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March 21, 2013 at 10:47 pm #3011
In reply to: Random RewrEights – The Del’Eights thread
Pig was some kind of strange tart, and body you need in dulcet tetchy screech, you know. Ann smiled at him more than willing to bugger off. Godfrey covered his ears, flinching.
“Oh, it must be Pigs Ear! Fear mate the cure!”
March 21, 2013 at 3:09 am #3007In reply to: The Surge Team’s Coils
The impending strategy and budget review was now quickly upon them.
The much questioned old new authority of the Surge Team had decided all the countries had to join for that week long first round of strategy plan and as Long Poon was too much of a reminder of work (they said, but many suspected too much of a reminder of Ed Steam’s empire), Madam Li had graciously offered to host the venue in Shangpoon, where they had managed to corner 15,000 floating piglets and her services were still probably needed.
All the thirteen chief operatives were busy setting things in order, and delegating current tasks during their business trip. Some of them were still hopelessly fumbling in spreadsheets and slides —a inane exercise in style they thought, but still…
“I can’t stand it!” Cornella almost exploded in front of her computer, now returned to decent level of cleanliness since Aqua’s return. She was sick of this old ageing alzheimering authority. Not that she missed Ed too much now. He was a pig —and gawd, this waxed mustache from another epoch… A pig they all liked because they didn’t know better at the time and his charisma covered for all the tiny slips of behaviour or even judgement. She’d seen that same feeling when the ceremony was held for his ashes spreading; most of the tears shed there had looked a bit contrived.
The mission to replace the pope with an alien-reconfigured Jesuit was a success, thanks to clever team work and her stellar delicate planning skills. A plan hatched before Ed’s demise, but that the old guys had been glad to call theirs. That was the waking call for her. If they could get rid so easily of the papacy, she would blow that budget convention from inside.
That required thorough planning though, and a bit of luck. Most of the chick would gladly be on board with this.
That’s when the mysterious vanishing dog legs cabinet came back to her attention.March 12, 2013 at 6:50 am #3005In reply to: The Surge Team’s Coils
The phone rang while she was preparing her cabbage with soy sauce. It triggered a memory of a blue helmet. Quickly gone.
She hesitated a moment and stopped what she was doing to pick up the phone.
Her mother began speaking straight away.
“Where have you been all this time ? You’ll turn me mad. You’re so like your father, keeping to himself all those times when he was out playing mahjong with his friends. But I knew where that bastard was…”
Her voice was raspy after years of never being able to be speechless, and most astoundingly, she never repeated herself. The woman was even a sleeptalker. No wonder her husband would rather sneak out of the house to play with his friends.
Aqua Luna had developed an opposite habit, she would find her solace in silence and in doing house cleaning. But this time, the voice of her mother was fascinating. Something in it seemed different.A blue flash interrupted her fascination. She almost jumped out of her pajamas.
“Listen carefully”, was saying the blue helmet.February 27, 2013 at 4:22 am #3001In reply to: The Surge Team’s Coils
Ed Steam’s brilliant plan was simple enough. He had dreamt about it a while ago and the idea had grown on him ever since. Now, he had all he needed to make it happen. The land, the materials, and the artefacts and rotes needed to manipulate the bulk of it around.
It was simple, actually and yet every detail had to be perfect. There were matters of perspective and proportions that were delicate to manage.
And of course he had to be careful using the artefacts with finesse, to be undetected by the Surge team’s monitoring systems. He had designed most of them, so he wasn’t too concerned, although Cornella’s upgrades may be more efficient.
He had calculated the project would probably take him years to complete, but he was fine with it, it was a fun adventure, creating your own palace so to speak.First, the grounds. That of a glorious castle, with French gardens on a large lightly sloped tumulus. His armoured bears could stay in the surrounding forest where beehives were strategically placed.
On top of the tumulus, instead of a castle, there was a large mill, a cross between a windmill, castle and lighthouse maybe, with walls white and round, many entrances, rooms and stairs leading to the upper levels. That was where most of the work was to be organized. The whole roof was actually like a city, with narrow streets even.
Except the buildings where made from entire stacks of full-sized caravans, making living units, each with its own interior and decoration.He didn’t know why the stacks of caravans were so appealing to him. Frankly, said like this it could seem like a hill of rubbish dump. However, he had visited this dream place when it was full of people, a fellowship of people living in the caravans and enjoying this particular place. He’d figured, this seems so great and I have the means to create it, so if not me, who else?
