The 4 horsemen are logically reduced to two and brought into closer proximity with the main body that leads or steers. Let’s call this one “Big Ear 02”. What’s he hearing through the fusion?
00430604
“I first saw what Mmmmmm Grassy Knoll later verified as some kind of Tiler in the slums of Kabusie, Green being his nature through his mask. He was posed in front of a red green yellow blue shack appropriately enough that we’ll also see around the fringes of the city: the Badlands, the Oil Fields, etc.
“Just afterward I spied him conversing with another Greenie on a nearby bench, solidifying the connection. Green tiles too, you’ll notice.
“Then to up the ante and finish the deal we shortly run across *3* identical, different Greenies (with brown shirts) meeting in the middle of a busy Kabusie street next to the roundabout Grassy also cited. Green tiles on either side of the street there too.
“So bringing back Washington state into the picture like with Kabusie, I have decided this is actually about the Green, the White, the Black,” Fern Stalin summarized at the Yalta Bar and Grill in Castle Town to her pal Lichen Roosevelt, with no Churchill still to be found. She’s talking about 3 central Washington rivers now, and how their histories intersect toward the beginning of the last century. “Green use to be White up to Black,” she started in this vein. “Then in 1906 the course of White changed after a land altering flood and Green no longer flowed into it just above a town called Auburn. Instead Green became its own entity, separate from White, up to Black about 10 miles north, which is the Black River. Then in 1916 things changed again with the opening of (Seattle’s) Lake Washington Ship Canal, an event that lowered the level of the namesake lake by 9 feet, thereby drying up former outlet Black as its water flowed instead toward Puget Bay. Thus Black no longer flowed into Green. Disconnection in that direction too. Follow me?”
“Disconnection… of both Black… *and* White… to Green?”
“Very good, Lichen. You’ve been studying your soils again. And that started… what?”
“The war,” she said confidently.
“The war to end all wars. Green vs. Gray — or Grey with an e, either one — depending on which side you want to emerge on top or maybe depending on which side of the ocean you’re on, British or American. Like Diablo and Draco. Trouble is, it never ends itself. Ouroboros. ‘Nother one. And Old Mabel’s Little Big got sucked into all that when Mars entered the fray, as was inevitable.
“Gray is Black and White together,” Lichen continued to grasp and grapple with Fern’s concepts. “Therefore, Gray is separate — disconnected — from Green. Therefore… um.”
“We must bring in the Indians to continue,” offered Fern. “Where Black and White historically intersect at what they called the Inside Place — pre-1906. True Gray. Or Grey with an e. We must go there next. Find the within spot, the still one. I just hope it’s there still,” she tried to joke. Lichen didn’t crack a smile. She’d figured out something while Fern attempted jest, perhaps a transfer of talents in the moment. Sages. They had to look for sages. Little and Big Soos, hard to differentiate from each other at the source. She excitedly told Fern this, which led to the uncovering of these old pictures from photo-novel 3. The expression “wow” comes to mind (!), since the name here is from a SIXMILE tributary of Washington state’s Green River near Auburn called Soos and not the Gravity Falls character.
Keep in mind that Mabel’s name also originates in this TV show. Along with her twin brother Little Big’s.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0043, 0604, C2077, Castle Town, Heterocera, Kabusie, Mars^^, Nightsity, Omega^^, Rubi^, Washington
00430603 (art and music)
“*There* you are, Greg Ogden you sneaky devil,” he said while watching him paint bathing beauty Redd again in a totally different location than before, different from anything we’ve seen so far in this here photo-novel, 43 in a series. “We’ll catch up as soon as I finish my tour, you abstracter you. I’ll remember where you are.”
Likewise period clothes wearing Greg said nothing, as if he wasn’t even aware of him passing by. The man hadn’t created an identity yet in this new land. Maybe that’s the problem. So on to the next terrace…
… where he encounters a band of progressive folk rock musicians. “The Whistler approaches!” said their leader as he comes into the scene. “A song for the Whistler!” And they leap right into the Jethro Tull song of that same name.
