PHOTO-NOVEL 44
00440103
Gerald woke up in some flaming bushes of the royal greenhouse and tried to remember what happened to him during his latest (and greatest?) graytop trip. What’s this bloody mask? he thought to begin, flinging aside the feathery, white thing. Ahh yes, Princess Annabel’s masquerade ball down at the palace, pheh. And he’d flirted with… how many women? But why didn’t he sleep with any of ’em? Ahh, said he had a date with the *bushes*, he recalls. Thus: here. Hmm, *why* did I have to go to the bushes? The flaming ones? Think Gerald. Think! Something about… cubes.
00440105 (the return of Second Lyfe, Our)
“Who are you?!”
“Who are WE?” the small mountain boomed back. We’ve seen it before. It was once called a butte. Turtle.
“Yes!” shouted Fern up again, wee in perspective.”
The two eyes of the “creature” which was apparently the same as a mountain looked at each other, as if conferring. “YOU first,” they seemed to decide.
“My name is Fern!” Fern said. “I was on my way–!”
“We KNOW where you’re going,” the mountain blasted again. “We just didn’t know who YOU are.”
Silence for a moment. The two eyes looked at each other again, then back to Fern. What to say next? she pondered, then decided: “So you know about the island?!”
“YES,” it boomed without much hesitation.
“Dullard?!” she faked, testing the small mountain before her.
“BRILLIANT.” So *that* didn’t work, she thought.
“Little Ritchie?!” she then tried. “Taken over?!” It was a theory she had about the wee ones of that particular island. But how would this mountain–
“YES,” it responded anyway. This big hill was old, indeed like a turtle. Before terraforming it was even shaped a bit like one. But the Lindens decided not to protect this most central of the Hills of Bill and suffered the consequences. Civil War between the split apart north and south parts of the Maebaelia continent, also known as Satori. Now it seems they are attempting to repair the damage. By terraforming it again and even providing it with a face this time to speak to, along with building a new, bridging section of formerly divided highway 8A next to it to showcase the effect. Fern is merely taking advantage of the moment, but she truly needed to get to that island, her goal tonight before this “distraction” came along.
“I’m going to go check!” she said up. “I’ll be back!”
“WE will be here.” They knew she would return. If only because of the prim atop the northern one’s eyebrow, just out of sight from her ground perspective. A special plywood cube that Fern needed to know about and understand the meaning of. And why it had a dent or hole on one side. Oh, and also to learn their names.
But for now they could sleep while waiting. “Night night BAL,” said the first eye that closed. “Night night WIN,” said the other, then shut as well.
00440106 (noclip)
She watched it from afar…
… and then found herself inside…
*POP* (manifestation noise).
“Wendy?”
“Why are you dressed like that?” is the first thing she said to me.
“I was told” — she looked over at Wendy, wondering about her own blank attire — “it was cold down here.”
“Well you were wrong!” She changed into who she really was.
00440107 (Plutonians)
“I have seen many things in the forest,” she explained to me. “I have seen a giant stone hand with an eye representing the place where I came. But not where I’m going.”
“Our Second Lyfe,” I pinpointed. “Or better, *Their* Second Lyfe.”
“Forest of Kahruval at least,” she said to my observation. “This was different. This was Kerchal. A full sim chocked to the brim with pines of several different varieties. No grass, unlike the Rubi Woods found later. But not devoid of other vegetation, which is my next item on my list.”
“Go ahead, then,” I encouraged.
“So one day, after being involved in the forest for a while, I chanced upon two bushes and wondered about the old expression of not seeing them because the trees of the forest took the focus. *This* is where I’m going, I realized. Toward the bushes.”
“Um hmm,” I said, trying to adjust to this new focus as well. I saw — the overlap. Bakers’ Island. This is Baker Blinker, with Baker Bloch soon to come along as well. Bakers in the plural, then. Salvation.
“And then we have the treehouse. Where I opened the eye with the (alphabet) map. But that was within another forest. Or so I thought.
“Everything became white.”
“But this was actually after the arrival of the aliens,” I said. “They build the treehouse. In *those* woods.”
“That’s what changed after the whiteness,” admitted Wendy who was playing the role of Baker Blinker currently. Or maybe it was visa versa — another reversal. “The aliens came first. Two bushes; two ships. Not one.
“The other (find) was a made up reality. *I’m* made up.”
“Because you’re actually Wendy. Not Baker Blinker,” I said. The alien she described before, a big white cup with a pink straw that took control, was obviously her, probably arrived from the future — say, 8 1/2 years later. Not a true alien, at least in her mind. But I knew better. Because of the pink.