January 25, 2013 at 2:42 pm #2987In reply to: The Surge Team’s Coils
Back at his secret hideout, just after the successful break-in at the Surge HQ in Long Poon, Ed Steam had a brilliant idea. He bobbed his head in the Indian fashion while stroking his waxed mustache.
He passed the armoured bears guarding the entrance of the secret door inside their cave with ease. They were asleep during this period of the year anyway. They weren’t like talking bears of course, but he liked the idea of having them protected in case some happy-trigger hillbilly in the vicinity would find the entrance of their cave.
Well, back to his last brilliant idea. It was a bit hard to keep track of them —he had so many every day. “Too brilliant for his own good,” how often did he hear that sentence. Indeed.January 25, 2013 at 8:12 am #2986In reply to: The Surge Team’s Coils
Aqua Luna had difficulties understanding what the voice was telling her. The words made perfect sense, separately. They were like bubbles floating around her, she could almost see them. Each had a different hue and some where even shining a bit.
“What am I experiencing ?” she asked.
At least it was her thoughts, but she wasn’t sure the voice would understand as each bubble seemed to follow its separate route once out of her mouth.
When more bubbles appeared in the room, it seemed they were coming from all around her, and not from a specific location. She wondered if she was in some kind of whale ship, in its stomach.
When more bubbles came, she began to feel a bit irritated. She smashed one with her left hand and got startled by the booming “SHAKE”. She retreated on the spongy stomach which was emitting bubbles now. She tried to shoo them away and their explosion was more like a squishy sound.
A bigger bubble was coming toward her. It was with shades of pink and blue, very vibrant. She put her hands on her ears before it blew out, but the sound seemed to come from her skin now.“HAHAHAHA”
When more bubbles came to her, the words she heard were the following
quickly full days told moscow
dragon sounds face earth itself
pin often middle herself under light
katarina warm asked further turnedIt made no sense at all, but she was beginning to find it fun.
January 21, 2013 at 6:24 am #2985In reply to: The Surge Team’s Coils
The fresh breeze on her face awoke Aqua Luna. She struggled a moment to open her eyes, and realized that it was completely dark around her. The floor she was lying on was soft and spongy, and when she moved to sit the soil emitted a weak suction noise as if full of water. But it was dry, that she could tell after so many years of cleaning. And the smell on her finger was merely that of her familiar detergents.
She was feeling a bit numb and in a neutral mood. She couldn’t remember how she arrived here. She hesitated a moment and asked “Where am I ?” Her voice sounded muffled and distant to her.
“You’re on my ship,” an unknown male voice answered after a few seconds.
“Why is it so dark?”
“I didn’t want to frighten you.”
“Am I a prisoner ?” she asked, checking if she could feel something else past the numbness. “Are you going to torture me ?” she probed with no more success with her feelings.
“To the contrary, earthling, you are a very valuable person to us.”
She thought about her work. Maybe the Long Poonese mafia abducted her to extract some information.
It was so dark that colors and shapes were beginning to appear before her eyes.
“Did you drug me ?”
“It was a necessary precautionary measure for your own good. “January 19, 2013 at 7:47 am #2983In reply to: The Surge Team’s Coils
Aqua Luna’s duster was stuck in Cornella’s keyboard. She was still struggling to free it without paying too much attention to the screen. The red symbols blinking on the maps would have confused her, she would not have understood their meaning or the significance of the buttons she inadvertently pushed in her struggle. She has grown in the countryside, at a time where there was no internet available. She barely used her Oopia telepooh her daughter offered her a few years ago. The truth was she didn’t know how to take the call, even after her son in-law, showed her. Richard, that was his name. “He got the face’s name” she thought imagining the rag was a hair in his nose.
“I got it!” she exulted, pushing unknowingly the key combination to lock the session again. She returned the keyboard to its former position just as Cornella arrived.
“Oh! Thank you Aqua, you’re such a sweetie.”
The cleaning lady who didn’t really understood English put on her talk-to-my-hand smile. And left the room. She would clean the other desks later, she needed a break.Cornella’s voice stormed out.
“What the heck! There has been a breach in the artifact chamber!”
But Aqua Luna wasn’t paying attention, it was like French to her. She was rather wishing she could taking one of those red limo to go back to her place. The Chicks always used them to go everywhere, but Aqua had to take the public transportation system. That wasn’t fair.She sneaked into the garage, not aware of the camera system or the alarm system. Tony, one of the chauffeurs was there.
