Search Results for 'building'

Sadie tucked her legs up under her body and snuggled down into the large armchair in the lounge. Her wet hair was twisted in a towel; her skin smelled like tropical coconuts from the body butter she had slathered on after her shower.

Just because no one can see me doesn’t mean I have to turn into a bag lady, Sadie told herself sternly.

She turned the television on and the wall became alive with one of her favourite home makeover programmes—a series on portable home design. With the light building materials nowadays, it was pretty common to transport the frame of a house in a backpack, just printing out the additional materials to construct it as required. Sadie set the screen to view only—sometimes it was fun to interact with the programmes, but right now she needed to think.

Her own home, built early last century in an industrial area which had long since been converted to residential housing, was sparsely furnished, but tastefully accessorised with soft colours and rich textures to give it a homely feel.

I love to touch and feel things, she thought, stroking the mossy green velvet arm of the chair.

In a world of so much clutter, her peaceful apartment was a haven of tranquility. She enjoyed silence, or maybe it was just that outside noises could so rudely interrupt the conversations going on in her head. Her boyfriend, Owen, an architect, was currently working on a big development project on Mars and not due back for at least another few months. So, other than when she was on a job, she had spent a lot of time alone lately.

She felt bad about scaring poor old Finnley, remembering her wide and terrified eyes darting around the room before she took off out the door.

She has probably gone to see that strange Elizabeth lady she works for. I hope they don’t think she is losing it and fire her.

And still no word from Linda Pol. Sadie was philosophical.

Being invisible wasn’t so bad.

Not now that she had got over the initial shock. In fact, the possibilities were starting to seem rather intriguing.

A man on a donkey making his way through the dust and rubble of the crumbling city elicited no attention, it was a common sight that attracted no attention. Sanso covered his hair and face with a blue shawl, more to keep the acrid cement dust out of his eyes that for purposes of concealment.
The destruction was appalling, but wonderfully symbolic ~ there were buildings still standing like lone sentinels amid the piles of smashed grey blocks and mangled steel girders, but the huge gaps where the great wall had been allowed a view of the rolling plain beyond. The heat shimmered across the golden dry vegetation, silver grey olive trees gnarled haphazardly on the gentle slopes, and far off a milky haze rose above the distant sea.
The donkey picked his way nimbly though the wreckage, scurrying figures clutching babies and assorted items rushed towards the holes in the perimeter wall, where the ragtaggle crowds fanned out as they ran through to the other side, as wild shouts of jubilation ~ as well as plaintive cries for loved ones lost in the chaos ~ ricocheted through the gutted buildings.
The donkey stopped at a site of devastation indistinguishable from all the others, and indicated to Sanso by bucking him off his back that this was the ruined tile factory, and then Lazuli shapeshifted back into his usual human form ~ short but stocky, black haired and brown eyed, with eyebrows that met in the middle ~ for ease of communication.
“Over there, look!” Lazuli pointed to wisps of dust rising from a depression in the rubble.
Shading his eyes from the glare of the sun, Sanso could make out four bent figures searching the debris, pulling out stones and tossing them aside, evidently searching for something.
“Fanella! I have come back for you!” Sanso cried, stumbling and banging his shins as he rushed over to her.
“And I have come for you too!” added Lazuli, following Sanso, and hoping to make a favourable impression on the girl, smitten with her long golden hair, elfin features and slender body.
“About bloody time, Sanso” said Lisa tartly, easing her aching back into an upright position. “You may as make yourself useful, and help Pseu find the tile she’s looking for and then we can get out of this godforsaken hellhole. Jack will be wondering where we are.”

Noticing the distinctive odour of unwashed hair, Finnley looked around cautiously. Perhaps there was an intruder hiding somewhere. Of course, Finnley reasoned, it could be that Sadie had returned early, and had brought an unsavoury visitor with her who had left the lingering, but never the less pungent aroma. It surely couldn’t be Sadie, who was usually so scrupulously clean and sweet scented. Unless Sadie was poorly and had been too unwell to bathe.

Her concern about Sadie over riding her fear of a possible intruder, Finnley checked the bedroom, calling out softly to Sadie, but there was no sign of her in there. Next she checked the bathroom, tapping gently on the closed door, and then cautiously pushing it open when she had no reply.

