Before hopping into the shower, Shelley/Wheeler decides to assume that pose again she saw Bigfoot take in Concrete WA and stare at the results in the mirror before her. *Am* I Bigfoot? she couldn’t help think with her library eyes in place, no need for aiding glasses any more, a block to deeper knowledge. All Knowledge. Especially given that she could animated herself this way in the first place. Library… might as well call it “built in”. Thanks to a witch. TBC
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0050, 0513, Google Street View, New Island, Omega, Washington
… before it’s too late.
She timed the exit perfectly. “Oh. Hi Shelley. Seems we’re going out at the same time.”
“Hi Lexi,” Shelley said while stopping her walk, letting her neighbor approach. “Where’re you heading?”
“You first.”
“I thought about shopping down at the mega-mall today. Boot sale at Fairies.”
“Hey, me too! What are the odds?”
Too odd, Shelley thought, but went along with it good-naturedly. She was use to attention like this, could handle the needed distance. She walked her own beat. In her own shoes. Keds, soon to be more she hoped.
But the boots didn’t suit her and she emerged from the Hooktip mega-mall still with Keds. Keds for the kids, she figured, to go along with the hair style she hadn’t changed since childhood. Lexi said she couldn’t find any boots to suit her as well, so retained her own shoes too, black cosplays I believe.
As they arrived back at their apartments, Lexi invites Shelley to help her unpack the big plywood cube from Montana that arrived yesterday’s day before (Saturday). “Get this,” she said. “There’s a robot dog in there just like from my childhood. Can’t *wait* to put it together.” But then Lexi remembered the likewise plywood colored pictures on her living room wall, the shells and, especially, the keyhole with the beautiful girl inside, Lexi’s representation of Shelley as Fern had already determined during her visit several posts back. “Uh, just remembered my apartment is a mess,” she backtracked. “Need to clean up. Maybe tomorrow, he he.”
Shelley stuck out her hand to shake. “It’s a date,” making Lexi actually blush a bit. She’d been waiting for this moment for so long. Date, but not what she hoped. Still the word was out there, ready to be molded into something different. She envisions a happy ending. And she’ll have that robot built by then and they can play fetch with it or something. It can be *their* pet. Together (sigh). She finally remembers to let go of Shelley’s hand.
“Laters,” Shelley says, using that same hand to wave brief parting in one, graceful motion, like a dancer, Lexi noted. Soon she will be dancing to a different beat, she hopes, watching her walk away.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0043, 0601, Heterocera, VHC City
“Billie’s filling in for me at the bar while I make this call. She’s a doll, really.”
(reply)
“No. I mean she’s really a doll — mechanical.”
(reply)
“Yeah, they make them in this world too. This *Humansville.*”
(reply)
“Of course not.”
(reply (reiteration))
“I’m pretty much fully disguised now. I have a job. I have new, human clothes.”
(reply)
“Oh it’s what they decided to call an iron and red number, a retro dress.”
(reply)
“Oh I’m blending in.”
(reply)
“Eddie? He’s taking it in stride. He says, get this, it’s better than the cow outfit, haha.”
(reply (laugh as well))
“Listen I gotta run. Billie’s glancing over at me. Don’t want to make her suspicious. You know mechanoids. Takes them a while to get the scent but once they do they sniff and sniff–”
(reply)
“No, I have enough money, thanks. I’ll call you later.”
And with this she hangs up the retro phone into its retro receiver and moves toward the bar again, ready to resume her shift.
Just in the nick of time, phew! Suddenly busy.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0041, 0403, Harbourtown, Jeogeot, NWES Island
“Inter-resting,” spoke Ruby to begin. “A drawer who is not a drawer. 2 places at once.”
“What does it *mean*?” asks Baker B., shaking as much as the apparition. Not fidgety, then, as much as plain out scared. Shakiest gun in the west. Which meant: on the other side, they were as much ghosts to him as he to them. At least Baker B. was.
“Stop shaking,” requested still pretty calm and cool Ruby Fantasie the soothsayer from Spirit Witch who was more use to these things. “Settle down. Look where the gun is pointing.” She meant to say planchette but let the mistake stand. Channeling.
“At me!”
