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  • #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.

      #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.

          #3342

          “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.

          #3333

          Jeremy didn’t understand what “sorry about the Chinese” meant when Sanso and his near naked woman friend had left.
          For one, it was a bit traumatizing to see them shrink again in the fat ugly mess of a cloth that was supposed to look vaguely like a doll of sorts, then disappear inside the map he’d been drawing for them.

          He looked at the map. A precious detailed map of an island, he’d been encouraged to draw for them. As usual he danced in a trance to make it, holding a cucumber in his hand as an anchor, the loon guy had said.
          Frankly, why he’d went along with their nonsense was now a bit beyond him. Probably seeing them getting out of Max had shaken his believability limit to a new level.

          The map was beautiful, drawn in fine green isopleths ; looking like the finest intaglio printing he’d ever seen that seemed to shift and move in gorgeous optical illusion patterns. He couldn’t bring himself to destroy it, as he’d promised them.

          There was a light knock on the door.
          When he saw the man’s face with his round sunglasses though the peephole, it dawned on him what Sanso had meant with his cryptic “sorry about the Chinese”, and Jeremy already regretted, too late, not having destroyed the map.

          #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.”

          #3329

          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.

          #3327

          Cheung Lok gave a look at the arched back massaging his feet. There was nothing enjoyable about it, he thought, unlike what many of his friends who loved a good foot massage said about it.
          It was hurting like being trampled by a million wild rhinos, and the release of pain was even painful enough to not be enjoyable.
          He had no choice, it was part of the social acts expected from him, and in that precise moment also a cover to get some particular piece of information.

          An ugly person wearing outrageous make-up arrived on the seat next to him, making it crack like a pack of cheap matches, the arms of the chair protruding in the middle of the enormous waist.
          Without a word spoken, he received the key, and was thankful that he didn’t need to stay longer.

          He paid the boss with some cash, and left silently in the turmoil of the city.
          He signalled the driver he’d walk to the office. Another peculiarity, as usually officials with his rank would never walk unless under extreme necessity, which was the same as saying never. But he enjoyed walking in the Chinese parts of the city, there were all sorts of smells and activity, it was never dull.

          He had too laugh at the insane number of beauty parlours and salons. For all he could tell, either there weren’t enough of them, or they weren’t doing a good job.
          For once, it had little to do with the robots replacing human attendants; massage and beauty parlours had been the most resistant to change, and for now, most still employed human personnel. That meant, there was still a large market share escaping the Corporation, and the prototype that Irina stole was supposed to change all that. He had to retrieve it by all means.

          #3326

          “Mind joining me on an adventure?” Sanso said while continuing to walk at a rapid pace on the trail in the middle of running people carrying buckets of water, as though he knew exactly were he was going. “Of course not” he took no time to wait for an answer, as clearly the young lady was way over her head in her first attempt to teleport.

          “I should be called the Sanso Bernar of Teleporting Mishaps, you know, it’s like I have this seventh sense to precisely arrive where stranded teleporters need me… that and lost socks, but that’s an entire different story, although I could recall quite many times where both had me landing on dirty launderettes…”

          He paused to look at the panting Fanella. “But you don’t get a word of what I’m saying do you?”
          She shrugged timidly, batting her doe eyes in a seductive manner, as she had learnt to do at the Versailles Palace when caught her hand in the honeypot, so to speak.

          “Oh, never mind.” He went on. “Well,… ugh, burp, excuse me, this sea cucumber isn’t sitting well me…”
          Fanella signaled she needed a moment to catch her breath too, and sat on a flat rock, covering her legs with her arms, suddenly self-conscious of her modesty.
          “What was i saying already? Oh, yes, I have to deliver a message to a sea cucumber, sorry, I mean a lady cucumber, who may be in grave danger of death… possi—blurp— by sea cucumber indigestion.”

          He looked at her from head to toes: “Well, you look reasonably pliable… That trick should work. I suppose you don’t have any wax, clay, salt dough or… well never mind, I have… just what I need here…”

          All the while babbling on, he started to unfold a large piece of patchwork, which was somehow folded in his satchel.

          “The map dancer, you see… well, he’s a bit of a pain in the butt to find. But here, hold that for a moment. With that bit of,… there, put your finger there, no, not here, yes, riiight there… with a bit of patience, and… tada!”

          Fanella looked puzzled at the cloth now wrapped around them, snug and tight.