“Like I said, there were two of them. Not one. They *built* the treehouse. Everything was backwards from what I remembered. The treehouse came last not first,” she reinforced. “They *built* it,” she couldn’t help but say again.
So should I tell her that both realities are true? Too soon?
00440109 (which one)
Why would someone gift me a free cow outfit normally worth 300 lindens? she pondered at the pool with the statue while trying it on. Oh well. Time to meet her new best mates at the downtown diner. Maybe they’ll have some thoughts about this, hmm. But more importantly: thoughts about saving the planet we’re on, namely Our Second Lyfe. We know it’s a cube. We have that much. And the continent of Maebaleia also known as Satori takes up one whole side. This one. We know this because of the return of the Butte. Turtle.
Maybe she is the Turtle.
(to be continued)
00440110
“I now make my home in a gym over on Corsica,” she told her friends down at the diner. “I’ve gone over to the Dark Side, ha.”
“The… opposite side of the cube,” said one.
“But not the 7th,” said the other.
“Yes, Gaeta is truly the dark one still without meaningful internet access,” responds Fern to this. Everyone at the table understood this was the 7th continent formed after the original 6. Even if it was never finished — it was finished. 15 years ago now since the development stalled, ancient history in video game time. “But a cube, you know, only has 6,” she continued. “Corsica slides over into Gaeta, true. That is one problem. How to combine 7 with 6.” She logically thought of Sepisexton here, the abstracting.
Time to see who her dinner companions at this Maebaleia location are, formerly called Gregson in our photo-novels — probably still is.
Thought so.
00440111 (Sisyphus)
“I decided to log into Our Second Lyfe away from my new home ‘at random’ and immediately stumbled across this turtle at Mont Saint Michel, shocking me.
“It tried to run away and hide under a chair, but I’d teleported in just at the right time and place to catch. Much like Turtle Butte before it. Not planned; had other things in mind to do that night. Same situation.
“But then I looked around at the bar, the books, the tables, the maps, the balcony, and figured this might be a new home for Lichen and myself, replacing Castle Town from the previous novel (43). 2nd home, along with the also newly found gym in this here photo-novel of 44. Axxion is the name, exercising is the game. Like I did when I got back…
“… and then found the connection between turtle and cow as I unlocked a special aspect of one of their seemingly mundane machines, I to T to E to L becoming I to E to T to L — crucial reversing there in the middle, you’ll notice. Suddenly, *I* found myself in the position of a turtle which was also a cow. The *turtle* — butte (but she pronounced it as butt?) must have sent the cow suit. One and the same here. Wish I had a photo to share.”
But we do.
Exercising at another, better lighted spot.
And yet another.
00440112
I’ve seen this band before. On Corsica. Group called Red Eye. Play King Crimson covers and who knows else. Genesis I believe here. Or is it Jethro Tull? Gentle Giant? Anyway, to the main part of the post…
Cpt. Planetary scanned his world map for signs of trouble. All quiet on the western front. And eastern… and northern and southern, sides. Yes he has time now for Our Second Lyfe, saving that world as well.
But first, the business of Burger Shot in yet another virtual world, one of many we’re involved in now.
Aeriel drives past the scene, curious about the protesters indeed. “Just down the street a bit” uttered by Cpt. Planetary to his small group of loyalists toward the beginning of this here photo-novel turned out to be moving from present back into the past, V to III or IV to be more specific. But Aeriel is involved in her own adventure tonight. Heading toward the Big Ear of Bone Country and seeing if the Horns were back on the radar, one or maybe even both of them this time around.
There. In the distance. Listening.
(to be continued)
00440114
Today Cpt. Planetary has a meeting with an important, different doctor located in a sprawling, upper right central Maebaleia continent urban area of Our Second Lyfe. He picks his way through the maze of streets, finally recognizing a familiar landmark.
—–
“Just relax, Cpt.,” says the sandy beach haired doctor just later. “Sink deeper into the chair. It’s designed to ease you into a hypnotic state. Deeper… deeper.” The choices appear on his screen from the feed.
“Good, good. Now. Look at all the options, look at all of them, lined up in a neat row across the wall. They’re all different — different colors. You can put down the crowbar — they’re all harmless as well. Can you sense them?” He takes a deep breath through his sandy haired nose. “Can you *smell* the difference? They all lead to different places, different, er, *seas*. A B C. Choose now, Cpt. For the planet you represent.”
He chooses blue.
“Gotcha! Ah hahahah!”
This is an obvious place to wake up but he finds he can’t. Abstracted; 7 to 6.
00440115 (243/243)
He returned to Clobber to try and find a proper mate in which to fight the aberrant planetary forces together, under one roof. Poison Ivy came to mind.
