Search Results for 'asked'
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In reply to: The Time-Dragglers’ Extravaganzas
If the sabulmantium was to be trusted, the beanstalk was a tangle of many paths, and the main and easiest accesses down its dangling twirly greenish tentacles were all outside of the city walls, in a zone where some lords managed to rule pockets of mass beliefs and a bunch of unattractive mongrel mobsters.
“Sounds potential adventure material” Mandrake had had the nerve to say when they’d packed.
“No it isn’t” Arona had said.
Then with more gusto “NO IT ISN’T” as though to convince all the sleepy tarts of the nymphouse below her rented room.More doubts had sunken their claws in her tender heart, and a gulp of whatever astral cup didn’t seem in hindsight a worthy deal for all her troubles. Nonetheless, she was a woman of her word, which was probably why she wasn’t of many. Too much trouble being of all of them, whatever that meant.
“Honestly Mandrake, keeping you on track is worse than herding… dragons.”
She would have said sheep, but she wasn’t so rude yet. Mandrake could have taken that too badly, and he would again prove useful to distract the guards of the Southern Post. That’s where she decided to go, as with all the heat, it had to be the one less guarded.Indeed, when she arrived, as planned, the gate was badly manned, and sleepy soldiers where reaching for the rare spots of shadow.
She decided to make a run for it. The soldiers didn’t look very fit. She started to go, thinking about zigzagging between the air bottles littering the plaza, when she felt a tug pulling her back by the cloak, almost sending her flying off her butt.“FUCK!” she shouted as silently as she could. “You again! I thought I told you not to follow me! Mandrake, attack! Go for the balls!”
She was in a fury, but Mandrake licked his paw with a disgusted look on his face that meant “Hnhn, not going for that, sweetie. You’re on you own to herd that dragon, my lovely pooh.”
“Shhht!” the guy said with a bit smile.
“Don’t shush me, you… ninnyhammer!”
She didn’t know where the last word came from, but they sure felt good, although not quite rude enough.
“Oh, the lady is a pirate who knows her insults.” he answered with his cocky smile.
“Don’t mock me, you mooncalf”
“You were trying to sneak out, were you?”
“Why do you care, hobbledehoy?”
“The guards have aircon chain-mail and armours, see, look at those bottles on their backs… How could you beat them running with your heavy cloak?”
“Maybe Mr Snollygoster has a better suggestion?”
“Of course I have, if you care to follow me, Ms Mumpsimus.”Arona was almost speechless. Not keen on following any stranger, she asked her guts, and they seemed to have a liking for the handsome fellow. It stirred old remembrance of going with the flow tactics, and when she did actually follow him, it had absolutely nothing to do with the fact that he and Mandrake were already ahead in one of the alleys.
“Oh, no, let him have the keys to some secret tunnel, I won’t go for another sewer escape!”
As if her guardien angel has heard her secret prayer, it happened that the stranger had some strange stone key in his bag, opening a secret wall entrance.“Oh.” was all she conceded to the stranger.
Nonplussed he offered her his hand “George” he presented himself still with the same broad smile.
She took his hand haughtily, and entered the vaulted tunnel, not telling him yet her name, in case she felt like choosing a sexy and mysterious code name. She could trust no one…“Traitor” she hissed at Mandrake who was purringly looking at the strangers’ boots.
In reply to: The Time-Dragglers’ Extravaganzas
A series of powerful meditation sessions with Greenie (Gwinie had told Irina she didn’t mind the moniker) had Irina more and more sure-footed in the strange reality of the island.
There was always confusion when she tried to change her surrounding too forcefully. All the transitions seemed like traps to dull her senses back into old familiar patterns, such as securing the perimeter, and idle talks with Mr R. Simple things like changing her focus from one object to another was proving challenging, and she had to keep herself awake grounded in shifting sands, staying clear from the comfortable dreams.
