Making his viewer a square, he shields his eyes from the Abyss to the west. And the east. Only center is safe. Center Point center.
(to be continued)
Category Archives: Nautilus
special
He’s done as much work on the library in the skies as he needs to tonight. Now to crack the back of the book before him while Swanie’s on lunch break.
Chapter 1: “Marbles Fall, Marble Falls”. So much to learn. Oops. There goes the other marble, rolling away almost through the wall. Swanie will not be pleased; have to try to stick it back on before she returns.
Maybe I can just use one of my own eyes, he thought crazily, but then did just that. He stuck the blue eye marble in the now empty socket and started to see the future, the North beyond the South. Miss Ouri! This must be kept top secret.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0032, 0406, Collagesity Fordham-, Lower Austra, Nautilus
book tree
Select one. Sit a spell.
Agent 47 has already perused Frank Herbert’s “Dune” and found it applicable to Fordham’s Collagesity. The movement of the town from Rubi to a lifeless ridge of Nautilus is like the movement of Paul, Atreides, from lush Caladan, his home world, to the brave new world of Dune, ultra rich in spice but ultra harsh in environment. No Rubi Woods here to protect and balance. There’s a small park owned by the neighbor to the immediate east but it’s not quite the same. Fake green. Beige landscape dominates underneath it all.
park next door/fake green/library in background right
New book: Well, it seems to be about a man who grew up in coal country Virginia and became a Tennessee detective. Biff Carter. Now recently retired and off the force but still acting like a private dick. Teresa, hmm. Who are you? Did that cause the breakup, like the separation of McMillan from Wife? Rock was gay — couldn’t help it. But what about Biff?
Getting sleepy, he thinks. Better put the book down and go find a bed or at least a floor.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0032, 0405, Collagesity Fordham-, Lower Austra, Nautilus
00320404
One of the first things Miss Ouri does in her new role is to make special collections part of the library, despite protests from some in town that the structure is an eyesore sticking up there on the side of the square, pheh. But no one actually threw up at the sight and the addition was passed 4-3 in a special town council meeting held just below to emphasize the safety of the thing.
So let’s go inside and have a look.
The first visitor to the newly attached collections is none other than Our Second Lyfe creator Philip Linden himself, who was curious to find out what had been written about him. He can’t select one item or the other, drawing suspicion from reading room manager Swanie Rivers, here also seen alarmed at discovering his “Don’t be a Prick” coffee mug he brought in with him.
No drinking in special collections and no foul mouthedness, whether verbal or written. She tells Philip all this in no uncertain terms, threatening to expel him if he doesn’t choose an item to study and get rid of his coffee and mug. He downs the coffee in one long swig and then additionally eats the mug. “How’s *that* for special?” he replied to the exasperated swan being. It’s always about him, it seems. The rare book and manuscript he subsequently selects and brings back to the now empty table was full of it.
(to be continued)
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0032, 0404, Collagesity Fordham-, Lower Austra, Nautilus
00320403
“Live around here?”
“Nooope. Pietmond,” he said. But Sunklands’ Pietmond had been destroyed long long ago. Something was up.
“Live around here?” she tried again just around the corner in a “secret” nook.
“Naah. Just here to study,” the long haired man across the loaded down table said hoarsely, as if he’d just sang a rock n’ roll concert for a 100,000 people.
The other sitting there even turned her back on the child, not wanting discourse and hoping her Goth father was about ready to split this boring town. So that takes care of Pietmond Boy, Osborne Well, and Lou…
… moving us into the opposite corner of the new Collagesity library containing an estimated 100,000 books, a book for each person at one of Osborne’s concerts to put it another way. Here: Tronesisia.
“Live around here?” she tried once more to the former pleasure bot turned tame, this child named Shelley who had given up her castle to construct this building, be with these people. But blue eyed Tronesisia was having a vision and couldn’t answer immediately.
Where had she heard this before? Blue *and* green. It didn’t compute: something was ill fitting; broken even.
“Arkansaw,” she said softly, starting to figure it out. “Arkansaw,” she said again, one blue eye changing, seeing beyond the other, seeing North beyond South.
In the center, Missouri appeared — Miss Ouri. The new librarian.
(to be continued)
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0032, 0403, Arkansas, Collagesity Fordham-, Lower Austra, Missouri, Nautilus
00320402
The first thing to be destroyed in the dismantling of Fordham’s Collagesity was the 128 meter long spaceship of skybox 03, intended to be used to pack up Collagesity itself in just this very event. It remains clunky and unpractical for its purpose. Gone after saving to inventory.