He circled around behind them, listening, then remembering. “It’s *Witcher*, not Whistler,” he exploded, bringing the tune to a screeching halt. “I am the Witcher. Fools.” With this declaration, he also recalled his mission. To save the town from a monster.
Now to refind Greg Ogden, because he knows something about this too.
“Halt Greg Ogden! Stand back from that *demon*!” he says to the painter when approaching again. Greg heard him this time, as the Witcher knew he would now that he understood who he was. Paintbrush dropped like the tune before it, he stood back. Redd’s face had changed.
Filed under **VIRTUAL OT, 0043, 0603, Witcher
00430602 (shining)
Baker Bloch stares at Ring Lady in Falmouth collage 07 and decides he must call a town meeting before things progress further. He *rings* up Wheeler, she rings up Hucka who still isn’t really talking to the male Baker. He rings up Newt which is kind of himself — in the same room. He rings up Baker Blinker his original female counterpart and still is in ways. And last: Grassy, representative of all things toys. How exciting to be getting the cores back together, chatting with each other again.
“Status report, Wheeler,” he requests to his right from his seat of power at the Blue Feather Table. “How’s daughter Shelley doing over in Heterocera?”
“Hooktip, right,” Wheeler clarifies. “Well, she’s going back her roots. And, no, before you say it it’s not brunette.”
“I wasn’t going to say that,” says Baker Bloch, serious for tonight’s meeting. Tonight’s important important meeting. Because all of Collagesity Aisle of Palms is at stake.
“Newt. To my left. Hi, first.”
“Hi.”
“We haven’t talked in a while.”
“Since Friday.”
“A year ago, yes.”
“Approximately.”
“How’s *your* daughter doing? Jennifer isn’t it?”
“Shelley,” answers Newt the same as Wheeler. For it is their child. We went over that in novels 34 and also 35. And some in 36-39 as well. Before the Big Change in 40. When Newt points this out, talk shifts to this change.
“40 is where I started reading Dolores Cannon and her Convoluted Universe series,” begins Baker on this new theme. “40 is where, through (the conduit of) Bellissaria, things started to head offworld. And then Aisle of Palms was founded (in 41). Current base; for 1/2 year now. About the last time we talked, Newt.”
“Approximately,” he said again. But what’s time in a town like this?
“So this brings us to the question: What if we just head offworld *permanently*? Exist in Youtube videos about Grand Theft Auto, Red Dead Redemption, and Cyberpunk 2077? Before getting a better computer and purchasing all those games and being able to walk inside them with an actual avatar, mind you. That could take another year. Years. Newt, we may not be talking with each other again until after that decision is made.”
“Fine,” he answered, knowing it didn’t matter in the long run. Baker was him and he was Baker. *All* were Baker. Besides Wheeler, besides Hucka, besides Baker Blinker, Grassy and some other cores. But mainly Wheeler. She was the new female to Baker’s male, the queen to his prime minister (of Aisle of Palms). He holds the power but she holds the jewels. They must be a balance. Newt doesn’t really play a role in this except as an exteriorization of Baker, a way for Wheeler to have a husband and so have Shelley as her child. Married to Arthur Kill still, yes (novel 35), but flirting around with Edward Daigle (37-43). Can the horses keep moving together in the same direction?
(to be continued)
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0043, 0602, Big Woods, Jeogeot
00430601 (going home…)
… before it’s too late.
She timed the exit perfectly. “Oh. Hi Shelley. Seems we’re going out at the same time.”
“Hi Lexi,” Shelley said while stopping her walk, letting her neighbor approach. “Where’re you heading?”
“You first.”
“I thought about shopping down at the mega-mall today. Boot sale at Fairies.”
“Hey, me too! What are the odds?”
Too odd, Shelley thought, but went along with it good-naturedly. She was use to attention like this, could handle the needed distance. She walked her own beat. In her own shoes. Keds, soon to be more she hoped.
