Category Archives: Nightsity

00460108 (319)

That’ll be 4 bucks please,” said ramen shop attendant Jacwylin, extending her hand with the bill for the bills. She was also the manager of this small cyperpunk type shop, if it wasn’t Tammy (pause). No, I checked. Tammy isn’t projected to be in this here photo-novel, 46 in a series. So this remains Jacwylin. “You know,” she begins again, name settled on and free to dwell in the past now. “Blue Moon Kentucky sat on that very seat, ordered that very meal. Blue like you too.” She scrutinized the face more closely. “Nah,” she begged off. “You’re not her.”

“Of course I’m not her,” said the blue clad woman back. Still working for the Horns, the big bosses, although the boss boss Edward was the only one still around. Who was now also her boyfriend. Luckily for her, he doesn’t have a cleanliness obsession. He doesn’t mind a little dirty. “But,” she reconsidered, “that’s an interesting story, worth a follow up statement.” There. I just did it. Would she get the joke?

“Ha ha,” she started after a significant enough pause. “Hu hu hu, good one.” She got it. “But, *anyway*, Blue Moon… do you like her music? Do you prefer the Cracks or do you prefer her solo work? Some do.” She withheld the “like me,” part. Wanted to get the other’s opinion first.

“I’ve heard of ‘Keep on Shining.'”

“Yes yes. Good one.” Maybe a solo lover. Like herself. She’ll keep patient.

“And, let’s see, the one about suicide is certainly interesting. Can’t recall the name of that.”

Jacwylin couldn’t either in the moment. Oh yes, she thought. “Elvis Esley.” Or Isley — she couldn’t remember if the last name of the single started with an E or an I, our first mandela effect in this here post (pause). I checked to make sure and, yes, it is so. The name Tammy remains a mistake and not an alternate reality.

(to be continued)

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0046, 0108, C2077, Nightsity

00460107

“I see you kneeling behind that curtain in there,” expressed passing businesswoman Pamela Taut, no time for tomfoolery today. Zoom meeting with an important client at 3 about a property deflated in value because of a 1000 year flood. Must be sharp; she wants that sale! Then this. “I say: expose yourself you troublemaker, you… *tart*” Come out, come out!” She only thought of her own name’s similarity with this taunt later.  When she herself was playing a maid to a big wig male’s cleanliness obsession — for a sale again, of course. “Bathroom next,” he said, knowing it was a mess because of the chaos. “Now!” “Yes sir,” she jumped. But it was all fake, just role play. Same with the person behind the curtain. She’d been ordered to sit there by another. No difference really at all.

We’ve seen this person before. Many times. She tires of hiding, wants to come into the light. This is about as close as I dare, focus on the foreground in the shot below, on the face of conspiracy nut Wanda to be specific, still listening to the imaginary (imaginary?) chattering of the mechanical (mechanical?) fish behind the bar. She knows they’ll analyze everything later on. Her friend Jenny sitting across the booth here has started calling her Wanda Fish, another taunt. Where will it end?

Right here. (to be continued)

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0046, 0107, C2077, Nightsity

00440616

“Well Wheeler. Here we are at the end.”

“So… you’re admitting I’m Wheeler,” spoke Shelley to his side, also watching the water rise on the scene below.

“You’re Wheeler, yes. You’re my *daughter* Wheeler. I also have a wife Wheeler. And probably a mother Wheeler and also a dog Wheeler.”

“Down there,” she spoke, pointing to the robot dog still positioned in the middle of the bar, likewise water walking Fern Stalin studying it, wondering what makes it tick or if it could have ticks or fleas, but especially where it’s taking humanity as a whole. Obviously a lot of people will die as a result of this — flood. But the ones who survive will have a cleansed world to repopulate, free of the former dirt and smut and filth. Led at least in part by Fern, the chosen one. The one with the WOW factor.

“What about Billy?” asked Wheeler-Shelley, seeing the water submerge his small 3-4 foot robot body completely now.”