He can’t see what’s staring at him right in front of his face, Sandy Beech thinks in his upper central Maebaleia continent psychiatrist office, viewing the terminal depicting where his brainwashed, abstracted superhero was now. Looking for an Eve to his Adam; tired of inept subordinates picked basically at random from the scum that represents humanity polluting its perfect, cubic surfaces. No, it would have to be another superhero, another planetary force to recon with, Sandy Beech thought in tandem with the Captain. And no more deadly planetary force to deal with than Poison. Ivy, that is. Only the Mother calls it Poison, as she should.
So many choices await him. There are many more options than Poison. Could go with a more wholesome mate. Like Kudzu, like Weedwoman, *different* from Flowerwoman, although the latter is an option too, he supposes. I wonder if the Incredible Bulk has a female green counterpart? he wonders. But how about *Wonderwoman*, hmm. No, too ordinary, too mundane, he decides. Like picking Superman or Batman if he was instead a woman. Same with Batgirl or Supergirl of course in his shoes. And better it be a so called “villain” — in the villain category — instead of on the positive side. *He’s* on the positive side. He needs a balance. Maybe Poison is the way to go after all. But he better get to looking through all the aisles before the morning is gone from him and he has to start preparing for his afternoon walk. 12 noon now. 12:06 actually.
Tired of watching and having chores to do himself, Sandy logs off, letting Captain Planetary have a look around unaccompanied by observing eyes. For now. He decides to start from the back, probably more the place to find the villians over the heroes, he thinks. His mind quickly turns to aliens.
Sandy already knew this would happen.
00440203 (mystery flesh pit)
https://www.reddit.com/r/Voicesofthevoid/comments/1en5q2b/wha_the_hell_is_this/?rdt=43388
Question: what the hell is this?
Best answer (right answer): that’s where the voices of the void come from
And here is where Our Second Lyfe begins outstripping this more modern game in importance. Because this hole… actually comes from that. A whole super city in the upper right central part of the Maebaleia continent of that virtual world is being built around the phenomenon. Lab coat wearing Dr. Kelp and her companion A. Pond look on.
(to be continued)
00440204
He and Slop sat there for the longest time. He kept the truck running in the cool Autumn morning, almost completely rusted over from the Blue Feather Sea salt and brine. The heat was set to medium high. The radio was tuned to the local KLXC station and its blend of medium rock and high jazz. Even the worn seat of his truck was set to same (medium high) so he could sit up and see the road better in his older age. Slouching more, he recognized. Uncle Barnacles, so named for his crusty attitude, also perhaps brought on by his own proximity to the same salty, upper central Maebaeleia continent body of water named before, had his back turned on the “creature” on purpose. He had a crate to deliver, per his new job, but he didn’t want to go over there, get any closer. “Slop,” he said to his riding companion, a droopy hound with almost as complex of personality, “I can feel it. Even if I can’t see it. You hear that hum? That’s it. Some say, Slop, it’s *comforting*. Imagine that,” he spat out with bile. Slop slopped an agreeing bark in his face, pelting it lightly with saliva, which Uncle Barnacles was use to. He wouldn’t have it any other way.
2 hours later, he’d managed to turn the truck around and face it on the upper lot of the same parking deck, but on the opposite side of where he could get a direct look. He was trying to get use to the idea of being here, of working for the people who decided to create this whole megalopolis centered around it. Or working on it, super city creation in progress. “1st crate and I’ve already got cold feet,” he complained to Slop again. “Might as well turn in my badge and get paid for my 1/2 day’s work. Maybe, hmm, maybe I’ll just leave the crate here, in the parking deck, and tell them where it’s at. Whaddaya say, Slop?” Another light splatter of spit. The crate was unloaded and they were outta here, returned to the sea of which they were so much a part of now.
“Another one lost,” human resources director and more A. Pond lamented later back at the office, staring at the still moist security badge. “Well, if the locals are spooked by the thing then we’ll just have to hire more outside workers, preferably ones desperate for a job. Her thoughts turned southward, beyond the continent’s old Neutral Zone. Slums of Hatton, as she derogatorily called it in her Northern way, might do for a start.
(to be continued)
00440205 (weakness)
They got the green light for the project even thought the base plans were still a bit up in the air.
Fern Stalin, playing the role of Dr. Kelp at least in section 02 of this here photo-novel, cussed because she couldn’t get inside to take a better look-see. Restricted. In fact about all the interiors of the Krypton sim seem to be that way, except for the naval hospital. So she decided to break a leg.
“Ow ow ow,” she acted for the night doctor. Idontknow I believe, which is perhaps Turkish. “Fix it fix it *Fix it*!”
