“She came through the cake portal off the Southwest Corridor.”
“I know where the cake portal is,” black haired Fern Stalin reprimanded the more mentally challenged Lichen Roosevelt, a classic ditzy blonde. “What have you found so far?” Understandably, and good to know, Lichen was a subordinate to Fern, which is why she got first shot at an analysis before the bigger gun moved in. Fern’s mind could turn into a fiery, raging bazooka if needed.
“We know she’s not fully human, maybe as little as half human. As you can see, there’s a pink-ish tone to her skin, and I’m not talking about flesh colored pink but pink pink, as in ‘Some Like It Hot’ pink.”
“Looks pretty cool to me,” Fern stated, eyeballing the being and not sensing a Marilyn Monroe type situation. This *red* could turn out to be pretty smart, like herself. That old saying, black and red good in bed, spontaneously sprang to mind. But yellow’s a different fellow, some tacked on. Like herself. “What else?”
“She’s got scars on her face, perhaps from an operation. Oh, she’s got 4 stomachs. Like a cow!”
“She *doesn’t*.” Fern let her guard down in the surrealness of the moment.
“Just kidding.”
Fern frowned but was proud of Lichen for the joke, since they had been talking about the TILE Manifesto and the line, “And so on the 5th day he cowed”, just this morning at the commissary kitchen — good setup. Maybe her intelligence shows up more in humor. Didn’t she use to do stand up comedy down at the Toasty Toad? Or was it Tasty? She could check later on the interwebs. Maybe that was Pete Perk over at marketing, come to think of it. Lichen was just dating him, just tagging along. And something happened to Pete, yes, and she had to take the stage. He choked on a toad? No, that can’t be it. He choked *at* the Toad. Got stage fright. Lichen filled in. I remember, yeah, she was pretty good, pretty tasty. Something else… ahh, back to the task at hand. The intruding alien. But what if this really *does* have something to do with TILE.
“Let’s get back to the face marks. What size were they and what part of the face were they on? Could be a disguise, like Eddy the Phosphorescent Leech over in Zilchboro. Did you check the scars? Did you measure their width, length, angle, and depth?” Fern knew Lichen in all likelihood didn’t do this. She had the upper hand again as usual.
(to be continued)
Sunklands 