Bob Schroeck wrote:
Well, it's been 15 months, but Chris and I have finally completed
the next installment. In fact, we've completed the next two --
chapter 4 should not be long in coming.
Enjoy.
-- Bob
===========================================================================
Bob Schroeck http://www.eclipse.net/~rms rms@eclipse.net
===========================================================================
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.
===========================================================================
Disclaimer and credits will be found after the end of the
chapter.
DRUNKARD'S WALK V / OH! MY BROTHER! BOOK II:
ANOTHER DIVINE MESS YOU'VE GOTTEN ME INTO
by Robert M. Schroeck and Christopher Angel
3. In Which The Neighbors Prove To Be More Annoying Than I Care
For
God does not play dice with the universe. He plays an ineffable
game of His own devising, which might be compared, from the
perspective of any of the other players (i.e., everybody), to
being involved in an obscure and complex version of poker in a
pitch-dark room, with blank cards, for infinite stakes, with a
Dealer who won't tell you the rules, and who *smiles all the
time.* -- From "Good Omens", by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett
Every study of the gods, of everyone's gods, is a revelation of
vengeance toward the innocent. -- From "A Prayer For Owen
Meany," by John Irving
Tarikihonganji Temple, Sunday, May 11, 1997, 7:31 AM
*I *hate* waking up with a freakin' headache,* Chris grumbled
silently, since he was not yet up to the task of speaking aloud.
*And this is the first one I've had since I got myself into this
gig, so it feels just that much worse.* On top of that, he
couldn't tell if it were fading or intensifying -- or just
throbbing slowly -- as he staggered slowly down the hallway.
With one large hand rubbing his bleary eyes, Chris stumbled
blindly into the kitchen, following the sounds and scents of meal
preparation. Eyes still closed, he took a long, deep breath and
frowned. The smell of breakfast, while not unpleasant, was
unfamiliar. With an effort, he ignored the pain in his head,
levered open his eyelids and slurred, "Good morning, Bell."
"Good morning, Christopher," Belldandy called out cheerily, all
but singing the words, without turning around from the range top
where she efficiently managed several bubbling pots and one
sizzling pan.
*Uh-oh.* The bright tone of her greeting coupled with the use of
his full first name jolted Chris into complete and wary (if
painful) wakefulness. The combination did not bode well. Nor
did the brilliant but ever-so-slightly mischievous smile she then
favored him with. A palpable sense of impending doom crept over
him at the thought of a *cheery* Belldandy who was still annoyed
at him. *This is not good. This is so very not good.* Partly
in the hope of distracting her, and partly because he was
genuinely curious, he asked, "Have you seen Doug this morning?
He's not in his room and his futon is folded up."
"I believe he is on the roof," his sister replied, ladling a tiny
bit of a dark sauce into a small, shallow bowl. Then she sipped
from the bowl and smiled to herself.
"The *roof*?" he repeated after what she'd said sunk in for a
moment.
"Yes, the roof." With smooth, efficient movements she scooped
several small, golden-brown somethings from the pan and laid them
on a paper towel to drain. "Would you be so kind as to ask him
to come in for breakfast?" She glanced over her shoulder and
graced him with another brilliant but worrisome smile.
"Sure," he muttered and turned around to leave the kitchen the
same way as he'd entered. "What the he... heck's he doing on the
roof?"
* * *
Fresh air seemed to help his head somewhat. At least the
pounding was down to a manageable level that let him open his
eyes and keep them open despite the obscene brightness of the
morning.
*Kata.* Chris blinked and confirmed what he was seeing. *He's
doing kata on the roof. On the ridge. Along the ridge. With...
music?* Chris blinked again. Doug seemed ... shiny, limned with
a faint silver light against the bright morning sky. *Is he...
glowing?*
"...Nooby ooby walla,
Dooby abba nabba,
Early morning singing song!
Good morning, Starshine,
There's love in your skies,
Reflecting the sunlight
In my lover's eyes.
Good morning, Starshine,
So happy to be
My love and me as we sing
Our early morning singing song..."
The music of course came from his helmet, which he wore -- an
incongruous contrast to the jeans and T-shirt in which he was
dressed. Watching as Doug danced and spun along the narrow line
of rounded ceramic shingles that capped the peak of the highest
part of the roof, Chris shook his head. *Well, now I know what
it was that confused Skuld so badly yesterday... Guy moves like
nothing I've ever seen, god or mortal.* He smiled to himself.
