“What happened to Starbuccanneer Barista?” asked Baker Bloch/Pitch Darkly. “I wanted to show her my new look.”
“I’m Cindy,” answered the new SoSo Mall coffee shop barista. “I have a girlfriend also named Cindy. So don’t try me.”
“Alright. But to my original point.”
Cindy points up, down, all around. “You missed out on the witch.”
Possessed, Baker/Pitch realizes. Just like the old one.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0006, 0505, Heterocera, Rubi
Understanding that Even Whiter Walt’s Mary is most likely not coming back to him, Pitch Darkly decides to visit her creator’s place over on the Gaeta continent to purchase another Mary. What’s his limit for a wife, though? 50 lindens? 100? 150 even?
“Mary?”
Turns out to be just some kind of faceless witch that has the same body type as his former lover.
Pitch rather quickly determined that Mary’s creator is kind of one crazy dude (or dudette). This would be Ponsonby Low, reminding the ancient vampire that his alt ego Baker Bloch originally served an alien named Mr. Low when first manifesting in this world (Second Life) way back in 2008. Any connection? he wondered. In checking, Pitch didn’t find much information about the current Mr. Low except that his user works in publishing in RL, and that he was also born in 2008 like the male Baker. Another older soul here.
Pitch doesn’t quite know what to make of this place. And so much more to look at! But he must remember his mission of finding another Mary.
Pitch gets tired from running around and sits a spell at a complexly designed fountain.
He found her! At least the angling version. “Mary?” he speaks. No answer. This one isn’t animated. At least yet. But the figure is not for sale and he moves on.
He can buy a pointing witch wife for 50 lindens who looks a lot like Mary, once more. But witches and vampires traditionally don’t get along.
40 lindens for this warrior who has Mary’s face. *Is* this Mary? He calls again. No answer. And he’s afraid of pointed objects.
“How ’bout you sweetie, hehe. Wanna go out with me?” Pitch pauses. “Okay, be that way.” He keeps moving.
Finally he spots the real Mary — both of them, in fact — at the end of another of those narrow, rainbow colored bridges that dot the place. He runs down.
“I’m *so* glad to see the two of you! It’s been so long.” But like all the other figures he’s met, the Marys remain silent. He checks the price. 60 lindens for the both of them. Quite reasonable. But for some reason a picture of Tronesisia forms in his mind. “Don’t do it,” she calls. “Wait for me. I’m coming.”
Pitch returns home to Collagesity and his Darkly Manor still without a Mary. He’s landmarked the place where they are. He can return at any time and make the purchase. But maybe, just maybe, he’s outgrown the desire for mere “dolls” for girlfriends and needs a real avatar lady this time. Someone like Tronesisia? But she’s with Peter SoSo, isn’t she? Robots and vampires — he hasn’t heard anything bad about that particular mixture of species.
He sits on the thought.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0006, 0504, Clemscott-, Gaeta V, Heterocera, Rubi
The place was way too dangerous for George, so Duncan had a go at it alone. He teleported into the very center of the sim just like the characters in the blog suggested — this Central Park.
But it seems George might have already been here! Duncan thinks, looking at what he supposed was a child’s fort. It wasn’t.
Duncan unwisely walks into Main Street from his concealed position in the park. Now if I remember correctly, he deliberates, the police station will be up here to the right.
It was a little longer trip than expected in risky territory, but then he was upon it. Potential sugar house! Hard to even tell it was a police station from the ground level.
Qwirty21 smiles at him from behind some walls. Best to get inside as quick as possible, he realizes, and walks through the main door.
But the barred entrance to the inner sanctum of the station was locked. Duncan decided to wait in the reception area until a policeperson or other employee showed up, so’s he could hopefully get some of the story behind the structure.
Brushing aside a couple more propositions from the outside for the next hour, Duncan then watches Sugar Dumpling enter the station in a huff, beating her rolling pin repeatedly against an open palm.
“I’ve been waiting for one of you to show up and stay a while, ” she started. “Where is he? What have you done with my Jacob?!”
