California (for study only!)

—–

NOVEL 11

—–

De Boom Street. San Franciso. The only business establishment having a door on the short alley being one called *Lime*Light.

This very same De Boom Street lent its name to the very first 256×256 meter simulator (“sim”) of Second Life: Da Boom, an origin sometimes erroneously attached to the boom of the cosmic Big Bang, since this is where founder Philip Rosedale’s glorious virtual reality, perhaps the size of 1st state Delaware now, started and expanded out from. The Seed.

Similarly, Rosedale’s company of Linden Lab, that introduced Second Life to the general public in 2002, took its name from the San Francisco street it was located on at the time: Linden Street. So Philip Rosedale became Philip Linden in Second Life, his well known avatar form. All early Second Life sims derived their name from streets and alleys located near Linden Lab, but Da Boom was the first. De Boom to Da Boom. Yeah, come to think of it, I suppose they did slightly alter the name with the Big Bang in mind. Like “Da Bears”. Fate.

If we also travel up Linden Street in the current version of Google Street View, away from Linden Lab’s old site, we come across a man seemingly stashing something in a tree. A cache of some sort, perhaps.

Seems surprised, or perhaps *guilty*, for being caught in the act, doesn’t he?

When the Google car and its camera continue onward, he resumes his activity at the tree. Then, just afterwards, he gets in his own car (green Honda Civic) and leaves.

What is in the tree?

Could it be… treasure?

—–

NOVEL 32

—–

ROCKS

“We have to get rid of your kind to make room for the ships.”

“Oh okay.”

“We’ll give you a proper burial spot.”

“Query?” Rock would have raised a hand to ask an important question in his mind if he had any. But [Paper] already knew the answer.

“Quarry,” was his presumed corrective response. Stupid Rocks, he thought inwardly. We should cover them quickly to halt the dense talk.

Scissors then cut in, the hopeful champion of Rock and defender to the grave. But he would only beat her to a pulp when freed from his cage in the interrogation room, continuing the circle ad nauseam.

—–

NOVEL 41

—–

00410611

I’ve now come up with an Option 02 for Jim Randolph the Bastard Pirate. Instead of crashing on Red Dead’s planet in his augmented ship, redesigned for space as well as sea, he winds up here.

As the only street in town not named for a number or letter, I think the implications are clear. This *is* Aisle of Palms. In a different form and connected to a different game besides Our Second Lyfe. A rival one, but not Red Dead’s again.

We’ve seen screenshots of it sprinkled about these here photo-novels. And also met at least the outer appearance of one of the 3 main protagonists. Or should I say, antagonist — hard to tell; up for debate. But not going by his original name and in a different gang of three.

https://bakerbloch.com/tag/philip-strevor/

And now he has a new home, same as the old home. Bombay Beach/Sandy Shores. Mr. Boss again to explain:

—–

00410613

Baker Bloch and bee-person/blog guru Hucka Doobie share a pizza while Philip continued to play his game over there, watching from afar as the virtual trailer park slowly repopulates itself with killable, expendable NPCs.

“You sure bringing Strevor back is a good idea, Baker? He’s kind of a psycho after all, especially if he’s off his pills. Does he have his pills on him, Baker? I hope you made sure of that. Else… we could be in a lot of trouble shortly… after he’s finished with his game and becomes bored again. Boredom leads to violence in this case. Believe me, I’ve seen it up close and personal when I was going out with Marion that brief bit in Gaston.”

“Sure it is,” Baker defended the idea. “He’ll, in fact, lead us right to your true love Marion Star Harding. They’re natural partners in crime — different types of partners.”

“I wondered about that for a while,” she said, scooping the artichokes off her slice. Baker knows I don’t like artichokes! she fumes internally. Yet, in his selfish manner, he ordered them anyway, not thinking about his dinner companion. So similar to Marion in that way, she thinks. But she loves him anyhow — both of ’em, she reckons. In different ways of course. Now.

—–

Okay, I’m beside the sign Philip said he would meet me at, Marion Star Harding thinks; now I just wait. He sniffs again, his face screws up like a walnut again. Philip better hurry, though, or I’m going to catch some kind of respiratory disease just standing here so close to that cursed sea, he thinks, not being able to get the rotted egg and salt stench out of his nostrils despite breathing through his mouth once more. What horrible germs and viruses are going down in his lungs?

