“If we keep focusing on Nautilus I think we’ll be okay, W. The link with Iowa.”
“Successful,” concludes the other. She seemed happy for a change. Or at least happier. Maybe the change of scenery did her good.
—–
“Where to, Hucka? Post, Texas?”
“Next post for sure, ha. Have you peed yet?”
“Forgot, sorry.”
“Get on back in there, then.”
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0031, 0202, Bay City/Nova Albion^, Crisp Sea, Lower Austra^, Nautilus, Sansara, Wild West
“Shall we?”
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0031, 0117, Bay City/Nova Albion^, Iowa, Sansara
“*Cult* of the 3 Suns brought ME here.” Zzzzz’s from the “listener”. “You still with me?” Clearly he wasn’t, but Dr. Herbert Thomas Brown only needed a sounding board this late at night, when the bitterness fully kicked in. “My Three Suns, the wife called them, before her own mysterious disappearance.” A snort this time, then rolling over and more snores. Tom was a good guy, Dr. Brown could have thought here. But he sleeps a lot. Oh well… not a lot else to do in this alley separated from reality. He tried to think of a joke combining the words reality and alley to more accurately describe their situation but it didn’t quite come together. Fitting. “Then I went to *Falmouth*… don’t get me started about *Falmouth*, pheh.” He looked over at Tom: still rolled over but quieter now. Had he awoken? Brown thought. Was he, I don’t know, actually listening to him this late at night for a change? Something about Falmouth?
—–
Knock knock knock. “Honey?! I decided to join you on your vacation after all. Darling?! Are you in there?!”
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0030, 0515, Bay City/Nova Albion^, Nascera^^, Paper Soap, Sansara, Soap
“Well take a picture, silly. I can’t hold this posture forever.” SNAP
Outside: Ghost. *Ghost* of a ghost, so doubly so.
Whose picks led me to this:
“What do you say, dear? The rooms are real cheap and we get to explore fabulous John Fitzgerald Kennedy City this way. We’re right in the middle (!).”
“Okay, darling. But then we must get back to Collagesity and see what’s left of it. Strange about the doubling of the Falmouth name in these locations.”
“Yes. More reason to stay here.”
He recrosses his legs. “I suppose.”
“We can make… a honeymoon of it.”
Axis-Windmill doesn’t say anything to this. He’s not ready to commit to such a pact, or even admit they are married to each other as husband and wife. Maybe they are, maybe they aren’t. Let’s play it loosey goosey, he thinks. Besides, he’s Baker Bloch for the moment, and the male Baker doesn’t marry anyone “beneath” him in the photo-novels, which is everyone else, even his female counterpart Baker Blinker, traditional blog spiritual guide Hucka Doobie, and the rest of the cores. If he could just shift over to another particular core… he shifts in his seat with this thought. He has the urge to get up and dance. “Any music around here?” finally came a response, which made Alysha Raspberry huff and recross her own legs. She knows Falmouth Gallery in Collagesity won’t be any better. *But* (she considers again), they could stay in Danny’s trailer. If he’s truly gone. One Falmouth at a time, though.
“Oh dear. Is that our *porter*?”
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0030, 0302, Bay City/Nova Albion^, Nascera^^, Sansara
“So. This is your portal.”
“I come down here to Dennis, I get cleaned up, um hum.”
“Err, you mean you get cleaned up and then you come down here to Dennis.” Baker Bloch remembered that Wheeler had said something was wrong with Tropp — True Opp. Maybe it’s that he gets everything backwards. He decides to test.
“So, Wilson Wheeler is your best mate down here.”
“Wheeler Wilson, yes.”
Aha! Baker thought.
—–
“I left him over there dancing. He seems to try to dance his way into a different form. Axis.”
“I’ve heard of him. Rules The Waste, among other places. Rosehaven even, perhaps.”
“We can’t get rid of him.”
“I know.”
“We tried. Same with Wheeler.”
“True enough.” Karoz leaned forward. “You know I have a different user than you.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay. Come clean with it.” Baker Bloch knew, but he wanted to hear Karoz speak the name.
“Gene Fade.” Baker Bloch nods, trying to look a little shocked. “And the same goes for Tropp — Opp.”
“Gene Fade is Tropp’s user as well.” Baker kept his mouth open.
“But Tropp is the same as Bracket, originally king of the Comma Islands.”
“And, I’m guessing, Mmmmmm Grassy Noll is a Gene Fade avatar as well.”
“Could be.” Karoz continues his own story. “I was designed to safely walk the uber sacred peak of Grandaddy Mountain without damaging precious and sometimes rare plants. No animal interaction either. But I forsook this destiny and became enmeshed in Second Lyfe. Our Second Lyfe.”
“Chilbo.”
“Noru, actually. Norum.”
“Right.”
“Norum was stronger than Chilbo — Chilbol — in the early days. Before the deforestation.”
“Right. Plants talk. Plants aid. Look at Collagesity now. The only thing keeping it living and breathing is the Rubi Woods.”
“Correct.” He continues onward with more “revelations”. “Gene Fade is my father. Father *and* user.”
“I still…”
“Grassy too. Gene created Grassy from his own genes.”
“‘Fade to Moss,’ Baker proffers. “The production tells all of this.”
“But not in this dimension. Not yet. Gene wanted to go beyond his days as Grassy Noll’s sidekick in all those Salad Bar Jack action-adventure movies. He was quite famous, but only through Grassy. ‘Fade to Moss’, an autobiography that wasn’t an autobiography, was suppose to propel him into a different circle, a different level.”
“Didn’t work.”
“No.”
(to be continued)
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0013, 0213, Bay City/Nova Albion^, New Eden^^, Sansara
Sunklands 