Tag Archives: NODAL

Darla loves black

“We have a location on the girl. Repeat. We have a location, over.”

“Roger that, Mission. Honing in… now.”

—–

It was the first meeting of the local Umbrella Club chapter, and not all were invited, namely: men.

And *especially* Albert, who could only view the proceedings from afar, say 200 meters. That’s as close as his ankle bracelet would allow, which was probably a good thing. He just wanted to check up on her, he rationalized about the spying, make sure she’s not up to any trouble. Or if she was, he wanted to know. And, he also thinks, I suppose *this* counts. Just like the case with Franklin, pheh.

He never got around to taking off his hat, which could explain why he’s here.

(to be continued)

Leave a comment

Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0036, 0105, Nautilus, Yd Island

recentering

“We’re both tall for our species,” spoke Albert. Maybe we should bury the hatchet, get together. You’d have to have an operation of course. I’m not taking what you have down there currently.”

“You’re joking, right?” Sometimes it was hard for Franklin to tell.

“Of course.” Albert was somewhat reformed, having almost died over at Sporminore in the last photo-novel, 35 (period). He’s kind of seen the light. He returned his butterfly curtains from his formerly very special room to Curtis’ just the other day. I believe we have a photo of him doing so in the media library, along with some attached dialog…

Yes, here:


“You’ll have to trade them in.” “That’s fine.”

“So I come here looking for the Umbrella girl and instead find you. Under an umbrella.” He looked over, he looked up. “Explain.”

“We’re different people,” said Franklin. “I sit on the blue pillow, which represents positivity.”

“I resent that,” shot back Albert quickly. “*I* represent positivity… in the now.”

Franklin realized this was so. More memories kicked in. She was Shelley before, but also, behind that, Wheeler. She was Wheeler. She *is* Wheeler. She took him in, realizing she was sitting beside fellow core Baker Bloch instead of prevert Albert. Only the blackbird linked them together. And the hat(s).

“Take off your hat, Albert, and I’ll know that you speak the truth.” Could he?

(to be continued)

Leave a comment

Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0036, 0104, Nautilus, Perch-Mistletoe, Upper Austra

Jem’s World

“Well, my name is Gemilly Johnston — Jem for short — and these are the books I’ll be keeping up with (!).”

So cheerful that first week, she says, reviewing her introductory video, whiskey sour in hand as usual when looking at this type of stuff. So many videos in her collection now. But this was one of the clean ones, before the dirt and grime of the city, this Dodgey City, became fully evident, thanks to John. *Not* Jim.

“I live about 1500 meters up in a nice house with a beautiful perpetual sunset, right on the beach. See? (she indicates a hand, an arm) I’m already working up a tan (!).”

If I could go back and kill her — myself — I would, thinks Jem here, wanting to wipe that ridiculous smile off her face with a rag of acid. OK, maybe Texas Pete.

“The house is owned by John L. Brown, who is also my boss, who is also my, ahem…”

Boyfriend? thought present Jem. Fat chance.

“… cousin,” past Jem completed her sentence.

Wait, is that possible? present Jem thought. She reversed the video, started over. At 2:32: “cousin” again. She doesn’t remember saying that. Plus it wasn’t true (!!).

—–

But John L. Brown for one knew it was and changed the wording yesterday after also slyly suggesting she take a day off for mental health reasons and look at old videos from the archive to soothe her nerves, especially recommending — or starting with — the one she’s viewing right this moment. Jem eventually figured this out as well as she continued to sip (or at least try to contain it to a sip) on one of her whiskey sours and ponder and ponder. Cousin — that aspect conveniently forgotten, conveniently wiped from memory, just like she was trying to wipe the happiness and naivety from her past self’s face back then in her imagination. She imagines someone standing behind her, looking at her as if on a video, trying to wipe something from *her*.

“John L. Brown,” she muttered with Texas Pete, add a little Oklahoma from beyond the screen. She turned (toward the camera?). Time for my close-up.

Leave a comment

Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0036, 0101, Nautilus, Oklahoma, Texas, Wild West

deeper…

“The same four numbers. Over and over.” She turns after observing. “Punch them into me, Ensign. I have to know what this is about.”

“But… your condition. Ma’am.” My probable baby! he thinks.

