PHOTO-NOVEL 43
00430103
“Those books in back aren’t for the general public,” spoke nudist and co-manager of the Yalta Bar and Grill Drew “Grumpy” Cleveland to Fern and Lichen later on. “I only let friends back there, people I know, people I can trust who won’t sully the pages and so on. And I know all the books as well. I had ‘Around the World in 1000 Pictures’ not ‘2000’. That’s a later, expanded version I didn’t purchase. And I don’t take donations — not directly. I buy books. I *know* books.”
“Pure enough,” said Fern to this, still scanning the list before her on the counter. 26 words for 26 letters in order from A to Z. But Asylum isn’t among them — didn’t start it off. Instead: company letterhead at the top. She’d done a little research before confronting Grumpy with the list they’d found. Asylum Inc. was started by one Wayne Bruce in 1972 in Nightsity, California. Thing is, Nightsity doesn’t exist. Not in *this* reality. In 1988 it supposedly moved to Jasper County GA near Atlanta, apparently another lie.
Here’s a Google Street View of the address from the letterhead. Nothing.
The most confounding thing of all: When Fern and Lichen returned to the bookshelves around back to check for additional evidence, “Around the World in 2000 Pictures” was no longer there. Instead, a copy of “Around the World in 1000 Pictures”, brown colored instead of blue for the former, was present in the exact same spot, just like Grumpy said he bought. Even ultra-sharp Fern couldn’t figure this out in the moment. Not yet. It would take the closing of one eye and the opening of another to accomplish.
00430110 (paying the Price)
“Oh, before I forget, Lexi, I want you to do me a favor.” He pulled out a small black disk from his black jean pants and handed it to her. “I want you to help me analyze this thing.”
“A brain-daze? What happened, boss, the girlfriend get up and leave you all of a sudden, ha?”
“No no not that kind of brain-daze. Surveillance. Stalking actually, as it turned out. Blue haired dame. May even know her. That pop star Blue Moon Kentucky. Last seen near the dam… remember?”
“Of course I know BM Kentucky.” She eyed it more keenly. “W-where’d you get it?”
“Never mind you that,” replied the boss.
“Oh but it’s important. Could be a virus.”
“It’s from a reputable source, (then). Guy named Daydreaming Gamer.”
“Mhm hmm, I’ve heard of him. Creates tours of Nightsity for visitors who don’t have powerful enough computers to visit in person. Didn’t know he worked with stalkers.”
“I don’t think he knew he was. Accident, we’ll say. The dam is an odd place. People claim it can warp space-time, make you see things that aren’t really there. Maybe someone happened to get inside a glitch?”
“Who tipped you off?”
Should Edward say, “Blue Moon herself”? Too early, he deemed. “A fan,” he said instead. “Someone who wants to see justice done.”
Lexi wondered: Blue Moon fan or UK Cracks? knowing she went solo about 5 years ago. But decided it was irrelevant. Could be both of course. Later, she wished she’d asked this very thing. Turned out to be relevant as all get out. Because the “stalker” was now a fan of only one album, one song really, and it was indeed from her solo period. Single named “Keep on Shining.” The one that brought her back to life.
—–
“Okay, just lay back and relax and study everything you see. Okay, not *that* laid back. Sit up a bit.
“I’ll turn on the machine from my end. Ready? Sit up a bit more please, boss (which he does). Okay, here goes…”
—–
“WHOA, get me out of here, Lexi, get me out of here! It’s *him*, it’s HIM.”
00430111
“We should be okay once we get past the bridge.
“Oh f-ck, now *don’t* panic like you did before, boss.”
“What’ll I DO? He’s, he’s heading right for me!”
“Remember, boss, these aren’t *your* memories. Whatever happened has already happened. Just let him pass through you if that’s the way this plays out.”
“Bring me out, bring me out!”
—–
“See? That wasn’t so bad. Now. Let’s get back to the task of finding Blue Moon.”
“Blue *Who*?”
00430112 (Crazy Blue)
“You know if you keep using that brain-daze, Edward my Eddie, you’ll never get out of Nightsity. You’ll be stuck here forever with your one girl and your one guy, unable to leave.”
“I’m *not* bisexual if that’s what you mean,” he defended his actions, smooching heavily on the girl in a current scenario.
“I know. But your mate over there is, sitting alone right now, waiting his turn. His *turning*. Where do you think this is going, Ed?”
He stared over at patient Arthur beyond her shoulder. The acquiescent hubby.
“What do you recommend? Bartender?” She was a secondary source of alcohol for Edward her Eddie in this town. After Lexi of course. Too bad she too doesn’t offer brain-daze services or perhaps she could give Lexi a run for her money. He likes Sarah. He likes her heart tattoo. And Lexi likes women and he can’t switch over like that. Then again, there’s always Panama for that. Where *was* Panama? He goes long stretches without even remembering who she is, forgets that she even exists on the fringes of Nightsity, waiting her turn. Patient like Arthur here. For now.
“Blue Moon Kentucky,” replied Sarah to this. “You’ve forgotten she even existed — *exists* still.”
“Blue Moon too!” realizes Edward aloud. What *else* has he ceased to recall?
00430113 (she walked right into it)
“Hii! What’s this, then?”
—–
“We’ll get you sorted out in a second, dearest. “Oh hello? Herbert? Got a favor to ask you.”
(reply)
“Uh huh. Brain-daze. How’d you know?”
(reply)
“Tone of voice, eh? Well… it’s for a very special person, someone presumed, let’s say, missing.”
(reply)
“No I can’t tell you. Sorry. That a deal breaker? Just reminding you it usually isn’t.”
(reply)
“Great. Just that detail, huh? Well, it was around the dam. You know, the big one. Over in Rancho—”
(reply)
“Nooo,” Marillia lied. Because Herbert had guessed the identity of the person. She wasn’t careful enough. Besides — she really didn’t care if he knew or not. She felt Herbert was trustworthy. And the more info he got, the better he could set this all up. So, yeah: everything is still cool. Unconsciously she seemed to have planned it. She usually doesn’t slip up like that. Her Greater Self knew what it was doing, though.
“Okay, you got me. It’s her.”
—–
She was still on the phone when Blue Moon simply got up and walked out, bored of the scene. Marillia had to let her go. Besides — she really didn’t care if she left or not. Sufficient info had been downloaded. She’d be back soon enough.
00430114 (Dam sin)
00430115
Clarence spied something that really got him excited. Bootleg VHS Tapes, he pondered, looking more in the distance than what one might expect, someone like De Boy for instance. That must mean there’s old time users around. He’d ask the girl. But first, down to the business that brought him here.
“Would you like to be a model, dearest? Aisle of Palms has an opening.”
—–
“Found him,” she said to Clara Bellissaria, a name mispelled on purpose. Because she was a spy too, the first found.
Clarence and Clara, yes. Makes sense now, Fern thought. Father and child. Fruit doesn’t fall far from the tree, and so on.
“Come on, Lichen, let’s go,” Fern said, seeing Clarence move with Redd toward the tapes in the game within a game. “We need to have a word with this *model*.”
—–
From the northeast and one floor up, old time user Martha spies Clarence + Redd + Tape Girl from between 2 bushes to angle a whole ‘nother level into our story.
00430116
“Well I’m glad you threw on *some* clothes. A bit of bosom still hanging out there I see. Can’t resist.”
“No,” she said nonchalantly, and purses her lips even more in disdain for the discourse. “Whadda ya want? Tobacco? Because that’s all I have to offer.”
“I *want*… to know why Clarence the Spy was here in the first place. And what the assignment is. You’ve already been a model in Aisle of Palms. To the painter Greg Ogden, remember? Why did Clarence approach you about going back?”
“Because he recognized me, I suppose. Recognized talent, like the first guy.”
“Well tell me about the 1st guy for criminy’s sake.”
“Bald. Old. Reformed stealer of art he told me. Gold I think is the name. Remembered me and the girls called him Old Gold after that, yeah. ‘Is Old Gold gonna pick you up in his Oldsmobile this evening?’ Stuff like that… silly girl banter. You wouldn’t understand.”
“Oh I *understand*,” replied Fern, feeling slighted about her superior brain power. “First you put on a bathing suit, then some revealing red lingerie, and now this, about as fully dressed as you can get, I suppose. I know your type. You didn’t like being *abstracted*.”
Redd said nothing to this except, “you done?”
“Yeah, I suppose I am.” She knew who “Old Gold” was, of course. She couldn’t talk to the wife about this for discretionary reasons. But maybe Greg would know something.
“One more thing. Do you know where Greg Ogden is now? We haven’t seen him since he finished your so-called portrait. I’m speaking for all the members of the Baker Bloch family, extended and otherwise.”
Redd looked around then leaned forward, reducing her voice. “Buy me out of my daily requirement of smoke sales and we’ll talk. I’ll be free to leave my post, then. Boss just wants X amount of money per day. You’ll give him that, then I’ll tell you the information you need.”
*Knew* there was something here, thought Fern while she reached into her gray capri pants to retrieve her wallet. Wait… how’d that *pistol* get in there??
She finally wakes up.
00430117
In this here photo-novel 43, almost certainly not the last of a series, I’ve been cobbling together images from a number of separate Our Second Life locations to make a poor poor man’s rendition of Nightsity from the Cyberpunk 2077 video game, perhaps the most realistic virtual city ever created. Probably is, minus its NPC’s, which are a little wonky acting still. Not up to snuff in that way with urban areas from vaunted Rock Star games Grand Theft Auto V and Red Dead Redemption 2. But most everything else is equal or better for the newer game, the latest Grant Theft and Red Dead installments being from 2013 and 2018 respectively. Cyberpunk was released in 2020 to much fanfare but was *filled* with glitches and errors at the beginning. Well, according to recent reviews these seemed to have been essentially ironed out in subsequent updates and patches, and CD Projekt Red, the company that put out the product (also known for the Witcher video game series), says they’re basically done with the thing as of earlier this year. The dust is still settling on the finished work and people are still debating what has been created/revealed. Seems important. Seems different. A terrifying vision of the future, *our* future as a country (US of America) and of the world as a whole.
Maybe when I get a more powerful computer I can go there in person. 🙂 But in the meantime I have my small, connected collection of Our Second Lyfe substitutes and also game exploration videos found on Youtube by the likes of Daydream Gaming (who I call Daydreaming Gamer in the blog and attached photo-novel) and Mares The Martian (who I shortened to just “The Martian” in same (coming up!)). Also: Let’s Walk has some quite fascinating Youtube videos out there, including a 7 part “Walking Around the Edge of the (Cyberpunk 2077) Map” that I’ve been slowly making my way through. So a big shout out to these Youtube content creators, and also the ones making the Nightsity-ish locations in Our Second Lyfe that include Mouser Dowling’s Dystopian Night and Sektor 2, Sensory Hax’s Neuromancer 2020, and ღJennyღ (llxjenxll)’s ATP Paradise. Well done all. I’m certainly still exploring the content from these and others.
And of course it’s Night City not Nightsity, another blog/photo-novel alteration.
One day…
00430201 (model 2.0)
She came here in a boat…
… but not that one.
—–
“A new creator this time, boss. One called The Martian. Name is meaningful too, because it tells me how he got inside the glitch. Piggyback. On another content creator, Daydreaming Gamer in this case. Overlap. So I’ll fast forward a bit and start you with the flamingos. You’ll see the same during the day soon. But this is a way they get highlighted.”
“I see.” He knew they were approaching the glitch.
(to be continued)
00430202
“Okay I have them held for now. I’ve also hid the primary’s body to aid in our tasks.”
“Copy that, Ian. Steady as she goes.”
“One leads, one steers. I don’t know how long this can go on without heading off the rails.”
“Let us worry about that,” the voice spoke into his ear again. “You do your part is all we’re asking.”
—–
He thinks he can get away with this, seethes Redd across the way, indeed seeing the hidden with her replacement eyes made by Kapooshi. And so does fellow spy Page in the booth beside her, also selling tobacco, also staring. Between them they could write a book about their augmented experiences. And I got scolded for letting my *own* hang out by that *bookworm* hmph, she thinks.
But what Redd didn’t realize is that they are one and the same, like right and left of one body. Both reds. Wendy is being studied again.
00430203
She sits in the dark and stares at TV static while thinking about the artist whose first name is Tennessee and the musician whose last name is Kentucky. Both “former,” it seems, as in dead, possibly even murdered. Maybe even… one and the same? Shelley phones up Edward to talk about it. Hubby Arthur is off acting again in a far away location. The boyfriend will have to do.
“Meet me at Sarah’s,” she requested. “Let’s walk around the town together.” She didn’t add, “then come back here,” but it was implied.
“Let’s make it Lexi’s,” altered Edward, knowing Sarah was quite the gossip.
“On my way, then.”
Contractually, she was required to wear the Crazy Blue outfit at all times now, no exceptions. Except one.
Later she studies the sappy “Abduct My Heart” lamp given to her by Arthur for her birthday before he left. She begins to cry.
What did she figure out? That Tennessee and Kentucky were indeed one beyond the Black Wall.
00430204 (Night is odd)
“Where’s *Edward* today? Your boy.”
“He’s not my boy,” Shelley quickly shot back. “He’s just… a friend.”
“A toy? I mean, you’re just toying with him, right? Until Arthur comes back.”
“You know the story of Arthur. He’s away a lot. He… understands,” she decides to tack on.
“Shakespeare I’ve heard. Asia, Africa, Europe, maybe Australia and New Zealand even. Oceania. As far away as he can get from your loving arms.”
“What can I say, he’s a dreamer. Anyway, back to your original question, Edward is doing one of those brain-dazes with Lexi. They’re still fiddling around with the Petrochemistry Dam, trying to find that dead pop star in the neighborhood there. But I’m sure Edward has told you all about it, especially after a couple of your patented house drinks. Even numbered drinks on the house, pheh. When did 3, 5, 7, and 9 becomes not odd, Sarah?”
“He he. Woman’s gotta have a hobby.” She pours Shelley another drink, a 2 I believe. “First free one, Shelley. Drink up. Then tell me more about this Kentucky girl who went missing and is presumed dead. Bedside chat, we’ll call it.”
“Nah, I’m not going to go there.” But she takes her first sip of the concoction (Nightshine I believe Sarah calls it) and begins to forget her promise. Just like Blue Moon Kentucky before her. Sarah knows more than she’s letting on.
—–
Edward couldn’t stop replaying the moment. The pop star in disguise just… popped up! From behind that woman there.
With help from Lexi, he’s studying all angles and then some. Mysterious heat source in the thermal layer to the upper right. Could be *him* again. Beware.
00430205
4 seconds after manifesting, Blue Moon waltzes past “Source Woman”…
… before disappearing again in a puff of smoke while a billboard image of herself looks on from the distance with those Kapooshi replacement eyes she pimped while alive. Weird as all get out, he’s determined. Eating her own tail? Makes him think of Shelley again. Ouroboros.
“Better call it a day, Lexi. Thanks again so much for your help. We’ll solve this thing fer sure.” He removes the virtual reality googles, tries to become fully himself again. He can still smell the stench of the garbage all around him, feel the desert heat. 5 minutes later: “There, I think — it’s faded enough. I’m ready to go.” And he gets up out off the couch to go meet Shelley and tell her all the new developments, hoping she hadn’t gotten to the odd numbered drinks past 1 yet. Too late, though. Shelley had spilled some beans, enough for Sarah to start her own investigation into the matter. Black Wall indeed, she ponders later at her apartment upstairs, filled with the latest and greatest spyware equipment.
00430206 (KY and TN)
“There’s Blue Moon again, Lexi. Bigger than ever in life.”
“Just keep looking for clues,” she responded, not wanting that many distractions on the way to their ultimate goal. “The city will not give you everything. You must keep walking around the margins, poking around here and there and everywhere. Characters are obviously important. Blue Moon. Panama perhaps. Judith who is, well, *me*. And you seem to be the same as (1st person) V or Val, with an oppositely positioned Valerie lurking around the corner as well. The dam, boss. Keep poking around that damn dam.”
—–
The date attracted me. I had to ask. “Do you know… Tennessee?”
00430207
“I don’t trust the fish here,” said Wanda to Jenny just above a whisper.
“Oh honey, you don’t have to worry about those mercury poisoning deaths. All the fish in this town come from the *east* coast now, not west. That’s long behind us.”
“Noo,” corrected Wanda. “You don’t understand. I don’t trust — the *fish* here. Over there. Listening… I can hear them listening. I have that… talent.”
“Honey the only talent you have is coming up with conspiracy theories right and left. What was it last week? The birds reading our thoughts?”
“*Noo*.” But then Wanda remembered it was yes. Yeah, maybe she just is being paranoid. Black Sabbath Day over in the mega-mall after all. All those fairies will wear boots over there she’s sure. STOP
GO “Well, what do you think of it, Larry? Something else, isn’t it? The *Horns* make me wear it and that’s the last I’m going to say about *them*. Edward has to go along with it since they’re the big bosses. He’s only the boss boss. Besides, he seems to be paying more attention to Lexi these days than me — you know Lexi, the brain-daze wizard from 2 sectors over. They’re off to Primary Nightsity any spare moment they get. The only time I have Edward to myself is at night. Kind of ironic I guess.”
But Larry remained silent throughout all this, although he was interested as hell when Wanda and Jenny were exchanging the dialog I began this post with. Because now: he hears them too, just behind his head. Spyware all around in this town; in everything. Wanda has a right to be paranoid for certain because paranoia is truth in this case. Except for the shadowy “hatted men”. That’s the Benadryl she’s on for her allergies. Most likely.
(to be continued)
00430208
New Nightsity. New *street* in Nightsity, let’s say. And also TILE related obviously because of the green red yellow blue symbols above its sign.
Wanda can get her allergy pills here to make her more happy…
… but also make the shadowy hatted man she dreads so much appear more frequently. Can’t remember a darn thing after he shows up! she laments. But she hasn’t put the two together and remains oblivious to the drug’s side effect.
Fern is here to enlighten her, because she has enough trouble without this added layer and angle.
Like Redd in an alleyway 1 block over staring at a canvas covered body she may or may not have done in with her outstanding wickedness.
And what might be her partner in crime still cooking on a person nearby.
The answers may come from this onlooking gal, perhaps the 3rd of the group, or at least the 3rd in this alleyway configuration of living, breathing beings. Yes, Derek is fully cooked now as I’m checking. So: 3.
Wait. One more.
00430209
He was looking the right direction this time. The rollerskating waitress rolled in with a burger, a drink, a ketchup, a mustard as instructed. Shelley Johnston Struthers studied the abstract painting on the wall closer to the main counter while she was waiting for her own food. “Horror” it was called. She would have chosen something more neutral like “Lava.” The Everly Brothers blared from a jukebox on the opposite side of the diner.
Holographic fish spun around a pole outside, indicating we were still in some sort of Nightsity of one kind or another if we didn’t already know that fact.
I’m not sure exactly what’s going on here outside the diner with this floating food kiosk but this is Ianna and she’s either flashing someone a peace sign or indicating two of something with her outstretched hand. 2 Hills?
Might be.
Eggs are done, easy over for Edward and sunny side up for Shelley. Always. Thanks to the Horns.
Just upstairs as it turns out, checking on some of their other girls in some of their other windows.
00430210 (Frank (acceptance of a proposition))
“The spool table at the beginning of the section was a tip off (spool tables play a part in a number of my collages). Keep your eyes peeled.
“And so I went back and replayed moving past the ‘Horn Girls’ sign at slow speed, got the correct angle with the leany telephone pole to display the situation as best as possible.
“Then I walked near the mega-mall heading down famed Grove Street and similarly blocked out the hyphen between the two words with a palm tree: no fairies with boots around, though, ha.”
“Ha,” Lexi responded in kind to the boss, not the big boss but the boss boss still. Someone to answer to. Which she just did.
