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  • #3357

    When Irina, with Mr R and Greenie in tow, approached the spot where the robot had detected activity, she had a lurching sense in her stomach that something strange was about to happen.

    Some buzzing seemed to approach and leave, like a wobbling effect in the air around them, although she could see nothing.
    Mr R, with its caterpillar boots seemed to have to trouble moving ahead, but with a silent sign of her hand, had him slow the pace down and move more silently.

    A cracking sound, and she turned around.
    A woman with a shotgun pointed at her was there, and a guy with handsome features. Caught unaware, Irina froze, and closed her eyes, trying to reach some inner peace before the imminent gunshot.

    “Madam? Are you alright?” came Mr R’s soothing voice. Next to her, Greenie was drawing on her pants, with a concerned look on her face.

    She opened her eyes, confused and relieved. The odd couple of hunters seemed to have vanished. Yet, she could have sworn hearing a gunshot and the blood of a giant mosquito splatter all around.
    She could as well have dreamt all awake, as there were not a single trace around to back her vision.

    “That’s what it is then…” Irina started to realize something. “Mr R, if you will, what about those presence you detected earlier?”
    “Gone Madam, it seemed to have been a glitch.”
    “A glitch, yes…” she said pensively. “Or something else…”

    The things she’d just experience reminded Irina about some of the things she’d read in the past about the Bardo state of the Buddhists. She wasn’t a Buddhist, more a Realist ascendant Romantic. Yet, they made some interesting points about the nature of reality.
    Usually, Irina was the kind of girl who liked to work up to her goals’ achievements. Building the little place for herself, even if mostly the work of Mr R, was a good example. Give her enough time, and she would always find resources to make a better life for herself. But here, it seemed beside the point. It could well be an endless loop.

    She wanted to pierce the veil that surrounded the place, instead of erring in the fog of her own projections. She looked at Greenie and Mr R. She wasn’t sure they were real any longer, even if she had sure grown fond of them. She would see…

    Now, how to get this island to reveal its secrets… As much as she found it boring, prayer or meditation seemed to be the only solution she could come up with for now. Less fond of the first solution, she chose the second and sat cross-legged on a mossy patch of the bog, where the sound of water seemed to have the right qualities.

    #3354

    Adeline was pleased to see that her fervent prayers to the statue of The Holy Mother of Plastic had been answered, and that Igor had made a full recovery from the bee stings. Mirabelle, meanwhile credited herself with her tender love and nursing and the cucumber cure, while Igor credited himself with his self healing abilities and healthy resilient young body.
    When Adeline found out that Igor was going to accompany Mirabelle, who was going with Lisa, who was joining Fanella and Sanso, on a trip to a mysterious island, she was in a quandary. Should she go with the other two maids? Was it important that they stick together? But what about Boris? Should Boris and Ivan come too?

    #3353

    “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, SansoLisa 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.

    #3350

    “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.

    #3349
    TracyTracy
    Participant

      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.

      #3348
      ÉricÉric
      Keymaster

        Some background on the Management

        Though little seems to be known about the Management a compilation of facts can lead to a better understanding of the organisation.

        • Various organisations with dubious purposes have named themselves management, but they are not the Management
        • the Management seems to be timeless, and traces of It can be found seeping its way in multiple timelines and stories
        • the Management commands in ciphers and works in mysterious ways, its modes of recruitments often defy linear reasoning
        • the Management actions in the now always seem to lead to the best potential outcome for the betterment of Humanity (and other modes of consciousness)
        • Even if you can’t read them doesn’t mean you should ignore the fine prints of working for the Management
        #3347
        ÉricÉric
        Keymaster

          Continuing Irina and Mr R the Robot

          The mission of Irina to thwart the plans of Jonbert being complete, she asks out of the elusive Management scheme, and expects to cash in her promise of an island retirement plan.

          (As an aside, to those wondering what happened of the bitter Jonbert, after a change of heart, he follows the St Germain hologram through the portal to Peasland’s dimension. It would not be surprising to see him become new Majorburgmester)

          Irina is sent to a mysterious door, with the strong presentiment that there is a catch and it will send her in a time and place beyond her control.
          She jumps boldly through the door, not knowing what to expect of the promised island, but preferring that to a life of doing the Management’s biding, and trusting the support of Mr R.

