Category Archives: Hills of Bill^

June 20, 2019 · 7:24 am

THIS SIM 02

“Always looking for connections, aren’t you?”

“Yup,” he admitted. “Catwoman I think. Half woman, half cat. Another type of underling.”

“Sooo. You’re the Cat(man), then. The Red Dwarf Cat. Always womanizing, or the door’s always open to it.”

“I think I’m irresistible,” he admitted. “But I have my limits. Nose piercings! And that tongue!”

“So you said.” You should maybe like the tongue, I was thinking but didn’t say aloud. But maybe it was pierced too. He doesn’t like piercings. But then again, they’re *shiny*. Cat loves shiny things! We better move on.

“Sooo. What brought you *here*?”

“It’s right next door. THIS SIM.”

“I see you still have your primmy rose. Are you looking for love in this sim as well.”

“Always!” He sticks out his own tongue a bit here, I observed. Pierced as well — should’ve known.

I didn’t want to delay any longer. “Let’s go see the sign, then.”

—–

“Flickering,” he stated. “Half and half again. If I wasn’t standing a certain way I would have never seen the address.” Another potential love! Marcus Fox Smartville muses. He couldn’t help himself.

“1 blocked,” I also observed. “Interesting. But from the house they were in…” We moved over to the house.

“… plain as day.”

“Where are they now?” he asked, making me puzzled. “I mean, if they weren’t me — us.” My face was still squinched up. “*Pretend*,” he requested firmly.

“I — I.”

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June 20, 2019 · 6:57 am

THIS SIM 01

There is no chance in this world, Marcus Fox Smartville thought wisely. That *could* be the girl of my dreams, the one to deserve the primmy rose.

She was waiting for my hug and I came. Let me take a closer look.

Eeh. Nose piercings! And that tongue! Not for me, sorry.

—–

Oh dear. The boyfriend. And my boat’s been derezzed. Challenge! Better amscray. Goodbye THIS SIM. Forever.

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June 19, 2019 · 6:39 am

borrowing

We start to wrap up the continent, south to north. Continent’s Edge seems like a logical, next step. “Anything left here?” Officer Biff Carter might say to an underling (not pictured). “Well sir,” the underling could reply, “there’s the red door in the bar.” “Let’s go,” Carter might respond firmly. “Show the way,” he could add, not seeing the landmark in his own inventory, since he is, at the core, Bracket Jupiter. The underling (surface identity yet to be determined): Baker Bloch, the (core) guy with the prime landmarks. “Let’s go!” Carter could reiterate, seeing his underling spacing out again. “Go go go go go!” “Alright already!”

—–

“Okay, we checked that out. Standard vampire stuff. Or goth stuff.” Biff turns away from the door toward his underling. “And who are *you* suppose to be?”

“Raggy,” his underling admitted. “Lemme check some other outfits.”

“Make it pronto!”

—–

“You guys smell something burning? Okay, okay. Not too bad.” He keeps scanning the underling. “Not too *good* but could be worse. And who is… wait, lemme guess. *Your* assistant.”

“This is Wanda,” Kirk introduced.

Carter shook his head. “Nope nope. Already a Wanda in this story.”

“Then, er, how about Alice.”

“Nah. Try again.”

He puts finger to lips in thinking mode; begins talking more to himself. “Ritchie — not a girl’s name; Betty — again: taken.”

“Taken,” Carter reinforces, and moves to the bar, talking to the reader directly while Kirk keeps vocalizing options behind him. He selects champagne for a drink. “While we’re waiting, let’s check out *my* backstory. It’s a good one. Better than Kirk’s I’m sure.”

We drift back in time. Back back back to when Carter first took on the case of the Missing Man About Time.

“We were in Oakley, where Little Annie got her name from. I was about the same age as my underling now, and kind of looked like him. Sort of. And I had an assistant as well. Well, we spotted the palm tree hemmed mound in the distance and I said, ‘Looks like a good place for a hideout.’ We’d been stalking the Man About Time for about a month at this point, but what’s time when you’re looking for such a person. I checked my watch. 8:88. ‘9:28,’ my assistant clarified (more for the reader). I’d been substituting number time for clock time several years now, dating back to my time researching that mashup puncture in time and space called Dark Side of the Rainbow. 8:88 is 9:28, 8:98 is 9:38, but 9:48 is just that and nothing more. Can’t let those things get too complicated.

“We moved toward the mound but stopped at the entrance.

