“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.”
