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Barbara’s office was dead silent apart from the regular bips of the machines. The whiteness of the painted walls made it feel like a psych ward. She shivered away the memories that were trying to catch her attention.

It’s been two hours since the Doctor had locked himself up in his rage-release room, a spacious soundproofed room with padded walls. Not even a small window to look inside and check if his anger had subsided. Barbara clearly preferred the trauma of the shouts and cries and the broken plates that were hidden here and there for him to use when he needed most. But when he started his therapy with the AI psych module, the damn bot suggested he built that room in order to release his rage in a more intimate framework.
Now the plates collected dust and the sessions in the room tended to last longer and longer.

Today’s burst of rage had been triggered by the unexpected gathering of the guests at the Inn. The Doctor was drinking his columbian cocoa, a blend of melted dark chocolate with cheddar cheese, when the old hag in that bloody gabardine started her speech. The camera hidden in the eye of the fish by their agent, gave them a fisheye view of the room. It was very practical and they could see everything. The AI engineer module could recreate a 3D view of the room and anticipate the moves of all the attendees.

When that girl with the fishnet handed out the keys for all to see and the other girl got the doll out, the Doctor had his attention hyper-focused. He wanted to see it all.
Except there had been a glitch and images of granola cookies superimposed on the items.

“Send the magpies to retrieve the items,” he said, nervousness making his voice louder.
“Ahem,” had answered Barbara.
“What?” The Doctor turned towards her. His eye twitched when he expected the worst, and it had been twitching fast.
She had been trying to hide the fact that the magpies had been distracted lately, as she had clearly been herself since she had found that goldminer game on facebush.
No need to delay the inevitable, she had thought. “The magpies are not in the immediate vicinity of the Inn.” In fact, just as their imprinting mother was busy digging digital gold during her work time, the magpies had found a new vein of gold while going to the Inn and Barbara had thought it could be a nice addition to her meager salary… to make ends meet at the end of the month.

It obviously wasn’t the right time to do so. And she was worried about the Doctor now.

To trump her anxiety, she was surfing the internet. Too guilty to play the gold miner, she was looking around for solutions to her boss’s stress. The variety and abundance of advertisement was deafening her eyes, and somewhere in a gold mine she was sure the magpies were going berserk too. She had to find a solution quickly.

Barbara hesitated to ask the AI. But there were obviously too many solutions to choose from. Her phone buzzed. It was her mother.
“I finally found the white jade masks. Bought one for you 2. It helps chase the mental stress away. You clearly need it.” Her mother had joined a picture of her wearing the mask on top of a beauty mask which gave her the look of a mummy. Her mother was too much into the woowoo stuffs and Barbara was about to send her a polite but firm no she didn’t want the mask. But the door of the rage-room opened and the Doctor went out. He had such a blissful look on his face. It was unnatural. Barbara had been suspecting the AI to brainwash the Doctor with subliminal messages during those therapy sessions. Maybe it also happened in the rage-room. The AI was using tech to control the Doctor. Barbara would use some other means to win him back.

OK. SEND IT TO ME QUICK. she sent to her mother.

The aircon was buzzing and Sophie walked in her pajamas through the open space to reach her dreaming base. That’s how she secretly called it. She could feel the eyes of her colleagues following her, and as usual she felt proud to be the center of attention. It didn’t matter that it was jealousy or anything else. People were looking at her and she was doing something different.

Once in her base of operation, she settled on the couch and looked at the brew that had been brought for her. It was her second attempt at remote viewing the Doctor and this time she had requested a bucket and some padding around the sharp corners. She feared a little the unleashing of her wild nature, but in truth she had no idea what to expect. She had read on the Internet that there was nothing to fear and that there would be no side effects, and usually with her natural paranoia she would have double checked before using the drugs, but her obsession with the Doctors had rendered her a little bit… more reckless.

She pinched her nose and swallowed the brew. One gulp. But some of it stayed in her mouth and nausea followed. She didn’t like the taste at all. Then she laid down the couch and waited. The effects weren’t long to come. Space lit up, soon followed by the usual geometrical dynamic animation and the strange floating spirits. One of them looked like her old nanny. She had a hair on her chin and Sophie couldn’t focus on anything else. The hair grew and multiplied on the face, it was soon a forest of wiggling glowing worms growing indefinitely.

