memories huh?” Weldon asked.
“Oh yes indeed” the Dragon Lady said with a particularly hungry look in her eyes. “ The neuro-loop let’s us do that. More precisely sensations not actually memories, and they can be edited. Pleasures of all types, Pains, Touch, Tastes. Smell. Kinesthetics. All the senses. No personal identifiers attached.”
“One day soon some bright young lad or lassie is going to twig to the fact that these various sensations can be woven together. On that day the occupation ‘DreamWeavers’ will be born. I’m actually surprised that it hasn’t happened already. The DreamWeaver will compose feelings, touch, taste and other sensations into to very, very exotic works of art or, more likely, very, very common low quality porn.
“Sturgeon’s Law” Weldon said “Free Market. It’s easy to speak of it from a clinical perspective but this is my daughter we’re talking about.”
Sherry looked at Kamiko with exasperation. Kamiko shrugged.
“No. It’s not your daughter” Sherry said “It’s your wife. Now how bout we make some brand new hot memories? We can sell them for coffee money. I have some ideas that will knock your sox off.”
“You two love birds have a good time” Kamiko said, and she vanished.
Weldon was still catching up. He noticed that the balcony had gone to privacy mode. They could see out but no one could see in. Then he noticed that his wife didn’t have a top on, or a bottom either, or anything actually. Then he noticed that....
.....that....
.........that....
.......ooooooh yeah.
.......THAT!
Hot memories for sure!