Category Archives: Badlands

June 2, 2025 · 7:48 am

00470111

“Jeez, Barry, I thought you were *dead*.”

“*I* thought I was dead. Inside the dream. Bass had a rock the size of a small schoolboy’s head. Hit me with it right in the kisser!”

“*3… hours, Barry. *Three* *hours*.” She sits back in the chair a bit. “Anyway, *why* was she trying to kill you? This Bass woman.”

“Man. Bass man. Ernest T.. Haven’t you ever seen ‘The Andy Griffith Show?'”

“Of course I have, Barry. I meant *man*.” Why did she say woman? she thinks to herself. But this is not about her. This is about *him*. She turns her attention back to the freakishly long dream which he for some God awful reason couldn’t wake up from. It was like some kind of temporary *coma*.

“I think,” he answers Wendy’s question, “he was jealous of me.” The laugh track ended there, he knew. Time for something serious; time for *death*. In the show!

“Why? Why Barry? Why was he jealous?”

A common love, he understood. Helen. Helen Pettry Crump, also known by the schoolboys and even some of the opposite shore experimenting schoolgirls as Helen Pretty Rump. And now Ernest T. was a 33 year old schoolboy himself. Always looking for a potential new bride. Watching her from the back with the others, he knew he’d found one!

“Ernest T.!” she called to him one day, whirling around from the blackboard, surprising him. “Solve the following equation.”

Suddenly there was no schoolroom, no teacher. Just a rock. He thought long and hard about what’s on it but couldn’t reduce it to nothing. This was *something*. His blood began to boil inside him again. I’m going to *take* this rock… or a smaller version thereof… Aaaaaaand.

“And that’s all I remember, Wendy. Swear to God.”

(to be continued)

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March 26, 2025 · 8:41 am

00460208 (Palm(er)’s View Way…)

… as in, stuck on Palm’s View Way several seconds after this provocative introductory view of Panam(a) Palmer in the Cyberpunk 2077 game. Could be a purposeful juxtaposition in the “1 Hour of Cyberpunk 2077 Fails” video here but probably not.

And may I remind, this is the girl V(al) the 1st person protagonist of C2077 is stuck on, while adopted internal soul twin Jonny Silverhhand prefers Judy Lexi over in Kabusie. Kabusie as in derived from caboose here too, come to think of it. Both girls attached to the word.

I put the Bakers family patch back in my pocket to end the game again before it even begins and move on…

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January 1, 2025 · 5:57 am

00450406 (deception)

Shelley Johnston (or Johnson) Struthers found that there were two options for teleportation at the Big V on Valgate, another one of Nautilus’ Rim Isles along with nearby Viterbo just visited by Philip Strevor in a dream. She was standing at 108/108/108 before it, certainly a significant location with its triple number of length/width/height within the sim representing The Moon in all aspects. One of the options was a club in the neighboring sim of Oleg called Relics. Through Jer Left Horn she’d already been there, back in novel 43, talking about the relic from the game Cyberpunk 2077 logically enough, especially given that throughout it all we look from the perspective of a person name *V*. This is obviously related to that.

—–

“I like your hair,” says Emeralda, wishing she had some herself. Which Shelley then arranged, deal swung. She then knew what Jer Left Horn from back in photo-novel 43 was looking for. The Devil, but a particular blue one. “Guy named Mike,” Emeralda said, still remotely playing with the size and positioning of the wig upon her head, a duplicate of Shelley’s except for the green color to match her body. “Had a mate named Pat. Both fruit headed. Lemon and lime, although I can’t remember which is which. Center of Missouri they were from, but more immediately, North Carolina and Tennessee, although, again, which is which escapes me. Is that enough? Can I still keep the hair?”

“Location?” Shelley pressed. “She’d heard rumors about a Lemon Free State existing in the left middle lower upper part of the continent back in the day. A failed country, more importantly, rulers perhaps still on the roam. They could be anywhere. She had to pinpoint.

Emeralda found a position on her head which seemed to fit just right after reducing all wig prims by 5%. She tried to analogize this to the continent, the right position on it to find the roaming, former aristocracy. “Duke,” she said, remembering the title, the dependency.” She didn’t say anything else for a minute.

“And, let’s see, Pat as a Duchess (then)?” Shelley filled in the gap.

“I’m… not sure,” said Emeralda back. “Had two boys as I recall. Benny and Jer– *wait*.”

