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In reply to: The Surge Team’s Coils
Liverworts had done wonder at the Vatican, actually.
That, and maybe the out-of-the-body sit-ins of the Occupy The Vatican Library Out of Body team too. So much so that the old cranky current tenant decided to leave his chasuble and tiara and go for more exciting adventures such as sky-diving and bungee jumping.The Surge Team’s game was about to change to a whole new level they soon started to discover when their screens started to light up at the same moment the first news report came out with the scoop. Well, the second one actually, because the first reporter spoke only in Latin.
“So much red can only mean one thing,” a dejected Pearl mused out aloud at her screen.
“Chinese Bloody New Year?” a distracted Skye answered tentatively.
“Yes… but no, I mean, it’s not surges any longer… another Wave is on the making… And I fear they’ll overdo the religious stuff with that one.” she added gloomily.“Oh, and by the way, anyone seen Aqua Luna recently? I’ve never seen my keyboard so bloody dusty in ages!”
In reply to: The Surge Team’s Coils
“Early retirement!” Skye said, “Bloody cheek! Undercover operation, very hush hush, it was. The noteworthy case of the Welsh Leaves of Absinthe, a very interesting case indeed. Fifty Seven bottles in that case, and each one different. I had to case the joint first of course, then proceed with the utmost abandon. Absolutely crucial to work this one to the book ~ intuition and impulse, and absolutely no planning.”
“I can’t wait to hear all about it” said Pearl. “ I heard about the Rose surge while you were there, and something about a radioactive grafitti surge originating in an abandoned nuclear plant in the mountains?”
“Absolutely true, Pearl. I heard about that one on the way back to the airport, spontaneous radiactive grafitti appearing and it’s heading east. That’s the bizarre thing, it’s working its way across the country, and each new sighting is east of the last one.”
“Sounds nasty, what’s the plan to divert it?” asked Pearl.
“Liverworts.”
In reply to: The Surge Team’s Coils
Looking at the city illuminated by endless fireworks, Madame Li was almost glad to be back in Shanghai for the Chinese New Year. The vibrations, explosions and sparkling lights sent shivers of pleasure down her spine, reminding her of childhood excitement and of times before her awareness of such things as surges.
She wasn’t back for leisure however. A new snow surge had followed the air pollution surge. This was most unnerving, and she’d heard from Anita Charmpatti, her counterpart in India that a fog of pollution had hit New Dalhi as well.At the Long Poon Headquarters, against all expectations, a certain Lord Lemon had taken over the head of operations, flanked with two even older museum-worth pieces of antiquities (names Hyphen and Dash). All that had left Cornella utterly disappointed after her last past weeks of brilliant interim. Truth be told, without her scrupulous continuation in the footsteps of Steam, the Surge Team could have been no more. She’d managed to rally back Skye after her taking unnoticed leave of absence in Wales that could well have been an attempt at an early retirement. She also had talked back (and not without a fight) Pearl and Mari Fe in line of duty, and after the looting of the artefact chamber, the collection of rotes gathered after the past weeks contained surges made it look as if they were all back to business.
That Lord Lemon was an old bastard from the early ages of the Team. Usually, in that risky business, you weren’t expected to grow very old, much less to be able to retire. That one having been able to do both surely meant one thing. He wasn’t here to fool around with,… even though he looked capable of little less than managing his early bouts of Alzeihmer’s.
In reply to: Scrying the Word Cloud
car looking cat link far started physical trip question katarina late energy
taking door moment once odd purple bee others matter…In reply to: Get your Surge Team straight
Ed Steam’s Rally Update:
Where is your Surge Team now?