“Never mind that just do as you’re told. Here I’ll hold the chest keypad close to you.” Just like I did last night, Lt. Clotheshanger thinks. The Deep South has a way of making higher and lower come together like that outside the harsh, dividing glare of daylight.

Behind them and at the same time perhaps:

“Is this a formal complaint, Ms. Mantell?”

“Mandell, she says to this, use to mispronunciations of her two given names. So close on either side. “Martell Mandell” she says in full.

“Yes, certainly Ms. Martell.”

“*Mandell*.”

Pause as Shirley studies one of the provided photos in her mind. “Right, Martell,” she finally acknowledges. “So Ms. Mantell (Martell rolls her eyes), tell me about this Harry slash Jerry?”

“I’ll take over here, Martell, if you don’t mind,” spoke immediate superior Abs — Abbey Abdominator — sitting beside her at this meeting with HR. “We have reason to believe this file was stolen.”

“Interesting,” HR representative Shirley Stall says to this. A ringing in her ear. “Hold on,” she requests, “I have to take this.”

6 minutes later, she returned her attention to the file. “Sorry,” she excused herself, “I had to listen to all 24 permutations before she let me go. The boss, you know.”

Abs looked over at Martell who looked back. Synchronicity of thoughts. Spider!

“There was a horse involved.” She paused, reconsidered the communication. “No: a dog.”

Horse becomes a dog! Another forewarning.

She shakes it off, second photo replaced back by the first. Then she additionally realized that the second *came* from the first. Spider was in Collagesity. Spider was (back) in the collages!

(to be continued)

Leave a comment

Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0035, 0613, collages 2d, Falmouth, Little Hell+, Lower Austra, Nautilus, Omega, Southern

A way out (Back to Nautilus)

“I know this man!” says Martell Mandell out loud. She couldn’t help it. “Fieldon!” she tacked on, thinking about 300, thinking about a lot of other stuff. Like time and space shifts. She begins to prepare for telling her alien boss, Abbey Abdominator, about the discovery. “We *must* investigate,” he says back to her in a daydream. Hopefully her imagination turns out to be correct.

—–

“There! Told you!”

“Just because it’s a New Jersey substation of Nautilus and just because he likes to wear grey doesn’t mean he’s the same guy, Martell,” says Abs back to her upon seeing the “proving,” remotely taken photo in his mind. “I’m Grey. If I were standing in front of, say, a New Jersey welcome sign would you also think I was Harry, hmm? Besides, he denied he was Harry — said he was instead Jerry. I read the report you sent me. I’m not that detached from my position here at Star Team Interplanetary.”

—–

“If only Collagesity were still around,” she lamented while they looked at another photo she’d found in the Archive, hope waning.

“If only we could follow this probable route still up Highway 13 and down Highway 14 around and around…”

“Wizard,” says Abs to this. “Cube.” Her world turned inside out. And the Grey was the Man on top. Superior. *Not* a humbug.

“Look around, Martell. Where do you think you are? They are appearing all over the place. We have a way to go back *now*.”

“The… Void?” she answered, hallucinating the past. Shirley?

Still sharing her pictures, Abbey sensed a discrepancy between red-violet and yellow-green. These were not the same cubes. “No. Not The Void, Martell. I’ve changed my mind. We’ll go back to Nautilus… Jersey. But in that special way like we did before. And heading in backwards just for kicks.” Maybe that will solve the discrepancy I sense, he says to himself.

Leave a comment

Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0035, 0610, Google Street View, Illinois, Little Hell+, New Jersey, Omega, Southern

continuing…

“I tell you, he’s listening in. He always seems to be listening in.”

Roger looks around, spots robot servant Ruttitutti apparently staring at them from the far wall. “Maybe he’s just concerned about our drinks, monitoring the fluid level.”

“What about everyone *else*, then,” returns Greta van Sustenance, also looking around but then realizing no one else had food or beverage. Maybe Roger the Green Grey Alien was right. Maybe this was all paranoia caused by the insanity of the situation. Rounding up poor little fairies of all things. Just because a man with a spider on his flag says to do it. She’s trying to figure a way out. She has reason to fear. Wanda.

