Capitol Hill
I found the key but I can’t get to it.
But neither can he, hehe.
00320102
He wondered why he was drawn to this place, this coke machine. Then he heard the people upstairs.
“What does it say now?”
“Hmm, still no good. The Oracle simply isn’t going to reboot.”
“What now?” It was a good, solid question from Frank Pinocchio. They *had* to have the Oracle going, or else.
“We can reboot to an earlier time from the backup files. Say, just before Christmas.” She checks the list; she checks it twice. “That looks like the latest we can do.” Fay steps back, crosses her arms, still staring at the oh so blue screen. This be no occident. This was the work of a nefarious agent.
Bingo, thinks Chef-inspector Petty downstairs, retrieving an empty coke from the dispenser and finding a prize inside.
investigations continue
Blue Rose Thorn is at it again, stopping at Escanes this time in the Wild West’s Long Islands. Check out the sign: “YES… WE CAN!” Es… can(es) again you’ll notice. Democrats as well, since this is Obama’s presidential slogan. It’s all about symbols this go around. Signs.
Blue Rose Thorn writes down what he’s found in a local beauty spot before moving on.
00320104
He teleports in to the sim’s triple number without planning it. 152 152 152. This Lorsters Worst, name changed while Blue Rose Thorn is examining it, not wanting to taint the procedure in any way. Largest burg on Yd Island most likely, or at least top two or three. I’ll have to check. Anyway, we’ve already featured this very sim in a totally different incarnation in photo-novel 2, near its beginning. The David Bowie vibe was strong at the time. Could it be continued here?
Virginia again, just like with the cat-witch of the Wicked Wild West who practices her melting exercises atop vending machines, sometimes of the seedier variety even. She has something to do with this, BRT notes.
And of course the obvious resonance with Kowloon, especially featured in the blog through novel 17. The great and legendary walled city of Hong Kong, now razed.
He strangely feels at home here. He thinks he’s found something to spend the rest of his travel allowance on for the night. Who needs a midnight snack?
“What’s your name?” he asked after the money is spent.
“Rose,” came the mechanical answer beside him. This began the memory loss of his middle name. Plain ol’ Blue Thorn he was for a spell. Plain and simple: absorption.
(to be continued)
fruit loops
“Oh fer sure,” spoke Filona beside Nipple, who had two points of focus, right and left, balanced by center (319). “You just turn left by the safety ovens… or is it right?” she asked Nipple, who knew but didn’t say. She just shook her head. Filona continued. “Anyways, we gots ta run, Lester. But, just saying, you’re the best(!).” For tonight, she thinks while redonning her neon roller skates, leaving both in the dust. Nipple realizes she had to interact with Lester, since they were left alone. Right? she thinks. I have to interact with him, yes? Lester starts.
“Soo. You wanna go on a date? Down to that place by the harbour?” Turns out Nipple didn’t know Filona, althought they appear together in that photo just above. Accidental conjunction; Lester, with Nipple all along, just wanted to know how to get down to the bay where he’d heard there was a bitch’n bristo that served Hot Molten Silver (alcoholic drink).
“See that booth over there, Tabitha? That’s the one that’s going to collapse and kill Mommy while she’s standing under it buying that watermelon in 10 years, in fact (she checks her watch), 10 years to the month day and even minute.” Tabitha understandably begins crying. “Oh shush shush baby girl. It’s just an asteroid. Crushes Mommy’s head like, well, like a watermelon.” She edges closer to the fated booth, the scene of the future tragedy that cost then 11 year old Tabitha her mother. On her own she was beyond that. No: instead taken in by the triangle, the 32×32, which caused the “accident” in the first place, or, to use its lingo, the “occident”.
Like Mork in Terry Gilliam’s “Fisher King” movie, Tabitha had clearly gone insane through the experiencing, BOOOMB!!!!
Mommy was the triangle from then on, the only intact piece left. She carried it around in her mind, in her brain. It spoke to her constantly, and was even hard to shut up. It then predicted its own death. In the past. “I’ll be standing just over there baby girl.”
(to be continued)
return to center
The candy sentry eventually, inevitably said no no no to the Mosses’ candy shopp and sent it away, along with all their other stuff gathered on the Crypto parcel. “Illegal,” it said. “Unlawful.” But the Mosses get away unscathed except for loss of property, stuff of dreams over.
Only a bit in the formerly unseen basement remains, packed up in one corner.
Then it’s on to Perch-Mistletoe next door to meet Dickie for Debbie, the agent sent in by Pot-D (or maybe Pan-Z) to replace absorbed Blue Rose Thorn still over in Lorsters Worst. Looks like rain.
levels
“1st off, the umbrella girl in Lorsters Worst *gives* umbrellas, doesn’t just hold one. That’s a big difference in my eyes.”
