Cowboy Bebop Fan Fiction ❯ Fantaisie Sign ❯ Hello, I Love You, Won't You Tell Me Your Name? ( Chapter 4 )

DISCLAIMER: Cowboy Bebop and its characters are owned by the anime companies that made them, and not by me.

Author's Note: This fanfic is in the first-person style, with the POV being Edward's for all but a few chapters (and when the POV is different, I won't switch mid-chapter, the whole chapter will be like that). I've never even attempted doing something like this before, so bear with me.

French Note: For the few (non-generic) French language bits in this fic, I'll be using Babelfish. So pardon my French. ^_^

---

"Passengers, this is your captain speaking. We are approaching the Neo-Parisian Interplanetary Spaceport at this time, so please buckle your seatbels. We are expecting a smooth landing, and we hope that you've enjoyed your trip on Terra Shuttles. Have a nice day."

After a calm flight, we were finally arriving in Neo-Paris. My excitement had been mounting with every passing minute, and now I was only moments away from the city.... I could barely wait!

"Well, we're almost here!" said the woman sitting next to me. "Good luck at your college interview."

I nodded.

"Thank you, ma'am..." I told her kindly. "I'm actually kinda nervous..."

"Well, I'm sure you'll do just fine, Edward," the woman said. "That is your name, right?"

"That's right, Edward's name is Edward!" I said, smiling at her. Suddenly, a small beeping sound began to go off in the shuttle as we approached the runway. The landing gear began to deploy.

"This is it, Edward..." I thought to myself. "Just a little while now..."

The shuttle floated over the large runway as its CLP (Computerized Landing Protocol) program began to take effect. It touched down gently and glided, slowing down before coming to a stop.

"We're here!" I yelled out, barely able to contain my excitement. I unbuckled by seatbelt and stood up in front of my seat.

"My my, aren't we jumpy today," the woman said.

"Tomato girl is happy!" her son cried out, also jumping up from his seat and smiling up at me. "Yay!"

I grinned at him.

"He's just like me..." I thought. "I wonder how long he'll stay like that, though? I've been that way for the last 15 years...."

"Passengers, we've just landed in Neo-Paris, so we'll begin unboarding now. You may now exit the shuttle. Once again, thank you for flying with Terra Shuttles."

"Well, I guess this is goodbye," the woman said, standing up next to me. "Hope you have a wonderful time in Neo-Paris!"

"You too," I told her. "Thanks for selling me that ticket earlier!"

"Tomato girl!" the boy said again, waving at me. "Bye bye!"

The woman and her son joined the large crowd exiting the shuttle, while I stayed behind to collect my two suitcases, which I had placed in the overhead compartment above my seat. After I'd grabbed my suitcases, I walked into the aisle and exited the shuttle, stepping out the door and looking up at the bright, blue sky.

"Edward... is... in Paris!" I shouted. "Woooooo!"

Ignoring the many stares which I received from the people exiting the shuttle in front of me, I walked down the steps leading down to the runway and skipped to the main facility of the spaceport.

---

Neo-Paris' spaceport was a lot bigger than the one back in Suarez City, but I was quickly able to navigate through it and find a large neon sign that read "Lé Golden Taxi- Neo Paris' Number One Taxi Service". I ran over to the sign and saw a nice-looking young man sitting behind a small desk.

"Hello?" I said, trying to get his attention. "Yoo-hoo, taxi-person?"

He turned and looked up at me.

"Well, bonjour, madmoiselle!" he greeted me in a slightly heavy French accent. "You are in need of a taxi into ze city?"

I nodded. After the Gate Disaster and subsequent mass migration to Mars, English became the dominant language of the new society, being used almost everywhere in public places. However, many of the major languages still lived on in private conversations and publication, and the different regions of Mars had their ancestral languages as secondary official languages, alongside English. My mother, being French herself, had taught me quite a bit of the language, so I could speak French fluently if I needed to.

"Could you please get Edward a taxi that will drop Edward off near the New Parisian Liberty campus?" I asked him. "Pleeeeeease?"