“Then I waited at the Blue Balls sculpture until it got fully dark.”
“Blue Balls. And that’s the same as Blue Moons?”
“I suppose. Then, after narrowly avoiding getting hit by a train (he forgot to look both ways before crossing the tracks), I see Redd. Standing under a streetlamp to illuminate her cause.”
“Younger version. And you say you don’t remember the encounter but Redd does. She told you about it later.”
“Yeah. She said we… well, you know.”
Lexi sighs. This had been a long day at it and it was 3:30 in the morning. Time to send Edward, her Eddie, back to the loving arms of his non-wife Shelley.
2077 NPC Issues 01: Twins
And these less than 3 minutes from each other on the same recorded walk from 4 months ago as of this writing. Next up: the rarer but still occurring triplet sightings, maybe even 4 at a time??
Video provided by the blog assimilated Youtuber “Lettuce Walk” (actually: “Let’s Walk”).
his pretend banner
00430212
Second shift for the flying noodle kiosk seen several posts back. Night time in Nightsity. Gloria has her own way of doing things, which includes less hanging out and more work to be done. Less flying about all over the place and more being grounded and sure of herself. She dresses modestly in comparison. Ianna is such a flirt with her willy nilly flashing peace signs and all, she thinks while watching the first customer approach. Like this one. “Can I help you?” she says to Horn puppet Shelley Johnston Struthers, trying to hide the judgment in her voice about the Crazy Blue.
Nearby Edward waits patiently with the food at a different venue while Shelley retrieves her sugary drink from Gloria. She’s not happy with just unsweetened tea like her Eddie.
But this was all planned. Edwina certainly has Cokey Cola and Spriite and the like in back. Just hid that fact to Shelley, enabling her to talk to fellow operative Edward alone and compare notes on the story. 43, both knew.
“How do you think the photo-novel is going so far?” asked Edwina with the appropriate number on her cap, turned around to make it less obviously so.
“Good I suppose.” He resisted the urge to say “fair.” “I hear… we’re back in GTA V again. Fellow named Frank. A writer I think. Not a hustler this time.”
“Red book,” Edwina elaborates about the primary work involved. “Starts with Redd from Jamestown Street; works in her blue bud Page. Pages about Page too.”
“I guess we’ll see how it all unwinds.”
“I suppose we will. Look for a physical copy of the book on Mars from the future,” she added. “Red planet after all. Seek Teebestia there. Seek *Asylum.* You should leave soon. In terms of ships, take the one after 909.”
“Like Snowden, right.” He spies Shelley in the distance receiving her drink from Gloria. “Thanks for doing this, Edwina,” he said, knowing they’d probably shared enough information to get them started again. “And thanks to Gloria for being in on this too.”
“She hates the Horns as much as I do. She’ll do anything to get back at them for what they did to her sister. Have you seen Ianna? Flying all around, hanging all about. Brainwashed. Oh… here comes Shelley.”
“So that’s what happened,” said Edward quickly in a lowered tone half to himself, then turned to Shelley just entering the scene. She takes a loud sip of her Cokey Cola to show her displeasure about Edwina’s drink offerings.
“Happy?” says Edward to her as she takes a stool beside him, pulls the tray over with the two loaded cheeseburgers Edward ordered. Before the planned “incident.”
“Suppose.” An even louder sip, right in front of Edwina’s face.
—–
“Tell me some of her weaknesses,” said Gloria earlier to Edward, trying to arrange the rendezvous.
“Well… she loves sugar. Can’t do without it.”
“Bingo.”
2077 NPC Issues 02: Twins 02
Siamese in this case (two heads on one, fused body). And two of ’em ta boot. Walker had to pause to take in the scene. Which I captured above (Lettuce Walk again — thanks!).
00430302
—–
“I’m actually here looking for V, Emeralda. Have you seen him around lately? Horns, you know, like me, except two of them. Like if Benny and I were one again, Horns of Hatton and all. We’re looking to synchronize the left and the right again, two parts of one. Side for you, side for me.”
“V is in a different world,” spoke Emeralda in that strange, smokey voice of hers. Only 1/2 woman at best. 1/2 human actually.
Jer Left Horn waited for more, then had to ask himself. “Okay, *which* world?” Authoritative tone for an authoritative man. Brother Benny’s in contrast was ordinary, even goofy. Like he didn’t give a damn about his high position in the world. Except for the women — low self esteem you see — figures it’s the only way he can get any.
“His own”, she answered, then just vanished from the couch after flashing him some weird sign, he observes. First a V with one hand then a V with the other with the first still held up, then joined together. VW… V or Val’s World? he ponders later.
Great, Jer Left Horn thinks in the present. My only contact in this God forsaken place disappeared into thin air like the green genie she is. He’ll have to poke around himself, see if he can find any more clues concerning the whereabouts of his… well… father. *Supposedly*.
Meanwhile, on a different world, V looks to switch bodies again, knowing new agents were on his trail. This doofus will do, he thinks, seeing the figure superimposed with his letter as he passed him on the streets; determined it was destiny. To prepare the transfer, he’d have to stalk the fellow for a while, learn his habits, figuratively live in his skin before doing so literally. All this coming from the future — shouldn’t be hard since it was preordained. Pieces should fall into place pretty quickly, he thinks. Side for you, side for me.
00430304 (Page?)
“I tried to lighten the mood early in our friendship by showing him the Tire Nutz juxtaposition, Lichen, which he didn’t know about despite being local too. You’d be proud of me that day. Two big tractor tires on top of an auto repairs shop just down the street from my dealership, with a phallic water tower in back if you look at it straight on. Obviously done on purpose. Can you picture it in your mind’s eye, Lichen my partner? Do you even remember what those things look like, how they’re configured and such?”
“The tires are nuts, right,” says Lichen, serious in the moment while trying to figure all this out with her lesser brain power. “And the Blue Balls were nearby?”
“The Kentucky sculpture, yes, with three balls instead of 2, so: moons. Made by Tennessee. This was the fulfillment of her unfinished Mars project, poked through into another dimension. But Asylum was behind all of this still.”
“So we’re beyond… the Black Wall?”
“I’m not ready to go that far, my blonde buddy. It’s beyond me right now. And you know how I don’t like limitations of the mind.”
“Dangerous,” responds Lichen to this. “Keep ’em at bay with jokes.”
“Hmm.”
—–
One sector over, Clara Bellissaria is keeping tabs on tobacco selling Redd back at her station, noting that she is a 2n1 now and that the new left is different from the old right. The white horse leads, the black horse steers. Hasn’t gone off the rails yet. But soon she knew there would have to be a decision made, and Fern through her.
00430305
I knew with my limited computer power combined with some limitations of the game itself, I would not be visiting C2077 and its Nightsity, etc., in person anytime soon. Yet developments still continue there thanks to the efforts of others like Daydreaming Gamer, The Martian, and, especially lately, Lettuce Walk. Through the latter, V has been stalking his potential new body around town trying to detect habits and patterns. He better hurry because those aforementioned agents are still on his trail. More on that soon.
Oh. And I found a demon in one of the longest C2077 walking videos made by Daydreaming Gamer currently online. Pretty cool. Pretty scary. Is this an entity behind the Black Wall staring out at me, however briefly? Do they even *exist* in time, though? A large whooshing sound accompanied the glance so I knew this was in all likelihood a real “paranormal” phenomenon.
A type of grandma figure led me to this moment starting with her own, much less threatening glance…
… soon passing by a TILE styled kiosk at the bottom of the stairs here. And just beyond: it.
We find out later that the umbrella holding woman’s name is Magenta. In both cases?
00430306 (Ms. Blue Eyes)
“Saw a weird image out on the street. Seems like your kind of work.”
“What did it look like?”
“Grabbed a scan, take a look.”
“Yeaahh, V. You just shared a porn clip with me.”
“W-whaat?”
—–
“Silverhhand. Had to be. You form a harmonious whole in the moment. Look for more images in the same location. This… woman seems to be communicating from one plane to Jonny but also another plane to you. Another 2n1.”
“Great.”
“A difficult time is coming where you’ll have to choose a path. Then, you’ll understand.”
Exhale. “Dunno if I’m swallowing all this, Mysti.”
“Just come on back when you find more. I’ll help decipher what you’ve seen.”
00430310
“What about that chick behind me, V? You stalked her around too. If you choose her instead of that orange Doofus — maybe we’ll get along better than ever. You can see what ol’ silverhhand here can actually do.” He stares down at his metal hand and expertly wiggles each finger to emphasize his point. I’ve decided not to go with this “Hustle” girl for these very reasons. We have enough complications to deal with besides sexual attraction, at least on the part of Jonny. I told him this.
“So it’s Edward, then, hmph,” he replied, kind of lowering and shaking his head, then raising it again with a new thought. “Oh… about the Japantown girl. I remember her name — speaking of hands. It’s *Han*. And as I recall, yeah she lived over there somewhere. Mysti’s probably right about all that. 1/2 Japanese as I also recall. Couldn’t tell it by her eyes, though.”
I think: So Jonny also believes she is his missing hand come back to haunt him. Interesting. I became curious. “So… Jonny. What actually happened to your hand, your arm? I mean the real one?”
“Threw it away in that deep trash pit over in Japantown — what do I care?”
But that’s exactly where *they* found it.
(to be continued)
00430314 (hand of Tin)
I opened up the blinds to a world I never got to experience. They didn’t promise me a window in my apartment — I do remember that aspect. Food, books, art, even a woman. But not a window. It meant something to me, something deep. There was a definite backrooms vibe out there with its colorful tubes and slide-like objects. I was told this is like Japan. I couldn’t wait to get out there… and explore.
But first I had to check out more of the apartment. Food, books, art, just like the other one, the one from the *lesser* world. But not a woman — sole drawback so far that I could determine in this much more realistic one. Then in looking at a particular object I’ll get to in a moment, an image of a person named Han swam before my eyes. Lover. Left her behind when I went, yes, on tour. I was a musician in this life as well — it was all kind of flooding back on me; too much so maybe. Band named Sunami, without the T. I think. Right, without it. And maybe another letter added in in its place. Sunamai? I picked up a handily placed guitar in the apartment, sat down on a nearby ottoman and automatically started to strum a song strange but familiar about a talking horse and saying goodbye to it. I remembered more about her through the heavy metal-ish music. 1/2 Japanese, although you couldn’t tell it. She didn’t like me leaving. She did — *ohh*.”
I look down at my silver hand and arm, doing the strumming in this case. She did *this*. Maybe not literally, I realized, but metaphorically anyway. Heck, maybe literally too — couldn’t remember the details; perhaps too painful. She was trying to snatch away my livelihood if not my life.
I had to do one more thing before leaving. I went back to the bathroom, looked up from the sink.
No it was nothing like the face I had in my former existence, just left through the Black Star. But still it was recognizable from that world. Ahh, another ohh moment. The Matrix!
00430315
She came out of the dispensary beside the quick fix ganja vending machine V sipping chamomile tea and staring at the Black Star on its side and wondering how long Bowie had been dead. At least 8 years, she reckoned, maybe 8 1/2, the length of Fellini’s career up to the movie of that same title.
Her attention then shifted to the crime scene in the plaza slightly below her from this vantage point at the top of the cement steps, the heart of her po’ faux Nightsity, one of a handful I’ve found in Our Second Lyfe in the past month and a 1/2 or so. Another Blue Moon Kentucky killer victim, she gathered, 3rd this month of May’s June soon to slide into July. Should’ve shut down that so-called secret strip club behind the *sometimes* locked door weeks ago because of them, she thinks. Now another lies fallen.
Chef-inspector Petty studies the body outline and blood splatter volume and directions with rookie Dirk Bejirk, uselessly drawing a gun on the now vacant crime scene with no perpetrators in sight. Petty’s on loan from Aisle of Palms where absolutely nothing has happened since the end of the last photo-novel 2 months ago, not at the Perch restaurant in the Blue Feather complex during the day (chef 1/2 of his life), nor at the investigative agency in Cement Village at night (inspector 1/2 of his life). He’d even managed to get a proper amount of rest lately because he could now sleep on the job — both jobs — and get away with it. No more. Perch manager Percy Bidercy had to lay him off because of the lack of paying customers. The clients at the agency were also basically nonexistent. Put all this together and we have the current scene: Petty working in a different spot.
“It’s that strip club,” offered gun toting Dirk, still pointing at air. “City council should’ve shut it down weeks ago.”
“It’s not the strip club,” said Petty, defying common opinion. He gobbled another goober (peanut), trying to clear his mind of distractions. “Dirk, why don’t you go pick us up some food at that Chinese restaurant we passed on the way here. Bucket of Egg Foo Young for me. And a large Cokey Cola.”
“Shouldn’t drink sugary drinks, new boss.”
“Shut up and do the only thing you’re good for at this job. *Fetching*.” Petty kind of hated being so harsh to the rookie but tough love goes a long way. He’d know. Sgt. Petterson busted his balls enough in his early police/detective days to make them turn blue at times. Which, actually, also pertains to the current crime.
“3 Blue Moon crimes in the last several weeks,” he spoke to no one since a put-in-his-place Dirk had gone to fetch their food and drinks. He arrived on the scene for the first victim. He was just glad to get the job, glad of the income finally flowing into his bank account once more. Only after the 2nd did he start to get interested in the case itself, start to dig deeper into the facts. Then the 3rd here really took the cake. Fern arrived in “town”, also from a different dimension. Gave him information he couldn’t believe. We’re living in a simulation; none of this is real!
00430317
She was just standing there, eating her Chinese takeout. Why, Lettuce Walk, why?
It would start a chain of events leading to her stalking much later on, strangely enough. As with many places in virtual worlds, time was not what it seemed in this here J-Town of Nightsity formerly of the US of A but now with its own path to beat.
Edward knew this had something to do with what many call the Magenta Statue looming over the crime scene, a representation of which is found in V’s J-Town apartment as perhaps given to him by Mysti for a house warming gift. 2 balls again, you’ll notice.
“I don’t want to go back in there for a while, Lexi,” Edward said while shakily removing the virtual reality goggles, the violence of the moment which would register in his brain and body for days. “You can understand.”
“I can.” And with that she simply vanished from Our Second Lyfe, taking her brain-daze shop and attached bar with her. It was the only way they could get some required distance.
—–
00430401 (“Alphanumerica”)
I came here…
… in a boat.
Cool! though Frank Lynn while encountering this object just beyond the edge of the faux sea and its partially sunk vessel. Maybe this is what my lost spool table has turned into. A model for a whole mountain of mystery! This made him even more excited to meet the creator.
He approached the truck not 20 yards away now that doubled as living quarters for the man both 10 and 85 at once. The one he would model, in his own manner, the character of Wayne Bruce upon later on. Builder of a whole city but derived from a mountain. This one.
“Mr Knight?” he called, not wanting to knock on the door or wall of the thing out of respect. “Yo, Mr. Knight. Big fan here. Just want a word if I could, dawg.”
Frank waited and waited. He heard sounds within. Someone was there (!). Being recreated as it turned out. Overt religious messages were fading from the truck as well as the mtn. behind. Everything was becoming alien oriented, JESUS, for example, being reconstructed as 6EQUJ5, “Love is Universal” turning into “Life is Universal”. Would he approve?
No. Mr. Night without the K emerged from the back, more devil than saint.
00430403
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wow!_signal
The precise location in the sky where the signal apparently originated is uncertain due to the design of the Big Ear telescope, which featured two feed horns, each receiving a beam from slightly different directions, while following Earth’s rotation. The Wow! signal was detected in one beam but not in the other, and the data was processed in such a way that it is impossible to determine which of the two horns received the signal.
“Have you heard?” said Gossiping Gloriea from beneath her fox mask. “The Horns are back in town. A final decision shall be made by the higher ups of this place, Yankee, Doodle, and Damny.”
Marsha, an Xian, didn’t like hearing this bit of news one bite, but maybe they could get to the bottom of the whole thing now, see which one actually *saw* the visage of Satan through that window of opportunity.
Big Ear. Just on that mountain over there. Chiliad I believe. Unless it’s Steptoe in Washington state. Or somewhere else entirely.
Big Ear knows, even if it’s too blocky and unresolved to tell anyone directly. Must create workarounds in this case.
43 cap wearing, purple haired Edwina waits for the door to open on the recreation room beyond Betty, Clarke, and Grables the holographic dancer uniting the two.
She stares wide-eyed at the results.
00430404
After their last show together as Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars in July ’73, David Bowie (Ziggy) entrusts Spiders’ lead guitarist Mick Ronson with his guitar in a world inverted from ours through more than just colors. It has been proven that *our* Bowie knew of such worlds in music videos like “Loving the Alien” from his much maligned “Tonight” album released in the mid-80s, a time when mainstream rock music in general was going through a rough patch of banality. An inverted universe is front and center when we enter the video with a blue (opposite of skin color) Bowie praying with clinched teeth to an unlistening and perhaps unreal deity.
Then it becomes starkly obvious when Bowie sits in front of a mirror and is forced to watch it flip into this “negative” self by a restraining nun figure.
With the lyrics’ emphasis on Christianity against Islam, and organized religion vs. heathenism and nonbelievers as a whole, Bowie warns that we often get history backwards through the lens of Western Civilization, justifying mass killings in crusades ancient and new in the name of a supposed one true God — *our* God. Turn to the aliens for a higher and more correct perspective on the situation, he seems to say. Love the aliens… in ourselves.
Back to Bowie and Ronson and the handing over of the guitar, this didn’t happen in our world. The Mars Guitar was destroyed that summer night in London along with the backing Spiders band, never to be played with again. But through Jonny Silverhhand and Cyberpunk 2077, a role David Bowie was slated to play until his untimely death in 2016, alternate paths can be explored. No regrets, Bowie confronts his own reflection after the Black Star incident. The guitar plays on.
00430405 (Proj. 2025)
Newt sits down beside the trash heap on the dirt mound underneath the red light. Oh my God, he thinks. Is this a map? Is this… LSD Dream Emulator??
He explores and explores and finally finds her at the end of a long and winding tunnel, hidden away from the day. Too many people all around, she complained in explaining her current status. But she relents and decides to show him her apartment more in the light. And the dolls. She ran so far.
“It’s Independence Town, because everyone is off for the day and are having fun with each other. Watermelons.”
“Cantaloupes,” I chipped in.
“Chickens,” she said.
“Apples,” I said.
Pause as we look for other things to talk about in the scene.
“The last one,” she then said.
“Yup. Freedom gone next year.”
“Enjoy,” she said down to the people below and then went back to her hiding place. Old White Man’s Corner.
00430406 (Mt. Gordon Mysteries)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1YzgnITHBHA
I’m in.
—–
In other news:
Found a rare 4-some in C2077! Hardest to see is weeing on the truck more in the background. The other 3 identical red white and blue punks are dancing up a storm in front of it with a couple of others. Happy Independence Day again I suppose!
00430407 (Wait)
“Did you check for bugs?” Fast food vendor Lana knew that Wanda didn’t mean insects in her chicken and fries. Spyware again of course. Everyone in town thought she was crazy whereas in actuality she was the only sane one amongst them. Except for Larry who’s heard it all too now (fish).
Page danced with her girl at the Dizzy Lizzy and thought about Wendy and the removal of alpha again. Gap in her knowledge, she knew. Zula might help. STOP
GO?
00430408 (Mars bar)
I ate the chicken but decided to dump the fries before traversing the canal. Or was it channel? Anyway, couldn’t take a chance on something so long, narrow and numerous. Many more places for bugs to hide inside. Now I felt better about crossing over to more dangerous Arroyo. Too late for that Independence Day bash under the 77 overpass with the Parisian Quadruplets, also sharing birthdays with the holiday as luck goes. Nothing more French than a foursome I suppose. One day, I think, still staring at the spilled fries and trying to spot movement within. No go. Oh well; kind of stale anyway what I sampled, I thought in my sour grapes state of mind. Into Arroyo it is.