          “Oh well, I know, the resemblance is passable, but that will do. Believe it or not, I have done a lot of sewing in the past, patchwork quilts, miniature needlepoint rugs for doll houses, curtains, upholstery… Oh sweet times. It’s been a while I’ve had to travel via rag doll. A bit rough, but leaves little trace to follow.”

          Fanella broke her silence “are you making it along as you go, or you really have a plan to get us out of this awful middle age place?”

          Sanso tittered softly, apparently pleased with himself.

          “Now, you may want to relax, the trick is in letting go and drifting through Time’s flow.”

          #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…

          #3317

          Sanso was delighted to have the pretty young woman holding his arm, and greatly amused to notice her fascination with his blue codpiece. “More from us later!” he chuckled to himself. He was in a jolly mood despite the fearsome inferno, pleased with himself for utilizing available objects such as the chopsticks to fascilitate a speedy exit from that ghastly Chinese meal. The teleport had not gone exactly to plan ~ he had intended to join his old friend the Map Dancer at The Blue Cod Hotel on Boogie Island in the Antarctic, but had manifested a blue codpiece instead, much to his amusement, although he had no idea how he ended up in London in the year 1212 ~ not until he met Fanella. As soon as he saw her he knew that he had been drawn there purposefully.

          #3312

          “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”.

          #3306

          Irina started to smell foul play when she arrived at the coordinates indicated in the last of the laconic messages sent to her by the Management.

          “Are you sure you got the coordinates right Mr R?”
          “Very much so Madam, but if you will allow me, I will double check to alleviate the hint of doubt I perceive in your most suave voice.”
          “Yes, do that please.”

          When becoming anxious, Irina tended to get prone to bossiness, and didn’t like what she heard in her voice.

          “I adore this door.”
          Yes, that was much better with suave undertones, with a hint of foreign raspy accent to spice it up.

          In truth, the door was plain, wooden, with a number painted on it, half erased, and a series of symbols which, although she could not place them, raised a distant alarm in her mind.
          “Rainbow magic?…” That was how they renamed the lore of black magic when it was privatized and re-marketed to the masses. She had not seen rainbow magic in ages, and there was no way that door would lead to an actual island without moving her out of this time and space.

          “Bloody buggers. Should have read those cryptic fine prints more carefully.”

          She realized there was a good chance her promised island was in a godforsaken place lost in time. She could count herself lucky if the deserted island was not in the palaeolithic and raided by dangerous dinosaurs…

          There was little choice. Either boldly embrace the great unknown behind the door, and trust her luck, or stay behind, short of the island of her dreams and probably condemned to run from the Management’s evil plans anyway.
          At least, with option one, the lottery could be favourable.
          That was what you got for dabbling in sketchy and questionable shots.

          “Mr R, are you ready?”
          “Always, Madam.”

          She felt lucky and pressed the door.

          #3293

          The whales’ dance on the dark bluish background lit by the tiniest reflection on floating seahorses and other sea creatures, made the scenery look like an eerie night skyline, full of moving stars.
          The added feeling of weightlessness was empowering, and soon, the three queens passed side glances, barely interested by the words of wisdom of the hologram, and catching each other’s mind, almost asked their question at the same time.

          Terry was the quickest this time, “Please, please, can you do a rendition of the Name Game with your disco ball lights, we’re all dying to do a dance! Please?”

          Interestingly, the Hologram didn’t show any hesitation as it started to sing, and the three queens were all glowing as they adjusted their wigs, fins and other appendages.

          The Name Game
          Terry!
          Terry, Terry bo Berry Bonana fanna fo Ferry
          Fee fy mo Merry, Terry!
          Sadie! Sadie, Sadie bo Badie Bonana fanna fo Fadie
          Fee fy mo Madie, Sadie!
          Come on everybody!
          I say now let’s play a game
          I betcha I can make a rhyme
          Out of anybody’s name …

          The lights were on, and the dresses glittered, Terry in the spur of the moment added kelp extensions to her wig to match the sardine tones of her suit, while Sadie’s only concession to fashion was a little glowing golden jellyfish that seemed to match her bob cut, and made for a funny pulsating hat.

          Adamus was on, and unstoppable

          The first letter of the name,
          I treat it like it wasn’t there
          But a B or an F, or an M will appear
          And then I say Bo add a B
          Then I say the name and Bonana fanna and a fo
          And then I say the name again
          With an F very plain and a fee fy and a mo
          And then I say the name again
          With an M this time
          And there isn’t any name that I can’t rhyme.

