The junkies of the apartment took a drug so deep, so powerful, that they forgot to wash themselves much less the dishes. They couldn’t even take off their shoes before crawling into bed. 15 minutes till the sink overflows.
Fern Stalin wonders if the white horse has any chance in the matter *snap*.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0043, 0105, Bellisaria, Continent 05, Omega, Urbane Blue/Fishers Island
He looked at the paper that had fallen to the floor from the bookcases in back. He quickly phoned Fern.
“Listen, I have news.”
Fern thought at first: Barry’s back from his sabbatical, But, no, it was another list, printed on Asylum Inc. letterhead again.
“How?” Fern responded to this. “We were just there. We looked *everywhere*.” The thought passed through her mind now that Drew “Grumpy” Cleveland, a nudist originally from rough Grandpa Cliffs across the channel, was playing an elaborate prank on them. She pondered this more as Grumpy explained he was cleaning up, getting ready to lock up, just dusting the bookshelves as he does at the end of every working day, when the thing simply fell out, about at the location of the “Around the World in *1000* Pictures” book (not 2000, as we’ve already explained). He thought he’d just dusted the book but couldn’t be sure. Anyway, he had it spread out in front of him on the bar counter. He described what he saw to Fern.
“It looks very similar,” he said. “26 words again, just like with the first one. Looks like a whole new set of words, though. And alphabetized again.”
“All the letters of the alphabet?” queried Fern.
Grumpy checked once more. “No, looks like some are missing this time.”
“So we have groupings of words starting with the same letter,” Fern said. “I’ll be down in a minute.”
—–
“So here they are. I took the first and placed it next to the new one so you could compare. Whaddaya think?”
Fern eyed the new set of 26 words with hoax firmly in her mind now. Grumpy playing games with her, just to try to show off what he thought was his own intellect too and put her in her place? But the words would tell her, the patterns they make.
“Diablo and Draco — did you see, Grumpy?”
“Umm, see what?”
“They’re reversed in the alphalist. Only two ‘D’s, swapped with each other. She eyed him now, looking for signs of feigned surprise. The surprised expression coming from the big, nude man in front of her seemed genuine, though. He’d simply passed over the reversing in his scan of the list.
“And, look here, Greengrow and Grayback — same thing if you spell Gray as Grey, like if we were English instead of American.” UK and US united as one, she thought here, lovely red-headed, pinkish skinned Wendy a vision in her mind. Or maybe UK and France is a better match, Fern quickly amended, considering the bar’s name they were in and the Churchill that had to be involved. “But, see,” she refocused on the colors green and gray instead, poking the printed words with her index finger, “this has something to do with war. This has something to do with *the* war. Green-Gray, sometimes colored Green-White for reasons I can’t quite remember right now.” She waved off the attempt. “Never mind that: Asylum is involved in the war. This Asylum Inc.,” she summarized, “is maybe a weapons manufacturer, or maybe something to do with military training.” Brainwashing, she realized. They’re brainwashing men to become soldiers. Just like…
—–
“Describe ‘hole’,” she asked the bartender in the city of Mars where Old Mabel disappeared from.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0043, 0104, Castle Town+, MARS, Omega
“Those books in back aren’t for the general public,” spoke nudist and co-manager of the Yalta Bar and Grill Drew “Grumpy” Cleveland to Fern and Lichen later on. “I only let friends back there, people I know, people I can trust who won’t sully the pages and so on. And I know all the books as well. I had ‘Around the World in 1000 Pictures’ not ‘2000’. That’s a later, expanded version I didn’t purchase. And I don’t take donations — not directly. I buy books. I *know* books.”
“Pure enough,” said Fern to this, still scanning the list before her on the counter. 26 words for 26 letters in order from A to Z. But Asylum isn’t among them — didn’t start it off. Instead: company letterhead at the top. She’d done a little research before confronting Grumpy with the list they’d found. Asylum Inc. was started by one Wayne Bruce in 1972 in Nightsity, California. Thing is, Nightsity doesn’t exist. Not in *this* reality. In 1988 it supposedly moved to Jasper County GA near Atlanta, apparently another lie.
Here’s a Google Street View of the address from the letterhead. Nothing.