After what seemed an eternity to her, she saw the doors. A huge circle made of doors like a giant neckless. Sophie giggled at the typo especially that she could see the neckless giant now below the doors. It was definitely a male, with boobs covered by skulls.

Find the door, she reminded herself. Her thought took the shape of a butterflowck —understand a flow of a flock of butterflies— that rippled in a pond of honey… suckles.

It reached the door and she was sucked in.

“Why are they doing this?” asked a male voice behind her. “They’re supposed to be magpies, not monkeys.”
“I’m not sure,” said a bald woman with six fingers and an ethereal beehive hairdo. The strange thing was that she had a beard.
“Do something quick. I need them operational soon” said the man, “You’re the one controlling them after all,” he added with poison in his voice.
“Yes, Doctor.”

Sophie startled at the name. She turned around and tried to look at the man, but he was headless, or rather pixelated. Shit! I watch too much science fiction, she thought.

“Anyway,” he continued. What are the news on the dolls’ front?”
“We are closing in on the next target, Doctor. It’s a small Inn in Australia where the vortex or probabilities converge. I took the liberty to send another sleeping agent there to steal the key and the list of other addresses from the dollmaker. He’s taking the same airplane as she is.”

The sixth finger on Barbara’s left hand looked quite odd, but it was a nice recent addition from the Doctor. She looked at it while the Magpies were slowly awakening. A bleak bipping sound was all there was indicating the average pulse of the seven spies.
The Doctor, poor man, seemed to have had some difficulties recently to remember her name and also that she was a woman. Since a few weeks, in order not to startle him when she entered the new lab, she had had to get rid of her beehive hairdo, but she had kept it in a secret vault in her bedroom and every evening she took it out and brushed it and put it on her head to remind her.

She had been quite dedicated to the Doctor and had stayed despite the last mess at the Hidden Spa. She spent an awful lot of time erasing all the links and comments that could lead to them, hence such an empty thread. It was all her doing, Barbara’s, and she could do that because of her new left pinkie in which she had an electronic key controlling all the machines and the lab’s security network. And it was connected to the Internet.

The bipping sound was accelerating signalling to her that they were close to awakening. She was going to call the Doctor, he had said that he had to be there when they opened their eyes because he must be the one on whom they imprinted. Like birds you know. He would be like their mother and they would obey him. She turned on the comlink and called him.

“What?”
“It’s Barb, Doctor.”
“Who?”
“Your assistant.”
“Oh. Why are you disturbing me in my Jacuzzi?”
“They are awakening.”
“Who?”
“The Magpies.”
“Oh. I’m coming.”

But there was no more time.
The pods were open and the seven Magpies were looking at her.

“No! No!” said the Doctor who entered at that moment. “What have you done!?”

The house is empty. Perhaps it is more correct to say I, Mater, am the only one home, for the emptiness which envelops the house so strongly has its own presence.

The family have all left on their respective pursuits.

Dido is off following another guru. I forget who it is …someone she had read about on the damned internet thing they all spend so much time on — I’ve still not come to grips with it but suspect it is time I did. I had hoped Dido would stay home longer this time — there is so much work to be done around the place and I am not feeling any younger. “Just for a week!” she told me excitedly as she left but it has already been nearly two.

Prune, unique child that she is, always had such trouble making friends with others of her age however recently she made the acquaintance of a new girl at school who shares her predilection for unusual interests. Prune is staying at her new friend’s house for the weekend. I smile, feeling more than a little sympathy for the parents.

I have not seen or heard much from Devan for a long time. He is in Brisbane, last I heard anyway.

The twins, not my twins but the other twins; Sara and Stevie, decided they could not leave their mother. Not now. Not while she is in hospital and so poorly. The right decision I feel though I am also disappointed. At Clove’s insistence, Corrie has gone to visit with them. Clove and Corrie don’t know yet … Dodo and I talked about it and decided Fred should be the one to tell them.

Goodness only knows where Fred is now.

I decide I will try and get acquainted with the emptiness. Maybe even make friends. Thought this doesn’t feel likely at the moment.

“Hello,” I say quietly. I can hear the question in my voice. The doubt. Clearly this won’t do. “One has to believe,” I admonish myself sternly. I try again:

“Hello Emptiness. What is your name? I can’t call you Emptiness all the time. My name is Mater and this is my house”.