Thoughts of the light city in the clouds carried her, and she’d programmed Mr R to help her with reality checks. Mr R, unlike what she’d thought initially, was not completely immune to the effects of the changes of reality. She surmised it was because it was an evolved AI, and he probably incorporated evolved perception constructs into his programming. In a sense, he was programmed to chose between alternate realities to fulfil the expectations of those in his care. Without this choosing program at his core, or whatever speck of consciousness it was, he probably would have been immune as any piece of inanimate matter —but also probably less useful, as her reality would have been irrelevant to him.
Irina had found out that she was actually lucky to have found Greenie, since during her long sleep, she had maintained a sort of ground reality based on the blueprints she was familiar with, which seemed quite close to what the City called “reality”.
Meditations had revealed, by parts that Irina had interpolated, that Greenie was trained to be part of an order of people, who betrayed her and left her for dead. Her training had helped her survive, and even in Greenie’s quasi-autistic state, had helped Irina too.Irina decided (and hoped it was the first time she had) to go to the cloud city, and help Greenie return to her rightful place.
It did cross her mind that it was maybe what Management had wanted her to do all along, and that her island could only be her gift if she claimed it.
Feeling the thought leading her towards unwanted manifestations and slumber, she snapped out of it.“Mr R, prepare everything, we are leaving at dawn. To the beanstalk.”
“Madam, everything is already prepared, as you asked hours ago.”
“Very well Mr R. Then let’s make dawn happen and let’s paddle.”In reply to: The Time-Dragglers’ Extravaganzas
The heat wave on Abalone was making everyone sweaty and grumpy. With the recent ban of fans, considered a sign of sedition by the P’hopery, wind retailers were thriving more than in the last series of years.
Arona, whose hair had a tendency to curl when wet, had found that the only solution was the “Dry air out of an oven” bottle.
Before the last gushes of air were out, she asked : “ Mandrake, would you like some air ? “In reply to: The Time-Dragglers’ Extravaganzas
The tiger slug, which was the one Lucius was referring to when he asked his question, seemed oblivious to the dirty reed boots that had suddenly appeared on its territory. It was so used to the changes of the land that it was expecting them to go without notice.
They weren’t even edible, and they smelled.In reply to: The Time-Dragglers’ Extravaganzas
The Meteorlogist had forecast a shower on the south-most part of the bog.
It was such a rare occurrence that a team of magi from Karmalott had been dispatched to study it more closely.
When they arrived at the viewpoint, the youngest one asked : “Have you ever heard a slug fart in the silence of the bog ?”In reply to: The Time-Dragglers’ Extravaganzas
The three travelers were not the kind of people to limit themselves to safety and comfort ~ indeed if they had been, Lisa would have stayed in the village, never having met Fanella who would have stayed in Versailles, who never would have met Ivan who would have stayed in Russia. They all had an underlying courage and sense of adventure to be on the island at all. They were not, however, inherently stupid. As they approached the great walls of Gazalbion, they became uneasy. It looked more like a vast open air prison than a welcoming city.
“I’m not sure about this” Lisa whispered to the others, “Once we’re inside there, how will we get out? It might be a trap.”
“But you’re always saying we create our own reality Lisa, how can anyone else trap us?”
asked Fanella.
“We create being trapped as a reflection of restricting ourselves, that’s how it works. It’s not always black and white. And it’s not always easy to resolve that in a demanding and unsettling situation. It would behoove us to proceed with caution.”
“That doesn’t sound right Lisa, that doesn’t sound like trust, and you’re always telling us that trust is the key.”
“And space” added Ivan, “Space is a key, too.”
“Yeah but what does that mean exactly anyway?”
“Fucked if I know” replied Ivan.Lazuli Galore noticed the hesitation of the travelers, and decided to change tactics. They were only a few hundred meters from the entrance to Gazalbion, and it was starting to look as if the new arrivals would not enter willingly. He dispensed with the elephant form, exploding it into a pack of grey wolves which circled behind the travelers, and chased them into the city.
