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  • India Louise had been switching her own book with Cuthbert’s that night. And as she was exploring some of the stories told in his, he was having a peek into hers. Very quickly, he became aware of a whole new continent, in that World, across the Middle Seas. In that continent far North of the one where ... · ID #206 (continued)
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  • #3875

    Cornella giggled, dusting off her keyboard before leaving the office. Ed Steam might have something to say about it when he saw the new lists of identities in the morning, but it had been worth it. A little alliteration helped to pass the day, after all. For the most part the story refugees either didn’t notice, or at any rate didn’t complain. They were relieved that the endless process was over, or too nervous about starting a new story to notice.

    Zoe Zuckerberg to Zimbabwe was one of her favourites; and Quentin Quincy to Queensland. What did it matter that Zoe, previously known as Madam Li, had no desire to go to Zimbabwe, or that Ted Marshall had family in Spain? It was up to them to make up whatever they wanted once they started the new story. Her job was assigning names and locations, the rest was up to them.

    She’d laughed out loud when one of them sat down at her desk, clearing his throat nervously. Current name and location? she asked.
    Percy Piedmont from Paris, he said, I have a brother in Shanghai who has a new story, he said he’d insert me into his.

    Cornella couldn’t help wondering who had assigned him his last character role, and if they were playing games in the office to pass the day, too.

    Alright Percy, how about Shane Shylock?

    #3848
    ÉricÉric
    Keymaster

      Sam was looking at the new breatharator that was just delivered. The big machine from purple, turned suddenly red and whizzed in like mad for a moment.

      “Well, I think the energy has become more focused, can’t you feel it?” he said absentmindedly, to nobody in particular.

      #3840

      “Al’s gone too far this time, Tina” Becky said, perusing the latest installment of the Reality Play. “He’s just adding old characters willy nilly now!”

      Tina just looked at Becky for a moment before replying quietly, “Isn’t that the point?”

      Gripping Tina’s shoulder firmly and giving her a little shake, Becky continued, “It’s getting serious, Tina, can’t you see the danger we’re in? Fictional characters are coming to life all over the planet, demanding birth certificates and passports and refugee status. Insisting on continuation, more detailed back stories; some are even demanding therapy for what the authors have put them through!”

      Tina looked shocked. “Is it really as serious as that?” she asked. “I had heard about it, but, well, I didn’t like to think too much about it…” her voice trailed off, hoping that Becky would drop the subject so she didn’t have to think about it any more.

      “It’s the Imagination Wave, Tina. We’ve never really understood Imagination or how to use it. During this wave, we’re going to find out, and it’s going to be messy, believe me! It’s not just the characters we’ve made up, it’s the land mass. Characters are looking for their lands, demanding compensation for missing islands…”

      “What are we going to do?” Tina whispered dramatically. “We’ve been churning out characters and littering changed landscapes with them and then just leaving them stranded, for nine years!”

      “And we can’t even get away from them all if we flew to Mars, either,” added Al, who had been eavesdropping from behind the door. He joined them and pulled up a chair. “Seriously, girls, we need a plan. This is our most important mission of all.”

      “Should we kill them all off?” asked Becky, wincing as she said it. “I didn’t mean that!” she added hastily.

      “Oh, you don’t want to do that!” Al replied quickly. “Some authors have done that and have been haunted by dead characters something awful! Dead characters are a worse nightmare than characters coming to life, believe me!”

      “Well I didn’t really mean it,” Becky said sheepishly.

      “Let’s ask Sam,” said Tina.

      #3827

      In reply to: The Hosts of Mars

      ÉricÉric
      Keymaster

        The tunnels went dark and deep into the crust. Water was seeping through the cracks and made the progression difficult at times. But she had found her way out.
        She could have died in the tunnels, unable to find her way to the surface, but for some reason, Maia trusted her instincts and her senses to guide her through them. Like the water, flowing through.

        She didn’t know for sure how far she was from the MARS base when she emerged out, it was hard to tell the distances underground, sometimes you would go down for hundreds of meters, and when you’d look up, the stone ceiling would seem just a few meters overhead.

        She wasn’t too sure why she had escaped like this and made herself a target. A sudden instinct, something that told her the others couldn’t be trusted, and that they wanted to clean them up.
        Anyway, it was too late for regrets.

        The desert wasn’t too bad at twilight, not too hot and better for her to travel unnoticed.
        A few more days of walk in the desert, and she could find a road, maybe some motel where to spend the night. She still had a few bucks in her purse to see her through.
        All she wanted now was to make sure her son was alright.
        Her being alive and out was a threat to their program, and she intended to make the best of a bad situation.

        Then she realized the humming sound in the back of her thoughts wasn’t random noise. There was a drone hovering, getting back apparently from some scouting. It wasn’t a military drone by the sound of it, more like a hobbyist’s toy. That meant there was someone out there, not far. Someone curious and potentially useful…

        #3825
        TracyTracy
        Participant

          Gustave jumped when the phone rang, his heart hammering unpleasantly. Get a grip! he told himself sternly. Hesitantly he answered the call, expecting to hear an ear grating cackle.

