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The e-zapper’s signal was dropping until it was gone, while there were eerie hoots and echoes in the tunnels.
Sadie’s report to Linda Paul would wait till a few hours. The broadcast wouldn’t start until the afternoon anyway, so they had time to relax. The carriage wasn’t so comfortable, but the blue lights provided a smooth reassurance, and the zebras were now trotting at a regular pace.

Sadie looked with fondness at the boys in drags. A fondness which even surprised her. They were starting to reveal more of their true self as they were lulled to sleep in the carriage. How funny she thought, how a few drags and accessories can both hide and reveal parts of your personality.
Cedric, was a white guy from uptown actually quite challenged to grow a real beard, and he was playing that sassy bearded lady queen Consuela.
Amar the second-generation North African guy was raised in the suburbs before he chose to become the shiny Terry Bubble, while Reginald from the same neighbourhood was playing Maurana the big burly black queen,…

The more Sadie spent time with them, the more which labels they chose to be called with started to become inconsequential.
She was actually more and more confident they would do a great job at blending by simply hiding in broad daylight. Their eccentricities would be a rousing success at the royal fête, they just had to hone their alibis a bit, and align on their story. As soon as they would be in Versailles, with the Russians from the competing cable network in toe, they had to be at the top of their games.

Jean-Pierre Duroy, the Grand Intendant of the Palace of Versailles woke up every morning an hour before dawn, when everything was still calm, the last fêteurs of the guest nobility were, at last, fast asleep and the stars’ lights were beginning to fade on the dark sky. The Palace was never sleeping really, but this was as close a moment of peace as he could get.
His wife Annie, the Head of the Royal Pastries Chefs, would usually sleep contentedly an hour more, waiting for the chantecler’s sonorous hail to the rising sun.

When he realized he had overslept for the first time in many years of services, he knew there was something not quite right about this particular day.
As usual, and especially during winter, there was much to be done. Preparing the routine menus for the noble tables, getting his army of little people bustling around to stock the fires with wood for the cold-fearing ladies, clean up, wash clothes, drapes and the darn mirrors. Receive the fresh foods from the local markets, clean up the latrines, which tended to get clogged with the dreaded cold… When that was done, he had to make sure the servants were doing their job properly, not abusing the generosity of His Majesty, taking good care of the Gardens, which was an horror when the snow started to melt, ensuring the guards reported to their duties, etc. etc.
And after all that, no matter what, do a meticulous accounting in the Royal Ledger.
Jean-Pierre was but a cog in that enormous machine, but a cog which could make a vital difference between a day gone right, and a day gone awfully wrong.

He had to turn that day around quickly lest it would be the latter, he thought while putting his white starched breaches. A last look at his wife who was starting to move her weight around and yawn, and he was out.

Sanso was positively bummed. With the sudden blanket of cold and snow falling down on the road and his carriage, he couldn’t use the transdimensional puddles which were either dried out or closed by a layer of ice. To make things worse, he had to take care that the barrel of champagne would not burst out at the rear, with all the bumps in the road, and had to slow down the zebras a little. The poor beasts were looking paler at every mile. He had promised to return them in good health to the Royal Menagerie of Versailles, and started to fear he’d gone over his head to impress Sadie and her lots.
Chair, the appointed footman seated on the champagne with his cork bum didn’t look reassured either at every bump of the road.
Of course, he had a plan B. Linda Paul wouldn’t have hired him if it were not for his knack for over-the-top unexpected and brilliant out-of-the-box solutions to problems he hadn’t planned for. He would give Linda Paul the show they deserved.
They would have to go through one of the tunnels down the road, which he knew would lead them to Versailles in no time. But for that, he had to find the proper one, large enough and clear enough to allow passage for the carriage and his cargo. The entrance was near, and with a bit of magical focus, they could arrive before sunrise through the Grotto of Thétys, an artificial cave, now mostly demolished, but its residual cave energetic imprint could do well enough to let them through.

The verdict was definitive. The competition had been fierce and now only the best of the best would go to the final and mysterious mission.

Terry Bubble couldn’t believe her ears and fanned her glistening face with her powdered hands batting her eyelashes to contain the swelling tears when she heard Linda Paul say in her snarkily uppity voice : “Uhuh, that dress, oh that dress sweetie, that was an offense to good sense, but you did lipsynch to perfection with this pouty mouth of yours… Terry Bee, you stay with me.”
Then, turning to the other competitor, the gorgeous Tina Turnover look-alike in her glittery purple dress, a.k.a. Shantay Mûre. “Shantay, you go away.”