          A chorus of dolphins tried to join, having Consuela burst hysterically into peals of unstoppable laughter.

          Consuela!
          Consuela, Consuela bo Bonsuela Bonana fanna fo Fonsuela
          Fee fy mo Monsuela, Consuela!
          But if the first two letters are ever the same,
          I drop them both and say the name
          Like Bob, Bob drop the Bs Bo ob
          For Fred, Fred drop the Fs Fo red
          For Mary, Mary drop the Ms Mo ary
          That’s the only rule that is contrary.

          Maurana was shaking her head in seducing moves, pretending not to die of envy of the others, and expecting her turn.
          And the music went on…

          Okay? Now say Bo: Bo
          Now Belen without a B: Elen
          Then Bonana fanna fo: bonana fanna fo
          Then you say the name again with an F very plain: Felen
          Then a fee fy and a mo: fee fy mo !
          Then you say the name again with an M this time: Melen
          And there isn’t any name that you can’t rhyme
          Maurana! Maurana, Maurana bo Baurana Bonana fanna fo Faurana
          Fee fy mo Aurana, Maurana!

          And they continued with all sorts of names for quite a while, even some of the whales’ and dolphins’ who were obviously enjoying the interlude.

          :fleuron:

          “Did you get all that on video?” Maurana asked Sadie.
          “Of course I did, the ezapper got it all. Linda Paul and the network won’t believe their eyes, it’s some heavy material! Even better than gold bars!” Sadie could barely believe what had just happened.

          The whales seemed to have been so thrilled that after a moment of silence, a smaller one broke off the cycle, went to the huge crystal and took a heart shaped shard of it to offer them.

          “I guess that’s their way of burning a DVD, what do you think?” Consuela was blissfully hopeless with technology, but could also have some moments of brilliance.

          “We should go now” Sadie said looking up from the ezapper “it looks like some unidentified giant blue crab is coming at us, and we better let the whales handle it.”

          “Are we going through that awful sewer again?” Maurana was starting to get green at the idea.

          “I don’t think so, I had Sanso pick us up at the underwater cave thanks to Consuela surprise reconnaissance mission. He just arrived and he just texted me his location. It’s not far from here. He seems to have managed to herd a few octopi to carry us across. Always surprisingly resourceful this one, I might start to like him…”
          Snapping from her emotions, she continued
          “Time to say your adieus to 2222 ladies. Tonight, everyone’s a winner. We’re going to be famous.”

          #3287

          When the Whales had learnt from Belen that the Conch ritual would not be enacted, it set the tone of the Ceremony.
          Less ceremonious, and opening the Gates for a new Era of new learning based on trust and self-discoveries.

          The Dances started, and enthralling gyrations flowed, enhancing the visions induced by the pulverized red algae floating around the seabed. Octopi were drumming in cadence, the Whales solemnly turning, undisturbed by the dolphins high on the algae who were tittering stupidly.

          In the middle of the cycle, the gorgeous crystal was pulsating and glowing.

          #3283

          When Huhu arrived at his destination, Irina was sunbathing to the last rays of a big red gorgeous sunset that painted the waves in iridescent shades of purple.
          At the same time, the sun’s course had already started a new day on the shores of New Zealand, where her sister was living, and she surely would be thrilled. Long had she waited for the 2222-2-22 marker.
          Here, in Hawaii, they would still be in 2222-2-21, for a few more hours.
          Irina started to shiver. 22°C her watch read. As if she needed to be any more quirky about this date…

          “Good boy!” she said to the parrot, taking the key it was carrying. Huhu tittered in contentment, cracking some of the pistachios she fed him distractedly.

          She’d just received additional information from the Management. Elusive as usual, and leaving a great deal to interpretation, including the interdiction.

          They’d promised to get her her dream island as a retirement plan. Some said it was the original land of the mermaids (who used to have as much feathers as Rio Carnival’s samba dancers), right off Italy’s Amalfi’s coast. Among its perks, it boasted to incorporate 8 staff, and a private grotto — that, if anything else than her fine waist line, would surely entice Sanso into other steamy booty calls.
          She’d seen the pictures of the properties, her first thought though was that she needed to shoot the interior decorator. In short, it was almost her moral duty to get it, and change the decor. On the whole, she was convinced the island would do her good.