Just past Arroyo on the other side, ran into this guy just blubbering and blubbering about what to me looked like nothing much more than a fender bender to his precious macho truck, but I’m not a mechanic. So funny. I bet he goes to sleep at night with a teddy truck or something clutched tightly to his broad, muscular bosom.
Oh, about Arroyo itself. Something happened there. Something I’ll have to keep for later. Because I’d seen this same orange garbed crybaby at the Red Dust. Eyeing the guitar.
00430409
I logged out, came back the next day and played the same mission. Edward this time doing the eyeing! The exact same one I’d been stalking earlier for a body transfer. Let’s back up…
—–
Q: What is Arroyo?
A: It’s a district in Nightsity. More on the industrial side (of things).
Q: Why is it spelled the same as in reality? And Nightsity (actually Night City) isn’t?
A: I suppose because it’s more important in its own, smaller way. Or more off the radar maybe. Harder to detect.
Q: (checks notes) Says here to ask about Grandpa Cliffs.
A: The same.*
Q: Soo (checking notes still)… Red Dust (within). Again the name change.**
—–
Red dust fell from the roof in the room in front of me as the TV announcer mentioned the red planet. I knew where to head next.
—–
*Castle Town character Drew “Grumpy” Cleveland from section 01 of this here photo-novel, aka Grandpa Cliffs, says his original name came from the rough town just across the channel, just as Arroyo is mentioned as being a rough town accessible across a channel/canal.
**Red Dust bar is actually Red Dirt bar in the game, where NC’s most famous rock act Sunamai and its lead man Jonny Silverhhand*** played both their first and last gig, swallowing complete.
***Sunamai is actually Samurai; Jonny Silverhhand is obviously Johnny Silverhand with a shifted h.
00430410 (All Blue)
In the bathroom of the bar, he prepares to swallow the bitter blue pill. Will he ever be able to get back? Or is this *it*?
“Have fun,” V says to Silverhhand standing next to him, ready to take over. Down down down it goes. He feels the big thing all the way to the bottom of the esophagus, riding the walls. Then: gone.
—–
After the last gig, Silverhhand took out the same colored pill and, listening to Cary [Ronson] play the first chords on his gifted guitar beside him, swallows. The snake has properly eaten its own tail. V returns.
00430411 (2nd J-Town encounter)
She didn’t turn around when V entered the shop, as if she was expecting him. “Show me what you found,” she seemed to say as much to the magenta hued statue before her, also illuminated by candles at her altar for it. No crack about the porn from the last time. Both understood it came from Silverhhand, not V. She accepted the scan.
“A ring… huh,” she spotted. “I’ve seen these before. 3 metals involved, gold, silver, bronze. Hard to tell which this was in the light. Do you think this is an NPC or a regular character?” she tested.
“NPC. Found her standing inside a chair in front of a table in a restaurant off Sagan. Thing is, there were *2* of her, both standing in chairs not 15 feet from each other. I could tell one of the agents following me was calling in the anomaly, even though he spoke in code.
“Since I wasn’t their focus in the moment,” he continued, “I thought I could take advantage of the situation and go over and speak to Edward, who, *ahem*, just by chance was also in the area. Watching me of course, as I watched him before. The stalker had become the stalked. But the other agent following me turned around and gave me a knowing look as I was trying to leave, making sure that I knew he was also keeping watch while taking a lunch break. So no go on speaking with Edward. Couldn’t take the chance. And I still haven’t had that chance, Mysti, even 3 days after, let’s call it, The Switch.”
knowing look
“Hmm. All this stuff is fascinating, V, but I must tell you before we go any further that the woman — women — in the restaurant were not NPC’s — not really. I’ve seen them — her — before in another scan, just yesterday. Given to me by, get ready for it, Edward.”
“Edward??”
“The ring is a give away. I don’t recall any other woman wearing it in Nightsity. Only men wear the ring, V. Men of power whether they know it or not. This woman is special.”
He tried to figure this all out in the moment as Mysti continued staring with those deep, accepting eyes, as if she were trying to read his thoughts. And maybe she could, who knows? But all he kept thinking of was a snake swallowing its own tail, and that he should stop following this particular rabbit down its hole. He was looking too far, creating complexity when there was only the simple and open.
Mysti returned to her statue, seeming to seek answers there. After a moment; perhaps channeling the knowledge (the oracle speaks?):
“You must approach Edward and ask him why he is following you. Be kind to him. If you are not coercive then he will yield the answers you seek. This all ties back to Silverhhand and the Relic. He’ll tell you. If you’re nice.”
00430412 (Edward D.)
She called in her big brother for intimidation and I knew I had to stop, Hustle kids both. I didn’t follow her this time as she walked away. I decided then and there to switch these kind of activities from night to day, and from women to men. So the next day, Thursday I believe, Edward fairly quickly came into my scope as he passed the V that represented me. Which brings us to the present, I suppose.
—–
It took me 27 minutes and 19 seconds into this more ambient video to turn the game location Red Dirt into the blog location Red Dust, pheh. But I got it. Edward was nowhere to be found — I thought I’d try this out first since it’s the last location we’ve seen him in time-wise, staring at that Mars guitar of all things. He *knows*. Anyway, I must move on… the 45 minute video’s over.
We’ll call him Edward Doofus per V’s nickname to differentiate him from Edward Daigle seen in earlier sections of this here novel. But underneath the different game exteriors they seem to be one and the same. That’s another twist. Now: to figure out how it happened. We last saw Edward *Daigle* on a ship 1 after 909 heading to Mars, sitting a couple of rows behind super smart Fern Stalin going to same. But — hold on — maybe Mars is Arroyo. Maybe Red Dirt *is* Red Dust. Someone decides to hold out a knife to test the theory on a particular rusty and dusty day. *Brnng*, it rings, as he unsheathes it while a Red Dust cowboy videotapes the whole thing, hoping to fully form in this reality. Another Youtuber?
Results inconclusive. But we appear to be on the right track! Back into Arroyo it is.
00430413 (The End?)
“Arroyo is a dead end,” Fern said to me through her dreams last night. “You’re going to have to swing back and forth wildly across Nightsity like a wobbly pendulum in order to approach the issue from all angles. Only then can you understand the city, but it will not be solved in this one photo-novel. Our Second Lyfe is dead.” That’s what she said. There’s no going back. She told me where to swing next. Lightning strike while crossing into Kabuki. But I can’t call it that, I suppose. Got in trouble with Arroyo from the locals. Fern already has a place there, a business, but won’t tell me specifics. Her gal pal Lichen is probably around too. And I was indicated they still have the list. Both of ’em, which are actually one of ’em. Black and White together. Here’s the strike. Took a bit of effort to catch the quick thing.
Fern is an ascended master for sure, beyond me in most ways except comedy. That part belongs to Lichen. And perhaps there we can find the spark that might kindle back my love of Our Second Lyfe. Because it’s certainly still there. Through Wendy, the third. But for now, in this post, we must acknowledge the death on some level; move on. Fern has fused with [Certain Death] on the search for the All Seeing Eye. Both share the golden gun that guides them through dream after dream after dream, like entering rooms in an endless mansion. For him, though, it started in a different game, on a highly neglected “third” summit called Gordon. Lighting strike again. We’ve seen this before.
Back to entering, err, *Kabusie*.
00430414
They were out of horse so they had to get dressed and read one of their many dusty books for entertainment. 5 shots you’re dead, but they weren’t there yet. Edward selected an ironically colored blue book about Mars he’d stopped in about 5 months ago, when the shipment came in and the dishes started to pile up and the water started running out the door. Shelley was reading this blog, in fact this sentence. She speaks as if channeling.
“I hear Baker Bloch is thinking about shutting down his involvement in Our Second Lyfe. We’ll, *I* won’t let that happen.” She pivots around to Edward as instructed, who she can tell isn’t listening, absorbed in his guided dreams about the red planet. “Will we?!” she shouted over.
“W-what? What are you on about now?” he spoke, not prying his eyes from the letters and words and sentences and paragraphs before him but thinking about something else now. Horses — wish they still had some of that shipment left.
“I *said* — dreamer — that we won’t let Baker give up on Our Second Lyfe.”
“Oh.” He settled back, ready to return to his book. “But that won’t happen. As long as you’re the third…”
“… which is actually the first,” she completed. He was reading again, not worried atall about the matter. After a minute:
“Edward?” No answer.
“*Edward*.”
“W-what is it *now*?” He looks up from the pages. A foal was about to be born. He was very involved in the details, wondered if he should try his hand at running a farm himself. Red dirt turned to red dust. But no electricity, he remembered. Shelley must play her guitar.
“I’m ready to go back.”
00430415 (The One)
“Here. Let me play walk you through this.”
I wanted to go up and ask them, “Are you girls UK Cracks??”, but I knew better. This was a specific gang formed to protect those of their kind. Like the great majority of things in this world, they don’t cater well to humor — *cracks* as it were. Besides, the color schemes were different, with more greens and yellows involved along with frizzier hair as I recall. More Africa than Asia. So after carefully navigating around this wrong trio, I went on to find the right one, or at least the right one of the right one. Blue Moon Kentucky, named for a specific village in a specific state. Specific again. In the marketplace roundabout, or so legend goes.
—–
I’m sure I had the right location: a Zuru-Zuru ramen shop with a number 24 neon sign. Other stores in the area had the same sign but I’m certain this is the one. I’d completed the needed Police related mission, found the body at the bottom of that damn Petrochemistry dam. Dead all right. Thrown over the edge only to bounce back up again here. There’s plenty of evidence for it. Could, of course, be a ghost though. Or an indicator.
If only she were here I could simply ask. If only there were another, *roundabout* way to *crack* this egg. Say… Our Second Lyfe?
00430416 (Edward D. too)
Yup. Still following me.
Footsteps behind. Still no chance for that chat, pheh.
Nor here.
Mental note: I’ve seen him spying on me in 2 clubs now in different parts of the city. He’s ready.
00430501 (Island Boy)
He came here…
… in a boat. He was looking for someone. A woman both 3 and 1. Is this truly the right location? But the lightning strike knows, he remembers.
Into the setting sun he continues. Like a caboose on a train going round a dark mountain it is, soon to disappear out of man’s sight only to emerge the next day. Roundabout. 8 sided even, like the I Ching. The endless revolution of black vs. white. Lists. Into Liszt. We continue…
00430503
“All comes from Old Grey and all will return. The illuminating light guides. The caboose is the last to disappear but the last to emerge. Black and White, Yin to Yang. Welcome.”
Lichen was getting tired of the joke; knew Fern was prone to such overkill. Often brevity for comedy was best. Good timing, Lichen knew. Fern needed to work on it.
“So you’ve explained the picture in *some* detail — can I call you Fern still?”
“*Original* Fern,” said the wee doll person still standing on the opposite corner of the picnic blanket from her, spread out between them like a quilted chessboard. Another board you’ll notice.
“And that’s, er, why you like to be called a *doll* person. Because you come from Doll.”
“Doll-*y*,” the little person emphasized. “I *am* a Dolly.” Silence for a while with this as Lichen absorbed. She tried to picture the picture he or she described (she had aspects of both sexes, Lichen observed). This one.
“Do you remember Phil? I called and called at the observing patio but no answer from the cat. This wasn’t Phil — Philip actually. Instead Philip lay at the bottom of this small pool in the ditch district of Kabusie, dead in his car after a visit to the bar. Drunk. Had the valuable pure bred cat with him that he bragged about to his girlfriend just earlier but somehow the cat survived. Standing on the container he or she came in by the shore. Maybe a mechanoid — still studying. Maybe that’s why the transfer couldn’t occur. Philip couldn’t become the cat just before dying because the cat had no inner soul to speak of. Working theory mind you. He had that power. We *all* know he had the power.”
“Fern,” said Lichen. “You’re an absolute trip!” Was this comedy at its purest, absurd statement after absurd statement? High entertainment at the least. “Good work,” she exclaimed, thinking all this was made up. It wasn’t; that’s the ultimate joke.
“Philip?”
00430504 (Lexi)
“So you finally found me. Through a brain-daze of all things What is it. Daydreaming Gamer?”
“Yeah,” I answered. “Although it could have just as easily been Lettuce Walk.”
She let out a short grunt. Acknowledgement? Or does she know something I don’t? I looked back into the expanse of the apartment. She made pretty good as a brain-daze editor, could afford one of the nicer digs in Kabusie here. Above most of the crime and grime. Above the world of the ditches which I knew fascinated her now. Thanks to the robot.
I gazed at the pseudo-flathead style version again she’s working on at her nearby table, parts shipped in from Montana. “Soo, you’re really going to go in there with that thing? Think you can actually make communication with ’em?”
“Plan to.” That’s all I could get out of her in that direction. “Speaking of which: How’s Panama?”
“I told her no on the Canal mission. Haven’t heard from her since. Satisfied?” I left out “lover” to end that sentence. Which way did she swing? Which way did *I* swing?
But, whatever, I had a base of operations in Kabusie. Door couldn’t be locked once I stepped in, rules of the game. We could be simply roommates or we could be more. Didn’t have to choose right this instant. Had time to figure things out, how the cards were played, what side of the shore we’re on, etc.
In the meantime, there were always brain-dazes. Lexi understandably had quite the collection.
(to be continued)
00430505 (they only come out at night)
From the rail, she looks at the car submerged in the small pool of water in the ditch section of Kabusie, then she looks at the cat on the container at the shore. “Philip,” she calls over to it and not the car, because the Philip within the body of the car’s driver was no more. No response from the feline. “Phil. Phillie.” Nothing. Fern concludes that the action which could have occurred must not have happened. Transfer of man into cat. Just before the drowning. She drops the list as she was suppose to do and moves on. She knows the camera will record everything, and that the piece of paper will be in the hands of the doll people soon enough. Robot dolls.
(to be continued)
00430506
“*Hey look*”
—–
“Something about that magenta paint, Lexi. Magenta in general.”
“Of course,” she said, glad to have him back in her chair, whatever their ultimate status as a couple. The actual Dizzy Lizzy’s now and not just a facade in Our Second Lyfe — just beyond this paint actually. And The Magician graffiti with Silverhhand manifesting underneath it. He stares at the pink from across the road. Might as well be the universe.
—–
We go back to Our Second Lyfe for the next scene. Shelley is trying out Jonny’s famous Mars cyberpunk guitar in his apartment set up in NWES City where we last saw her and beau-friend Edward reading dusty books on a flamingo pink bed appropriately enough. Yes, I’m trespassing again for the sake of a message. Prop is 500 lindens, pretty reasonable for the detail and animations, but I’ve just paid 1120 for the Silverhhand avatar and I have a monthly cap on such things. Or so I say.
“She’s pretty good for a novice,” Jonny begins. “Are you going to tag along when she goes on her world tour?” he quips.
“If it comes to that,” Edward replies in stride. “Question is: are *you* going to take her on tour? Mars guitar.” He glances over at her, rocking away to a Tin Can tune, “Baby Universe” I believe, 1 after the song about a talking horse.
“Listen,” Jonny breaks character. “I’m going to have to get up. This animation is killing my arms.” He gets up, looks down on the silver chair that matches his hand. “Great world, by the way. Graphics are *way* better than something that came out in, say, 1998.”
“Hmph,” says Edward to this. He has Shelley. He’s happy with the graphics as is. “Sooo…” he prompts.
“Sure, sure. Let’s just get out of here and back to a *real* world.”
Nearby Curt Korbain jumps for joy at the news. “World tour, world tour!” he chants over and over while Fern watches on, fascinated like Art before her.
We’ll get back to him and her soon enough.
(to be continued)
00430507 (14800)
“I was about to ditch Nightsity and move away when I found the DITCH.”
“The… robot,” I interpolated.
“Yes. And then I built my own in response. To explore the, er, network.”
“Network of ditches,” I interpreted again.
“Yes. A lot of it centers around the loop. And the creek.”
“Kabusie,” I added once more.
“Right. Ralph was sent in. My name for it. From childhood mind you.”
“Well, um. What did he find?”
“She. But *she* came out a little different. It was hard for me to see at first. A minor change in the circuits. But then other things started happening. Loops themselves. Growing upon each other. The robot had become the creek. Just like before.”
(to be continued)
00430508 (inversions)
“Of course I’m not going to take that playdoll on a world tour, Mysti. You *are* Mysti? Aren’t you?”
“You can call me that if you wish,” V admitted. She’s become the person she should have listened to and heeded most. The Devil is in the cards. She glances over at the golden gun beside her again, knowing it was almost the end.”
“No no, I’ve put that bogus world behind me, that bogus adventure. Like I said, it looks nice in comparison to 1998 and Omikron and all, but–”
“Jonny,” V Mysti requested, wanting to enjoy the cityscape from the rooftop while she could. “No more talking please.”
And shortly after that it was over.
—–
In another ending, she appears before non-suicidal V as normal as normal could be in this dark dark world, tribute to “Bladerunner”‘s Pris played by Darryl Hannah back in the day put behind her as she moves to an ancient forest region of Poland to start a new life, ditching Nightsity just like Lexi wanted to. Before she found the Ditch. Was this the right thing to do?
—–
“Something over there to the right, Lexi. Can you see it?”
00430509 (Elizabeth)
“Never mind the dead guy,” she said remotely to me when I reached the bottom of the pit. “That’s another story — we know that one already. Like Philip’s. Instead: focus on the hand.”
I looked around, turned on the thermal level. Grasping obviously, since the hand had been severed from its owner for, what was it, *67* years. Nothing detected except for the nearby, much fresher flesh. Silly to try. But there were rumors that the hand was alive separate from the body. Thanks to the ring. I tried another tack, a more sensible one. Gold detection through my Midas Ability mod (Thanks Rosebud1941!). Handy for creeks up in the hills, handy for here pardon the pun. I’d made a small fortune in combination with my exploring skills. Surprised more people don’t try their hand at it (sorry again!). But no gold detected in the area. This was all so much trash. I’d run out of my few options. Except, hmm, for one other long shot…
1/2way back to the top, we met up in person again across a dangerous, last gap. “Did you find it? We lost contact when you started digging around the bottom. Probably damaged the receptor on some metal or something.”
“Probably,” I said back. Radiation. Who would have thunk except for someone with a uranium ring already in their possession. Me. I stashed it up the only safe place I could think of at the time, pretending to have a sudden itch in that area. My bunghole, ow ow ow. “Uranus” for uranium, I thought with a painful, secret smile.
Saying I’d found nothing while clinching my sphincter more tightly than ever, I took a final leap…
Made it!
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.
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)
—–
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.
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)
—–
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 before it. 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,” supplied 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 6 mile 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.
00430608
“Found her, Lichen!” Hiding behind that flamingo, pink for pink. Another revisit of an origin story you’ll notice: Voyageurs, where we all 3 started from. Remember you did that fabulous cow gag where you had me believing Wendy had 4 stomachs when we began studying her? Wonderful!” Fern wanted to encourage and bolster Lichen’s sense of humor as much as possible since she was slated for a stand up gig at Bull’s Bar on the 9th, setting aside her natural sharpness. Or trying to.
That checked off, it was on to the next task. In Washington state. “Keep your eyes peeled for anything giving hints that the energy of Black jumped over here after drying up to continue its existence.” And eventually be shown to the world, she realized while starting up the trail on her bike and thinking about the camera, Lichen right behind her. I’ll remember to give her some lines the next post she’s in, maybe dealing with her bar act (Sorry Lichen!).
Something was wrong here…
… very wrong.
Fern and Lichen decided to stay here for a while and eat their packed lunch to see if the phenomenon reappears at roughly the same spot. Fern believes it could have everything to do with Soos Creek in the foreground she’ll be staring at while dining. Tree barking Lichen knows better. The phenomenon has everything to do with the ring she secretly stashed up her bunghole in her pants pocket before the ride. Owned by someone who is also a Ryder. They would not recreate it while stationary and off the path. Must be on. Moving on…
There (again)!