“Olution! Olution!” the crowd chanted, for there was always a crowd gathered at the gate to witness new arrivals. “Olution! Olution!”
Nobody actually knew what the word Olution meant, but they had seen it on tv so many times that they simply repeated it, and the more people that repeated it, the more the frenzy grew.
“Olution! Olution!” the crowd screamed and Lisa, Fanella and Ivan were surrounded by the people, thousands of them, all covered in colourless grey cement dust, even their hair and faces were a ghastly dusty grey.
“Now we’re in trouble,” Lisa remarked grimly.In reply to: The Time-Dragglers’ Extravaganzas
“Follow the elephant before it disappears again” suggested Ivan to Lisa and Fanella who were visibly distraught at Sanso’s unexpected disappearance into the depths of the marshy field beneath their feet.
“That elephant must be connected to some sort of human civilization, elephants don’t parachute on their own,” Ivan deduced, grateful that he had watched so many nature documentaries at the village, and that he could appear knowledgeable to the frightened women.
“Shouldn’t we look for Sanso?” asked Fanella. “Does that strange letter provide any clues? Has he been pushed through a perforation into the honeycomb? Something to do with the underground faded pale people?”
“If we find some of the local inhabitants, we can ask them for help. If we start wandering around here in this mist we will surely get lost, or even struck by another falling elephant.”
“Are we assuming the natives are friendly?” asked Lisa nervously.
“Yes, at this point, we are” replied Ivan. “Until we find proof indicating otherwise. And we must assume that Sanso can look after himself, and that he will join us later.”
“The elephant did look friendly” added Fanella. “Look, he keeps looking back to see if we’re following him. Come on!”In reply to: The Time-Dragglers’ Extravaganzas
Much to everyone’s surprise, Boris called an extraordinary meeting for all the villagers. When Adeline had approached him with a proposition that was troubling her, in his infinite wisdom and practicality, he decided that absolute clarity and open discussion was the only solution. The topic of discussion was the trip to the island with Sanso ~ who wanted to go, and who was willing to stay behind to attend to the animals and the gardens and so on. After several hours of talking and the inevitable sidetracking and joking, interruptions to replenish drinks, fetch snacks or cigarettes, or visit the bathroom, it became apparent that everyone wanted to go, some more enthusiastically than others.
“I have had a spontaneous inspiration to go,” said Lisa, “And I am a big believer is spontaneity. But I am also a big believer in responsibility, and can’t be spontaneous and responsible at the same time ~ unless I can offload the responsibility onto another responsible individual for the duration of my spontaneous holiday.”
“So what you’re saying then is that if I don’t stay home to feed the dogs, then I am denying you your right to be spontaneous?” asked Jack.
Lisa frowned. “If you had just offered to do it, Jack, I could have credited myself with simply trusting it to fall into place. Now you are making me complicate it!”“I have an idea” suggested Etienne, “That might work for everyone. Let us consider that we need allow no time for travel, as teleport travel is instantaneous, and we need not concern ourselves with money, as timetravel is without financial cost. We can all go, as long as we do it in relays. Unlike traditional holidays, where people save up their money, make arrangements regarding leaving their responsibilities, take time to reach a destination, stay at that destination for a certain time period, and then return, we do not need to concern ourselves with any of that. I suggest we split up into two smaller groups and alternate being present on the island, with our presence here in the village.”
“Now who’s complicating it!” remarked Lisa.
“I think it’s a good idea” Adeline piped up, to a general murmur of agreement.“If I may say a word” Sanso stood up and looked at each of their faces in turn. “I must be making a move tonight. And all I need to know is who will be coming with me. Fanella and Lisa?” They nodded in agreement. “And which of you intrepid fellows will join us? Ivan?” Unused to being noticed, Ivan nodded and blushed. “Good! Then Mirabelle, Igor, Boris and Adeline can be team two. Jack, Etienne and Pierre, you can be on emergency stand by to assist where needed in either location.”
“Does everyone know how to teleport?” asked Mirabelle. “ I mean properly teleport, to the right place at the right time?”