They tried to take an x-ray but she squirmed around in so much fake pain that they couldn’t get a clear image. “Dr. Kelp — *please*, Idontknow pleaded, having to enter the scene again after retreating to his office to let the techs take over. “If you could just hold steady for a moment. I know it hurts.”
“You don’t *know* the pain,” she barked through a grimace. “No, just get me a wheelchair. I’ll come back later when a different doctor is on the clock. I don’t like your attitude.” She grimaced again, yelped in pretend pain a bit once more.
“Dr. Kelp, if you’d just–”
“Do it!” she commanded at the top of her lungs. The techs working on floors 1 and 3 turned their eyes upward and downward respectively, wondering about the noise. Dr. Idontknow thought he had no choice.
“Get her a wheelchair,” he said to his 2nd floor techies who were staring straight on. Let her circle around the hospital a couple of times with that leg, he thinks. She’ll be back soon enough.
“I’ll need a pass to get back in,” she said as they slid her into the seat.
“Well, actually–,”
“Do it!”
And so they gave her a pass even though she didn’t actually need one to return. They were trying to quiet her down in any way possible, her plan all along. Once she got in the wheelchair, she took the elevator down to the first floor…
… and was out of there, putting its little electric motor on full throttle on the way back to the room with the up-in-the-air military personnel about 200 yards away. Her plan to get to those plans worked (!). She was so pleased with herself. Dr. Idontknow, pheh, she thought. 3rd shift indeed.
“What???” more competent Dr. Who screamed in the morning when he arrived upon learning about the missing patient and wheelchair. “Yes sir?” answered 2nd shift Dr. What standing not far behind him, having to come in early for a personnel meeting. Dr. Idontknow also decided to stick around from 3rd to attempt an explanation for the situation. And then non-shift Dr. Why showed up out of left field to join the discussion, surprising everyone. And then the whole thing ended with all of them actually not caring, go figure.
Fern, base plans stolen before the military personnel’s eyes with more trickery, was home free.
What a convoluted joke! But it worked.
Now to build this aerial thing, she thought back in her own hanger.
00440211
It started with flamingos…
… it ended with flamingos.
And in-between, Fern found a new home for Lichen and herself while they investigate the developing super city of upper right central Maebaleia, the one northeast north and northwest all of its old capital of X-City. 100 lindens a week — quite reasonable. And a pool! Ah the joys of summer in fall, never mind the bit of rain this morning.
Chopper sounds in the distance. Approaching. Fern’s been waiting.
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)
00440216 (north)
“Look Lichen. It’s like our black and white lists that started the last photo-novel, 43 in a series (!).
“Lichen?
“Lichen!”
00440301 (both sides of the Aisle)
“Hey, don’t drink my drink!” commanded Fern.
“Sorry,” the small bartender apologized, no more than a kid it appears. “I was… thirsty. Not use to customers. Not use to eyes looking at what I’m doing.”
“No more, then! You haven’t got any diseases I should know about now? Seeing we’re share buddies, ha.”
“None that I know of,” spoke the boy. He continued to shake the drink and not drink. Both at once. “Soo, you here for Breakfast?” Pause. “Or Dairy?”
“Both, actually.”
“Hmm,” he said, and poured the finished martini, dry and wet as one. Perfection if he says so himself. But he prefers the unmixed version; likes to taste both flavors separately (gin and vermouth). Darn watching eyes! “Well,” he continues. “How much have you seen so far?” he asked, not wanting to go over covered ground as it were.
“Airport first obviously. Had to come in from *somewhere*.” But Fern came in on a ship, sea instead of air. Has to be both, she figured. And with the captain none other than our Philip Strevor, fresh from a cube drop. Or so he said. Interesting.
“Not much there,” said the boy with his slight Chinese accent, worn off by years of state-side existence. Or so he said. “What else?”
“Well, pretty much saw everything in the rural district close to the void.” Too close, she thinks. “The, um, downed helicopter, the swamp, the dunes, the swimming pool. Very interesting.”
“There’s a plane in the swamp too.”
“Yup, saw that as well.”
“Do you want to hear the story (about it)?”
“Oh sure. Why not. But first, the helicopter.” Philip Strevor mentioned a helicopter along with the cubes, she thinks.
“Same story, actually. Swamp attracted both. Swamp drew them in. Just like a picture it drew them in. Got a taste for aerial. Opposites attract, after all. Water and air.”
This boy’s just spouting boyish nonsense, Fern thought, looking at his mischievous expression on his small face. But whatever; don’t have any other point of information as they say. Haven’t spotted anyone else in town. Just this child. A bartending child. Doesn’t quite add up. “Go on… I’m listening.”
(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 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)
00440306 (Jesus Lake, etc.)