00430610
“So as you can see very clearly in the next photo, Ring Lady’s, let’s see, *right* eye begins to form in the middle of the upper central guy’s forehead, obviously scrubbed clean by Kubrick to emphasize this very transition. I’m amazed more Shining researchers haven’t found it.”
“And now we think this woman is a Ryder?” Wheeler to his right tries to clarify in her own head. “As in Winona?”
“Correct,” answers Baker Bloch, the male Baker at the head of the Table, head visible only from the hat up in this angle. The female Baker (Blinker) couldn’t make it — head cold. But Newt was here to his left, if with no visible head. And so was huge green headed Grassy sitting across from Baker. He’d just finished his talk about Kabusie in the Cyberpunk 2077 game platform, and how it leads to Soos. Leading to this.
“Do you think *Winona* knows about this? Perhaps through Rolling Stone?”
“Maybe,” says Baker to Wheeler. “She’s a bright little girl.”
“So the woman, this ring woman, in the Shining’s ending photograph… is…”
“Ryder, yes. The same.”
And clearly with the ring that becomes Jack’s left eye, she noted in the 3rd photo Baker shared for further explanation. Glowing as if radioactive. And apparently it was. Uranium for Uranus.
00430611 (Mr. S)
They were just experimenting with the one bike between takes, merely rubbing noses it seems, when the director called them back to the set. “Actually,” he said when they returned to the plywood backdrop in the background above that represented all things Soos Creek, “I think we’ll just go with *plywood* this time — let *plywood* be the actor. The girls logically thought this idea was the result of his rock cocaine imbibed during the break but he was altogether serious. Plywood actor it is, a hire from the Robots Guild. Since he could travel at 181.56 miles per hour and the Guild was only 5 miles away, given a favorable wind and a pretty straightforward path between points A and B it only took him around 2 minutes to reach the set once the call was put in.
“Aaaaanddd ACTION!”
“Hmm, where’d they go?”
00430614
It happened shortly after the rain started, probably after the first thunderclap. “What’s that, boy? Timmy’s fallen down a well and can’t get out but never mind that now and more important matters are pressing?” Frank repeated after his talking dog (in his head, for now). “Well, lead on!” he said.
The rain had stopped and it had gotten light when they came to this upside down guy with his parachute stuck in a tree down a nearby dirt road. A man from Tennessee, he claimed. No, a man *named* Tennessee, let’s change it. So the Blue Balls/Blue Moons sculptor is actually a man and not a woman as presumed. But what’s he doing in this tree, dropped down from the sky? Helicopter? Better cut him down so we can ask more questions.
Back on the ground, Frank told him that he had Chomp to thank for his rescue. But in turning around to find the dog — nothing. Frank didn’t own a dog, never had never will. And then the parachutist was gone too; Frank Lynn had apparently hallucinated the whole scenario. No more graytop mushrooms! he swore off then and there.
—–
But he eventually couldn’t resist — Mikie talked him into it I believe. This caused the second manifestation of the dog in another thunderclap during another thunderstorm, all part of it too. He was wetter and blacker this time, Frank noted through the gray-ish haze. “What’s that, boy?” he began to talk to the mutt again in his head. “Timmy remains trapped down in that well but there’s still more important matters to deal with tonight over at the damn, er, dam?”
So he followed the dog again down a different road this time to, as it turns out, the Petrochemistry Dam in a whole ‘nother game. The same guy was in trouble once more.
“Tennessee — if that’s your real name. What the hell are you doing?”
“It’s perfectly fine,” he said, teetering on the edge of death. “I just have to finish what the tree stopped before. The parachute opened by accident. I never intended to be saved.”
“Man that’s crazy. Get down from there!”
“Too late! AAAAAAAAHHHH!”
Muttering about him being a damn (dam?) fool, Frank Lynn rushed to the bottom….
… only to find someone totally different lying in the blood tainted stream there. Somehow someway, Tennessee had switched over to Kentucky in the free fall. Then everything disappeared just like before. He had Clyde on the phone in no time to schedule an emergency session, but his therapist had bad news too. He was changing jobs and moving. In the fall. No bookings before then. This is when Fremont came into his life. And Rutherford B. Hayes became the first president of our US of A to never be president. Triumvirate.
—-
“Go see Jonny Silverhhand to end this thing,” spoke Blue Moon to me when she popped up good as new over at the Kabusie roundabout marketplace after about 3 days we’ll say. “Just around the ‘corner’ — you can’t miss him.” And then she came to me and pecked a kiss on my cheek before walking away, saving the best for later.
00430615 (garage as it turns out (a kind of bat cave))
“Try to open this door,” Silverhhand said as I walked up. Around the corner, just as Blue Moon indicated.
I went up to the keypad, noticed the thing was laid out like that of a traditional phone, 3 or 4 letters grouped under each number. This:
2 corresponds to A, B, C
3 corresponds to D, E, F
4 corresponds to G, H, I
5 corresponds to J, K, L
6 corresponds to M, N, O
7 corresponds to P, Q, R, S
8 corresponds to T, U, V
9 corresponds to W, X, Y, Z
“Jesus. We’re almost at the end. Hurry up with it, will you.”
And so I took Jonny literally and carefully typed in 53787, the numbers standing for the letters in the name he just gave me. JESUS. No go. Then I thought of the WOW signal that had replaced JESUS in Grand Theft Auto’s version of Richard Knight’s Salvation Mountain over in the southwest part of the state, and, suspiciously, containing some of the same letters. What was it? I thought. Yes, 6E, um Q, J, and, er, 5. U somewhere in there too. Right, 6EQUJ5, I put them together in my head. That sounded right. So I figured out the corresponding numbers for the included letters and then typed 637855, so close to the other number. The door opened after I punched in 8, so only 4 needed. Even closer, then: 6378 to 5378. Only 1 after if we count in 1000s. I walked inside.
Silverhhand manifested on a lighted table in the revealed room full of high tech equipment. “Well what do we have here?” He was staring at a huge projection screen on the far wall, maybe a TV. He picked up a conveniently placed guitar, started strumming a tune he said was called “Beast of Tousaint”. “Ring any kind of bell?” he asked after playing a couple of bars. “Say… a mountaintop?” Suddenly images began to form on the screen across from us, layered one after another in a kind of domino effect. All this confused me at first. The people in the images appeared… different than the ones in Nightsity. They seemed alien to me. Then I recognized one about 5 in, which caused a domino effect itself. From there until the end of the “presentation” about 30 slides later many if not most seemed familiar. I had indeed seen them before. On a mountaintop. In Tousaint. I told this to Jonny who had finished his song by then.
“Good boy. Good, We’re ready to go out to the Oil Fields.” And his 97 silver 911 Porsche manifested before the screen representing a quick way out there. Would take hours to walk.
00430616 (Silverhhand)
Just over here, V. Behind these Tiler shacks.
—–
“So this is how it is?”
“What did you expect? A tombstone? Flag and flowers?”
“I don’t know. Something. Anything.”
“You blew up Arastraville Tower. You killed a lot of people, Jonny. And where did it get you in the end? The corps and their suits for men are still in control.”
“I know I know.” He pauses. “I was a musician too besides being a terrorist,” he tried.
“One overrides the other?” I asked as a question. Because I was curious how Jonny was going to balance the two. History would view the music as largely about terrorism, not visa versa. Music should ultimately be uplifting, not constantly tearing down our lives, deconstructing them. Something like Blue Moon and her UK Cracks have merit just by that virtue alone. I told Jonny this.
“Are you saying I should have listened more to those bubblegum bitches?”
“Maybe. Cary listened. He liked them. Until… well, you know.”
Both thought of the death of Blue Moon and possibly Redd the Menace too.
“Maybe it should have been me at the bottom of that damn dam instead of Kentucky. Maybe history would have viewed me more in a positive light.”
“That’s static in that direction, Jonny. You’re not Blue Moon, you’re not bubblegum pop. You’re hard edged rock ‘n roll, always have been, always will. You can’t change who you are inside, the core.”
“Can’t you?” Exhale; another pause. “You know I thought about being an artist, V. A painter instead of an axer. Pretty good too. Won some awards as a child prodigy.”
I checked my watch, thought about the growing length of this section. “Yeah, really don’t have time to explore alternate realities right now, Jonny. The musician/terrorist polarity is complicated enough. Any last words? Over your grave, I mean.”
“Just carve the initials and let’s get out of here.”
“Done, and…
“Done.”
PHOTO-NOVEL 44
00440101 (the return of Strevor, Philip)
“Damn cube, OW! Why do they have to be so many damn cubes in my dreams lately, pheh.”
“Ow ow… ow. F-cking toe.”
“Hmm. Looks like Franklin was wrong. Nothing here, huh. Dead end. Nothing left to do but wake up.” He relieves himself on the canal wall even though he’s underwater. Then, getting down to the business at hand, starts slapping himself. Takes a while, but he enjoys it all the same.
—–
“Why is your face so red, dawg? You get slapped up by a woman or something? Speaking of which…”
—–
“Where’re we going Franklin?” he said, looking back at the coffee shop from whence they came.
“You’ll see. Just down the block.”
—–
“Are *these* your damn cubes or something? We were just here Tuesday after all. You were complaining about the art, and how simple it was and that you could knock up something like that — your words — after 12 beers and one hand tied behind your back. ‘No,’ you said. ‘Make that two. 2 beers and *12* hands,’ you tried to joke, but you were already pretty drunk at the time. Should have been drinking coffee back then too. Or eating… something.”
“I-I don’t know,” he said about Franklin’s theory about the cubes and the dreams, then looked around, actually still in a dream… something. “Hey, where’s Mike? Did we ditch Mike somewhere?”
“Dawg, where’s Mike??”
“That’s what I’m asking *you*. Dawg.”
“Mike!” Franklin calls in one of the bushes around the big red cubes. “Mii-ke.”
“Well he’s not in *there* for Christ sake. He’s not missin–” Trevor stops. He remembers… an S. An S in a bush. Flaming (SWITCH).
Part 2: Mikie, not Mike
That night he goes back to the dead end canal ditch and sees something after hitting his toe once more on that in-the-way big goddamn cube, ow ow ow! 1st monkey mosaic. “Frank Lynn was *right*!” he said before starting to slap himself red again.
00440213 (head’n south)
She started talking about Musket as a frigg’n genius and a red flag was raised for the first real time in the 2+ hour long video. She began to round herself out where I could see the other side, the dark one we all have; made her human beyond a whitewashed brainiac — fair deal. She then talked about the merger of technology and anatomy and told Musket to “go for it” with his related, controversial projects because it was going to happen anyway. This reminded me of all the Cyberpunk 2077 body modifications, like eye replacements (thanks a lot Blue Moon!). Musket is a genius but really only as a businessman and self-promoter, sort of like the Big Orange one he also hails, self reflecting self. Couldn’t this be a frigg’n warning from a game envisioning a dystopian future? Girlfriend Grimes is there. Grimes is the key. Musician.
But what is the warning? one might ask. What’s wrong with *worshiping technology*?
Let’s drop the cubes on the square to end.
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)
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)
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 (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 opens the door…
She turns.
“You!”
00440304 (Contemplation of an execution…)
… from a nearby, safe dune.
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 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)
00440308
As Middle, my life started to become gray and totally predictable. I stared into the Eye and decided to Die. “Ayyyyyyyyyyee!”
He turned around after hearing the sickening splat behind him at 4:20, stared at my lifeless body, totally shocked at the jump. A Slaughterhouse commercial began to play from unseen loudspeakers overhead, which I learned I’d already set up, along with the finding of the body. The person’s name was Lincoln, and he was pretty fresh to the city like a shiny new penny. First BD. This one.
(to be continued)
00440310 (end of Becky Hill this time)
At 33:33 he stared at the Slaughterhouse vending machine and thought back to the splat, then wondered why.
Then he also recalled their ad playing at the time which completed the triangle, another indicator of Middle.
00440311 (Hellboy?)
He comes around when I sit down and slap him. He looks around. “Where are we?”
“Motel. Middle of nowhere.”
“Any specific Middle?” he intuited right off the bat, being the smart-ass psychic he is. They had to talk about Jonny. They had to talk about the relic.
I soon got this out of him anyway with a couple more slaps, turning his cheeks from orange orange to apple red: “The suicide model was just a prototype. *Arasaka’s* aims were always higher.”
Arasaka — the *Tree*, I think. Should’ve known. Add another hotel/motel to the growing list of hanging fruits.
(to be continued)
00440401 (4×4)
“Will it work?” I asked her, this Lexi of brain-daze editing notoriety, currently building a robot, currently perhaps also my lover.
“I think so. Came in from Montana just yesterday. Stayed up all night putting together the thing after unpacking it. Box labelled ‘Live Cargo,’ funnily enough. I don’t know why.” She turned away from me back to the cityscape she so loved from this vantage point, her mid to upscale apartment in Kabusie. “End of the tracks, last of the train,” she’d said about this stop in her life. She expected to die here, I took it. Exploration of the network of ditches would be her magnum opus, a cumulative marriage of tech and art. Compared to that, I was just along for the ride. Sitting across from her, listening to the rails while I could. Full speed ahead.
I turned to the pseudo-flathead mechanoid on her work table. Not Arasaka quality, but she said there’d be compensations for this. Legal, obviously. But Lexi had designed some special AI components, borderline rogue she’d described them. “Approaching the Black Wall,” she said about them. “But *careful* not to cross.”
“Of course.”
—–
In another BD I found myself staring at the same scene, Lexi and her Ralph as she eventually called the robot. It was a much less smooth ride this time. Shaky, but not from nerves. Lower quality overall. A metal hit from the 60s by Everfat blared from the nearby stereo system, perhaps a remake of a Fats Domino and/or Everly Brothers song from a century before. Maybe an anniversary thing. Anyway…
“Who are you?” Still at the window, still staring out but only staring at blinds this time.
“Lincoln,” I said.
“Get out, get OUT,” she said, not wanting to hear that type of name in her apartment. Not since Madison.
(to be continued)
00440402
“No you don’t understand,” she said calmly but firmly after the proposition. “I’m through with you now. You can go back home… the North Pole or whatever. Some circle of ice. I have someone else to meet. And a name change involved — tricky business. So… shoo.”
He shoos. RosE T. takes his place across from her.
She tried to be inconspicuous when listening in, but *this* Rose was indeed curious how the discussion would go. She already had a twin next door with the same name. They bickered all the time about who to call what. A 3rd would *definitely* not do. Tin knows this, she understood. Tin will set her straight. If she wants to stay. Because otherwise… blood may be on her hands.
He walked into the next establishment over, determined to succeed with his proposition. “Buy a pretty lady a drink?” he said to the tender. Rose, he observed. Name seems so familiar, *she* seems so familiar. But of course, he realized, recalling the twin not 50 feet away. This is the sticky name change situation Tin mentioned. I understand now why she didn’t have time for me. Potential blood on her hands. Pretty Roses always come with pricking thorns.
“Yeah, not going to happen,” said Rose T. firmly but calmly back. *Now* what? Tin thought.
Then, knowing this particular Rose got her name from a Zombies album, she figured out another angle of attack.
(to be continued)
00440403 (more Greenies at Kabusie Roundabout (see novel 43 section 06))
She watched the two Greenies (shirts) go down the corridor that the camera just emerged from and decided to follow suit…
… taking along her own tag-along Greenie, Burt I believe (hair).
And more green tiles too.
Like Lester (name?) before her, she steps from green onto gray in the 2nd of our 2 screen captures above, thinking of war. Suddenly green hatted Evelyn Ginger looks on, seeming to understand the significance.
The police continue to walk the white line and try not to see the difference.
00440406
“It’s obvious that Hellboy (as she called him) is the Man in the Middle — this Middle Slaughter. And you know what that means?”
“No,” I said, lost in Fern’s brilliance per usual.
“It means we have to get to Slaughter before *it* gets to us. Black Wall. Diversion.”
Always the Black Wall for Fern lately. Where’s lighthearted Lichen when you need her?
“Pack your bags,” she then said. “We’re heading for Auburn.”
“Alabama?” I said. “What’s there?”
“Washington,” she corrected. “Like George. C’mon, let’s eat some cereal together and I’ll lay us out a plan.” She knew he was just a fill-in for Lichen but she had no one else at the time.
(to be continued)
00440407 (change)
“Don’t forget about Lichen’s 4 Stomach Tour,” I tried to ground Fern.
“Of course not. But back to immediate business. Black Wall.” Then she forgot. Again.
“Right, right.” I shook my head internally while nodding on the outside. Fern didn’t pick up on my doubts, which was a little disconcerting itself. Lack of recognition. Brilliant in so many other ways. But not irony — comedy in another form. I knew we were entering dangerous territory.
She drew more diagrams in the notebook before her, a gray Mead 5 star spiral with 22 holes and approx. 5×7 inch design. “Pre-1906,” she said, still looking down in a pause between scribbles. “Probably around 1893 or maybe even dating back to 1886, hmm. Anyway (she shook her head), we’ll see soon enough. So the Black, the White, the Green will all be in their proper place and not all mixed up during this period. She punctuated the page before her at the appropriate spots, apparently some kind of crude map as I understood now. “Auburn was still Slaughter with its Slaughterhouse Hotel, or close enough, before the scaredypants changed the name.” She scribbles some stuff on top of what I took now as Auburn on the map, near the old conjunction of the Green and White rivers as I knew from previous discussions. “Everything was right. We can even go there, you know — this Slaughterhouse.” She circles Auburn which she’s changed to Slaughter, with a little cartoon house with teeth drawn atop of it. “Thanks to the magic of Our Second Lyfe. There we’ll meet Middle. Are you grasping this yet?”
“This… has already happened?” I guessed, thinking of the snake, the tail.
“The Wheel is the middle of the Tarot, or at least the end of it (The Wheel, not the Tarot). 10… you met Tin at another hotel which is perhaps the same hotel — motel — in Room 10. You have arrived.”
“*You* have arrived,” I said. “What happened next?”
“I… opened the door.”
“Yes?”
“She turned.”
“Right.”
“Then… black out. Loss of power. But I recognized her. Tin for sure.”
“Ten,” I said. “The Wheel.”
“Yeah.”
“It’s where Lincoln starts his latest Brain Daze. Not 5 days ago. We’re looking right at it in the beginning. Sunset Motel in the Badlands again. Then he goes and hops on his motorcycle and heads back into town from whence he came, or at least the Rancho Coronado suburb. Leaves it at another service station there after walking around a while, finding stuff, interacting with people.” I end my quick review of the BD, wait for Fern to chip in. But she wasn’t there any longer. Where’d she go?
—–
“Are you Lincoln?” she said at the start, knowing it was truth.
“Yes? How’d–”
“You’re heading the wrong way. You need to go further into the desert.”
(to be continued)
00440409 ([delete name])
There’s a boat out there she came in on but I couldn’t see it from this angle. Blocked by the east end of the Harbour Master Building. I thought this queer. Why couldn’t I know?
And which of me is which?
Someone steps out of the Breakfast Aisle Shuttle in front of it.
00440412 (Badlands)
“Edward’s dead,” she put it bluntly, witnessing the spectacle herself. “Out in the desert. Dancing up a storm, dancing harder than anyone else. Then: the storm hit, shall we say. Like in Arroyo.”
“But… *I’m* Edward,” I say back, remembering the conversion. “In Kabusie this time, on the other side of Nightsity. Next to the canal. Ditch Canal. Or channel.”
“No, that was a close call, but you’re not Edward. He passed you by. Close but no call. Lucky for you now.”
