"Maple Leaf Rag"

Nat Cool “awoke” in a muddy field near the Franco-Belgian border, roughly 70 km from Ypres. Behind her was the smoking carcass of her RAF RE8 two-seater recon biplane, all shot up by the Red Baron and his Flying Circus. Nat had been surveying enemy positions when Richtofen emerged from the clouds and sent her RE8 plummeting into the fog and mist of the French countryside. By some miracle, she managed a hard landing in deserted farmland.

And such was the backstory of the personalized experience chosen by Nat for Passchendaele: The Amusement Park in western Neo-Neon Tokyo, which recreated the (Neo-Romanticized) World War I battlefield beneath a dome the size of a small city. The battlefield included sectors for general LARPing where all could join, along with sectors for team-based activities, such as playing as Mark IV tank crewmates, or in Nat’s case - aeroplane crew shot down behind enemy lines.

Getting a team together had been tough, though. Nat had dazzled Kaede and Kyoko with her piano playing, sure. But she had quickly come to realize that impressing a group doesn’t equate to making friends with them. They shut down her idea of going to the amusement park as childish, a “simulacrum” of “modern experience”, said Kaede, fixing her beret, and “therefore below us, for we value the actual experience of actual reality”. She said this as she was writing something, which seems very simulacrum-esque to Nat, so Nat told her to shove it in response.

What about Zipper and Sue? Nat thought about brain-flashing them so she could join up with them, but…

Nat kind of wanted to be in charge for once. Zipper and Sue always led her around. Nat’s Very Own Chapter, dig?

She assembled a trio of her own. Her co-pilot was none other than Charles the monkey-butler, dressed in a bright red scarf and green flying goggles. Her third companion didn’t need a seat - it was Altamont, the brave carrier pigeon, whom she met at an electro-psychedelia concert in Cedar Rapids a few years back. His flock flew south for the winter, but Altamont preferred flying west, man, and ended up here at the amusement park, which seemed like a natural fit for a pigeon.

Team Nat studied the crashed biplane. No chance of it ever flying again, and here they were, deep in German-occupied territory. Heer patrolmen were likely on their way to investigate the crash. Nat rallied her comrades for the long trip back to friendly lines.

They crouched-walked their way across the countryside, sticking to hedgerows and tall grasses, moving by night (the dome had its accelerated own day-night cycle) and “sleeping” by day. A friendly French farmer (NPC hologram), at great risk to his personal safety, allowed them to stay at his barn, only to chase them out with a shotgun after catching Nat mid-rendevous with his voluptuous daughter. Growing weary, the downed airmen continued their travels, dodging roaming Landsers and Luftstreitkrafte patrols.

An occupied village sat between two hills, offering the only way forward. The trio sat in a hedgerow, observing a squadron of Landsers guarding the entrance into town. Nat glanced at her companions, explaining her plan. They were in agreement.

When the commanding Leutnant saw the trio walking down the road, his jaw fell to the ground. One of his men started howling, while the Leutnant beat his Stalhem with a wooden mallet. The trio had dressed themselves with girly hairstyles and summer dresses, and the sight of exposed ankles were driving the Germans into a frenzy. When the trio passed by, the Landsers flirted, offered love poetry and roses, and the airmen laughed and flirted back and casually made their way past.

All except Nat, that is. The Leutnant stopped her with an authoritarian arm. Unlike Charles and Altamont, Nat had been denied entrance to the town since only pretty girls were allowed inside.

Charles tapped the Leutnant’s shoulder. When he turned, Nat struck him in the back of the head with a frying pan. Altamont flew into the face of another guard, while Charles took out the last two by flinging some, uh, projectiles at them, nyuk-nyuk-nyuk. All the guards were knocked out, and nobody noticed, for the other Germans in town were distracted by an apparent festival further up the road.

After dragging away the bodies, the trio traded their ragged clothes for Heer gray. They tried to walk all casual-like in the village, but a German tide swept through the town, hundreds of rowdy soldiers, all making their way to the village’s tavern. Altamont perched on Nat’s helmet as the three were bounced and battered around by the crowd until they ended up inside the tavern.

A great party was underway. Reluctant civilians conscripted as barmaids and servants kept a large hearth fire going and brought around huge mugs of ale to their oppressors. The tavern, its size perhaps reminding the Germans of beer halls back home, almost had a cozy, festival atmosphere to it - if you ignored the extenuating circumstances or the men dying at the front just a few kilometers away.

Forced around like pinballs, Nat nodded at her companions to act natural. They couldn’t speak German, but fortunately, nobody was truly speaking coherently, since it was just a big drunken party. A naval attaché, previously posted to New Orleans, happened to be passing through the area, and currently played ragtime on the tavern’s piano. It was a bouncy, fun, dance-y kind of music, the kind you do energetic jigs to, wag your fingers and kick your feet.

Charles, used to tranquil domestic situations, felt quite unnerved and desperate to leave. With the crowd so heavy, Nat had her comrades do a big loop around the tavern, following a trail-blazing barmaid, until the crowd belched them out at the front doors again. Unfortunately, Altamont flirted with said barmaid, leading to her swooning so hard she dropped a mug. It didn’t break, but it rolled, and a bartender tripped on said mug, falling backwards, right into the ragtime player, knocking them both unconscious. The playing ended.