*Up there he's visible to most of the houses in the area. Looks
like the neighbors are going to have something new to talk
about.* One corner of his mouth twitched even higher. *About
freakin' time.*
Chris stood silently in the yard as he watched Doug continue his
kata, frowning in confusion. *What *is* he practicing, anyway?
That looked like a kung fu stance, but then he slid into a move I
*know* is from Tai Chi.* That thought brought to mind the way
Doug had handed off Skuld during the confrontation after his
arrival, a hand-off that had involved moves from three different
martial arts blended into a seamless sequence. Chris frowned in
concentration.
When the song ended, Doug bowed to the sun, which was not so far
above the horizon that it wasn't obviously in the East, and
reached under his helmet to undo the chin strap. As he did so,
Chris shook himself from his musings, waved and called out, "Yo!
Doug! Belldandy says breakfast is ready."
"Great!" Doug's voice started off muffled by the helmet, but
became crisp and clear when he finished pulling it off. Then,
without warning, he hurled himself off the roof.
Chris opened his mouth to yell, only leave it hanging open
soundlessly as Doug somersaulted, slammed feet-first into a
nearby tree trunk, ricocheted from there to touch momentarily
against the compound wall, then twisted and landed lightly on his
feet. He held his helmet's chin strap in one hand still, the
helmet itself swinging wildly from it. "What's she making this
morning?"
Chris took several moments to gather his wits sufficiently to
process the question, then slumped. "Probably something I'm
going to loathe," he muttered desultorily. "She's a bit miffed
There's something that strikes me as a bit off there. Maybe just delete
the adjective, which rings clumsily.
at me over something I said."
Doug raised an eyebrow. "And what, pray tell, did you say that
could upset a woman *that* calm and centered?"
Chris gave him a sidelong look with just a hint of glare. "I
laughed at what you called her when you first woke up."
"What I called...?" The older man frowned for several seconds in
obvious concentration, then his eyes shot open. "Oh! Oh,
yeah... that."
Snorting, Chris nodded. "Yeah, *that*."
Doug grimaced. "Would it help to say I was more than a little
stressed out?"
"Not particularly, but thanks for trying."
* * *
*"Vengeance is mine," sayeth the cook,* Chris thought glumly, and
poked at the items on his plate. The headache had faded away
completely, but his torment was not yet over. *No doubt about
it. This is my punishment for laughing last night.*
Belldandy had prepared a sumptuous breakfast, as usual, and his
sisters, Keiichi and their house guest were all tucking in with
varying degrees of enthusiasm. Not so himself. Chris studied
the plate in front of him, hoping that the intensity of his
dislike would somehow trigger a heretofore-latent talent of his
godhood that would transmute the ... substance on it into
something he could eat.
No luck yet.
His sister's revenge was both subtle and cruel. Breakfast was --
as it frequently became in Belldandy's hands -- a foray into the
foods of another culture, prepared with exquisite care and
attention. However, this was a culture he'd never expected her
to explore. He was certain the Deep South of the United States
had a great deal to offer the sophisticated palate -- but what
she'd set before him couldn't possibly be it.
The grits he could probably have handled -- as far as he was
concerned they were just another hot cereal. But the viscous
dark brown liquid ladled into the bowl over them -- he wasn't
sure if it was a sauce or a gravy -- smelled strongly of coffee
and weakly of salt pork, and the thought of the combination made
his stomach lurch. There were fried slices of something vaguely
meatlike (though not entirely so), somewhere between a dark tan
and a light grey in color. It reminded Chris a little of
meatloaf, but only in the most general way, and the one piece
he'd surreptitiously lifted to his nose when Bell hadn't been
looking had again smelled more like pork than anything else he
could identify.
He was on safer ground with the golden, bready tidbits that
glistened slightly still with a bit of the oil in which they had
been cooked -- he'd at least *heard* of hushpuppies before, and
actually looked forward to trying the deep-fried blobs of
cornbread batter. A flick of the wrist and he was able to
confirm that yes, they were as good as he'd imagined: hot,
sweet, and almost as puffy as a doughnut.