I say this firmly. Much better.

I notice that sunlight is attempting to enter through the kitchen blinds and I throw them open. It is a beautiful day. I see that Bert is already up and working in the garden. Planting something. I remember now, he told me he was going to start another vege garden, nearer the house than the other one.

Clove: there’s something weird about this place

Corrie: too boring?

Clove: no, its not that. Something fishy going on, something strange happened to the other lodgers

Corrie: they all died of boredom? LOL

Clove: it’s not funny, I think something nasty happened to them

Corrie: pmsl I thought you said the family were all dead boring, you trying to liven things up a bit by imagining mysteries?

Clove: I think they’re hiding something and no I’m not imagining it

Corrie: go on then, tell me what’s been going on

Clove: well nothing, as usual, but John said something to me, he said “You watch yourself or you will end up the way of the other lodgers.”

Corrie: well that could mean anything

Clove: talk to you tomorrow, gotta go now. John turns the internet off at 11

Corrie: what on earth for?

Clove: says it’s unnatural

Corrie: no wonder the other lodgers left

Aunt Idle wandered around, wondering where everyone was. Had everyone gone out on a day trip or a holiday? Had she forgotten? She clumped across the yard looking for Bert. If she could find Bert, he would know ~ but where was he? Her feet felt dry and heavy. I really must do something about those dry callouses, she thought ~ perhaps a long hot soak in the bath. But first, I must find the others.

Idle continued her search, but her legs began to feel like lead. Funny how some days gravity seemed so much stronger. It was becoming harder to put one foot in front of the other. What was it that guy on the internet had said about a lightness of energy? The unbearable lightness of being ~ well this was more like the unbearable heaviness of feet.

A pair of butterfly’s scampered through the air, fluttering and darting around Idle’s sticky dreads. Be light like the skipping of a butterfly, that guy had said. Hah! she croaked. Easy to say! Unable to walk any further, Idle grabbed onto a straight little eucalyptus sapling to hold herself up. Her fingers felt stiff and inflexible as she grasped the slender trunk.

It’s just too hard, she thought with a heavy heart. It’s too hard to move.

The house was strangely peaceful.

The hot days were over for now, and the air wasn’t as suffocating.

Dido was gone for a visit to New South Wales, talking the girls with her.
As Mater said, breathing a bit of ocean in her pipes instead of her infernal smoking would do her quite a bit of good. Actually, to her surprise, she’d refrained herself from saying what she originally meant. Her brains needed washing too, but that would have been mean.
“Mater, old cow, you’re getting soft with age” — Prune could hear her mutter. The young girl was clever at reading her silences and mutterings. For all the good it would do her.
So, yeah, a bit of coastal loitering, instead of vagabonding with all the in and out guests that summer had brought. Dido would endlessly run head-first in so many troubles by following people’s every whim. But hopefully she would be a bit more responsible having to care for her nieces.

It must have been those books she read, or the Internet gobbledygook. Mater had found a second-hand worn-out book Dido had forgotten to flush on her way out of the loo. Or the reverse.
Anyway, she’d given it a peek. Out of concern of course.
No wonder Dido was so taken with silly concerns. It was a book by a French Tibetan Buddhist monk, advocating compassion for this, compassion for that. Good for nothing, all the same those preachers. Now, she could understand why Dido was all ranting about how meditation change your brain. Well, no surprise! Makes it all mushy and unable to think critically, more like it.

Just before she left for her little vacation, she’d almost had a nervous breakdown about what she called the extermination. Happened the noise on the roof were stray cats. Well, I knew she fed them from time to time. Probably Finly too. Now, neither Finly nor myself would have called the exterminator to kill some poor cats, good gracious. The guinea pigs are out of their reach anyway. But I guess one of the neighbours wasn’t the compassionate type. Now, what about having compassion for those bastard cat killers? Silly monks who know nothing.

Anyway,… darn phone! Somebody to answer that phone?

When she arrived at the ringing phone, she realised it was again one of those stupid marketers to sell whatever useless crap. She put the handset delicately on the ledge, letting the guy talk to the air, and resumed her calm walk around the quiet house.

So, where was I, she thought. The thought has nearly slipped away.