I recalled seeing the crybaby being consoled by a girl, probably a girlfriend or at least a friend. Then immediately afterwards: Edward, who I’d already identified as such; that was my actual nickname for him (Crybaby). He passed through me. I *became* Edward in the heart of the moment. Or at least I was convinced at the time. In retrospect, yeah, maybe Fern’s right. Fern the Nomad (now). Maybe it was close but no call. Like baseball. Like not being out at home.
“Dead,” she said again to reinforce her point, looking at me trying to grasp and grapple with the issue. “Out in the desert which is the same as its edge. But also the middle. I went back the next day. I *saw*.”
(to be continued)
00440413 (Arroyo)
“Chop!” I said, looking into the Dewdrop Inn room I’d force-opened and recognizing my dog at last. Well. At least the *map* of my dog. Martha’s Vineyard. Always wondering what it meant and why the feet were there. And the head with the two Chop names, East and West, like paired lips or ears or sumtin. Well that head is *this* head, those feet — clearly — are *these* feet.
My dog is a robot. And a sexy one at that it appears, at least to those of its kind. But maybe Chop is instead the robot in the chair — watching. Maybe the map is that of his true love, something he wants to *eat* — chomp away at. Like breakfast, hmm. Rose, I remembered. Better get back and finish my meal.
“Never mind me,” I wanted to say to the robots in parting. “Wrong room.” But I knew they couldn’t hear me. This was a spectacle, something only to be observed and that alone. Same as, er, Chop is doing here. I’m engrossed, he’s engrossed. Seems to fit, yeah. I shut what remained of the door and leave the motel and head next door again.
(to be continued)
00440416
And so we end this section in the middle. Middle Slaughter. Standing in Kabusie again, illuminated by red neon light in the middle ground of the below snapshot. End there as well (for the BD (thanks again Lettuce Walk!)). Go figure. Too weird, too crazy, even. We continue in this vein…
00440502
Upon exiting the shuttle from the airport where the ship “landed”, she immediately turned to the harbour to see if she could spot the boat. She only saw a head sticking up but that was enough. Hooded, she observed. This was the one.
Now to find Tin and clear this up once and for all, she said to herself, trying to retrace her steps from a month back now.
(to be continued)
00440503
“Gotta light?”
“Lincoln!!” both occupants of the black car in the desert or at least the very arid landscape screamed in unison, their last coherent words.
—–
“Com’n Trevor. Time to go home.” And he dumped the lifeless body in the container, determined this would be his last Badlands gig. Ever. Retirement himself, if not in body, in soul. He had a old bunker picked out he could remake as a desert home. Even had a contractor on board for the remodeling process. Cliffside dwelling. Perfection. Half an hour tops now and done with all this. He got into the make-shift hearse and put the 4 way flashers on, Tiler Church straight ahead and then turn left and another left and then a right and then a left and right. And left, he believes. Then: done. Away from the grave and reborn. This old monkey’s about to acquire a leaf and turn into a new man. Adam. And he also has an Eve picked out. Mechanism, but it was the best he could do. They would manage. Box labelled Live Cargo should be arriving any day now down at the harbour.
—–
“What do you *mean* I can’t go home?!” shot back Fern, her business done here in The Aisles with Tin and all, with much learned and much to ponder about later.
“The Cpt.’s duties have ended,” he said plainly, not going into any details.
OD, Fern assumed. Or hospitalized or fired or a combination of 2 or all three in one. Well, something had to happen sooner or later, she rationalized.
“How long till you get another cpt.?” she asked, knowing she could pilot the vessel herself back to mainland if needed. But she had to obey protocols with this officer of the Navy, Army and Air Force in one. And perhaps the Marines as well, the oft forgotten 4th. She looked at the insignia. Hard to tell from them; designed that way due to the ’68 Force Bias Wars as they became known.
“1 day, maybe 2.” She looked at the many weapons about his body. She’d have to wait. He’d stand guard until the replacement showed up, she knew from his stance and former talk.
Finally time for that drink, she supposed. Time to visit Rose, one of ’em, maybe both of ’em before the day’s ended. She heads in their general direction from the harbour, letting her feet decide which is what and who’s first.
(to be continued)
00440510
I popped in the BD and then decided against watching it as a hooded figure came up to me in the metro train and asked me for money.
Then low and behold, in the BD I quickly replaced it with — starting where I left off in it from the last viewing — there the same hooded figure was again only a couple minutes in, an NPC type I’d never seen before tonight in my now many many hours of watching these kind of virtual videos…
.. and then *again* almost exactly 1 minute later, as I’m rechecking. This 3rd time I saw him tonight he turned around on the sidewalk in front of me just upon reaching a passageway to his right, which I subsequently went through. He seemed to be indicating it to me through the actual maker of the BD if that makes any sense. This was one of those channeling events — in the channel district of Kabusie after all.
There, to my complete shock, I found a totally different world within, a Back Rooms to Cyberpunk 2077 as it were, zowie! This was obviously the thing he wanted me to see with my very own eyes.
Soon I was back in Lexi’s apartment trying to explain what I’d discovered. After finishing my excited description, she said at the window she so loved; not blinded any longer to the landscape beyond:
“So. You found the Big Inside, huh? WOW.”
“My sentiments exactly.”
“Sooo…” She eyes the finished pseudo-flathead style robot dog she named Ralph on the nearby table. “Our work can truly begin now.”
(to be continued)
00440515 (once more: the 7 and the 6)
Looking down from the damn dam rail into the still blood stained rocks below, I thought of changing Tennessee into Kentucky again and be done with it.
But then, raising my head and seeing the city-scape still beautiful in the sunset through the gorge in front of me, I turned away and started walking again, contemplating the red (technology) and the green (anatomy) and how to balance the two and not give up hope. Sanity don’t leave me yet!
00440605
She looks over at the sign that she couldn’t possibly see from this angle except for the new green eyes. Thanks Lexi! They’ll come in handy for sure in this realm.
Later she plays pool with boyfriend Edward D. in her new skybox and beats the snot out of him, using mainly trick shots ta boot. You can tell from his expression below that he’s not a happy camper here. She learned a lot from her inner core, her true self. All this was just a facade, including the eyes.
Her 3rd turn in from the break, she surveyed the table and predicted a win, making Edward’s grimace even wider. He knew she didn’t declare these kind of things lightly: she’d win. She promptly sank the 3, 7, 1 and then 8 to accomplish this. “‘Nother one?” she asked about a follow up game of 8 ball while staring at an Arasaka sign this time in a normal, full on way, the same sign she attached to the back of the No Tell Hotel earlier on, “apple tree” to the side of the name just like when Fern found it right before her blackout.
“Nah, think I’ve about had it for tonight,” he said, getting ready to go back in the closet until the next time, the next game, the next location.
“Send my husband in, then.” And so Arthur was there instead.
They sit outside and watch the pink sun come up to start a brand new cyberpunk day. “Fancy a game?” she asked, knowing Edward wouldn’t mind. She’d follow 8 ball with cutthroat later on, inviting him back in to make up for the sudden exit.
(to be continued?)
00440609
“So I drove up to this shed in the middle of freak-n nowhere, knowing there was something inside I needed to see.
“And then when I get out of my car and went inside, I see… him.”
“Him?” said Frank Lynn.
“Monkey? Dawg?” said Philip, trying to guess.
“No, Philip. No animal in this one. It was a man. But a man made of green: a solid green man. I’m not talking about someone wearing just a green shirt and green pants or even a green body suit. Green — top of the head to the bottom of the feet. And *glowing*.”
“Freaky,” said enraptured Frank Lynn.
“O-kaay,” uttered Philip Strevor. He needed to get some meth ready for a sale tonight, he thinks in the back of his head, but it can wait a little longer. He wants to see this through. In the moment, he even tries to focus a bit, which is rare.
“He starts to describe who he is,” continues Mikie. “Said he was actually made of uranium and that he was from the planet Uranus. ‘Both?’ I asked. ‘Both,’ he said.”
“Maybe he wanted you to think he was a piece of glowing sh-t,” offered Philip.
“Maybe,” said Mikie. “Okay, so then I remembered I had a Geiger counter on me — don’t ask me how. I switch it on — in my head somehow; something — and the thing registered off the charts, way too dangerous to stand very close to. So I backed off, planned my escape. Just then he turned into something else, like he was picking up on my fear. A human. Maybe — I don’t know — to be more on my level or something. Some kind of mind meld, mind you.”
“Huh,” said Frank Lynn.
“Hmph,” said Philip, shifting his feet and starting to truly get impatient. Just a little more.
“He was, I don’t know, trying to tell me something. He wanted me to know how he got here. Or what would happen to him if the wrong people found him. He was afraid, get this, of white people. He was green; they were white. Like, er, you and me Philip. But not like Frank Lynn, who’s black instead. He said he wasn’t afraid of black — specified it. Just white. Unless white combines with black to turn gray.”
“Listen,” said a now quite confused Philip. “I’m outta here; gotta measure out some drugs for a deal. I told my dream, I listened to yours, Frank Lynn, and I’ve listened to Mikie’s here long enough too. Green man in shed. Radioactive asshole or something. Got it.”
“Don’t you want to know if the white people catch up with him, dawg?” said Frank Lynn to Philip Strevor, who was already walking away.
“Nah, I’ll leave that story with you and your outstanding blackness,” he waved off while leaving the scene.
(to be continued)
00440610
“‘I kill them,’ he said to me in the dream within the dream. ‘I kill them all.’ All the white people that accepted him, I realized, took him in and away from the shed. I felt horror. I was next!”
“Dawg, *dam*mit!” said Frank Lynn, alone as a listener now and picturing Mikie’s described awful scene in his head.
“But then he was back, just a dummy or something in a shed in the middle of nowhere, the nearby landfill smelling stronger than ever. I realized this was his proper place. I woke up.”
—–
“I think we’ve found our Slaughterhouse,” spoke observing Fern to — probably Billy still, I’m guessing. Yes, there he is.
(to be continued?)
00440611 (Plant Man)
“Thaaat’s betterr.”
“Hold still Mr. Middle Slaughter, tee hee. Say cheese.”
“Cheeeeeese.”
“Perfect.” Snap.
00440613 (plywood blocks)
He had some time to kill before he was needed again, so Edward D. decided to explore a bit more of this re-creation of Cyberpunk 2007’s Night City occurring out in the Estate sims, beyond just his involvement with Shelley Emily. At the core of this re-creation: Lizzy’s HoloCore nightclub, run by our own, chrome plated Tin Lizzy. Or at least tin. That’s one of the things I want to discuss when I catch up with her next through one character or another, perhaps Edward D. but perhaps not — perhaps here but perhaps not here as well. Why the switch from gold to tin in the conversion of Night City to Nightsity? And since this is Our Second Lyfe, I suppose this is Nightsity too, so she’ll be that dulled silver color again when we meet up with her in person, like we’ve seen at least once before in this here photo-novel, 44 in a series. I’m guessing it had something to do with a humbling and coming back down to earth, since tin in alchemy is often described as a base metal leading to gold, where you start the whole process from. Along with the more commonly named lead in this role. Here we can turn to Texas for more information, specifically one county in the longhorn state named Coleman. What’s going on here? Cornering the gold market?
Anyhoot, back to Edward and the present. He reads more about this particular brand of Nightsity in the floating text at the entrance:
Hmm. Corners again.
And peeking around the corner or edge of Lizzy’s nightclub in the still-being-built city: that damn, bright red apple tree popping up again, sometimes called cherry. But we know better.
(to be continued)
00440614
“Can I ax a question?”
“Uh HUH. Clever. But go ahead.” She was closely studying the act happening in front of us which didn’t interest him — me. Wrong body type. I wondered why. Gay? But maybe she’s just studying the girl’s moves for some kind of future reference. I popped it.
“Why?”
“Why?” she said back. I knew she knew what I meant. And she knew I knew. So I let the question stand as is. I thought of Dr. Why coming out of left field in Fern’s hospital scene to join Who, What and Idontknow in a makeshift team of physicians that didn’t care about answers in the end. Maybe Lizzy doesn’t care either. She decided to extend an olive branch.
“Let’s go back to Oklahoma and not Texas to see how much you remember. Sepisexton — Olive to Oklahoma. The Abstraction, 7 to 6. Gaeta, the 7th (continent), suddenly went dark. That affected everything that runs Our Second Lyfe behind the scenes. A change was made. The Flesh Pit was exposed for what it is, mystery no more. There’s even a bit of it poking through the supposedly vacant lot behind Aisle of Palms now, threatening its very existence if you didn’t know about that already.”
“I’ve already determined I’m going to give that up,” I said through Edward, handy in the moment.
“You have no *choice* now, though. If you’d taken that 4096 when it came up for rent. Or just bought it — maybe all this could have been avoided.”
“Who?” Pause. “What?” More standalone questions. Our fields of energy were becoming one. She was changing back. But not yet — hold off.
“I am the Ten that can turn into One,” she answered the first. “Ten is more important that Gold here. Do you have to ask?”
“Lincoln.”
“Correct. Lincoln is an alchemist.”
00440615
“Why is this lady dancing up a storm?” Billy logically asked.
“I don’t know, but she better be *careful*,” Fern returned. “She better remember Edward — out in the desert.” But then she turned away from frenzied bartender Lexi to stare at Edward in a nearby booth with the owner of the night club, this Tin Lizzy she knew pretty well now. She’d brought him here just for this very reason, she then understood. To prove that the other Edward, the other Edward D. even, is separate from this one, who is still alive and well thank you very much and living in Our Second Lyfe where he belongs. Not up there in the real (virtual) world of Cyberpunk 2077.
That explains the black and white photo on one side of the bar; she also obviously set that up as part of the message (“Crybaby”)…
… along with the other b&w on its opposite side. So if one side of the bar is a foot, she thought, then the other side is also also a foot?
“Got it!” she shouted again in a Eureka moment, common for the brilliant, ever-thinking woman. She could see now what was really going on. In the middle of the bar, Lexi changed into a dog which spoke to Billy in a language only robots could understand. “End this,” it said to him.
The perpetual waterfall, Billy remembered. The final attachment. He and Lexi were waterproof — they’d be fine, ha ha ha ha. Ho ho ho ho ho.
00440616
“Well Wheeler. Here we are at the end.”
“So… you’re admitting I’m Wheeler,” spoke Shelley to his side, also watching the water rise on the scene below.
“You’re Wheeler, yes. You’re my *daughter* Wheeler. I also have a wife Wheeler. And probably a mother Wheeler and also a dog Wheeler.”
“Down there,” she spoke, pointing to the robot dog still positioned in the middle of the bar, likewise water walking Fern Stalin studying it, wondering what makes it tick or if it could have ticks or fleas, but especially where it’s taking humanity as a whole. Obviously a lot of people will die as a result of this — flood. But the ones who survive will have a cleansed world to repopulate, free of the former dirt and smut and filth. Led at least in part by Fern, the chosen one. The one with the WOW factor.
“What about Billy?” asked Wheeler-Shelley, seeing the water submerge his small 3-4 foot robot body completely now.”
“Waterproof,” Newt spoke.
“Oh, of course. From novel 34.”
“Well,” said Newt. “Close enough.” He raises his glass of high alcohol purple snog beer from the counter. “So should we toast to the end? Another successful photo-novel?”
“Not quite,” Wheeler-Shelley said, keeping her beer on the counter and knowing more was to come.
PHOTO-NOVEL 45
00450103 (The Indicator)
—–
I was an expert on The Pit and all matters fleshy. They had set up a base of operations for me in an old castle surrounding the quarantined area. I looked for the promised local airport in which to land my orange PA-18 Super Cub Amphibian 1.2, bought on a lark day before yesterday’s tomorrow 5 years ago. Seems like it’s just the strip of land next to the castle over there. Oh well — it’ll be tight. Here goes!
Nailed it! Barely, phew! Now to find Baker Bloch the owner of this town and see what the deali-o is about the anomaly. Creature coming all the way under the oceanic plate separating Maebaleia from Jeogeot here? Highly unlikely. Probably an independent entity, hopefully smaller in scope.
(to be continued)
00450104 (Lincoln)
“Ahh, there’s me in the middle again. Surrounded by my 2 favorite men, Cary to the left and Madison to the right. If only it were still that way and I could choose and select who I wanted to be with in any one alternate reality, *sigh*.”
“I’m worried about you, Tin. I really am.”
“Why? Because I know who I am and what I want?”
“Maybe,” I admitted, thinking of my own insecurities. Sure I was a writer. But of what kind? What genre? The list goes on.
“Then you need to go away and think about what I’m telling you. Goodbye. Shoo now.”
—–
I first heard of Lizzy over in Rocky Boy toward the edge of the desert. Not *at* the edge. But getting there. Someone named Fern met me at Ten at Sunset during the afternoon soon to turn to night. Told me not to head back into Nightsity on my motorcycle. Told me to go east instead of west. Rocky Boy. Here I am.
I parked my motorcycle on the edge of the small, trailer dominated town, speaking of edges, intending to walk around and see what’s there. The pavement on the main road through it was heavily cracked and overgrown with weeds. Toward the middle of of the place there was a garage business with an unlit E in the neon OPEN sign next to its office door, the only building I could find with a walkable interior. Seeing no indications of hostile forces, I go inside to check it out.
Devoid of people, but its lone TV was playing. Someone, some kind of influencer let’s call it, was talking about Lizzy and how’d she’d thrown her hat into the brain daze producing ring, starting with a murder most foul. Of her own doing. Listening to it, I somehow knew this Lizzy person, who, after all, I didn’t know about 5 minutes before, would never do this and that the BD was a fake, if it even depicted a murder. I don’t know how I knew, but it turned out to be correct. There was no body. There was nobody.
(to be continued?)
00450105
After the BD was over, the driver who was also the filmer decided to make the same loop over again to start another BD, this time focusing on the incredibly compact Tibetian city of Yajaing itself more than a drive into the city from another one called Kangding 2 hours, 44 minutes, and 20 seconds away through beautiful Himilayan mountains. Here are the two identical sections travelled, starting at 0:51 and 2:37:21 in the videos below respectively.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vpZ-H3nqOMM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BSHphBOAc1U
Continuing leads from FBI Agent Dale Cooper (see below), I saw it as an opportunity to study synchronicity through direct overlap. It may have paid off, because this TILE umbrella appearing on the first loop…
… was then removed by the second one, a time I estimate to be about 30 minutes later. Another highlighting of TILE, it seemed, becoming a theme for this here present photo-novel.
Agent Cooper’s advice seems to pay off again (!).
Gentlemen, when two separate events occur simultaneously pertaining to the same object of inquiry, we must always pay strict attention.
And this time — so appropriate — in his beloved Tibet he declared intense admiration for early on in the Twin Peaks series, even taping a map of it on the back of a blackboard to lecture about for others in his adjunct law enforcement department. And however confused they seem in the moment here, I’m sure they got a lot out of it. 🙂 And Cooper’s advice I quote above comes from the same talk.
Speaking of TILE umbrellas: back to the cyberpunk desert.
00450106
I see the Wall the Wall sees me.
—–
“Find anything?!”
“Gold!”
“Yeah, it’s out here!” the silhouetted man calls back from the distance.
“Just laying around! Like rocks!”
“Yuup!”
“So why aren’t there…?! I mean…!”
“Why aren’t there more people around, then?!”
“Yeah!”
“Because it’s fool’s gold you fool! fool’s gold you fool! fool’s gold you fool!
—–
Fern wakes up under the umbrella the color of TILE. Desert dreams. Badlands. There’s actually only her out here… and Billy, who doesn’t really count since he’s a 3-4 foot, chrome plated mechanoid. He observes with bright, electric blue, pupil-less eyes her awakening not 3 feet away, out of the shade and into the sun. If he stretched out in place, he could almost prop his shadowed, robotic feet up on her torso. “Hi” he metes out as is his duty, and adds a little glinty morning salute to his sunny smile. “Cereal and milk has already been poured in that order. Just like you like.” He winks and his smile also appears to glint like his arm did before. Fern checks her watch (not on her arm?). 9 o’clock. She overslept by an hour and Billy was ready at 8. Can’t blame him for the sogginess then, pheh. Just following orders. She makes a mental note, to add to those orders, to rouse her at the appointed time and not let her sleep late. But for this morning, limp Toasty-O’s Snakes and Ladders pepper and mint flavored breakfast in heavily colored red and green milk to make gray it is.