Eventually, after checking everywhere and finding no sign of Sadie or any indication of an intruder, Finnley decided she was being over anxious ~ Sadie must have had a guest, and they had recently left the building together. She started to clean, methodically and efficiently. But her unease escalated as the more she cleaned, the stronger the smell of unwashed hair grew, and she was unable to pinpoint where the smell originated from ~ it seemed to be moving around, following her.

Beside being a casino, the 888 pavilion had a particularity. It was one of those reverse buildings with a ground floor and all the other stories underground. Since the Great Reform of Feng Shui in 2088 by Feng Shui master Jeorge Huhu, who discovered that dead people weren’t actually living six feet under, it wasn’t considered bad Feng Shui any more to dig your home.

Obviously, for practical reasons, such building could not go too deep in a volcanic island. A column of light in the center assured the lighting of the eight floors by an expensive network of optical crystals. The opacity of the end crystals could be adjusted using polarized filters to create a dark atmosphere similar to the old-time prohibition casinos, or simulate daylight as in the volcanic pool on the bottom floor, which was affectionately referred to as Hell by the 888 pavilion’s employees.

The Continuing Adventures of the Three Time Traveling Maids From Versailles.

The three maids, Fanella (previously known, briefly, as Fanetta), Mirabelle, and Adeline and the three time travelling Russian stage hands, Igor Popinkin, Boris and Ivan, leave Paris in the 18th century via hot air balloon, heading for the Tower of Hercules on the Galician Coast, with Mirabelle’s parrot. Sporadically they are assisted by Pseu Dan, a cross between a sort of oversoul 8 and a future focus with cloaking abilities and other skills, who tends to be unreliable due to a fixation on building a folly of tiles in the City.
After a series of mishaps attempting to board the ghost galleon of Belen, an Amazonian shapeshifting timetravelling pink dolphin pod comes to their rescue, and they find themselves washed up on a beach near the Pillars of Hercules (Spanish side) in the year 2020 and are found by Lisa, a middle aged Englishwoman. She takes the six timetravellers back to her village, an experimental new kind of community in the orange groves not far from the beach.
Jack is Lisa’s partner, and other inhabitants of the village include Etienne and Pierre.

Mirabelle and Igor continue an on/off tempestuous affair, Mirabelle often considering Igor (somewhat unfairly) a feckless whoremongering cretin. Igor considers himself to be an average adventurous funloving young man willing to explore new opportunities.
Mirabelle, once considered to be the bossiest of the three maids, finds she has no need to control the others in the absence of the responsibilities of working long hours for others at Versaille. Initially she struggled with learning the new languages, but was easily diverted from the worry and thus learned with ease, after the unexpected trip to Portugal (looking for the stolen whale tile) with Lisa. Lisa finds herself strangely attracted to Mirabelle while under the influence of sangria.

Adeline settled into the new timeframe by pursuing her fascination with the unfamiliar multitude of coloured plastic objects, making them into sculptures. She and Boris have an easy ongoing friendship; Boris and Ivan settle into life at the village by taking an interest in car and tractor mechanics and farming, and digital photography.

Fanella was the most unsettled, yearning to return to the familiar hometimezone in Versaille. She found peace in solitude outside in natural surroundings, often practicing teleporting and projecting by the river or in the woods. She rediscovers her adventurous spirit after a series of teleport and time travelling mishaps. Her unexpected meeting with Sanso in the Great Fire of London in 1212 starts another chain of teleport and timetravel adventures, as she is now determined to reach the island in 2121 that she read about in an old book of Lisa’s called Circle of Eights and Other Stories.

The boy was giving her a tour of the grounds in a monotonous voice.

“The hotel is actually divided in several pavilions, each representing a culture of the world and designated by a special name. The 888 pavilion was built according to the principles of Feng Shui in order to bring health and prosperity to the clients.”

And certainly money to the hotel, thought Linda Pol.

“The water spring represents the flow of energy. It is made in such a way that customers can hear a peaceful gurgle of water when they enter the building. It helps regulate the emotions and bring stability in life.”