But the thing that worried him most, though, was the pile of
*other* deep-fried tidbits that dominated his plate. A quick
glance around the table confirmed that, yes, he easily had twice
as many of the small golden-brown disks as anyone else. Given
his current tenancy in Belldandy's doghouse, this could not
possibly be a good sign.
Chris picked one fried disk up with his chopsticks. It seemed to
be coated in the same batter that made up the hushpuppies, which
boded well. Cautiously, he raised it to his lips and took a tiny
bite and chewed.
And stopped as the flavor hit him. He closed his eyes and forced
himself to swallow the tiny bit of fried vegetable matter because
-- fit of pique or not -- he was not going to insult Belldandy by
spitting it out. *Damn. I hate it when I'm right.*
Okra.
Southern-freaking-fried okra.
He hated okra. And Belldandy knew it.
It was going to be a *long* breakfast.
* * *
I'd never had a genuine Southern-style breakfast before, and was
giving it my all despite the unhealthy look of the scrapple and
the weird scent of the sauce on the farina. But hell, I like
good food, and I'll try anything once -- twice if it doesn't kill
me. And I've already given my opinion on Belldandy's cooking, so
regardless of what it looked or smelled like, I was more than
willing to go at it with enthusiasm.
Chris looked considerably less enthusiastic. He took one bite of
the batter-dipped okra and his face went steel-shutter blank --
he obviously didn't like it but didn't want Belldandy to know.
Which failed of course, because if *I* caught on immediately,
Belldandy probably figured it out the day before. Besides, it
*was* punishment after all. *Take it like a man, buddy.*
So I dug in while he picked at his plate. I was about halfway
through the bowl of coffee-bacon-flavored farina when Skuld
finally walked in. I didn't look up at her, but I did half-
consciously track the progress of the red and white skirt that
was at my current eye level as it made its way around the table.
As I swabbed up a dollop of porkish-flavored grease with a
hushpuppy, I realized the skirt had stopped more or less next to
me and wasn't moving. I popped the 'puppy into my mouth and
leaned back.
"G'morning, Skuld." I said as my eyes came to rest on Garban,
which was nestled in the little goddess' arms.
Keiichi stopped eating and stared at Skuld with faint dread in
his eyes. Chris stopped playing with his food to watch us as
well.
"Good morning," she replied. She didn't say anything else for a
couple of seconds, just stood there studying me. Then she held
up the toy robot and looked it over. "I don't usually like
machines that don't do anything useful," she said without
preamble. "But you didn't know that. And I think I know what
you wanted to say by giving this to me. So..." She took a
breath. "Thank you."
On the other side of the table, Belldandy beamed as Urd grinned,
dare I say devilishly. Chris raised an eyebrow and looked
impressed. Keiichi let out a held breath.
I nodded and smiled. "You're welcome. Peace?"
She nodded once in return, vigorously enough to send shimmering
ripples down her long, black hair. "Peace."
I slid over a bit and patted the empty pillow next to me -- I was
still next to what was apparently her usual place. "Then sit
down and have breakfast with the rest of us." As she did so, I
added, "Your sister has gone for the exotic this morning."
Chris started coughing.
"Truly classical cooking," I declared, and held up a piece of
scrapple speared on my fork. "Bring back the glory that was
grease!"
Skuld snorted, and Urd chuckled, but Belldandy actually giggled.
I caught her eye and got an impish smile in return. Chris, on
the other hand, scowled at me. Apparently now that Skuld didn't
need it, it was his turn to use the family scowl.
I wondered for a moment if Belldandy ever used it, then
remembered what Chris had said about the previous night. *Note
to self: do not make Belldandy scowl.* That resolved, I tipped
an imaginary hat to him, and went back to cleaning my plate.
Fifteen minutes later, Chris was still working his way through
his fried okra, but everyone else had finished. As the rest of
the household dispersed to the four winds, I helped Belldandy
gather up the dirty dishes and insisted on carrying them into the
kitchen for her. She protested about letting a guest perform
manual labor but I ignored her objections and reminded her that
a) I was more like a boarder than a guest, b) it was part of our
agreement, and c) dirty dishes didn't even rank *anywhere* near
the most unpleasant thing I could do around the house.
This little exchange lasted until we were in the kitchen proper.
After I stacked everything carefully by the sink, I turned to her
and said, "Double portions of okra? Chris must have *really*
been a bad boy."
