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In reply to: The Surge Team’s Coils
Looking at the city illuminated by endless fireworks, Madame Li was almost glad to be back in Shanghai for the Chinese New Year. The vibrations, explosions and sparkling lights sent shivers of pleasure down her spine, reminding her of childhood excitement and of times before her awareness of such things as surges.
She wasn’t back for leisure however. A new snow surge had followed the air pollution surge. This was most unnerving, and she’d heard from Anita Charmpatti, her counterpart in India that a fog of pollution had hit New Dalhi as well.At the Long Poon Headquarters, against all expectations, a certain Lord Lemon had taken over the head of operations, flanked with two even older museum-worth pieces of antiquities (names Hyphen and Dash). All that had left Cornella utterly disappointed after her last past weeks of brilliant interim. Truth be told, without her scrupulous continuation in the footsteps of Steam, the Surge Team could have been no more. She’d managed to rally back Skye after her taking unnoticed leave of absence in Wales that could well have been an attempt at an early retirement. She also had talked back (and not without a fight) Pearl and Mari Fe in line of duty, and after the looting of the artefact chamber, the collection of rotes gathered after the past weeks contained surges made it look as if they were all back to business.
That Lord Lemon was an old bastard from the early ages of the Team. Usually, in that risky business, you weren’t expected to grow very old, much less to be able to retire. That one having been able to do both surely meant one thing. He wasn’t here to fool around with,… even though he looked capable of little less than managing his early bouts of Alzeihmer’s.
In reply to: The Surge Team’s Coils
Mari Fe managed to find the earplugs, and gave them to Katarina. “Shove these in her ears will you, I need to calm down and catch my breath.” By this time Pearl was catatonic with Meloncholy, and Katarina had no trouble inserting the earplugs.
Mari Fe pulled a carpet off the pile, threw it down onto the shop doorway step, and flopped down. She automatically pulled her ephone out of her pocket, and without thinking found herself checking in to FBF2. “She’s done it again!” she exclamined, jumping up. “ Tanit! She deactivated her FBF2 account 2 days ago ~ at exactly the same time as Elza reactivated her surge team location chip and took the Moscow case.”
“Is that relevant?” asked Katarina, who was gently slapping Pearls cheeks, trying to revive her from the effects of the hypnotic melancholy choir.
But Mari Fe didn’t reply. She was following the other two ladies, who had disappeared into the back room.
In reply to: The Surge Team’s Coils
The aftershock of the surge at the Three Kings’ Parade started to hit full blast at the portals initial location, thus effectively linking old mummies energy to the bodies there that were hit by Mari Fe, and for he most part still lying unconscious.
The combination of energies started to make them arise and walk like mindless zombies, intoning old guttural sounds in cadence in a language that sounded like Italian poetry.
There you had the Balthazar, Rogelio, Dru and alter-Ed who all woke up at once, and even Sanso who had been hit (while impersonating a Portal Worker) started to feel oddly strange.Noticing the atypical occurrence, Arona, whom Janet seemed to have had taken a sudden liking to (blame it on her Yankee side), started to look at her brood and rally them for a safe and prompt exit.
“What is it Arona dearie?” Janet didn’t seem worried. She was a Surge Team member after all, and a zombilic epidemic (zombies energy coming from wormholes) wasn’t anything she couldn’t handle.
“I fear that although your presence is most delightful, we shall be on our way.” Arona’s old sabulmantium had shown persistent and remarkable hints of dragon energy in this dimension that, although a bit different and looking in her mind’s eye like red flying snakes bearing impossibly long mustache, resonated quite well —not to mention she was eager to part with such bizarre company.
“Alrighty, let’s keep in touch dearie,” Janet added, covering their escape, not without winking at Sanso as he was the last one to leave through the map portal, leaving her to look for her missing flushed friends, Mari Fe and Pearl.
Unbeknownst to everyone, the picture-taking lady had camouflaged herself to look like a red sofa nearby the hot pink leather chaise lounge in the corner of the room, and was documenting silently the promising epic battle of Janet and Riff Raff against the zombies.
And for sure, Janet was still ready to make good use of the pocket-sized forklift to move away all cumbersome bodies,… as there was bound to be casualties.In reply to: The Surge Team’s Coils
While stroking his mustache fondly, Ed Steam had the clearest realization that although he’d done that quite a few times in the past mostly to his advantage, it was a lot of work to rewrite timelines and figure out the hows and whens of everyone in his team.