Linda Pol couldn’t help but notice that it was also skillfully made so that the water was always returning towards the building. A sudden roar startled her. She was so engrossed in her Asian prejudices that she hadn’t seen the lions.

The boy, who had certainly planned that, recited his reassuring script to rich customers.
“These lions, one male and one female, are held in an invisible electro-magnetic cell, they can’t escape or harm you in any way. They are from the Asian species.”

“You mean they are real ?” At first she had thought they were carefully made robots, holograms wouldn’t have done the trick in direct sunlight. But real lions ?
“Don’t tell me”, she continued, “they are here to shoo away the ill-intentioned.” For a moment, she had the impression that the eyes of the boy had shifted to an Asian breed.

“Madame knows her Feng Shui”, said the boy with a fake smile.

Could he be a robot ? What the fuck, all her vanity wasted to a robot ? Where has gone that gorgeous boy who brought her the message ?
You’re paranoid, ma fille, said her mother’s voice.

Lisa was delighted when she woke up the next morning recalling a dream. She had just joined the new dream group despite hardly ever remembering dreams in the hopes that the pooling would improve her recall. In the dream she had been going on a trip with a few friends, and was waiting for the ferry to leave. The boat was on the beach instead of in the water, and there was thick fog but a number of people on the beach, so she went for a wander around and saw a man stretched out on his back, fully clothed, reading a book, the surfboard gently rolling in with the tide, and out with the tide, and back again. When she returned to the ferry it had turned into a building, the interior quite different from the ferry, and her friends were gone. Lisa checked her bag for tickets and camera, but they were missing, and the bag was full of plastic forks and spoons instead. Bloody Adeline! she thought. Plastic spoons and forks but no camera and no tickets!

With years of intense Happiness training, and being herself a certified Happiness Coach™ in Rainbow Unified Bliss®, Lisa was reasonably adept at dispelling the occasional bouts of frustration that the six time travelers were experiencing while familiarizing themselves with the new time frame. Learning the new languages, both the local Spanish and the common language of the village tribe, English, was of paramount importance, and Mirabelle in particular was having difficulties. A basic vocabulary was easy enough, but when it came to grammar, Mirabelle was hopeless. Thus her communications were of a very basic and rudimentary nature, and she often felt unable to express her feelings, or her thoughtful observations on the many nuances, similarities and differences and overlaps of the current time and 18th century France. Not only was she obliged to learn two new languages, but was also learning to read and write. Often it seemed like all work and no play, too much pressure to perform, to learn, to do well at her studies, and yet play breaks were always frustrated in some manner because of her difficulties in communicating clearly. The fact that the others were progressing better with the languages made her feel alone, adrift in a sea of her own unexpressed thoughts.
Adeline had a more relaxed approach to the language difficulties, less inclined to struggle with it and more likely to chatter endlessly to Boris instead, and ask him to translate when she needed some help. She had discovered an interest, and some considerable talent, in the art room, experimenting with the paints and materials, and spent many happy hours engrossed in her paintings and playful collages of mundane (but to her, bizarre) objects. She was like a magpie, collecting items that caught her eye. The bright colours and smoothness of plastic appealed to her, especially when transformed in shape by one of those odd little plastic fire making gadgets. Sunglasses were another favourite, especially the different shades of lens. It was not unusual to hear one of the villagers complaining that the lids to the tupperware containers were missing, or all the bottle tops had been removed, to find they had all been glued together, with the flyswatter, a few odd flipflop beach shoes and the mirror lenses out of someones shades. But the villagers were on the whole amused, generously indulgent, and good naturedley rolled their eyes at her creative curiosity.
Boris was practical and capable, and true to form, was learning rapidly. He had no particular desire to express vague rambling thoughts (indeed, he was not a vague and rambling man by nature) and turned his attention to more practical matters. When he wasn’t chatting to Adeline, he was watching Jack tinkering inside car engines, or playing with Pierre’s camera and had quickly learned how to upload and play with the images on the computer. Often in the evenings Adeline would sit beside him and watch drowsily as the images changed in front of her eyes on the screen.
Ivan and Igor were learning what they needed to learn while doing it ~ tending the goats and chickens, working outside on the land, or helping with various building projects. They had taken to the local bars like ducks to water, and spent the evenings downing copious amounts of beer and wine with the locals, all of them babbling and shouting incoherently, but seeming to understand each other in the camaraderie of inebriation.