January 16, 2013 at 9:31 am #2982In reply to: The Surge Team’s Coils
You’re waiting for a train. A train that will take you far away. You know where you hope this train will take you, but you can’t be sure…
Josephinella, the train station cleaning lady, was on night duty. And she was tired of waiting for that damned train with that irritating French accent in her ears, her lungs filled with the engines’ fine coal dust and her nostrils irritated by the pigeons’ smell.
But tonight was going to be her night, she would get drunk on fresh air, her hair whipping her face, bugs biting her eyes, while she would sing elated woohoos launched at full speed on the last commuter train left unattended by drunk Freddie. That was such a beautiful plan.“ Another Dreamliner scare… and a train crash coming your way!”
“Sounds like a transportation surge to me!” Björk replied on the internal chatting system to her African Twa colleague Kiki Razwa. Björk was not her real name though —it was just a moniker given to her because she liked eccentric costumes. Her real name was Mæja Valbjörnsdóttir,… so ‘Björk’ was better for everyone in that international team, she’d tried to convince herself.
“Doesn’t internal policy says two makes a clue, three makes a surge ?”
“Oh, who cares… For me it smells dreamception transportation surge.”
“Better that than this Mercury retrograde crap, at least that’s more fun to hunt.” Kiki’s reply came up on the screen.
Björk had come to realize that she would probably have to cover for Mari Fe who was elsewhere but at her post. The last surge being in Europe, so she was in for a trip at the taxpayers’ expense… Not so bad actually, since nothing ever happened on her faraway island.January 15, 2013 at 10:08 am #2981In reply to: The Surge Team’s Coils
Have you ever dreamt that you forgot to put your pants on to go to school or to go to work? How did you feel in the dream ? Ashamed ? At ease ? Were you wondering how you got there in your undies ?
Dream memories were flying in Madam Li’s head. It had been a recurring dream in her childhood and her most dreaded fear. She had always checked on twice before living her house that she had a dress or trousers long enough to hide her ankles.Her cell phone didn’t have any battery left and she was late. She would have to find one in the street. She ran out of her apartment after having checked her outfits twice and reassured took the elevator. She had her bags with warmer clothes inside for when she’d arrive in Harbin for the ice festival. She looked nervously at her cell phone again, still no battery of course. She put it back in her handbag. Someone entered the elevator, 30 more floors to go. She gasped when she realized the man, a westerner, had no pants on. She looked away quickly. Was he not aware of the missing element in his outfit ? She decided to make as if everything was normal.
Things went worse when she got out of the elevator. There were two men and a woman waiting at the check out desk, and they had pink underwears. Apparently the first man didn’t know them and the service apartment employee behind his desk didn’t seem at all surprised by the situation. When it was her turn, he looked at her, and at her long dress. She gave him the keys and as he turned away to put them back on the wall, she noticed that he was bare legs too. Something was wrong. Was it a surge in the population ? Would she have to stay here longer ?
January 14, 2013 at 7:19 pm #2980In reply to: The Surge Team’s Coils
Mari Fe managed to find the earplugs, and gave them to Katarina. “Shove these in her ears will you, I need to calm down and catch my breath.” By this time Pearl was catatonic with Meloncholy, and Katarina had no trouble inserting the earplugs.
Mari Fe pulled a carpet off the pile, threw it down onto the shop doorway step, and flopped down. She automatically pulled her ephone out of her pocket, and without thinking found herself checking in to FBF2. “She’s done it again!” she exclamined, jumping up. “ Tanit! She deactivated her FBF2 account 2 days ago ~ at exactly the same time as Elza reactivated her surge team location chip and took the Moscow case.”
“Is that relevant?” asked Katarina, who was gently slapping Pearls cheeks, trying to revive her from the effects of the hypnotic melancholy choir.
But Mari Fe didn’t reply. She was following the other two ladies, who had disappeared into the back room.
January 14, 2013 at 11:03 am #2973In reply to: The Surge Team’s Coils
The snow was falling gently on that Russian night. People were walking in the cold, covered in warm colorful clothes which Mari Fe was finding funny.
“ Do you hear the music ?” asked Pearl.
“What music ?”
“It’s sounds like a choir in the distance. I suddenly feel melancholia.”
Mari Fe had forgotten she had her earplugs on, and as soon as she had removed the right one, she put it back.
“Put your earplugs, Pearl ! Quick ! You’re being hypnotized.”