Maybe it was actually time for him to restore the original timeline while disappearing — by faking his own death to be certain nobody would thwart his carefully thought retirement plan. Then, he could also stop dyeing his mustache he figured… So many things to take care of, retirement would be so sweet.
Although the Egyptian timeturner gave him all the time in the world, he actually felt like he’d lost already a great deal too much of it, and started to enact his plan without further ado.Procuring a body double was actually not so hard. The last surge had brought a few of them in Thrifteen’s Alley in their Moreguest Facility. A switch and a twist of the pocket portal and a zap and a blink of the miniaturizer was enough to get there and come back in seconds with a frozen pocket-size life-suspended body from the testing stock, with convincing enough miniaturized slim lips, safely put in a test tube in his waistcoat pocket.
A six-shot cudgel from his artefact war trove was all he needed to make sure the amateur assassin in red robes they’d hired would be taken care of easily.
Then, an enscombulator bedazzler ray spray would be enough to convince Mari Fe she’d managed to hit him, buying him time enough to then deminiaturize the thawed slim-lipped body double, to slip in his stead.
Last, but not least, he would then have a few seconds to discombobulize Mari Fe while disappearing with a backup transportable portal. The plan was perfect. The original timeline restored in pristine conditions.
Only for a few minor details of course. He’d almost forgotten to reprogram the mini-man in his pocket with enough memories for him to be a convincing Ed-himself sans la moustache of course. At least, for the short time he would survive (surge victims discovered still alive were placed in life suspension by the team, but this was mostly for medical analysis as they usually wouldn’t survive their conditions).
Oh, and the bloody mustache of course… A squeeze of foolicle solventilator would be enough to make it temporarily invisible.Simple enough… Well, sandbagging Mari Fe would have probably conveyed similar results with minimal efforts, although the elegance of his plan, as well as the fact that he was loath to hit ladies did unmistakably weight in favour of it.
And with that, he would be back in time for dinner.
In fact, he already was.In reply to: The Surge Team’s Coils
When she began to focus her mind to the place on the map, something weird happened. The parchment began to wave under her feet, she almost lost her balance and her concentration. But she managed to hold her focus. She didn’t know what could happen because she knew nothing about the place. But she had done that before, just for fun. She was not one to go by the most elementary rule of teleportation : “you never go where you have never been before, lest you end up a part of a rock.
She felt in her body the ripples of the focus, it was still wavy and unstable but the necessary vortex was begin to form.
“Bee, help me”, she squeaked to her friend.
Bee, who was still in Vincentius’ shorts, managed to get out, making the god giggle and blush under the disapproving look of Arona.
She fall down just near her friend and took her hands.
“Where are we going ?” she asked.
“I have no idea”, said Mari Fe, “But I’m sure we’ll find out soon enough. Hold tight, I feel the flush coming through!”In reply to: The Surge Team’s Coils
Sanso loved old maps, and was eager to help Vincentius spread the map out on the living room floor and have a closer look. It extended to a full 8 meters in length when it was rolled out, and Sanso and Vincentius had to kneel down and crawl over it to examine it. The map was like nothing they’d ever seen before, certainly it didn’t resemble the current state of the globe, although it had confusing similarities in places. Some of the names were familiar, but not in the usual locations, and there were some familiar land masses, but many were quite different.
Meanwhile, back in the kitchen: “Take the lid off and have a look inside” urged Janet.
“YOU take the lid off, what if the mouse runs over my hand?” said Pearl. “I know, let’s get Ed to do it.”Janet and Pearl were cackling and bumping into each other, Pearl holding the teapot outstretched in front of her, and neither of them noticed Vincentius kneeling just inside the living room doorway, hidden behind his invisibility cloak.
Vincentius looked up but was unable to move in time. Pearl tumbled over his back and the teapot flew out of her hand. Vincentius managed to catch the teapot but the lid flew off and hurtled across the room, catching Sanso on the side of the head. Janet fell over Pearl and landed on Sanso, although of course she couldn’t see him, as he was wearing the invisibility cloak. Vincentius looked on in horror, clutching the teapot close to his stomach, upside down. Bee was able to slide down the spout, straight down into Vincentius’ shorts. Bee let out a long whistle. She wasn’t called Belle Endwhistle for nothing, after all.