Moving on…

Roger’s friend’s cousin Jack ignores another appearing purple cube on his way to get more cigarettes, understanding his priorities. Smoke first before reporting any other oddities. So many lately! He wonders what is happening, but only outside, on the deck, after the first exhale of sweet sweet Marlboro passes his lips.

Ruttitutti delivers a bottle of champagne to Kelli and Lynnette and starts monitoring them as well.

“50 a day,” says Kelli. “That’s what he said he wanted the goal to be. They’re rounding them up from every corner of southern Omega. Soon there won’t be a bloody one left. Whaddaya think?”

“I think (she spots Ruttitutti as well, looking on) I’ll go to be beach today to show off my new swimwear. Chancellor’s Choice!”

Oh, here might be something. K.C. was having trouble identifying a target.

Old Saint Louie, another alien but of a lizard variety this time, suggested spelling it targuit in the search, or, better, two words: Tar Guit. “That should do the trick,” he finished, then moved on to the next underling after seeing success reached.

Did the guard station then effect the newest and latest and most effective bombing of the Moray Docks Village, completely vaporizing it now, making sure the backwards, guitar oriented punk-folk musicians Tar and Guit were still at the center? And: is one of them really *George*? Shelley’s George?

More clarification:

Another purple cube, this time by the water cooler as first spotted by skinless Antelope alien Cobumblia. But she was on her way to fanny aerobics and didn’t want to deal with the reporting paperwork, much like Jack. In fact, I think they’re cousins through friends as well. Along with Johnson…

… who has a stomach ache today and is on his way home to the guard compounds after telling his boss. Don’t come back, Petter Cotontail thinks. One too many aches of this and that kind. He’ll report the green alien bastard — Shufflers, *pheh*. He might even be joining the fairies later, the waste of space that he is. Maybe Shufflers can be added to the extermination list, along with — if he had his druthers — Orks, Porcupeople and a couple of others. He settles back in his chair, eating another truffle.

That better be it for tonight. Sorry Liz!

“MessiaenSphere,” she cussed.

Leave a comment

Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0035, 0609, Little Hell+, Omega, Southern

00350607

She thought of another answer while chopping pepper for the big meal. George was coming over! Or was it Arthur? Anyway, she thought of this: I *love*, that George’s backwards guitar was destroyed in the Moray Docks explosion when that new Tar Guit appeared over top of it. BOOOM! she recalled joyously. That can replace the “resourceful” answer, #4 I believe.

“She’s gone,” Baumbeer speaks later to Newt about the poor girl’s mind. “But I know where she is.”

“I’ll go see her,” replies the father not father-in-law. “No need to bring the boy in the picture,” he says half to himself. “He’s already heartbroken enough.”

“Let me know if I can help more,” spoke Baumbeer into the receiver to finish. He hangs it up. On a clothes hanger.

Newt rings Shelley up. I mean, he calls her. Since the wedding is off and he’s no longer the Best Man. Thus the meal.

“Newt!” she modifies again, moving to the cucumber or tomato next. “The father-in-law.” Her face squinches up. “Father *in-law*?”

They meet at the same gazebo in the sim’s corner. Property called Sim’s Corner. The Void’s energy was just loosened enough so he could reach over and straighten up the blouse on her shoulder. Pepper t-shirt no. 1 she wore now. Small successes before bigger ones, he thinks, staring at the daughter he didn’t know he had until the end of the last photo-novel, 34 in [delete rest of sentence].

“Wheeler says to say hello,” he starts again, trying to jolt more memories. Does she remember the spaceship? Of course not, Newt thinks. Too young. Shelley says say hello to Wheeler back, even though she doesn’t know who that is. She’s trying to mask her big big problem. And where’s George? Or was it Arthur?

“Your… *mother*,” Newt says to this, understanding she doesn’t recognize the name. “George — you know George, right?”

“Georges,” she says, which Newt lets slide.

“Anyway, *your* George says you look a lot like her. You even have some of the same tattoos.” Kind of odd, Newt thinks here but, again, lets it slide; chalks it up as another disturbance of The Void.

—–

“You’re batty I tell you. *Batty*!”

“Out of my way, whoever you are! *Whatever* you are!”

“W-where you going, dude? Nothing left but *me*.” She starts dancing and dancing with her weapon. Hypnotizing. Just like on the bus. It was her.

