She kicked off her leafy shoes and stayed a while in this place wrong for others but not herself. Alvin arrived with the rest of the greens just before the crack of dawn. Just what I need, she thought, staring out at it through unwinterized windows. A warm truck. Soon to be getting even warmer!
But where was the baby she use to clutch?
Filed under **VIRTUAL, 0038, 0308, Hana Lei^^, Jeogeot, Sunklands^, The Waste^^
“Hello, Tom? I’ve arrived. And there’s a sprite already here, just like you said there would be.”
(reply)
“Hold on.” He removes the phone from his ear, looks over. “Honey, what’s your name?”
“Morgan,” she said in an ordinary enough voice for a part plant person. He raises the phone again.
“Morgan, she said.”
(reply)
“Wrong place??”
—–
“And that’s what brought me here, to the tree, to the *mutants*,” he said to John the Mind Reader still sitting opposite him in the present, drinking his coffee, still enjoying the beans. “Spill some more,” he requested, leaning back, carefully sipping at this tilted angle. Sometimes just the mention of the word triggers the event, he knew. The others finally arrived, the lot of ’em, crammed altogether in a lime green truck with Dude on the side and Chevy Dodge on the back. Joker and Jester, Jethro and Bauer, Doug and Clyde (formerly Tin Tin and Clubby). Paired troublemakers all. Liars to the hilt. They say caffeine makes you so if unchecked by alcohol. And there hasn’t been a (wal)drop of beer wine liquor in this levee type of place since January. And then: Jackson Bloch riding tailgate, the strangest of them all.
But where was Ted? all began to murmur as they took their usual seats in the establishment set up near the lip of the Great Fissure or Fracture, your pick. “Right here,” micronized Ted said unseen in the center of it all, tightly clutched by his new master.
(to be continued)
Filed under **VIRTUAL, 0038, 0307, Hana Lei^^, The Waste^^
“We have arrived too late.”
“Too late,” said the other, just as frustrated with him as he with her. One AM and one PM. But they couldn’t remember who said what. Thus the mutual blame game, which would spill over with the toys before bedtime. Because there was nothing left to do but sleep.
“Twelve hours you.”
“Twelve hours *you*”
Filed under **VIRTUAL, 0038, 0210, Hana Lei^^
It was so cold in here you could see your breath. But people didn’t mind. Celebrities in the audience!
“Good morning afternoon evening everybody!” Her standard opening line. “Welcome to the klub that’s going to put Kedas back on the map!” And then the requisite plug. “Brought to you by Sprite lemon-lime drink. The drink soo clean…” and here she paused to pull one of their sodas from her dress somewhere and chug. She retreats the can from her mouth, aaahs loudly, then: “…Grant *Hill* recommends it!” Cheers from the audience. Grant Hill is in attendance. He makes eye contact with me from where he’s sitting across the reflected green floor. Just briefly, enough to make me know he’s aware of what’s going on, if only in an unconscious way right now. Two Hills, PHEH, he may be saying internally. If he could only turn over the blueprint to his life he could see.
—–
“Dreaming again on that plank, Ted.”
“Just leave her this time. No need to tell Al.”
“I agree.”
“Got us into a lot of trouble before.”
“I remember.”
“Lot of paperwork.”
“I recall.”
“Anyway. Why don’t you enter her mind and see what’s going on.” So John the Mind Reader did. After a pause:
“Soo, what’s happening?”
“Apparently,” John surmised, “the past. Or a version thereof.”
“In-teresting.” They both had changed their minds about Al. The uppity higher up needed to be informed of this. New development!
(to be continued)
—–
Filed under **VIRTUAL, 0038, 0207, Hana Lei^^, The Waste^^
She barely made eye contact with him to acknowledge his presence. Cyberpunks, hmph, he thought. “Business good tonight, Lexi? Selling many sodas on top of the regular alcohol?”
“Whoa whoa there daddy blow. One question at a time. Try again.” She kept dancing to the beat that hadn’t started yet. DJ was still relaxing and chilling and drinking before the gig. While she had the time.