Baker also deletes the skybox 03 base cubes, including the teleporter needed to reach it, and drops down to skybox 02. More painful here: Baker is quite attached to this aerial town centered by the golden calf that is Claudette: the grassy arena where Peter Ladd performed his lame comic routine to an audience of his Uncle Babyface and perhaps others; the abbreviated Kidd Tower on the other side of town that acts as the residential unit; and then…
Baker Bloch can’t do it. Not tonight at least. He has several more to decide. The clunky spaceship was an easy choice. Now it gets more difficult when we move closer to the ground.
And then, heading down to skybox 01, there’s the problem of the Nautilus map and its over 100 strategically placed pins now. My idea: to transfer all this to the “Iowan hypercube” displayed in my GoogleEarth file (Oracle) but it hasn’t been successfully accomplished yet.
Seems like, to me, as I ponder this further, that Collagesity has at least another month to live. I’ll renew my membership on a month to month basis. Subtracting the rental connecting the two parts of Collagesity — the main 8 and the now disattached 9th representing the Temple of TILE and its grounds — frees up 15 dollars a month, reducing the total cost from 50 to 35. New decision date: early May, when novel 32 should wrap up. Synchronization remains important.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0032, 0402, Collagesity Fordham-, Iowa, Lower Austra, Nautilus
bon appétit
“Thanks for coming over from Wendy to meet with me, Wheeler. I know you’re mighty busy over there.”
“I am (!).”
“Anyway, I see you brought your bodyguards.”
Wheeler looks at one Eighty-eight at the table in front of her, and then glances over her shoulder at the second one sitting at the table behind. “They’re still needed,” she summarizes. “176,” she totals up.
“Fascinating,” says Baker Bloch, still in sarcasm mode. They have important business to discuss tonight and better get down to it. Baker has been waiting for over 30 minutes now while Wheeler lounges about the castle library. I thought we were done with all that. He condenses these observations and says them aloud for her.
“Yeah, not quite (about the library). We have more issues to work through.” She looks around again, quicker this time. “But good we are in Ontario. I sent Dickie Doom over. He is my (original) burger.”
“You… as Wendy.”
“Yeah.”
Baker looks down at his hands through the grated table. “Center Point,” he blurts out.
“Yeah?” Wheeler waits for more, hands still in lap. Her food and drink are getting cold.
“It doesn’t come up in the Oracle. The one in Kentucky, probably the most important one. It brings to question…”
“… the Oracle itself, its veracity,” she finishes for Baker Bloch. Because they are one beneath it all as well. Just like Baker Blinker and Baker Bloch. Just like *all* the cores. There is no real separation from The One. In the end.
He produces the tic tac toe board from his inventory; is kind of irritated that Wheeler doesn’t move her dinner tray so it can be positioned more in the center of the table itself.
“So this is the game, Wheeler. Who moves first, what moves second? We don’t know. But *whoever* it is, they win.”
Wheeler takes a sip of her coffee, takes a bite of her plumeria sandwich, getting under Baker’s skin again. He doesn’t like people eating when he’s explaining something and Wheeler knows it. “This is,” she says with mouth full and muffled speech, “Collagesity.”
(to be continued)
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0032, 0401, Collagesity Fordham-, Kentucky, Lower Austra, Nautilus, Wendy-Ontario-
Fusion or thereabouts
“Over there is the Greek isle. And beyond it: Dub’s Jungle. They *know*. But, after all, this is a part of Nautilus too I suppose.”
He looks around at his tent site. “Wheeler?”
It’s so beautiful here, so compact, thinks Tom, still looking for Stan but allowing time to take pictures during the search too. Maybe Jim would know the whereabouts of Stan, since he is a friend of both. Tom doesn’t know Stan as well, but Stan owes him money. How much? one may ask. 5 dollars? 50 dollars? Enough to make a relative stranger go in search of him. Why did he owe him money? Jim knows Stan and Tom, or, to put it better, Tom knows Jim knows Stan (and visa versa). But he doesn’t know who Stan knows yet beyond the triangle, can’t see into the unknown. Because there lies Erik.
Actually Tom met Erik through Stan already and suspects that’s who he actually gave the money to. We don’t know the specifics, but that’s what I have so far.
A little help here, Hucka?
Nothing.
—–
Meanwhile, Erik cooks eggs and bacon in Manolis while Susie waits for more customers to approach. “Alright over there?” he calls to his cashier who he plans to fire in a couple of days if business doesn’t pick up. “Perfect,” she replies, and flashes him an appropriate symbol.
It’s just stuff like that he doesn’t like. He flips over the eggs and then perceives the quiet through the sizzle. Someone’s got to put Alvarado on the map! he thinks. Maybe he can devise some kind of fake murder story to draw in the tourists, something to spice up the appeal or broaden the knowledge of the place. He tries to come up with a name as the bacon is now done; slid off the skillet onto a waiting plate. Eggs: just a bit more. Eggs Benedict, he thinks, watching the white continue to set. Combines the name of a traitor with something symbolizing eyes, as if something is there to *look* for — or at. But then he forgets the insight until the next day, when a customer walks in with a camera still in hand and recognizes him.