The most confounding thing of all: When Fern and Lichen returned to the bookshelves around back to check for additional evidence, “Around the World in 2000 Pictures” was no longer there. Instead, a copy of “Around the World in 1000 Pictures”, brown colored instead of blue for the former, was present in the exact same spot, just like Grumpy said he bought. Even ultra-sharp Fern couldn’t figure this out in the moment. Not yet. It would take the closing of one eye and the opening of another to accomplish.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0043, 0103, C2077, Castle Town+, Georgia, Google Street View, NIGHTSITY, Omega
“Where *is* he?” expressed not-so-patient Lichen Roosevelt to her dinner partner Fern Stalin, the brains of the group, the Scarecrow to Lichen’s Lion to Wendy’s Tinman and Dorothy in one, as if the UK and US united into a single country, not quite like that but close. They were, then, a trio and thus had to look out for each other. And Wendy was now nowhere to look out for. Missing. Barry was the logical path forward. Talk to the jilted boyfriend, get Wendy’s last thoughts, and then move on from there. One thing they knew: she was *not* in Kangarootown. Not yet anyway.
“He should be rocking,” blonde Lichen continued to complain to brunette Fern. “Right over there.”
She pointed to the chair with the maple leaf throw pillow seen toward the end of the last photo-novel, still as a quill. No yarn to spin here from De Boy. Lichen sucked nervously at the straw in her mouth, seemingly a perpetual oral fixation these days. Fern was just glad it wasn’t chewing tobacco or something even worse. A straw is a straw — harmless outside the constant twirling and whirling and the occasional slurring of the words emitting from her distorted mouth. But, true, it adds to her overall humor, augments the vibe she’s trying to put out there to the world. She likes to play the role of a dumb blonde, kind of like a Daisy Mae from Dogpatch, Arkansaw. A Capp caricature of a woman, a throwback to more primitive days. Daisy days.
Fern’s brains were spinning per usual. “Not rocking, eh? Maybe classical is the direction we should look toward. I sense — lemme look deeper — I sense… Liszt. Don’t ask me how. Just Liszt.”
“List?” Lichen said back, not understanding the word. But her word turned out to be even better in the moment.
“Yes!” exclaimed Fern to this. They had to find a list. If they had to tear this place apart, like pages from a book. Book! she thought to herself. There are books around back. They knew this from their time before in this place, this Castle Town in the Deep South of the Omega continent, an oasis in a desert of shame.
“Travel!” she said when they arrived at the 3 bookcases we also saw Barry sitting before in the last novel. She was basically straight-channeling the future by this point. Oases have peculiar energy, perhaps because of the condensing of energies within. Lends itself to palm trees and desert life. Lends itself to psychic impressions and deeper. Wellsource.
I suppose that’s what attracted them to Castle Town in the first place, that and all the offered games here at Yalta’s Bar and Grill, backgammon, chess, cards, so forth. And, of course, its name.
It was right in the center of the 3, right before their eyes. When she saw it she couldn’t look away.
And right in the center of the book: a list.
(to be continued)
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0043, 0102, Castle Town+, Omega
Here I sit and think about my outstanding pinkness.
How did it come about? Well, it was *stolen*. From Baker Blinker. Way back in the day. Model 1.0 you could call it. Now I am considered to be a savior of some sort. The white horse leads, the black horse steers.
I came here…
… in a boat.
But not that one.
Maybe here I can get away from testers Fern and Lichen. Be my own body in my own person. That’s the hope.
Mama T. and calf will help me.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0043, 0101, HANA LEI
From her many monitors up in the 3996 meter high Controller’s Office, positioned as close to the Void as possible without getting absorbed, she watches the unfolding of the apocalypse on levels below…
… no Blue in sight.
In a directly related story, Mid-Hazel or Hazel Wood was never in a cell in the cellar to begin with. All part of the plan.
Just a dummy.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0042, 0116, Maebaleia/Satori, Redsland+
He sat up front so he could see better with his littler head. The Mann and Bullfrog sat a row back, glad of the excuse for privacy. Now they could talk freely — or whisper freely — while Aqua Dude was absorbed in the story. The Mann of course knew the contents of the film inside and out, having studied the hated Dynamic Duo for years looking for weaknesses and such. Bullfrog was just glad to get away from his controlling lover/partner and chat with someone else without sparking jealousy. Albert (or Alberta) retreated back into his maintenance position and, as stated, was forgotten by all. Tea serves well as a reminder to forget.
