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Maria del Mar first met Pseu at the Estate in the City. Maria del Mar had been projecting to the City regularly during her sleep states (the kind of sleep that land based humans would consider to be a hypnogogic state, which was the natural sleep state for whales). Pseu had been showing Maria del Mar the tile collection for the Folly and explaining about KILTs (Key Incident Link Tiles), and her friend Janice had been sharing her collection of Story World tiles. Maria del Mar described to them a similar system in her undersea world, whereby whales (and indeed other cetaceans) used energy imprinted markers for various purposes, such as teleport and time travel portal markers, and more importantly, for tracking the crystal’s time-shifting location (time shifting the location of the crystal was a necessary safety feature during the uncertain times preceding the end of the 21st century). Some of the markers were large (relatively speaking, not so very large for a whale) such as the ghost galleon the Santa Rosa, and some were small and inconspicuous, resting on the sea bed, but easily detected by connecting to the energy contained within them.
One such marker, a tile shaped piece of ancient coral that was designated to mark a particular portal to Atlantis, had been reported missing. A small earthquake off the coast of southern Spain had dislodged the coral marker tile from it’s location in the Alboran Sea in the western Mediterranean, and it had washed up on the beach. It was unusual for a marker tile to dislodge, but a particularly strong pooling of energy had been a factor, drawing the coral tile magnetically to a beach not far from the land based timebridgers portal in a beach bar further up the coast.
Someone walking along the beach one summer morning (coincidentally the same person who had designated the beach bar as a Timebridgers portal just a few kilometers away) had found the tile and taken it home with her, entranced with the unusual appearance of it. The morning beach walker had felt the pull of something that she couldn’t quite explain, and despite the weight of the strange object, she felt compelled to carry it home with her, and display it on her patio.
Maria del Mar, Janice and Pseu discussed various other ongoing adventures and projects, agreed to assist each others explorations, and established a network of energetic links for ease of communication.

The three maids waited in the balloon for most of the night, in increasing agitation. Mirabelle’s face was like thunder, imagining Igor ravishing the Breton wenches as they slept in their beds. As is often the case during a long tense wait in the black of night, the maids thoughts turned increasingly murderous, worry transposing to anger and thoughts of vengeance.
The truth was that the Russians were having a great deal of difficulty finding any food. The peasants were starving and there was nothing to steal. Dreading returning to the balloon empty handed, they continued the fruitless search.
Meanwhile Pseu was leisurely perusing ceramic tiles in the Locmaria quarter, unaware of the difficulties of the Russians.
Eventually, the three men returned to the balloon, with nothing to show for their nights escapades. Mirabelle snorted derisively, resisting the urge to slap Igor.
“It’s getting light” said Boris, “We really must leave now, food or no food. Let’s go!”
The balloon rose just as the sun was casting a pinkish glow and the river mists were rising in ghostly wisps.

Exhausted from lack of sleep, the occupants slept, taking turns to stay awake. Fanella was on the first watch, shivering and grumpy with hunger. Surreptitiously, she gobbled down a few foul tasting handfuls of lard. When it was Adeline’s turn to keep watch, she had a similar idea, and likewise swallowed some greasy globs of lard, thinking, as Fanella had done, that a few handfuls would not be missed. When the others took their turns on the watch, they also had similar ideas, erroneously assuming that nobody else had thought to do the same. By lunchtime, when they’d all had sufficient sleep, there was not a great deal of lard left. A dramatic and judgemental argument ensued with everyone accusing each other of monumental stupidity, but as Boris wisely pointed out, they were all equally to blame.
“But we’re over the sea now, and we’re losing height!”
Uh oh, said Pseu to herself. I can increase the wind speed to hurricane force, but that might be a bit too risky. Or I can allow the wind to resume it’s prevailing westerly course, but that wouldn’t help, they’d end up back where they came from and that would be catastrophic.
“Perhaps I can help” whispered Belen telepathically. “If you think you can land the balloon on my decks.”
It would be a tricky landing, but there was no other option. Quickly Pseu worked out the likely coordinates of the ultimate descent and beamed them to Belen.
“The homing parrot will help” added Belen. “Follow the bird and adjust the wind direction accordingly.”