“Waterproof,” Newt spoke.

“Oh, of course. From novel 34.”

“Well,” said Newt. “Close enough.” He raises his glass of high alcohol purple snog beer from the counter. “So should we toast to the end? Another successful photo-novel?”

“Not quite,” Wheeler-Shelley said, keeping her beer on the counter and knowing more was to come.

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0044, 0616, C2077, Kabusie, Nightsity

00440615

“Why is this lady dancing up a storm?” Billy logically asked.

“I don’t know, but she better be *careful*,” Fern returned. “She better remember Edward — out in the desert.” But then she turned away from frenzied bartender Lexi to stare at Edward in a nearby booth with the owner of the night club, this Tin Lizzy she knew pretty well now. She’d brought him here just for this very reason, she then understood. To prove that the other Edward, the other Edward D. even, is separate from this one, who is still alive and well thank you very much and living in Our Second Lyfe where he belongs. Not up there in the real (virtual) world of Cyberpunk 2077.

That explains the black and white photo on one side of the bar; she also obviously set that up as part of the message (“Crybaby”)…

… along with the other b&w on its opposite side. So if one side of the bar is a foot, she thought, then the other side is also also a foot?

“Got it!” she shouted again in a Eureka moment, common for the brilliant, ever-thinking woman. She could see now what was really going on. In the middle of the bar, Lexi changed into a dog which spoke to Billy in a language only robots could understand. “End this,” it said to him.

The perpetual waterfall, Billy remembered. The final attachment. He and Lexi were waterproof — they’d be fine, ha ha ha ha. Ho ho ho ho ho.

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0044, 0615, C2077, Kabusie, Massachusetts, Nightsity

00440614

“Can I ax a question?”

“Uh HUH. Clever. But go ahead.” She was closely studying the act happening in front of us which didn’t interest him — me. Wrong body type. I wondered why. Gay? But maybe she’s just studying the girl’s moves for some kind of future reference. I popped it.

“Why?”

“Why?” she said back. I knew she knew what I meant. And she knew I knew. So I let the question stand as is. I thought of Dr. Why coming out of left field in Fern’s hospital scene to join Who, What and Idontknow in a makeshift team of physicians that didn’t care about answers in the end. Maybe Lizzy doesn’t care either. She decided to extend an olive branch.

“Let’s go back to Oklahoma and not Texas to see how much you remember. Sepisexton — Olive to Oklahoma. The Abstraction, 7 to 6. Gaeta, the 7th (continent), suddenly went dark. That affected everything that runs Our Second Lyfe behind the scenes. A change was made. The Flesh Pit was exposed for what it is, mystery no more. There’s even a bit of it poking through the supposedly vacant lot behind Aisle of Palms now, threatening its very existence if you didn’t know about that already.”

“I’ve already determined I’m going to give that up,” I said through Edward, handy in the moment.

“You have no *choice* now, though. If you’d taken that 4096 when it came up for rent. Or just bought it — maybe all this could have been avoided.”

“Who?” Pause. “What?” More standalone questions. Our fields of energy were becoming one. She was changing back. But not yet — hold off.

“I am the Ten that can turn into One,” she answered the first. “Ten is more important that Gold here. Do you have to ask?”

“Lincoln.”

“Correct. Lincoln is an alchemist.”

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0044, 0614, C2077, Kabusie, Nightsity

00440613 (plywood blocks)

He had some time to kill before he was needed again, so Edward D. decided to explore a bit more of this re-creation of Cyberpunk 2007’s Night City occurring out in the Estate sims, beyond just his involvement with Shelley Emily. At the core of this re-creation: Lizzy’s HoloCore nightclub, run by our own, chrome plated Tin Lizzy. Or at least tin. That’s one of the things I want to discuss when I catch up with her next through one character or another, perhaps Edward D. but perhaps not — perhaps here but perhaps not here as well. Why the switch from gold to tin in the conversion of Night City to Nightsity? And since this is Our Second Lyfe, I suppose this is Nightsity too, so she’ll be that dulled silver color again when we meet up with her in person, like we’ve seen at least once before in this here photo-novel, 44 in a series. I’m guessing it had something to do with a humbling and coming back down to earth, since tin in alchemy is often described as a base metal leading to gold, where you start the whole process from. Along with the more commonly named lead in this role. Here we can turn to Texas for more information, specifically one county in the longhorn state named Coleman. What’s going on here? Cornering the gold market?