Sadie briefly considered suggesting that her rampage of negativity was another brilliant idea for a team building exercise, but given the circumstances decided there really wasn’t time.

“Fuckityfuckfuck!” said Sanso checking the messages on his trusty sabulmantium. Of course, Linda Paul had tried to persuade him to use one of her fancy e-zappers but Sanso had steadfastly refused. The sabulmantium was aesthetically so much more pleasing to him, and much easier to synch with the multitude of devices used in the different time periods he was sent to work in.

“Ive got to do what!” he muttered, rolling his eyes. “I was looking forward to a bit of R&R in 2222. Well, I can’t guarantee the zebras but I will do the best I can.”

Sadie was momentarily distracted from her team morale building attempts by her telepathic conversation with Pseu. Could she afford to go out of body at this crucial point in the mission?”. Linda Paul would not like it but Pseu could be very compelling at times. Sadie did not entirely trust Pseu—there had been whispers at the Academy that she was somehow connected with the Russians. Sadie wasn’t too worried about that; she knew all that mattered was her own high vibration.

“What on earth are you doing?” asked Cedric, watching with amazement as Pseu suddenly ran off towards the piles of construction materials near the Royal Opera House of the Palace.
“Shhh! I’ll catch you up in a minute.”
Pseu had received an urgent message from one of the other characters on her chaptershiftwatch, a young fellow in Grenoble called Jacques Coctuit. Jacques, like many of his friends and neighbours, was crouched on the roof, throwing tiles at the soldiers below. When Jacques ran out of tiles, his burning desire for more tiles blasted forth, and Pseu registered the request, and simultaneously broadcast a request for tiles.
The heaps of doubly fired tiles scattered around the building site of the new opera house would be perfect, and although their disappearance would be noticed, it would not create as much fuss as would any new materials disappearing. Nobody would mind much if a pile of rubble to be discarded went missing. Quickly and efficiently, Pseu teleported the tiles to the roof Jacques was sitting on, who noticed merely that there were more tiles than he thought, and would only later, after the adrenaline had worn off, wonder at how they had appeared in a pile by his side.
Pseu had one of the tiles diverted to The City as a memento, to add to her collection of Key Incident Link Tiles (or KILTs for short) for the new Teleport Folly at the Estate.

Sadie laughed out loud at the nonsensical rhyming texts coming through from her friend, Pseu. It had been drummed into them at the Happiness Training Academy that humour was a powerful way of raising one’s vibration and she was pleased that Pseu seemed to be deriving so much pleasure from Sadie’s latest mission. Consuela regarded Sadie quizzically and raised her beautifully arched right eyebrow even higher.

Noticing the puzzled looks she was getting from the 3 girls, Sadie felt her vibration lower slightly. Maybe she should take time for some team building exercises? After all, though it might seem like a waste of precious time now, it could pay dividends down the line when they really had to work as a team. She remembered some of the training videos she had watched the previous evening about connecting with others and had a brainwave.

“Right, girls! Anyone have a bowl?”

Cornella was tearing out her hair trying to understand why she couldn’t find any meeting room available for the first day. It was bad enough that she had to prepare the presentation about the budget, and to top it off she had just been appointed to the the week’s room planning. Vivian, their secretary was sick, she’d apparently caugh some naughty shitty stuff and was spending her time between her bed and the bathroom, and obviously she hadn’t done her job.

“I don’t understand, we’re the only teams in this building and that software tells me everything is booked.”
“I think they are rewiring all the meeting room tomorrow,” said Aqua Luna.
“How do you…” Cornella stopped. Did Aqua Luna just talked about rewiring? “I didn’t know you were taking english lessons,” she said.
“I don’t,” simply said the Chinese woman, and she returned to her work.

Cornella’s mind was already trying to find another place where they could meet for the first day. Something that wouldn’t make her team appear disorganized. The aquarium would be too distracting. A hotel was out of the question as their meeting was supposed to be secret.

She suddenly had an idea. She rushed into Ed’s office and began to knock the walls, carefully listening to the sound.