Meanwhile on the opposite side of town, still portal hopping Marsha “Pink” Krakow seemingly arrives on the scene in her orange VW Beetle. After a long 2 1/2 month journey we’ve finally come full circle, you and I my loyal reader. We’re ready to end it here. But first we need to get Philip and Marion beside the same sign in the same town. A phone call from the latter should do the trick.

—–

“I’m here,” Philip said to his natural partner but not his lover. “Sorry about the mistake.”

“It’s that game again,” guesses Marion correctly. Distraction, he knew.

“Yup. Sorry again. Wrong reality.”

Having circled around the village in search of the correct Aisle of Palms indicator, the orange VW pulls up in perfect synchronicity. “Get in,” she said, and, without words, they did. They’d been expecting her. Their beloved Billie Jean Kidd in yet another guise, the third and final gang member and a shapeshifter of some power. She can take the appearance of a kid, an old woman, a young lady, a dog (poodle), and last but not least, a Bug. In short, Marsha “Pink” Krakow was never in the car to begin with here.

—–

00410614

“Check it out guys. A TILE house, ha. And, let’s see, our place should be directly behind it on the next street over if I remember correctly.”

“Yes, here we are. Home sweet home, at least for this week, maybe longer if the sandstorms don’t move in afterwards as predicted. Can’t survive here in sandstorms, at least while you’re out exploring. And it stirs up a lot of toxins in the air and water too. A week it is,” Billie Jean Kidd decided then and there on the length of their stay in this here Bombay Beach, with virtual Sandy Shores layered on top of it.

She parks the car, which means she parks herself. She gets out of the car but it disappears behind her. A kid once more, her primary shape or one she herself likes to call home. Home for home.

“TILE again, you’ll notice,” she points out to her boys, speaking about the 4 colors, red yellow green blue, on the wall inside. “Nifty — another reason I knew this was the place.”

Philip Stevor and Marion Star Harding had said very little during the short trip from the SW corner of small Bombay Beach to here, more in the center. The heart, if you will. They were still dumbfounded at the turn of events. But Marion offered this while peering inside at the cold hard floor of the ruined shack. “Shotgun.”

“Nonsense, Marion Star Harding,” she said to this. “You’ll stay here in the house with me as I truly am. You too, Philip Strevor, whatever your middle name is. I refuse to turn back into the car just so you can have some cushion to your sleep. You’ll be here… with me.”

What could they do. They laid down on each side of her, determined to get some rest for what she called an even bigger day tomorrow.

“I’ll keep watch,” she volunteered, knowing there were other toxic dangers out there besides air, water, soil. Like Billie, modern art never sleeps.

She watched a tesseract, 2 surfboards in tuxedos, and a shark with a television for a stomach pass by without incident. And in the second minute she saw even more.

—–

00410615

“Anything, Philip?” asked Billie who was a Bug again. It was the next morning and the men, the boys, had gotten a fairly good rest during the night. And like I said, Billie didn’t need any. She counted 256 pieces of modern art that strolled or slid or lurched (etc.) down the road in front of them during the night. Fantastic — all seemingly benign. Maybe there’s hope for the town after all.

He stared at the house and the queer windmill blades affixed to the roof. “Nah, nothing.” But he was working on his coffee and had yet to wake up. Moving on…

—–

“Then how about his one? According to the Rock Star wiki, you picked up a woman injured in a wreck along the highway and delivered her to this safehouse, either dead or alive, depending how fast you got here.”

“Maybe… rings a bell?” Coffee sipped and done with, he was getting fuzzy memories now, unlike with the windmill house. Things were starting to get jogged up there. A woman, huh? he thinks, trying to picture her face, her… wounds. Belly, he sensed. Accident on the road, yes. Fellow… criminal? But then the vision faded. Moving on to the next structure…

—–

This did the trick, if not initially. Philip felt compelled to stop and get out of the car and explore this time. Marion was fine with it, since they still had to eat anyway. Billie turned from a car to a person again — transformation unseen to anyone else as far as they could tell — and all 3 walked up to the establishment’s door, Philip all the time staring around, starting to clearly see the overlap. Bombay Beach to Sandy Shores. But in his mind there were *2* bars with the same design. How’d that work?