- 1. Cornella • last seen in Long Poon, with computer troubles (#2942)
- 2. Pearl • last seen with Mari Fe considering freezing their butts on a flying carpet in a shop at Baku (#2939)
- 3. Mari Fe • last seen with Pearl (#2939)
- 4. Skye • last seen missing in action, probably lost in London’s last surge of fog (#2851)
- 5. Katarina • last seen with Pearl and Mari Fe (#2939)
- 6. Vera Pappaloosa • last seen with Lulla set to meet in Pohnpei, in the middle of the Pacific to deal with a yet undefined surge (#2863)
- 7. Kiki Razwa • last seen chatting with Björk about an upcoming transportation surge (#2941)
- 8. Björk • last seen on her way to deal with a transportation surge somewhere in Europe (#2941)
- 9. Janet Mendyourhall • last seen heading her way back to Nevada after containing a zombilic surge in Spain (#2922)
- 10. Lulla Spinosa • last seen meeting with Vera (#2863)
- 11. Madam Li • last seen heading back to Harbin, in Shanghai’s metro, after a snow surge successfully contained (#2940)
- 12. Anita Charmpatti • in Mumbai (no comment yet)
- 13. Elza • last seen in Moscow managing a taser surge (#2937)
Other recurring characters in the same timeline:
- Ed Steam • last seen fomenting a sinister plot in his secret hideout after faking his own demise and looting the Surge HQ artefacts warehouse (#2946)
- Aqua Luna • last seen at an unknown location, in a mysterious ship after a probable alien abduction in Long Poon (#2945)
- Belle (Bee) Endwhistle • last seen flushed out-of-body in the magic E-map, but didn’t yet reappear unlike Pearl and Mari Fe (#2902)
Recurring other-dimensional characters in the same timeline:
- Arona • last seen with Sanso, god Vincentius, the cat Mandrake and ugly big adult-grown-baby Yikesy looking in the sabulmantium, in a quest to find a Chinese dragon (#2916)
Other characters in the future timeline:
- Captain YangLang • last seen at the management of the old Long Poon Surge abandoned facility, recovering Ed Steam’s lost time capsule #23 (#2864)
In 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. “In 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 ?
In reply to: The Surge Team’s Coils
“Oh no, not Korea yet, it’s minus 18 degrees there!” Yann was busy throwing darts on the world map patafixed to the blank wall after a fashion.
He’d spend the last hour trying to find a suitable and close enough destination to fly so as to activate his last one-month coupon-visa due to expire at the end of the month. But most of the attempts seemed to follow an unknown logic he wasn’t ready to go along with.
“It’s starting to snow again in Paris, and it’s too far. Taipei or Kyoto don’t look much better than here…”
He marked a pause, and breathing slowly, emptied his mind, following the tradition of the Güt lineage of Libetan alpacas. Then the solution to his predicament appeared to him as clear as broad daylight.
“Alright then, Long Poon it is again the safest choice. And I could be back the 23rd, isn’t it great? Let’s just hope the booking will go easier than last time !”In 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.
In reply to: The Surge Team’s Coils
“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.”
In reply to: The Surge Team’s Coils
The blizzard mircaulously stopped as soon as the fountain erupted, and the icicles on the trees in the square twinkled, casting long blue shadows on the snow. Mari Fe and Pearl had just finished a second helping of cake, and were feeling optimistic and relaxed in the warm cafe.
Mari Fe sighed in contentment. “You know what Pearl? I’m considering retiring early. Because quite frankly, I prefer eating cake.”
“Can’t you eat cake and carry on? You’re eating cake now, and you haven’t retired yet.”
“Well I suppose that’s true enough. And shopping for flying carpets is hardly grueling labour. But all the sudden portalings, and the problem of weather, and clothes…it does get tedious. The evenly temperate global climate is a long time coming!”
“It’ll come alot quicker if we do well at our job!”
“I suppose there is that…”
“Take a look out there, Mari Fe ~ look at the weather in the square now! Sun’s shining, birds are singing, children are coming out to play…but it’s still snowing in Moscow.. Come on, let’s go and see about the carpets, and make tracks for Moscow.”
“What’s the cake like there?”
“Sweet, beautiful, as light as air, just like the famous Russian ballerina Anna Pavlova?”
In reply to: The Surge Team’s Coils
Evangeline Spiggot put the phone down, and turned to old Flanigan, the cleaning man. “Another request to investigate the death of Ed Steam! Three already, and it’s not even lunch time. I think this is a case for Blithe Gambol.”
“Lift your feet up, will you, I’m trying to make a clean sweep here” Flannely replied.
Evangeline obliged and put her feet up on her desk, and put through a call to Blithe. After a few pleasantries, Evangeline explained the case. “So the question is, is Ed Steam really dead, or not?”
“I can tell you the answer to that right away,” replied Blithe. “Yes, and no.”
“Er….thanks, I think…”
“You see, the difficulty with facts these days is that none are true, and all are real ~ well I know you know that dear, but it becomes something of a problem when clients want to know the Truth. Probable realities are pretty loosely woven these days; now, I can stitch together the case, and give you a more definitive answer. Or I can stitch together the case differently, and give you a different answer. The question is, really, what is the answer you want to hear?”
“I’ll confer with the clients and call you back.”