Despite the wine and late gambling at the inn, Giacomo Casanova woke up refreshed and ready to go. In fact, if he hadn’t had his content of those two, he would not sleep well. Senator Bragadin had tried to warn him against excess, but God gave Giacomo a strong and robust constitution and an insatiable appetite for all senses matter.

Last night’s dream was disarming. He saw whales arriving at Gibraltar’s port. He had recognized the place from his numerous travels around Europe. It hadn’t really changed. Just maybe more monkeys than in his memories of the place. The whales were very colorful and they were asking for squirrels and keys in Russian. His training with the freemasons told him not to simply dismiss it as an after-party dream.

He heard someone snoring. A man, after the sound, how unusual, even if it happened once or twice before. He never attempted female conquest during a trip, he avoided easy or vulgar, and their current pace imposed a lack of commitment that wasn’t to his liking.

Father Balbi, a man in his fifties, didn’t seem to have the same luck with his constitution. The priest didn’t seem too keen on upholding his vows either. His face was red with bad wine and strong female scent might explain the dark circles around his eyes and the look of unattended tiredness. The man snorted in his sleep. It was also true they were travelling days and sometimes nights when they couldn’t earn their bedroom at gambling in the main room of the Inns. It wasn’t rare that Giacomo, despite his natural penchant, would lose everything on a turn, simply because he couldn’t stop a disastrous bet.

Just after their recent escape, Giacomo and Father Balbi didn’t want to attract too much attention with fancy clothes. Now they were far enough from Venice and their recent earnings allowed them to buy more suitable silk breeches and even wigs. His French gambling name was Jacques de Seingalt. He thought he had learned enough French during his previous visit to Paris, that he could be easily mistaken for a native. With women he learned the language of love, and with gamblers the language of the streets and when to keep his mouth shut.

Last night he not only earned their bedroom for the night, he also learned a few interesting elements. Nobles were at the Inn and they didn’t think of discretion as a virtue, nor did they refrain their bets at a good game. And Giacomo knew how to make games interesting. After a few turns at a card game, it wasn’t long before one of them told that there would be a party at Versailles the following day. Madame de Pompadour, patron of the arts, was giving a somptuous party. Looking at a few faces, it didn’t seem to be of everyone’s liking. But nobles were somewhat like cats, they didn’t care about what commoners did think.

Their first destination had been Paris, Giacomo wanted to meet with his friend de Bernis to help him find some regular income. Paris would have to wait. Versailles was calling. If Madame de Pompadour was giving a party, de Bernis would be at the Court. And that scoundrel Saint-Germain would be there too, he had a few masonic connections which could prove advantageous.

Consuela perused her E Flapper for costume ideas, and was delighted to find that this era was “particularly identified with hair and makeup as these became such potent symbols of aristocracy during the Enlightenment and French Revolution. France and (to a lesser degree) England were the fashion leaders of this era”.

Dory was on her way to an local greening event, a sort of garden show and time manipulation in one, where contestants took turns demonstrating their skills in rapid~greening. A hideous concrete relic on the coast had been earmarked, and contestants from all over the world were to take turns covering the monstrosity in flowering greenery in the shortest amount of time possible. The events were usually held on a weekend, because everyone was busy vacationing during the week, so use of time manipulation was permitted, as long as it wasn’t too over the top, in other words, weeks and months were permissable, but not years. Except in special cases, such as in the cases where the contestants refused to follow the rules, which it must be admitted, was unsurprisingly often. Prizes were awarded to everyone who participated, really, there were 3D print your own prize stations scattered around the perimeter of the monstrosity site.
The half finished abandoned hospital that Dory had participated in the previous month had turned out spectacular, especially the mystical combination of tele ~imported prehistoric tree ferns, cherry trees and solar powered fireflies. The addition of ice cream and cupcake printers in the corridors had been the icing on the cake. Indeed the icing in what used to be the mortuary was rather pretty, especially when one hadn’t seen snow for decades, a cool crisp tundra scene with icicles and blue shadows on the snow covered slabs, with clumps of red spotted mushrooms for a splash of colour, not that the extra colour was needed as the very air was a swirling mass of colours.