Green Emeralda stared at blue Shelley across the gap and it closed. The hair was magical. They were one. Shelley was back in the Tiler shed, hiding from the whites of their eyes. And the skin, white as well. Whites all around. Which was bad. She’d He’d have to kill them all after gaining their trust. He’d find a way.

“And this is where we came in,” says Fern to likewise observing Billy.

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December 26, 2024 · 6:01 am

00450314

I backed up after passing him, intending to ask the obvious, something like, “Enjoying that Chinese food, bud?” But he piped up first.

“You again,” he said. He recognized me! I thought. And I him too. Desert. Burning. But in the morning: okay. Just an Arasaka crash test dummy robot, if still deactivated. What I mean is that he didn’t have a scratch on him from the burning. And now: here. But, just as quick, “Oh, sorry; never mind,” and started eating away again even though he obviously couldn’t. No internal workings, I mean by that. So I moved on, logged it in as yet another glitch in the matrix. But not after seeing he had a yellow head and was sitting on the same bench as a redhead…

… and then two benches down with only one person between them, a blue haired lady sitting with a green haired dame. TILE again. Or very close, close enough to count, I figured. I was still noticing.

(to be continued)

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December 24, 2024 · 8:33 am

00450313

“May I remind you just here that this *could* have been you.”

“No time for dwelling in alternate realities, Jonny. The Prophet’s successor just disappeared in front of us (!). After talking about Alpha Centauri!”

“I wish I could be comforted,” Jonny continued nonplussed, “that aliens were up there, looking after our well being or *not* looking after it. But, truth be told, the only blood sucking vampires up in space with reptilian skin are the corps sitting atop their high towers in their fancy, snakeskin suits with their eyes all lit up from all the eddies they’re taking from the common people down below. I’m a realist V(al). It’s all here and now for me. Look around. What’s in front of your face. No escapist fantasy for this ol’ rocker boy.”

“Speaking of which, Jonny. What do you know about (the town of) Rocky Boy out in the desert? Per chance: named for you?”

“I’d rather not go down that path, talking about alternate realities.” He looks down at his feet, exhales. “Yeah, admittedly I had a hand in that you could say, ha.” He dexterously wiggles the fingers on his silver one, looks over at the Hustle Girl again as we’ve started to call her. He was expressing *his* desired reality in no uncertain terms.

Jonny later said that people *can* just wink out in Nightsity; it’s not unheard of. Because it’s all part of the Matrix, he expressed — everything we know is, he held firm.

(to be continued)

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December 12, 2024 · 10:38 am

00450207

Who is the hatted giant on the edge of the Badlands screaming his lungs out when summoned by a certain succession of loudly whistled notes?

Does he also have a burning crotch like our similarly screaming Burning Man 02 seen earlier in this here photo-novel? Or in danger of self combustion like BM 01 from that same post back there? Or does he just not like the tune? Maybe the mystery lies in it instead. Maybe, if we were also a giant trapped on the edge of a cyperpunk distopia, we would also not appreciate the whincily high pitched tune imposed on us; would be painful to our ears. Is it Barry Manilow like for this poor fellow in Hell from the 80s British comedy series “The Young Ones”?

Just random thoughts. Could be wrong on everything, including even the appearance of the giant in the first place. Might be just one of those desert mirages. Could be photoshopped. Could be a real giant but in a different, “edge” location, maybe even up in the real world as opposed to the virtual one down here (Hell too?). We’ll see if he figures into these here photo-novels ever again. Only then might we be sure.

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December 3, 2024 · 8:50 am

00450112 (associations)

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.

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December 2, 2024 · 11:37 pm

00450111

“I need to have a talk with you, V. Panama’s not my type. I don’t *want* to sleep with her. I actually… have my eyes set on someone else.”

“Jonny. How long’s it been?” I say to the person inside of me, the person I’m wedded to as much as any soulmate lover. We’re not lovers. We are One. “Roller coaster?” I tried to pinpointed.

“Yeah. Roller coaster. Had a fun day back there. Thought I’d end it while we were still on top.”

“Yeah, noticed you weren’t with me after we started careening down to the bottom again on that last big hill.”

“The biggest!”

“Yeah.”

“Good times.”

“Good times, Jonny. So… are you back?”

“Define: back.”

“Welll.”