          After she arrives on the island, with the help of the robot, she starts to improve her living conditions in the bog part of the island, where among strange relics of different timelines, she also finds a young bog mummy she nurses back to life and names Greenie due to her complexion.

          Meanwhile, we learn bits of Irina’s past, through the quest of a Chinese Corporation from her timeline of 2222, and it is strongly suspected that she stole Mr R, a unique robotic prototype with never seen before capacities.
          Having crossed Sanso’s path during her previous mission, Sanso becomes the target of the Chinese who hope to retrieve if not information, at least the location of the fugitives thanks to Sanso’s damsel-in-distress-saving fibre, even if fleeting and inconsistent.
          It proves a reasonable tactic, as Sanso (who was unwittingly tracked due to a sea cucumber tracker he previously ingested) led them to a map dancer in New York named Jeremy.
          Now, the Chinese leader of the hunt, Cheung Lok (張樂)has retrieved the map of the island, which shows strange exotic properties.

          The island, named Abalone by some of its inhabitants, shows some mysterious external properties, allowing it to appear on the Earth only at certain times and places (times such as years 111, 222, 333, etc.).

          Internal properties, yet to be discovered by Irina, and her companions are dream-like in nature. The island landscape is populated according to people’s individual beliefs, but it usually takes a long time for people to realise it (also known as “transition”).
          People can be coaxed out of their transition time, if they are open enough to allow external influences to show them out of their individual dream.
          Unusual objects for example can appear and are usually remnants of other’s dreams/beliefs, and are usually difficult to alter.
          It also cloaks other realities in the same space arrangement which are not compatible to the person’s beliefs.
          People can thus err believing to be alone for a long time, until positive anticipation leads them to social interactions, leading them usually to the city ruled by King Artie.
          King Artie, an eternal bachelor, is expected by his subjects to choose a Queen.

          #3346
          ÉricÉric
          Keymaster

            Some update on the current plots and maps:

            Queens Team

            Our main protagonists seem to have yet to digest their past adventure…

            In Marseille, 2121, contestants in a Drag Queen’s contest, they had their first mission through Time Sewer mysteriously sending them in Louis XV’s Versailles, and start a quest for mysterious ferrets with keys, helped in their travelling by their ex-judge turned chaperon Sadie, equipped with an all purpose e-zapper, and the batty Sanso always keen on providing the strangest travelling devices.

            They find one of the keys in the stolen ferret left in the Chapel before they even really start on their quest. Not long after that, they are also robbed of their dance opportunity and show minutes before the attempt on the King’s life, due to the network cancelling their show (and decommissioning the Time Sewer). In a last ditch attempt from Linda Pol to provide the network with a valuable pilot material for the television show, she remembers references of a crystal (sent to her anonymously), and have the Queens propelled in year 2222, Big Island, Hawaii. On arrival, they chill and get sidetracked on a visit to a (you guessed it, mysterious) techromancer.

            It all appears to be part of the plan to gain life-everlasting by transmuting gold of a (yes, mysterious) cranky old billionaire in kilts named Jonbert who is living in a time-travelling submarine with sentient robots, and who has manipulated events so that the Drag Queen show would place them in possession of a special set of keys that he could then retrieve from them.
            Unsurprisingly, nothing works for him as planned.

            Unknown to him, the Queens had only secured one of the keys, the other being unwittingly carried away by maids of Versailles during their balloon escape, with a parrot named Huhu. Manipulated by Irina, a… err… mysterious Russian socialite with a trusty robot Mr R at her side, the parrot steals the key, but faints of exhaustion during the escape in the ocean. The parrot is however rescued by on a ghost galleon and revived by its occupants, who are on their way to a particularly momentous whale gathering in 2222. Sidetracked by a navigation tile displacement, they are in the end successful in beating the odds and arrive too in Hawaii 2222.