And it is here that we *really* end our current story/photo-novel.

“Let’s let Philip go first,” suggested Billie. And she and Marion stood back and watched him enter.

“I’m remembering!” But they’d have to find another place to dine.

(to be continued)

—–

00410616

While Billie gassed herself up at the filling station next door, Philip had a bit of a lie down in his trailer. Gas station? he started pondering while laying there. When did Bombay Beach get a gas station? Then he laughed, a way to shake the dream off. Why did I call this place *that*? he he. I mean of course Sandy Beach. Then he realized this was wrong too: Sandy *Shores*.

He suddenly thought of Ron next door; wondered what he was cooking up. Why *meth* he realized. *His* meth. As soon as he starting dwelling on drugs he was gone from her, the Bug next door fading along with memories of Billie and even Marion, although the latter lingered on a little longer. Kept calling Ron Marion when he phoned him up, checking progress on the next batch; wondered if he’d been imbibing too much of it himself because of his peculiar thoughts this afternoon.

We have, in effect, returned him to his natural environment, his original home. Philip was no more as Trevor took over. He was soon to have a new gang of 3.

—–

NOVEL 43

—–

WOW

“Do you not know me yet, Fern? I am the one you’re trying to forget.”

Fern wakes up, remembers everything.

—–

“Yellow Jack is where Philip Strevor turned back into Trevor Philips and resumed his Id role in the Grand Theft Auto game V,” explained Fern to Lichen later as the sun rose over her shoulder again. “Miss Janet was the key, and refusing to provide him service and saying he was still banned from the joint. He remembered his drug company, recalled his home in Sandy Shores. He was reassimilated, Lichen. Frank Lynn became the lead man after that, although we didn’t know it at the time. Frank Lynn, through Morro Bay, points to Nightsity. Did I explain the Morro Bay link yet?”

“I — I don’t think so, Fern.” Straw still not twirling. Still.

“But I have a new theory, Lichen my dearest,” she said, avoiding the temptation to spoon another pepper snake and mint ladder into her mouth swimming in what little was left of the now discolored milk in the bowl before her because of all the dissolved flavoring, the last of their kind. She wanted to speak as clear as a bell so that Lichen knew what was going down. “Aliens — now I believe it all points to the hippy egg camp outside of Sandy Shores and not Sandy Shores or Trevor or his trailer or business directly. A man named Night made it all — can’t be coincidence. But not with a K; with an N: the K person would not approve of equating his precious lord and savior Jesus with heretical aliens, you see.”

“I — see?”

“No, you don’t see, Lichen. But you will.”

—–

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.

—–

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.

—–

NOVEL 44

—–

00440415

Waldo indicates downtown Lost Sanos in the distance where he soon plans to get lost to continue the game, even though he’ll be redder at the time. Not sure why there’re 2 downtowns here, though, to be honest. Have to study.

In other recent Google Earth Street View news while we’re talking about it: feet again.

Giant Foot

Just One Each

Or should I say Google Earth Feet View in these cases?

—–

NOVEL 45

—–

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)

—–

NOVEL 46

—–

00460601

“Morro Bay??” Dreaming Frank Lynn was expecting a sign for Paleto Bay but got a surprise, Real Life location intruding in on Virtual here. He suddenly has another important piece of the puzzle. Now to find the Rock.

“There!” he said, seeing it coming into view in the distance after passing a large beach dune. Well… sort of, he thought. Not quite Morro Rock but pretty obviously the duplicate down here. And out there in the bay beyond it: the 4 islands with the, um, bodies. 2 apiece, he knew. A central mystery. 4 islands, 8 bodies. Infinity.

Carolin manifests back at the center.

888 Infinity Lane

—–

00490504 (2-D)

“So you see, I had to escape the (Cross of the) Lamb. Else: absorbed. Devoured like the purest blue flower that I’d become, all because of a cult’s desire for permanence. Both them *and* us. One and the same deep down — like a hole inside a hole with a monster who is the machinery waiting at the bottom. Waiting for his chance.”

