Category Archives: Maebaleia/Satori

00440309 (Rose T.)

She resided in Dairy so she thought it was appropriate to start her long delayed *diary* here. To begin: renaming the place after the book. Aisle of Diary it is from now on in the writing. Or Isle — either one perhaps, depending on, let’s say, the weather. Sunny right now. Isle, then.

Dear Diary,

Today I begin my life anew. Beautiful day here in the Isle, let’s call it. Edward D. is cooking up breakfast, no dairy. I’m allergic to dairy now. Milk, cheese, all of it. My diary makes it so.

I want to first talk about Dr. Kelp and how the two timing f-er stabbed me in the back and replaced me with A. Pond. I want to talk about the lie that is Edward D., because I made him up, name just off the the top of my head back there. Let’s see, 5 sentences back now. Oh here he comes now, breakfast in hand. “Thank you dearest!” I say to him, putting down the loaded down tray beside the keyboard in front of me, planning to nibble on it for the next hour or so. Writing and dining, two of my favorite activities. 5 sentences, 5 bites (so on). I don’t do dairy. I sip on the glass of milk he also provided (“Thanks again, dearie!”).

The breakfast turns into a sandwich loaded down with at least peanut butter as the sun becomes square and black, Skippy and Jiff both chipping in (skip). Aisle it is.

I think of po man’s George Washington (Carver) not for the first time today. Nor the last.

(to be continued)

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00440306 (Jesus Lake, etc.)

Is *this* how I wound up here? Fern pondered from inside the crate, back in her normal garb. Box drop?

Is *this* the true savior? observing Edward thought from his dimmer view of the world within the larger of the 2 shacks in the vicinity. Cube drop?

If only he’d seen her walk on water earlier he’d be convinced.

“Hello!?” he ventured from the other side of the window. “Can I help you!?”

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00440305

She woke up on a white couch in a strange white building. She checked the map. Still AISLE, good. Her seedier outfit still on, check. Something happened, she knew. She met Tin Lizzy and then everything blacked out. It had been (she also checked the in-world clock)… almost two weeks?! Drugged, was the first thing that came to mind. And what about the other, 3rd Aisle, the Aisle of Palms? Probably destroyed, she thought, since her rent was overdue not by one but 2 weeks now. And she was in the primary core avatar of Baker Bloch who had all the money — Mr. Moneybags all the other cores called him, in an affectionate way of course. She’d know if it had been payed. And the total in the account was the same as when she met Tin Lizzy. A disaster, she realized.

Something, *something* had happened.

The environment was so laggy she had trouble walking without getting ahead of herself and then having to jump back. Personalized graphics set to high, she realized, but that wasn’t it. She knew what caused that; was use to moving around in it when she, ahem, woke up here, there and everywhere, AISLE being just the latest in a long line of locations for that type of stuff. But this sleeper was a doozy in comparison.

She turned when she found her way outside the building, spied the emblem. Not Arasaka again, thankfully. But maybe a kind of present time equivalent.

She took a left on the two lane paved road outside the facility which soon led her to the dunes.

(to be continued)

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00440304 (Contemplation of an execution…)

… from a nearby, safe dune.

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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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00440301 (both sides of the Aisle)

“Hey, don’t drink my drink!” commanded Fern.

“Sorry,” the small bartender apologized, no more than a kid it appears. “I was… thirsty. Not use to customers. Not use to eyes looking at what I’m doing.”

“No more, then! You haven’t got any diseases I should know about now? Seeing we’re share buddies, ha.”

“None that I know of,” spoke the boy. He continued to shake the drink and not drink. Both at once. “Soo, you here for Breakfast?” Pause. “Or Dairy?”

“Both, actually.”

“Hmm,” he said, and poured the finished martini, dry and wet as one. Perfection if he says so himself. But he prefers the unmixed version; likes to taste both flavors separately (gin and vermouth). Darn watching eyes! “Well,” he continues. “How much have you seen so far?” he asked, not wanting to go over covered ground as it were.

“Airport first obviously. Had to come in from *somewhere*.” But Fern came in on a ship, sea instead of air. Has to be both, she figured. And with the captain none other than our Philip Strevor, fresh from a cube drop. Or so he said. Interesting.

“Not much there,” said the boy with his slight Chinese accent, worn off by years of state-side existence. Or so he said. “What else?”

“Well, pretty much saw everything in the rural district close to the void.” Too close, she thinks. “The, um, downed helicopter, the swamp, the dunes, the swimming pool. Very interesting.”

“There’s a plane in the swamp too.”

“Yup, saw that as well.”

“Do you want to hear the story (about it)?”

“Oh sure. Why not. But first, the helicopter.” Philip Strevor mentioned a helicopter along with the cubes, she thinks.

“Same story, actually. Swamp attracted both. Swamp drew them in. Just like a picture it drew them in. Got a taste for aerial. Opposites attract, after all. Water and air.”

This boy’s just spouting boyish nonsense, Fern thought, looking at his mischievous expression on his small face. But whatever; don’t have any other point of information as they say. Haven’t spotted anyone else in town. Just this child. A bartending child. Doesn’t quite add up. “Go on… I’m listening.”

(to be continued)

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00440216 (north)

“Look Lichen. It’s like our black and white lists that started the last photo-novel, 43 in a series (!).

“Lichen?

“Lichen!”

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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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00440211

It started with flamingos…

… it ended with flamingos.

And in-between, Fern found a new home for Lichen and herself while they investigate the developing super city of upper right central Maebaleia, the one northeast north and northwest all of its old capital of X-City. 100 lindens a week — quite reasonable. And a pool! Ah the joys of summer in fall, never mind the bit of rain this morning.

Chopper sounds in the distance. Approaching. Fern’s been waiting.

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