It was something about fish oil maybe. Oh there… walking meditation, mushy brains, cat killers… There, she lost it again…

I don’t really want to write, Elizabeth was thinking, I want to read, just read. And perhaps write a little bit about what I’m reading, or draw a map to illustrate the connections between what I’m reading and what I’m doing. Or what all those others out there that pretend to not be me are doing.

She paused and looked around. Is there anything more perfect than a warm house, full of firewood and full of books? She had just read something about the “beast”, and welcoming the beast. The beast in question was illness, and the author was welcoming the beast because it was an excuse to just read and do nothing else. Elizabeth’s beast the other day was no internet connection, and she had pulled the sofa up to the patio doors to lie in the sun all day, just reading. I’ll lie there every morning, when the sun streams in just so, lying on the sofa and just reading, she thought. But she hadn’t.

But she kept thinking about lying on a sofa reading all day, not just any sofa, but a sofa that was positioned to catch the winter sun through the window. It reminded her of many years ago in a cold climate, (or was it a chapter in a book, a character that had done it? She wasn’t sure, but what was the difference anyway) lying on a sofa all day, a large American one that was longer than she was and wider too and would have had room for several dogs, if she’d had any then, not a short European sofa that cuts off the circulation of the calves that hang over the arm, with no room for dogs. She was sick, she assumed, because she had the house to herself and because she spent the entire day reading a book. She wondered if anyone did that even if they weren’t sick, and somehow doubted it. The book was Bonjour Tristesse, and she never forgot reading that book, although she promptly forgot what the book was about. It was the delicious feeling of lying on a sofa with the winter sun on her face, when beyond the glass window all was frigid and challenging and made the body rigid, despite it’s dazzling white charm.

There was no winter sun shining in today, just rain trickling down the windowpane, cutting through the muddy paw prints from when the dogs looked in. But just seeing the sofa positioned in just the right place to catch the sun was warming, somehow.

It was Mater who decided they needed to get some cleaning help. She commandeered Clove to do some research on the internet and eventually found a woman from New Zealand, Finly, who was offering her cleaning services in exchange for room and board.

“Bloody kiwis,” said Bert when he heard. “The place is riddled with them. Bloody come and take our jobs. Haven’t we got more than enough of them here already? I am having a hard enough time avoiding that Flora, going on about her spiritual bloody awakening.”

“If you can find anyone local who would be willing to do the cleaning in exchange for a place to stay, I will be glad to consider them,” retorted Mater sternly. “But in the meantime this place is fast becoming a pig-sty and Dido is too busy smoking and drinking to see it.”

Naturally Mater got her way and a few days later Bert, still grumbling, agreed to go and pick Finly up from the airport. Mater assembled the family in the main living room.

“Now remember, the main thing is to be courteous. God only knows why she agreed to come to this backwater of a place, but we don’t want to put her off.”

”Don’t we indeed?” smirked Aunt Idle.

“Yeah exactly, it is friggin’ weird I reckon. Why would she come here?” asked Clove, privately deciding she had better run a more thorough background check on Finly.

“I thought Finly was a boy’s name,” said Coriander. “That would be cool. A boy cleaner. I hope he’s hot. He can clean topless”

Aunt Idle, who had already been into the gin even though it wasn’t yet 10am, put her hand over her mouth and started to giggle.

“It can be a girl or a boy’s name and someone called Coriander is in no position to throw stones. And mind your language, Clove.” responded Mater tartly.

Clove rolled her eyes and sighed dramatically. “Well as long as she doesn’t try and boss me around, it might be quite fun to have a slave to clean up after me.”

Prune had been keeping an eye on the window. “Shush, she’s here!” she shouted excitedly.

Mater:

I feel myself moving slowly today. The thought of death and my poor little guinea pig is still nagging. It occurs to me that perhaps I am walking slowly because I don’t want to move too fast into the inevitable.

Or perhaps it is just that I did not sleep so well last night. It is so damned hot and night time offers little respite from the heat.

At least the kids have stopped fighting. I worry about them. Always shut away in their rooms on that internet thing.

I am so tired. More tired than I should be. It is not the usual aches and pains. Something feels wrong. I have made up my mind to go and visit Jiemba, the local aboriginal healer. It is a wee bit of a walk, so I will need to start early, before the heat gets up. I don’t want to ask Dido to take me. “Just go and see the doctor in town!” she will say to me. For all her alternative ways, Dido can still be pretty closed minded about some things—and she thinks I am a crazy old fool anyway.

