“That’s very nice Wheeler.”
“Thank you. It’s a cat. It’s Bowie.”
“Yes I thought I recognized it. But it’s time to stop painting cats, Bowie, I mean, Wheeler. I found some doors.”
“Printer?”
“I don’t know Wheeler. Doors. Leading to you know where.”
“Painter?”
“Let’s just go. You can return to this project.”
—–
“Red doors,” says The Musican, stating the obvious.
“Hell?”
—–
But they didn’t go through immediately. The Musician returned to the chair beneath the Ear/Bar sign, testing out if he could see the doors from this perspective. He could not. However, upon going inside the bar and sitting down on the couch, the doors were in plain sight.
“Wheeler,” he calls through a window again. “Wheeler! Come here. I have more information perhaps.” Wheeler heard “Wheeler!” but that was enough.
—–
“I’ve seen these doors before recently (but not recently). Portal. Neighbor. Portals, actually.” The Musician takes another sip of his red cosmopolitan. The Painter does the same with her blue hypnotiq.
“Show me,” she requested. “Put the image in my head along with accompanying metadata. Like we trained for. The Before.”
—–
“I’m going to spill my pretty drink all over this expensive demo jacket if you don’t tell me about those doors.”
The Musician sent another picture to further explain. Opening. Red door. Doors. Reds.
“Octopus jar,” he then said, confusing the lot of us.
—–
Wheeler was not mad any more. She had put one and one together and then broke them apart, eliminating the right. Or left. “I found a shop that could help. Key shop. I knew something was up there but only reduced it down presently.”
“Let’s go,” requested The Musician eagerly.
“I wish I could remember where the two ones were that I eliminated the first. Or second.”
“Purposeful mistake. Think hard.” The Musician stared at her, encouraging. She then remembered that the page had been edited, not the post. She returned to the post. It was the room with the colored brain.
—–
The Painter started heading the wrong way but then got her bearings right. She walks by the Ear Bar again, past the furniture store and the Baha Bullet rezzer straight into the next plaza which they were told not to enter. Her hands trembling, she looked west south-west. Key store.
But they had been here before. That alleyway.
Nothing had happened. Where did she get the idea that this place was verboten? There was nothing to fear. She would walk into the key shop, get a key or perhaps even two (one for The Musician as well) and then leave, going back to her safe bar and accompanying plaza. Something had happened in the meantime, she realized. It was the cat. Or cats. Bowie. Bowie was missing. Björk instead. Then painting the Bowie cat over and over in order to restore. Hucka Doobie karma. The Musician said that Hucka Doobie was sending good vibrations over to VHC Town for healing. Hucka Doobie forgives Wheeler for turning into a bee that Halloween night and almost killing her in her classic bee avatar form. She couldn’t walk straight for weeks. Karma. What else was in store for Wheeler? She had done wrongs, she knew. Printer? Is Printer another 13 pack of karma coming ’round the bend?
—–
She waits for the keymaster. “Where’s The Musician?” she says to herself. “He was suppose to be right behind me. Maybe the doors weren’t locked after all,” she then speculates. “Maybe he went in without me.” But then The Musician was there, appearing around the corner after checking out the alleyway again where they had sat the day before. He puts another image in her head.
Sunklands 