Terry bowed to the jury, firstly Linda Paul herself, of course, then the sultry sulky Sadie Merrie, and finally took an extra second for Lady Gugu, who she was sure tipped the balance in her favor. She never was a big fan of the ageing star, well-known for her antics and poultry dresses, but there was no denying she earned being the sensation she was all over China —or that he was, there were lingering suspicions about this, which of course didn’t matter in the drag race.
It had to be thanks to her ; maybe she was fond of sardines. Otherwise, how could self-doubt-ridden Terry Bubbly, like her friends barely over their teens, could hope to compete with the other seasoned divas, like Pseu Flay with her lion-mane wig à la Cher, who were nonetheless one by one eliminated by a strange turn of events.

The selection had gone flawlessly. Linda Paul was boucing with effervescence and delight.
“Dearies, dearies, you have been competing fearlessly against one another, now is time to be a team. Or find a time in which to be…”

The three queens looked stymied. They were not used to share the limelight and shine in pairs, much less in a trio.
“Terry, Consuela, Maurana, you will be our three Muskqueerteers, fearlessly donning on wigs and shiny attires on a mission to retrieve a precious item for me.”

The screen shined brightly to reveal a glittery pyramid, announced by the anchor’s male voice “The Queen’s Ferrets au Rochet!”

“But of course, I cannot send you back without a chaperon. Fear not, fate has decided for us, that among the jury, it will be…”

Terry hoped for Lady Gugu, she already looked like Elton Jaune in a wig, and would do great with Louis XIII, or Richeliou for that matter.

“… Sadie Merrie!”

“Oh good grief…” Terry’s shiny Elton Jaune in her thoughts suddenly was transphormed (as if they all had been into a huge deFørmiñG mirror) into that of Milady of Merry.

X Trim (the new alias of Ed Steam) was pleased to see that as usual, things happened to converge his way especially when he went on to clean his inner old rattled cages caked in bird’s poop — a rather inelegant metaphor for going with the flow.

He’d been pondering going to a new line of business for awhile, had even gone so far as to discuss the matter of a new yearly launchpad, with the core team of old days and a brand new tagline —or drag-line, to be accurate.
All of that because of a rather quaint discovery of time traveling device, and a funny twist.
He had a brief hesitation for the reignited spark left in the draft of wind that would follow, but had figured for some time now, that all things would be alright in the end, and if it were not the case, then it wasn’t the end.

“Blimey! The Pope, eh? Are you teasing me again?”
Vera didn’t answer.
“Oh come on! Don’t give me that need-to-know-basis treatment, as much as I love a good riddle, I hate secrets! Are we going to look for the reincarnation of a famous Pope à la Little Buddha? Tell me, tell me!” Bouncing with excitement on the rolling Eggsway made her almost fall head over wheels into a flangeway carved into the muddy track that went deeper into the forest.

Regaining her balance, she looked ahead to see Vera was already a few meters ahead — and navigating the Eggsway was becoming difficult. She knew she should have opted for the 4×4 model…
So… Vera wasn’t really paying attention, she would have to try another approach to worm answers out of her. What was so special about this place anyway? Lost continent of Mu, ancient architecture, maybe underwater tunnels… Nothing that would lead directly to the Vatican she surmised… Unless…

They arrived at a clearing in the forest, where blue glow sticks had been placed in a round pattern. Vera was standing there, after having carefully placed a glowing green rote at the center, staring at the middle of the light circle, and without turning her head to look at her, told Lulla “Here’s your answer coming.”

A huge buzzing throb started to fill the air, sounding to concentrate at a focal point not higher than 10 inches above the ground, at the exact center of the blue circle. It begun sparkling and * BooM *, in all its slimy tentaculeous glory, a spaceship was there.

“Special delivery from our alien friends” Vera said, finally deigning to look at Lulla.

The rather small spaceship started to slowly expand, becoming larger, until an opening appeared, letting a form emerge from the membranous appearance of the hull. The form which looked like some person was suddenly dropped unceremoniously with a * Plop! * while the spacecraft elastically recovered its initial shape.
Moments later, it was gone, and with it the buzzing sound.
The green rote payment was gone too. Greedy aliens.