“Just kidding, kid-o.” Jonny’s affectionate nickname for me, since he’s, I don’t know, like *150*. “Take the blue pill and let’s try that scene (from the last post) again. Let me take over. I want to demonstrate my point.”

“And then you’ll take the red one,” I said, reinforcing the pact we made before. Blue on my side, red on Jonny’s side to return control back to me. He’d been proven a reliable ally on this arrangement.

“Sure, sure. Just like before, chum.” He even gently punches me on the shoulder to reinforce the partnership, the unity of cause. I don’t feel any punch of course, all this being just virtual hallucination.

“Now?”

“Now. Before the inspiration is lost.”

I had a couple of bluesies handy in my back pocket. I pull one out. “Okay. Here goes (swallow).”

—–

For a moment, she appeared in their midst, naked as a jailbird, even bringing a bit of Kabusie canal water along with her which pooled down below her feet. I thought it was a mirage at first, but then I stared at the tattoos, remembered what they said and represented to her, the roses, the firetruck, the spiderweb, that *cat*. No mirage this Lexi Alvocado was — straight out of the city and into the desert, Panama nowhere to be Scene. Tattoos like that don’t lie.

I could feel myself stirring down there. I wasn’t sure I wanted to lose control again this time. Which of course — doofus — V or Val heard, being One with me. What gives? he says way down there, but aware of the stirrings not his own, the thoughts. Okay okay, I say back in my head to the other part of myself. I’ve proven my point. Take the red pill, he pleads. Get out of there before it’s too late. But what do you think? I say back. Beautiful isn’t she. Better than Panama, eh? So go with Lexi. We’ll get along *so* much better later. Take – the red — *pill*, he insisted from within. Okay alright, I say. I had two in my back pocket as well. Wait… one. Always forget how that works. I pull it out, I swallow. Yeah, before it’s too late. The arrangement, etc. etc.

The pill begins working its magic. She acquires her regular garb to stem the stirrings, cut them off even. She was Jonny’s type, I said in my head while making my way back to the surface. But she wasn’t *my* type.

—–

Then *I*, baker b. of the Baker Family of Our Second Lyfe avatars, took over. Neither one, the Mary Anne and Ginger of Cyberpunk 2077 as we could call them, were my types. I put the patch back in my pocket to end the game before it even began.

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December 2, 2024 · 9:29 am

00450110

“Had to leave my clan too,” I say in response to her own angst. I could certainly identify.

“Ah yes, I remember. The Baker Family right?”

“Then I came to Nightsity, saw my chance to escape.”

“Second Lyfe?”

“*Their* Second Lyfe. Not *My* Second Lyfe. Not any more.”

“Lets… talk about something else, humm,” she said, depressed about clan chatter, the lack of Home. She downed the rest of her second beer in one huge gulp. I started seriously wondering if we were going to sleep together tonight — in the same bed. 10 o’clock at the Sunset but morning, not night. Lincoln wouldn’t be arriving for 12 more hours. 10 was waiting for him.

—–

Panama and I slept in separate beds that night, got up the next morning, knocked out power to the entire town of Rocky Boy attracting the Raffin Shiv renegade nomads that Panama sought revenge on for stealing her valuable wheels that day in April’s May 6 or 7 months ago, killed 17 of their gang there without so much as getting a scratch on us, buried their bodies in makeshift graves, even had time because of our efficiency for 17 makeshift, very quick services involving a lot of spitting on graves to rub the death part in, yada yada yada. All in a day’s work for good ol’ Samaritan mercenary V(al) here. But while we did this, the other part of our deal, the reciprocal act, was instead enacted by a party coming out of left field: the stealing of the Kang Tau AV and, most importantly, the goods within. Good news: they wanted to negotiate a price for it. Bad news: well…

—–

“There they are,” said Panama, indicating what lies behind her. “Annnnnd I’m outta here.”

Aw, *f-ck*. The Why quadruplets, I thought as Panama moved out of the scene, Act 1 of 2 of her Cyberpunk 2077 story completed. Why why why? WHY? I said to myself, counting them off. Oh well. I’ll deal with Doris and Dolores first, split up the burden; maybe I’ll make it through that way.

“Morning ladies,” I tried to say as brightly as possible, approaching the nearest pair. “Hear you have a package for me, all tied up with a bow or something, ha.”