He washed Fern’s bowl without water, using the sandpaper hand attachment #4 to do the job. Ceramic would hold up under this finer abrasion, he knew. But what happened to all the water? He had produced soo much of it with his endless waterfall toward the end of photo-novel 44, the last installment in our series and also perhaps perpetual it seems. At least I don’t see an end anywhere in sight using my future vision. I’ll switch it off now; back to the present.
After being unable to sand out a particularly persistent stain in the required time according to his inner clockwork, Billy cusses in his peculiar robot vernacular (“Nuts and Bolts!” I believe it was) and throws the bowl into the gorge next to them and proceeds to fashion another from the local clay. Will take him all morning, Fern reckons. Time for her to explore the hills around here without being followed everywhere. She’ll enjoy the isolation.
In the middle of the desert which was also its edge, she soon comes across this military grade helicopter, not so much landed here as crashed — both at once. Philip Stevor was working on one of the broken landing wheels presently. She approached, recognizing the figure. But why was he *here*? In the desert? Outside Nightsity?
“Cpt.,” she said about 10 feet away, unnoticed in approaching the chopper and addressing him the way she always did. He drew his gun as he stood up and spun around. Not drunk this morning, it appears, Fern thought. Impressive! Must have done a required stint in rehab.
“Oh,” he said, relaxing and putting the gun away. “It’s you, phew! So many bad things out here in the Badlands. Guess you came here through the portal — don’t mind if I keep working on the chopper while we talk, I hope. Gotta get out of here asap. I can take you with me. If you’re also stuck out here in the middle of nowhere for reasons still unknown to me.” He turned only his head now while the hands were still busy with the wheel. “Are you?… stuck?”
Was she?
Was I?
(to be continued)
00450107 (420 (Mercury is Paradise))
—–
“Off by Tin,” said Fern to this, knowing Mercury was instead actually Poison to the alchemists of old. Like her.
(to be continued)
00450108 (Red Arrow (Coming back to Earth))
“This one’s gold. Annnnd (grunts while reaching into the wagon for another one)… *this* one’s gold.”
She pauses in her work to look around the Badlands business. “Jeez, looks like they’re *all* gold to me, huh.”
Her boss comes out of left field and tells her it’s quitting time.
“Do I come back tomorrow?” she asks expectantly, wiping her hands on her jeans before inserting them into its pockets.
He also looks around at all the rocks, gauges the height of the piles, their diameter, whether more rocks can be added to them right now. “Mmmmm. We’ll see. Stay close to your phone in the morning.”
“Oh. Oh okay.”
He stares at her pants, then decided to add: “I’d recommend washing your hands before leaving, err–” He stops; he can’t remember her name; he decides to continue like no awkward pause occurred. “Anyway, ahem, some of these, um, rocks might contain uranium, uh hmm. Not enough to kill you or anything (hardy laugh here). Just as a precaution. Soap’s on the sink in the bathroom over there.” He exits back to the left after pointing in that direction. Fern is alone. No call in the morning as it turns out. Another day off to enjoy the desert sun and wind. Maybe even a dust storm midday to break up the monotony. Out of sunscreen, though, with no money left to buy. She’s hoping for rain.
(to be continued)
00450109
“I feel like I’m out of my depths with these channels, Panama. Feel like I don’t even have a foundation to stand on anymore.”
“I hear ya sister.”
“So I’m turning to you.” She turns in the water. “Just like wet can turn to dry given enough time in space and distance.”
That blasted alchemical text, Panama knew. But it worked.
Lexi reluctantly hands over the keys to Ralph.
00450110
“Had to leave my clan too,” I say in response to her own angst. I could certainly identify.
“Ah yes, I remember. The Baker Family right?”
“Then I came to Nightsity, saw my chance to escape.”
“Second Lyfe?”
“*Their* Second Lyfe. Not *My* Second Lyfe. Not any more.”
“Lets… talk about something else, humm,” she said, depressed about clan chatter, the lack of Home. She downed the rest of her second beer in one huge gulp. I started seriously wondering if we were going to sleep together tonight — in the same bed. 10 o’clock at the Sunset but morning, not night. Lincoln wouldn’t be arriving for 12 more hours. 10 was waiting for him.
—–
Panama and I slept in separate beds that night, got up the next morning, knocked out power to the entire town of Rocky Boy attracting the Raffin Shiv renegade nomads that Panama sought revenge on for stealing her valuable wheels that day in April’s May 6 or 7 months ago, killed 17 of their gang there without so much as getting a scratch on us, buried their bodies in makeshift graves, even had time because of our efficiency for 17 makeshift, very quick services involving a lot of spitting on graves to rub the death part in, yada yada yada. All in a days work for good ol’ Samaritan mercenary V(al) here. But while we did this, the other part of our deal, the reciprocal act, was instead enacted by a party coming out of left field: the stealing of the Kang Tau AV and, most importantly, the goods within. Good news: they wanted to negotiate a price for it. Bad news: well…
—–
“There they are,” said Panama, indicating what lies behind her. “Annnnnd I’m outta here.”
Aw, *f-ck*. The Why quadruplets, I thought as Panama moved out of the scene, Act 1 of 2 of her Cyberpunk 2077 story completed. Why why why? WHY? I said to myself, counting them off. Oh well. I’ll deal with Doris and Dolores first, split up the burden; maybe I’ll make it through that way.
“Morning ladies,” I tried to say as brightly as possible, approaching the nearest pair. “Hear you have a package for me, all tied up with a bow or something, ha.”
“You”ll have to talk to Diedra over there about ties,” spat out demonic Doris. “And Debra next to her is the bow person of the group,” hissed devilish Dolores to her side. They stared coldly toward me, no emotion in their faces except maybe stark raving rage. Or nothing at all — hard to tell.
“Looking for something else,” I quickly recouped, my skin crawling from their voices, their stares. “Information. What’s inside the package.”
“Better,” gurgled Doris and Dolores at once; ahh, synchronized hell. What’s worse than this? Quadruple hell that’s what. Good I split them up into pairs. “We’re interior,” these 2 continued in their foul way. “*They’re* exterior. Whattaya want?” Would they ever become unsynchronized, dammit? Can’t stand much more!
The asking price — so ironic — was Panama’s just won back Thornton Mackinaw “Warhorse” vehicle — go figure. All that slaughter and risk for nothing. Should have focused on the Kang Tau AV first. Hindsight is golden of course. And I got to know Panama better for all this. We’re pals, we’re a pair. We’ll probably even sleep together given enough time. Is this… why I left *Their* Second Lyfe? Unconsciously, of course. Couldn’t have known about Panama and her bewitching ways ahead of time. Act 2 of 2 will tell!
00450111
“I need to have a talk with you, V. Panama’s not my type. I don’t *want* to sleep with her. I actually… have my eyes set on someone else.”
“Jonny. How long’s it been?” I say to the person inside of me, the person I’m wedded to as much as any soulmate lover. We’re not lovers. We are One. “Roller coaster?” I tried to pinpointed.
“Yeah. Roller coaster. Had a fun day back there. Thought I’d end it while we were still on top.”
“Yeah, noticed you weren’t with me after we started careening down to the bottom again on that last big hill.”
“The biggest!”
“Yeah.”
“Good times.”
“Good times, Jonny. So… are you back?”
“Define: back.”
“Welll.”
“Just kidding, kid-o.” Jonny’s affectionate nickname for me, since he’s, I don’t know, like *150*. “Take the red pill and let’s try that scene (from the last post) again. Let me take over. I want to demonstrate my point.”
“And then you’ll take the blue one,” I said, reinforcing the pact we made before. Red on my side, blue on Jonny’s side to return control back to me. He’d been proven a reliable ally on this arrangement.
“Sure, sure. Just like before, chum.” He even gently punches me on the shoulder to reinforce the partnership, the unity of cause. I don’t feel any punch of course, all this being just virtual hallucination.
“Now?”
“Now. Before the inspiration is lost.”
I had a couple of reds handy in my back pocket. I pull one out. “Okay. Here goes (swallow).”
—–
For a moment, she appeared in their midst, naked as a jailbird, even bringing a bit of Kabusie canal water along with her which pooled down below her feet. I thought it was a mirage at first, but then I stared at the tattoos, remembered what they said and represented to her, the roses, the firetruck, the spiderweb, that *cat*. No mirage this Lexi Alvocado was — straight out of the city and into the desert, Panama nowhere to be Scene. Tattoos like that don’t lie.
I could feel myself stirring down there. I wasn’t sure I wanted to lose control again this time. Which of course — doofus — V or Val heard, being One with me. What gives? he says way down there, but aware of the stirrings not his own, the thoughts. Okay okay, I say back in my head to the other part of myself. I’ve proven my point. Take the blue pill, he pleads. Get out of there before it’s too late. But what do you think? I say back. Beautiful isn’t she. Better than Panama, eh? So go with Lexi. We’ll get along *so* much better later. Take – the blue — *pill*, he insisted from within. Okay alright, I say. I had two in my back pocket as well. Wait… one. Always forget how that works. I pull it out, I swallow. Yeah, before it’s too late. The arrangement, etc. etc.
The pill begins working its magic. She acquires her regular garb to stem the stirrings, cut them off even. She was Jonny’s type, I said in my head while making my way back to the surface. But she wasn’t *my* type.
—–
Then *I*, baker b. of the Baker Family of Our Second Lyfe avatars, took over. Neither one, the Mary Anne and Ginger of Cyberpunk 2077 as we could call them, were my types. I put the patch back in my pocket to end the game before it even began.
00450112 (associations)
After being left alone in the Badlands desert without a male to ogle them, our two Mary Anne and Ginger type girls decided to play a game within the game around a warming campfire to pass the time. After all, Lexi had been summoned and Panama was already there. Just around the corner. She could return. So she did. Sister act. Act 2 of 2 can wait. Still point in the middle.
“It was right around a campfire much like this that the legend of the Burning Man begin,” started Panama, wise to desert ways being the nomad she was, an outcast of the city. “A man we only know as Edward D., dancing up a storm to summon… well…”
“Me?” Lexi guessed. It could be so, Panama thought, but she pretended not to hear her and continued. “Soon, very soon, others remembered a rock with a depiction of the scene, along with the glyph 01 + 02 – 03 = 00.” Lexi repeated it to make sure she heard right and Panama nodded. “It all added — and subtracted — up — and down — to zero.”
“Hmm,” said Lexi. “Burning Man,” she summarized.
“But wait, there’s more. If you go to this rock at 3 o’clock at night you’ll find him again. The Burning Man, burning away inside a fire much like this one. You smell the flesh searing right off of him. Or so they say. You can follow him, burning away like a fireball, streaking across the desert…
“… then collapsing, the screams finally silent as the fire keeps consuming.”
“Wow,” says Lexi. “That was a good story.”
“Wait. There’s more. So move the clock back to daytime — return. There’s only a dummy there, not even charred. An Arasaka robot, a crash test dummy, or so it’s been described to me.”
“Uh *huh*.”
“And *that’s* the end.”
“Great. My turn now.” Lexi already had a follow-up and was eager to get at it. “City this time now obviously — where I’m from.”
“Right,” says Panama.
“But burning man again, but in a different way.”
“Oh?” says Panama. “How?”
“Penis burn. Or some say balls. Crotch malfunction. But — get this — Arasaka again. Interesting, eh?”
“Eh?” says Panama.
—–
00450201 (stone’s throw away from something)
“Shoot man, you don’t know *nothing* about Doggtown, choom. Buy something from a poor ol’ peddler of junk and I’ll tell you all the places to go, not to go. Mainly the latter because there’re some many of *those* around, huh.”
“What’s with all the flamingos around here?”
“Don’t get me started (!). Flamingos been around since before the beginning. Killed all the birds within a 10 miles radius of town because of that a-vi-ar-y flu, you know. No flamingos around any more. They’re ghosts. Heck, *I’m* a ghost. Anyway…”
This is Ronald. He mentioned business being down because the whole town is chasing after a VIP named Roslyn (sp?) whose plane crashed nearby. The flamingo perpetually behind his head is colored pink, which is close to lavender. Another thing we are close to, then, is Twin Peaks. Only a reference to Northern Exposure in some way remains to seal the deal. I’ll keep looking.
00450203 (doing The Flamingo)
Art is sort of a decentralized, collective thing. Like, art is kind of a conversation with all the artists that have ever lived before you. You know, like it’s like you’re really just sort of its — it’s not like anyone’s reinventing the wheel here. Like, you’re kind of just taking, you know, thousands of years of art and, like, running it through your own little algorithm and then, like, making your interpretation of it.
“Pyramid. Know anything about it?”
“Ground floor’s open to everyone, choom. Called The Heavy Hearts Club — more to that name than meets the eye, huh — never thought about it like that.” He shakes his head, then refocuses. “But those top floors: only VIPs, the gold plated ones, huh. The ones gifted – by – the – Goooodds. And sitting at the very top like a huge glinting eye… well, um *hum*. What, child of mine, do you know about the *Suun*?”
“I– dunno, choom. Tell me about it.” I glanced at the flamingo behind his head again, knew we were entering some deeper waters. Those long legs might come in handy after all.
“I mean, *huh*. Are you a true *believer*? Or are you just a pretender, a wannabe worshipper with his religious mofo diapers still on and sh-tting those mere *mortal* bricks. Not the yellow ones, the golden eggs. You have to sh-t the golden eggs to be the chosen. Otherwise, you’re a wor*shitter*, ha. See what I just did there? Okay, okay,” he admits. “Not my best one. But you better believe the other parts are true. There is a shining eye at the top, choom. A shining — eyyyyye. You look into it, you better damn well be one of those chosen ones, hmph. Or else,” and he extends two fingers and pokes at his own eyes to demonstrate. “He takes your *two* to make his *ONE*, *huh* — you know what I’m saying?”
I figured I’d gotten enough out of *this* one, obviously also blinded by his own ambition. Top notch runner in his day, he explained before, only to have his body reject the new cybernetics. Another casualty of Fiona’s School for the Gifted and the Damned, as he put it. Just like that Linda boxer across the way he also told me a story about. Typhoon Ronald indeed. Living inside a past glory, old memories drowning out the present. He can’t even see what’s right behind him.
“Welp,” I said, taking one last look at the neon pink flamingo then turning toward the pyramid. “Guess it’s time to head over and see for myself.”
“Gold – plated – *sh-t*,” he ended, shaking his head again and laughing and waving me off.
Start with the ground floor, yeah. Have conversations with everyone while working my way to the top. Become a little algorhithm of all that’s ever been. Gold plated.
(to be continued)
00450204
I parked on pink which matched the color of my Villefort Alvarado 570 De Luxe Convertible — appropriate. Lizzy’s own even larger and more expensive gold plated wheels to match her body was already there, blocking off the parking lot as, in turn, I just blocked her in. As if she owned the place. And perhaps she does. Let’s listen in…
“So. Are you suppose to be Tin or Lead now, Lizzy? I always forget.” Sarcasm. Bitter. Evelyn hates Lizzy, Tin or not. She hates this bar too. She hates everything but that’s beside the point. Lizzy is the focus of that hate right now. Lizzy and (her?) Lizzies. Let’s continue to listen in…
“I’m going to answer that with a riddle, Evelyn. Ready? What’s blue and bitter and a hard pill to swallow whatever?”
“Jeez,” says thoughtful Evelyn, game for a game. “Let me see, Iiii–”
“It’s YOU. You hate everything. I just happen to be the focus of that hate right now.” Just as I thought. And I forgot that Tin is silver-ish not gold now. She’d changed with her last album about alchemy, “Coleman County Corners” or something. Country? (origin). Let’s go with France. 1/2 of the songs are set in such. There’s a really interesting one about the Eiffel Tower and how gold statuettes of the famous monument were mixed up with the ordinary lead ones by 2 thieves attempting to corner a market, but that’s another story involving Lavender. Best to leave Lavender out of it for now. Let’s stick to pink. Back to the action…
Well, they’re slapping each other now in a kind of continuous way. Both are getting a bit red cheeked already. This may not end well, may end with one of them, perhaps both of them dropping to the ground. Should I step in? I decide to step in.
“*Ladies*,” I tried to calm, walking toward them. “Ladies ladies *ladies*.” *Smack* *smack*. I was down on the ground with a double to the face, ears bloodied on both sides. I drain the blood out of at least my left ear to try to continue hearing what’s going on.
“*Right* here. *Right* now,” Lizzy was saying now about a duel, slapping ceased for the moment with my downfall. Oh dear, this was getting worse instead of better. “*10* paces. Live grenades.” Live grenades? I think with my aching head. Surely she jests. “Make it bombs, atomic bombs,” Evelyn upped the ante. “World extermination if you lose, world extermination if I lose.” Where in hell was this going?
(to be continued)
00450205
I came here looking for a ring.
—–
“Well? Answer it.”
“Hallo?”
“So you’re a man,” he answered on the other end of the line. Brusk; kind of hoarse. “Nomad?” he followed.
“Corpo.”
“Aw sh-t. I was hoping you’d be a Nomad.”
“Well I’m not. So what can I do you for.”
“*You*. You do for *me*.”
“Okay. Think that’s what I said. But, what’re you asking?”
“I need to find… The Flaringo.”
“Ringo?”
“Close enough (*click*).”
*Brinngg bringg*. Just like that. Another call coming in.
“Well?” said Jonny again by my side.
Then this when I answered: “It’s me again. Just want to let you know it was Jonny all along.” Same affected voice, pheh. Ventriloquist. What a clown!
“So when is my actual contact suppose to call, huh?” I say exasperatedly.
“Not until tomorrow,” he said in his normal voice now, hand lowered. “In the excitement of a new town you forgot what day it was. I was just playing along. Using my, ahem, peculiar talents.”
I sighed deeply, understanding we’d have to stay one more night in that hovel of a room at the top of the pyramid Ronald recommended.
“So let’s grab some lunch. You’re buying.”
“Right Jonny, right,” I replied while walking away from the phone with him, my hallucinatory other half now.
Lemon Lime Apple Blueberry would have to wait.
00450206
He said to meet him at the Andrew Johnson Basketball Courts and that they had to talk about the worst president of our country ever. I thought I knew who he was referencing because of the courts’ name and all but the answer surprised me. Roslyn (sp?) Carter. Carter? No, Meyers. Got my presidents and their wives confused. Like thinking Roslyn C. was married to former president Ronald R. instead of her own man. Lavender got in my way. “Tailor,” he said about the president. Are we sure we’re not talking about the first guy I was thinking of? I thought. “(Tailor… ) *made* for the job,” he then finished his sentence, interrupted for a cough. Had a chance to smoke out here in the great outdoors, taking advantage of it. “Tailor… *made*?” I parroted, then waited for his reaction. He was coughing again. Between hacks, he managed to admit that he hadn’t smoked any cigs since last Thursday’s Tuesday and that it had been a long stretch of inside work since then. Nonstop. “Just like I use to smoke nonstop on my old job as an outdoor patrolman,” he wheezed. Then he squeezed out, “We have to get to Meyers,” which I took as: this has to be the focus of our conversation now. But he couldn’t stop coughing after this. Clearly we couldn’t talk here. He gave me an address for later.
00450207
Who is the hatted giant on the edge of the Badlands screaming his lungs out when summoned by a certain succession of loudly whistled notes?