“Come on, let’s bag this guy and bring him home for phase 2. A red convertible SUV is waiting for us at the portal’s entrance.”
So, that’s where I come in… Lulla was starting to wonder what was the use of her being here, since Vera was so bossy and secretive. But now,… Of course she was better at hatting, but she could call herself without bragging a real bagging specialist.

ship janet added buns gone godfrey
herself sue pinterest loved silly black photos
elves teapot give continued secret plan guy thinking

The package was labeled in Sinese. Goat was fluent in a few languages after many a travel, and although Sinese wasn’t his mother tongue — he was only half-Sinese from his father’s side, he could read it well enough, and make himself passably understood in most of the Colonies.
It was a code, or more precisely, a reference. It said 时间舱23号, which you could probably translate as “Time capsule #23”. Back in the days, the Surge Team would bag and tag any strange artefact they confiscated during their missions, and usually would archive them in such capsules.

Although the concept of Time-capsule in itself for the old teams was soon to become somewhat of a mind puzzle if you thought too much of it, it still held value of… archaeological, rather than historical sorts for their descendants, such as himself. Of course, if you’d like some wild flowers, you’d rather pick them directly in the dewy meadows or mossy forests where they grew instead of taking them from the interstice of an old moldy book between the pages of which it had been laid down to dry, wouldn’t you. Now, anybody could easily become an historian with complete immediate sensory experience of past times at their perception tips —much like how it started, back in the twenty hundreds, with everyone able to become an amateur geographer in minutes with instant access to the satellites maps of Earth.
But being a map reader would never suffice to make you a sailor.

So, of course, Time capsules somewhat felt like such old dry plants if you were an historian. But if you were looking for ancient treasures or secret powerful artifacts, you knew you couldn’t just bring them from the past lest you disrupt the chain of events leading you to it. Many had gone madder than Lord Elmed trying to figure out safer ways. Time capsules were such a way.

“Now, I guess that fishy stench was there for a reason after all,” he sighed: to keep intruders and medlers off of its content, surely.

Well trained by the dictates of his religion, Luigi was unaccustomed to listening to his intuition (it was the work of the devil and the weakness of his sinful self, he believed), but as he mopped up the spilled coffee, he had an impulse so strong that he was unable to control it, and picked the book up and stuffed it into the inside pocket of his jacket. He checked his watch ~ what! it was 7:57 already! Where had the time gone? Five minutes later he emerged into the rosy glow of the early morning sunshine, making his way accross the square to the cafe where he customarily had coffee after his night shift at the Library. The occupants of the tents in the square were rustling about inside the tents, some of the early risers were sitting on folding chairs brewing up coffee on primus camping stoves. As Petronella poked her tousled head out of her tent, dreams of banana puddings in polystyrene cups still in her head, an old man shuffled past. A flock of pigeons swooped down at that moment, causing the old man to lurch. A book slid to the ground from under his jacket but he didn’t notice as he carried on accross the square. Petronella picked the book up, and retreated back into her tent.

Arona was starting to get cold in the pinkini. She wondered how the lady with the green hair managed to keep warm with so little (not to say as much as nothing) on her skin.
She probably had some fuel more lasting than just Nhum.
Upon seeing that (not the nakie lady, Flove forbid, but the freezing Arona and the night falling down), chivalrous Vinny and Bucky went to gather some bones and fire to spend the night around a nice bonefire. Just what she needed for a keetle of hot tea.

Note from the observing Sue Maffey, who started quickly to get high and delirious on Nhum tea in chippendale cups and mumbled to herself and patient Minky-in-crutches in between a few hiccups: “you knew that a bonfire is actually a fire made of bones, originally said of fires in which the bones of slaughtered animals were burned, allegedly a Gaengelic tradition of the slaughter season in autumn (Samhain, which was soon to come).”
She almost gasped wondering where their camelephants had suddenly gone and why that purple reckless dragon suddenly looked satiated.

By now, almost everyone else who was there, including (but not only) Mandrake, Yickesy, Winky-nakie-greenie-Messmeerah-with-her-carved-jamón and Mrs Janet had thought the same at least once. That and wondering whether they’d ever get to see that famed Jiborium.
So much for cheap package tours.