But the boots didn’t suit her and she emerged from the Hooktip mega-mall still with Keds. Keds for the kids, she figured, to go along with the hair style she hadn’t changed since childhood. Lexi said she couldn’t find any boots to suit her as well, so retained her own shoes too, black cosplays I believe.
As they arrived back at their apartments, Lexi invites Shelley to help her unpack the big plywood cube from Montana that arrived yesterday’s day before (Saturday). “Get this,” she said. “There’s a robot dog in there just like from my childhood. Can’t *wait* to put it together.” But then Lexi remembered the likewise plywood colored pictures on her living room wall, the shells and, especially, the keyhole with the beautiful girl inside, Lexi’s representation of Shelley as Fern had already determined during her visit several posts back. “Uh, just remembered my apartment is a mess,” she backtracked. “Need to clean up. Maybe tomorrow, he he.”
Shelley stuck out her hand to shake. “It’s a date,” making Lexi actually blush a bit. She’d been waiting for this moment for so long. Date, but not what she hoped. Still the word was out there, ready to be molded into something different. She envisions a happy ending. And she’ll have that robot built by then and they can play fetch with it or something. It can be *their* pet. Together (sigh). She finally remembers to let go of Shelley’s hand.
“Laters,” Shelley says, using that same hand to wave brief parting in one, graceful motion, like a dancer, Lexi noted. Soon she will be dancing to a different beat, she hopes, watching her walk away.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0043, 0601, Heterocera, VHC City^
00430516 (DITCH the switch)
Drew Grumpy Cleveland now had to wear 3 hats instead of 1. Co-manager of the Yalta Bar still he was, and then fill in for Barry De Boy (other bar co-manager) and Wendy (town gatekeeper), both of whom had skedaddled off to who knows where. So the bar was self service a lot of the time, thus Fern and Lichen having to serve their own beers before that fated walk where they found the big cube blocking their passage forward, dropped down from heaven or such by the Big Bosses and therefore couldn’t be moved or deleted by anyone else. But the same was also cutting down overall business here in Castle Town of Omega’s deep south, and so Drew had time to nap on, actually, all 3 jobs. Just like Petty in Aisle of Palms — at least before he was sacked because of it — managed to keep up with his sleep due to low tourism and attached cash flow in his several jobs there. Grumpy also had time to study the bookcase lists — like now. He had the 2 side by side again, just like he presented to Fern toward the beginning of this here photo-novel.
White to the left, Black to the right. But, somehow someway, Diablo *wasn’t* switched or reversed with the following word Draco in the second (Black) list like before. Going along with this, former porn star and current nudist Drew was president instead of janitor at the Martian Asylum Inc. business, roles reversed there as well, lowest flips with highest. He knows even if he loses all 3 Castle Town jobs his place on a pedestal in heaven is secured. And perhaps that’s the reason for the highest of higher ups to drop the cube on the town in the first place. To change reality so that Drew is king. We’ll see.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0043, 0516, Castle Town, Omega^^
00430515
“What are we going to *do*, Fern?” They’d run into this huge plywood cube almost immediately after leaving the bar, blocking further progress, blocking what was actually their favorite place in Castle Town, down over the rails there and through the southward tunnel. The garden spot park on its edge where we last saw Barry De Boy. And Wendy.
Fern reaches into her gray capri pants and pulls out a golden gun. No, not that, she thinks, and then puts that in the back one while she reaches deeper into the front. Phone. She’ll just call Lexi, see if she has anything to do with this. Dialing…
“Hi Lexi. Listen, we have a problem here over in Castle Town.”
(reply)
“No, the one where Lichen is at.” My Shelley, she thinks but doesn’t voice, looking over at the blonde hair, the spinning blonde piece of straw in her mouth, more agitated than ever. Lichen didn’t like this, didn’t like change. But Fern knew they had to leave.
(reply)
“That’s right. On what you call the Forbidden continent but what Lichen and I like to call Omega, yes.”