Will he get it? Gonna be razor’s edge close if not!

Only his band mate, his primary running partner, can save him at this late point. Essence of Murdoc. Tied right now, ha. (TBC?)

—–

00490505

And now… we come… to Static. It’s always been there, always been a part of us. Question is: how will we rise above it? Do we even need to? Why not dwell in Static forever and ever, become part of the machinery.

Russel here eventually sees Hollywood and the portal opening beneath it and shakes himself out of his stupor to go tell his band mates.

What do YOU see in the Static?

—–

00490506 (high no more)

On and on they played, well into the night, past 2, almost past 3. Bed called, but the drive for success trumped all, kept them going. “How much now, babydoll?” Philip asked about his losses across the card table to oft times girlfriend Nada New Year, soon to be downgraded to “some”, perhaps inevitably heading to “none”, even. He’d passed 10 long ago. Thirty… forty…

After Nada didn’t answer (weariness? disgust, even?), Frank laid down the last card in the Mille Bornes marathon as if in slow motion. Everyone, including worn out Daisy to make 4, exhaled their tired, collective breaths as 50 was determined to be a limit, SCREEEECHH! They can sleep well now.

—–

00490509 (Violet)

She got tired of waiting for her alternate self to grow up — understandably, because it could take *decades*. She decides to do some investigating on her own about the subject. Shamon. From the inn. Place of thorns. Not much of an inn aspect left to the place — no beds as far as she could tell. More a museum for the lower floors, she supposed. And then she found the letter in the middle of an antique book just chosen at random from a first floor bookcase. Hmm, she thought, separating the 2 pieces of paper from each other and laying them side by side. What’s this? She started reading. Plain it was at first to her. Mundane, run of the mill, no special qualities at all. A journal entry by someone named June about a trip across the western part of our US of A. Then she read it again. And again. And again, starting to put the 2 sides together to make 1; actually, let’s make that she simply eliminated the second to make one. Here’s what she had left…

Dear Dairy,

We’re finally in Missouri! Almost home! Bryan was so exhausted with today’s drive that we decided to have a sleepover at a cheap motel off Route 66. Madry Wise it’s called and the owners Martha and Theodore are just adorable! They welcomed us with open arms and invited us for dinner so we can share our Route 66 road trip experience with them. Bryan is just having a little nap and we’ll go once he wakes up.

I can’t believe how lucky I am. It’s been the best summer ever!!! Two weeks ago we started the journey from Santa Monica, CA and went through several states through Barstow, Kingman, Sedona, Winslow, Monument Valley, Durango, Santa Fe, Albuquerque, Roswell, Amarillo, Oklahoma City until now Missouri.

So that’s all of page 1. She checked all the mentioned locations from its last sentence on a map. Santa Monica, Barstow, Kingman, Sedona, Winslow: yes, everything to this point was on Route 66 or, in Sedona’s case, quite close, only about 25 miles away. But June and her boyfriend Bryan start to veer away from that famous highway after Winslow AZ and only clearly pick it up again at Amarillo TX. In other words, June may not have even used 66 through the whole of New Mexico, going from Durango CO down to Santa Fe then Albuquerque then Roswell to its south before heading back up to Texas. *Crossing* 66 in Albuquerque but not necessarily travelling along it. While pondering this, Shelley Johnston Struthers realized, if so, that another motel might have been visited on the journey between Albuquerque and Roswell. Was this what was being implied all along?? Fictional Madry Wise Motel actually standing in for the most haunted hotel in America?

They should have never left some of the swastikas on the building because photos can be flipped and time reversed along with it. 1923: not that far away, then, not far atall.

—–

00490512

“She called me Martin. Not Murdoc. It quite irritated me, and I think I figured out why. Murdoc Alphonse Niccals I was born, you see, but later changed Alphonse to Faust when I sold my soul to the Devil for rock ‘n roll fame, as any red blooded, white nosed lad of his time would have, he he — just kidding about the white part, mind you (sniff). So to name me something else would maybe break the spell, the, er, *blessing* that the Dark Underlord had bestowed upon me. But — ahh — maybe that’s what she was actually trying to do, see,” he realized while talking it all out. “Martin, eh?” He turned the word around in his mind, examining different angles, different facets.