“Hypnotized ? Don’t be silly; I’m sad, is all.” Pearl was feeling tears filling up her eyes. Life was so dull lately and maybe it was the seven beers she drank, maybe she something awful had happen and she didn’t know. Something sad must have happen, she thought, how else would I’ve been so sad. But she couldn’t remember. She wasn’t even listening to Mari Fe who was being agitated suddenly. Hadn’t she realized ?Mari Fe was looking frantically in her pockets. Did she has another pair of surge earplugs ? She found a pink panther taser. Another techno stuff, she threw with disgust on her face. She jumped on Pearl and tried to immobilize her, she was trying to put her hands in her pockets to find those damn earplugs. Maybe Janet took them ? What an idea.
January 13, 2013 at 6:06 pm #2964In reply to: The Surge Team’s Coils
Interestingly, it seemed you had to be shrunk to be able to properly use the portable portal map, but once you were transported to your destination, there was no use of gum-bears or jelly babies to get back to your original size.
“How clever this is!” Pearl was the first to notice.There was another marvelous property of the Universe that Mari Fe didn’t count on, or maybe only vaguely so, but which did come in handy, once more: the Universe responded to the energy of her intention rather than to her words.
When they appeared at their destination, in the dead of night, it was not summer— but still winter. Which actually doesn’t really mean anything, because summer doesn’t even exist in some place, of course, and when it does, it doesn’t even occur at the same time in all places.
Actually, the Universe, or Pedro, as some like to call them, was aware that what Mari Fe meant when she said (repeatedly) “I want to arrive in summer” was in truth “I want to be warm.”
And curiously, winter in that place, as in Russia, had been exceptionally warm, as her colleague Katarina had noticed.January 11, 2013 at 6:12 am #2959In reply to: The Surge Team’s Coils
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 ?
January 7, 2013 at 4:31 pm #2945In reply to: The Surge Team’s Coils
His razor blade in left hand (he was ambidextrous with a slight favour for the left side), Ed suddenly remembered his future struggle with the daft cumbersome vermillion man, so he quickly turned off the portal. Then, against all common sense and years of procedures, decided to put it into his pocket.
Everything following came back at once, interspersed with bits of smashed objects and blurs. But something he distinctly remembered was that Mari Fe was in the apartment, although he didn’t remember bringing her home from last night. It was against company policy to sleep with subordinates, so it had to mean something fishy.
Recalibrating the portal using the failsafe code, he directed it to the secret headquarters where he had started to stockpile dangerous artefacts collected from previous surge control operations, deciding it was the best course of action before assessing who was to be trusted or not in his Chicks team…January 7, 2013 at 10:56 am #2939In reply to: The Surge Team’s Coils
Arona felt something was wrong. The invisibility cloack was moving on its own. She looked around and met Vincentius eyes. He seemed as puzzled as her. Actually, the cloack was moving upward. She looked behind her and gasped. Yikesi was almost as tall as herself. Actually, it seemed now that he was a bit taller than her, and he was still growing.
Pearl screamed. She just saw what looked like feet appearing from nowhere, and legs were growing on top of these feet.
Janet fall from Vincentius’ lap, the cloack was now only covering Yikesi’s head, which was big.
Vincentius let the teapot fall on the floor, where it broke into hundreds of pieces. Bee and Mari Fe were upside down, and in all that confusion, the cat who was very specific in his vision spotted them. Despite his intelligence and his other dimensional quality, his instincts, reinforced by thousands of years of habits, influenced him deeply into the natural feelings of the hunter. He began to hiss and prepare himself to jump on his preys. But Arona was pushed by the still growing Yikesi and fall upon him in a ouch.Mari Fe, totally oblivious to what could have happened with the cat saw the gigantic body of a baby missing its head. The cloack was still big enough to hide it from sight.
“Rats”, she said, “He ate all the jelly babies, we’re stuck into miniatures!”
January 6, 2013 at 12:27 pm #2931In reply to: The Surge Team’s Coils
“It’s just a jump to the right, Mari Fe” whispered Bee, trying not to giggle. Mari Fe was giggling so hard the tears were rolling down her face.
“Give me a minute Bee” she gasped, wiping her eyes. “I need to get a grip before I can continue.”
“SHHH! they’ll hear you! They don’t know you’re in here!”
“In ~ where are we, Bee?” asked Mari Fe, looking around at the strange dimensions and shape of the room. “Where are we?”January 4, 2013 at 11:53 am #2902In reply to: The Surge Team’s Coils
Madam Li was gorgeous in her red silk chinese dress. She might be the eldest of the Team, but she appeared to be one of the youngest. She was proud of her Chinese ancestry. The two golden dragons on her dress emphasized her silhouette and her hair artistically arranged like an empress.