Is *this* how I wound up here? Fern pondered from inside the crate, back in her normal garb. Box drop?
Is *this* the true savior? observing Edward thought from his dimmer view of the world within the larger of the 2 shacks in the vicinity. Cube drop?
If only he’d seen her walk on water earlier he’d be convinced.
“Hello!?” he ventured from the other side of the window. “Can I help you!?”
00440309 (Rose T.)
She resided in Dairy so she thought it was appropriate to start her long delayed *diary* here. To begin: renaming the place after the book. Aisle of Diary it is from now on in the writing. Or Isle — either one perhaps, depending on, let’s say, the weather. Sunny right now. Isle, then.
Dear Diary,
Today I begin my life anew. Beautiful day here in the Isle, let’s call it. Edward D. is cooking up breakfast, no dairy. I’m allergic to dairy now. Milk, cheese, all of it. My diary makes it so.
I want to first talk about Dr. Kelp and how the two timing f-er stabbed me in the back and replaced me with A. Pond. I want to talk about the lie that is Edward D., because I made him up, name just off the the top of my head back there. Let’s see, 5 sentences back now. Oh here he comes now, breakfast in hand. “Thank you dearest!” I say to him, putting down the loaded down tray beside the keyboard in front of me, planning to nibble on it for the next hour or so. Writing and dining, two of my favorite activities. 5 sentences, 5 bites (so on). I don’t do dairy. I sip on the glass of milk he also provided (“Thanks again, dearie!”).
The breakfast turns into a sandwich loaded down with at least peanut butter as the sun becomes square and black, Skippy and Jiff both chipping in (skip). Aisle it is.
I think of po man’s George Washington (Carver) not for the first time today. Nor the last.
(to be continued)
00440313
“Oh Lichen. Why did you have to take me so far?”
By the time they climbed up to the higher plateau all the snow had melted from the night before. And Lichen had turned into A. Pond the true traveling companion as Fern was now Dr. Kelp.
“F-ck Dr. Kelp and her two timing ways,” wrote Rose T. in her journal that night, paraphrasing something similar from the morning entry. Two a day until she catches up, she’s determined. Catastrophe set her back.
(to be continued)
00440314
When they reached the top of Birdtail and looked over, a surprise awaited them, like a field manifesting between the two matching, pencil shaped (ached nipples?) projectiles sticking up there, except in the distance. It shouldn’t. The cursed thing known as The Flesh Pit, mystery no more, would follow them wherever they went now — since they were a part of it, *inside* it, actually. To the edges of the Earth and beyond.
Then they found it back down on the plateau over an edge as well, reinforcing the insidedness. More projection.
Back in *our* reality (Our Second Lyfe):
“Damn thing wasn’t pushing through here yesterday!” Leroy Jackson Jones Johnson reported back to A. Pond over the incessant, evil humming. Uncle Barnacles’ replacement. A fellow Northerner ready to be replaced himself. ‘Bout time for A. to finally head down south to the “Slums” to pick up some new recruits, fresh meat matching fresh meat.
(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)
00440404 (An Emily for Rose (The Zombies got it backwards (or at least that’s how it was sold to her)))
Well, she thinks. I believe I’ve waited long enough. Sticky Rose name problem solved, there’s no excuses left. Time to go into the hole. Just a short gondola ride away via that cable line over there.
—–
Soon she was in the gift shop, not very grossed out atall so far. She, like many others before her, found the fleshy environment, let’s say, kinda comforting actually. Like crawling back into the womb or sumtin. And there’s that hum, like an abstracted, dumbed down lullaby. Some find it unsettling. Not her. She’s one of the gifted ones; one of the people that could succeed down here (the pit thinks for her). She purchases a small yet expensive book about one of its many “grotesque,” flesh dependent creatures and moves on.
At the end of the 4th and last corridor to this entry level: dead end, with ominous tones beyond even for her, the gifted and perhaps the damned if she proceeds. Dare she jump over the barrier and experience the flesh directly beneath her feet, squish squish squish? Tempting… tempting!
Then she thinks of the deaths, and wonders why they don’t get that much publicity beyond scattered reports here and there in the media, seeming to almost treat them like jokes when they do pop up. The cover-up must go way up, she realizes, all the way to the president perhaps, a man soon to be named G. Cleveland if things go terribly wrong and time loops back on itself, mirroring what happened in the late 1800s. Best to stay down here until it all blows over, she decides. If she jumps over this barricade, maybe she can find a safe place to hide deeper down in the pit.
And this, of course, is where everything (first?) goes terribly wrong. For Rose Emily.
00440405 (Big Ear (Breakfast at Tippany’s))
—–
“Thank you for meeting with me [delete name].”
