Chapter Text
“Gooooood morning Hyperion, Washington! You're listening to Hyperion Fog, ten twenny on the radio dial! Listeners, it’s been raining since about three in the morning, sowe here at Sticks and Stone’s Antique and Pawn and the garage are locked in the house with a yardstick of water flowing by the window. Business is closed ’til waters recede. We’re all right over here; Skyler grew up on a boat in the Great Lakes so ne sealed the house when we got it. ‘Rather be safe than drowned,’ ne said. Caulked the clapboard and if it didn’t take an absolute eon to do it! This was when we were newcomers so we had to do it ourselves, the whole house. An’ for anybody what’s ever shown up over here it’s a thin house but it does have it’s height. Took an age. Juno came over though, and Rita. Said it was painful to watch us do layer after layer on the house and we knew clapboard didn’t work that way, right? Well sure, clapboard don’t work that way, but that’s Skyler for ya. Anything that ne wants to treat as a boat becomes one. Oh, an’ wasn’t that when we met Rita! Came over complaining that she didn’t get paid enough for this. Pretty rapid caulker for all her complainin’ too. If you’re listening, hey Miz Rita! How’s tricks? Give us a call when you can ’n give us the skinny on the situation up at the diner. I made Juno a casserole, to pay him. ’N if Skyler slipped ten bucks into his pants that’s not my business. Skyler, I’m recording! I can hear you from here, quit your cacklin’! Anyway. So the house won’t flood so long as the doors are shut, ’n if we want to leave the house it’ll be through the windows.
“I hafta say, in all my five years I ain’t never seen the waters come up this high; up to the window! Not to mention it’s raining to beat the band so that ain’t helping matters nowhere. I really wonder why—oh, hold on listeners. Caller on line one, you’re on the air.”
“Fog, it’s me. I need to borrow Skyler’s boat. The lake’s rising. Anyone dumb enough to be outside, get some height, I don’t care if it’s on top of the post office or a moving car.”
“Wh—okay? Skyler? Ne’s on it. Take some rope! A flashlight! The kit! Everythin’ copacetic at the agency, boss?”
“Yeah, I’m good. Rita’s fine, but the lines fell by the road so she walkie-talkied over. Nureyev’s hanging out on the fire escape. He’s from New Orleans, this is nothing to him. Having fun, the nutcase.”
“Boy howdy. Alright, I’ll let you go, Juno—
“You’re coming too. Gonna need a weather announcer.”
“What! Aw sakes… Don’t touch that dial folks, we’ll be right back!”
“You’re listening to Hyperion Fog, 10.20 on the radio dial! We’re floating down Main Street River, listeners, joined today on Skyler’s boat by Juno Steel, detective-slash-volunteer-park-ranger, Peter Nureyev, amateur paranormal researcher, and Skyler Stone, sailor, amateur paranormal investigator and owner of the local antique and pawnshop. And I’m your host, Fog Burns. Mechanic. Seems to me that every time I use this portable radio I’m on the water. Sorry about the audio quality folks; it’s pouring, and I’m on a boat with Juno Steel of all people. If you hear someone shouting, that’s likely him. It depends. Was one time, Mick Mercury of Hyperion General was on Lake Hyperion in a rowboat with a V8 engine attached to the back which, don’t need to be a mechanic to tell you ain’t how a boat works. So Juno commandeered Skyler’s boat, tethered Mick’s dinghy to the back of the S.S. Bone and got him back to shore, yelling the whole time. I could hear him from inside the station, which tells you something ‘bout the dame. Oh—”
“Rita! I thought you were stuck at the diner, I was coming to get you.”
“Aww, thanks boss, but you don’t hafta worry about old Rita! Hiya Mista Mystery! Wouldja look at this rain?”
“Good morning, Miss Rita! A bit humid, perhaps, but nothing to worry about! I like your boat, it’s very… pink—Rita is that your car ?”
“Yep! Mista Steel let me borrow all the James Bond books few years back so I told myself Rita, you know how to use a screwdriver, why don’t you do something?”
“Miz Rita! Quick question from the press! What year did you hot rod your ride?”
“About two weeks ago!”
“ You were the one making all that racket in the garage? I thought it was demons or something!”
“Gotta go, it’s my day to visit my mama! See you Mista Steel!”
“Bye, tell her I said hey.”
“Will do! Byyee!!”
“Listeners, that was Miz Rita, editor-in-chief of Hyperion’s number one newspaper Within the Wires, secretary to one Juno Steel, and part-time waitress at the diner. Well, let’s see what else we can find on Main Street River.”
“So, we’re out at the edge of town, an’ school’s closed for the day so we came across some o’ Miss Sequoyah’s fourth grade swimming in the street. Miss Chance was at her living room window and keeping an eye out so that was fine, and Miss Mary Anne was figuring out her teaching plans so we stayed clear. Mose called, somehow, ‘cause I don’t have the phone line, and he’s high and dry up in his cabin. It’s on one of the rises, he says. Wait—”
“Juno! Is that—“
“That’s her alright. Hang on.”
“Listeners, we just got a visitor swim up to the boat! None other than Clue Steel, cat. Where’d she come from?”
“Hanging out on someone’s windowsill, probably. Bit of rain ain’t nothing to her, huh Clue.”
“Mew!”
“Shoot, this is something to me! I’m from the desert! We got eleven inches of rain in a year and lucky for it.”
“I lived on a lake, this is less than nothing. A puddle, that’s what this is. And a puddle’s what I got left in the tank, by the way, we gotta turn back.”
“Aw, Skyler, what? Well, listeners, we’re heading back to the house, and you’ve already heard about what’s happened thataway, so; thanks for tuning in to our river adventure! More apt than ever before, fair winds and following seas!”