The energy in the tavern turned furious. The Germans got rowdy, angry, bellowing in that strange Teutonic cuckoo-clock language of theirs that has such a knack for expressing organized rage. The closest Landsers eyed the trio suspiciously, rubbing their chins, ‘cuz maybe, just maybe…

The situation was hitting a crisis point.

Nat struggled to come up with any ideas.

Charles pointed at the piano.

Nat looked reluctant.

Charles pointed again.

Nat tugged at her collar sheepishly.

Charles stomped his foot.

Suspicion at this strange trio mixed into the crowd’s anger at large.

Altamont pressed his wings together, offering encouragement.

Nat sighed, adjusted her Stahlhelm, and sat at the piano. She glanced back at the crowd, then began playing. With deft fingers, she picked up where the old player had left off, a real sort of dandy tune, soft and light yet fast and strong. The Germans laughed and clapped and some even joked that perhaps Joplin had faked his death and defected to the Kaiser in disguise. Charles and Altamont helped settle the Germans down with a performance of their own, swapping their Stahlhelms for barber shop hats and launching into an impromptu swing performance. A bit anachronistic, but the Landsers didn’t mind.

As the festival atmosphere returned to the tavern, Nat’s thoughts drifted. While Zipper and Sue had been working on their stories, Nat went on her lonesome - trying to take charge and not be a follower, dig - and learned piano from an old Zen master in Saitama. He was impressed with her progress, and asked if she wanted to bring friends so they could watch.

Of course not! Doing something like that, yanno, being creative - it’s kind of embarrassing, r-right? It's so tough to open up about yourself. Better to be a blank slate and avoid any judgement. Zipper and Sue were always the center of attention, like when Zipper sang for the Do-Nothings back in the Big Dig crash pad. Nat liked being quiet and out of the way, doing her own thing. And besides, her playing wasn’t anything special. She didn’t think of herself as very creative.

Well, for some reason, the Do-Nothings liked it, got her to play, post her performances online. For some reason, people liked it too. And that little bit of fame was fun, sure, but Nat didn’t care for it. It was here, sitting in German-occupied Belgium, playing for faceless soldiers, that she realized - she did want to play with her friends there after all. She wanted to play and see them dancing. Nothing else really mattered.

Nat would need to escape first, though. When the ragtime player regained consciousness, she nudged him back onto the piano, where he was all too happy to take over for the roaring crowd. Nat donned a barber shop hat and did the Charleston with Charles and Altamont all the way to the door, only for a fuming, naked Leutnant to kick it down from the outside.

The guardsmen and the trio exchanged a stare. Then every Gewehr 98 in the crowd was trained on the trio. Even the piano playing stopped. Three exaggerated gulps came in response.

Nat rolled up a sleeve, revealing an exaggerated bicep adorned with an anchor tattoo.

A big ol’ barroom brawl erupted, with the trio right in the center with the Leutnant and the guardsmen, but the Germans were all drunk, resulting in intense intra-imperial in-fighting after a Prussian insulted the lederhosen worn by a Bavarian’s mother, and then all the anger kept quiet since the unification in 1871 burst into the open, with the Saxons even taking up old grievances with the Prussians dating back to 1813. In this confusing cloud of smoke, fists, and alcohol, the trio slipped outside and made a break for it.

They found a hot air balloon at an airstrip next to the town. As it ascended, Germans poured out onto the field, pilots getting into their own fantastical flying machines. As Team Nat floated towards the clouds, they could see Entente territory just over a ridge.

Whimsically-shaped biplanes and triplanes, some clockwork-powered, others hand-cracked, made a dogged pursuit. From the lead machine, the Leutnant shook his fist. Nat glanced at Charles for any projectiles, but he would need a few more hours before he could produce any, unless she had any fiber on him. She didn’t, but Altamont had something - he swiped a big mug of beer from the hall on his way out, having hid it inside his uniform. Using his birdlike strength, he flew into the air, braving machine gun fire, and dropped that mug right over the lead flying machine.

The mug hit a propeller, sending up smoke and fire; the machine began to sputter, knocking out the triplane right next to it, which similarly crashed into a clockpunk biplane, causing a chain reaction that knocked out an entire air wing in fourteen seconds. The Leutnant could only shake his fist as his airship collapsed and he fell from the sky.

The airmen sighed in relief. Nat played Over There! on her harmonica. Once past the ridge, dawn began to shine on Entente lines.

CONGRATULATIONS:

TEAM NAT HAS WON THE “BEHIND-ENEMY-LINES” SCENARIO

COLLECT YOUR TICKETS FROM THE BOOTH AT THE ENTRANCE

AND DON’T FORGET YOUR PHOTOS THERE TOO!

Within an interior hallway beneath the dome, Nat, Charles, and Altamont drank beer while looking at the stuffed animals they exchanged their tickets for. Nat smiled, and then stood.

Both Charles and Altamont understood. Team Nat Cool had its day. But her true companions, the lifetime, every-day sort of companions, were waiting for her.

They waved goodbye, then Nat left the dome. It was time to reunite the Dime Boys.