Does he also have a burning crotch like our similarly screaming Burning Man 02 seen earlier in this here photo-novel? Or in danger of self combustion like BM 01 from that same post back there? Or does he just not like the tune? Maybe the mystery lies in it instead. Maybe, if we were also a giant trapped on the edge of a cyperpunk distopia, we would also not appreciate the whincily high pitched tune imposed on us; would be painful to our ears. Is it Barry Manilow like for this poor fellow in Hell from the 80s British comedy series “The Young Ones”?
Just random thoughts. Could be wrong on everything, including even the appearance of the giant in the first place. Might be just one of those desert mirages. Could be photoshopped. Could be a real giant but in a different, “edge” location, maybe even up in the real world as opposed to the virtual one down here (Hell too?). We’ll see if he figures into these here photo-novels ever again. Only then might we be sure.
00450208
“Seems like you’re off the cigs now,” I said as he got in the car. Which just reminded him of his habit.
“We’re still technically outside in here,” he said. “Mind if I light up?” and he did so before I could give him permission, which I was still debating about. I didn’t want this meeting to go like the last one. I needed answers. He puffed out, coughed, took a drag, puffed out, coughed some more. The meeting was over in 5. He managed to scribble down another address and throw it through the open window as he was leaving, almost doubled over by that time.
—–
It was the address to Meyers’ room further up into the bowels of the town, as it turned out, where she was imprisoned by a certain set of others. Let’s call them Jimmy and Nancy. He met me at the door, said he was tired of monkeying around and that we had to get to the heart of the problem. We were inside again so he couldn’t partake of his chief vice, which freed up his hands. But freeing Meyers was the main thing here, whose VIP plane crashed into this here Doggtown, scourge of Nightsity, day before yesterday’s yesterday, which drew me in in an unwitting way, being the veteraned, for-hire gunslinger I was. Once this was done and his responsibilities as a crack NUSA officer were over with the rescue, he said we could talk again, maybe take in a game at Andrew Johnson’s. He’d bet on me winning since he’d likely be out of breath again. Was this a date? Or just friendly banter to relax me before an armed confrontation? Turns out it was both.
“Knock on the door,” he commanded, becoming dead serious again. “Just do it.”
“Open up in there!” I said while knocking. Lucky for us, they were waiting for pizza. But Lemon knew this since he was playing the delivery person.
“*Here’s* your box,” he barked when the door opened, pointing his Pariah Tier 5+ Iconic Tech Pistol at Jimmy’s head, “and your face is about to be the pizza if you don’t fess up to what’s going on here. Where’s Roslyn… Bozo?,” he crowed, backing the wirey dude 1/2way across the room toward the far window.
Then Nancy appeared around the corner, saying to put our tools away like we were children playing with toys. I recognized her from her many photos and TV appearances. Nancy was Roslyn! Should’ve known with a name like that. And a Northern Exposure to this room too (!).
(to be continued)
00450307
In Charter Hills…
… the day time stood still.
Headless.
00450308
I walked into the bar and a guy was headless right in front of me. With a big head on the screen beside him. Kind of freaked me out until I realized he was just slumped over on the counter, probably drunk out of his gourd, ha ha. Like I wanted to be. Where’s Cary, where’s Cary?
Ahh, there the ol’ son of a bitch is, waving me over. Don’t call him Cary don’t call him Cary, I recited as a mantra. He’s incognito tonight with the toned down clothes and fake beard and all. Wanted me to help him find Eden, he said. I’m buying, in that I’m in. He’s buying the drinks of course, being the semi-mega superstar rock singer he is now. As of the last album, he’s sold enough records to surpass Elvis Presley as the 67th best seller of all time. Of course he’ll never catch the likes of the Way Outs or Sunamai, which just happens to be his old band. But he’s doing pretty well for himself still. Dropped down from the hills tonight, as in North Oak where he has a kind of mansion or something. Never been up there personally. Never had a reason to mingle with the pseudo-super rich up there. No crime up there either, given all the military-style robots roaming all over the place. Nobody dares.
“V(al)!” he introduces himself over the music, a Way Out single from the 60s I believe, as in 2060s. He’s probably jealous they’re playing. He’s that kind. “Have a drink have a drink,” he said as I move in on him. “Already ordered one for you. A mulberry they call it. Don’t know why. Purple, I know, but really good. Something in the purple. Just drink up drink up.” Cary’d already knocked down a few it appeared, already getting sort of unusually fluid in his motion.
“Nice to see you again,” I said back, grasping the proffered beverage, indeed quite purple. Almost beyond belief, actually. “What was it? The UK Cracks?”
“Yeah, wanted to kill those chromatic bitches at the time. Now they’re okay they’re good. Made a single together I guess you’ve heard.”
“I heard, uh, one of them got killed, maybe two of them.”
“Nah, they’re okay they’re good. Just saw them day before yesterday’s yesterday over at Lester Bay. You know, down by the river. Near the ocean. You know — everybody knows. Lester Bay, right.” He drinks, takes a drag off his cigar. “Right,” he repeats, blowing out smoke away from me but on to a nearby guy at the counter, who moves away a bit from us. “Cigar?” he then says, holding his own up to me. I wave him off. Wanted to focus on drinking tonight. And work. “Suit yourself,” he says.
“Must’ve heard wrong, then,” I back down, trying to remember where I’d heard the news about the killing. Or killings. But now I can’t recall. Must have just made it up, pheh. Getting older, brain matter getting worn out I suppose. About time to retire from the merc business. I tell Cary some of this, who laughs.
“Listen, you do this last job for me you can buy that house next to mine that’s up for sale and we can be *neighbors*, ha ha.”
“So… what this time?” I was eager to get at it. The suspense was killing me. “Soo, obviously not the UK Cracks,” I said to fill in the gap while he kept drinking and smoking away, staring at me but not providing any answers.
“No, no UK Cracks,” he finally offers. “But a musician still.” He drinks, he smokes.
“Welll?”
“How much (drink)… do you know (smoke)… about Tin Lizzy?”
Turns out she was in the middle, which unfortunately, as the old saying indicates, is mostly just in the way. Cary proffered a way out.
(to be continued)
00450311
“Big going’s on down at the Eden Plaza tonight from the sound of it, Madison. Another media frenzy I suppose.”
“Checking,” he says from within their luxurious penthouse apartment overlooking Nightsity’s upscale Charter Hills district, doors opened to the balcony because of the warm night. He scans the hit list on his big boy computer in front of him, picks one from a source he knows and trusts. “Looks like another country to city success story according to this article from the ‘Daily Bungle.’ Couple named, let’s see: Eddie and Eva. Straight from Farmville. Film debut tonight. Something called ‘My Green Square Mile.'”
“Sounds abhorrent,” she weighs in without knowing anything else about the project. More vocal cheering now in the distance. Another celebrity must have arrived at the debut party, she thinks. Maybe that wretched *Cary* who seems to show up whenever these things occur. Cary, she ponders. I wonder who he’s dating these days. Tin? Nah, couldn’t be Tin again. Not after what happened the last time.
“Honey,” says Madison from within, still checking out that article. “You might want to take a look at this.”
She moves away from the sound and through the open door to come alongside her husband, who’s turning the monitor her way. A picture of the front of the plaza with new, golden animal sculptures is enlarged before her, heads cut off but it’s clear what they are anyway from the rest.
“Flamingos??”
(to be continued)
00450312
“She wanted to *kill* you Madison Perez. She wanted to cut your *head* off, throw the body away in some trash pit in J-Town, and then parade it around town on a pole for all to see. The poll was rigged!”
I couldn’t argue with her since I didn’t know what she was talking about. See, my head had already basically been cut off. From the inside.
—–
We owned a big plot of land out in Texas badlands where most of my people were conceived. Hard to miss with its Big Red P on a sign above the gate. We’d find it. Even without my head.
I needed to confer with my people before the pole comes out.
(to be continued)
00450313
“May I remind you just here that this *could* have been you.”
“No time for dwelling in alternate realities, Jonny. The Prophet’s successor just disappeared in front of us (!). After talking about Alpha Centauri!”
“I wish I could be comforted,” Jonny continued nonplussed, “that aliens were up there, looking after our well being or *not* looking after it. But, truth be told, the only blood sucking vampires up in space with reptilian skin are the corps sitting atop their high towers in their fancy, snakeskin suits with their eyes all lit up from all the eddies they’re taking from the common people down below. I’m a realist V(al). It’s all here and now for me. Look around. What’s in front of your face. No escapist fantasy for this ol’ rocker boy.”
“Speaking of which, Jonny. What do you know about (the town of) Rocky Boy out in the desert? Per chance: named for you?”
“I’d rather not go down that path, talking about alternate realities.” He looks down at his feet, exhales. “Yeah, admittedly I had a hand in that you could say, ha.” He dexterously wiggles the fingers on his silver one, looks over at the Hustle Girl again as we’ve started to call her. He was expressing *his* desired reality in no uncertain terms.
Jonny later said that people *can* just wink out in Nightsity; it’s not unheard of. Because it’s all part of the Matrix, he expressed — everything we know is, he held firm.
(to be continued)
00450314
I backed up after passing him, intending to ask the obvious, something like, “Enjoying that Chinese food, bud?” But he piped up first.
“You again,” he said. He recognized me! I thought. And I him too. Desert. Burning. But in the morning: okay. Just an Arasaka crash test dummy robot, if still deactivated. What I mean is that he didn’t have a scratch on him from the burning. And now: here. But, just as quick, “Oh, sorry; never mind,” and started eating away again even though he obviously couldn’t. No internal workings, I mean by that. So I moved on, logged it in as yet another glitch in the matrix. But not after seeing he had a yellow head and was sitting on the same bench as a redhead…
… and then two benches down with only one person between them, a blue haired lady sitting with a green haired dame. TILE again. Or very close, close enough to count, I figured. I was still noticing.
(to be continued)
00450316
I was walking past the three monks worshipping at a shrine in front of a pretty pink blossoming tree when I saw the TILE umbrella in the distance. I began to wonder: was *that* what they’re really worshipping? They were pointing in the right direction for it. Maybe the shrine and the tree were there just to guide our eye in the right direction.
I walked up under the umbrella and saw the 4 colors on the opposite side emerge from below. The anti-jewels (!) I think. The ones provided by what Bill Giant calls the system. Better get back to completing my side of the deal, then. Back to “Frank’s Moving Mtn.”
00450401
My study of Osamu Sato’s 1998 LSD Dream Emulator game and the setting up of this mini-museum to it in the attic of my Aisle of Palms “Big Victorian House” seems so long ago now. It was only April. So seems my heavy involvement with Our Second Lyfe, whose influence is undoubtedly fading from this here blog and attached photo-novels, 44 1/2 in number now (a long journey!), as more modern and much better looking games like Grand Theft Auto V, Witcher 3, and especially Cyberpunk 2077 and its humongous Night City take more and more of both my daytime and nighttime attention. But also, My Second Lyfe is not dead. Just *concentrated*. Think that’s the best way to put it. It glows bright blue to me, a square in the middle of everything still, a house-like home base sitting in the center of a large yard, with GTA V lying green to the west, C2077 red to the east, and Witcher3 yellow to the south (also taking the shape of a square unattached to the first (like a garage or large shed?)). This what-we-can-call expansion is happening now, but it also happened long long ago, in what seems like a different lifetime over 50 years back now. Aisle of Palms is my virtual village that represents the launching pad for exploring these post-Second Lyfe worlds, beginning, really, with Red Dead Redemption earlier this year, before the influence of the 3 likewise newer games I mentioned really started kicking in. A link from this far far past to the present in this way is MONKEY.
Monkey City = Lost Sanos
There I said it, Mother. Monkey City *is* relevant to all this. But I think she sees that now.
This is probably where I’ll first virtually incarnate beyond Our Second Lyfe in the near future. A good guess, given this snapshot of GTA V’s original monkey mosaic 1 1/2 photo-novels back taken by Trevor (beginning of 44) coupled with a snapshot of a *different* Trevor — recently dead — wearing monkey brand underpants in the Badlands desert of C2077 from later in the same photo-novel. Maybe hard to explain but I definitely think the two images from two different games are linked.
Why GTA V (Lost Sanos) over C2077 (Nightsity) then for the incarnation? I’ll have to think about that explanation and get back to you.
(to be continued)
00450406 (deception)
Shelley Johnston (or Johnson) Struthers found that there were two options for teleportation at the Big V on Valgate, another one of Nautilus’ Rim Isles along with nearby Viterbo just visited by Philip Strevor in a dream. She was standing at 108/108/108 before it, certainly a significant location with its triple number of length/width/height within the sim representing The Moon in all aspects. One of the options was a club in the neighboring sim of Oleg called Relics. Through Jer Left Horn she’d already been there, back in novel 43, talking about the relic from the game Cyberpunk 2077 logically enough, especially given that throughout it all we look from the perspective of a person name *V*. This is obviously related to that.
—–
“I like your hair,” says Emeralda, wishing she had some herself. Which Shelley then arranged, deal swung. She then knew what Jer Left Horn from back in photo-novel 43 was looking for. The Devil, but a particular blue one. “Guy named Mike,” Emeralda said, still remotely playing with the size and positioning of the wig upon her head, a duplicate of Shelley’s except for the green color to match her body. “Had a mate named Pat. Both fruit headed. Lemon and lime, although I can’t remember which is which. Center of Missouri they were from, but more immediately, North Carolina and Tennessee, although, again, which is which escapes me. Is that enough? Can I still keep the hair?”
“Location?” Shelley pressed. “She’d heard rumors about a Lemon Free State existing in the left middle lower upper part of the continent back in the day. A failed country, more importantly, rulers perhaps still on the roam. They could be anywhere. She had to pinpoint.
Emeralda found a position on her head which seemed to fit just right after reducing all wig prims by 5%. She tried to analogize this to the continent, the right position on it to find the roaming, former aristocracy. “Duke,” she said, remembering the title, the dependency.” She didn’t say anything else for a minute.
“And, let’s see, Pat as a Duchess (then)?” Shelley filled in the gap.
“I’m… not sure,” said Emeralda back. “Had two boys as I recall. Benny and Jer– *wait*.”
Green Emeralda stared at blue Shelley across the gap and it closed. The hair was magical. They were one. Shelley was back in the Tiler shed, hiding from the whites of their eyes. And the skin, white as well. Whites all around. Which was bad. She’d He’d have to kill them all after gaining their trust. He’d find a way.
“And this is where we came in,” says Fern to likewise observing Billy.
00450603
Persimmon. A seed that grew into a tree. A tree whittled down to make a club. Woods (Tiger).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wood_(golf)
Woods are so called because, traditionally, they had a club head that was made from hardwood, generally persimmon,[1] but modern clubs have heads made from metal, for example titanium, or composite materials, such as carbon fiber
Persimmon can also be whittled down to >sim< (Juho). Or in this case, visa versa.
In another, completely different game, a Woodman working for Tyger (Claws (gang)) with an actual last name of Forrest.
https://cyberpunk.fandom.com/wiki/Oswald_Forrest
Just some random, scattered association, but maybe soon to be more.
Woods: I’m part of the older generation that grew up playing with balata balls, and part of the last generation that played persimmon.
(to be continued?)
00450704
Oops, he thinks while checking the photo-novel 45 clock behind Redd, its time quickly running out. See ya, my new muse. Gotta go meet Tobor down at the beach to end this thing, but not before leaving my door slightly ajar of course. This could be a deep one.
As it turns out, Greg’s Makers Way is not the only Maker in the area. There’s what appears to be this fashion magazine located in a small, out of the way radio station in nearby Seogwipo about 200 meters away, which DJ Carolin “Wind” Willows is just entering to begin her long long workday isolated from the rest of the world. Tough since she’s a sociopath, I mean, a social person. She rethinks her career choice every time she walks through that door. She also leaves it ajar? Could be.
Ahh, a little Blue Moon Kentucky from her independent label Sun Records will help first thing in the morning, she thinks. Little track called “Elvis Esley” backed by Scottyd Bill that helped put her back on the musical map after the breakup of the Cracks. Here goes!
Listening to the lyrics, Carolin can’t help but wonder again how such a depressing song ever made it to the top of the pop charts. Suicide! And more.
PHOTO-NOVEL 46
00460104
“Moving to the water’s edge, I got my first good glimpse at Morro Rock out in the bay in, well, I can’t remember when. I’d heard it had been covered over with fill dirt in the meantime, yet here it was in all its shining glory illuminated in the morning sun. There’s the radio station of that name of course, but I thought that was a pun on the famous landmark and no more. Boy was I wrong.
“Later at the very center of my Wellsprings walk that day I also caught my first glimpse of 3 monks worshipping at a wall of bamboo and then went down to them.
“I climbed up those piled cement slabs in front of it and then sat down to get a better look.
“And that’s when I called you. Remember? ‘We have a match,’ I said. Over 2 years back I guess by now. ‘108 108 108,’ I recited, checking my coordinates in space and time. ‘108 108 108.’ the 3 monks now behind me repeated, each taking a turn. I pivot as they fade and wink out, one by one by one. 108 108 108. The same is happening now.”
—–
I later got a better view of that rock out in the bay 2 videos up in Lettuce Walk’s feed and 4 up from its beginning with the lighting strike (more soon). So it was real. I was truly on a path again. To find CENTER.
(to be continued)
00460107
“I see you kneeling behind that curtain in there,” expressed passing businesswoman Pamela Taut, no time for tomfoolery today. Zoom meeting with an important client at 3 about a property deflated in value because of a 1000 year flood. Must be sharp; she wants that sale! Then this. “I say: expose yourself you troublemaker, you… *tart*” Come out, come out!” She only thought of her own name’s similarity with this taunt later. When she herself was playing a maid to a big wig male’s cleanliness obsession — for a sale again, of course. “Bathroom next,” he said, knowing it was a mess because of the chaos. “Now!” “Yes sir,” she jumped. But it was all fake, just role play. Same with the person behind the curtain. She’d been ordered to sit there by another. No difference really at all.
We’ve seen this person before. Many times. She tires of hiding, wants to come into the light. This is about as close as I dare, focus on the foreground in the shot below, on the face of conspiracy nut Wanda to be specific, still listening to the imaginary (imaginary?) chattering of the mechanical (mechanical?) fish behind the bar. She knows they’ll analyze everything later on. Her friend Jenny sitting across the booth here has started calling her Wanda Fish, another taunt. Where will it end?
Right here. (to be continued)
00460108 (319)
That’ll be 4 bucks please,” said ramen shop attendant Jacwylin, extending her hand with the bill for the bills. She was also the manager of this small cyperpunk type shop, if it wasn’t Tammy (pause). No, I checked. Tammy isn’t projected to be in this here photo-novel, 46 in a series. So this remains Jacwylin. “You know,” she begins again, name settled and free to dwell in the past now. “Blue Moon Kentucky sat on that very seat, ordered that very meal. Blue like you too.” She scrutinized the face more closely. “Nah,” she begged off. “You’re not her.”
“Of course I’m not her,” said the blue clad woman back. Still working for the Horns, the big bosses, although the boss boss Edward was the only one still around. Who was now also her boyfriend. Luckily for her, he doesn’t have a cleanliness obsession. He doesn’t mind a little dirty. “But,” she reconsidered, “that’s an interesting story, worth a follow up statement.” There. I just did it. Would she get the joke?
“Ha ha,” she started after a significant enough pause. “Hu hu hu, good one.” She got it. “But, *anyway*, Blue Moon… do you like her music? Do you prefer the Cracks or do you prefer her solo work? Some do.” She withheld the “like me,” part. Wanted to get the other’s opinion first.
“I’ve heard of ‘Keep on Shining.'”
“Yes yes. Good one.” Maybe a solo lover. Like herself. She’ll keep patient.
“And, let’s see, the one about suicide is certainly interesting. Can’t recall the name of that.”