Anyhoot, back to Edward and the present. He reads more about this particular brand of Nightsity in the floating text at the entrance:

Hmm. Corners again.

And peeking around the corner or edge of Lizzy’s nightclub in the still-being-built city: that damn, bright red apple tree popping up again, sometimes called cherry. But we know better.

(to be continued)

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0044, 0613, C2077, Kabusie, Nightsity

00440302

Arasaka has a presence here, thought Fern while happening upon their tell tale logo on the back of a hotel in exploring more of the town, this Aisle of Breakfast and Aisle of Dairy at once. Blood red like a tempting apple.

She thinks back to the first time she saw the cursed thing while riding the magnetic levitation (maglev) rail train into Nightsity, obligatory “apple tree” prominent above the name in that case instead of to the side (put in quotes because that’s Fern’s personal name for the emblem due to the tempting aspect and not a colloquial term). Across the river but the distinct cherry red made it pop out again. And immediately afterwards, her destination for tonight, the No Tell Motel. Another hotel/motel, hmm, she ponders. Could one be the same as the other (again)?

She gets off at the next stop and makes her way back to the Kabusie motel.

They indeed fuse as she walks through the front door, past becoming present. But it took a while to match the outfit admittedly, ha.

“I’m here to see Tin,” she said to the front desk receptionist, hoping she didn’t under-dress. But this was, after all, the seedier side of town, past still mirroring present.

“Last name, please,” he said, staring at the outfit but not looking too shocked, she didn’t think. Had to blend in, she consoled herself again. She *is* at least wearing her black swimming suit under the semi-transparent shirt. All she could think of in the moment. Lichen wasn’t there to help her choose clothing, fashion buff that she is, despite the hick look she promotes with the jeans and mouth straw and all. Poor Lichen, she bemoans again. But I’ll find her. “Don’t have one,” she answers. “It’s a number not a name,” she said, even though she knew it was both, phonetically speaking. “Tin (Ten) — only gave me her room.”

“Right, okay, so… 2nd floor, last door to the right,” he says. Good luck, he thinks. That one looked pure chrome and so most likely a cyberpsycho. Probably won’t live through the night.

—–

Well. Here goes nothing *knock knock knock*.

“Come in! It’s not locked!” Ordinary female voice, phew!

Fern draws her gun and opens the door…

She turns.

“You!”

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0044, 0302, Blue Feather Sea^, C2077, Kabusie, Maebaleia/Satori, Nightsity, X-City^

00440215 (Tin)

“Of course I knew Cary, of course I knew Madison,” she says more to her audience beyond the 4th wall than the actual person in the room with her. “One was the former sidekick of world famous musician Jonny Silverhhand of Sunamai, now fronting his own almost as famous band. One was the future mayor of the whole of frigg’n Nightsity itself. But how do they fuse… here in Kabusie?” She turns back to the window, staring at it as if she can see through the blinds — not blinded. “What secrets are you holding in your narrow alleys, your… canals and notwhat? Channels, something.” She blows out cigarette smoke toward it, as if trying to obscure the secrets even more.

“Well. I’m glad we cleared *that* up,” I said, watching the smoke dissipate into the blinds and the light between them.

“Yees. But you’re here for your assignment of course. Wondering when we’d ever get around to it.”

“Well…”

(to be continued)

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00440214 (Kabusie secrets)

Mr. Middle.

And then, just beyond…

“Cary?”

