A backup is needed in case of failure. A top is duplicated. Kind of. Close as I could get.
She approached the bar after checking out the back (noticing the tank, etc.). “I’ll have what she’s having.”
Tag Archives: Shelley Struthers^^+++
00390205
Thomasina said that whenever I need to refocus to come back to the FILE, so I’m here. In Tomasina — the center of it; without the “h” but obviously related — staring at what appears to be the ruins of a temple, and beside a shell representing Nautilus itself, my home continent for good it seems.
The beacon shows me how to walk the diagonal of the sim. Here I go!
Another oversized Nautilus shell encountered at 197/197 near the middle of this temple thing. By Shelley, mind you, once again, it appears, our heroine for the novel, especially since promising character Sarah from section 01 seems to be dead and gone from us. And also keep in mind she writes novels herself, and apparently is on the same number *I* am. We differ in content if not frequency. She’s found a pattern for writing, a system, and I have too. She is writing a different sentence as I am writing *this* sentence, for example. Parallel. Actually, in checking, she was writing the exact same sentence back there but it usually doesn’t happen that way. Moving on…
Unrendering water to look around better, we understand that that one temple, albeit the largest perhaps, is part of a complex of ruined structures spanning several sims east to west. I also found this among the ruins, although I’m not sure what happened here. Certainly makes for some interesting speculation, though.
We will probably return here.
exposed part of the ruins in Macavity
duplicate statues found just below and beneath
unrendering water again: all together now
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0039, 0205, Nautilus, NORTH, Rank & File, Rim Isles
00390204
“Good you came back from the 1/2 world by getting together with Sarah,” Thomasina reviewed. We were back in her old office, the hovel in the Waste, new one in Jasper Falls being redecorated perhaps. “How is Sarah?”
“She’s dead,” Al put it bluntly.
“Good, good,” said Thomasina to this. “Good that the manufactured ones are killed off when their job is done. Metaverse would soon get migh-ty cluttered if we had doppelgangers piling up all over the place.
“We could bring her back,” points out Al. “We have the seed.”
“Indeed we do. But your focus now must remain on Shelley, our Jennifer Lane, author of 38 romance novels to date and still pilling up all over the place. What was the name of her new publisher?”
“Shady Lane,” replied Al. “Just minted.”
“Hmm, we’ll see how it goes.”
Then Al shared some pictures of it.
“This is the beginning of it. Or end,” explained Al to Thomasina, holding this photo. “Notice ‘Lane’ had been cut off of the sign (leaving only ‘Shady’).”
“In-teresting.”
“And… this one indicates that TILE is strong on this road, this lane, this forgotten byway that even the town of Boulder seems to have trouble locating for trash pickup and so on, at least according to that woman I met. And it’s about a block from downtown!”
“No need to shout,” requests Thomasina. “I know this is weird, trust me.”
“And, then this one… a rock. Thought I’d include that– about 1/2 way up the lane. Do you think it has a wielding spell inside? Like that other one we found in that other 1/2 way spot?”
“Swordstone?” offered Thomasina. She nodded while still staring, still contemplating. “Could be.”
“Sorry about the darkness of the picture. Shady in there, you know.”
“Of course.”
“And then this one just looking up the lane from about the location of the TILE symbol on the side of that house. Obviously a TILE enclave–”
“Obviously,” quickly agreed Thomasina. She paused. “Will you go back today?”
“I guess so.”
“Remember to take your walking stick. The one with the eyes.”
“Always.”
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0039, 0204, Boulder, The Waste+
00390203
In a cage underneath the bed he waits his turn as reality shifts back into fantasy, virtual playstuff and all. It was always going to be this way. Once they returned to the top. “How’s your novel going?” he said over, blue rose decorated suit back on. “I’m really sinking into this one,” she admitted to her hubby who was still gone a lot of the time, acting in Europe, Asia and Africa currently, Shakespeare being a world-wide phenomenon. “Sinking as… how?” “You know, really getting into character,” she replied. He rolled over, stared upward. If he’d kept rolling he would be looking right at the answer. “So you’re Jennifer Lane, the writer who *writes* Shelley. But to me you’re still Shelley, since I’m not in your books.” “Oh, you’re in them alright,” she said, which was truth. Just not the whole. 2-4 percent, like incomplete milk for a half baked, choco chip cookie. And so, on the 5th day… “Explain,” he ventured, pressing further tonight, kind of hearing the muffled cries of help from beneath him but still kind of not. He could sense an actor in peril.
