‘Big Red Machine,’ ‘Big Red Machine.’ *Here* it is.
Now to finally finish that chapter.
As she read, Morgan (Orient PO) was being rebuilt starting with green, blue and red blocks.
From peak to shining peak.
Category Archives: 0035
dream over
—–
“So I was over here paying my rent and I thought we’d hold an improptu Table meeting. Thanks for making the time, Wheeler. I see you’re still dressed as Shelley.”
“Like the clothes, like the fit.”
“But you’ll go back to being her mom, right?”
“Oh sure.”
“We still need that angle of course. And… looks like Arthur might not be making it.”
“No, you locked him up for being married to me or making love to me. Something. He’s still in jail over in, let’s see, Morgan? Has the jail been deleted? Guess not,” Wheeler answers herself. “Or else it seems he’d be free to join us.”
“Right, I’ll check on that,” Baker still dressed as Policeman Clubb replies.
“Hope you have better luck than the last thing *I* checked.”
“Morgan — deletion, yes. Which brings us to perhaps our main topic. Spider. But first, lemme just see if I can call Arthur. I believe I, as Clubb, allowed him to keep his phone on his body, after a full search on the rest, ha.”
Wheeler smiled. In that 30 minute window allowed, she’d done a full search too but for different reasons. Shelley, I mean. Not Wheeler. Although she was wearing purple at the time. And it’s *not* Arthur Kill but Kill van Kull, a sophisticated, clean as a whistle, non-crinimal twin cousin. It was all a mistake, a mix-up. She looks up at the screen. This may be him here too, she realized. Or Clarence, although he was going by a different name if so. This was the last dance in the created town of Morgan (Orient PO) whatever. It ended after that, for Wheeler but also for everyone involved, all the group, the gang.
The receiver rang but there was no body around.
After 6 rings, Baker got back to the subject of likewise caged Spider. The numbers deleted the town, but it had to be all 24 to work. He had another idea, tried Arthur/Kill van Kull again, let it ring 24 times this go. Didn’t work.
But not because Spider didn’t hear it.
The deed was already done. Newt shows up to the meeting — Shelley’s father — *not* playing Arthur Kill importantly. He stares over at Wheeler, giving her a look like: you could have made the effort too. He felt she was becoming trapped in a role; unable to be herself any longer. How far would she go?
“Where’s Grassy?” Newt then asks, seeing the empty chair across from him.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0035, 0407, Mountain Lake^, Nautilus, NORTH, Omega^^, Rooster's Peninsula
00350406
So she went back to another place in the Morgan sim, still intact, and spoke with the dog, or spoke *toward* the dog because it was a one way affair this time, no mysterious chanting of magic numbers, no nutt’n. Because the deed had already been done.
“What *are* you?” would be redundant, so she added to it. “I *know*,” she started, “that you did all this, the creation of the treasure down there (because they indeed were way up in the air here, about 1/2way to The Void at the 4000 meter level). You just wanted me to *see*.”
Stares from the dog, but, like I said, no real replies. Shelley thought the sombrero atop his head disappeared at one point but wasn’t certain. Could be a trick of the eyes in this rather dark place, this Tesseract Tavern in the skies. But we happen to know it wasn’t.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0035, 0406, Mountain Lake^, Omega^^
death
After some extensive scouting efforts, I’ve been banned from what I call Morgan (Orient PO), high in the Omega continent mountain country, in its heart in essence. Has the heart of this story similarly been carved out? Let’s hope not. Shelley, in her poking around, found a treasure, among other interesting things. And a seeming awareness, by the town, of its nature. There was also a definite, unfinished quality to it.
Write down what you know, I urged to her. Tell what you can. View remotely tonight and investigate more.
But when she returned to the namesake sim of Morgan which it partially covered, irregularly stretching across a central grey ridge from a peak on its northern boundary to one similarly positioned in the south, the town was GONE — disappeared. Vanished *poof*. She already had her only photos of the place, the last to be snapped here fer sure. What timing! But not totally unusual. Still — part of the story.
Morgan: site of vanished town
former statue on the northern peak
So it moves into the stuff of legends. Shelley never got to meet the big boss, the hoarder of the treasure. Back into The Void whence he or she came.
And I don’t think those are dragon eggs but we’ll never know.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0035, 0405, Mountain Lake^, Omega^^
00350404
She hadn’t shaved her legs in a week, it seemed, so she decided to do so, despite the circumstances. She knew that shaving cream could be substituted for laundry detergent in a pinch — why not the opposite?