“Wordblade! I know you’re under there, come out!” Mari Fe hissed, her voice muffled under her disguise. When his face appeared through the folds of velvet, she laughed. “What have you done to the band music? Have you heard them? Somebody’s slaughtered their notes, was it you?”

The Wordblade eased himself out from under the heavy carved platform, glancing up and raising an eyebrow at the statue of Jesus towering above him.

“Very fetching” he said, as he pulled Mari Fe’s red pointy hat off and put it on his own head. “I saw lots of these hats in an 2nd hand shop in, when was it, oh around 2027 I think. Nobody could remember what they were for.”

“Never mind that, can you do something about the slaughter of the musical notes? There hasn’t been any requirement for surge diversion tactics so far during Semana Santa this year, the energy has been very relaxed and disorganized, less regimental and alot less intense. You were supposed to check in with me first”, Mari Fe said, “But then, who wants to do what they’re supposed to these days?”

The Pointy Hat surge had been resurrected in Spain, a premature re-enactment of an elaborate ritual of the religious past. Premature because the ritual wasn’t quite in the past yet, but was hovering on the shoreline of past ritual and future re-enactment. The overall energy of the surge was difficult to categorize, and a challenge to divert ~ if indeed, a diversion was necessary.

Mari Fe was wary of creating another fiasco like the Three Kings Parade, and had not announced any detiled plans, or any details, either. She trusted that should a surge diversion team be required, a surge diversion team would appear; and sure enough, the Wordblade had answered her call. Mari Fe was aware of the false flag propaganda about the Wordblade, and the deliberate rumour that the Surge Team was looking for him, but she secretly admired his alphabet slaughtering ways and radical approach.

As the letters of the alphabet came straggling in from the battlefields of the south, Mari Fe welcomed them, and gave them all soup, urging them to rest. She warned them that they may be called on during the weekend, if the premature retro rituals got out of hand.

“I still don’t know what we’re doing here, Glo. Azerbaijan in the middle of bloody winter?”

“The nightlife, Sharon, the nightlife!”

“So what do we do during the day, then? Besides freeze our ample tits off?”

“Let’s have a cuppa somewhere and decide. I saw some lovely pastries in that cafe over there, come on.”

Sharon licked the crumbs from her fingers and leaned over the table, whispering to Gloria. “Can’t help but eavesdrop, did you hear what those two on the table behind me just said? Something about buying carpets. I could do with a new rug for the bathroom, shall we follow them? They seem to know their way around here.”

“I dunno, Shar, they look a bit tipsy to me. Look at all those empty Guinness cans.”

Unfortunately, Mari Fe hadn’t been specific enough in her intention to arrive in Baku in summer (and truth be told she knew that arriving in summer would be tantamount to time meddling, and even she wouldn’t dream of going to that extreme). Mari Fe and Pearl arrived at the Baku portal in Fountain Square during a blizzard, but there were hundreds of dogs in heat. Heat, said Mari Fe to herself, sheesh.

“What now Pearl?”

“We’re going to look at carpets.”

“Carpets?”

“Yes, carpets good old magic flying carpets”, Pearl said, wiggling her eyebrows. “All these technical gadgets lately, well there’s not the same kind of beauty or stories with them, they all seem so, well a bit passe and male energy, to be honest. A bit too common, perhaps. And all those dicks popping up everywhere! Madre mia! So, that’s why we’re going to look at carpets.”

“Yeah” Mari Fe agreed. “I see what you mean,” and then added, rather mysteriously “It’s the weave, you know. It’s in the weave.”

“And the warp,” replied Pearl, which unfortunately triggered the painful reminders of Ed and Riffraff that Mari Fe had been trying to bottle up. A geyser of tightly held energy erupted. Fortunately the nearby fountain provided a sort of outlet into physical form, and merely appeared to have suddenly had a surge of both electricity and water. But there were few bystanders braving the blizzard in the square, and the dogs were fully focused on other matters, so a surge diversion operation type 57, method 22.5 was accomplished with an absolute minimum of disruption.