"But of course, that is one of our most popular destinations!" he said. "Many tourists like to tour ze campus because of its beautiful architecture and huge library!"

"Edward is not a tourist..." I told him, with a large grin on my face. "Edward is going to be attending school there next year!"

"Ah, I see!" the man said. "Well zen, good luck getting in! Only 5% of applicants are selected to attend ze university!"

"I know....." I told him. "But I just have to get in! I know I will!"

The man typed on his computer for a few seconds, then turned back to me.

"Your taxi is waiting just outside in ze parking lot!" he told me. "Zat will be 1800 wulongs, please!"

I handed the man my cash card. He swiped it through his console, deducting 1800 wulongs, and then returned it to me.

"Zere you are, madmoiselle!" he said. "Enjoy your taxi!"

"Merci beaucoup!" I said graciously.

I ran toward the nearby exit, and quickly made it out to the parking lot, where a hovertaxi was waiting, floating slightly off the ground. I climbed inside, and the driver quickly sped off, toward the campus of New Parisian Liberty. As the taxi drove toward the campus, it passed by some of the most beautiful landmarks of the city, and I took the time to gaze at them all.

"Wow..." I said in amazement.

"Neo-Paris is really beautiful, isn't it?" said the female driver of the taxi. I nodded and continued to view the amazing sights. Large, modern skyscrapers pierced upward into the sky. Beautiful cathedrals were everywhere, with their steeples and stained-glass windows beckoning a closer look. One of the cathedrals was a perfect recreation of Notre Dame, which had been ravaged by meteorites in the old Paris back on Earth (my father and I drove right past it).

"Since it's the afternoon, most of the lights are off," the driver said matter-of-factly, her French accent a bit less prominent then the taxi-person's had been. "But in the nighttime when the lights are on, Neo-Paris truly is at its most beautiful!"

Fountains rose up all over the city, with beautiful glass and marble designs, spraying water into beautiful reflecting pools. The Eiffel Tower and Arc de Triumph had also been recreated splendidly, with the Eiffel Tower nearly five times bigger than it was back on Earth, rising nearly a mile into the sky.

"That's tall...." I said, looking at the Neo-Eiffel Tower as we drove past it. "Edward can barely see any of it..."

The taxi continued to drive through the city before finally leaving the large highway it was on and zooming down a side road through a beautiful grove of trees and buildings. Finally, I could spot what I knew immediately to be the campus, a huge complex of many buildings, as well as gardens, small pools, and beautiful statues. The campus was one of the most beautiful things I'd ever seen... to think that in a short while, I might be living there for the next several years!

"Awesome!" I shouted upon seeing the beautiful campus for the first time. The driver turned her head around and smiled at me.

"You like it, hmm?" she asked.

"Edward does, Edward likes it very very much!" I said, rapidly nodding my head.

"Who is this Edward, anyway?" the woman asked. "Oh, it's probably none of my business. Well, this is our stop!"

The driver had stopped the taxi right in front of a large gate, which in turn was in front of a large, beautifully decorated administration building. A small building was next to the gate, where an attendant pressed buttons to make the gate open and close.

"Now, you're one of the applicants, right?" the driver asked. "The people being given the tour are going to be housed in Dejoule Hall, I think. It's near the administration building, not too hard to find."

"Okay! Thank you, ma'am!" I told the driver before exiting the taxi with my two suitcases. As she drove away, I immediately began looking around. "This place is cool..."

I walked over to the building next to the gate and waved to the security guard.

"And who might you be, madmoiselle?" the guard asked, smiling at me.

"I'm here for the admissions interviews and the tour of the college!" I replied. "My name is Francoise Appledelhi!"

"Ah yes, I see your name on the list!" the security guard told me. "You're the first one here, you know the tour and the interview won't be for four days, right?"

"Well, I'm a real eager beaver!" I told him. He chuckled.

"I see," the guard replied. "Well, anyway, you should probably check in at the administration building, okay? I'll open the gate. Oh, and here's the key to your dorm room where you'll be staying! Room 210!"

