Category Archives: Back Rooms

00500510 (Pansy update)

Another Bigfoot spotted in not the US but Canada now, on Saskatchewan Street in Tugaske in Saskatchewan. Saskatchewatch, then! (Sasquatch + Saskatchewan) Or, better, Saskwatch, thinking of the abbreviation of the province’s name. I’ll recheck this area more later…

But first: the same town pictured in Boos again, as in gallery, as in Nawt Vaya Free State bordering the Nawt Vaya Sea in the western part of the Jeogeot continent of Our Second Lyfe. 3rd floor. Attempted vandalism of the art within, just like at the gallery formerly known as Concrete down by the sea in Cement Village. I suppose Boos is a part of Cement Village too since the front door opens in that direction (I’ll work on it). Is this the same vandal dressed in a hazmat suit now like he’s preparing for a journey inside the vast bounds of a Back Rooms situation? And what of the anime looking girl beside him. Accomplice? Turns out she’s merely working through him, as in a prop. Controller, then. That way the blame can theoretically be taken off her if needed. She’s only walking up to the vandal, wondering what he’s doing. Is this the artist of the work himself, here to make some late game changes or spiff ups? That kind of defense.

“Uh oh, keystone cops coming, Mortimer. We better switch over to our act. A-HEM. I SAID. What are you doing to this piece of ART here? Are you the ARTIST?”

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0050, 0510, Back Rooms, Boos, Canada, Canada/Tungaska, Cement Village, Google Street View, Jeogeot, Nawt Vaya+, NVFS

00500501

“Holland?? Old timey windmill — you see?”

“I see.” Holland?? I also ask myself from my more objective observing point. How could this be?? We were expecting a more realistic northern California given the Kane mythology.

We start wandering around together in this tree dotted plateau area, my eyes one with his. The synchronization seemed to be working. Then…

—–

“Okay I think I’m getting the hang of this place. I’ll just gather up the clock on the picnic blanket here, giving me one of my three needed items to complete the, um, game.”

“What picnic blanket?” I asked.

“There. Right in front of me — us. Held down by 4 rocks. With a clock in its center — wait, make that a stopwatch I believe. Look down in the center of your row containing the items. That’s one of the ones we need.”

“I checked the symbols at the bottom of the screen. “Looks more like a sundial,” I opined.

“No, pretty sure it’s a stopwatch.”

“Or maybe a compass.”

“Stopwatch.”

“Compass.”

“*Stopwatch*. Pretty sure.”

“*Compass*. Quite sure.”

“Okay, let’s just move on from that — agree to disagree… for now. Sooo, what about the rocks? And the tree? Let’s check everything else before we start panicking about all this.”

“Okay, the rocks are there, the tree is there, behind the rocks…”

“Yeah? Good, okay. But no blanket still?”

“No blanket.”

“Shoot. I was hoping it would have rezzed in while we were talking. Let’s see, er, maybe try refreshing your screen?”

I didn’t know how to do this and told him so.

“Well, why don’t we just wait here. Give it a minute. Beautiful day after all. Would you like me to pour you some wine? How about a sandwich?”

“Ha ha. Very funny, Daniel.”

—–

As they gabbed away, it dawned on observing Newt/Baker like a new morning. He was in a different Day! They’d have to start over, from scratch as it were.

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0050, 0501, Back Rooms, Europe, Holland

00500415

We were in a swamp now, hiding from the English. “The hut, the hut!” he cried pointing forward, this man of blurred features. The sounds of war were close. They may have even breached the Hobomock here. Hockomock, I corrected its name, my Indian memories focusing in like the face by my side, a close associate. Oh how I yearned for peace again. Return of the old. The swamp will harbor and protect, he said. We’ll see.

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0050, 0415, Back Rooms, Massachusetts

00500308 (pinpointed center (ASU-“Mountain Home” library))

“*Very* clever, ya’ll,” Daniel calls into the air, talking to the spirits he credits all this weirdness for instead of me. “*I* walk into the library that fateful day, ready to start a new chapter of my life. Oh I’ve been there many times before.”

“You have (!)” I said. That’s how we became friends.

“But not like this, not as one of the actual employees of the place. So I walk in, walk up the stairs and visit the admin offices to finish out my paperwork. So *excited*. Yet so scared. I’d thrown away full time employment at the, er, college to work on my art in the afternoon. This has now been reinforced to you.”

“To me reinforced this now has been,” I reiterate. “Through the blog, through the photo-novel. Through the *maps*.”

“Yes. Good. I’m getting the hand [sic?] of all this, Baker B. I really am.” And they’d yet to talk about the girl with the library eyes, the one who stood so small under a lamp in the corner when all this went down. Noodle, we could continue to call her. Although that’s not her real name. Time machine.

“Hold on, Mr. SPLAT, ha. I can even show you ascending the stairs. Continuation…”

“Look how happy I am — perfect.” But he still wasn’t talking to me directly.

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0050, 0308, Arkansas, Back Rooms

00490216 (machinery)

Tom went through the door to the left. It was the door into his office. But something was different. The light in his room was a different color, and his computer screen was blue, with the text, ‘Press any key to begin.’ Tom pressed a key on the computer screen and a weird face appeared on it.

“Michael,” Tom managed to whisper between the words of The Machine. But *how*? “Morning, Tom,” he imagined the glowing face whispering back behind raised fingers. Imagined??

