Search Results for 'himself'

“What the… Poof?” Sanso noticed his young travelling companion had disappeared from the rag, almost knocking him off his trajectory.
“Blimey! Steady on Sanso!” he said to himself

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.

“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.”

The Chinese secretary who had Sanso interrogated didn’t show any emotion at the news of his escape. Showing emotion was a weakness, and at all layers of the organisation, the lower rank was kept in the dark and given information only when necessary.
The higher the rank, the better they were at compartimentalising, and at shunning emotion altogether. Some even murmured that the topmost executives were robots posing as humans. Notwithstanding, they would have made great poker player, but the Corporations’ goals were much more important than a simple gamble.

Despite showing any sign of it, Cheung Lok was pleased to see that Sanso had taken their bait. With a bit of luck, he would drive them straight to Irina, the socialite thief who had mysteriously disappeared with the aid of the mysterious organisation they only knew as “The Management”. The Management had accomplished the exceptional feat of eluding any of their attempts at gaining intelligence and leverage on them, and to this date, their motives were completely opaque and seemingly random to them.
However, they always seemed to know beforehand what was to happen, so playing against them was particularly tricky.

Cheung Lok, internally smiled to himself. The chopsticks were his idea, and purposefully planted as an aid for his escape. Rightly used, they allowed to create a temporary shield from the antiportation device. That was a loophole they’d hoped Sanso would know about, and indeed he didn’t disappoint. Or maybe he did all by luck, given the personage, that bit was expected, but all the same, the goal was accomplished.

A robot carried a briefcase to his desk, and left the room silently.
Cheung Lok opened the case, and on the screen, the figures and points on the worlds times maps started to flicker erratically.

Sanso was tied securely on a Louis XVI chair, inside an ornate room kept mostly in the dark by heavy embroidered curtains that smelt of celery.
He was craving for a tomato juice to go with the smell, and could hardly focus on an empty stomach.

He could have easily escaped from his predicament, but he was curious about his captors, and the reason why they had him abducted after he went back to his little love nest in the R&R B&B where he’d hoped to meet again the mysterious Lady Cucumber. That was his name for her.
He was hopeless with names, and although he was sure he had heard hers before, he preferred to remember people by associations. With Irina, that was Cucumbers. There! he thought, another proof of the brilliance of this method, as I remembered her name… Iris? Eyrin?, well, Lady Cucumber.
He’d made love to many a lady in his life, a lady in Salmon, even a Lady Mermaid, a Lady Gingerale, a Lady Panty, a ladyboy even. He could go on for hours thinking about them, but the lady Cucumber had spun a spell around his head it seemed.

After his last mission on a rescue with Miss Bob and her Sponges Squarepanties team, he’d run back for the 2222 B&B.
No sooner had he arrived that heaven and hell broke loose and things went to rules and “do that or else”‘s, all things he abhorred with a passion. The links, and keys for his chains, that he could suffer, so he focused on it for awhile.

He was woken up by a splash of ice cold water on his pants and a raucous voice in his face. Better that than the reverse, he chuckled to himself.

“Something funny now? Tell us, where did she go?”

He knew better than to feign ignorance, so he preferred to feign knowledge, which he’d found usually worked miracles.

“Of course. She stole something from you…”
“Damn right, she steal it, and we want back it.”

The accent was difficult to place, he’d known so many inter-dimensional dialects that sometimes it was hard for him to remember.
He would have said some northern Chinese dialect accent, with a bit of kiwi.

He needed to know a bit more before disappearing. His curiosity was aroused by the implication that what she stole was certainly valuable. What could it be, a revolutionary hairsplitter, a butt-fluffer, a fringe freckler, ah! his head was teaming with great possibilities it was making him dizzy.

“Don’t be silly Mister Sanso, she steal it robot very precious and advance technology.”
and before he could reply:
“Yes we read your mind, I confirm… You have silly thinks Mr Sanso.”

He was starting to think now was a good time to get lost, and started to confuse their mindreader with energy patterns otherwise called gibberish thoughts.

The chains and ropes gave way easily.
His next move was to phase out of the room, but instead he managed to fall on his butt, in the middle of mocking looking Chinese in tuxedos and purple bow ties.

“Ah, I see, you have some antiportation technology…” Sanso was a fair player. The temptation was big to run for another exit, if only for the exhilaration of a chase in the corridors of that strange place, but his stomach was thinking otherwise.

“I see you are vely fond of kewcomber, we are no animawls, we will give you delishius kewcomber.”

Minutes after, he was thrown with a certain form of Chinese ceremony in a small cubic windowless room. On a table next to the door, was his meal apparently.

He recoiled in horror when he opened the lid covering his plate. The strong odour of garlic pricked his nose.
“No way! Fucking jokers!”
That was even worse than to eat boiled cucumber chunks in spicy sauce.
Swimming in soy sauce were slices of chewy sea cucumbers that looked more like fat juicy leeches from a filthy bog.

