00440301 (both sides of the Aisle)
“Hey, don’t drink my drink!” commanded Fern.
“Sorry,” the small bartender apologized, no more than a kid it appears. “I was… thirsty. Not use to customers. Not use to eyes looking at what I’m doing.”
“No more, then! You haven’t got any diseases I should know about now? Seeing we’re share buddies, ha.”
“None that I know of,” spoke the boy. He continued to shake the drink and not drink. Both at once. “Soo, you here for Breakfast?” Pause. “Or Dairy?”
“Both, actually.”
“Hmm,” he said, and poured the finished martini, dry and wet as one. Perfection if he says so himself. But he prefers the unmixed version; likes to taste both flavors separately (gin and vermouth). Darn watching eyes! “Well,” he continues. “How much have you seen so far?” he asked, not wanting to go over covered ground as it were.
“Airport first obviously. Had to come in from *somewhere*.” But Fern came in on a ship, sea instead of air. Has to be both, she figured. And with the captain none other than our Philip Strevor, fresh from a cube drop. Or so he said. Interesting.
“Not much there,” said the boy with his slight Chinese accent, worn off by years of state-side existence. Or so he said. “What else?”
“Well, pretty much saw everything in the rural district close to the void.” Too close, she thinks. “The, um, downed helicopter, the swamp, the dunes, the swimming pool. Very interesting.”
“There’s a plane in the swamp too.”
“Yup, saw that as well.”
“Do you want to hear the story (about it)?”
“Oh sure. Why not. But first, the helicopter.” Philip Strevor mentioned a helicopter along with the cubes, she thinks.
“Same story, actually. Swamp attracted both. Swamp drew them in. Just like a picture it drew them in. Got a taste for aerial. Opposites attract, after all. Water and air.”
This boy’s just spouting boyish nonsense, Fern thought, looking at his mischievous expression on his small face. But whatever; don’t have any other point of information as they say. Haven’t spotted anyone else in town. Just this child. A bartending child. Doesn’t quite add up. “Go on… I’m listening.”
(to be continued)
00440302
Arasaka has a presence here, thought Fern while happening upon their tell tale logo on the back of a hotel in exploring more of the town, this Aisle of Breakfast and Aisle of Dairy at once. Blood red like a tempting apple.
She thinks back to the first time she saw the cursed thing while riding the magnetic levitation (maglev) rail train into Nightsity, obligatory “apple tree” prominent above the name in that case instead of to the side (put in quotes because that’s Fern’s personal name for the emblem due to the tempting aspect and not a colloquial term). Across the river but the distinct cherry red made it pop out again. And immediately afterwards, her destination for tonight, the No Tell Motel. Another hotel/motel, hmm, she ponders. Could one be the same as the other (again)?
She gets off at the next stop and makes her way back to the Kabusie motel.
They indeed fuse as she walks through the front door, past becoming present. But it took a while to match the outfit admittedly, ha.
“I’m here to see Tin,” she said to the front desk receptionist, hoping she didn’t under-dress. But this was, after all, the seedier side of town, past still mirroring present.
“Last name, please,” he said, staring at the outfit but not looking too shocked, she didn’t think. Had to blend in, she consoled herself again. She *is* at least wearing her black swimming suit under the semi-transparent shirt. All she could think of in the moment. Lichen wasn’t there to help her choose clothing, fashion buff that she is, despite the hick look she promotes with the jeans and mouth straw and all. Poor Lichen, she bemoans again. But I’ll find her. “Don’t have one,” she answers. It’s a number not a name,” she said, even though she knew it was both, phonetically speaking. “Tin (Ten) — only gave me her room.”
“Right, okay, so… 2nd floor, last door to the right,” he says. “Just count 6 7 8 9 10.” Good luck, he thinks. That one looked pure chrome and so most likely a cyberpsycho. Probably won’t live through the night.
—–
Well. Here goes nothing *knock knock knock*.
“Come in! It’s not locked!” Ordinary female voice, phew!
Fern draws her gun and opens the door…
She turns.
“You!”
00440303 (Debbie’s commute 02 of 02 (slooow internet))
Bruised and battered, I’m almost there… FREEZE.
… But not quite.
“Old piece of shit!” a punk driver shouted through the window at me as I drive through Little Seoul in the middle of my journey, stating the obvious.
“Hell-looooo!” I shouted back, then wondered why. FREEZE (Dammit!).
I made the rest of my commute quieter, with streets empty now. It seemed to be the safest way to return home. No freeze.
(to be continued?)
00440304 (contemplation of an execution…)
… from the top of a nearby, safe dune.
00440305
She woke up on a white couch in a strange white building. She checked the map. Still AISLE, good. Her seedier outfit still on, check. Something happened, she knew. She met Tin Lizzy and then everything blacked out. It had been (she also checked the in-world clock)… almost two weeks?! Drugged, was the first thing that came to mind. And what about the other, 3rd Aisle, the Aisle of Palms? Probably destroyed, she thought, since her rent was overdue not by one but 2 weeks now. And she was in the primary core avatar of Baker Bloch who had all the money — Mr. Moneybags all the other cores called him, in an affectionate way of course. She’d know if it had been payed. And the total in the account was the same as when she met Tin Lizzy. A disaster, she realized.
Something, *something* had happened.
The environment was so laggy she had trouble walking without getting ahead of herself and then having to jump back. Personalized graphics set to high, she realized, but that wasn’t it. She knew what caused that; was use to moving around in it when she, ahem, woke up here, there and everywhere, AISLE being just the latest in a long line of locations for that type of stuff. But this sleeper was a doozy in comparison.
