Blind Date

Chapter Three

The next night Saga phoned the Chinese restaurant and ordered a selection of her favourite dishes. Loki liked the black bean and the sweet and sour but he wasn't keen on the satay, and he preferred noodles to rice.

What he found amusing though, was the fortune cookies, probably helped by the fact they were on their second bottle of wine by the time they opened them.

"So you have seers on Midgard?" he asked as he read his fortune.

"No. The fortunes in fortune cookies are bullshit."

"But this is true, it says I will live a long life, and I have already lived ten or more mortal lifetimes."

"But everyone wants to hear they'll live a long, happy life, but there's no way to prove it. It's just nice to hear."

"What does yours say?" he asked.

"Seriously," she asked, her expression incredulous.

"My apologies. May I read it for you?"

"If you can find it." She hadn't made a mental note of where she'd put it.

Loki plucked it from her plate and read it out. "'You are cool under pressure'. See, yours is also accurate."

"How do you know?" she asked.

"Because when you realised someone was following you around, quite possibly a dangerous alien at that, you handled it with an exceptionally cool head. I do wonder how they know the right person will get the correct fortune however. Your seers must be very talented indeed."

"It's not seers, Loki, these are generic statements that could apply to anyone."

"Hardly."

"Okay, maybe not, but they're things that everyone would apply to themselves. Everyone likes to think they'll live a long life, and everyone likes to think they're cool under pressure, even if they really aren't."

"Still, even if what you say is true, how many generic statements can you make?"

"You'd be surprised," she smiled. "Some people make a career out of conning others into thinking that they have psychic powers, and astrology is all just these kinds of phrases."

"Astrology?"

"It's like fortune telling but based on when you were born."

"I don't understand."

Saga explained how there were 12 star signs which related to the constellations at the time you were born, then she asked Jeeves to read out today's Aries horoscope.

'Certainly, Dr Lang. 'Your attitude is calm and matter-of-fact when talking to others. You tell it like it is while omitting the frills and fantasies. You have no reason to hide the truth, so you're happy to disclose information to any willing listener-''

"Okay," she cut the computer off. "Doesn't that sound like it could apply to you?" she asked Loki.

"I suppose."

He didn't sound convinced so she asked Jeeves to read out another from today.

''You talk as if you possess many lifetimes of wisdom and perhaps you do, but that doesn't mean you should be arrogant about it. Your words might have the tone of a sage...''

In the end Jeeves read out all 12 of the days horoscopes and when they could all apply to Loki, he conceded that perhaps it was a trick.

"But how does it work? Who determines what is a universal truth and what isn't?" Loki asked.