Belldandy giggled again, an extraordinarily pleasant sound that I
decided I wanted to hear more often. "Oh, not really, but I do
have a bit of a temper, and it flared up last night. This was a
safe way to express it." An apprehensive look took over her
expressive blue eyes. "You don't think ill of me for it, do you?"
I laughed, then reached out and squeezed her hand reassuringly.
"My dear Belldandy, you're a Norse goddess. I'd've been worried
if you *didn't* have a temper. And I'm honored that my opinion
means *anything* to you." Apprehension was replaced by
gratitude, but before she could say anything I went on, "And
you're right, fried okra is *definitely* safer than, say, power
blasts at 20 paces."
She giggled musically once more. "I suppose I should go tell him
he's forgiven and he doesn't have to finish it all."
"Probably a good idea," I replied, nodding.
Before Belldandy could do more than turn toward the door, though,
an unfamiliar male voice calling out a traditional greeting
echoed through the house. "Oh," she said brightly, "that sounds
like Louis."
"Louis?" I asked.
Belldandy nodded. "One of Chris' friends from school."
* * *
Much to Louis' obvious amusement, Chris raised his eyes to the
ceiling and mouthed "thank you!" as soon as Belldandy pulled the
plate with the remaining okra from the table.
With unusual care, the young god slid back away from the table so
he could stand without causing another disaster. He rose to his
feet, his knees and back popping as he did so, then rolled his
shoulders, and rotated his waist, each one eliciting more cracks
and pops. Finally, he put his hands to his head and twisted it in
a truly alarming fashion.
As each noise echoed in the room, Belldandy winced and grimaced,
her expression becoming more and more tortured until Chris
finished. With a shudder, she fled into the kitchen, and Chris
grinned evilly after her. Then he turned to Louis with a
suspicious look. "You're here awfully bright and early in the
morning," he commented. "What's up?"
Louis looked away, his good humor draining from his face. "I
wanted to apologize..."
Chris's face flushed as he exploded with, "Tian-mu's tits! You
freaking told him!"
With a reluctant nod, Louis said, "Sorry. I'm sworn to the
service of an Archangel, I really didn't have any *choice* in the
matter. I had to inform Jean." A sheepish half-smile flitted
across his lips. "At least I had the decency to let you know."
"Great," Chris rasped. "Just freaking great. Now Jean's going
to tell that prick Dom, and I'll have got a bloody Inquisitorial
Triad on their way, and there's nothing we can do about it.
Neither Urd, Skuld nor I can get rid of them, and Bell *won't* --
she'll just keep serving them tea, no matter how annoying they
get." Absently, he began to systematically pop his knuckles.
"And I can't rope Thor or Indra into it either because I still
owe them from *last* time! GAH! And he's probably going to send
his most annoying trio just to piss me off!" He clenched his
fists until the knuckle joints popped. "I really *hate* angels
of Judgment."
"It's not all bad. I mean, since you're not part of the Choir
they have no real authority over you, right?"
"Yeah, and *I* have no authority over *them*!"
"As long as you don't punch one. You remember what happened last
time."
Chris glared at his mortal friend. "As I recall, you were
responsible for *those* nimrods showing up, too. Remind me why I
keep you as a friend?"
Louis crossed his arms and smiled smugly. "Because I buy the
beer."
"That'll do."
* * *
9:07 AM
Despite my pretty words after breakfast, I still did not fully
trust Belldandy. It was inconceivable in my experience for a god
-- even an incarnated aspect so clearly acculturated to life as a
human as Belldandy seemed to be -- to honestly give a tinker's
damn about the opinion a mere mortal like myself might hold about
her behavior. (Yeah, yeah, yeah, Hexe. But Hexe's *different*.
In all the right ways. And even then she doesn't give a shit
what anyone thinks of her anyway, so it's a null issue.)
So even as I stood next to Belldandy and helped with the dishes,
I was busy turning her words and actions over and over in my
mind, trying to figure out what her angle actually was. I didn't
come up with any useable answer by the time all the dishware had
been put away, so I kept on musing on it as I turned to my
primary task of the day -- further work on my bike.
Try as I might, I couldn't figure out what she wanted. The fact
is, the Three simply *aren't* nice. Depending on how you looked
at them, they either couldn't afford to be, or didn't want to be.