“Did I have any choice?”
“Not really,” Jer Left Horn answered. “Now about my brother.”
—–
“What did my brother tell you?” Benny Right Horn asked right off the bat.
“That you’re a liar and don’t trust anything you have to say. You’re a Democrat. That’s what he called you.”
“Well he’s a Republican,” the right horned one of the brothers responded. “They lie even more. They lie *all* the time, not just some of it.”
“He said… that only one can continue. The other must end. What does he mean?”
Benny pondered this for a second. “That only one of us is the true Horn. Where the message came through. Problem is, no one knows which is which. Tipping point,” he ended his point.
Breakfast Aisle
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. “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 Rancho Coronado. 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.
00440410 (cow?)
She came in from a planet called Red Dead, she said. St. Dennis, she specified. Said she was very busy there and what did I need? I asked her what was so important there that she was so bothered to meet with me, her other half after all. Something — the male counterpart — of sorts. Maybe we need to sort all that hierarchy and stuff out soon too. Maybe now, hmm. So I told her this after she sat down, ordered her own drink. She was wearing the Crazy Blue, good. That means she would be obedient to me. I checked my watch on purpose. “Been waiting 2 hours, you know. 2:27 now.”
“I know what time it is,” came her response. “I have a clock in my head.”
Doubtful, I thought. Then I thought again. Could she? Powerful, I knew. From another planet — probably true.
We went out on the balcony, me and her. Well, she was on the balcony and I was standing just inside, still staring at the harbour, the boat I couldn’t see because of the building and all. East end. I asked her about it.
“Oh that old thing. It’s just a cargo boat.” She stopped, looked at me with a glint in her eye. *She’s* the cargo, I realized. Mechanoid? So I asked her that too.
“Long long ago,” she began her answer. “There was a forest, a woods. Big Woods, let’s call it. And in the middle of that woods, a Sugar Shack, run by a gal named Sugar. But no ordinary gal. A *dinosaur* gal — small one, granted, but a dinosaur.”
“Yeah, you’re giving me the backstory of Aisle of Palms so what? And I suppose *this* Aisle makes 3, a perfect triangle.”
“Not perfect. But close.”
I turn on the shaders so I can see her better, in her true light and color. Hopefully I can keep from crashing out of this world again. But I couldn’t resist.
“Do you want me to change out of the Crazy Blue?” she asked, trying to adjust her AO so she could seem more natural standing in the corner of the balcony.
“Whatever.”
“You will have no control over me if I do.”
I felt the horn on my head, sprouting left right.
“Alright.”
She had gone through about 10 standing animations. I thought 2 were fine — including the present one — and told her so. “You can stop,” I said. “Just stop.”
“Do you think I’m fat?” she ended as the waves crashed behind her.
00440411 (metals)
It was Crazy Black and Crazy Blue at once, 2x crazy. Perfect match it seemed. She had almost finished reviewing the story of Big Woods. Or he, whichever. Who is who, which is which? Black and blue once more. Oz.
And at the very end of the Big Woods story we find Lincoln again, oddly enough. Crazily enough. Desert time, me thinks. AISLE can wait.
—–
https://idyllopuspress.com/idyllopus/film/tpr8.htm
“Oh, look. I found a penny!” she says in a New Mexico location, in the desert or at least very close to it. Arid. “Oh, and it’s heads up. That means it’s good luck.” The boy says, “I hope it does bring you good luck. Penny.”
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)
00440501
“Soooooo… youu headingggg (hiccup) backkk… todaayyyyyeee *weeeeeeee*?” he said in his drunky, sloppy way, suddenly spinning around as he spoke, almost toppling over. Typical for the morning. By afternoon he’d be popping the pills, becoming less slurry as the drug fueled words popped back out of his mouth more in staccato form, with consonants and vowels left out, soon to progress into whole words and even phrases and sentences. Word salad they become in effect, not slurry but just as incomprehensible and useless.
“Yup,” she uttered, coming onboard and up the stairs to directly face him. She wanted to know what he was drinking, wanted to smell it on his breath. Because she might need some too. Given what she was potentially facing today.
Vodka. And not a hint of vermouth to change it into her normal. She’d have to pass, pure being too strong for her liking.
“Well,” she said as he stumbles and falls. “Get to piloting… Cpt.”
“Right right right. Heading back, right. Riiiight *weeeeee*.” Another fall.
“You know — never mind. I’ll do it myself. Been there enough lately.” Still on the ground. “Yes, you just rest, Philip. It *is* still Philip? Right?”
“Right right (hiccup)… right,” he repeats, and then falls asleep on the spot, pills in his mouth as soon as he becomes conscious again at 12:01.