“Erik?”
Erik turns. “Stan?”
“No: Tom.”
“Tom, right right. Stan’s friend.” He returns to his cooking. 5 customers in here right now, an onslaught for him. 4 eggs and 6 slices of bacon sizzling in one pan. It will be a tricky juggling project and he needs to concentrate. And Susie conveniently on lunch break, bah.
“That right.” Tom waits patiently, shuffles his feet. “How’s business?” he decides to ask in the awkward space, not hearing Erik offer anything about the money he’s owed, and the paying of it. 50 dollars. *No*: 500. 500 dollars. He said his business was doing badly and that’s why I, Tom in the moment, am asking about it, trying to jar his memory if he’s even forgotten about the loan. Maybe just avoiding the subject — probably. He decides to take a snapshot of Erik and put it on his blog with the caption “traitor” underneath it. Is that the right word? Tom decides it is. Erik eases two of the 4 eggs onto a plate. They appear to be eyes to Tom. I *see* who you are (!).
His body was found the next day in the bay, mission accomplished.
(to be continued)
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0032, 0215, Nautilus, NORTH, Upper Austra
we know what will happen (this is part of Nautilus too)
Baker Bloch eats alone, Baker Blinker having excused herself to take her sub down to the beach. They’re apart again. When will the joining together occur once more? Soup’s getting cold. Better force yourself to take another bite. Spoon down… spoon up. There ya go (*slurp*).
—–
Later:
What’s he pointing to, Baker thinks while mimicking the gesture then following the indication.
Maybe this…
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0032, 0213, Nautilus, NORTH, Upper Austra
the process or result of joining two or more things together to form a single entity
He decided to kneel in front of the crucifix and pray for a plot to manifest before him. Or around him — couldn’t hurt. Wheeler, who seems to have reverted to Wendy, a thought of obsolete character she plays — red headed — is *trapped*, perhaps by pirates. On this continent. Nautilus. It seems we go 2 steps forward then 1 back. Or is it the other way around? Both (he realizes). Wheeler Wilson is also Wilson Wheeler. Black is White, in a yin yang fashion. FUSION. That’s where they took her, these pirates. I realized I had to send another agent out there. Let’s see, who we got (in the closet)? Joey “The Venusian” Avatar is still working on that case over at Long Island. Where are we on that? Must have a meeting of the agents to keep up to date with the most recent information. Then Dickie Doom — and Debbie Doom; Dickie recently met with Jennifer M. Friend on Alien Island which seems to be a mispelling of Allen Island — misspelling — just like in the Oracle. And the Oracle is kind of back (!), death knells premature.
Baker stands as they go off again outside. Death for others if not himself, he knows. What is this world coming to?
—–
They reconvene down at Manolis on this small Greek paradise isle, a restaurant specializing in soups and subs in no particular order. They talk after ordering, sub for Baker Blinker and, of course, soup for Baker Bloch to balance everything out. “Someone will have to get married — again,” he puts forth in the brainstorming event.
“Axis and Wheeler, pheh. We tried that. 2 steps back 1 step forward. Then 2 steps forward and one back.”
“Yeah I recall,” Baker Bloch responds, thinking of the inky black car that needed to be manifest at the time for traction. Ratmobile or something. Black and evil whatever. Tropp and Treelor never stood a chance. Tropp! Baker then thinks, and says the name aloud for the female version of his type, his kind.
“Possibility,” spoke Baker Blinker before him. “I’ve been in Wheeler’s shoes, you know. I understand what it feels to be trapped. You, as a man, just don’t understand.” She looked around the joint, and all the men with their open mouths eating food, their lip smacking. “Might as well be *all* pirates,” she summarized her feelings in the moment.
“You are me and I am you,” Baker said, and even reached across the table to hold her hands, look steady in her eyes. “You are a beautiful girl.”
“Why thank you (!)”. This cheered her up. Suddenly the mouths were far away. She was thin, very thin, but that was just her build. And tall. Thank you! she thought again in her head. I’m beautiful too, she realized. Just not what, er, Axis wanted. Axis? Tropp? They had to make a decision about the groom.
Baker Bloch briefly thinks that he and Blinks should get married instead, revisiting an old subject that she pushed in early days, before the realization that they were closer than husband and wife, closer than brother and sister. They were one. True fusion indeed (already). He let go of her hands as the brainstorming continued.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0032, 0211, Nautilus, NORTH, Upper Austra