(reply)
“Oasis in a desert of shame — you remember. Flattered. Speaking of flat…”
(reply)
“*15*?” Fern knew that the members of the Firesigntheatregoers group numbered 5 the last time she checked. Shelley, Baker and Wheeler, and then 2 others.
“What’s 15?” Lichen asked over. Fern ignored her for the moment, absorbing the new names. Took a while. Well if you aren’t going to answer me, Lichen thought, I’m just going to go over to the rail and look down at where we *should* be by now. If it weren’t for this blasted *cube*.
Dumpster down there gone as well, Lichen noted. Interesting.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0043, 0515, Castle Town, Heterocera, Omega^^, VHC City^
00430514
Fern realized something else while staring at this suspiciously plywood colored picture more in the center of the room but didn’t say it aloud.
She waited for this until she and Lichen met up for their typical evening walk within the innards of Castle Town not seen in a photo since section 01 of this here novel.
“She loves her,” Fern said to her companion at their standard starting point in the Yalta Bar and Grill, sharing a beer before they begin. “Romantic that she is I guess it couldn’t be helped. She holds the key to my heart is the message. Right up there on the wall separating her from Shelley. Again. It was as if…”
“… she were peeking inside,” guessed Lichen.
“Good, right. Now all we have to do is finish connecting the 152 dots in the puzzle. Up to 76 I believe.” Seventy-six, Fern discerns once more. Kentucky! Alpha, Wait, Stop-gap, Hidalgo, Static, Snow, *Wendy*.
“Well. I guess that goes along with being a Pisces, water sign and all,” continued Lichen about Lexi. “Her home town — drowned when she was young.”
“Submerged yes.” And Fern then understood where they had to go next. Snorkeling in Flathead Lake, divided between the counties of Flathead and Lake of all things. And Polson the largest city along the shoreline. Another indicator. This was to be made into an Art Event.
(to be continued)
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0043, 0514, Badlands, C2077, Castle Town, Heterocera, Kabusie, Kentucky, Montana, Omega^^, VHC City^
00430513
“Hmm, interesting picture over there,” Fern said, noting that it was on the wall shared with *Shell*ey’s apartment.
Lexi wanted to get to the main point. “So what’s this… cube all about? Why is it — why does it look like plywood? *And* (she looks around)… where the heck are we? What happened to all the, er, shading?”
“Good question. And the answer is: we are in an old place now. Graphics improve with each new game generation. We are not in Nightsity any longer. Not really.” Fern turned to her traveling companion, the one she nabbed from Kabusie which is actually Kabuki (as overarching Nightsity is actually Night City). “You’ve been here before. You were a brain-daze editor here as well as there. I’m going to surprise you, Lexi. This may have come first.”
Lexi stares at the cube, trying to remember. She reviews what she knows. Fern, or a miniature version thereof, a robot or doll or something, found the cube in a ditch and took it in for evidence. She disappeared again and then came back larger (normal); said she was going to take it to a friend’s apartment and that Lexi should join her. So: here we are, teleport between dimensions successful. Fern had been wanting to try it out for a while. But the friend’s door was locked and the security orb was on. So she had to bring it here next door. As close as she could get. Owned by a girl from Montana of all places. Just like where Lexi got the kit for the flathead style robot she built specifically to explore the Kabusie ditches, where my train of thoughts end.
“Oh.” Fern realized, helping me out and allowing me to continue. “This is *your* apartment, Lexi. You live next door to Shelley.”
Lexi remembered.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0043, 0513, C2077, Heterocera, Kabusie, Nightsity, VHC City^
00430512
He actually turned the other cheek after I verbally abused him. When did monkeys, representing animals in general in this scenario, become more dignified than humans?
Knowing Fern performs before the green screen again while pal Frank Lynn observes.
‘Phil. Phillie,” she calls again from the rail.
“And *cut*,” the director directed. “Anyone got any rock cocaine because that was *brilliant*.”
Filed under **VIRTUAL OT, 0043, 0512, GTA
Sunklands 