He ate reluctantly, arguing with his stomach about the benefits of the collagen in said sea cucumbers, and at the same time realized the Chinese mobsters were probably from the Chinese Robot Incorporated Mission Eternal, a renowned corporation that had managed to free countless people from menial jobs thanks to prodigious advances in robotics.
The Lady Cucumber was suddenly more than a mysterious beauty, she was also a mysterious wanted beauty, and he couldn’t wait to… But he had to guard his thoughts for now.

He looked at the bamboo chopsticks with a sly smile. He had not said his last word, and the person who could boast of having Sanso detained was not born yet.

“Sanso surprises even himself with his insight and skill as a procrastinator.”

With years of intense Happiness training, and being herself a certified Happiness Coach™ in Rainbow Unified Bliss®, Sadie knew when to notice she was stuck and, even better, what to do about it.
Techniques varied: some focusing on breathing, others on following impulse and all that, but most of them had in common that rabid thoughts had to be put to sleep, and the focus had to be kept on the immediate now.
The beauty of the Hawaii island was easy on the eyes, although she could still find objections lurking in the corner of her mind that the beaches were scarce on this island, with many shores a blistering hot pan of molten lava rocks ceaselessly beaten by the waves.
Then the sound of her companions came rousing some disturbance in her Rainbow thoughts, as she found out was mostly an annoyance with herself and her hair, the neat bowl cut starting to look a bit rugged on the edges.

Again, the rabid thoughts were back. She had to go deeper, cling to a joyful experience, that pure moment of satisfaction. But the flow and inpouring of love stopped again like a sea anemone retracting at the light touch of a clown fish.

She restrained the thought of loudly using the F word, and as well refrained herself from the desire to delete everything.
She noticed a few tadpoles which weren’t here before, slithering in a little pool of water next to the spot where she was. She’d almost forgotten about the singing frogs. That such little creature could do so marvelous feats of logistics rekindled her spirits.
What if she could just harness a little bit of her own energy. She started to list the things she was good at, besides haircuts.

“I’m fucking good at limitations, and following other’s expectations” was what she came up with after some minutes listing some things without much conviction.
“Bugger Linda Paul, and those ninc…” There it is she noticed again the thought.
That’s what it’s about…

You have to be nice and be quiet, Sadeline, the voice of her mean Breton grand-mother was saying. To which her equally loathable aunts would chime in religious rubbish of being nice and saintly and all.
You have to be nice and be quiet, Sadeline, or go out of my way and die alone.
She’d tried to exorcise the old goat, to rid of her, to appease her, to connect to the better version of herself that she is now since her transition. Well, nothing worked. She couldn’t find the angle. The old woman was still to her core a haunting and menacing presence with her mean irate insensitive lack of professed love.
Maybe they’d developed better techniques in 2222, she suddenly thought. Of course…
And then, Linda Paul wouldn’t have to know.

“Girls?” she said in a sweet imperative voice (and slightly raucous, for the air was dry) “what do you think about having ourselves pay a visit to the local techromancer, I’ve seen the signs everywhere on the way to the beach. It’ll be a fun stop on our mission”.

The three divas moaned under the sun, not specially enthusiastic at the effort, but then, Cedric, still himself haunted by the Russian’s vision managed to convince the others that some romance or exorcism or both, would do them great.

How many ways to stab a pea with a syringe? Jonbert woke up from his nap with the most peculiar question on his mind.
At 153, he’d started to get those annoying narcoleptic fits. He would go down in a blink of an eye into a deep dreamless sleep, and wake up to the most embarrassing of situations.
He felt like kicking someone, and mumbled under his breath “Just bloody once, before it gets puréed”.

He could have sworn he heard one of the butler robots titter silly. Those darn robots were getting smarter every day, he would have to get them a good canning.
But more pressing matter were on his mind, and he blisslessly ignored the wondrous display of flying manta rays around the eight-flippered submarine.

Time-landing around Big Island was always tricky, he was glad the darned bots got this one right, tittering notwithstanding.
Why so tricky, he could hear minds wonder. Why can’t those minds just read the bloody Time Traveling Manual! he exploded. The Island is expanding, creating new land every day. One miscalculation, and your expensive submarine would be enclosed in molten lava! How many times he had to repeat it.
True enough, his temper had not improved with age, but that kept him alive well, thank you very much.

That’s were they were supposed to collect the travelers, to entertain and train them a bit before leading them to the whale’s hotspot.
He would have to remain discreet for now on, and the prospect of having to refrain swearing loudly at ghosts seen by anyone but himself got him nervous all of a sudden.

They’d felt the Time Sewer get cleaned up, although it took a time to reach them. The frogs were paddling like crazy, and then the bubble reached them, propelling the jelly-bean shaped carriage like a rocket to their destination.

“Brace yourseeeeeeelves!” Sanso sung in the key of F, ending the frogs’ symphony with a perfect 5th.