It kinda worked I suppose. Now for that black dude… Kill van Kull, synthesizer specialist for the Oil Can What. Seeing him, she suddenly had an urge to wear purple, uh oh.
Reversion.
“It should have been you in here instead of me.”
“I know.”
“30 minutes, Miss.” The policeman purposely didn’t call her Mrs. This was *illegal* what they did. So the town of Morgan (Orient PO) has spoken.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0035, 0404, Hana Lei^^, Mountain Lake^, Omega^^
then and now (waves keep coming)
Recently I moved to Toyger on the Far eastern coast of Gaeta (New Continent) so that I can honour the rising Sun.
“Clarence was wrong about the dance animation studio being there. It was all a setup.”
“You said Clarence,” Arthur tested into the receiver. “Did you mean Claude?”
“I…. don’t know (!).”
“Check on that please. Before I head over.”
Later she went back to the theatre and checked again. No screen. This is all real; Clarence is real. She is in the film being filmed as we speak. Perhaps that would explain all the close ups. She is looking for the camera, ha (!).
A well dressed black man enters the picture.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0035, 0403, Gaeta V^^, Mountain Lake^, Omega^^
Spider
The town was rather a jumbled mess of buildings, but Shelley didn’t stay there long, taking the path of fellow Klancasterians Dixon One and Dixon Two before her and heading to Omega mountain country for purity, cleansing, or so they attempted. One came back but the other one (Two?) didn’t. We still don’t know which, thanks to the built-in ambiguity of these here photo-novels, 35 in a series of 35 so far. And last we saw of bride to one of ’em, Snowwhite Well, a mutual cousin, she was living with giant chickens over on the Maebaleia continent, as old as her Maw now — the Dixons’ Aunt — and just as aged of skin. She thought visiting monarch Greyscale Kimball was a tithe collector and was going to sic Gander, the biggest of the fowl, on her. But turns out they had a common love for reading, and a special fondness for the epic novel “Moby Prick”, so famous in that land where it was set, uniting the highest and lowest of classes in this case.
Point is, the Dixons were searching in these mountains for treasure that was right in front of them all along, smack dab in the middle of their hometown: Snowwhite Well herself, as she tried to explain to them in Vain (a suburb). Now, I don’t think Shelley is looking for treasure as well, at least this version of herself, but she found some anyway, in a tavern in Morgan about as Oriental and far away from the Occidental West as you can get. This was the Tesseract, this was the Hypercube.
She turned away from it at first, not believing her eyes. It was dressed up like a circus dog and set inside a display cage. The 4 repeating numbers over his or her head had been removed. Why would Roberts do this? she thought. She had to get in contact with Arthur again somehow, make that Lemont somehow. She was not on The Cross but she was still trapped, East becoming West and North becoming South every other day and every other week respectively, as she soon found out. She had jumped from the fire back into the frying pan but it remained hot as hell in here. Then she began to hear them, soft and sloow. “Two.” “One.” “Three.” “Zero.” A human-like feminine voice, surprising her, with a bit of a hiss in it, like a serpent. No barking or yelping detected. Then it started again. “Two.” “One.” “Zero.” “Three.” A bit of a break and then again: “Two.” “Three.” “One.” “Zero.” And again and again. She had to listen to them all, the 24 permutations of those 4 cursed numbers. She finally turned after it was over, sweat dripping off her body, making her long shirt-blouse wet at the stomach, neck and back.
“What *are* you?”
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0035, 0402, Mountain Lake^, Omega^^, The Cross^
new angle
“So you see, babydoll. You *can’t* leave The Cross right now. Right there in the contract you signed. You’re part of the club now.”
Shelley studied and studied the thing but couldn’t find a way out. Biff Carter was the same age as her or older than her by 2 decades. If the former, then *they* may be destined to be married — Biff — Mr. Carter — must know this too. If the latter, Mr. Carter — Biff — could be her father.
But she has a father. Newt, yes. And a mother: Wheeler. She tells Biff/Mr. Carter this, along with being engaged to George already, who, turns out, he knows by another name.
“Oh I know about Arthur,” he says in response to all this. “I don’t think you’re really engaged to this… *Musician*.”
“Am too,” Shelley tried to defend, but knew it was hopeless. Says right here: Shelley Struthers will be stuck on The Cross until the end of novel 35, where she’ll make a choice between 3 lovers. She knows two. Here could be the 3rd — has to be, I suppose.