She turned when she found her way outside the building, spied the emblem. Not Arasaka again, thankfully. But maybe a kind of present time equivalent.
She took a left on the two lane paved road outside the facility which soon led her to the dunes.
(to be continued)
00440306 (Jesus Lake, etc.)
Is *this* how I wound up here? Fern pondered from inside the crate, back in her regular garb. Box drop?
Is *this* the true savior? observing Edward thought from his dimmer view of the world within the larger of the 2 shacks in the vicinity. Cube drop?
If only he’d seen her walk on water earlier he’d be convinced.
“Hello!?” he ventured from the other side of the window. “Can I help you!?”
00440307 (in on the way)
On her way to work, Debbie drives past the old location of The Fern restaurant, lamenting its absence. Now a Crucial Fix coffee shop, still cool but not the same. She especially loved talking Plastic Cutlery with the owner Fern Stalin, a common love interest. Fern dated Plastic in the 00s and Debbie went out with Mr. Cutlery in the 10s. She wondered whatever happened to him. And her.
Later, walking back to the parking deck on her way home, Debbie wondered about the likewise missing Middle of the law firm Slaughter Slaughter and Slaughter, Upper and Lower still around. She makes a mental note to check up on that too.
(to be continued)
00440308
As Middle, my life started to become gray and totally predictable. I stared into the Eye and decided to Die. “Ayyyyyyyyyyee!”
He turned around after hearing the sickening splat behind him at 4:20, stared at my lifeless body, totally shocked at the jump. A Slaughterhouse commercial began to play from unseen loudspeakers overhead, which I learned I’d already set up, along with the finding of the body. The person’s name was Lincoln, and he was pretty fresh to the city like a shiny new penny. First BD. This one.
(to be continued)
00440309 (Rose T.)
She resided in Dairy so she thought it was appropriate to start her long delayed *diary* here. To begin: renaming the place after the book. Aisle of Diary it is from now on in the writing. Or Isle — either one perhaps, depending on, let’s say, the weather. Sunny right now. Isle, then.
Dear Diary,
Today I begin my life anew. Beautiful day here in the Isle, let’s call it. Edward D. is cooking up breakfast, no dairy. I’m allergic to dairy now. Milk, cheese, all of it. My diary makes it so.
I want to first talk about Dr. Kelp and how the two timing f-er stabbed me in the back and replaced me with A. Pond. I want to talk about the lie that is Edward D., because I made him up, name just off the the top of my head back there. Let’s see, 5 sentences back now. Oh here he comes now, breakfast in hand. “Thank you dearest!” I say to him, putting down the loaded down tray beside the keyboard in front of me, planning to nibble on it for the next hour or so. Writing and dining, two of my favorite activities. 5 sentences, 5 bites (so on). I don’t do dairy. I sip on the glass of milk he also provided (“Thanks again, dearie!”).
The breakfast turns into a sandwich loaded down with at least peanut butter as the sun becomes square and black, Skippy and Jiff both chipping in (skip). Aisle it is.
I think of po man’s George Washington (Carver) not for the first time today. Nor the last.
(to be continued)
00440310 (end of Becky Hill this time)
At 33:33 he stared at the Slaughterhouse vending machine and thought back to the splat, then wondered why.
Then he also recalled their ad playing at the time which completed the triangle, another indicator of Middle.
00440311
He comes around when I sit down and slap him. He looks around. “Where are we?”
“Motel. Middle of nowhere.”
“Any specific Middle?” he intuited right off the bat, being the smart-ass psychic he is. They had to talk about Jonny. They had to talk about the relic.
I soon got this out of him anyway with a couple more slaps, turning his cheeks from orange orange to apple red: “The suicide model was just a prototype. *Arasaka’s* aims were always higher.”
Arasaka — the *Tree*, I think. Should’ve known. Add another hotel/motel to the growing list of hanging fruits.
(to be continued)
00440312
“Montana!
“And 4 buttes.”
“Lemme see!” “Lemme see!” “Lemme see!”
00440313
“Oh Lichen. Why’d you have to take me so far?”
By the time they climbed up to the higher plateau all the snow had melted from the night before. And Lichen had turned into A. Pond the true traveling companion as Fern was now Dr. Kelp.
“F-ck Dr. Kelp and her two timing ways,” wrote Rose T. in her journal that night, paraphrasing something similar from the morning entry. Two a day until she catches up, she’s determined. Catastrophe set her back.
(to be continued)
00440314
When they reached the top of Birdtail and looked over, a surprise awaited them, like a field manifesting between the two matching, pencil shaped (ached nipples?) projectiles sticking up there, except in the distance. It shouldn’t. The cursed thing known as The Flesh Pit, mystery no more, would follow them wherever they went now — since they were a part of it, *inside* it, actually. To the edges of the Earth and beyond.
Then they found it back down on the plateau over an edge as well, reinforcing the insidedness. More projection.
Back in *our* reality (Our Second Lyfe):
“Damn thing wasn’t pushing through here yesterday!” Leroy Jackson Jones Johnson reported back to A. Pond over the incessant, evil humming. Uncle Barnacles’ replacement. A fellow Northerner ready to be replaced himself. ‘Bout time for A. to finally head down south to the “Slums” to pick up some new recruits, fresh meat matching fresh meat.
(to be continued)
00440315 (“*Montana*”)
00440316
Sunklands 