            Equipped in breathing wetsuits, the Queens are sent in the depths of the ocean, where their clumsy and noisy explorations are carefully followed by the octopi and other inhabitants of the underwater world.
            They get sidetracked and temporarily separated when some go exploring underwater caves.
            Whales are gathering, and activating the giant crystal, when everyone arrives at the scene. Somehow, Mr R on Irina’s orders manages to provide to an unsuspecting Sadie the second key, which has been expertly tempered with.
            Sadie, realizing this is the missing key, activates it, and unleashes a chain of events leading to a earth-shattering revelations and a breathtaking video of a St Germain hologram doing karaoke with whales and other gyrating cetaceans drunk on red algae.

            The network is saved, and they are safely sent back to Marseille, where they are welcomed back by Linda Pol. It earns them a contract, which turns out to be mostly for the decommissioned Time Sewer maintenance.
            They plan to turn it into a bar, in a re-enactment of their minute of fame, with fat pole-dancers as whales, and St-Germain impersonators singing contests.
            Not much is heard from Sadie, who had managed to get a raise and less working hours, or of Linda Pol, last seen in Maui island, Hawaii, 2121.

            #3345

            “He’s escaping!” Cheung Lok shouted in Chinese to the others.

            It seemed the scene had already played thousands of times in his mind, with various outcomes and different potential scenarios.

            Cheung Lok was struggling to understand why his choice of potential had finally left him in that New York apartment littered with maps, instead of following Jeremy and his strange cat to wherever they had disappeared.
            Somehow, it felt as if he’d been there, but had rewinded the action and chosen a different outcome.

            Not afraid of a good Chinese puzzle, he’d decided to meditate on it. He’d sent his henchmen back to the Corporation, so there was no distraction in the apartment. The summer heat was receding slowly with the sun setting, and a soft breeze made the paper blinds rustle to an irregular tempo.

            There was no point focusing on the tracking bug’s signal which he’d served in the sea cucumber dish to his guest, as its signal was now gone, and not even reliable. He even started to wonder if following such a fickle and capricious man was his way to the lost robot prototype.

            The meditation was soothing, if anything else, and his mind felt at peace for a while. Gone was the pressure of performance and success, gone were the merciless and faceless bosses to whom he reported. He was at peace. With the world, with himself, his choices, and even his vanished adversaries.

            When he opened his eyes, only a small ray of sunlight was left in the room, falling on a piece of lintel that seemed off.
            He sprung to his feet with the agility of a leopard, and with a swift and precise movement of his hand, removed the piece of sky blue panel. Under it, well hidden in a dusty corner, he found a crumpled bit of green paper that was probably hastily placed here before his team rammed the door open.

            Unfolding the paper, he smiled as it revealed a wonderfully drawn moving map.

            #3343

            King Artie yawned, sitting in a slumped posture in the throne room, where the mother-of-pearl columns were shining with the morning light’s long shadows.
            As usual it was empty at this early hour of the day, and he was supposed to have a his weekly review with the castle’s chamberlain.

            The chamberlain was a little stunted man, with some missing knuckles on his left hand and a broad unwavering smile firmly planted on a big round head with large ears, no matter the topic of discussion.

            “Shall we commence, your Majesty?”
            “Whatever…” The King was still hungover from the last night’s party and the voice was ringing unpleasantly in his ears.
            “To make it short, I’ve narrowed down the topics to a few.
            “Very well…”
            “Firstly, shall we talk of the new comers on our lovely island of Abalone?”
            “yes, how come I haven’t met them already?”
            “Well, they are still adjusting, you know how Abalone’s magic works… Power of positive anticipation, etc. it takes a while to adjust and discover the city, a lot of people never get around it without some help actually, depending on how permeable their current worldview’s beliefs are…”
            “Well, keep me posted when they get there.”
            “Very well, Sire. And… on the topic of finding you a Queen…?”

            #3341

            “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.

            #3340

            I’ve been such a fool! Running away like that! Fanella admonished herself, biting her nails and pacing up and down in her room. I wasn’t paying attention! I should have stayed with that funny man, now I feel sure he would have taken me to that island in 2121 if I had just been patient instead of running off like that!
            Fanella heard a man laughing, and spun around, but there was nobody there. Dear god, I’m hearing things now, she thought.
            “I’m coming to get you, you daft bint, just hang on and don’t go anywhere!” Sanso told her via telepathic means. “We have a few other calls to make as well, but I will come and fetch you first, even if I have to use every shoehorning trick in the book. Now stop sniveling and I suggest you dress appropriately.”
            Fanella started sobbing, unsure whether it was relief or apprehension.
            “There, there,” Sanso said kindly. “You have a good cry, it will do you good.”