The guard handed me the key. Then he pressed a button, and the large gate to the campus slowly opened. I thanked the guard, and then ran inside the campus. It wasn't quite as busy as I thought it would be, as only a few people were walking around. Most of the activity was probably in the other parts of the campus, though.

"Okey dokey, let's get started!" I said. "First, before Edward checks in, Edward will find Dejoule Hall, where Edward will be staying!"

I didn't have to look very far. It was near the administration building, off the main path by a small, paved road that led to a clean, white building that was about two stories tall.

"Guess I'd better put up my suitcases...."

I walked into the building and quickly found my way to my dorm, using my key to get inside. I looked around and smiled.

"Wow, this is great!" I exclaimed. The room had a flat-screen TV on the wall, facing a large, comfortable-looking bed with a small desk next to it. "They gave Edward all the comforts of home!"

I set my suitcases down by the bed and turned on the light.

"Glad you like it, loser!" yelled a female voice from outside. I turned toward the door to see a young woman, apparently a student at the university, standing outside. "Yeah, I'm talking to you. Room stealing loser."

She walked away.

"I wonder what that was for...?" I thought, slightly hurt. "Edward won't worry about it..."

Still a bit bewildered, I left the dorm, then returned to the administration building to check in.

---

The administration building, a large, brick and marble structure decorated with many small statues perched on its sides, might have looked large on the outside, but once I entered, it seemed even larger on the inside. The lobby was huge, and I could look up and see the top of the building, a ceiling beautifully decorated with a large mural that portrayed hundreds of angels. Doors, halls, and stairways were everywhere, and there were many people, most of them students, milling about. Fortunately, a map of the building was posted in the lobby, right next to the door. I walked over to the map and looked at it.

"Where does Edward check in.... hmm, nobody told Edward..." I said, tracing my finger along the map. "Um... Admissions Services? I think this is the one! Third floor, room 317.... got it!"

I walked up two flights of stairs and turned right down a wide hallway that led to room 317. Finding the room, which had a sign near the door that read "Admissions Services" in both English and French, I walked inside.

"Have a seat," directed an elderly woman sitting behind a desk in the room's neatly decorated office. "Someone will see you shortly."

"Um, I'm Francoise Appledelhi... I'm here to check in as an applicant," I told the secretary.

"I told you, someone will see you shortly," the woman said sternly, a French accent absent from her voice. I felt a bit angered by her rudeness, but I did as I was told, sitting down in a large chair by the door.

"You didn't have to be so mean to Edward," I thought, hoping that the person that I was going to see shortly would be nicer than this lady was. After waiting a couple of minutes, a man entered the room through the same door I had came through. I recognized the man immediately. "Mr. Depardieu?"

The man, whom was the same man that I'd seen in my e-mail from the college, smiled.

"You must be Francoise Appledelhi!" the man said with a light French accent. "It's wonderful to meet you!"

I stood up and shook the man's hand.

"You know, you're the first of the touring applicants to arrive on campus," Depardieu told me.

"I know... your security guard told me," I said. "I wanted to give myself plenty of time to view all the sights here!"

"It's a beautiful city, isn't it?" he asked me. "Did you see the Neo-Eiffel Tower?"

I nodded.

"The Neo-Arc De Triumph? Notre Dame?" he asked. I nodded again. "Magnifique!"

"It really is a beautiful city," I told him. "Edward loves Neo-Paris!"

Oops... I didn't want to do that, not at all.... I had to be as mature as I possibly could be, especially in my speaking... I was sure one slip-up wouldn't totally blow my chances of getting into college, but-

"Who's Edward?" Depardieu asked, like I knew he would. "A friend of yours?"

"Yes, a friend!" I lied. "Someone who lives here that I'm planning to visit, which is one of the reasons I came early!"

"I see," Depardieu said. "You know, your tests results have been spectacular... I know you get a lot of this, but... you're quite a brilliant girl!"

I smiled, slightly beside myself. Actually, this was probably the first time anyone's said that about me... well, besides Faye-Faye, or Jet-person, or daddy.

"Thank you, sir," I told him.

"I'm really looking forward to interviewing you in four days, Miss Appledelhi. Well, anyway, now that you've checked in, you can go anywhere you want for the next four days. You can take in the sights of the city, tour the campus on your own..."