She had just received the invitation to the Tartessos’ 3 King’s parade. Eventhough she didn’t much like travelling, it might be an occasion to go somewhere warmer. It was snowing again in Shanghai and she had been sent there to investigate this strange occurance in that part of the country. Not that it was really strange to her, she had been raised in Harbin, and its ice festival. But having cars half burried in snow in Shanghai was not a normal sight.
At the moment, she was staying at an over-heated serviced apartment near the Pearl Tower of Shanghai. One of the perks of being part of the Team. Ed had always offered them a good salary and an apartment provided with the job, and they could use the red fleet whenever the wanted.
When she had tried to open the window, and didn’t succeeded, the night sight from her window gave her chills. Reminding her that she so loved this city. All the lights, blinking in and out, creating organized or random patterns at every corner. The city had changed so much these last years.
Madam Li put the invitation on the table, she would think of it later and checked with the red fleet to book a flight as soon as she had found out about all that snow in Shanghai.
January 4, 2013 at 8:16 am #2901In reply to: The Surge Team’s Coils
“Excuse me, are you listening to me?” Lady Em Dash had been telling her old friend, Sir Hyphen, about her latest adventurous escapade at the Mondaytorium, and was rather perturbed to see the Sir Hyphen was not listening with the attention she would have expected.
“Oh, I do apologise, Em—I am a little distracted. I received an interesting communication the other day—an email— and . . . well, I really can’t make any sense of it at all. It is rather on my mind, I’m afraid.”
“Really? Would you like to tell me about it?”
“I am starting to wonder if it is some sort of code.”
“Sounds fascinating!”
Sir Hyphen grinned apologetically. “I know it sounds strange, and I am really not sure it is the mystery I am making it out to be. It is just that . . . well it is from my old friend Lord Lemon . . . I have not heard from him for years, and, out of the blue, I received this rather strange email. He is usually so wise, so erudite, so profound even, that it disturbed me rather.”
Lady Dash nodded. “Emails are so old fashioned, aren’t they. What did it say to perplex you so, my friend?”
Sir Hyphen, not being one to speak in haste, considered the question for a long moment while Lady Dash, who did most things in rather a rush, tried her best to be patient.
“That’s the problem really—it is more just that it felt a bit . . . and it makes reference to Sir Ed in several places, which is, of course, disturbing in itself. You do remember Sir Ed don’t you . . . Sir Ed Steam?
Lady Dash blushed and rolled her eyes.
“Yes, I thought you would. Anyway, the rest of it is . . . most of it really . . . is just . . . gobblydeegook, for want of a better word. Which is why I began to wonder if it might be some sort of code. Here, let me read you some of it:
Deep within the Furcano, the Mother of the Blubbits was growling. Her belly actually. She’d spent days and days, like every good blubbit alien mother, spawning a furry and ungrateful progeny like every good blubbit alien mother, spawning a furry and ungrateful progeny, a reproduction of the future, much less messy and incommodious to just write new characters into a story than giving birth . . . “
December 31, 2012 at 6:30 am #2886In reply to: The Surge Team’s Coils
If there was one thing he’d never liked about the Surge Team, Goat was reminded as soon as he crossed the threshold, that had to be the Management.
Actually, the Management after years of past grandeur had been heftily trimmed down to just one person, an ageless expressionless Sinese-Bulgarian lady with a hairstyle as plain and ubiquitous as a bowl of steamed rice, the epitome of the chtonian tutelary deity, eternal Guardian of all thresholds.
“Good day Antonia.” Goat greeted her, faking the slightest bit of enthusiasm needed to sound polite. Of course, she didn’t answer. Like the Universe, looming and all powerful, all she needed was a request, or better, a long string of numbers from an obscure postal or bookshelf reference.
Chopping official documents, the lonely sound of a stamp etching the worn-out surface of her desk was all that troubled the dusty office reeking of onion.
“There’s been a delivery for me…” He waited patiently, savouring torturing her with his half-finished sentence. He didn’t have to wait for long though. Maybe she was in a good mood.
“Tracking number?” she grumbled without looking at him, fumbling into old logs and piles of carton boxes that may have been there, unclaimed since the time of Baltazar the Great.
“There” he handed her a torn yellow stained bit of paper where the numbers were written down in a ornate penmanship. The Management was a place of few words… and even fewer actions he bitterly thought.
Working her magic, she handed him the package, wrapped in old Sinese papers that smelt of decaying fish. He barely thanked her, without looking into her eyes, for he knew what was there to be read certainly had no lack of unpleasantness for him. -
AuthorSearch Results