So she gave him permission to come back into her life, to live in this place with them as well. Her lovely Edward, fresh from a dog park over in Pickle 02. Someone else was under the bed now. He stared at the answer. “Jem, is that you Jem?” He rolled over, all the way. “Oh it’s *you*.”
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0039, 0203, Constantynople, Jeogeot, Kidd Tower, Middleton, Nautilus, Rank & File, Xilted
00390202
Mr. Babyface is now downstairs in Kidd, having yielded the top 2 floors representing his old penthouse apt. to the new couple in town, the *owners* as it were (Arthur and Shelley). He’s also agreed to share the dining table of his upper floor with them, since their own upper floor is basically taken up with a bed. That’s fair, that’s fair, he ponders, puffing on Red Dragon this morning. Out of Blue Pennant, his favorite. Have to run up to West Virginie for a restock soon. But how to get there? Last time he had to go through Hana Lei, holding his nose all the time. Fairy poop, yeck! The worst kind, and they leave it all over the place, not believing in civilization and modern conveniences such as flush toilets and pressure showers. Thus the body odor added in to the rest of the smells, the poop, the pee. He *hates* going there. And yet… I suppose the band Lamb is still in all that mess somewhere. High as the sky; not figuring a way out yet. They have likely been totally assimilated, he reckons. Poor Paul, poor Peter and Mary. He may never see them again. His poor poor nephew (*sigh*). *Anyway*…
He continues to puff as he stares at the Big E on the now shared table, a ritual of sorts. He doesn’t know quite what to make of it still except that it’s perfect in its own way, and a worthy additional the TILE family of absolute glyphs. He stares at the green green sim of Xilted, thinking back to his own experiences there, 0202 as well and exactly 3 novels back. More perfection.
He met a soldier specifically named Chet, a veteran of the Trojan-Durexian War. He can’t recall the names of the other soldiers that were there at the outpost with him and then lover Greg (or Gregg) but he remembers Chet. “Grass, the usual,” Chet always use to say to him whenever he asks the ever pointing, gun toting soldier what he’s aiming at today from his lookout post. And Mr. Babyface would always pause in his activities of the day and stare out with him a bit here — into the green green hills of Xilted (now with grass!). Maybe they could be considered even… friends? What else did they talk about? The cow loving, fellow Trojan warrior now living in the Northern Hills of the original Bellissaria continent? Certainly a possibility, I’m guessing, although they could have become chums after this assignment was over given the whole perpetual war thing, but certainly before his own untimely, well, death. Chet died at the hands of a machete wielding enemy with more blood lust in his spirit. Kill or be killed, he learned too late. But perhaps he was right in doing so; rewards in heaven and so on. Mr. Babyface didn’t know about Chet’s death, I’m supposing. He’d only learn that later in this here photo-novel, 39 in a series of a lot. Maybe from Groover.
And how appropriate his table is now 3 floors down from the top of Kidd and thus displaying the Xilted sim on its side wall as well. At the top — his former upper floor again — Shelley has (XY*Z*) Zebrasil, very close to a volcano that had just gone off. Can he recover enough to go at it again the next day? You betcha! Yet another perfection and directly related. Little e to Big E, you see. TILE talk.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0039, 0202, Constantynople, Jeogeot, Kidd Tower, Middleton, Nautilus, Rank & File, West Virginia, Xilted
00390201
Weird she can see the lower tip of Beatrice from here, she thinks. Where she, in fact, comes from (novel 38; on a white horse). She checks the distance on the inworld map in her, um, mind. Over 200 meters away still, and her draw distance used here is only 64 to reduce lag in an urban area. She thinks again of Constantinople, the *real* thing, and her graphically talented, er, doppelganger. Here incarnated as Myrtle Beech out on the southern tip of *this* island. Another 200 meters or so in the opposite direction.