Biff knew she couldn’t weasel out of this. The Umbrella Club has spoken. “Satisfied?” he ended.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0035, 0401, Omega^^, The Cross^
different
“I really liked the old office,” she answered Lemont Sanford, playing the role of Arthur Kill currently, “but it was too laggy. Kept crashing. You know how it is.”
“Yes I remember.”
“You were there in the underground for a while. Training.”
“Yes.”
“After Wheeler raised you from the dead (nods from Arthur). After Tessa killed you. We buried you, the firm, but you wouldn’t stay down. You went to Tennessee.”
“Yes, Tennessee.”
“You were looking for a spider, an 8 legged being, but you eventually figured out it was a dog. Spider is a dog.”
“Right, yes.”
“You retrieved it, brought it to me for safekeeping.”
“Yes. (pause) Do you have it?”
“Of course I have it, Arthur. Would you like to see?”
“Yes, please. I mean, I have the money but… actually, nah, I’m good. You’ve given me the money. I’m happy. Wheeler and me, I mean *Shelley* and me, I, can retire in comfort.”
“Is she still wearing purple?” Roberts questioned from her opposite chair. “Or has she moved beyond that?”
“Moved beyond I think. Last time I checked.”
“Ask her to wear something purple and see how she responds.”
“She seems okay with it,” Arthur reinforced. “She’s changed, she said.”
“Are you convinced?”
Arthur paused just enough to indicate he wasn’t fully convinced. There was, well *Roberts* now, for one thing. How surreptitious they run into each other again (!). But, deep down of course, Arthur knew it wasn’t coincidence. The Gods have further plans for them, which means The Void has further plans for them. They work hand in hand on this.
Roberts leaned back, folded her arms behind her head. “So strange that Franklin was spared. I’m overjoyed of course, but whether Black Jack, Kentucky or Black Jack, Tennessee, the helicopter that acted as a plane in the moment purposely missed her, swerving to one side or another. If only Mantell could have done the same — I think he tried, I think he saw the, um, irony. Do you know the case, Arthur? It’s quite famous, at least in UFO circles. Cradle links to grave, creating an uroboros scenario. The Cross (in the middle) is eliminated. That’s the point. I’m sure you understand, Arthur, given that you’ve been there now — you rescued Shelley from there. The Cross can *trap*.”
“I think I’m still on The Cross,” Arthur admitted. “I never made it back to Nautilus. I never made it back to here, then, this office in Towerboro on the Jeogeot continent.”
“Oh you’re here,” Roberts countered.
Arthur saw a spider on the floor behind her. He then saw 5 others, 10 others maybe, all lined up like military rank or file. Roberts didn’t glance around, seemed oblivious to them. But Arthur knew she wasn’t. What was this psychic-detective up to?
“This is where it starts, Arthur. The agency. I want to know who tried to kill Franklin. In a strong probable reality she is dead. Only the actions of a rebellious, artificial pilot, a Mantell wannabe, saved her. He broke the pattern. Cradle to grave was unlinked. You were there too. You saw — how close.”
“Yes.”
“It was either the boat on fire or the rose colored cottage on fire.”
“I remember the boat.”
“And I remember the cottage.”
—–
Now where is that receiver?
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0035, 0317, Cable Isle, Jeogeot, Kentucky, Middleton^, Omega^^, Tennessee, The Cross^, Towerboro
Shelley’s castle (Orange you glad I didn’t say banana?)
“You are me and I am you. You have a (phallus) and so do I.”
“Not quite,” I said back to Franklin, green legs still in the distance.
There. That’s better.
“Like I was saying before the interruption, we’re the same *core* but different up here. It’s Our Second Lyfe, not My Second Lyfe.”
“Let’s go to the (Roost Never Sleeps) castle again and see,” Franklin requests. I had no choice but to follow her because of the, you know, being one thing. I was starting to question our differences as well. One of us could get *absorbed* — didn’t want that. But I knew it would be Franklin if so.
And, true enough, by the time we reached that more central castle across the way, she was gone. I looked down at my man pants. Was it actually *real* now? I had to see.
[delete picture]
No, just a better fit still. My hair had a tinge of green in it but that’s all. Arthur/Lemont would be *so* relieved if he were here witnessing this. But he’s somewhere off with Roberts — said they also had things to talk about. I suspect: more absorbing. Maybe. Perhaps it will be different in their case.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0035, 0316, Nautilus, NORTH, Rooster's Peninsula
Sunklands 