“That means,” speculates Dickie Doom as well, “Blue Rose Thorn is still relevant, despite being stuck.”
“What I’m thinking,” Debbie agreed. “I’m going back. You stay here in case I need to be rescued.”
Dickie nodded. This was the end of their discussion until something else developed, something totally new. Because the umbrella girl wasn’t giving out umbrellas until Debbie showed up.
—–
There are *2* Dooms, thinks Pot-D or Pan-Z spy Lester Best from his position just around the corner. And the second is recording(!).
Debbie walks inside. Now to figure out how to get this elevator from 01 to 02, she pondered, and started touching stuff.
(to be continued)
00320108
It looks like a major question in the division of Lower Austra from the rest of Nautilus is the status of the Frog Islands, we’ll call them for now, beginning, west to east, with Brork, *Froog*, and Stoogle. Right now, Dickie Doom is in Stoogle, looking at a map that seems to indicate, with its drawn yellow line, the Frog Islands are part of larger Yd Island where we’ve just been through (wife? sister?) Debbie Doom. We’ll get back to her story in just a moment.
But then the picture changes and we are confused again. The Frog Islands seem to move through space and time.
Maybe it’s a situation of turning a frog into a prince again like in those other fairy tales.
Dickie Doom stands up. And spots another triangle.
Not bad.
(to be continued)
symbol man
Lower Austra over there for sure, thinks Dickie Doom, looking west through a telescope from his position on Stoogle, at a cafe and boat repair establishment. Nice landscaping too.
—–
“So who’s your friend?” asked Debbie Doom to — we better determine a relationship — let’s say brother and sister instead of husband and wife. So: brother Dickie.
“Picked him up on the marketplace,” answered higher Dickie to lower sister Debbie on the tail of the sea monster. “Freebie,” he further explained. “Brand new as well; seemed to fit (the looming mystery).”
“Um hm,” she said. “Er, where’s his clothes?”
“Dunno,” answered Dickie, daring to look over at the lowest-of-all spectacle. Frog head, frog feet and hands, human body. He tried reloading (the outfit) but same result.
“And the rain.”
“Yes,” answers Dickie. “Somehow, one way or another, the Frog must turn into Prince.”
“P,” she said. “Power. He’s trying to tell us something.”
golden opportunity
Sister Debbie left him in Stoogle to contemplate why a waterfall would be situated in the middle of a wetland. She had to get back to Tyrrell — two “r”‘s you’ll notice, bringing it closer to home North Carolina.
Jerry was there. And he knew how to put out the fire.
“Frying Pan Village,” he spoke over from his position of power on the couch. Dome of purple hair he had, cluing us in to who this really was. “It’s the only way to further this mystery.”
“Frying Pan Island,” she voiced, testing out the sound of the overarching location. Could he be The One? How to break it to Dickie? We were, after all, husband and wife. Before we decided to instead be brother and sister. He’ll take it hard, she decided. He’ll have to go too, she realized.
“There’s… someone else in my life right now,” she ventured.
“Bring him along,” he shot back, all up for a more than 2 relationship. “Or her.”
“Him,” she quickly followed. Would this work?
—–
Besides, he had a friend too. A best friend. A foursome it is.
(to be continued)
symbol gets literal
“Well? How do you li–?” (*smooch*)
She figured she didn’t have time to waste, plus this is perfect. How did he set this all *up*??
Prince
After the kiss, he was different: taller, darker, more withdrawn. He danced to the beat of his own drum (she thought as he drummed his hands against the side of his legs). She realized this wasn’t going to work. Nothing cook’n in here.
Time to open up the oven door and make a withdrawal.
00320113
Although separated now, she often dreams of him still, and sometimes she *is* him in the dream, like here. He (she) exits the rundown house where he’s lived for going on 25 years, intending to go to the library but then realizing he doesn’t have a key any longer. He doesn’t work there no more. A dove flies overhead and something lands in his beautiful purple hair, making it imperfect. Thinking the dove pooped on him, he curses it as it wings its way back over the plain whence he or she came.
He turns around, intending to wash his hair out in the sink or, better yet, take another shower, then apply more gel and finisher. He steps into the shower after removing his clothes. He’s still taller, darker, and, yes, more withdrawn. But he’s about to change that, about to wash away his “sins”. The water comes on. He washes his tall, dark body. He wishes Debbie were still around, wishes he could invite her over to join him. He imagines them together in his head as he continues to suds. Body done now; hair next. The water moves to the head. He rinses it well before applying shampoo, and, finally, touching it for the first time since the dove incident. His fingers start to move around his scalp. Something oddly shaped and metallic is quickly encountered. He withdraws it from his curls, looks down at the open hand. 319. This is the gift of the dove. This is the gift of the *library*. He doesn’t need to head there any longer.