(to be continued)
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 Branch 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 first.
(to be continued)
00440504 (the end of AISLE 00?)
Despite having a microscope instead of a telescope, she was able to connected the dots that were the lights that were the stars in the cube pretty far away in the nighttime sky into a triangle with her naked eye. Naked all the way down, actually. Helped her work, helped her with the unaided magnification when needed. Like here. Damn that Edmund Scientific catalog order mixup! she cursed internally.
One emerged from the 3, she observed with her 20/5 vision at least: Emily for a Rose, backwards, she knew, from The Zombies song “A Rose for Emily,” perhaps even the source of her own name too like Rose T.’s.
Falling. Falling.
—–
“Where *am* I?? And… what’s that *thing* over there humming like there’s no tomorrow? New Southern recruit Tom Morrow from Horns of Hatton shows up and explains everything. “Sit down,” he requests to begin. “This could take a while.” After saying this he just disappears from sight while continuing to talk. Convenient — time saving, even. Like he was never physically, bodily there in the present; simple reuse of an old photo a number of posts back; no avatar appearance for Tom Morrow needed (only spiritual). But, anyways, she has her back story.
I’d end this with my usual “(to be continued)” but we already have, also part of Tom Morrow’s explanation.
00440505 (the end of AISLE 01?)
I check to see when the next due date is on my Aisle of Palms rent. 1 week away. Decision time (again).
00440511 (7 to 6 revisited)
“It’s okay,” he says, peering in. “They’re actually all blue.” He turns toward me. “No choice.”
“Let’s go, then,” I said, and picked one. Any one. The slide begins.
And: out.
00440512
He sat down on the toilet even though he didn’t need to go to the bathroom. Mechanism, you see — no inner fleshy workings of that type to maintenance. He needed *oil* yes. Oil to think. Because he was lost. Lost in a forest that had inexplicably, to him, turned white. Too early for snow he knew. Maybe some kind of virtual blight? But here he is, trying to cogitate with the limited power he had left. Suppose to meet someone named Fern here who would take him to an isle named after food. 2 isles actually, she said, a 2n1, she described it. Breakfast… and some other type of food he couldn’t recall.
He also couldn’t recall how to contact Fern for help. She was not the same core as him; he had that at least. Something about flesh again. Yes, he went into the bathroom to think about flesh, hmm. The bathroom and its toilet would help him remember.
If he just had his trusty oilcan he could squirt some in his left right ear and the gears would begin to spin properly up there again. But he lost it somewhere in this forest, too confusing with its whitewashed nature to retrace his steps to that tree stump he left it by.
*Sally*, he then recalled. He could ask his *wife*. His better, mechanoid half. Yes, of course. Sally. Speed dial so he didn’t have to come up with the number. He could ring her up in his head they were so close. Almost the same brain workings.
—–
Sally woke up with a ringing in her head, cursed the extra glass of diesel wine she had before bed, then realized what it was, *who* it was. “Hello?” she spoke to no one around.
“I’m in trouble, er…” Long pause.
“Sally,” Sally said, understanding that he *was* in trouble if he forgot her name in the moment. Lack of brain power, lack of oil most likely. Where *is* he?
“I don’t know,” he spoke back, understanding her thought. “Somewhere white. The trees… are white.”
She intuitively remembered the “blight” starting in upper right central Maebaleia, in the middle of that new super city developing there. “Hold on,” she thought back. “I’ll be right over.”
