A NEW ARRIVAL IN SIMsCITY

Indiana Jones made his way to the coffee shop after teaching his afternoon archeology class at the university. He was looking forward to a strong cup of coffee and another pleasant chat with his friend Katherine Dixon. He stepped inside, noting that there was a larger crowd than usual present.

In one corner of the establishment, a chess set had been set up and Peter Sanderson and Darius were engrossed in a game. There was a group of curious onlookers standing or sitting nearby watching the intense match that was going on between the two of them. He spotted several other instructors at the university and he nodded to them as he headed to his usual table, only to find it occupied by someone who was hiding behind a newspaper. Sighing in mild aggravation, he took the empty table next to it.

Katherine met him there before he was even seated, with his usual order of coffee and the daily sandwich special. "Hello, Indy," she said sweetly. "How's it going?" She was dressed in leggings and a long man style shirt with the sleeves rolled up and he thought the petite woman looked really cute in it. Her pregnancy wasn't obviously showing yet, but her waist had expanded enough to require her to wear looser fitting clothes.

"I'm doing fine, Lady K," he answered as he reached out to pull her too him so he could give her a hug after she had leaned over to put his order on the table. "Even better now that your smile has brightened my day." She responded by giving him a kiss on his forehead and a soft caress of his jawline as he slipped his hand up the backof her shirt.

"You don't give up easy, do you honey?" she said with a musical laugh as she firmly removed his hand from her backside. "I've got to go get something out of the oven. Be back in a few." With that she turned and with a jaunty toss of her hair, left him alone with his coffee and sandwich. Sighing deeply as he watched her walk away, he picked up the cup and started to take a sip of the hot beverage.

"You technique appears to need a little fine-tuning, Junior," came a familiar voice with a crisp English accent from behind the newspaper.

Indiana nearly choked on the coffee he was drinking. A shocked, unbelieving look came over his face as he slowly got up and crossed over to the newspaper reader. Pulling the paper down to see who was hiding behind it, he gasped as he straightened up till he was almost standing at attention before the distinguished looking bearded gentleman.

"Dad! What the hell are you doing here!"

The elder Henry Jones managed to look a little put out as he laid down the paper and shook his head at his flabbergasted son. "Why, Junior, you yourself invited me! The one and only letter you have taken upon yourself to write me since you moved here sang the praises of this fair city and I’m quoting here – ‘You really should come by and see this place some time, dad’. Was I wrong to consider that an invitation for a visit?"

"Of course not, sir!" Indiana exclaimed. "But I sent that letter almost a year ago!"

"Well, there you go then. You invited me. Get your coffee and come join me here at my table," he said in pleasant enough tone of voice. Indy mumbled something under his breath about it had always been his table before as he grabbed his coffee and sandwich and moved over to join his father. He was just sitting down when Katherine came by and offered to heat up Henry’s tea.

"Why thank you, my dear, how very nice to offer," he said graciously as he smiled up at her. When Katherine returned his father’s smile with an especially radiant one of own, Indiana frowned and had to bite back a sarcastic remark.

Katherine looked at him strangely as picked up on the mixture of strong emotions he was feeling to the newcomer to SIMsCity. "Do you two know each other?" she asked. Henry Sr just chuckled as he drank his tea.

"He’s my dad," Indiana said grumpily with about as much enthusiasm as a man talking about an abscessed tooth. Then remembering his manners, he introduced them. "Katherine, this my father, Professor Henry Jones Senior. Father, this is the Lady Katherine Ann Dixon-MacLeod."

The elder Doctor Jones stood up and bowed formally to Katherine as he took her hand and kissed it gallantly; causing her to blush prettily and Indiana to grumble under his breath. Katherine glanced over at Indy and giggled as she said she would leave the two of them alone so they could get reacquainted.

It did not take long for the somewhat heated verbal sparring between the two of them to attract almost as much attention as the chess game on the other side of the room. The word managed to spread like wildfire throughout the whole town that the distinguished Professor Jones Sr had shown up to visit his son. Eventually Indiana had to excuse himself to return to the university. After giving his father directions to his home, he told him he would see him there later.

The rest of the afternoon passed by quickly and soon it was closing time. Katherine’s friend Toni had shown up to meet the famous professor herself and was doing an admirable job of keeping him entertained with stories about various people in the city while Katherine and Jeremy worked on closing the shop.

Finally, everything was cleaned up, but Henry showed no sign of being ready to leave even though the closed sign had been put up on the door.

After a brief consultation with Katherine, Toni made a quick phone call. A few minutes later, Katherine let Methos into the shop. Nodding politely at Katherine and pausing to give Toni a warm kiss in greeting, he walked up to the table where Henry was still perusing a newspaper.

"Professor Jones?" he queried. The newspaper lowered and the older looking version of James Bond and Ramirez looked up and returned his greeting.

"My name is Methos, Professor Jones. And I believe you are very interested in antiquities, especially those of the Middle Ages, are you not?" he asked pleasantly. Henry of course readily agreed.

"Would you be interested in coming with me to deliver this goblet to the museum? The curator is anxiously awaiting it and has also expressed great interest in meeting you as well," Methos said with a wink directed at Toni as he held the unwrapped, rather plain looking goblet in front of Henry like a tempting piece of candy. "And I do believe the Lady Katherine would like to go home to her husband sometime this night if at all possible."

Professor Jones eyes opened wide in shock, "How did you ... ?" But Methos just smiled in reply.

Between Toni and Methos, they managed to uproot Henry from the chair he had occupied most of the day and to steer him out the door, the precious artifact cradled in his arms like a newborn baby. Katherine chuckled in amusement as she locked the door behind them. She had a feeling things were going to get even more interesting now that Henry Jones Sr was here in SIMsCity as well as his adventuresome son.