She moves to the opposite window of the upper floor of her new (!) apartment, important furniture purchase finished. It all revolves around, well, the central affair which is not an affair atall. She smiles at the irony. She can continue with her romance novel 39 and keep the marriage to Arthur intact. She can have her cake and eat it too. She came here, in effect, in 2 boats at once. But what really was this island she now exists on with her others? Constants? Close enough.
Arthur will be home soon from job hunting. Better get back to the interwebs and do some more research before he arrives (she decides). Hogs the whole living room with his applications and such. Great views, but — drawback — small apt. Barely room for the bed upstairs. And what about a kitchen? She’s *not* sharing an oven and a fridge with that big headed dude downstairs (!).
Strange, she think while staring from the couch now (*not* new). The entire Smipsons family shows up at the bottom of the store’s page but no sign of Al or Sarah’s avatar, hmm. Oh, she realizes. No adult content here; she’s not signed in to the Marketplace. And Al and Sarah are certainly adults now after what happened at the Homeless Union last night, away from Cowboy’s still drunk presence. Who cares if he chokes on his own vomit, Sarah thinks while packing her duffle bag for an overnight stay, looking down on him writhing about on the stained bed, murmuring something about Wanda and Gloria giving him 2 rides between snores and incoherent utterances. I bet they did, she thinks with vile, harking back to that afternoon and the beach and the lateness of his appearance and his *appearance* when he arrives. Drunk off his tits. “I bet they did,” she hisses aloud before stomping out, thinking this is at *least* a 2 night absence now. Maybe forever; probably so.
Back to the family…
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0039, 0201, Ashton Village, Bellisaria, Constantynople, Kidd Tower, Nautilus, Rank & File
red over blue (Democracy continues)
It’s a very blue place, she thinks. 10:01 AM. Yet she stares.
Wonder why Myrtle doesn’t like linden plants? she ponders. I’ve *always* liked linden plants. Maybe the only one she respects, the branchy winter tree with no leaves, is my *least* favorite, hmph.
Someone else should be with me here in this lonely spot, she ruminates. Someone else blue.
She suddenly has the urge to get up and dance. Must be the costume. And the place.
—–
“I see plumeria over there,” she spoke later to rail sitting Edward, her chosen beau for the day. She’d changed into something safer, something non-dancey, urge abated. “I see palm tree no. 1, palm tree no. 2. And then a cypress tree 1 just up the hill. What’s not to love?”
“Different strokes for different folks,” Edward offered to Shelley’s continued rant. She just couldn’t get the logic of Myrtle’s opinion.
“Very regimented. *No* chaos. No mention of mainlands. What a mess! she might exclaim. Yet… she’s there. On Constance.”
“*You* put her there. Even gave her that weird belly button, the on and off thing.”
“The Abyss must be a key. That’s where we meet, her and me. That’s where I can tell her off if she doesn’t friend me.”
“Drop it,” urges Edward to the girl, perhaps the love of his life. If Wanda doesn’t enter the picture again. “Let it go.”
“The *island* is all about that merger.” But as she spoke this, she began to doubt her words. It was more than just that.
—–
The next day Shelley replaced Edward with Arthur in the sim of Escanes and they studied the illegal TILE treatises of Bart and Lisa in a sand covered underwater room directly beneath a false island planted with those plumeria and palms, thinking their actions there were unexposed to the prying eyes of superiors on the FILE. They weren’t; didn’t call them that for nutt’n.
(to be continued)
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0039, 0101, Long Islands, Nautilus, Wild West
00380705
“Cheer up, Al. *I’m* back. You’ll get more recruits. Already we have Tigger, we have, um, his friend. Does he have a name?”
“We just call him — Friend.” Al didn’t mention Tigger and Friend weren’t technically recruits to his new style Xian religion. Came with the territory as it were. So: still down to one. At least Shelley-as-Jennifer came back, cow suit ditched along with the attached barn and throne. She was raised in a barn with 2 sisters. She decided she didn’t need to return to one, even if the situation was only temporary and an undercover sort of thing. Too easy to become absorbed in the past.
From their position just up the hill, they kept glancing toward the Northern Nautilus Sea. “Maybe Beckett will show up soon with that missing file,” Shelley-as-Jennifer offered. “Then we’ll know how to proceed.”