Sanso laughed. “Well, we are about to find out.”In reply to: The Time-Dragglers’ Extravaganzas
Amber Graystone was dead. Killed by a bunch of masked men. Linda Pol would be dead also if it weren’t for Mr Graystone, whatever his firstname was. That man knows how to use his gun, she thought. Too bad he was caught by surprise. He managed to kill the three men before they could hurt anybody, but it seemed they had gotten to their main target anyway.
“They tried a car incident, poison. I thought I could protect her”, the man was holding his wife, tears in his voice. She had been shot in the head. One clean wound meant to kill. Linda Pol didn’t want to state the obvious, they were professionals. A vibration in her purse signaled a message on her e-zapper.
“Sorry for the glitch. It seems the Chinese have found a way to cloak themselves from our surveillance. Retrieve the data from the husband. The Management”
The queen began to wonder if they were the network management after all. Why would a TV network have a surveillance system and warn them about the Chinese ? Why would they send her meet a random scientist in Hawai’i ?While Mr Graystone was grieving his wife, Linda Pol took the liberty to remove the masks of the dead squad. The Chinese indeed. Nothing that could be useful, they all looked the same for her.
She received another message.
“Move quick. Others are coming. The Management”“You know”, she said aloud, “I think we should move.”
“I can’t leave my wife here.”
“I know, sweetie. But I think she’s already gone. And I fear those men are not be the only ones after your wife’s secret. Do you have any idea how we can get out discretly ?”A buzz from her e-zapper told her she just got her answer.
In reply to: The Time-Dragglers’ Extravaganzas
“Miss Pol ?” asked the man. His voice was full of testosterone. Linda Pol considered a moment using her doe eyes on him. Her lips parted slightly under an untimely warmth coming from her groin.
“Yes.” She swallowed. She realized she was holding her breath. “Actually, it’s Linda Pol, this is my…”, she wanted to keep it simple this time, “stage name. You can call me Linda”, she offered him a wide smiled, which he ignored.
“Who’s that ?” he asked glaring suspiciously inside the elevator.“Who ?” Linda, unsettled by her conflicting feelings towards the man’s beauty and his brusqueness, looked back. She had completely forgotten about Kevinlol who seemed oblivious to the conversation, politely waiting for his customer to get out of his elevator.
“Oh! Him ? He’s the bellboy who brought me Amber’s message”, she said with a tone she hoped casual. “Is that a gun in your pants ?” The words had escaped her mouth as if all her inhibitions had been put to sleep. Bloody sirens! More potent than I expected, she’d had to be careful.The man put his hand on his gun and grunted. “Follow me”, he said, and, without waiting, he turned around and strode into the corridor. Linda Pol gathered her wig and heels, and followed his butt.
In reply to: The Time-Dragglers’ Extravaganzas
When he arrived at the office, it seemed empty at first. It was late, people usually left at around 6PM, and at 7, it looked like the last one to go home had forgotten to turn all the lights off.
That’s when he arrived at his boss’ office which was the only one without any lights on, that he realized his boss was still there.“Oh, Sir, I didn’t realize you were still here, in the dark.”
“In the shadows.” corrected Leon Fat Ngoi, a short portly man in his early fifties although he appeared younger.Cheung Lok realized there was a double message here, and caught his boss’ meaning. In the Corporation, you were expected to know your boss’ intention with the subtlest of indications. Cheung Lok was the one in the dark, but somehow felt his boss knew more, although he wouldn’t tell without being asked. The three words he’d said were the closest he’d get as an invitation.
“Sir, we found this map, and I believe our target went into hiding there. But…”
“Indeed. We know this island. It was purposely chosen to elude us. As you know the People’s Government has laid claims upon various lands and islands over the years, and have believed this particular island to be part of it.”
“So it shouldn’t be difficult to get there and extradite them?”
“You’re missing the point, son. The reason why our Government’s leaders in their immense wisdom claimed this peace of land is because it is documented to have appeared near the coast of China around a series of years —year 999 in particular.”