Pearl sat up and rubbed her knee, wondering why Janet was hovering in mid air, and the tea pot was upside down and apparently defying gravity too. “Perhaps it wasn’t such a good idea to have a tea break after all”. She wasn’t able to see Arona and Mandrake rolling their eyes, hidden as they were beneath invisibility cloaks. Pearl wasn’t able to see Mari Fe either, as she was too small, and appeared as no more than a dog hair covered bit of chewed up toy goat leg on the floor.
In reply to: The Surge Team’s Coils
The man in vermillion robes was indeed the real Balthazar. Mari Fe had scheduled the portal to bring him from the past earlier, and it was quite annoying it all happened while Ed was in the bathroom.
What was he doing there anyway ? She hold a gasped back when she realized about his moustache. It really was changing his face and she noticed for the first time how slim his lips were. It was all camouflaged by his waxed moustache before and now, naked in the open. She blushed at the words in her head, she had imagined something else.
The man in the red robes moaned. She had to take care of the situation before Ed realized what was going on. He was not to know. She didn’t think and took a heavy china cup from her new Ikea poplar shelves, and smashed it on the man’s head.
“Firmly handled, Chicken”, Ed said, “But why on earth would you do that ?”
In reply to: The Surge Team’s Coils
Mari Fe didn’t like to ask what he’d been doing in there, but she did anyway. “What on earth have you been doing in there Ed, or shouldn’t I ask?”
“You may well ask! I’d like to know why you don’t have some control over the portal in this bathroom, Mari Fe! What a place for a portal, I mean really!”
“Uh Oh” she replied. “Did you end up somewhere else?” Then her hand flew to her mouth. “Or did someone else appear here?”
Ed flung open the bathroom door, revealing a large man in vermillion robes lying on the floor. “I don’t know who he is, but he met his match with me. He grabbed me from behind with stiff yet malleable staying power but I managed to knock him out.”
In reply to: Tales of Tw’Elves
How would they call this new blue planet? “XAIO353-57+” had been suggested by the High Klashtram Mothtar, but it would probably take at least one gyros before the Science council would unanimously agree.
Bashashish 20-13 was actually the communication attendant who’d discovered that promising planet, thus effectively defeating promises of uninteresting and failure-ridden work at the Cosmological Administration for Variable Explorations, where she’d been sent after unimpressive academic studies. The C.A.V.E. was one of those administrative hideouts producing nil but tedium, full of crannies which had not seen a cleaning ladybug (nor any clean ladybug for that matter) probably since its creation.
BashTT (short for Bashashish Twenty-Thirteen), after many of her cocoons left there at the institute, and as much boredom, started to play with some of the old equipment she’d found in a broom closet (needless to say, all brooms had been eaten long ago), and had found some unusual waves coming from a corner of the Sector 114116.It took her more gyri to gather more solid evidence, tinkering with the planet’s waves in order to test whether the blue marble had intelligent life. So far, it had been mostly conclusive. She’d managed to connect to broadcasting waves and also to the transportation systems. She tinkered with the stream of data in order to go local, and by replacing another’s booking with her personal information, managed to book a few craft tickets for herself. This would be perfect for when she’d visit around the planet’s locations when she would arrive with the official delegation.
She was particularly fond of the Land of the Hobbit breathtaking sceneries, and wished she could get an appointment in Rivendell with the wizard they called Grand’Alf who seemed able to talk their mothty language.In reply to: Tales of Tw’Elves
The world didn’t end that day.
But maybe it should have, or at least the endless list of senseless rules, silly obligations, half-compromises and clever-yet-too-often-outdone-by-stupidity ploys to defeat them.
Stuck in the middle of his twelfth failed attempt at booking a flight for the Land of the Long Cloud, he found himself dreaming of buying… well, no— buying was sorely overrated nowadays. With all the rules on how you could or could not spend your money, he’d found it impossibly difficult to buy his friend the new camera of his dreams.
So, let’s dream of building something instead: a dream submersible airborne trailer, or maybe just a flying house with giant wheels, to soar above the pettiness of this world, and to go unfettered wherever fancy called.
He knew why the shark tank in the department store had exploded last week, killing only the sharks and turtles. It probably wasn’t being boxed, as much as being forced to look everyday at the headless consumers that killed the creatures. Whatever the reason might have been, in all fairness, they’d managed to boldly go beyond the end of their world.In reply to: Snowflakes of Tens
Racy Mc Tartshall had been absent for so long that it was hardly any wonder that nobody remembered her, despite the importance of her mission which had long since been forgotten. Mc Tart, as she was affectionately known (or would have been if anyone had remembered her) was a tartist of the highest calibre, consistently producing hugh class tart (which was of course three grades higher than high, and 2 grades higher than hagh, and so forth). Mc Tart had been investigating Nosebook, sniffing out potential distortions, claritortions, connectortions and myriad other contortions, for the distortium, claritortium, connectortium and contortium, respectively ~ focusing mainly on the connectortium, naturally enough.