Remember, these are the same Entities who are also the Furies at
least part of the time, not to mention several other more-than-
slightly bloodthirsty trinities.
Apparently he's here to learn that he doesn't know everything.
(And having had come to mind
the image of a blood-splattered and wild-eyed Belldandy, gore-
dipped sword in hand, sweetly saying, "I'm terribly sorry but I
have to kill you quite horribly now" certainly didn't help me
come to any conclusions, although it *did* give me a fit of the
giggles for a few minutes.) And in the aspects which inhabited
the avatars with whom I now lived (i.e., the Norse version of the
Greek Fates) they *all* should have been at the best cold and
unfeeling about mortal men and at the worst gleefully sadistic.
Geez, that's a bit harsh. The last time he dealt with those three,
while they may have trapped him in BGC for a while, their purpose was
undeniably compassionate. Given that the only real effect of his
current sojourn is to give him new and niftier hardware, it seems like
the Three are even paying him for his assistance.
So Belldandy not only being as nice as she was but also being
concerned about my opinion of her made absolutely no sense to me,
except in terms of some kind of manipulation. But try as I
might, wrack my brain as I did, I could not for the life of me
come up with anything immediate and obvious, which left me no
choice but to assume that her goal, whatever it was, was
fiendishly and possibly ineffably subtle. And I resigned myself
to being bit on the ass by it at the most inopportune time, which
is usually the case.
(Mind you, this doesn't mean I didn't *like* Belldandy -- or her
siblings, for that matter. Against my better judgment and
against my will, I found that I *did* like them all, however
tentative it was at that early date.
I just didn't entirely trust them.
Yet.)
Ah...lose the "Yet". Foreshadowing is much more effective when you
aren't foreshadowing something fluffy and full of kittens.
Oddly enough, coming to this conclusion set my mind at a kind of
fatalistic ease. The Three were, among their many other roles,
the primary enforcers of Finagle's Law, and the perversity of the
universe was something with which I'd long ago come to terms.
Living with and inside my field had inured me to it even before I
was out of high school --
Speaking of which, it seems odd that his field doesn't cause bugs.
the only other alternative was to go
loudly and spectacularly crazy. (No comments from the peanut
gallery, please!) So anyway, chalking Belldandy's odd behavior
up to business as usual with the universe at large actually
allowed me to relax and devote my entire mind to the real
business at hand -- my bike.
It being a Sunday, no one had classes or much in the way of other
obligations, so I had plenty of hands to help me with the work on
my motorcycle. But other than Skuld, who had settled in for the
long haul, and Megumi, who was devouring everything we could give
her on gravitics, people tended to drift in, lend a hand for an
hour or so, and drift out again.
Even Belldandy joined the team for a while (in the company of
Keiichi, of course, and don't think I hadn't included *that*
relationship and its oddities in my ruminations about her
motives). I was surprised to discover that she was no stranger
to this kind of work. The clean but comfortably-broken-in
coverall with her name neatly stitched in katakana on the left
breast, not to mention her skill with a wrench, made it clear
that she'd worked on engines and vehicles before.
I'd give a blow-by-blow description of the work we did on the
motorcycle, but to be honest it was mostly boring grunt work --
pick a subsection, find the necessary parts among Skuld's rather
idiosyncratic organizational system, carry them to a clear bit of
floor, sit and assemble. Retrieve tools as necessary, put them
back when done. Lather, rinse, repeat.
Among those tools was the same cleverly-designed plasma
welder/cutter combination Skuld had been using the day before,
which from its red-and-white coloring and the prominent "S" on
its case I figured was something that she had cooked up herself.
(Also by the way the other members of the household shied away
from it when I powered it up.) I eagerly looked forward to using
it while reassembling the cycle's frame.
Theoretically, that task shouldn't have been a big deal. Skuld's
exploratory surgery hadn't gotten so far as to render it into
component atoms, at least -- compared to other parts of the bike,
it was mostly intact. And Skuld had already reassembled part of
it while the rest of us were dealing with those grad-school gits
Ootaki and Tamiya. On top of that, Megumi had actually found the
remaining parts while getting a running feed on the basics of
gravitics from Skuld and myself. With Belldandy's help she had
begun laying the pieces out in place. It *should* have been a
matter of a couple of hours at the most, even if we needed to
weld something that I hadn't noticed. It *should* have been.