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0006, 0503, Gaston+
“You’ve been here a pretty long time in VHC City Duncan,” speaks the boy George. “Don’t you miss home?”
“Bermingham? Sure. But I have an obligation to The Bakers to remain here and wait for a story. You too. So we just stay put here. Hear?”
George sighs. “I guess so. Can’t we at least go back to the (PCH Forest)? I’ve heard the tower has some new things on the top floor. Let’s go look.”
Duncan realizes he can’t keep the kid cooped up in this apartment all the time. Else he’ll drive *him* crazy. “All right,” he says. “But just for an hour. One hour,” he reinforces.
—–
“You happy now George?”
“Yes! I want to stay *here*. Why not?”
“You know why not,” returns Duncan Avocado. “We’re not inside the Sphere here. We’re unprotected. We’re suspect to derezzing. In order to be a part of the story we have to remain in VHC City. Best to be right in the heart of it when it happens.”
“But it’s been 4 months!” complains George. He reviews what occurred. “End of novel 4. I came to Mother Mary in the spaceship.”
“You need to let it be,” Duncan said, speaking words of wisdom. “Drop it,” he added less succinctly without a beat. “What goes around comes around. The End,” he finalizes.
“I study the blog while you’re asleep. I was (recently) mentioned in connection to a police station in Gaston that was formerly a sugar house. George *Carver* Washington I was called. I supposedly was a rookie cop there who shot himself in the arse.”
Duncan sat up, interested.
“Sugar house, you say? Like a sugar house for prisoners or a sugar house for storing molasses and sugar beets and stuff?”
“Both, I think.”
“You know how big I am on prison reform,” he spoke to the 10 year old boy.
“Yeah.”
“Well maybe this is our opening. The other Paul probably isn’t going to come back into the story.”
“Even Whiter Walt?” chimed in George. “I know about him too. You were in one sim and he was in another. But you two were separate. Something about an owl’s head… I’ll have to check.”
“Well, it’s been about an hour here George so let’s go back to the apartment and your computer so you can do that.”
George shakes his head and stands up, looks around.
“I never went over to the main house on the property. I never went beyond the church. I stayed in the forest, Duncan. Just like you told me to.”
“I know. You did good.”
“We can do it again. Together.”
“Story’s not here,” Duncan repeats. “But it could be in this sugar house. Tell me all about what you know. But back at the apartment. We might have found another way out. Now let’s skedaddle outta here.”
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0006, 0502, Heterocera, VHC City
Baker Blinker would scratch her head if she had a free hand. “The treasure map says it’s suppose to be right here Other Baker,” she calls across the property line to her male counterpart.
“Some kind of phantom prim is keeping us apart. It must be the treasure!”
“Could be just the terraforming taking time to kick in,” offers Baker Blinker. “Usually the effect is over after a minute, though.”
“Hmm, I already tried logging off and then back on.”
“Me too.”
“I’m on my side and you are on your side,” resigns Baker Bloch. “But we’re unable to join each other here. At the ‘X’.”
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0006, 0501, Heterocera, Jeogeot, Middleton, Rubi
Before leaving Middletown yesterday, Karoz briefly stares at the red, blue and yellow newspaper boxes on the very western edge of the city, picking up an eerie resonance.
The next day, Peter Ladd stares at the same boxes with more knowledge.
He then goes over and squarely stands on one of Main Street’s yellow rubber lines, contemplating Treasure Hill just across the bay.
He reaches into his pocket, pulls out the ring, and puts it on.
Turning back toward the Middletown skyline, he vows never to remove himself again.
He is Peter from now on.
Perspective enlarged, Chuck Cheese finds herself in a strange place again, walking on a spiraling path upwards toward a rocky summit.
“Both of us can’t be women,” uttered Wheeler Wilson at the top. She changed.
“Right you are, Wilson Wheeler,” returned Chuck Cheese. She also changes.
“A pair of suave, swarthy dudes we make, eh?” said Wilson Wheeler.