(to be continued)
00440513
It was right here where his ship landed years ago, perhaps 5 now, which would be about 42 or 43 years for him I suppose, given the 1 : 8 1/2 year conversion between Earth time and Our Second Lyfe time. Volcanic Zebrasil-Ichelus was and is the island, a well known landmark (infohub) to old timey Our Second Lyfe residents like me and perhaps like you. His robot parents were destroyed by hostile native glytches shortly after arrival but he survived by hiding in the bushes situated just here there and there, his littler body not detected by the marauding mutants, diminutive themselves but bad of eyesight. Then, not too long afterwards, vacationing adventurist Sugar Demossville, a brightly hued, small dinosaur who ran the eponymous Sugar Shack over in nearby Big Woods at the time, scooped up his little robot body found on an inner tube in the offshore water (glytches don’t like water, he’d found out in the meantime; too late to save his parents, though) and took him back home to the mainland with her. Since Sugar was red and green herself, just like Billy’s safe haven inner tube, she deemed it fate that he join her in the woods and live out the rest of his natural mechanical life there with her. But it was Sugar herself who died first from a stimulus induced heart attack brought on by one too many pieces of pecan and cherry pies at once several years later (2? 17?), freshly plucked from 2 of Big Woods’ many pie trees and too delicious to resist gluttonously gobbling down that fateful morning in late April’s May despite the warnings from her 2 doctors not to double up on the sugars like she did with her physicians. She was survived by mate Donald the Thong, a man-sized, almost naked duck to complement Sugar’s woman-sized, totally naked dinosaur — very tall but still within range, let’s say. He couldn’t deal with, let’s say again, Billy’s hypersomnia where his constant sleeping blended day and night until he couldn’t tell one from the other. “What time is it?” he’d ask Donald. Then 5 minutes later, “What time is it?” “Five minutes after you asked the last time, little Billy,” Donald originally said to things like this but patience gradually wore away like his clothes did before (thanks Venus!), soon leading to harsh replies like, “You’re *clockwork*, Billy. You can’t tell time??” Time for Billy to be sent away himself, not to the Land of Death like Sugar thankfully but still regrettably to a robot orphanage over in Lesters Best, with many similar stories of eroded owner patience in the air, mostly for other kinds of conditions but with one in particular sounding very much like his own: that of Sally’s, who turned out to be the love of his life and the light in his eyes, particularly after the brain meld. What fortune, what fate! (once more!). He would never be left in the dark again.
Billy revisiting his “homeland”.
Billy staring over at his red and green inner tube, his safe haven until Sugar rescued him from this hellish landscape which took the lives of his parents (additional note: the glytches have meanwhile been rounded up and taken care of).
00440516 (zombie)
Happy belated Halloween!
—–
00440601
“I brought you here to do an experiment, Billy. Sorry to pull you away from your original (Our Second Lyfe) home (in Zebrasil).”
“T’is okay,” he said mechanically, per his nature.
“But — as you can see — the waterfall, this Falls of 10,000 Lions as Mistress or Venus called it — can’t remember which one without checking, which is risky. Anyway, it’s at the corner of this Walk-On-Water Pool, a true feeder for the pond, you see.
Billy was looking right at it, along with the accompanying Halloween Wither Tree seeming to embrace or almost embrace Fern at the pier. He couldn’t help but see. “Yes,” he said plainly. The gears in his head moved more rapidly and he came up with an important addition. “WOW,” he uttered.
“Yes,” said Fern, brains also working more rapidly than even normal now. “I *also* see.”
To recap: Billy is hanging off the pier at 147/147 in the Breakfast Aisle sim, right on its walkable Diagonal, then. When he attaches the waterfall carried over from his original Big Woods home without alteration of placement in respect to the avatar’s center, it becomes the feeder for the *WOW* Pond, making Billy exclaim the same. Fern realized the connection with Soos Ck., Washington and a lot of other stuff.
Auburn aka Slaughter is next?*
—–
* No. It turns out we follow this up with South Dakota. Same country, different state.
(to be continued)
00440604
Didn’t mean to be such a downer with my screamy zombie creature late Halloween pic, Farcebook, so I added a Santa cap and made him my avatar for the Xmas season. I say Xmas here because the word might be banned soon — using this shortened version of Christmas while I can, you see. Merry Holidays! And Good Lord God Jesus help us all.
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?)
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 Franklin, 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?)
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, 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.
00440703 (all)
And so let’s end where it all began. With a cube. In the Back Rooms. But we must add more text and context.
None of this is finished. We have reached a dead end, plywood *blocking* our way again. Besides the highlighted cube, notice also the bit on the sickly yellow wall to the left here projecting through as a line. Future promise but also current limit.
We are going to get answers, though the journey will be hard at times, with many pitfalls to navigate. Let’s call these: falling into the flesh pit, mystery no more. The Back Rooms is actually uplifting in this way. Sometimes I wish it had all remained plywood, this Our Second Lyfe. Would certainly help with lag (!).
We toil endlessly in a 9-5 grind but ultimately use our copiers for nonproductive things like tomfoolery or worse.
We are hanging by a thread, producing writing but only of a disjointed mix of color, font, and narrative.
We wade through pools of shallow knowledge, hoping to get to deeper ones soon enough. If we live that long, pheh (plywood again).
We are bored. We are not fulfilling what we are suppose to be. The powers that be knew this would happen. They gave us a break. Many.
As in bathroom. So many toilets to choose from but only one is real. No people at least, but of course that’s part of the whole problem.
We must come back up to the world, move to the main building by the holidays with all the other 9-5 grinders and out of this Back Rooms place with its pitfalls and dead ends. Things will be okay; you’ll see. Night writing instead of day. Continuity instead of disjointment through increased psychic abilities. Let the photo-novels begin!
END OF “SUNKLANDS 2024 LATER”!
Sunklands 