            #3335

            Exhaustion got Lisa some sleep. She was in a black mood after the disappearance of Fanella who all of a sudden seemed to have become her preferred of the three girls, much to Mirabelle’s chagrin.

            As usual, the mood seemed to make things worse, and when Igor had tried to project to gather clues, it landed him in a nest of bees on the orange tree orchard over the fence, and it kept them busy for a while to remove the stings and soothe the poor guy in sea water cold baths poured in the stone coffin re-purposed into a nice bathtub.

            It had been a few sleepless nights, and Lisa managed to keep up thanks to coffee and nicotine patches. And cigarettes of course, which she’d tried to stop, hence the patches, but got confused, started again, and figured that a boost of nicotine gave her wings.

            The second night in a row without sleep, she was a wreck, and Jack put her in her bed, struggling a bit in the beginning but finally giving in.

            She woke up with the morning light, strangely refreshed and serene. She was pouring her morning coffee when she remembered the dream. Fanella was in it, and she was fine! She jumped off the table in her frivolous night garments to rush and tell the news to the others before she could forget it.

            #3332

            The bell rang twice. Nobody was giving any sign of opening, until a lanky lad came at the door to open it, in long slow dragging strides on the carpeted floor.

            “We’re here for the audition” an excited face pressed on the glass door, staining it with purple lipsticky marks.

            The lad discreetly rolled his eyes, looked right and left, as if checking for some unseen danger, then released the magnetic lock. It was stuck, so he gave a yank and the door flung open, almost propelling the woman, and a child inside.

            “This way” the lad showed them, guiding them in unnerving slow motion towards a room on the higher floor of the loft. A dozen of people were already waiting here. The lad showed them the ticket dispenser, and the child with the woman understood before her they had to pick one. 39.

            The woman brushed the hair of the child compulsively and fought against invisible specks of dust on his coat, before they would sit.

            “Twenty two.”
            “Twenty. Two.”

            At the seat next to them, a child raised from his place, his mother pushing him towards the voice. This was as far as she could go with him.

            After the child had disappeared in the next room, the purple lipstick woman leaned towards the lonely mother and started to talk to her in brisk hushed voice.
            “You must be so proud… I’m proud too.”
            Noticing reproaching looks from the others, she lowered her voice more.
            “I was so excited when I heard about it… So many years and now. Imagine that, my son could become his disciple, imagine, his one and only disciple in years…”

            The other woman, who’d been patiently hearing the other one’s cackling suddenly turned red and replied in a voice that bore the certainty of a death sentence:
            “Oh, but make no mistake M’am, I have nothing against your son, but no one will beat my Paul to it.”

            #3331

            “I’m so booooored” Amar sighed, after his eleventh 5-minute break of the morning was over.
            He looked at his polished nails, then at his two companions.
            “It’s so clean we could eat on that damn sewer’s floor, you should stop cleaning! Come on!”

            Reginald looked at him with pursed lips and a fist firmly planted on his hips “And, you are suggesting somethin’, or are you just going to rub it in some more?”

            “Hell yeah, if we’re going to be stuck here, we could redecorate, and make this place a bit more interesting. I’m thinking an underground club, with art deco sculptures and some bit of goth in the back, a stage with fat pole dancers, a disco ball and silver shimmer metallic glowing paint,… Don’t get me started!”

            “Sounds like a lot of work…” Reginald replied after a moment, giving no hint he was buying it.
            “But then, we ain’t got much to do, and I’ll be dying of boredom if we don’t shake this thing up. Count me in!”

            #3330

            With the aid of the holographic map, Irina, Mr R and little Greenie have been exploring the island.
            The next day they found a crashed plane from Aeroflot, not very far from their own landing spot. It was half burried in the mud and covered in green mossy vegetation. The doors were open as an irresistible invitation to enter.