“And this was Blue Moon doing the, um, renaming?”

“Did I say that?” he responded, eyebrows raised. “I meant Blue Flower… eh hehehehe, *Moon* Flower. Yes, that was her name. Not the other ones. Although 2-D was certainly *her* blue flower. Sacrifice you see. Lamb. Just like…” He petered out here. He couldn’t remember anything else for a while. I put him back in his orgone chamber for recharging. I knew the upside down cross on the front would keep him there. The Fallen One.

—-

“Peter, yeah,” he starts when returning and after a sniff. “Sorry I…” He trails off again. Back to the chamber.

—–

00490515

“This is where the Pee Pee starts, Biker friend of mine, perhaps a lover too.” Maybe she left the lover part out of that sentence. Hadn’t been decided. But they had travelled to Rodentia for a reason. Daisy was testing out the relationship fer sure.

“Fascinating,” he said but not with enthusiasm.

“Let’s move down this grassy diagonal side road. Keep in mind the beginning point.”

“Oh I will.”

—–

“And so this is where it ends, down at that pipe down there, about 200 yards below the source up next to Route 10. It *should* empty into the Baederwood Forest I just exposed by derendering that wall screen marking the limit of Arang. But it doesn’t. Another mystery, then, perhaps another misery as well.” But maybe she left that last part of that sentence out again. No need to bring misery into the relationship either which also often comes hand in hand with the love part.

“Hmmm… why are you showing all this to me again?”

She turns toward him on the bridge. “Because I want you to know where I come from, Biker. I want you to know *my* source. And my mouth.” She opens her mouth to him and points within. “The words coming out of my mouth. I want you to listen like I had to in the past.”

He looks away from her after she shuts her mouth back up. He opens his just a little, pops in another cigarette, lights it, puffs. Not what I signed up for, he thinks to himself while watching the smoke fill the air in front of him, concealing the stream again. Religious mumbo jumbo in a town devoted to anarchy against the powers that be. He’s not a radical, not even political at all, really. He just… likes Daisy. Why does she have to, erm, *muddy* the waters with this… complexity, pheh. And *what* kind of name is Pee Pee??

“Why?” he says aloud, smoke dissipated, allowing him to view again. “Why Pee Pee? It’s not yellow or anything.”

“No of course not, silly. It’s named for my home. In Nigeria. The one I tried to conceal behind a fancier name. This Second Lyfe offered me a chance to reverse my youthful error, change my perspective on the world. I became a priestess here just like my mother was (up) in Real Life. I’ve told you all this before. The other day, when you were on your 3rd Non of the evening. I *know* you weren’t drunk, ha.” Should’ve remembered, she thinks.

Had she made a mistake in bringing him here? What if Frank Lynn finds out? But she had to know. Now she thinks she does. If only they could resolve that difference of opinion about AI. She’s *firm* about hers. What about him? Is he pliable to change? *She* isn’t. And of course therein lies the problem. Can she realize this in time?

—–

When she returned home, she was shocked to find her bar wasn’t there any more along the shores of Nawt Vaya. Hole in the Wall: simply vanished!! What happened, what happened? she panicked. Then she realized the culprit. The alcoholic sea monster! The Non she’d prepared just before leaving with Biker to visit Rodentia had turned out to be so good that the taste overrode his need for alcohol. Success! she understood about her personal brew. But she’d have to start over from scratch. Maybe rebuild the bar elsewhere now that she had to make a fresh start anyway. It’s all up to Frank, he thinks. She needs to find him, and quick! TBC