“I thought you were dead,” The Mann began in his whisper of a tone.
“No. That was the doctor. We exchanged places, good for me bad for him.”
The Mann absorbed this. “What about your family? Red Squirt 7 wasn’t it?”
“Dead as well. Dead through gunns.”
More absorbing. “What about wo-mann?”
Bullfrog looked over. Aqua Dude was hanging onto every word Wayne Bruce in front of him spouted about Asylum, a company he started on the western seacoast in 1972. He watched him open a file.
“If you mean why am I still with Aqua Dude, I decided to give up the fairer sex long ago. Tried it in my teen years. Didn’t work.”
“What about the whole frog thing?”
This made Bullfrog think about Frog Rock they passed on the way to Wayne’s villa here. “I guess it was something that just had to be.” He’d thrown away marriage to Miss Parr to become Green. He returned home to the Motherland.
“Missed you Sonny.”
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0042, 0115, Back Rooms, C2077, Europe, Google Street View, Maebaleia/Satori, Redsland+, Siberia
“Sorry about not answering the door in a timely manner, gentlemen. My Girl Friday is out today visiting various doctors. Forgot to get a physical when she was hired last week for one thing. And her back was giving her problems.”
“Hmph,” centrally sitting Aqua Dude dismissed the casual talk. “Soo… about the end of superheroes, especially the super one known as Superduper Guy, my arch-nemesis.”
The Mann wondered why a superhero would have another superhero as such instead of a declared villian like the Joker or the Penguin (for instance), but didn’t speak this aloud. Instead: “We have good reason to think that Batty Man and his wonder boy Superduper Guy will not be returning from inside the polar circle, Antarctica in their case. The Penguin set up something there called a Back Room in modern culture. Many many rooms and corridors leading nowhere. And malignant entities found within.”
“Popsicles?” said Aqua Dude to this, puzzling The Mann. “Popsicle people I mean?”
“I’m… not sure.”
Aqua Dude turned to partner/lover Bullfrog. “You remember don’t you Bully? The popsicle people, the one with sticks for legs and ice for heads?”
Bullfrog recalled something along those lines and said so.
“Amazon (Room), yes. The heads kept them cool in the jungle and the legs allowed them to step over the snakes and spiders more easily and safely.”
All became silent. The Mann realized they were waiting for him. “Yes, we have the various Bat Cave instruments downstairs that tell us they’re still in Antarctica, still in that Back Room hypothetically. Else that or dead.”
“Either way: good.” Aqua Dude again, in a voice not of a child but a grown-up, despite the size.
“The Manor is most likely mine to claim then, you see. I entered Wayne’s villa and became a Waynesvillian, with all the others, my Girl Friday, my wife Parasol, Albert the butler, acting as proxies.” Where *was* Albert, The Mann suddenly thought, as if waking from a dream. Was he in the Bat Cave? Did he also go to Antarctica with his boss and sidekick? Must – find – Albert.
“Yes, sire?”
“Jeez! Uh hmm. You scared the bejeebers out of me, er, Albert.” Mindreader! The Mann thought. *Now* he recalls. Minderaser as well! Did a number on him when he came to the door for the first time. The superheroes’ last card to play.
Then they all drank tea and The Mann forgot who Albert was again. As soon as he left his sight.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0042, 0114, Maebaleia/Satori, Redsland+
“Interesting tattoo you have on your back there, Ms….”
“Krakow,” she finished for the doctor. “Marsha ‘Pink’ Krakow.”
“Yes, so I’ve heard. Very colorful.” The records said Shelley. Shelley Johnston Struthers. This was the correct body.
—–
“*There* it is. Up on the hill. At least we know we’re in the right Wayensville this time. Um, Waynesville I meant there.”
“Of course,” said the driver to the passenger who was also his lover. Bullfrog and Aqua Dude, on their way to a meeting with The Mann about the future of superheroes in general. And their whole DC University along with them.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0042, 0113, Google Street View, Maebaleia/Satori, Missouri, Redsland+
“Come in, gentlemen. Welcome to The Truth.”
But then the man disappeared as they walked through the doors. Dead End.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0042, 0112, Google Street View
Sunklands 