Cheung Lok pondered, no wonder they liked the idea, saying 999 was like saying forever in Chinese “What do you mean appeared?”
“This island is appearing and disappearing, only to reappear at certain points of time, and always in different places. Owning this island would have provided our Leaders with great tactical advantage…”
Cheung Lok didn’t know how to interpret the silence.
Fat Ngoi continued “I’ve arranged for a flight for you and a small squad to be parachuted over it. You may not see it before you land.”
Cheung Lok took the last sentence as a cue to leave, and bowed out, moving towards the door.
Fat Ngoi exhaled loudly and before Cheung Lok left, added ominously “You better get prepared for anything, even if you get the robot, you may never get away of the place before the next hundred years or so…”In reply to: The Time-Dragglers’ Extravaganzas
“Shall I call you Fanny instead then, dear? It seems to be stuck in my head now to call you Fanella (which I do think sounds much nicer actually) but I think I can manage to remember Fanny,” suggested Lisa.
“Call me what you like, I won’t be here much longer” replied Fanella under her breath.
“What was that you said?”
“Coffee, Lisa, would you like a refill?”
Lisa’s reply was interrupted by an exclamation from Sanso, and they both turned their attention to him.
“Here it is!” he was saying. “Look! The island!” He pointed to an area of map collage on the mannequins left buttock, and stroked it gently while explaining. “It’s named Abalone ~ by some of its inhabitants, not by everyone, but more on that later. The fascinating thing about it is it’s mysterious properties ~ and I don’t mean real estate, although there are some VERY peculiar properties on the island! But properties that allow it to appear on the Earth only at certain times and places.”
“Times such as 2121?” asked Fanella.
“Yes indeed, and also times such as years 111, 222, 333 ~ in fact any number that has a particular significance really, it’s a very loose arrangement really, you know what some people are like about numbers, make up all kinds of nonsense about special numbers, but it serves a purpose as a sort of guideline, I suppose.”
“You don’t need to tell me all that, Sanso. I’ve already read the book.”
“Circle of Eights and Other Stories? Ahahahaha! But the stories in that book are forever changing, Lisa. You may have read the book but every time you read it, it’s different. You don’t know everything there is to know about that island just because you read one version of the book at one time!”
“I didn’t say I knew EVERY thing, Sanso” Lisa replied huffily.
“That’s where we’re going next” Fanella interjected. “Sanso is taking me.”
“Really? How exciting!” Lisa’s eyes lit up. “What a trip! I’ve been thinking about a holiday ever since we got back from Portugal. Hey, can I come too?”
Sanso stole a glance at Fanella, who shrugged helplessly. He winked at her and whispered “trust me”.
To Lisa he said “I can’t think of anything I’d like more. Is there anyone you’d like to bring with you?”
“Why yes, there is, how funny you should ask. I’ll ask Mirabelle if she wants to come.”
Fanella rolled her eyes.In reply to: The Time-Dragglers’ Extravaganzas
“I think we should get out of here now,” said Sanso, opening Fanella’s bedroom door.
“Where are you going?” she asked in surprise, not expecting such a mundane exit. “Aren’t we teleporting?”
“My dear child!” laughed Sanso, “Why teleport for coffee when there’s a kitchen just down the hall?”
Fanella accompanied Sanso to Lisa’s kitchen, wondering how she would explain his presence, but she need not have worried. As soon as Lisa saw him her previously disgruntled countenance shifted, and beamed in welcome recognition. “Sanso! How marvelous to see you again!”
It wasn’t until later that Lisa realized that she had never met Sanso in person, not until that moment.In reply to: The Time-Dragglers’ Extravaganzas
“I don’t know!” Jeremy shouted at the guy with the round spectacles and the Chinese traditional garments full of intricate Chinese button knots.
The guy showed no sign of losing patience although they’d asked him the question whole morning long.
