Hidden Relics

Chapter 3: Just Relax

"Okay, do you want to risk the life you should value by sitting on the dashboard where you can see out the window or do you want to sit comfortably in the seat?" Vivian asked Luke as they approached her car. "The dashboard doesn't have any restraints for little people and I can't promise there won't be any sudden stops, those stop signs sneak up on you sometimes, and some of those red lights come suspiciously fast."

Luke sighed, studying the indicated area of the car once she'd opened the door. "I'll go ahead and risk it. If you make a sudden stop and I'm sitting right in front of you or that seat I should be fine."

"Okay...if you break a bone it's not my fault...and I don't know how we're going to get you taken care of. Do you really expect me to bring a mini you to a hospital? I can see the Hollywood government intrusion now as they whisk you away for studying."

Luke paled slightly, stepping off of her hand and onto the dashboard. "That's a cheery thought...I'll be careful not to break anything...or get sick for that matter."

Vivian got into the car, setting her wallet in the seat beside her and starting the car. "That would be wonderful. Are you all set up there?"

She leaned forward to get an unblocked view of Luke, chuckling when she saw him braced on the dashboard. "I'm ready," he said, head already looking around at all the trees around her house, at all the green he probably hadn't seen in person in his entire life.

"All right, here we go," Vivian said, messing with her stereo before backing out to Maniac—though she wasn't blaring it. She didn't want to damage poor Luke's little eardrums. Still, she had to have her music if she was going to be driving, and already she was tapping her fingers to the beat while Luke scurried along the dashboard, looking around at the world outside of her room eagerly. She smiled at his enthusiasm, but kept her eyes on the road to be safe, pulling onto the highway for the short trip into the larger town next door to her little town on the Mississippi River.

"...Locking rhythms to the beat of her heart, changing woman into life. She has danced into the danger zone, when a dancer becomes a dance..." she murmured with the music, and Luke looked back at her.

"Oh, do you sing?" he asked, and Vivian laughed.

"No, not really. Maybe if I really like the song. I've always been more of a dancer than a singer," she replied. "Hence the song. And I've got more like this—Shut Up and Dance With Me, the classic Footloose, I Wanna Dance With Somebody by good old Whitney, I'm So Excited, Everybody Dance Now, Shout the Glee version, Walkin On Sunshine...if it's danceable or a classic, I probably have it."

"Ah, ok...though all those titles mean nothing to me."

"I know...I'm wondering why I rattled them off myself," Vivian chuckled.

They sat in silence for a few minutes, the land rolling by in a sea of green and brown as the songs continued to play, though eventually, just short of town, Luke spoke again.

"So do you have ships here, or just these cars?" he asked curiously.

"Just the cars. Though we do have some space flight going on, but nothing like you've got. We're limited to our solar system, and as far as we're aware there's no other life in our galaxy besides us. Though us as humans haven't even traveled through all of our galaxy...I think. We've definitely sent out robots to explore more than we have," Vivian explained.

"Okay...so where is it that you live, what's it called?" Luke asked, gazing out at the huge river they were driving beside rather than the houses scrolling by that Vivian always liked to look at.

"Ah, Nauvoo, Illinois, United States of America in the planet Earth," Vivian said with a smile. "It's a wonderful place, quiet, small, in my opinion we have the best ice cream, root beer, grape juice, cheese, and fudge in the world, though there's not much in the way of stores, and a lot of places are open for the tourists rather than the people who live here, since it's a religiously historic town. So, if you want something you're going to have to go to Hamilton, right next door, or Keokuk, Iowa, across the river."