—–

00490603

—–

00490604

Oh Jesus, he thinks, checking through the 2-way mirror on who opened the creaking door this time. Someone on the list for a change (!). And John on the john, unable to help me right now. Don’t dare yell over at him to hurry things up, he thinks; people next door might hear. Peter Oesso runs up to camera 03, quickly turns it around. BMK wants all angles so she can transform the video from 2-D to 3-D! Can’t screw this up. On cue, important person #5 on the list, back to the mirror, roughly pushes important person #4 onto the bed in front of him. Peter’s already noted she wears a green turtleneck sweater to go along with grey dress pants, indicating who she is. The man in contrast wears a grimy white tank top and faded holey jeans — working man, he’s guessing, perhaps on a break from the nearby factory given the time (noon-1 PM). Poor and rich, he’s determined; contrast of class. But also on the list. Blue Moon called them the turtle and the hare and said that he’d know them by her neck. The man starts berating her about coming too soon the last time and then climbs on the bed on top of her and proceeds to CHOKE her by that very neck. Should Peter intervene? Is this just part of the sex? Choke choke choke… oh god. Dead on the bed. DEAD… ON THE BED. #5 leaves the room, as if his job is done. Doesn’t try to dispose of the body or anything. Just: gone. Creaky door opens then shuts. Oh my gods, thinks Peter. Now *we’ll* have to dispose of the body? Is that… really why we’re here??? He understandably is terrorized, but just then, stirs from the bed. #4 is alive! he thinks. This must have all been part of the act, PHEW. After a minute to recover it seems, she gets up off the bed and approaches the window just as Blue Moon did before. She folds down the green sweater from her neck after removing some kind of pin, and unclasps a silver band from it, a silver choker if you will. Protection from the choking! Peter thinks. Ahh, this *is* an act. She proceeds to pass it to Peter THROUGH THE MIRROR.

At this moment, John finally exits the bathroom but Peter quickly hides the choker just given to him behind his back. Person #4: gone as well now from room #5, as if by magic, no creaky door noises indicating opening and closing. “What was all that commotion out here?” he questioned.

“Oh nothing, just tipped over in my chair.” It was the best Peter could think of. Would it work?

—–

00490605 (saving D(ouglas) Fair(banks))

—–

00490607

Heavily pink clad Murdoc bursts into the emergency room, revealing himself as the savior. It took a while for the other band members to catch on but eventually they fell in line 1-2-3-4, as he knew they would. The Last Cult took form from that moment on, 4 down to 1 actually, backwards from what would be assumed. Murdoc was the Omega who had become the Alpha as end meets up with beginning again, bad tendencies transformed. Or so they thought.

But soon he was back to his old ways, spying on scantily blue clad neighbor Moon Flower through binoculars at their new, suspiciously cheap Silver Lake digs. He had to have her. This was his *dream* girl.

Ultimately — laying down all the cards — she passed him the choker “Under the Silver Lake”. TBC

—–

00490608 (following the white rabbit (end of cinema))

New York City

San Francisco

Hollywood

—–

00490609 (third)

“What’s that, Maw? (answer) Yeah, go ahead and send me the movie that’ll be fine (click). Luv ya.” He hangs up too. Back to returning his full attention to Moon Flower, er, *Sarah*. Because things have shifted. The Hollywood sign remains, though. At the end and just before the beginning. 4-3-2-1…

“Yeah, Maw. This videotape you sent me is from 1923. I can’t watch this (click).”

—–

00490610 (killing time)

“Still naked from skinny dipping, we’ll say now, he wakes up in his Silver Lake apartment and stares at the silver band passed to him, now on his arm and acting like a bracelet. He realizes an engraving on it is a knight’s move in chess, H6 to G4.

“Another code on the back side eventually points to a map related to The Legend of Zelda video game from an old Nintendo magazine he happens to possess. The third ingredient for solving this puzzle comes in the form of another map found in a vintage cereal box, of L.A. this time. Also found in his apartment — what are the odds? He superimposes real — L.A. — upon fantastical — LoZ — and marks out a grid of A-P and 1-8…

“‘H6,’ he says, circling the 1st indicated square with a marker. ‘Ahh, Silver Lake! And G4, let’s see. Yes. Mt. Hollywood. Sarah, my vanished dream girl, must be somewhere around the sign!’

“He head up there the next day and uncovers the Forever Cult below a blocked out part of Google Maps. After finding out that Sarah is alive but sealed inside a tomb, he drinks tea and passes out.

“She’s dead, actually,” he starts the kicker. “He killed her. That’s how he got her silver band. There was no second choker. Only the first; close quote.