“That is unfortunate, Jeremy” the guy in charge said slowly. He was stroking Max in long broad stokes, flattening the ears with his palms, while the cat was purring like an engine oblivious to the danger in the room. “As you know, there are many ways to skin a cat…”“Don’t you dare harm Max!”
“So let us recap from the start” the Chinese man said. “You told us you don’t know the man, or his companion. That they appeared and disappeared in a rag, to destination unknown.”
Jeremy nodded, trembling of rage at the way the man was holding his cat.The Chinese man gave a brush of hand, which all the goons in the apartments took as a cue to leave them two alone.
When they were all gone, he tightened his grip around the cat’s soft neck, and leaned closer to Jeremy:“My friend, the trace we left in our fugitive’s stomach led us to your place, so there is no doubt he was there. How he disappeared again is a mystery you will help us solve, whether you want it or not.”
Jeremy looked at him quizzically “so why don’t you use your trace to locate him again?”
“The problem is, by now, either he’s digested and dumped it somewhere in a hot steaming pile of shit, or he’s managed to cloak the signal. Those things were to be expected. I guess he went to you for a reason. He wasn’t able to locate our thief’s location without your help. So now, you will help us do the same.”
Jeremy protested “But we tried it already, with the cucumber and all, but it didn’t work!”
Somehow, a thought came with brief and intense clarity to him. The Chinese man noticed the glimmer in Jeremy’s eye and smiled thinly.
“What is it?”
“The map was working for him, as well as the cucumber, for some unexplainable reason. But not for you or me, it doesn’t mean anything! Of course! We have to try something different, focus on finding the person or thing you want, and let me draw another map.”Cheung Lok was starting to feel closer than he had been in months. He untied Jeremy, and gave him the cat. “Do it, do it now.”
Jeremy lifted Max, tenderly wrapping the cat’s soft body like a scarf on his shoulders. He reached for the wall and took a coloured pin off the cork-board.
While the Chinese guy was busy calling back his goons, Jeremy quickly started to draw on the skin of his arm a symbol with swirly lines, and going in a trance, started to dance into a swirling vortex.
“He’s escaping!” Cheung Lok shouted in Chinese to the others, “Catch him!” he said, striving, but only too late, to catch the youngster who had just disappeared with his cat inside the vortex which was already rapidly closing around them.
In reply to: The Time-Dragglers’ Extravaganzas
“Is that… a flying drone?” the woman asked, pointing at the buzzing monster that just flew past them
“Nope, it’s a cicada. The ones around here are huge”
“No way! That thing was carrying a cat!”
“Yep. They tend to get hungry that time of year. The mating and all…”She gasped for air, unconsciously voicing her thoughts “How come those things became so enormous?”
The guy replied calmly “There’s a theory… That gaping hole…
“The one that appeared in the ground a few weeks ago, the size of a football field?”
“Yeah, that one…”
“I thought it was the reason why they called the Surge Team, although it’s a bit late, now. What about it? “
“It’s not really the reason why we called you. The hole was benign, the region was inhabited for years. But it released cubic tons worth of oxygen in the atmosphere.”
“So what?” she was puzzled.
“Well, that theory states that insects size is proportional to the amount of oxygen in the air… Supposedly the reason why there were giant insects in the prehistoric ages…”
“WTF?”
“Yep,… wait till you see the size of the mosquitoes”, he said handing her a shotgun.In reply to: The Time-Dragglers’ Extravaganzas
It came as a surprise to Fanella to discover that she was homesick for the village in 2020 ~ despite that the entire time she had spent there, she’d been homesick for 18th century Paris. If Sanso belches in my face one more time, I’m off! she said to herself. I know I can do it ~ after all, I ended up in London in 1212, so I can do it again. Well, not back to 1212 of course, but somewhere else ~ ideally 2020, back in the comfort and familiarity of Lisa’s kitchen perhaps. Fanella sighed. I can’t even remember where I was trying to get to the last time, maybe I should just go back to the village and think about it. Travelling with Sanso has turned into a confusing wild cucumber chase, and I can’t make sense of it ~ where will I end up next?