Then Tom remembered one important thing. That he was playing a game. Not just any game but he was playing the Indigo Parallel, so of course a weird face would appear on his computer screen. Tom also realized that if he is playing a game, then his actions have no Real World consequences. Tom can do what he wants, without any repercussions, because this is a simulation after all. After a heated conversation with Daisy, Tom picked up a knife…

Newt quickly shuts down the game. No more Indigo Parallel for a while! Or LSD…

… LSD Dream Emulator that is, a direct influence for IP and perhaps an even weirder game despite being almost 30 years old now. What faces would he see in that one after this shocker?? Simulation indeed!

Maybe just remove the 2nd computer from the attic altogether. Perhaps the whole place is cursed. TBC

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0049, 0216, Back Rooms, Bright Moon Cottage, Jeogeot, LSD, Nawt Vaya+, Newtonia, NVFS

00490215

“Tom.”

—–

“That’s the name you said in my dream.. right before or *when* I woke up just then. I heard it in my dream but also in reality. Both in one.”

“Tom,” she repeated to Frank Lynn after a pause, her lover now and maybe soon, sometime soon, to be more. She feared pregnancy yesterday but that too was just a dream.

“Yes,” he reaffirmed. “Not Frank.”

“Hmm.”

He rolled over toward her. He stared into her face, noted the hair. Always the hair. Would she ever change from her flattop style? But of course he loved her despite this. Perhaps even *because* of this, something deeper he couldn’t see logically but felt. Or visa versa I suppose. Something else came into his mind (no, not *that*… again).

“I want to talk to you about something, Daisy. That thing we had an argument over the other day. I’ve had some thoughts about it in the meantime.”

“Oh.” She knew the topic but didn’t say it out loud. She wanted him to bring it up and keep going.

“Yes. Artificial intelligence. The *Machine*.” TBC

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0049, 0215, Back Rooms, Frank's Moving Castle, Jeogeot, LSD, Nawt Vaya+, NVFS

00490201 (Dixie (begin again (the red line continues)))

The Mother this time. On the opposite side of the Pineapple.

“Welcome home, Sonny, ” she said again.

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0049, 0201, Back Rooms, collages 2d, Europe, Google Street View, Middletown, Red Umbrella, Siberia

00470605 (Central Park/ Stuck like Fly)

Dark Peak. The Power.

Blue Boy knows.

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0047, 0605, Back Rooms, Gaston+, HANA LEI

00470311 (level 9223372036854775807 = trap?)

I spoke clear and distinct into the Air. “I’m here looking for a BOOK.”

No answer for about 15 seconds, then:

“WE ARE HERE.”

I think that’s *Lauri*, I realized. I pondered what to say next. Simply repeating the request didn’t seem right. They knew.

I had to specify.

“31 pages with a 32nd ripped out,” I tried.

15 more seconds, then:

“CHECKING.”

10 more seconds, then:

“LIMITING QUERY TO PICTURE BOOK, 32 PAGES MAX. PLEASE RESTATE REQUEST.”

Picture book? I thought. I didn’t even know what that really meant. I assumed: children’s book. What children’s book did I know?”

“‘Little Black Sambo,'” I said once more into the Air.

2 seconds later: “THAT REQUEST IS NOT ALLOWED.”

O-kay, I thought. Good the library has some kind of racist filter, I suppose. Although someone old enough with a valid ID should be able to request the material anyway. Just then:

“PERHAPS SPECIAL COLLECTIONS CAN HELP YOU SELECT A PICTURE BOOK. OPENING A CONNECTION…..”

Hmmmm. Dare I? It would mean returning to the beginning of it all. Perhaps losing everything that’s happened since in the process. All those hard earned years of service.

Couldn’t do it. Like Denmark, something rotten went on there. 42. Bad juju.

I’d have to keep working from outside the system. Nibbling away on the periphery.

(to be continued)

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0047, 0311, Back Rooms, Canada/Picturetown

00450613

Inside the fence now, wire cutters successfully employed to fulfill the dream duty needed. Let’s find out what’s in that building.

Definitely the Data Hall, good — the right place. Now to go deeper; more inside.

Internal passageway revealed by pulling this lever? Why not? Must see this through to the end since I’ve gotten this far. Alarm clock not set to go off until 9. 8:45 now. I have a bit of time left. But what’s time in a world like this that time’s forgotten? Not much.

Ahhh! A human! Sliding out from within those banks of computers; almost woke me up 7 minutes too early with his appearance but not quite. He speaks (!):

“Jack Shepherde’s not mad at me is he?” he begins cryptically enough. “I was just looking at the computers to see where all my favorite people went to. It’s been a long time since I read computer works, though, so I can’t figure out how to get their location out of the machine. I think it’s time for me to go home. Thank you for opening the door.”

And with that he glides past me in his slidey way with no steps required and down the passageway I came in through and out the front door as I followed him as best I could. I then went back to the room with the computers but the door was closed again, and immediately when I pulled down the lever like I did before, the alarm went off, RIIIIIING. I awoke in something of a sweat, knowing I didn’t have the information I needed. 9:01. Better get dressed for breakfast. Linda coming over at 9:30. Should take a shower too but it’ll be close. And at any rate, hair will be wet when she arrives because of no time to dry. Wet’s not good. Shower can wait. Slap on some deodorant, brush my teeth, drag a comb across my head and I’m good.

(to be continued)

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0045, 0613, Back Rooms, Europe, Holland