"Um... could you please tell me where I can find the archives of past students?" I asked, remembering that I wanted to find out as much as I could about my mom while I was here. "The ones from before 2060."

"Oh, the archives!" Depardieu said. "Absolutely... those are in the library, in their own section. Do you need directions to the library?"

"No, Edward can find it just fine!" I said, slipping up again.

"Hmm... your friend, right?" Depardieu asked. "Is that what you-"

"Well, thank you!" I said quickly, backing toward the exit. "I should come back to this office in four days, right?"

"Yes, that's correct," Depardieu said. "I look forward to seeing you!"

I left the office and closed the door behind me. I was thinking of maybe tattling on the secretary who yelled at me earlier, but that wouldn't really help me, and I doing things out of revenge just wasn't me anyway.

"Time to go to the library!" I said loudly, causing the two people walking through the hallway to turn and stare at me for a second or two before going about their business. This is college... I should really be careful about that sorta thing...

---

The library was pretty easy to find. I walked past the administration building and took the large paved path past several dormitories and school buildings, taking time to view the beautiful scenery as I walked. The library was in a large, marble building about the size of the administration building. The marble allowed the sun to reflect off the sides and roof of the building, giving it a beautiful shimmer. I walked up the stairs that led to the entrance of the building, a large, wooden door. Then, I pushed the door open and walked inside.

"Okay.... now where to start?" I said quietly, noticing all the people studying in the library. "I should probably get someone to help me..."

However, the reference desk by the entrance would be no help. The two people stationed there were already talking to people, with a fairly long line behind each person. It would be quite a while before I'd get any help from there.

"Guess I'd better just look around myself...." I said again. "Maybe Ed will get lucky..."

The library didn't have a large map like the administration building did, so I had to start looking myself. I journeyed through the stacks of books, looking for a sign that would point out the archives to me, but I wasn't able to find one. After about five minutes of searching the first floor of the library, I walked over to the stairs and prepared to search the second, when someone stopped me.

"Um, miss?" came a young-sounding male voice from behind me. "Are you looking for something?"

I turned around and came face-to-face with one of the most handsome people I had ever seen.

"Hello.... can you help me?" I said meekly. The young man appeared to be in his late teens or early twenties, and, like I said, he was very handsome. He had beautiful blue eyes that accented his flawless face, which was clean-shaven and blemish-free, except for a small, faint scar below his lip. He had short, jet-black hair that shimmered as the lights inside the library shined down on it. He was fairly tall, a few inches taller than me, and he had a slender frame, with long legs. He didn't look very muscular, but I didn't really care, and he wore a neat-looking green sweater with blue denim jeans and a pair of well-shined black shoes. He began to speak again.

"I said, are you looking for something?" he asked nicely, with a minimal French accent that didn't really distort any of his words. "This place can be pretty confusing..."

"Well, you see, I'm looking for the archives of past students here... I was told that it was in the library..." I said, regaining my composure. "Could you please show Edward where the archives are?"

"Edward?" he said, slightly puzzled. Oh no, I did it again...

"Um... I mean me," I said. "Could you tell me where the archives are?"

"You know, I've got a friend that likes talking like that...." he said. "You know, in the third-person? So, your name's Edward then, correct?"

"Oh, no, my name is Francoise..." I told him, determined not to embarrass myself. Embarrass? I'd never been embarrassed talking like that before... what was happening to me? Was I-

"So your real name's Francoise, but you didn't like that name, so you go by Edward," he said. "Am I right?"

"Oh my gosh... this guy understands Edward perfectly!" I thought.

"Well.... yeah," I said, taken aback.

"Francoise is a beautiful name, but Edward sounds pretty neat," he said, smiling. "Do you want me to call you Edward, or Francoise?"

"Edward, please!" I said happily.

"Well, Edward, it's nice to meet you! My name is Sylvan Mazarin. I'm a freshman at this college... I can tell you, it was hard for me to navigate this campus at first too!"

"It's nice to meet you too, Sylvan!" I said.