“At *you*! Pull the trigger. Go ahead (she also spoke to the one on the other side of the veil): pull it. It won’t hurt him. Finish the act of the drawing. Finish it up. End it. Go ahead. Goo aheadd…”
Baker B. couldn’t do it, Ruby Fantasie realized. There would have to be another time on the opposite side of the Great Cycle, as I’m just now calling it. One great cycle = one photo-novel, 37 in a series so far. The 37th is also a romance of a novel thanks to Shelley and her Umbrella Klub funded eyes. Club. And then the manifested magic works its way back from end to beginning. Aloha.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0037, 0412, Lands End, Lower Austra, Nautilus, Wild West
“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)
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0036, 0105, Nautilus, Yd Island
“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)
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0036, 0104, Nautilus, Perch-Mistletoe, Upper Austra
Liz is somewhere here, thinks Keith B., spying the guts of the place from a high point in one of its vineyards.
Watch out!
“Did you hear that??”
“Sounded like an explosion!”
A new cube appeared down at the beach. Ready for transport.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0035, 0702, Little Hell+, Omega, Southern
“We have a read on the shack, Control, over.” No answer.
“Repeat, we have a read on the shack, over.” No answer for a while again, then:
“Uh, copy that, Mission, do you see anyone down below? Over.”
Norris pauses himself now, partly out of spite. “Yes, we have green legs, repeat, green legs. Green as frogs, over.”
They could take her out now but it would mean sacrificing the pilot. Stan talked the possibility over with Tom. When will we get a better chance? rationalized the latter.
“Okay, Mission, we’re going to ask you to go straight in on her, repeat, straight – in – on – her. As in kamikaze, over.”
A longer pause. How much did Norris value his artificial life? Enough to break free of Control? He decided to sacrifice himself but go out on his own terms.
“Read that, Control. Going – straight – in.” And he did, except a little to the side, the left one I believe, hitting the boat. Or the right one, pulverizing the rose colored cottage. But not totally straight, thus most likely not wiping out Franklin under the Umbrella.
Roberts of course heard the crash from just over the rocks and came rushing, and Shelley and Lemont heard too from their beach just beyond and did the same. Collision in a different way. Two arcs of a story not yet met.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0035, 0313, Nautilus, NORTH
“Thanks for coming to rescue me, *Lemont*.”
“You’re very welcome dearest. But you can *really* thank your Venus Cage necklace, or at least the photo of it.”
“Right. Didn’t remember anything about the Umbrella Club until I pulled it out of my purse and took a look. Angles aren’t right in the black and white photograph. Can’t figure out where it is taken on the body.”
“It’s not a body.”
“Yeah, I know that now. But just the studying, the trying to figure it out, changed me. I can never go back now. I remain under the Umbrella. Figuratively, of course, because here we’re out in the sun still. Where is our umbrella anyway?”
“Stashed away for a rainy day,” he said.
She turned on her side. “And… I don’t think I desire to wear purple any more. That must go along with (the change). Or when I do it’s *my* choice. She shaked her index finger to reinforce her point. Shelley she was through and through, she thought.
But Lemont knew the situation could change. Good now for them. But George/The Musician was still out there somewhere.
And Roberts remained just around the corner.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0035, 0312, Nautilus, NORTH
“Something happened in Belliseria, Johnny, I mean *Arthur* — DAMN: **Lemont**.”
“Yes??” Much like Mr. Ubermodel at the time, he was all ears. Where has she been???
“Anyway, it was undone. The Orient, Johnny Arthur Lemont. Thing like that can happen there.”
“So… something *happened* in Belliseria and… *unhappened* in Omega?” He began thinking the obvious.
“Yes. I went a little — crazy.”
We’ll have to start over, he thought here. We’ll just have to move on and start over.
“Where are you *now*??” he said into the receiver in his house in Nautilus. *Their* house. If he can find her and bring her back and she’s okay after that.
She looked around. “Bus,” she managed. “Heading… um, don’t know what direction.”
“Can you see the Sun?” Lemont tried.
“No. Dark.” Void, she thought. Was she *there*? Had she been cursed through being so mean to Johnny?”
“Anyone with you now?”
She had to keep driving, but she glanced around the bus real quick. She wasn’t sure otherwise. “No,” she said after checking, returning her eyes to the road.
“Do you have another tracker on you besides the phone? Doesn’t seem to be working as such now — may be too far away. Maybe from that Umbrella Club you were at?”
Umbrella Club, she thought. She doesn’t recall an Umbrella Club. Then she remembered legs — removing them from the sun back into the shade. The torch-like sun. So hot. Did she have another tracker about her? She recalled… a photograph.
(to be continued)
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0035, 0310, Bellisaria, Continent 03, Nautilus, NORTH, Omega, Southern, The Cross
Sunklands 