The two younglings seemed quite engrossed in their conversation.
It was quite a remarkable feat of social communication. They just kept jumping from topic to topic, frequently interrupting one another or finishing each other sentences, before changing subjects and doing it again. Or even changing subjects several times in the same sentence. A lot of it had to do with holo-games. Probably no surprise there. [member="Sor-Jan Xantha"] owned the largest hologame company in the galaxy at the moment.
There was
World of Build-a-Bear Knights, which was supposed to have a new expansion on the way. And, they needed it. Level 60 content was
totally yesterday. Yesterday's yesterday in fact. Three was getting tired of running the same dungeons over and over, and the daily grind was just annoying after so long.
Angry Mynocks was another. Especially
Angry Birds: Mandalorian Civil War, which was Three's favorite.
The Secret of Mynock Island was out for HoloStation 4, but that was supposed to be Three's birthday present so he hadn't played it yet.
No, he didn't actually have a birthday. He was a clone, but apparently birthdays were very, very important. At least according to Sor-Jan, who'd had sixty-four of them himself. Really, it just seemed like an excuse to eat cake and get a bunch of free stuff. Which, admittedly, sounded like something that Sor-Jan would endorse, or just make up so that he could eat cake.
In any case, they'd made up a birthday for Three. Sor-Jan called it 'a very merry un-birthday' which supposedly had its own song to go with it, from some old book that someone wrote. Like, not even a holo-book. An actual book book. As in, loub-paper and everything! Three wouldn't have believed that such things existed, except SJ had shown him one in a library on Naboo.
Outside of games, the boys had very divergent interests. So it made it difficult to venture very far into other topics. SJ wanted to talk about nerdy stuff, like archaeology and really,
really old dead people. Three wanted to talk blasters. And sports was a total non-starter. SJ was into the padawan force-ball leagues and Three was into the professional grav-ball team.
Seriously, the Voss Mystics were playing the Mandalore Mandalorians in the sector championships for the Besk'ar Bowl. Who
wasn't watching that?
Plus, Three had bet his allowance on the Mandalorians.
And Sor-Jan's.
...except, he kinda,
sorta, had neglected to mention to Sor-Jan that last part.
What was he supposed to do with his allowance? He made 20 credits a week and blew half of it on candy and holo-comics. SJ got an actual paycheck, with dividends and annuities on investments held at Corell Financial. He made like, a hundred times what Three did. Clearly, if they were betting then SJ's allowance was gonna go farther on two-to-one odds than Three's was.
And the real problem about all this?
"What happened to our ginger ale?" the young Fett asked, thinking aloud as his head perked up to look around for the waitress. She'd taken their order like, fifty million years ago!
...okay, so it had been
five minutes. Three was positive that, somewhere, animals had gone extinct while they waited for refills on soda.
Taking his empty cup and grabbing SJ's from across the table, the small Clone Trooper hopped from out of the booth. Crossing from out of the restaurant to the bar, the copper toned youngling plopped the glasses up on the bar. Standing up on the foot rail, the boy crossed his arms across the bar top as he looked around for a server to get a refill. As he was looking around, the boy looked up to see a man near him.
Then the youngling did a double take.
"Are you a clone!?" Yes, he'd just blurted that out. No, that wasn't an inside voice. No, he hadn't thought about it before he said it. Being a four year old clone meant having absolutely no filter between brain and mouth. But the man looked EXACTLY like a Clone Trooper. Except, SJ told him that the Clone Wars ended a long, long time ago. So Three didn't think there any clones like him left.
So who was this guy that looked just like he did?
...well, that looked just like Three would, when he growed up. Whenever that would be. Since the whole Republic-Empire-trying-to-kill-you thing happened, Three hadn't gotten any of his accelerated growth treatments. So he thought it was going to be a long time before he was grown up. Like, five or ten years from now!
That was a lifetime to a Clone Trooper.
[member="CC-420 Doc"]