In reply to: The Surge Team’s Coils
Madam Li contemplated the pill-like translucent object glowing bright red which could barely fit in the palm of her delicate hand.
People usually said that you could try and hide your age as well as possible on your face, but that hands didn’t lie. Hers actually were still a young woman’s fine delicate and smooth work-of-art.
The snow had stopped immediately, leaving the weather in the Pudding area as it used to be: a pale mist of polluted fog, thus returning Shanghai to its normal weather patterns. The rote was there in her hand, full of the last surge’s energy, a tempting promise of uncontrollable power, but she had seen far too much power struggle and horrors to be really tempted by it.Ed’s demise had taken her by surprise. Although she did look young, it was her heart who really betrayed her. She hated people leaving her, and she would have expected Ed to survive her own death. It was the first time she was considering ever so briefly the thought of retiring. Of course, she still would need to find a replacement at her post, but China was full of eager potentials, that wouldn’t take too long.
Putting the rote in the diplomatic case, her gaze trailed on the invitation, still on the table. She wasn’t ashamed to admit her first thought went to the cleaning lady who had been careful to dust all around it, without moving it an inch off the glass table top.
Spain just came as an afterthought, already having lost its appeal as soon as summoned.Wrapping herself in her white fur coat, she called for a taxi. She would be just in time for the ice festival in Harbin with a warm dog legs’ soup and some yak butter tea.
In reply to: The Surge Team’s Coils
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.”
In reply to: The Surge Team’s Coils
“Looks like Ed Steams’ own impetus was his downfall Janet said solemnly after she covered the mustacheless body with a white bedsheet.
“Damn right you are, Janet.” Riff Raff nodded. “I wouldn’t have recognized him without his mustache though…”
“I think it’s safe to say that Pearl and Mari Fe’s plan was nearly a fiasco, but in the end, he took the surge full blast. Not quite the end we had in mind for him, but what’s done is done.”The zombies hadn’t been difficult to subjugate however, and although Riff Raff nearly had his brain eaten out, there had been no spread or civilian loss to deplore. That much was good, Janet didn’t like the whole body moving business one bit. The Moreguest Facility was such a drab place, at least she could go straight back to her post in beautiful sunny West Coast.
On the table, an egg-shaped translucent gem was beaming bright green. Janet took it thoughtfully, carefully placing it in the diplomatic case. “Strange that Ed died from the surge while the others recovered once the zombie energy had been sealed into the rote.”
Riff Raff was more pragmatic. Or maybe eager to get back home too. “He was a man consumed by his quest for artifacts, let’s not dwell on things past.”Using the portal from the bathroom once she decontaminated and recalibrated it, she’d sent everyone, their clothes doused in moonshine to some dark alleys in Granada, where they would probably be picked by local officers alerted by the usual racket made by the transspace portal, with no memory at all and alcohol breath. At least the nosy auditor would be in for a trip.
“Hey Riff, give my regards to Midgenta” Janet bear-hugged her friend, throwing the diplomatic suitcase with the pocket-sized forklift into the glove box of the red car, and disappearing in a trail of fine caliche billowing behind the vehicle wheels.
In reply to: The Surge Team’s Coils
Pearl sighed. “I can’t find the location. Even the dog leg method didn’t give me any clues. I’m going to forget this for awhile and have an hour on Flackbook.”
Mari Fe breathed a sigh of relief, and tried to erase Moscow from her mind. But before she had time to refocus, Pearl shouted “Aha! Katarina inserted the address on my newsfeed. Here is it, Mari Fe, look!”
It said:
“19 January at 15:00 in UTC+03
Каждую субботу начиная с 08.12.2012 на Лубянской площади / Every Saturday Moscow, Russia, Bolshaya Lubyanka 2, 107031”
Mari Fe groaned.
“There’s more!” Pearl said, “Baku / Azerbaijan “ 12.01.2013 Армия во время митинга в Баку”. She looked at her watch, and frowned.
“Mari Fe, prepare for teleport right away. We have less than 6 minutes to get to Azerbaijan. Toot! Toot!”
“But I only have one pair of thermal socks and one Norwegian wool sweater!”
“Oh cheer up, Baku is among the world’s top ten destinations for urban nightlife, so I’ve heard. And Baku hosted the 57th EuroVision Debt Contest in 2012, too. We’re going to Fountain Square you’ll love it.”
Mari Fe set a strong intention to arrive in summer.