He skipped to the most important one. “Have — you — sold — many — *sodas*? On top of the alcohol which I know will do good,” he sped up.
“Two Hills,” she instead said.
“W-what?”
“Two Hills.” And she pointed to the left, the opposite way of the horn.
“Oh yeah. It’s a promotion.” He breathed a sigh of relief, knowing it could have been something else. Too early! “Now back–”
“Why does there have to be two?”
“*You* have two,” he wanted to answer, but then thought better of it. Maybe she didn’t. Was she a girl or boy? He never figured it out. I guessed she’d have them either way — doesn’t matter.
His lemon-lime drink awaited at the table. He looked around, seeing a lot of soda imbibing with his own two peepers. One over in the far corner had a Dr. Peeper. He resisted the urge to rush over there and swat it outta his hands, causing a scene. No scenes, his brother Benny Right Horn warned. “Tonight must go nothing wrong.” His words, not mine, Jer thought. That’s why he’s not here. Too drunk and coked up to make a proper showing of himself instead of a proper spectacle of himself. Typical. Cokeheads not allowed.
“Anyway,” he finally answered Lexi the bartender, still dancing to an imaginary beat or a beat from the future perhaps that only she can hear with her futuristic head and ears, “it kind of goes along with the idea of doubling the fun or doubling the pleasure.” He locked briefly with her sci-fi black within green within blue eyes. She was finished with him, he knew.
—–
He sat down beside her. The Hills came square to the camera, a horn curled against one of their cheeks.
“How is the wine?”
“Pretty tasty!” She downed another guzzle.
“Load up while you can. But not — too much. Take a swig of soda every now and then. People are watching.” He indicated the ads beside them. “Can’t let down the Hills.”
“Oh no.”
“Mike should be showing up soon.”
“And Pat,” she said. “I also invited Pat.”
“Oh boy.”
“Maybe. We don’t know!”
Filed under **VIRTUAL, 0038, 0206, Hana Lei^^
“Look! The Moon has come out from behind some clouds. We’re saved!”
“That’s just old Xianity superstition,” replied wannabe lover Johnny Blank to this, hoping she wouldn’t go down that road again, the Jesus Saves one. He’s Muslim and he’s going to stay that way! And Cylinder is Jewish so that’s that. Found God a while back but a different one from mine, and a different one from Gloria’s. But we still seem to be getting along. For now, he thinks.
Gloria stares and stares. With hate. Just like long long ago when she first got this role. The Moon grew a mustache and beard, peered down at her in ultimate superiority and changed birds into bees, flowers into trees. Not God. Something better, she realized. A Dark Lord. She’d been thinking about it for years, but hadn’t said anything about her insights. A good Christian woman she was to others still. Until the Big Reveal. She’d been pondering it for months. She’ll act on it in days. Xianity, as my *friend* Johnny Blank puts it, doesn’t *have* any superstition like that. She made it up. But, being Muslim, he wouldn’t know the difference. Maybe a perfect match after all, a perfect foil. I set them up he knocks them down.
“Johnny,” she says seductively, moving her pointing finger over to his shoulder, making an “X” on it to mark him as a target. “Tell me about your family again, your overbearing father, your loving but absent mother.”
“She *died*. She wasn’t absent.”
“Oh right right.” She sat up with this, looked up to the still visible Moon for strength. “I… forgot.” The Moon went behind clouds and she suddenly became sad, spell over.
(to be continued)
Filed under **VIRTUAL, 0038, 0115, Hana Lei^^, Michigan
They were preparing food, of course, when the call came in. Raven and Key needed for a catering assignment. Money not an option, because this was for the big bosses, one of them anyway — I’ll get an actual name asap. All activities at the well established Wooboostook pub would have to be halted for a night. March 23rd was the date. The day the music died.
Soon they were prepping food in a different place. Nautilus continent. Near but perhaps not in the Lemon Free State, advertised as the last vestige of the old empire within now Lime (Linden) controlled Our Second Lyfe.