While researching something or other that was no doubt relevant at the time but had long been forgotten, Mc Tart met Alfred in the Library. ““Aha! Alfred in the Library with a Book, was it!” she exclamined. “I knew I’d find a clue here”. “It wasn’t me!” he retorted, aghast. “It was Albert in the Chapless Pants club with a Rolling Pin!” Mc Tart, feigning an all knowing expression, replied “Ahhhh” and made a mental note to investigate.
Mental notes, known as m’otes for short, floated like wisps in the air currents and occasionally sparkled in the sunbeams, although more often than not, they clumped together under the bed in bunny shapes, slowly dying of boredom. Thankfully the sheer pointlessness of mental notes ~ m’otes ~ made not a whit of difference in the grand scheme of the connectortium investigation because of the abundant nature of Fluce’s ~ (fucking lucky chance encounters), notwithstanding the heated debates continuing in the Distortium about the precise nature of Fluce’s and their relationship to M’Otes ~ or not, depending on the point one wished to make at any particular time.
And so it was by Fluce that Mc Tart met Blithe, Heck and Walty in “le Tunnel” one dreary grey Noremember afternoon. There was nothing to suggest, on first inspection, any thing of interest for the Connectortium mission, but Mc Tart was not discouraged. “Many a moth maketh maths marbles” she reminded herself as she perused the nenu (which, the reader will deduce, is a hugher class of menu).
[link: high class]
In reply to: Strings of Nines
Arona was starting to get cold in the pinkini. She wondered how the lady with the green hair managed to keep warm with so little (not to say as much as nothing) on her skin.
She probably had some fuel more lasting than just Nhum.
Upon seeing that (not the nakie lady, Flove forbid, but the freezing Arona and the night falling down), chivalrous Vinny and Bucky went to gather some bones and fire to spend the night around a nice bonefire. Just what she needed for a keetle of hot tea.Note from the observing Sue Maffey, who started quickly to get high and delirious on Nhum tea in chippendale cups and mumbled to herself and patient Minky-in-crutches in between a few hiccups: “you knew that a bonfire is actually a fire made of bones, originally said of fires in which the bones of slaughtered animals were burned, allegedly a Gaengelic tradition of the slaughter season in autumn (Samhain, which was soon to come).”
She almost gasped wondering where their camelephants had suddenly gone and why that purple reckless dragon suddenly looked satiated.By now, almost everyone else who was there, including (but not only) Mandrake, Yickesy, Winky-nakie-greenie-Messmeerah-with-her-carved-jamón and Mrs Janet had thought the same at least once. That and wondering whether they’d ever get to see that famed Jiborium.
So much for cheap package tours.In reply to: Strings of Nines
So aghast and speechless was Arona, she’d just managed to break the dragon’s invisibility spell apparently.
She still managed to blurt out “don’t even bother darling ; it wouldn’t go so well with your crutches.”
In reply to: Strings of Nines
“Oh, that’s just because I was making you side-dishes for your breakfast, sweetie”, a Vincentius arms full with fresh fruits of improbable sizes and colours said as he came out of the nearby grove. “Though, I beg to differ with Mandrake, a bottle of Nhum would go great with those, especially the grogonuts.”
“Then, we can go find Yicks’.”
Despite all his best efforts, Yickesy had not yet managed to escape the crutches of chatty Minky who was herding the disparaged group of tourists to weirder and weirder spots.
In reply to: Strings of Nines
Not far from there, Buckberry had found a nice shrub of ripe and juicy buckberries, probably the very last of the season, and he was torn between his duties towards sweet (albeit bossy) Arona, and his voracious appetite for said fruity treats.
Not only that, but as improbable as it seems, he had managed to crack the riddle of the double U followed by strings of letters to finish in a N… He was actually going to collect Vincentius in the apparently good, but finally not so good place, and go to the true destination followed by Yickesy and the bunch. Surely, being a flying beast had its advantages, even compared to being a semi-god.
Speaking of which, Vicentius was at the moment in hot waters, surrounded by a crowd of hapries (a merrier version of harpies), who were dying for a taste of the guy.
