After being left alone in the Badlands desert without a male to ogle them, our two Mary Anne and Ginger type girls decided to play a game within the game around a warming campfire to pass the time. After all, Lexi had been summoned and Panama was already there. Just around the corner. She could return. So she did. Sister act. Act 2 of 2 can wait. Still point in the middle.
“It was right around a campfire much like this that the legend of the Burning Man began,” started Panama, wise to desert ways being the nomad she was, an outcast of the city. “A man we only know as Edward D., dancing up a storm to summon… well…”
“Me?” Lexi guessed. It could be so, Panama thought, but she pretended not to hear her and continued. “Soon, very soon, others remembered a rock with a depiction of the scene, along with the glyph 01 + 02 – 03 = 00.” Lexi repeated it to make sure she heard right and Panama nodded. “It all added — and subtracted — up — and down — to zero.”
“Hmm,” said Lexi. “Burning Man,” she summarized.
“But wait, there’s more. If you go to this rock at 3 o’clock at night you’ll find him again. The Burning Man, burning away inside a fire much like this one. You smell the flesh searing right off of him. Or so they say. You can follow him, burning away like a fireball, streaking across the desert…
… then collapsing, the screams finally silent as the fire keeps consuming.”
“Wow,” says Lexi. “That was a good story.”
“Wait. There’s more. So move the clock back to daytime — return. There’s only a dummy there, not even charred. An Arasaka robot, a crash test dummy, or so it’s been described to me.”
“Uh *huh*.”
“And *that’s* the end.”
“Great. My turn now.” Lexi already had a follow-up and was eager to get at it. “City this time now obviously — where I’m from.”
“Right,” says Panama.
“But burning man again, but in a different way.”
“Oh?” says Panama. “How?”
“Penis burn. Or some say balls. Crotch malfunction. But — get this — Arasaka again. Interesting, eh?”
“Eh?” says Panama.
Sunklands 