That was before I spotted Megumi studying a piece of the frame
tubing with a funny look on her face. I didn't give it much
thought, since we didn't need that particular piece yet, and my
attention was primarily focussed on Skuld, who was doing the
actual welding. But every once in a while Megumi would pass
across my field of vision, a pair of calipers or a micrometer or
whatnot in one hand, and (after the first couple times), Skuld's
computerized Etch-A-Sketch in the other.
The next time I really paid attention to what she was up to,
she'd plopped herself down on one of the stools and had begun
typing away furiously on the flat screen of the device, which
she'd perched precariously on her knees. Every once in a while
she'd pause and check a piece of paper on the workbench next to
her, then start typing again; her fingertips striking the screen
made a dull, flat noise unlike the clicking keyboards I was used
to.
About that time I'd taken over Skuld's mini-welder and had gone
to work on the turbine mount, and didn't pay any further
attention to what Megumi was up to. I'd had some ideas for
improving the mount for a few months but hadn't gotten around to
implementing them, and regardless of how I felt about what she'd
done, Skuld's vandalism of my bike gave me the perfect
opportunity to do so. So it happened that I was busy sculpting a
new mount bracket with quick, deft movements of the welder/cutter
head when I felt a tap on my shoulder.
I shut down the device and took off my goggles. Megumi and Skuld
were standing together next to me. "We need you to see
something," Megumi said solemnly.
Next thing I know, Skuld and Megumi are bookending me and waving
the plans for the grav drive under my nose, both trying to
explain something to me simultaneously and rendering each other
unintelligible in the process.
I held up my hands. "Hold on!" I didn't quite bellow, but it was
loud enough to make Keiichi and Belldandy both look up from where
they were piecing together the front fork and its mount. "One at
a time."
"We have a problem," Megumi said. "All I know about grav tech I
learned yesterday afternoon and today, so I really don't know
much at all, but I *do* know something about vehicle frames."
"Look here." Skuld twiddled something on the edge of the
sketchpad and a false-perspective field strength diagram sprang
up over a wire-frame image of the bike. Then the whole thing
animated. The simulation's drive spooled up to full power and as
the time progression started going logarithmic I watched in
dismay as the frame slowly warped and buckled. When all that was
left was a twisted ruin of glowing lines, I hit the big "pause"
button on the screen and checked the projected time. Five years,
two months, eight days, and a handful of hours.
I suppressed a wince. "Five years isn't too bad."
"That's a best-case projection," Megumi said. ""Best case"
meaning that the bike never actually moves in that five years.
You put any kind of stress on the frame, the whole process
accelerates."
"Stress like, say, riding around on it?" I asked.
"Bingo," Skuld replied with a smirk.
"We can't use the bike's original frame," Megumi declared. "Not
with Skuld's improvements to the grav drive."
Actually given the imbalance you described the original jury-rigged
set-up as having, I bet the only reason the original frame would have
lasted is because it wouldn't have had time to break before the
propulsion modules exploded.
"And *his* Overself is?" Megumi prompted.
Skuld's smile faded away to a contemplative look. "Well, that's
part of what makes him a special case. I can't really talk about
that yet."
After all, if I admitted his overself is a mundane fanfiction author,
you'd be weirded out.
"Yet?" Megumi's eyebrows shot up. "Bull. From what Keiichi told
me, he's just some ordinary bozo who got a power-up. So what's
the big secret? That he's *not* really a god, because he doesn't
have an overself like you and your sisters?"
"What word do you have, Doug-san?" Belldandy asked, filling cups
of tea from the same Thermos pump carafe that had appeared at
every meal so far. I took the one she handed me, turned it
around in my hands as if it were the tea-bowl in a cha-no-yu,
bowed slightly, and inhaled deeply of the aromatic steam it gave
off.
"<Metahuman> is the one most commonly used," I replied, then
Except of course that would presumably apply to criminals as well as
law-enforcers.
"If you say so." Doug frowned. "Don't know what would give them
the right, anyway. I'm no more Christian than I am anything else
-- which is to say, not at all."
Your religion has nothing to do with it. You're on their turf dude.
It's not like your outfit wouldn't claim authority over a random
extra-universal intruder with super-powers if it suddenly appeared in
your jurisdiction.
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