But I think Jiemba has the gift—special healing powers—and he comes from a family of aboriginal healers. His father was a healer and his grandfather too. I went to see him once, his father, years ago. My back was bad and the doctor in town said I would need an operation. He did some chanting, calling up spirits I think, put his hand on my back and pulled out a stone. He said the stone was the sickness causing my back pain, or some such thing. I was sceptical at the time, but my back never did give me any more bother. I’ve read up on it since then and I think there is something in it all. The older I get the more I realise I don’t know it all.

Besides, there is something else I want to ask him about and I don’t know who else I can talk to. That’s the problem with getting old—one of the problems anyway—people tend to assume you are losing your marbles if you say anything out of the ordinary.

But I think the Inn is haunted.

Maurana found it difficult to climb in the coach with her 6” Goochi platform shoes. Golden intricate patterns on a red velvet. The first time she saw them on Internet, she immediately thought of Dorothy. What couldn’t she do with these shoes, she had thought. Where couldn’t she go ? She hadn’t thought of time travel at the time. Now the when couldn’t she go question seemed to be part of the shoes. She sat on the narrow seat, the one in the back. Sitting in that dark little coach, knees almost touching her face, the proud drag armor began to melt away, letting appear the insecurity of a teenager through the cracks.
The teenager wondered for a moment if he had bumped his skull on the steel frame of the sewer and was dreaming, or maybe he was dead. He looked at his two friends, Consuela/Cedric was desperately trying to find the network with his phone, trying to reach his mother again. He was always trying to reach his mother when in doubt.
Terry was climbing in the coach, apparently still herself as a drag. She seemed to be quite comfortable.

“I can’t believe we’re going to meet the Queen”, she said with a thrill. She sat near Maurana, trying to make her false bum fit in the narrow seat. Her knees were also dangerously near her chin. “We’ll have to find new wigs and dresses, more suitable for the circumstances”, she said with glitter in her eyes. “I’m so glad we are in this adventure together, you, Consuela and meeeeeee!!” She kissed Maurana on the cheek and the lost Queen was back on her Goochies.

Sadie got back in and looked at her e-zapper for a few seconds. “Tell your friend to get in. We have company. The Russians have sent their own team to retrieve the ferrets.”

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.

Oolong the rabbit that balances things on its head

There’s something, er, fishy, about this here dead cow, Sanso surmised. He was still a little fuzzy after his peregrinations in the Dense Dimension. Suddenly he slapped his forehead and exclaimed D’Oh! This dead cow is no accident! He shook his head, as if trying to shake the cobwebs loose. The effects of the brocolli hadn’t worn off completely yet. I can’t beleive I chose the Brocolli from the ‘You Fool’ Jar instead of the ‘Thank You’ Jar. I should have realized, Sanso was still shaking his head, what the ramifications would be of choosing discounting instead of appreciation. D’OH! he exclaimed again. Really, I had no idea how far reaching and all encompassing the effects would be of that Brocolli choice. I suppose it’s no accident the vegetable in question was brocolli, either, with all those probability branches and probable florets.

Right then Sanso, Old Bean, pull yourself together, he told himself firmly. This here dead cow is a sign. He approached the dead cow slowly, sniffing the ether, in a manner of speaking, for clues. He recalled the Dead Cow Cult
from another elsewhen, and their affiliation with the Arduino
Time Travelling Internet Server, and wondered if there might be a connection.

The Fool Fog of Discounting, caused by the brocolli Choice, in Sanso’s head was starting to clear, and he began to access information. The Cult of the Dead Cow had merged with the Arduino Enterprise at some point, creating an offshoot called the Pirates Association of Time Hackers, otherwise known as P.A.T.H. They had been recruiting members from many times and places, and as usual, had attracted large numbers of teenagers.

One teenager in particular appeared to stand out in Sanso’s mind, a peculiar young man who went by the alias “Holy Cow”.

Oh My God! Sanso slapped his forehead again. (I really must get these AHA moments under control, he said to himself, rubbing his bruised head) It can’t be! Yes, it is! It’s Yikesy!