No, that must not have been Cary, I think, now looking at his sparkly back as I circled around. He didn’t answer me. *Surely* he would remember who I was. Didn’t even look up to meet my eyes. But… maybe he didn’t see me. Maybe he didn’t hear me. “*Cary*,” I tried more levelly and with more volume. He turned.

“See here’s where it gets *really* interesting, Lichen,” said observing Fern at their new home near the pit. “Because it’s about to happen again.”

“Mm, mhm, mhmmm,” says Lichen, since her mouth is full of popcorn but she’s still so eager to speak.

“What’s that, dearest?”

*Swallow*. “Ier ssaied, whferef’s Mfr. Middlfe?” Swallow again.

“He’s not in this one. Just watch.”

I was walking up to him again. How was this *possible*?

“Madison?”

(to be continued)

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00430604

“I first saw what Mmmmmm Grassy Knoll later verified as some kind of Tiler in the slums of Kabusie, Green being his nature through his mask. He was posed in front of a red green yellow blue shack appropriately enough that we’ll also see around the fringes of the city: the Badlands, the Oil Fields, etc.

“Just afterward I spied him conversing with another Greenie on a nearby bench, solidifying the connection. Green tiles too, you’ll notice.

“Then to up the ante and finish the deal we shortly run across *3* identical, different Greenies (with brown shirts) meeting in the middle of a busy Kabusie street next to the roundabout Grassy also cited. Green tiles on either side of the street there too.

“So bringing back Washington state into the picture like with Kabusie, I have decided this is actually about the Green, the White, the Black,” Fern Stalin summarized at the Yalta Bar and Grill in Castle Town to her pal Lichen Roosevelt, with no Churchill still to be found. She’s talking about 3 central Washington rivers now, and how their histories intersect toward the beginning of the last century. “Green use to be White up to Black,” she started in this vein. “Then in 1906 the course of White changed after a land altering flood and Green no longer flowed into it just above a town called Auburn. Instead Green became its own entity, separate from White, up to Black about 10 miles north, which is the Black River. Then in 1916 things changed again with the opening of (Seattle’s) Lake Washington Ship Canal, an event that lowered the level of the namesake lake by 9 feet, thereby drying up former outlet Black as its water flowed instead toward Puget Bay. Thus Black no longer flowed into Green. Disconnection in that direction too. Follow me?”

“Disconnection… of both Black… *and* White… to Green?”

“Very good, Lichen. You’ve been studying your soils again. And that started… what?”

“The war,” she said confidently.

“The war to end all wars. Green vs. Gray — or Grey with an e, either one — depending on which side you want to emerge on top or maybe depending on which side of the ocean you’re on, British or American. Like Diablo and Draco. Trouble is, it never ends itself. Ouroboros. ‘Nother one. And Old Mabel’s Little Big got sucked into all that when Mars entered the fray, as was inevitable.

“Gray is Black and White together,” Lichen continued to grasp and grapple with Fern’s concepts. “Therefore, Gray is separate — disconnected — from Green. Therefore… um.”

“We must bring in the Indians to continue,” offered Fern. “Where Black and White historically intersect at what they called the Inside Place — pre-1906. True Gray. Or Grey with an e. We must go there next. Find the within spot, the still one. I just hope it’s there still,” she tried to joke. Lichen didn’t crack a smile. She’d figured out something while Fern attempted jest, perhaps a transfer of talents in the moment. Sages. They had to look for sages. Little and Big Soos, hard to differentiate from each other at the source. She excitedly told Fern this, which led to the uncovering of these old pictures from photo-novel 3. The expression “wow” comes to mind (!), since the name here is from a SIXMILE tributary of Washington state’s Green River near Auburn called Soos and not the Gravity Falls character.

Keep in mind that Mabel’s name also originates in this TV show. Along with her twin brother Little Big’s.

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0043, 0604, C2077, Castle Town, Heterocera, Kabusie, Mars^^, Nightsity, Omega^^, Rubi^, Washington