            “A surprise, Mr R. I thought that this place was on your map. If I remember well, it didn’t show such an object.”
            “Forgive me, madam, indeed this plane wasn’t there when I triangulated the map I showed you.”
            “You mean it’s fresh ?” Irina’s voice seemed to suddenly carry some interest. “Maybe we can find some survivors”, she added, already doubting it considering all the moss on teh metallic shell.
            “I’m afraid we won’t, madam. I didn’t want to bother you with that little detail until I was sure. There are objects on this island that only appear after a certain date. Have you noticed it also happens with the vegetation and the insects ?”
            Irina pouted, “I prefer leaving that to your expertise.”
            “Of course, madam”, said the robot, affable. “The paradox is…”
            “Another paradox ? How interesting.”
            “…that it doesn’t seem to include us, or that little person.”
            “Any idea what the implications are ?” Irina began to wonder if there was any danger of being stuck permanently on this island.
            “I have several hypothesis”, he began, “The most probable is the lost room hypothesis. We arrived there through time space displacement and are not a natural part of this environment, hence we don’t change with its natural environment or inhabitants because we are not under it’s time sequence according to the Lehmon’s law.”

            Irina pouted. She looked at little greenie and thought of the implications about how their new friend arrived there. Whenre did she come from ? For her to be a bog mummy, she must have been there a long time. Or did she arrived already bogged ?
            Something caught her attention about the plane and distracted her of further thinking about the subject of their continuity risk in this place. The logo of the plane looked not so oldish.
            “Mr R. ? What do you think the date of the crash was ?”
            “The plane was lost in 2112.”

            Without further thought about safety, she entered the plane, followed first by little Greenie as she have been calling her new protegee, and by the robot who despite still talking about technicalities of accidental space time crossing theory, had turned on his speleo lights.

            Interestingly enough, Irina noted the clothes on the chairs or in the alleyways, here a pair of glasses, there a necklace, all layered as if the person wearing them had been puffed away.

            “Well, well, what have we here ? The light Mr R, please,” said Irina with as much excitement as a snail. He obliged her with his usual professionalism, revealing a teal blue scarf with pistachio green spirals. She took the cloth and stretched it to have a better look. It was one of those artistic kind of hippy abstract patterns connecting you to the cosmos.
            “I can’t think of anybody who would buy that thing, maybe she stole it from one of those duty free shops before they took off,” she said as petulantly as a pitfall trap.
            “Come here little Greenie, it’s time to make you pretty.”

            Irina did not have the chance to play with dolls when she was a kid, she didn’t know if she had some psychological lack or a bad doyle dating from that unremembered period of her life. She had compensated by toying with real people, playing with their emotions and deeper needs, or what they thought they needed. She became an expert at manipulating others, which gave her her first job in insurances, and then in the secret services. But then, she dealt with adults, showing emotions, or a certain level of brain activity. She wasn’t used to children stored in bogs.

            She tried to put the scarf on Greenie’s head, and to smile like she had seen people do in the movies. Although something unexpected happened. Greenie became suddenly distressed and agitated. Then, she punched Irina in the face and began to mumble incoherent things.
            That child is stronger than I thought. And at the same time, she noticed a name in that gibberish. Didnt she just shout : “I frigging love you, Sadie Merrie.”

            “Her brainwave is showing unusual activity”, stated Mr R. “And my sensors indicate the presence has returned, with some friends. They just appeared outside of the plane.”

            #3325

            “You call that a contract…” Reginald and his two friends, to varying degrees, managed to keep queenly looks in their royal blue dungarees. “I call that being royally fucked…”

            “Oh shut up and mop!” Cedric had become the most sullen and despondent about the whole thing, and would only reply by short sentences.

            Amar was the most philosophical about the whole situation “Let’s see it that way, cleaning up the Time Sewers isn’t so bad; they’re no longer in use, we ain’t got nobody on our backs,… the pay isn’t fabulous, but we are!”

            “Nobody heard about Linda? or Sadie?” Amar’s question was interrupted by a call on Cedric’s phone. His mother again.

            When he hung up, Amar resumed his litany of questions and monologue, as an excuse for not mopping around. “Still haven’t told your mum, hmmm?”