“Maybe so.” They had hope still and maybe that was enough. Citrinitas.
END OF “SUNKLANDS 2023 MIDDLE”!
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0038, 0705, Nautilus, NORTH, Rank & File
reaching out
Arthur and Edward had an eyefull. “Constantyne, huh?” Arthur, the hubby, finally managed about the creator of the thing. “Queen of the cows, eh?”
“*I’m* queen of the cows,” crowed Jennifer to this, author of 37 romance novels, almost 38. “Or will be. Once my infiltration is complete. This is just step 01 of a 03 or 04 step process.”
“No need to bring zeroes into this.”
“No,” said Shelley, thinking Arthur’s sentence was more compliment than criticism. He was reading into what she said, seeing between the lines. However thin they may be. He looks again, then looks over at Edward doing the same. Might as well be a much thicker line drawn down the center of the room between them, real on his side, irreal or fantasy on the other. Romance novels, pheh. 2 boats in one, hmph. Both 6’5″, both the same size and shape. She *manufactured* him. But then he had a rethink. Both of them? She claimed she was now Jennifer after all. Not Shelley. He questioned further, not persuaded despite all the evidence.
“Will you still work for Al during all this? You said Thomas Boyy — whatever he’s called –.”
“She,” said Jennifer to this. “He’s also a she.”
“Whatever (again). Anyway, you were assigned to Al by him… or her.”
“TOM calls the shots, the male-female synergy at the top of the pyramid that is also the pyramid itself. He/she said to stay in FILE, in the column that is centered upon Constantynople, upon the Temple of TILE there to be specific. Upon the *front door* of the place to be even more specific. Right on the equator. Kenosha is at the top, Tomasina is one down, then Tigger after that.”
Tigger, she thought. Zero Hero! Arthur’s sentence back there was more criticism than complement, she realized. She must return…
She stopped her stands and indicated the filing cabinets in the corner of the 1 room building, a tiny house the owner calls it, neighbor to the Land of the Cows in Tigger as it turns out. The obvious “secret” agent who also owns the body swapping machine Arthur and Edward stumble upon to find out they were one and the same deep down. Thus the logical progression to *here*. “See what you can find in (those cabinets) — probably another clue. I’ll check back, say, tomorrow. Stay *put* until then. Maybe play cards with each other to pass the time, get to *know* each other better. Understand differences as well as sameness. You have your assignment. *Subordinates*.” She took her leave with that.
(to be continued)
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0038, 0704, Nautilus, NORTH, Rank & File, Temple of TILE
5th
It was her 1/2 hour “lunch hour” and she decided to explore the sim, mainly remotely but with some direct teleports. She’d discovered Tigger Peak, currently covered up with false landscaping. And a larger club and bar in the ne corner of the sim — maybe she could get a job there to earn a living instead of working for Al the slave driver. Then, the last parcel she checked (she was going to be late getting back but who cares at this point, she thinks), the Land of the Cows. And she’d found their throne tucked away in the loft of a barn. Seeing no green dots indicating other residents nearby she dared to directly sit in it from her remote viewing spot.
She looked down and counted her white gloved fingers. 10 instead of 8. Good. She was still whole. Like proper milk, 5 percent instead of 2, or at least 4 to make the ratio come out correct. She’d held out her number challenge hand and someone grasped it. She was saved by the FILE, she knew. She had to keep abiding by the golden rule. But nobody said she had to keep working for *Al*. Heck, she could work here, with the cows, be a type of secret, inside agent uncovering their inner workings, including 4 stomachs we assume. But everyone knows that. Deeper secrets; beyond strange body workings. She could see into the soul of the cow, beyond the black and white, and peer deep into red, the ultimate unity. Like alchemy. But… where was the citrinitas? she wondered with this train of thought. The yellowing? The missing 4th? Ah… “Eureka!” she shouted, leaping out of the throne, attracting the attention of at least one other. Someone named Beckett, an expert on historical. An expert on all things missing in the now. Including himself.
(to be continued)
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0038, 0703, Nautilus, NORTH, Rank & File
Sunklands 