Earie was thinking about himself: although just as swarthy, not so suave. “I am almost wholly invisible now,” he complains. “I am just an object to be seen right through. You don’t respect me as a person, Improvio. I mean, Pretty Man. I mean: Wilson Wheeler. Whatever.”
“Do you remember?”
“What happened? Yeah. A merger of church and liquor store.” He looks down into the valley to his right.
“We are the Malefic The Kidd spoke about,” continued Wilson. “With sickly, green wings; tucked in the opposite corner of her, um, building. Imprisoned even. Do you feel like you’re in jail? I do.” He indicates his outfit with a gesture. “This suit. The suit of Bowie.”
“Bowie protects you,” counters Earie. “Without Bowie you are nothing here as well. Object.”
“And who are you suppose to be?” he returns sarcastically. “Sid Vicious?”
Earie lays it out as plain as possible. “We are 2/3rds of the punk band Story Room. Banned from Olde Lapara Towne because of the noise, moved to the hidden vilage of Gaston where there was no ban, turned into pretty things there in order to survive, and then confined like flies to its Central Park. Paper.”
“Fly paper, right,” agrees Wilson Wheeler. “We burn to death again every day. Central Park is without dark and always on fire. Core of a volcano.”
“Seed into tree,” Earie continued even more abstractly. He uncrossed his legs. “Atonal punks we are, Wilson Wheeler.”
“Please,” Wilson Wheeler finally countered concerning his name. “If am that you are The Musician.”
He stops thinking about the spot marked with an “X” in the valley below and turns back toward his counterpart. “Then I am Earie…
… and you are Pretty Man.
But I also get to be Chuck.”
“Get yourself a shoulder pet and we’ll talk later,” compromises the suaver swarthy man sitting opposite him.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0006, 0415, Gaston+, Heterocera
Karoz thinks while waiting: *I* need a mask.
20 minutes later, he’d switched over to the booths, trying again to figure out what these crazy typing style animations mean. Only one animation per booth, only one *seat* per booth. Bad designing, he thinks. A place just kind of thrown together. Baker Bloch could do much better here. Kidd Tower is a seed.
So involved was he with his animation that Karoz didn’t notice Old Grey slipping in and sitting at the front counter. “Bucket of blood,” she requests to the lone attendant. “And put some nails in it.” Karoz recognizes the voice.
She never received her drink. This wasn’t a bar. But she and Karoz caught up. They sat at the counter together.
“Baker Blinker is in Collagesity helping Baker Bloch with some apartment rentals,” he said to the old woman in disguise.
“How’s your love life,” Old Grey asked straighforwardly.
“We manage.”
“Why are you here?”
“I’m suppose to meet someone, Old Grey. Uncle Babyface. Why are *you* here?”
“I live here,” she said. “In this sim. Kidd Tower… I’m The Kidd. Billie. Here, stand back and I’ll show you. The dress could poof out in the transformation and put someone’s eye out.”
“Okay.” He hops off the chair and takes a couple of steps away from the counter accordingly, not understanding that Old Grey was joking.
“I just thought of the hair,” she said after changing. Grey to black. Young Black, hehe.”
“It’s quite appealing,” encouraged Karoz Blogger.
“If you were a boy of 10, would you ask me out for ice cream?”
“Sure.”
“You were never 10,” she joked again. “You were born old. Old and green. Old Green.”
“Just because I never had a mother doesn’t mean I wasn’t born.”
“Immaculate,” whispered The Kidd. She turned toward Karoz and looked at him squarely. “Jesus. You’re Jesus.”
But Karoz didn’t know that name and told her so.
The Kidd tested him further. “Do you know Superman? Aquaman?”
“Of course,” replied Karoz.
“Green Lantern?”
Karoz whirled around and looked at the poster behind him. “Obviously,” he said while staring at the superhero’s mask again.
“Then you are like the Green Lantern,” cooed The Kidd. She clapped her hands rapidly together and squealed in excitement. “And with a ring!”