            Cedric ignored the last question “No, I haven’t heard about Linda Fucking Pol, or Sadie. Bitches.”

            #3324

            Irina gave an appreciative look at the holographic map that Mr R had made of the island.
            By a simple triangulation technique combined with sophisticated echolocation, the robot had managed to come up with a rough estimation of it, even though scattered patches were black, representing the blind spots, apparently due to the abundance of water bodies on the island that created interferences.

            “Well, it actually looks better than I expected, the coast is a bit rocky, but probably more temperate and less humid than here. Some of those spots here seem to hint at habitations…”
            “Madam is absolutely right” Mr R opined with confidence, and a glimmer of pride in his forehead interface.

            “When the girl is well enough to travel, we’ll leave.”
            “She’s still a bit cold and delirious.” The robot assessed, “Her condition has improved steadily, if not quickly. There is a good chance the green won’t go, but she will live.”

            “Have you finished the sentinel?”
            “Yes, Madam. It is complete and will serve well in monitoring the gate. Besides water rats and wrecked boats, not much seems to have went through recently. Although…”
            “Yes Mr R?”
            “I’m not quite certain Madam, which is confusing for me, but there was a moment were my sensors noticed a presence of a young person, but it lasted only for a few nanoseconds in a row, then I could not perceive it… It probably was a malfunction of my sensors Madam, I apologize, but the humidity…”
            “I don’t believe your sensors malfunctioned Mr R. I do believe someone’s been trying to phase in, but didn’t succeed. Make sure your sentinel can detect such things…”
            She went on: “Another thing, before I go for my astral meditation. Did you manage to get me a date? I’m no rocket science expert, but it sounds easier to get than your quite astonishing map Mr R.”
            “Madam is too kind. And as as always, perfectly astute. This should be easy, but again this modest robot has run into a profoundly perplexing paradox.”
            “A paradox, how exciting. What is it?”
            “According to the shifting position of constellations during the nights and the sun’s elevation, the results differ from one day to another. We have to run a few more test to be conclusive…”
            “Is is a local occurrence?”
            “It seems to be true for the whole island, Madam. It is currently fluctuating between a series of years, some of which I mapped to the following years, in no particular order: 555, 777, 888, 1010, 1111, 1212, and so on until 2121, and as well, a series of related geographical points on the Earth.”
            “No wonder it seems to be the garbage collector of the entire universe”, she sighed.

            Then, something hit her.

            If myths of such places were to be trusted… Could it be… the mythical Avalon ?
            If that were the case… Who could well be the mysterious resuscitated bog mummy?
            One of the island’s Queens ?”

            She smiled to herself, brushing off the notion. Irina, you’re such a hopeless romantic…

            #3321
            Jib
            Participant

              clue bee comes glue

              #3314

              Fanella gazed into the dying flames of the campfire, while her toasted cheese cooled. “2121, here I come!” she said in a confident sounding voice, but she shivered in apprehension. 2121, 2121, she repeated, watching the flames, 21 21 12, 21 12 12 1212….21 12…1212…. her eyes were getting heavy and she started to drift off. Is that a tractor coming up the beach? she wondered, Or a motorbike? The very ground was starting to rumble and vibrate.
              Suddenly she was wide awake, and the the flames were towering over her head. The heat was blistering and her head was filled with roaring sounds, and hissing snapping cracks. As she was standing there trying to make sense of her surroundings, someone slammed into her from behind, making her legs buckle ~ there were people running in all directions, carrying babies or buckets of water, portraits or small wooden chests or squalking chickens. It was mayhem in the narrow alleys between the burning houses, showers of sparks and choking blasts, ear splitting shrieks and blood curdling howls assaulted all her senses, as she spun around looking for a way out of this appalling scene.
              “Surely this isn’t the island in 2121!” she exclaimed in anguish. “But if it isn’t then where am I? And when?”
              “This is Southwark, wench, and I can’t believe we’re having another Great Fire already” replied a man in an arousing blue codpeice who was running along beside her. “If you want to get out of here alive, follow me!”
              Fanella was not in the habit of running after strange men, but she couldn’t take her eyes off that gorgeous blue codpiece.

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