“Edward should be arriving soon,” spoke Sandy Hook to Penny Mart up front, champagne on wait to be served for the occasion. “Said he had a new girl who wasn’t his girl, tee hee.” “Typical,” offered Penny from the chair, wishing he would get the f-ck here so she could have that drink. Also she was starving.
Amos T. Sandman arrived from next door in a party boat loaded down with his many presents, but he was not the one they desired despite of this. The time: 6:05. The night was young, very young.
Darn. Not even noticed, he thought, grand entrance ruined.
“Hello,” he said. No response, even though her extended legs were almost in the way of getting up the stairs in front of him. What gives? he kept pondering as he approached the house. Who is this party *actually* for if not me?
The presents were snapped up right and left as his back was turned to them. He had nothing left to give.
(to be continued)
Filed under **VIRTUAL, 0037, 0401, Hana Lei^^, Lower Austra^, Nautilus, Wild West
They had opened the book, they were reading the script. Their brains had become like one, minds fused. They read together, one with the left eye and the other the right. Coordination. Military people at the top of it this time. Eastwesterners.
They read about Archie…
Biff Carter withdrew the book from the camera, stared into it, smiled.
Filed under **VIRTUAL, 0037, 0317, Hana Lei^^, Jeogeot, Middleton^, Midlands, Sand Springs, Towerboro
“Where have you *been*, Shelley? They’ve taken everything — all the downtown — except for this uppermost store. I don’t think they know how to work the stairs to get here.”
“What’s happened?” she tried to ask as innocently as possible. Because she is fresh off from pressing the big red button up in the Uplands. We’re back in the present present.
“The *military* is what happened, Shelley? Where’ve you *been*?” he pressed. Continuation.
Shelley talked Arthur into going inside before it was too late. “Buy the biggest and the brightest for me,” she said about the displayed diamond quartz rings, knowing it would be the last thing she could credit to the house. “For our renewed vows — you never got me another one, you know.”
Fate; synchronicity. The military reached the top of the stairs just as they were leaving with it. They brusquely brushed past them and entered the store, shooting up everything they could see. $499,000 was a lot but not enough to save everything downtown, as it turns out. Sandman had his dark dark wish fulfilled: traitor to his own kind.
(to be continued)
Filed under **VIRTUAL, 0037, 0316, Hana Lei^^, Sand Springs
“You better get back to your Edward, Shelley, and I should get back to my packing.” Because even at this early stage he knew it was no good for keeping the Nautilus residence. 1st thing to be boxed was his pride, his ego. $499,000 dollars is a lot of money but he figures he’ll need just that to save the downtown area from the military. Because the alarm *will* be sounded, somewhere and sometime soon. His personal Sandsim police force will be usurped. Suspect 102, as they called her/him/it, must be found and interrogated for the cause.
“I only ask one thing, *Jennifer*,” for he already thought of her as a cash cow and not a real person, “is when you find it — press the button. That’s all I ask for free lodging, food, haircuts, pedicures manicures, anything you like from any of the shops and other locations. Look where noone thinks of looking. They’ve made sure I can’t be the one…”
“… to do it, yes,” spoke Shelley. “So you’ve said.”
“I’m warm weather, Shelley — I meant Shelley back there, sorry. Remember that.”
“Hmm.”
She’s weighing her options. She can’t bring Edward — that was made clear. It would have to be Arthur accompanying her (speaking of ‘hmm’). She’d forgotten all about Lemont, the actor behind the character, when making the decision. “Sold.” She extended her hand for a shake. Too bad he didn’t have a vanilla hidden in his back pocket to meet it with. Just for a joke, mind you. But she was too precious for all that. She *was*… the golden one, the one to make the change. He could see it in her eyes, all umbrella-y and such at this particular angle in the night’s light. All the books in the world resided there. No need for a library, although that’s where he’ll meet her later and reveal himself again.
Filed under **VIRTUAL, 0037, 0315, Hana Lei^^, Lower Austra^, Nautilus, Sand Springs, Wild West
Sunklands 