Karoz didn’t get a mask that day but he got something else even better — from The Kidd. She just pulled it out of a secret pocket on her babydoll dress. The ring wasn’t exactly legit Green Lantern style but he thought it quite cool anyway and wore it home to Chilbo. Later that night, the town’s giant central tree caught on fire and burned to the ground. It would take weeks to grow another one.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0006, 0414, Jeogeot, Middleton
She was looking at the blog again. She always seemed to be doing this. Mr. Babyface wasn’t sure that was a good thing.
“I see you’ve been dreaming about lava once more,” The Kidd began. “Do you know who I am yet? Northeast and southwest. Around the building. I’ll pull up another picture to show you. Give me a moment.”
While waiting for The Kidd to change the page, Mr. Babyface looked around the corner to check if his toilet was still gone. It was. “Have to use the sand again,” he complained softly.
“Done,” she then called. “Come in here and look and I’ll interpret. This Mr. Hucka Bumblebee did a good job before but he left some material out. Can you guess? You try first.”
Mr. Babyface stared at the picture which he knew to be a baker b. collage. He’d seen it in the small gallery above the Bodega Marketplace. Ointment, he thinks again. Must — remember.
“Go ahead,” she urged. “The title is ‘Duncanfollower.'”
“Yes, I can see that,” he said, slightly annoyed. He felt she could be condescending at times. I suppose she can’t help it, he then retracts. She’s not really all that human. Hu-man.
“Try,” she repeats.
Mr. Babyface plunged in. “Let’s see, there’s Woody Allen in the middle…”
“Oh for Pete’s sake. That’s not Woody Allen. Let me go ahead and do it. It’s *Woody*, then *Allen*. Raziel — Rael — is standing behind… purple robe. Purple rose. All this is positive, exposed — third eye stuff; fourth wall. Northwest. But *behind* the square building, and it’s a perfectly square building, is what The Bee called the Malefic. That’s me as well. Positive and negative. They’re in everybody that way. You included, Uncle Babyface.”
Why does she call me uncle? he ponders again. He sees a safe avenue. “I like the way that Duncan fellow is wearing the same black outfit as Woody… Woody *and* Allen.”
“Good,” The Kidd emboldens.
“Same reverse numbers,” he observes. “Well, not the same numbers but reversed nonetheless.”
“Nonetheless,” repeats The Kidd. “I would have used notwithstanding there.”
Whatever, Mr. Babyface thinks, getting slightly irritated again. He falls silent for a bit, hoping she’ll pick up the thread now. He knows she’d have trouble seeing the details of the collage. And she can’t get up from her chair, else all of this would cease to exist.
She leans forward. “This building is me and that’s all I can say about it today. Tomorrow may be different. You should explore the small city now. Leave me to my musings. Another visitor awaits this morning. And Greg Ogden is already down at the docks starting another painting of Treasure Hill. They found a diamond there, you know. Olden days. Largest diamond ever discovered on the continent. Peter knows.”
“Who’s Peter?” queries Mr. Babyface.
Mr. Babyface was having that dream again about being submerged in lava. He wakes up.
Upside down again, he thinks. Better get some coffee on.
He pauses on his way to the tiny kitchen to reflect again on lava.
“Ichelus,” he mutters, and moves on.
—–
Ahh. Better, he thinks, downing a fresh brew. His nipples hurt this morning for some reason. He’ll buy some of that ointment at the store later on his aunt recommended. She had the same kind of problem, but in a larger way.
He stares out the mostly transparent wall at the many windowed building just beyond. Definitely not Collagesity this morning, he ruminates. The Kidd will be there. Can’t get too caffeined up before chatting with the precocious child. Third eye she has, he remembers. All seeing most likely, like the one that use to be in Collagesity. Mr. Babyface can’t quite recall the name of the broken deity, a mere idol these days at best. Kazzkark he thinks incorrectly, but for a reason.
Nothing upstairs now. He’ll make some beans later on. Will The Kidd fulfill her promise and bring the rest of her tower to what he knows now is truly Middletown? He thinks that would be cool.
He sets his coffee cup down on the table beside Big E and heads downstairs.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0006, 0412, Jeogeot, Middleton
Sunklands 