“‘Pirate,’ I cussed, spitting on the ground after realizing we’d been tracking the wrong crinimal. ‘I told you Wanda Ritchie Bettie Taylor Twiggy.’ ‘How dare you call me that,’ she interrupted, and slapped my face. ‘I told you never to call me that again.’ Okay, we still don’t have a name for the dame, but I’ll work on it and get back to you reader. And also find the proper hideout for this… MAN ABOUT TIME.”

(to be continued?)

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June 15, 2019 · 7:11 am

back in Maebaleia…

“Ah ha. Finally found a use for that wearable pipe chair you gave me last Christmas.”

“Thanks for showing up Tracy. Like I said, I can’t find him anywhere. We were just scouting around the center of the continent, looking at places. We came here. I realized I had to go do something with the kid again and told him to just stay put till I got back. Then when I returned — and a long drive it was all the way from Pipersville — he’s not here. We talked about renting this house. Real cheap rent. In fact…”

“… it’s free,” finished his lover-on-the-side Tracy Austin. “I saw the sign outside. But this one is rented.”

“It’s in arrears,” he explains. “Just checking out the furniture.”

“Well I *hope* the real renter doesn’t come back.”

“He won’t. *They* won’t.” Second Life is so empty now, he thinks not for the first nor last time. Middle of continents — basically a wasteland.

“So dark in here,” complained Tracy Austin. “Can we get some light in this place? Will these blinds open?”

“Sure.” Craighead Phillips Option 01 touched the blinds to his side and back, automatically opening them.

Tracy Austin peered out. “What’s all this?”

Craighead Phillips Option 01 looked too. “I don’t know. Earth, I suppose.”

Interested, Tracy Austin moved toward the side window to take a closer look at something.

“2701 Bland Road,” she recited, then turned back toward Craighead. “This place got a computer?”

“No, but there’s one down at the office. I spotted it while trying to get out of this town the first time.”

“Do you have a key?” Both laughed at this.

—–

“Well. Is it there? Did you find it?”

“Just a moment,” Tracy Austin requested while still typing away. Then: “Ahh. *Bingo*.” She indicated the screen. “There it is. The same sign.

That’s where he is!”

Craighead Phillips Option 01 put hand to lip. “Jeepers I guess we’ll have to go in after him, then. I can’t exist, I don’t suppose, without Option 02.”

“*You’re* going in. I’m staying here with Katy. If something happens to you I’ll tell her you went away. To France.”

“Uh, I’m not going without a gun. I’ve heard stories…”

“Alright, Uncle Bob has a gun. We’ll go see him first. Then you’ll say goodbye to Katy. Hopefully not for the last time.”

“I know you’re joking…”

“I am?”

“Things use to be better between us.”

“Listen, Craighead. Craighead Phillips Option *01*. We gave you The Freedom, all you wanted. Blue Feather Sea, patterns. Astrologers around every corner. *Everyone* knows their sign. No chance involved in the playing of dice or cards. Freedom — Katy and I. Yet you still hang around with your other family.”

“My *actual* family,” Craighead Phillips corrected, not helping the situation.

“Alright.” Tracy Austin got up from the computer table. “Alright if it’s going to be like this I have a confession. I’ve been seeing someone else. A sailor of the Blue Feather Sea. Older man, admittedly, but I think it’s something real. We may even…”

“Get married?” Craighead was incredulous. “How old?”

“50, 55. Maybe 60. He’s *cool*. He has a good sense of humor. He’s built like a soldier and swears like a pilot. Katy’s met him, but she doesn’t know the circumstances. Yet.”

“You wouldn’t.”

“Wouldn’t I?”

(to be continued?)

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June 15, 2019 · 5:00 am

greener pastures

I’m tired of waiting, thought Option 02. I found a way out and I’m going to take it. Help out here, he groused. Chip in there.  The kid be damned.

He stands up from the bench and starts walking. Inside.

Not as bright and colorful over here, is it Mr. Irresponsibility?

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June 12, 2019 · 6:02 am

sink in

“We have this road running straight here, and then the same road running to the side as well. Wonder what it means Option 01?” Pause. “Option 01?”

Turn. “Now where’d he go?”

—–

“You know, Son, these wearable pipe chairs come right here from Pipersville back in the days. Hence the name.”

“Cool, Dad. Um, cool, heh, that you’re hanging around more now. I sort of, I don’t know, *missed* ya.”