In reply to: The Surge Team’s Coils
The aftershock of the surge at the Three Kings’ Parade started to hit full blast at the portals initial location, thus effectively linking old mummies energy to the bodies there that were hit by Mari Fe, and for he most part still lying unconscious.
The combination of energies started to make them arise and walk like mindless zombies, intoning old guttural sounds in cadence in a language that sounded like Italian poetry.
There you had the Balthazar, Rogelio, Dru and alter-Ed who all woke up at once, and even Sanso who had been hit (while impersonating a Portal Worker) started to feel oddly strange.Noticing the atypical occurrence, Arona, whom Janet seemed to have had taken a sudden liking to (blame it on her Yankee side), started to look at her brood and rally them for a safe and prompt exit.
“What is it Arona dearie?” Janet didn’t seem worried. She was a Surge Team member after all, and a zombilic epidemic (zombies energy coming from wormholes) wasn’t anything she couldn’t handle.
“I fear that although your presence is most delightful, we shall be on our way.” Arona’s old sabulmantium had shown persistent and remarkable hints of dragon energy in this dimension that, although a bit different and looking in her mind’s eye like red flying snakes bearing impossibly long mustache, resonated quite well —not to mention she was eager to part with such bizarre company.
“Alrighty, let’s keep in touch dearie,” Janet added, covering their escape, not without winking at Sanso as he was the last one to leave through the map portal, leaving her to look for her missing flushed friends, Mari Fe and Pearl.
Unbeknownst to everyone, the picture-taking lady had camouflaged herself to look like a red sofa nearby the hot pink leather chaise lounge in the corner of the room, and was documenting silently the promising epic battle of Janet and Riff Raff against the zombies.
And for sure, Janet was still ready to make good use of the pocket-sized forklift to move away all cumbersome bodies,… as there was bound to be casualties.In reply to: The Surge Team’s Coils
While stroking his mustache fondly, Ed Steam had the clearest realization that although he’d done that quite a few times in the past mostly to his advantage, it was a lot of work to rewrite timelines and figure out the hows and whens of everyone in his team.
Maybe it was actually time for him to restore the original timeline while disappearing — by faking his own death to be certain nobody would thwart his carefully thought retirement plan. Then, he could also stop dyeing his mustache he figured… So many things to take care of, retirement would be so sweet.
Although the Egyptian timeturner gave him all the time in the world, he actually felt like he’d lost already a great deal too much of it, and started to enact his plan without further ado.Procuring a body double was actually not so hard. The last surge had brought a few of them in Thrifteen’s Alley in their Moreguest Facility. A switch and a twist of the pocket portal and a zap and a blink of the miniaturizer was enough to get there and come back in seconds with a frozen pocket-size life-suspended body from the testing stock, with convincing enough miniaturized slim lips, safely put in a test tube in his waistcoat pocket.
A six-shot cudgel from his artefact war trove was all he needed to make sure the amateur assassin in red robes they’d hired would be taken care of easily.
Then, an enscombulator bedazzler ray spray would be enough to convince Mari Fe she’d managed to hit him, buying him time enough to then deminiaturize the thawed slim-lipped body double, to slip in his stead.
Last, but not least, he would then have a few seconds to discombobulize Mari Fe while disappearing with a backup transportable portal. The plan was perfect. The original timeline restored in pristine conditions.
Only for a few minor details of course. He’d almost forgotten to reprogram the mini-man in his pocket with enough memories for him to be a convincing Ed-himself sans la moustache of course. At least, for the short time he would survive (surge victims discovered still alive were placed in life suspension by the team, but this was mostly for medical analysis as they usually wouldn’t survive their conditions).
Oh, and the bloody mustache of course… A squeeze of foolicle solventilator would be enough to make it temporarily invisible.Simple enough… Well, sandbagging Mari Fe would have probably conveyed similar results with minimal efforts, although the elegance of his plan, as well as the fact that he was loath to hit ladies did unmistakably weight in favour of it.
And with that, he would be back in time for dinner.
In fact, he already was.In reply to: The Surge Team’s Coils
“I knew there was a subordination point here somewhere” said Janet. “Arona, bring that cat over here.”
“EEEEK” shouted Pearl.
“It’s a clue!” Sanso said, “A location beginning with E with 5 letters!”
“Is it a mouse?” asked Ed.
“The dog just chased something behind the fridge” replied Pearl, “But it wasn’t a mouse. It looked more like a miniaturized story character.”
In reply to: Scrying the Word Cloud