“Umm, where is the loo?” she asked, hoping to find a quiet place in which to concentrate on teleporting out of this cucumber pickle.In reply to: The Time-Dragglers’ Extravaganzas
Jeremy was 23 years old and living in a 57 square meters apartment in Brooklyn. He had two passions in life. Dance and maps.
Max growled. Well you could consider Max as Jeremy’s third passion. Max was a ragdoll cat with a tiny little genetic defect. His fur had this faint pink tint as if it had been put into a washing machine with red clothes. Max purred, satisfied.
Jeremy’s apartment was an artwork in itself. He was painting as a hobby and had drawn a few maps on his white walls. He had the precise stroke that dance demands of a dancer’s move, he had the eye of a falcon concerning details and he loved connecting dots. For some of the maps he had used pointillism, and for others the ancient art of collage he had learned with his grand-mother Martha. Inspired by Matthew Cusnik he had made portraits of dancers with maps and other landscapes.
Jeremy has been interested for some time in a particularly beautiful picture of the Abraham Lake that he wanted to render on one of the last remaining areas of his ceiling when Max jumped on his lap, purring like a caress junkie in need of a few strokes. Jeremy obliged his cat distractedly, too engrossed in the meanders of the picture and the few maps he could already see in his mind like a puzzle.
Max jumped on the desk and tried to force his way between the keyboard and Jeremy’s hand. But he didn’t have enough time to fulfill his desire. The cat began to cough as if it had a train of thought stuck in his throat.
“Shit! You’re not going to puke on my keyboard!”
But it was too late, the cat opened its mouth and threw up a little ball of hair which bounced off the keyboard and crashed down on the floor.
“ehw!” said Jeremy who cringed when he saw the hair ball on his carpet. “I don’t know what you ate but it smells like those wheat Polish biscuits.
Jeremy had already taken some tissue to clean the cat’s mess, and the cat, certainly thinking it wasn’t enough was licking his fur again.
“Don’t make another one like that. You know I don’t like it.”He was about to take the ball when it wobbled suspiciously. Then it began to grow. Jeremy blinked several times to make sure he wasn’t dreaming. When the hairball reached the size of a soccer ball, it was obvious there was something inside, it was deformed like the belly of a pregnant woman when the baby kicks in her bowels.
“What on earth have you spawned, Max!” He looked at his cat, horrified that it could be one of those Aliens.Soon it was as big as a corpse bag for two, and Jeremy could tell from the voices that there were at least two people inside.
Sanso got out of the ragdoll hair ball first, perfect hair as usual. Fanella struggled to get out of the mess of hairs, and was a bit disheveled.
“Time for a reality check”, said Sanso. “Am I dreaming ?” When he saw all the maps and the ragdoll cat, he knew he was at the right place.
“Who are you guys ? And how did you get out of Max ?” asked Jeremy.
In reply to: The Time-Dragglers’ Extravaganzas
Their new found green protegee finally awoke thanks to Mr R. meticulous care.
They tried to talk but to Irina’s dismay got no reaction at all. After a few hours, the greenie, as she was calling the creature, was following Irina everywhere. Which could be quite irritating when she needed intimacy.“Have you scanned its brain, Mr R. ?” asked Irina. “It doesn’t seem quite normal.”
“I’ve been monitoring her vitals ever since we found her. She’s in perfect health, but it appears that hearing us talk does not trigger the usual areas in her brain.”
“Are you sure it’s a her ?” asked Irina dubiously, “She doesn’t have boobs”.
“She’s a younger model, madam. It appears she was quite young when she was mummified, Probably around the age of ten to twelve. Young human female usually develop bosom after puberty.”
“I know that”, she snapped. “I just don’t remember myself without boobs.”