Aaah, too bad for the juicy shrub, but surely Arona would be devastated by the loss of her chippendale, and even a dragon could not afford that.In reply to: Strings of Nines
Shelly Dwelling, horrifed ~ naturally enough ~ at the mention of butter and parsley, was immensely relieved to see Frobisher the frog gliding along in his electric wheelchair. “Hop on, Shelly!” he whispered urgently “My wheelchair is super fast, I’ll get you out of this pickle in a jiffy!”
“Frobisher! Oh my godfrogs, it’s good to see you! What timing! But I can’t hop!”
“Well neither can I now, without my legs” he replied, “But you can climb up my wheel, can’t you?”
“Well ok, but don’t move, I’m on my way, this may take a while…”
“Hurry, Shelly! Hurry up! I can smell butter melting, there’s no time to lose!”
Unfortunately for Shelly who was a quarter of the way up the left wheel, Frobisher engaged his electric motor and sped off into the long grass. It would have been far too risky to wait.
“Hang on, Shelly! This will be the ride of your life!” he called, as Shelly spun round the giant Ferris Wheel.
“I suppose this is why your name is Frobisher Ferris” she replied through gritted teeth.
In reply to: Strings of Nines
“W-a-t-e-r-f-r-i-n-g-i-n-m-e-l-o-n … yes still way too short!” Yikesy wasn’t really the party type and felt ridiculous wearing a bowler hat. While the others were engaged in general merriment precipitated by the arrival of the champagne, he surreptitiously removed the map from Minky’s backpack.
He scanned the map till he found what he was looking for.
Meanwhile ….
Arona giggled. “Look at that sign! Waakaawaakawaawaawaawaawaawaawahuhun! I want to go there!”
Mandrake raised an elegant eyebrow. “I suppose it is as good as anywhere, considering we have no idea where we are going.”
“I will run ahead and make sure it is safe.” announced Vincentius melodically. “You rest Arona, and eat these delicious sandwiches I whipped up earlier.”
“And shall I lick her feet for you while we wait?” asked the sarcastic Mandrake.
“Splendid idea. Thank you Mandrake!”
In reply to: Strings of Nines
Minky pondered for a long moment before coming to a decision.
“Right then let us all go to Watermelon and cavort with Mr Jib and the Consortium! “
Yikesy sighed loudly. Normally good natured, his patience was beginning to wear thin. Having counted the letters between “W” and “N” and, even making allowances for a degree of “give or take”, he didn’t believe that Watermelon could possibly be the secret destination where they would find Mr Jib. If indeed they even wanted to find this Mr Jib, whoever he may be … and was Watermelon even a destination?
“Cheer up!” encouraged Minky. “Mr Jib is a delightful gentleman. I wouldn’t be surprised if he didn’t have the odd truffle in his pocket either.”
In reply to: Snowflakes of Tens
Everything was white, from the sky to the ground and the limit between them was not even discernible. Despite the lack of visibility, he felt confident that the house was near. His small feet were making crunchy sounds, and at times, between two gushes of wind, he could almost see the fur at the top of his boots.
At a distance, some woolly beast, a yak maybe, was making a muffled sound that resounded in the landscape, and like the beast, he was feeling strong against the elements. On his left were some black shriveled trunks of some small deciduous trees, and it looked like the only life around.
This was far from the truth; even if most of it was frozen in a deep slumber, there still was a lot of life underground.
He had been chasing a few rabbits, and though he had to compete with the lynxes at that game, he had managed to get one. That was why he was feeling so strong and proud. He could feel the still warm little soft creature against his belt, dangling at each of his steps. Soon he will be home…[link:white]
In reply to: The Eights’ Shift, Stories
“Well, those were not my balls, mind you, but the cute little rabbits I bought to entertain the miniature giraffes which looked awfully bored making the goats faint over and over.”
Godfrey wouldn’t admit he was slightly taken off-guard, being reminded of a dream of late, where he was in a bollocks museum, with grapes of pairs hung all over the places in a sort of disturbing triball art arrangement, fig-like and glossy in nature.
“Anyway,” Godfrey continued, putting the soft hairy rabbits aside, “speaking of cloth, or ball of yarn, or whathaveyou… I was about to suggest we do some snowflake experiment…”
He looked at Dory-Ann and sighed a grey smoke of mild disparaged despair, “… but I guess we should have to start it all over”.“You’ll find me on the other side” were his last words while he jumped off the twenty third level of the building, disappearing in mid-air, never to be seen again, or from this side of the thread at least.