She wakes up.
00320114
She came in on a ship bound from Wommington (island), this belle of the billy dance, tradition over there. Navel motions they called it during acts of war. Wommington had fought Constance (another island) but dare not directly attack Long (yet another island but bigger — bigger in a longer if not wider way). Subterfuge was the answer. And positioning on Jourdain-Benvolia (another island similar in size to Wommington and Constance) nearest to Long (see above) and, especially, Capitol Hill, one of the high points of the island and a popular tourist attraction during season. As we’ve seen, atop Capitol Hill rests the old gypsy wagon with the flying key inside a cage, unable to get out because of its self-enclosed nature. Then just outside this, another cage, another trapped *thing* (thankfully!), Democrats ruling for now. So Capitol Hill represented a pivotal spot.
As the sun came up, she turned away from it and acted like she didn’t want to have anything to do with the small, caravan topped summit. All was good over there, she pretended to anyone who was looking on, which she imagined were at least several, and perhaps one or two spies amongst them. She couldn’t take any chances.
She carefully avoided the rocks that guarded the opposite beach like anti-tank obstacles. So many lost already! Like that bigger one over there perched high in the air and later transformed into several apartments for the Jourdainian rich and trendy, second or third or even fourth homes most likely, often purchased just to show up those poor, lowly Benvolians that they’d always be attached to by that cursed little isthmus strip of land. If only our God had remembered to cut the cord from those *babies*, they lamented about the tag along, more undeveloped eastern side of their joined landmasses. They looked down on them fer sure.
Somehow making it through all that crap and pulling up on the beach, she spots Chef-inspector Petty still studying the prize he received from the otherwise empty coke can days and days ago, because time was frozen here. Strangely shaped, gold: a key in one word. 319 he knew. Triangle. He stuck the key in his pocket to go along with his (paper) pills and threw the empty coke can on the floor after crushing it with his free hand. The billy dancer looked on, thinking she had found the answer. She moved swiftly. Petty was on the floor with a slit throat in a second, a seeming mortal blow. The belle took the key. Now to find the proper door.
(to be continued)
key lost again
One of the oldest tricks in the book, she thought from her observing position. Lure ’em down to the beach with a piece of watermelon, then, BLAMO, instant terrain change in the shifting sand to trap them up to their motherlicking balls, she’d always heard the expression. Or at least knees in this case — enough to do the job. She saw she could still dance the bill but it must be hard in the grainy resistance. Old habits die hard as they also say.
Time for another agent to take over from this obviously inept one. Another *Venusian*. Welcome back Joey Avatar. Digging the purple hair.
She dug her out and then sent her packing, even taking her badge. We’ll continue this obviously important story soon.
death
“What did *you* see Mr., um, *Head* (snicker).” She wasn’t going to dig this dude out as well. Write it off as a lost cause, she figures as he automatically starts her worthless, chat received fortune. “You will find a sock you thought you’d never find.” Hmm, maybe not so worthless after all, if sock equals key. And it probably does. Still not digging him out.
She moves to the house. Coke machine still there, as Billy Dancer reported before getting stuck. Chef-inspector Petty gone — must have either crawled off or the body disposed of by Billy. She only mentions the supposed killing, the bloodless slashing of the dummy’s throat. The old boss dug short and succinct like that; wanted to rack up the cases instead of going over the nuances of each individual one. New boss was different. Not the same as the old boss, as The Who famously sang about. Or maybe they are, she pondered further. Wanda and Sykes: different in their own nuances. But it’s all still about numbers, the bottom line, no matter what Sykes promised at first. Maybe she’d be asked to pare it down as well. Probably, hmph. She’s already starting to resent the new hire, even if it’s all in her head.
Joey moves upstairs. The computer Billy also briefly mentioned still plugged in, still given the blue screen of death (BSOD). Those people we, the readers, saw before around it near the beginning of this section, Frank Pinocchio and Fay Blue: gone. Just like the chef-inspector.
Next room; low voice:
“Yeah, she’s about to come in here and discover her dreaming self and wake up. Better amscray.”
Voice demanding something on the other side. “Okay, okay, I’ll bring the body as well. No waking self.”
The voice on the other side seemed to repeat the same thing although it was hard to tell from a distance.
Sykes
She closed the door but dare not look around.
The swamp tree.
Sunklands 