“I think we’ve got time for cake first,” Mari Fe said with a grin.

“And a Guinness.”

Humans were not the only one worried by all the surges or strange events happening on Earth, or under Earth. I’m not talking about Lemurians or Atlanteans having taken refuge in the center core of the planet or anywhere else. I’m talking about a people counting more individuals than humanity could ever add up.

Ant 23532353577321 of the colony under the hill didn’t have a name. But it had been chosen for a very important purpose by the Queen. At first it wondered why it was so that such a small ant among the countless other ants would be chosen. Its little brain even began to wonder about chance and probability, but in the end when the Queen summoned it, she told Ant 23532353577321 that something happened when she expelled the 23532353577321st egg. An impulse of the Queen that she herself didn’t quite understand. And the Queen was quite intelligent because she could use the countless minds of her ants to think and to analyze and to evaluate. But an impulse, she couldn’t understand because everything she ever did was calculated and carefully thought.

Anyway, that impulse led to a change in her hormonal system at the very moment that she designed the egg. It was not a worker egg, neither was it a soldier egg, nor a prince or a princess. The Queen herself didn’t quite know what it was but she was sure Ant 23532353577321 was special and doted of unknown qualities. During the few ant years that had gone by since that moment, the Queen’s gigantic mindnetwork came to the logical conclusion that it could be a consequence of the surges. BUT, the smal spark of Ant 23532353577321’s mind, introduced the unexpected in the equation and the reflection, and the Queen wondered if Ant 23532353577321 came here for a purpose. Logically, another question followed : what purpose ?

There wasn’t a cloud in the sky over the mudflats of the Guadalquivir river delta. Bob and Dennis were having a late breakfast of tapas on the terrace of a local bar: battered cuttlefish testicles, ensaladilla Rusa, and reindeer meat montaditos, washed down with fino sherry.

“ We better get back to work, Dennis. I have a feeling we’re very close to finding something.” said Bob.

“Excuse me, did you mention work?” a voice piped up from a table behind them. “I’m looking for work. Just got out of jail yesterday ~ oh don’t panic!” the man in the scarlet sweater said, noticing their raised eyebrows. “I wasn’t in there for any crime, just for being an illegal immigrant. My name’s Barry, by the way, pleased to meet you.”

“Well, Barry, this is your lucky day!” replied Bob. “It just so happens we could do with an extra pair of hands today. Nothing permanent, or legal ~ ha ha ~ but a bit of cash in hand might come handy, eh?”

Barry was well aware of Bob and Dennis’s mission, but he didn’t let on.

“Be happy to, yes! What kind of work is it?”

“We’re looking for a p p p p portal, m m m mate” said Dennis.

In almost no time at all during the afternoon work in the mudflats and marshes, Barry shouted “Bob! Dennis! I think I’ve found it!” He was holding a large stone disc , looking for all the world like a Marie biscuit.

“I wish I knew, Ed. And don’t call me Chicken!” she added crossly. Mari Fe wasn’t sure what to do next. She needed to keep an eye on Ed, but she needed to revive Baltazar and get him in place for the exchange of the Kings during the parade.

“Help me carry him up to the attic, Ed. I’ll tie him up and we can decide what to do with him later.” and then exclaimed, “ Oh lordy, what now!” as the doorbell rang. It was Rogelio from next door, the man who was to play the part of Baltazar in the parade.

Mari Fe didn’t know what to do so she hit him over the head with a handy tagine that was displayed on her old Micronesian teak cabinet.

“Firmly handled, Chicken”, Ed said, “But why on earth would you do that ?”

“Don’t call me Chicken!” Mari Fe replied, thinking to herself I really must stop resorting to violence. “Help me carry him up to the attic, and we’ll tie him up with B… with that man.”

Halfway up the stairs Mari Fe had an impulse to hit Ed over the head, with the detachable head of one of her mannequins. Plunging headlong from one disaster to another, she wished she had done it after the other two bodies were already in the attic. Now she had three large men cluttering up her stairs, and nobody to help her carry them up to the attic.

“I’m in a pickle now”, she said. “I hope Bee arrives soon, with Janet and Pearl.”