          So, when she looked back at the previous instructions to see how good she’d done on her mission’s objectives, she shrugged a little. She’d understood instinctively right when it was delivered that it was a clever cipher, especially given the late date shift. So she had reinterpreted the actual commands, and leisurely waited for the travellers to appear, and get comfy. By now, she was certain they trusted her telepathic commands well enough, so that solved the trust conundrum.
          Basically, she was a major proponent of her own interpretation of old Ho’oponopono rituals. Instead of the usual mantra “I love you. I’m sorry. Please forgive me. Thank you.” hers was a bit more straightforward and was around the lines of “Green sickness to you. Peace be with you, and bugger off.
          Said a few times with proper intonation and inner work, and it was know to her to alter dramatically any block or resistance into a great flow of pure unfettered energy. So she had adamant faith that all she needed to do to complete her mission was to focus on herself and solve the resistance within by letting go.

          The last message was short.

          22 the code * whale that * BO

          It could only mean one thing. 22 was a clever cipher meaning conundrum as in a catch 22, but also an obvious reference to the temperature. So it could only mean one thing: tamper with the code on the 22nd, and send it on the way to the whales, with a bug on it.

          “Mr R, please, fetch!”

          The discrete, yet always present robot caught the key with grace, and on her careful instructions, proceeded to alter the code of the key.

          Irina was enjoying herself immensely, and found it a pity nobody could witness her true genius. “The ones who’ll read that key later, well… they are in for such a wild goose chase!”
          The second part of St Germain’s encoded hologram was now ripe with wonderful and bewildering information about blubbits and the magic kingdom of Peasland with obscure and arcane references of magic numbers like 57, that would have anybody sane turn mad as a hatter in no time. Hopefully the whales would be immune to the nonsense, but probably not humans.

          Now was the final part of the plan.

          “Mr R?”
          “Madam?”
          “I hope you are ready for this delicate reinsertion mission. Do you still have that octopus suit of yours ready?”
          “Of course, Madam. Right away Madam.”

          #3281

          “Isn’t that the greatest thing about those underwater goggles”
          After the shark threat had vanished, Sadie had contemplated for quite some time her new-found underwater abilities, and how to shift the weight of her body gracefully underwater. And then, she realized she could roll her eyes in the most peculiar way, with the membrane of the transparent skin massaging her eyeballs in the most relaxing manner. She’d never felt so good about rolling her eyes, and that was saying something.

          “BrllllSssadiieeee” came the urging sound in bubbles and gurgles, with a hint of despair dragging her out of the lovely eyeball massage session. The underwater acoustics needed some fine-tuning, so she had her wits to thank for understanding quickly the situation.
          Despite what might have looked like her sending messages on her ezapper, at the same time she was having in-her-body experiences, she was merely testing experimental echo-localization to pinpoint the spot where the pod of whales would be most likely found. The feedback buzzing had prompted her minutes ago that it had found 6 potential spots, and one only which was the most probable and located less than an hour’s diving distance. One thing she knew was that you had to be careful with automatic location instructions, so she’d run a second independent check and was waiting for the results when the alarmed look of Maurana turned and rolled in front of her face, almost giving her a fright.

          “Gbbbllood gracious, Maurana, what’s the matter?”
          “Gbblbl wooohoooglllbb bbbllrsfffftt plk plk plk skwooobbll!”

          “Oh, for fucks sake,” she telepathied “will you stop nattering in French, be more articulate.”
          “The others are drowned and I no longer see them, it’s awful, what should we do?!” the thought came back with force and a bit of campiness.

          “Well, that would depend what it is you want” straight answers were not Sadie’s forte.
          “I want to have our party with costumes and dances, I want to be the black pearl of the Ocean, I want to have more glitter and less molluscs, more chic and less kelp…” she started to sob profusely, half-choking and breathing from her tears. “I want my friends, and to be back hooooome”
          “Bloody hell, Reggie, now is not the time to lose your shit, pull yourself together dammit.”

          The reaction was immediate, the telepathic swearing was so out-of-the-ordinary that Maurana looked twice at Sadie, with her bob cut surrounding her face like a heavenly halo. Suddenly self-conscious, Maurana started to reapply some waterproof mascara to cover the stains.

          “I found them,” said Sadie with infectious calm “the ezapper’s first scan took them for a pod of whales or octopi for some reason. Let’s go get them, then we go visit the whales. But first, you have to try this, it will soothe you…”, as she started to show some more rolling motion of her beautiful blue eyes.

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