Shelley wakes up. What did I do to *Johnny*, she immediately thinks. We go back to that point. That’s where she began to lose it. The baby. My baby!

She was the baby.

Leave a comment

Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0035, 0607, Little Hell+, Omega, Southern

over the hedge

I’m going to beat the crap out of that girl.

—–

Before taking a shower, Shelley writes in her journal.

Day 2 in The Void.
I have determined that George, formerly Debbie’s George, is the same as my own.
We are destined to be together.
I don’t know where the other is.

She pulls away from the screen, looks at what she wrote. She knows there is another but can’t recall who. It is someone dark… black, even, like the shadow side of a planet.

Her phone rings. It’s Arthur. Arthur! she thinks while trying to figure out how to answer like in a receiver. That’s who I was thinking of. And he must have been thinking of me! She figures it out, puts the correct end to her mouth. “Hallo?”

“Are you ready?”

Ready for what? she thinks. Oh. The shower. Testing water pressure and all, let’s say.

“Yes.”

“Go ahead and I’ll meet you over there.”

“Oh.” Disappointment?

“Shelley?”

“Yes… Arthur.”

“Arthur? You haven’t called me *that* in a while. Do you, erm, do you even know where you are? Where I am? Where we’re going?”

She admitted she didn’t. She was in The Void for real. And she didn’t even have the necklace this time, giving it to a repairman in the garage outside in order to pay for her car. Broke carburetor. “It’ll cost you as much as the car itself,” Ken said through the window, watching her dig dig dig in her pocketbook for cash, red or green. But alas, the only thing of value she had on her was the Venus Cage. Of course, Ken, also working for The Void, knew this. After receiving it he made the proper disposal per instructions. Far far away from The Void. Lemont Sanford must not know how to get at her this go around. She will be truly trapped forever and ever. Swapsies.

(to be continued)

Leave a comment

Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0035, 0605, Little Hell+, Omega, Southern

Everyone has a darker sister.

Ooops. There go the eyes again.

Winter wonderlands (just appeared) make my peepers pop out. They bring people so much… *joy*!

I hates them. Anyway, back to forging the goat’s head.

—–

“Debbie, were you in The Void today?”

“I deny everything in that direction.”

Leave a comment

Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0035, 0604, Little Hell+, Omega, Southern

00350504

Speck looks back in time to check through his activated chronosvismach.

“Fascinating.

“The car parked outside the Rhino in Gaston is the same as the one parked outside the 1000 Bar in Gemini here, sir.” He pulls back from the image to face his leader with the news. “The license plates match. It must be George…”

“…driven just that far to find his love of his life. Shelley,” pronounces the Cpt., perhaps Munch perhaps not. Leader of a bunch of children, whatever, in his eyes. Needing his protection, his guidance. Grownups can be children too, he realized long ago, near the start of his academy years when he pulled out a stuck pacifier from the mouth of Major Henley, the big googoo gaga. Speck was just the most advanced of these, beyond him in brains if not decision making abilities and intuitive hunches guided by emotions. That’s what Speck was about to find out (through the cloud). Maybe then he can be the grown-up to fill his huge shoes after his retirement to the planet Splunk. There’s even a name similarity between the two through intermediaries Spuck and Spunk. We’ll get to their stories later, perhaps.

“Send a team down to check on the bar,” continues the Cpt. “See what this George — Musician — is up to; what *lengths* — he’d go to — make it so.”

“Sir,” Speck then said. “If it pleases you I’d like to be part of the party. I want to learn more about these… emotions that so control men of your Earth.”

“And women,” the Cpt. duly noted. “Don’t forget the women.”

“Hysterical, yes. So I’ve heard.” Was this a joke between the two men, Earthling and non-Earthling? Perhaps so. We’ll research later. Whatever, Lt. Ouhuru behind them grimaces, which we happen to know is Shelley’s daughter Liz in disguise, bound and determined to find out about George as well. She’ll finagle her way onto the team too, despite being the wrong sex for the mission. Probably have to sleep with the Cpt. again, pheh.


U.S.S. Ararat over 1000 City

Leave a comment

Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0035, 0504, Gaston+, Gemini, HANA LEI