"Well, anyway, it's pretty easy to get to the archives from here... it's not in an actual place, per se. See, I'll show you!"

Sylvan led me to a small desk nearby, with four computer consoles sitting on it, none of them in use.

"The full archives are kept on the school's servers," Sylvan told me. "You can access them from there."

"Thank you," I told him.

"Forgive me if this is none of my business, but... what are you looking up?" he asked me.

"Well, it's not a what, it's more of a who," I told him. "My mom used to go to this college, and so Edward wants to find out more about her!"

"I see," Sylvan said. "So, are you one of the applicants visiting for the admissions interviews?"

"Yeah, I am!" I told him. "Why do you ask Ed this?"

"Well, my dorm is in Dejoule Hall, the building where you guys'll be staying. There's a lot of people that don't like the fact that Dejoule is being used for housing you guys, since it means some people will have to move into another dorm for a week," Sylvan said. "I'm already in a dorm with a roommate, so it doesn't bother me much, but I just wanted to tell you so that if anybody gives you trouble, you'll know why."

"So that's why that girl was mean to Edward..." I thought. Still, I'd mostly ignored most of what he said... I was paying more attention to the part where he said we would be in the same building together!

"You're going to be in the same building with Edward?" I asked him. "That'll be swookie!"

"Swookie?" he asked me.

"It's Edward's word, you see," I explained. "Swookie means great, absolutely wonderful incredible!"

Now I was just excited, and I began to talk louder and louder.

"I see," Sylvan said. "Well, did you find what you needed?"

I nodded, showing Sylvan that I had found the file on my mom, which included a profile, a picture, and some other information.

"That's great!" he said. "Edward... tomorrow, would you like me to show you around the city?"

I was slightly surprised by Sylvan's offer... I mean, we'd only talked for a few minutes, and he's already offering to give me a tour of Neo-Paris?

"They're already giving you guys a tour of the campus, but no one's going to show you the city, which is a lot more beautiful than this campus is, trust me. I'm visiting my mom at her bistro tomorrow, so that's why I'll be in the city, and maybe I can give you a tour so that you won't be lost in the city like you were today.... um, I probably just said something wrong, didn't I?"

"No, that's okay!" I told him, giggling. "Edward would love to tour the city with you! We can meet outside Dejoule Hall tomorrow morning, okay?"

"That would be fine!" he said. "I've got a car, so don't worry about that. It'll be fun, I promise! Well, anyway, I gotta run... my class is in 15 minutes. See you tomorrow, okay?"

I nodded and waved at him as he left the library. Then, I turned back to the computer and began scanning my mom's college profile.

"Jeanine Pepelu..." I said, noting my mother's maiden name, which I'd integrated into my own. "Class of 2059... graduated with a master degree in demographic studies...."

I continued to peruse the file for about an hour, noting my mother's various accomplishments. One of the pictures in the archive showed her posing with daddy, both of them looking extremely happy. They were standing in front of the Neo-Eiffel Tower.

"That's them..." I said quietly. "Awww..."

I wanted to search the archive a bit more, but I was hungry. I switched off the computer, left the library, and headed to the campus food court to buy some lunch.

---

"Edward is sleepy..."

After getting to the food court, I had discovered that it was part of a large building containing an arcade, a movie theater, and a gym... it was practically a mall! I introduced myself to a lot of people and had a blast playing the various arcade games and getting involved in a few pick-up games of basketball. Maybe I'd had a bit too much fun, because by the time I'd gotten back to my dorm room, it was eleven o'clock at night! I flopped down on my bed and yawned. My suitcases were sitting right by the desk, but I was too tired to change into my pajamas now.

"Tomorrow, that French guy is giving Edward a Parisian tour!" I said. "Edward can't wait!"

Even though my anticipation level was high, I was extremely sleepy. So, it didn't take me long to close my eyes and fall asleep... completely forgetting to close my door.

---

Welp, that's the end of the chapter! Oooh, Edward's at the college! And so is that French guy, heh... he's not based on me at all, by the way, so don't call him a Larry Stu. He'll have flaws, and I really want to make Sylvan a good character. Well, read and review, please!