Mr R. searched in his databank for some smart reply, but he preferred not to offer her one of the latest memory treatment.In reply to: The Time-Dragglers’ Extravaganzas
When Jack had sent Lisa a message to ask if Fanella had joined her and Mirabelle in Portugal, she was worried.
“Mirabelle, Fanella has disappeared, do you know anything about it?” asked Lisa. “Did she say anything to you that might give us a clue? Was she planning on going anywhere, did she have any friends outside the village? I know she homesick for 18th century Paris, but she couldn’t possibly have gone back ~ or could she?”
“Bit of a dark horse, our Fanella,” replied Mirabelle. “Always down by that river on her own, reading that strange old book.”
“Not Circle of Eights and Other Stories!”
“Yes, that’s the one. She was practicing projecting to the places in the book.”
“WHAT?? Mirabelle, there’s no time to lose, we must go back to the village at once. If Fanella has been doing that, she could be anywhere, anywhere at all ~ and the trail will be a hard one to follow!”
“But what about our holiday? And not only that, what about the strange tile that was stolen that we’re supposed to be looking for?”
“The damn tile can wait.” snapped Lisa. “But I haven’t forgotten your arousing arms,” she added, her voice softening. “But we must find Fanella first.”~~
Lisa was not surprised to find on her return to the village that everything had descended into chaos. She knew that her responsibility belief about her herd tribe had something to do with it, and although she detested the word control, she was well aware of her propensity for monitoring and guiding the creatures and characters in her domain. The lifestyle in the village had relaxed her guidelines about fair play to some extent, but by golly some people were lazy slackers at times. But the one thing that got her goat was being kept in the dark. How could she keep a benevolent control if she wasn’t aware of what was going on? When she found out that Fanella had been making a granite box, and that she was the last to know, she was furious.
In reply to: The Time-Dragglers’ Extravaganzas
“Madam, I have found something…” Mr R was pointing at a large floating piece of moss in the middle of the bog where they had landed a few days ago.
“At last,… some excitement, whoo…” said Irina with a deadpan expression that left no doubt as to her current level of excitement.There weren’t many clues as to where and when they’d arrived, but she already hated it.
The bog for one, wasn’t her idea of a great retirement place. Of course, there were probably other places to explore on the island, it wasn’t as if she’d stay here permanently, but for now, if the bog was a nexus point of teleporting, she’d rather stay around, in case others would come from there. That was one of the first thing you learnt during the Training, to secure your entry points. You’d never know what to expect, teleporting whales were probably the least dangerous of the things that could get stranded here. And judging by the amount of strange objects littering the area, she and her robot weren’t the first thing to have been discarded here.She’d tasked Mr R, in his immense resourcefulness, to build her a proper watchtower, or just for now, a downsized version of what she’d felt would be a decent one.
A proof of the robot’s talent was that with barely nothing, he’d managed in the past days to bulldoze a clearing in a less wet portion of the land. There, the light’s plays were purely gorgeous, creating the smallest ripples and endless reflections on the green tinges of the water —something Irina could observe with wonder for hours. Mr R had also managed to cook her a rather lovely braised water rat, with fresh peppermint and lotus roots caramelized in wild bees’ honey.
He’d already built the foundations of a anthill-sized promontory, with a clean deck where she could rest on a surprinsingly comfortable deckchair made of driftwood and pieces of whatnots gathered around the place. That was were she was enjoying the last minutes of sun for the day, just about when he’d asked her to check on his discovery. It probably was important enough for the robot to disrupt her digestive meditation.“Well, well… What have we got here…”
“It looks like a person, Madam… Female, around 28, judging by her bone structure. Her vitals are subtly low, but it seems she is alive…” the robot said after a careful scanning.
“Alive? With that color ?” Irina was quite perplexed and slightly amused too.
She wouldn’t mind some company and probably some intel on the island. Besides, there was a side of her that liked to nurse back to life those poor little wounded creatures. The girl would be her first greenish one…“Take her to our place, Mr R” she ordered the robot. “We will soon need double ration of your delicious water rat stew, Mr R”.