“You”ll have to talk to Diedra over there about ties,” spat out demonic Doris. “And Debra next to her is the bow person of the group,” hissed devilish Dolores to her side. They stared coldly toward me, no emotion in their faces except maybe stark raving rage. Or nothing at all — hard to tell.

“Looking for something else,” I quickly recouped, my skin crawling from their voices, their stares. “Information. What’s inside the package.”

“Better,” gurgled Doris and Dolores at once; ahh, synchronized hell. What’s worse than this? Quadruple hell that’s what. Good I split them up into pairs. “We’re interior,” these 2 continued in their foul way. “*They’re* exterior. Whattaya want?” Would they ever become unsynchronized, dammit? Can’t stand much more!

The asking price — so ironic — was Panama’s just won back Thornton Mackinaw “Warhorse” vehicle — go figure. All that slaughter and risk for nothing. Should have focused on the Kang Tau AV first. Hindsight is golden of course. And I got to know Panama better for all this. We’re pals, we’re a pair. We’ll probably even sleep together given enough time. Is this… why I left *Their* Second Lyfe? Unconsciously, of course. Couldn’t have known about Panama and her bewitching ways ahead of time. Act 2 of 2 will tell!

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November 27, 2024 · 11:20 pm

00450106

I see the Wall the Wall sees me.

—–

“Find anything?!”

“Gold!”

“Yeah, it’s out here!” the silhouetted man calls back from the distance.

“Just laying around! Like rocks!”

“Yuup!”

“So why aren’t there…?! I mean…!”

“Why aren’t there more people around, then?!”

“Yeah!”

“Because it’s fool’s gold you fool! fool’s gold you fool! fool’s gold you fool!”

—–

Fern wakes up under the umbrella the color of TILE. Desert dreams. Badlands. There’s actually only her out here… and Billy, who doesn’t really count since he’s a 3-4 foot, chrome plated mechanoid. He observes with bright, electric blue, pupil-less eyes her awakening not 3 feet away, out of the shade and into the sun. If he stretched out in place, he could almost prop his shadowed, robotic feet up on her torso. “Hi” he metes out as is his duty, and adds a little glinty morning salute to his sunny smile. “Cereal and milk has already been poured in that order. Just like you like.” He winks and his smile also appears to glint like his arm did before. Fern checks her watch (not on her arm?). 9 o’clock. She overslept by an hour and Billy was ready at 8. Can’t blame him for the sogginess then, pheh. Just following orders. She makes a mental note, to add to those orders, to rouse her at the appointed time and not let her sleep late. But for this morning, limp Toasty-O’s Snakes and Ladders pepper and mint flavored breakfast in heavily colored red and green milk to make gray it is.

He washed Fern’s bowl without water, using the sandpaper hand attachment #4 to do the job. Ceramic would hold up under this finer abrasion, he knew. But what happened to all the water? He had produced soo much of it with his endless waterfall toward the end of photo-novel 44, the last installment in our series and also perhaps perpetual it seems. At least I don’t see an end anywhere in sight using my future vision. I’ll switch it off now; back to the present.

After being unable to sand out a particularly persistent stain in the required time according to his inner clockwork, Billy cusses in his peculiar robot vernacular (“Nuts and Bolts!” I believe it was) and throws the bowl into the gorge next to them and proceeds to fashion another from the local clay. Will take him all morning, Fern reckons. Time for her to explore the hills around here without being followed everywhere. She’ll enjoy the isolation.

In the middle of the desert which was also its edge, she soon comes across this military grade helicopter, not so much landed here as crashed — both at once. Philip Stevor was working on one of the broken landing wheels presently. She approached, recognizing the figure. But why was he *here*? In the desert? Outside Nightsity?

“Cpt.,” she said about 10 feet away, unnoticed in approaching the chopper and addressing him the way she always did. He drew his gun as he stood up and spun around. Not drunk this morning, it appears, Fern thought. Impressive! Must have done a required stint in rehab.

“Oh,” he said, relaxing and putting the gun away. “It’s you, phew! So many bad things out here in the Badlands. Guess you came here through the portal — don’t mind if I keep working on the chopper while we talk, I hope. Gotta get out of here asap. I can take you with me. If you’re also stuck out here in the middle of nowhere for reasons still unknown to me.” He turned only his head now while the hands were still busy with the wheel. “Are you?… stuck?”

Was she?

Was I?

(to be continued)

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