“That’s great, Son. No, I’m back. Or at least more back.” Damn sinkhole, he thinks to himself again while staring down at it. He’s glad now he planted that big Tree Green 02 back in the days as well, since it now helps impede his view of the bottom. Along with that big piece of plywood the neighbors left just sitting down there. Cursed sinkhole. Maybe just start a petition to cover up the thing. We have the Professor Suckaluck death story to get the ball rolling. Rolling, rolling, dead. Doorknob dead.

“Dad?” asked Preston Weston, still clutching his zapper gun. “Are you in thinking mode right now?”

Craighead Phillips Option 01 turns to his only child. “You’re one to speak about thinking modes.” He points to his head. “You have a whole *world* in there, Son, heh heh. Your mother can’t wrap her brain around it.”

“Are you asking me to tell you a stor–yyy?” Preston Weston queries expectantly.

Craighead Phillips takes one last drag off his Chesterton cigarette before snuffing it out on the cement porch. “Nah, I’ve got to catch up with my other self, the one who cares less. Just wanted to come visit and see how you’re doing, kid.”

“I’m fine. So — you’re not going to stay the night?”

“Nah. Your Mama and I have patched things up pretty well but not to that extent — not… well, let’s not go that far quite yet. Maybe within a month or so.” Maybe within a month or so my other self and I will tire of exploring north east south west on the continent, he thinks. Away from this blasted sinkhole. Anywhere else. But maybe they could *all* go away. At least for a bit. A vacation of some kind. He decides to test the water.

“Son, if you could go anywhere. And I mean anywhere. Where would it be? Where would make you happier in the world? Mars, I’m guessing.”

“Aww Dad. You know the answer to this.”

“Not the Pipe Room. Don’t say the Pipe Room.”

“I… I wasn’t going to say that.”

“Because we don’t talk about the Pipe Room,” Craighead Phillips insisted.

“I *wasn’t* going to talk about it.”

“Son. That’s where your mother went off her rocker. When she was just a kid. Only a little more older than you. Did I ever tell you that story?”

And he thinks *I* have an overactive imagination, Preston Weston ponders while wondering how he can get out of a 15 minute soliloquy himself at this point.

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June 8, 2019 · 5:25 am

tour (11, 12, 13) 01

“Not much of a south wall on this one, Bettie. We can give it to them.”

“I’ll put it down as a ‘maybe’,” replied Buster’s more unyielding mate.

“What’s next?” she then adds. “Where’s the 12th?”

“Um. That may take some more scouting.”

“Better get to it. Night is short.”

“Not as short as some nights, Bettie. Let’s go!” They take to the air again. Bettie turns tiny and Buster changes into his bat form to speed things along.

—–

“Didn’t take long. I *think* this is it. If memory serves. Pretty weak overall, eh?”

“Dunno,” says Bettie to Buster-bat. “‘Maybe’, again. Is this what they use to call Golden Sink?”

“That or the other one,” he returns. “Now let’s look at Callingwood. I know where that is — know the sim name.” They fly off once more, to the northeast instead of west (I’ll provide a map soon).

—–

“Hold on, what’s this? (Osiliers) Looks like a sinkhole to me.”

“Nah, Bettie. No texture change. This wouldn’t convince them. Plus it’s not supported by surface infrastructure. Although, again, this *could* have been what they called Golden Sink, the 12th. Unsure.”

“I’ll log it in, whatever.” She checks her inworld map and points northeast. “Callingwood’s just ahead.”


Watching flight with volume ON.

—–

“Hmm, Bettie. Just ‘hmmm’.”

“There’s the texture change,” encouraged Bettie. “Sort of.” She looked around at the large, flat “basin”. But they weren’t allowed to call it that. Both were thinking the word, though. Not sink: basin.

“It’s fascinating nonetheless,” a resigned Buster spoke. “Some quite interesting mountain hill country to the north. I suppose, also, this is what Baker Bloch called the Satori Flats. In looking at it again, I agree with that name.”

“Center of the continent, Another candidate. Middle of nowhere.”

“Use to be (small) pyramids as well. Baker Bloch lived amongst them for a little while.”

“Must be the influence…”

“Yeah,” Buster agreed, not wanting Bettie to say the name. Blue Feather Douglas once more.

“And the 13th? — if this isn’t the 13th?” Both, again, were thinking this wasn’t the 13th. Basin or Flats were better names indeed. But that’s what’s so frustrating and fascinating both about the Maebaliea continent and its *depressions* — that’s a generally accepted neutral word for both parties. Now. In the past: a different deal-i-o. It’s all quite complicated, and thus yet another need for the study called Sinkology.


Flying again.

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