Jacwylin couldn’t either in the moment. Oh yes, she thought. “Elvis Esley.” Or Isley — she couldn’t remember if the last name of the single started with an E or an I, our first mandela effect in this here post (pause). I checked to make sure and, yes, it is so. The name Tammy remains a mistake and not an alternate reality.
(to be continued)
00460109 (Sunamai T-shirt Boy (STB))
“I see you’re looking for something out in the bay.
“Well, so am I.”
“Pray tell what? A rock? That’s long gone. To get that kind of rock you’ll have to go to classic rock on the Morro Rock station. Run by Carolin. You know Carolin.”
“No.”
“Oh sure you do. Last photo-novel.”
“H-how–”
“Do I know? Because I’m *you*.”
—–
“Let me demonstrate (follow me).
“Middle again… that’s me — you — again. Just a head at first as the other me passes out of the scene.
“Then full on, another smoker. Smoking good looks wouldn’t you agree?
“And then, coming up behind me again, I pass the monks…
“… and come straight up beside yet another me. ‘You!’ I say. Exclamation point.
“I thank you for finishing my art in the park. I — we — can move on.”
(to be continued)
00460110
—–
“There there, what’s the problem? Why are you crying?”
“I-I’ve lost my car key! (sob!) I don’t know how I’ll ever get back to my apartment without walking through a dangerous stretch (sniff) of town. My AAA membership has just run out,” she explained further. “Aa-and the taxi strike.”
“Calm down,” I say. “Tell me what happened.”
She pointed over the rail. “Down there. In the water (sob sob!). I was just reaching into my pocket for my phone… I shouldn’t have had my key out. I don’t know what I was doing! (sniff sniff sniff)”
“Okay, just relax. I’ll go get it.”
—–
—–
“Oh thank you SOO much! You’re a life saver… literally. I could have been murdered going home through those streets. And worse!
“Here. Let me give you something.”
“Just the bright smile on your face is reward enough, thanks,” I say to this.
“I insist. 500 eddies okay?”
—–
You’re a middle person, I think while walking up and checking the time on a fresh video (BD). Like the Gimp before. Like the Wellsprings monks more recently. “Hi,” I say to her. “Remember me?”
She turned to face me squarely. “Get away from me you creep,” she exuded with some venom, then returned to her phone. NPC, I think. Memories don’t continue from video to video, perhaps from within the same video.
“Down at the end of the pier. Remember?” I tried again, making her start tapping rapidly on her phone.
“Calling the police. NOW.”
“Okay, okay.” And I walked away. Back toward the pier, peering over it to see if I can catch another glimpse of that rock island. Something very important about it. Ghost.
(to be continued)
00460111
What are both Trump and Biden, the two latest presidents of these here present day United States, doing in downtown Night City ads almost a half century into the future? Probably an ad mod to the Cyberpunk 2077 game, I’m guessing, with the BD maker Lincoln having yet another US president’s name you’ll notice, hmm.
Just beyond the Biden ad pictured above we have equal amounts of red and blue pills all mixed up together in a storefront window. Democrats (Biden/blue) and Republicans (Trump/red)? Our US of A country split up to the detriment of both, I further speculate. Leading us to this here dystopian future, a game. So far.
Lincoln might know. He was shiny and new like a freshly coined penny in this BD, his first in the city. We will most likely return to him. No cents not to.
(to be continued)
00460112
“Oh, and I also saw Hashima Island.”
“Where? Where??”
“No, silly. Not out *there*. In Japan. What’s out *there*?”
“Nothing I suppose,” Girtle replied to Wamshed, just back from an expensive, extensive trip to the Orient, with 3 continents taken in. But Hashima stood out for her. Ghost island. Bestie Girtle kept staring and staring above the pier just beyond the Night City Marina where they were eating breakfast and catching up with each other, thinking something would appear in the sun glared sky. Why would she think that? she wonders, and then returns her attention to her food and drink and conversation, thinking nothing more of the matter that day in April’s May.
00460202
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLxrWLOlTnZnis3DL3vcrjY0yIbOfFMHBA
The 1st Lettuce Walk video of this Cyberpunk 2007 Ultimate Ambience playlist establishes HOME (Kabusie; entered immediately after lightning strike at 12:21).
The 2nd Lettuce Walk video of this playlist establishes CENTER (holographic fish of Corpo Plaza — side note: Wheeler also states that she’s this center as well with her own two red and blue fish (more soon?)).
3rd Lettuce Walk video in the playlist reinforces CENTER by pairing it with another (word) to make CITY CENTER.
https://cyberpunk.fandom.com/wiki/City_Center_(2077)
4th Lettuce Walk video here establishes first move away from CITY CENTER, where center, with small letters this time, becomes internal to the video itself (3 monks at bamboo wall).
And this is where we are now. WELLSPRINGS remains super important.
(to be continued)
00460203
“You’re remembering.”
—–
“Thanks! I was ready to move on.”
00460208 (Palm(er)’s View Way…)
… as in, stuck on Palm’s View Way several seconds after this provocative introductory view of Panam(a) Palmer in the Cyberpunk 2077 game. Could be a purposeful juxtaposition in the “1 Hour of Cyberpunk 2077 Fails” video here but probably not.
And may I remind, this is the girl V(al) the 1st person protagonist of C2077 is stuck on, while adopted internal soul twin Jonny Silverhhand prefers Judy Lexi over in Kabusie. Kabusie as in derived from caboose here too, come to think of it. Both girls attached to the word.
I put the Bakers family patch back in my pocket to end the game again before it even begins and move on…
—–
the man with the plan (canal)
Phil knows.
00460407
“What I *saw*, V, was the vision of a robot. Not to be cliche, but a robot from the future. Jonny knows.”
“Huh?” I say, knowing this would prompt an explanation.
“My canal channel told me this robot, who is described as being female, saw something that greatly disturbed her which she couldn’t help but record at the time. Which became the recording for all time. She saw herself. In a video. As a human. Doing something she couldn’t do but wished to do. Both Japanese, but 1/2 of 1 being. She had split herself in two to experience this thing but had forgotten about it until that moment. Half Japanese — remember Jonny said that about her. She was full Japanese but Jonny was actually picking up on the split. I was even given a location for the, um, reunification. Place called The Burg. Ever hear of it?”
“No,” I said without emotion, all that busy dealing with the ramifications of what Mysti was saying. I couldn’t rap my brain around it! Yet, deep down, I knew it was true. Because, deep down: there was Jonny, smiling at me in his wise guy way. I preferred Panama but he liked Lexi (=Judy). Yet here came an X factor. Literally.
“Bimbo is the name,” declared Mysti in front of me between the two magenta balls held by that statue she worshipped, what, 4 times daily? Maybe 8. “Got that too from my source. They said that would be enough for you to find out the truth.”
“Truth is a relative term,” I said back without thinking, that being busy too with the ramifications.
“Too true,” said Mysti to end. Time to get busy. Better meet Judy Lexi down at the Afterlife. Because I’d figured that part out too. Lexi wasn’t my potential lover. She was my sister who lived in the big city, me from out in the Nomad sticks. Separated, when, childhood? I had to ask.
(to be continued)
00460408
“Hey,” I said while approaching, noticing he was looking across the road at it. “Know anything about it?”
“Wellsprings?” he said, with head now cocked sideways in a listening position. Could just as easily have been Welles, hmph. But, directly: Hey. Thus my opening. Did he get it? I urged him to continue.
“Yeah, Wellsprings will do.”
“I can do Welles too,” he said back cryptically. Another me! I recognized.
“How about Hey?” I said, splitting the difference. “As in, let’s say, Heywood.”
“Overarching.” And with this word he moved on down the street further into The Glen, seemingly concerned with other matters now. My matters took me to Vista Del Rey less than a minute walk from here. All part of Heywood, though. Including Wellsprings.
On the other side of town in Watson, Mysti tries to resurrect dead boyfriend Welles in her Small China esoterica shop through various channels and potions and stuff. Will she succeed? Another: we’ll see.
00460413
“Hey motherf-cker. Long time no see!”
No, You’re not who I’m looking for this go around I don’t think. I can return here if needed, though. Thanks!
Nor you, Redd from GTA V among other places, although there’s a seat opposite you I could certainly plop my behind down in where we could catch up with each other if needed. Again, saved a timestamp.
Fish in the ceiling at the Advocet Hotel bar is certainly interesting but there’s no one around that I know atall here. Another time marker.
Then exactly halfway in my journey through Vista Del Rey via this BD video that continued the first, I find the Dandelion Cocktails bar. And Redd there sitting on the side of it (!). Must be Redd I’m looking for after all. I approach her — again.
Dandelion Cocktails is a Witcher 3 easter egg in Cyberpunk 2077, by the way. Referencing this poetic dude.
00460414
I’d caught up with Redd but turned out it wasn’t in Heywood but Watson, Kabusie to be specific about a city district and its namesake Roundabout Market to exactly pinpoint. She looked considerably older than when she would have known Frank. She’d obviously been through a lot here in this city of Night. Beaten down.
She smoked like Plan Man seen earlier in this here photo-novel 46 in a long long series it could turn out to be (80 by 100 100 by 80). And, correspondingly, she knew a lot about a certain canal or channel leading from a certain pool of water with a certain wrecked car survived by a certain cat who might have took on the identity (spirit) of the dead driver. Person named Phil. Who, in turn, knew all about a man named Happyacre.
Or was it Honeyacre? Let’s make it Honeyacre.
00460502 (lost & found)
I know, I’ll ask that pedestrian up ahead for directions, she thinks.
“Dandelion!?” she shouted over the cycle’s roar while pulling up beside him and slowing to his pace. “Know where to find!?”
But he kept on trudging along in his stumbly bumbly way, not answering. “Well *fine*!” she said and motored on, only to encounter him *again* just ahead. NPC, she realized. Not real. And no dialog assigned to it apparently since she got the same non-response from the second one. Meet him in another district of town and he could be a Chatty Kathy, though, she theorized while pulling away once more.
“Dandelion?!” they said after she finally flagged down someone real about 3 blocks away, a native to Night City named Dave. “Different part of town!” he answered over her still raging motor. “You’re in Watson! You *need* Heywood, Vista Del Rey to be specific…!”
“… Dandelion to exactly pinpoint!” she finished for him. And he told her.
But when she arrived at the indicated location, she finds that she *herself* is already there. As another Redd. She gets up off the bench to its side and heads within…
00460503 (Vista (Del Rey))
“Interesting place you have here, Dandelion.” She’d caught up with the owner of the cocktails bar. Indeed a dandy, a playboy, but of the loyalest kind. “But… I must ask, of course. How did *you* get here?”
“Interesting question in turn, my lady, interesting indeed. And the crux of the issue — you’re good at getting to those as I’m recalling. Our many adventures.” He shakes his head with the flood of memories, takes a second to absorb and then recalibrate the discussion. In truth, he didn’t think his great great friend Gerald, the former witcher recently retired to the Touisant vineyard he inherited after killing that, well… red headed *monster*, would choose Merry here over Jennifer. He considers the red head before him, looming large and bright. That must be it. Gerald was always a sucker for bright colors. Like those painters who only paint red yellow blue all over Beauchamp. Abstracters, they’re sometimes called. His other great great friend Princess Anna of Lea who ruled that land had explained it all. Abstraction’s the rage of Beauchamp, she said while pointing an artist out, busy away at it on one of the many town terraces. If you paint or draw realistically you are considered mundane, run of the mill; *anyone* can do realism, she said at the time, which he thought was odd. He preferred landscape paintings himself. And portraits, especially of himself. Which gets him to the point.
“It all had to do with a painting, Merry. A painting of me.”
00460504 (Lady of Space and Time)
“I fled through many worlds, many times… They came very close to catching me once. It was then that Avallac’h appeared, out of nowhere. He found a portal and took us to a world where Eredin couldn’t find us for… oh, perhaps half a year…”
“The world where Eredin couldn’t find you. What was that like?”
“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”
“Try me.”
“People there had metal in their heads, waged war from a distance, using things similar to megascopes. And there were no horses, everyone had their own flying ship instead.”
“Siri, stop fooling around.”
“Told you you wouldn’t believe me.
“Ah, we should’ve stayed there.”
—–
“And so *that*, dear lady, is how we all came here, you, me, Gerald, others. One by one by one, we all got sucked into the portal, with Siri on the other side, desiring us to join her after she returned to this strange but hopefully safe land — safe from the Wild Hunt of course. And I’ve… adapted. As you can see.” He waves his arm around the small but busy cocktails bar he runs with Zoltar, another that came through the portal. His old tavern partner who had become his new bar partner.
Merry Gouldbusk’s brain gears were spinning fast with excitement. “So… Siri is here as well?”
“Of course,” answered the colorful, dandy Dandelion with confidence. “She’s at the center of it all. A game within a game. Trapped. But for a reason. Found her in a drawer in my office out back. ‘Hmph,’ I say at the time. ‘Wonder how someone that looks like Siri got on the cover of that magazine?’ Later I learned that *was* Siri. Literally. Siri and the game had become one.”
“Fascinating,” is all dumbfounded Merry Gouldbusk could think of saying. Portals, she ponders. She’s beginning to understand why Gerald hates them so. Trapped! Just like all the rest. What would she do here? Streetwalker? Would it get that bad? Surely it wouldn’t get that bad.
“So… Dandelion.”
“Yes, my lady?”
“Do you, ahem, need a dishwasher here by chance?” she only 1/2 joked.
“I… have something better. Siri has been preparing for this moment. Come with me. Back to my office. Another part of the magic of this world. A talking book. Just as Siri linked up with me, I was suppose to link up with you. Gerald… not really sure about yet,” he admits with a shake of his head. “We’ll cross that bridge later. Here… come.”
And they get up and go to his office out back for further instructions from Center Control.
(to be continued)
00460505 (Siri + Gerald Too)
“You and Merry. Never expected it to be honest.”
“Life’s full of surprises.”
“So how did the two of you–”
“End up together?” Gerald finished Siri’s question. “Hmm, with Jennifer it was fight after fight, lots of arguments, drama… not saying it was bad, but…”
“But what?”
“Got to be exhausting. With Merry, it’s not. I finally feel… harmony. A calm. Feel like things are the way they’re suppose to be.”
—–
“Show me what you found,” she said without turning away from the ball holding, 4 armed, magenta and amber tinted statue.
00460615 (final say)
I first saw her close up on this BD walk to the left. I noted the ring on her hand that held her phone. Ring Woman we’ve called her, already mentioned several times in this here blog and attached photo-novels as a person of interest in our Cyberpunk 2077 version of Night City (Nightsity).
Approx. 1:22 later we run directly into her — she being an NPC of course and, like the great majority of her kind, having multiple versions of herself manifested around town. I noted here she was holding a can, although I couldn’t make out the label. Only that it was red, as if highlighting itself. And… as I’m checking, we can’t see the ring in this case — ring finger glitchily hidden in the can it seems, hmm.
And then 1:23 later there she is again on her phone as we pass her to the right this time. Since these passings happen at equidistant intervals, you’ll notice, I like to see them as Right, Center, Left. More highlighting of the encounters.
Then the last time I see her on this walk is about 3 minutes later as a victim of a hit and run accident shockingly, writhing in pain on the pavement as other NPCs around her keep to their own business, not helping. Only I pay any attention. But it was too late.
I bend down as I hear her say something — last words. “Can……. of…….” Then she was gone, the soul departing and the body convulsing no more.
“Worms,” I finish for her as I hear sirens in the distance.
PHOTO-NOVEL 47
00470109
“The Atom is not just another pretty op art picture,” she said, manipulating and expanding the pattern until the above image was produced. “It represents a CONTRACT signed between you and the Universe (almost wrote *University* there (!)) to go out in the World and do and preach GOOD. If you can’t do this then someone else will. In fact, they already have.”
https://theredarrowgallery.com/show/red-arrow-brianna-bass-ex-nihilo
“Will you let it go?” she continued. “Or will you reclaim what is rightfully yours? Both can be true, you know. You and this other person are not the same. The child of the best friend of the sister of you and your wife’s best friend. Small world, huh?”
“Indeed (!)”
A character, I realized. I have to create a Classical God-Star. TILE must be involved again. And orange and violet, ERR, amber and magenta.
00470111
“Jeez, Barry, I thought you were *dead*.”
“*I* thought I was dead. Inside the dream. Bass had a rock the size of a small schoolboy’s head. Hit me with it right in the kisser!”
“*3… hours, Barry. *Three* *hours*.” She sits back in the chair a bit. “Anyway, *why* was she trying to kill you? This Bass woman.”
“Man. Bass man. Ernest T. Haven’t you ever seen ‘The Andy Griffith Show?'”
“Of course I have, Barry. I meant *man*.” Why did she say woman? she thinks to herself. But this is not about her. This is about *him*. She turns her attention back to the freakishly long dream which he for some God awful reason couldn’t wake up from. It was like some kind of temporary *coma*.
“I think,” he answers Wendy’s question, “he was jealous of me.” The laugh track ended there, he knew. Time for something serious; time for *death*. In the show!
“Why? Why Barry? Why was he jealous?”
A common love, he understood. Helen. Helen Pettry Crump, also known by the schoolboys and even some of the opposite shore experimenting schoolgirls as Helen Pretty Rump. And now Ernest T. was a 33 year old schoolboy himself. Always looking for a potential new bride. Watching her from the back with the others, he knew he’d found one!
“Ernest T.!” she called to him one day, whirling around from the blackboard, surprising him. “Solve the following equation.”
Suddenly there was no school room, no teacher. Just a rock. He thought long and hard about what’s on it but couldn’t reduce it to nothing. This was *something*. His blood began to boil inside him again. I’m going to *take* this rock… or a smaller version thereof… Aaaaaaand.
“And that’s all I remember, Wendy. Swear to God.”
(to be continued)
00470212
Ho ho ho, what’s *this*? Siri thought, riding through the ancient amphitheater toward it. I don’t remember this giant statue from my previous visit to Tousaint.
Then she recalled surrogate father Gerald telling her about the construction of what he called a “skyscraper” in this general location by the river. That must be it, she determined, riding down to the almost 100 foot tall object. Unbeknownst to him it seems, he was describing one of its construction phases.
Gerald’s view of it as of her previous visit (recreation).
From a worshipper praying at its base, she learned the name of the prophet which this represents. Lebioda. Introduced to the kingdom by the grandmother of current princess Anna of Lea herself, he said, surprised that this lass didn’t get off her high horse and bend down and worship with him upon learning this bit of information. Stranger, he thought; *tourist* to this realm. And he spat on the ground in his mind if not in reality. His eyes betrayed his scorn of her, though.
Instead: “I’m surprised they roused enough drunken workers around here to get the job done,” the still mounted girl said down to him with a smirk on her face. He rose from the ground; probably would have slapped the girl if her cheeks were within reach for this slur against the good people of his kingdom. But she rode off untouched and unharmed. Lucky for him.
When she got back to the vineyard she asked Gerald about it, jabbing him as well, as is her manner. “I ran across your *skyscraper* today while riding around the countryside.”
“Skyscraper?” Gerald questions, not remembering that he invented the term in the first place.
“Yeah,” said Siri, that smirk back in place on her face.
Gerald honestly didn’t know what his surrogate daughter was on about. Because he simply was on another timeline where the finished statue didn’t exist. They talk together here but they weren’t together. A gap formed at that place by the river which was never successfully bridged.
A related statue in a different game — surrounded by true skyscrapers:
00470307 (exact center again)
And red roses weren’t the only thing that’s turned blue in Elizabeth Perez’s mind. The scans of her brain itself were doing so, revealing new neural links replacing the normal red. Same for her husband Madison, the wannbe mayor of this here Nightsity. Formed for mind control purposes obviously. Cutting the head off from the inside, yes: that’s how I described the process for them in a previous photo-novel. Their story still remains uber interesting within this alternate Cyberpunk 2077 universe we’ve concocted here.
More soon.
Sunklands 