“The mind has a tendency to forget unpleasant things…” Sadie was saying to the queens in a way to soothe their increasingly worried faces “It will be over in a minute”.
The last part didn’t get them any less worried.

2222 had been hailed the pinnacle of human development (that is, until 3333 was at reach), which prompted a whole Time Tourism business during this year.
It required a lot of finicky logistics, as to ensure a stable sustaining of this particular year and avoid predatory behaviour which could potentially lead to the collapse of the future as it was known —a matter which in most cases wouldn’t be given two figs about, but which here, could have dramatic repercussions on the ITBC (International Time Bank Conundrum) itself.
As a matter of fact, it wasn’t before 2255 that Elbert Twostains elaborated the first working version of his Unified Theory of Time Puddles, hence ushering humanity into a bright future, and past, and present, where and when nothing would ever be the same again.
As such, there quickly was an embargo declared by the ITBC on any close relationship and ancestor, and connected people which could lead to a disruption of their juicy business.
Apart from these minor restrictions which were for the good people’s own good, a lot was actually possible and allowed. Some maverick travellers used to vocally resent and disapprove of those restriction, but mostly because they thought the theory would have been discovered anyway, Elbert or not, and secretly because they enjoyed beating the drums of the restrictions (which restrictions tended to get quite restricted themselves past 2222).

Jonbert Dirk had made a fortune as a Time Tourism moghul, or so the official story went. Truth be told, much of his fortune was amassed thanks to time smuggling and past treasures plundering and reselling on the black market of antiques. Let’s not be hasty to judge the old man though, It was a tricky business back then, to find the proper time to retrieve a given antique so that your precious item didn’t look like the cheap porcelain fresh out a sweatshop in Sina.

By 2233, he was a multi bullionaire (billionaire in gold bars, as gold was needed to time-travel, it was an even more precious commodity than before), and had outlets with his brand all over the places and times.
Like the rich men of the past who had themselves built splendid yachts big as cities, he was of more modest and practical tastes, but not insensitive to the display of power this offered. So he had himself built a spacious submarine richly decorated and equipped with the last generation of TTEs (Time Travelling Engine). Over time, he’d found the use of a submarine much easier to conceal during his time travels, and like a Captain Nemo of the future, enjoyed the luxury of whale watching and underwater symphonies while sipping his caipirinha in the pool of his submarine.

Few people knew how to contact him, so it was with some surprise that he’d received the request for genetically enhanced pacific frogs. Belligerent frogs were all the fad in last century, but this century had a soft spot for the smaller, and more resilient pacific singing frogs.
A man of his immense resources was definitely the way to go if you needed such rare and exotic species delivered to you in short notice.
He was in a good mood today, so he signaled the order to the central computer.
As the batch was dispatched, he smiled wryly, thinking he had waited for the inquirer to be indebted to him for quite some time. Shrinking old was a mean business, and he had not amassed enough gold to jump past 3333, where life everlasting was discovered. He was certain this curious and elusive fellow would be in position to help.

Out-of-body invisible to-anyone-but-spirits Geoffrey was looking amazed at the scene in front of him. He was back in the Chapelle near his body when he witnessed the fit, which translated to him in French like “merde, merde, merdasse, merdum, merdarum” and latin-like declination of the word.

Some unspoken words of wisdom seemed to superimpose on the scene from many voices which roughly translated as “don’t say poop if you mean to say shit”.

As an actor, this was easy, he just had to follow the script, but as himself, he often bit his tongue when he wanted to say to Lison that she was hamming up the play just for fear to hurt her feelings being the star of the play (or to avoid creating even bigger bickering amongst the troupe).
When he’d wake up, he felt like encouraging Francette to be more daring on the stage and let her light shine bright. That should even the odds.

Geoffroy didn’t realize at first. Then something struck him. That people didn’t pay attention to him was of course a bit curious. Then evidences of something witchy became bright as day, such as the fact that he had no consistency and could walk though stone walls, or that he could see things as soon as he thought about them.
All of that was disorienting, even for an acrobat used to twists and turns, and he had to reign himself back from jumping from here to there, in all matters of attention that he would like.
For one, he would have loved to drag his companions out of their own slumber, but they seemed under a powerful spell.
Some sudden doubt crept along, that he was all but dead — seeing his body lying on the floor was a shock. But then he realized he was still breathing and smiling too. And all the things he could witness with the three transvestites was surprising enough for him to know it could not just be a product of his fertile mind… Or was it? He dismissed the thought before it could take hold.

He heard the strange lady talk about ferrets, and became curious. She had a not quite French accent when she’d briefly talked to him, but now, he could almost see her thoughts, without a filter, and they looked dazzling with tinges of the most marvelous green.
He wondered if she was talking about the Imperial Russian Ballet troupe who was invited by the Queen for the avant-première of tonight’s show.
And sure enough, as soon as the though happened long enough in his head, the scenery whirled around and he popped right in front of the dancers …