          “Can I speak to Leonora, please? It’s Bea here,” the voice requested.

          “Er, sorry, I think you have the wrong number,” replied Gustave, feeling like a fool as he tried to calm his shaking hands.

          “Leonora Butterworth?” insisted the voice calling herself Bea.

          Startled, he said “Ah, Butterworth’s the name, but I’m afraid I don’t know anyone called Leonora,” and then, astonished, he heard Bea start to sob and mumble incoherently.

          “I’m so sorry, was it urgent?” he asked, already feeling a responsibility to help the unknown woman. “Is there anything I can do to help?”

          “It’s the cackling,” Bea answered with a sniff, “It’s driving me mad. I thought a chat with Leo might help take my mind off it, but I haven’t seen her since the fiasco in Spain and I don’t know where she is, I was hoping this Butterworth number would be her and…..” her voice trailed off disconsolately.

          “It’s driving me mad too,” Gustave was surprised to hear himself say. “I say, er, Bea,” he cleared his throat, “Would you fancy meeting for a drink in the Spotted Dick Inn? To, you know, take our minds off it?”

          Gustave had regained his scientific composure somewhat, and was considering the benefits of an unexpected opportunity to research the effects of the cackling on the ordinary population.

          Bea readily agreed, old tart that she was, and said she would be there in half an hour.

          #3821
          TracyTracy
          Participant

            Gustave Butterworth cackled delightedly. The crowd control custard gas formula experiments were looking promising. The first batch, all being well, should be ready for a trial run in time for the bake sale at Lemoine Meringue Hall. If only he could deduce that vital missing ingredient in time!

            Gustave looked at his watch and decided to call it a day. He was the last one in the laboratory as usual; before turning the lights out and locking the door, he made a quick tour of the lab rats accommodation. There were no cages like in the old days: scientists in this partially enlightened age were not allowed to keep rats and beagles against their will, and only volunteer creatures were used in modern laboratories. Thus, no actual physical abuse was administered, but the energy the creatures reflected off the experiments, and the scientists themselves, was monitored; and human “animal whisperers” were employed to communicate directly. Gustave was a scientist, not a whisperer, but he had been developing his whispering skills secretly, while observing the staff.

            Most of the rats has nestled down for the night in their miniature studio apartments, but one comfortable little abode was empty. “I say, Rodean,” said Gustave to the neighbouring occupant, “Has Penelope gone for an evening stroll again?”

            Rodean shuffled around in his tiny bean bag chair to look at the scientist.

            “What, gone to visit her cousin Patty, you say?”

            #3820
            TracyTracy
            Participant

              “Oh Patty, you naughty ratty!” exclaimed Bea, as she trundled into the kitchen to make her morning coffee. “I left you your marie biscuit on top of the microwave as usual and you haven’t even touched it. But look at my banana!”

              The banana had been dragged from atop the bowl with the oranges, across the kitchen counter to nestle between the greasy gas cooking rings, the skin neatly opened in a perfect square cut.

              “I was going to have that banana on my toast this morning,” Bea grumbled crossly. “You are overstepping the line now, Patty Ratty.”

              “But Bea,” replied Patty, “I’m a new age ratty, a healthy ratty and a global warming conscious vegan ratty, and I do prefer a nice banana to a lousy factory made cheap biscuit, don’t you know.”

              At least, that is what Bea imagined the rat might say, if it could speak. Everyone knows rats don’t speak. And notwithstanding, the rat had retired for the day and wasn’t in the kitchen anyway.

              “I’m a raw food vegan gluten free health food rat!” shouted Patty from under the wood pile just outside the kitchen door. “You’re trying to kill me with that crap food!”

              Momentarily speechless at the audacity of the uninvited guest, Bea struggled quietly with her roles and responsibility beliefs. Should I serve the food the uninvited guest prefers? Or should the gatecrashing rat be grateful for the food it was given?

              #3819

              “Oh, what a perfectly splendid idea.You are a genius.” Evangeline smiled to herself as she imagined Ed fingering his moustache—a sweet little habit he had whenever he felt embarrased— and blushing at her praise.

              “Well I don’t know about that; let’s see if it works first,” said Ed gruffly. “Insanitization en masse at a bake sale is no piece of cake.”

              He paused significantly but when nothing was forthcoming from the lovely Evangeline he added a little impatiently: “No piece of cake. Get it?”

              Evangeline (who had not got it) quickly tried to make amends. “Hahahahahaha you are a droll fellow!” she chuckled, just a tad too loudly. It almost sounded like a cackle and if there was one thing Ed Steam was renowned for it was his ability to sort out the chuckles from the cackles.

              There was a strained silence.

              “Anyway, Evangeline, who made this latest cackling complaint? Are they going to cause any trouble or are they just your usual run of the mill cackle complainer?

              “Bea somebody. She just moved to Cackletown recently and we don’t know much about her yet. Or what she is capable of. I think we need to keep a close eye on that one.”

              #118
              ÉricÉric
              Keymaster

                Beware, this story is for the light of heart and laughter inclined, not to be confused with Dafletown and the Tone Dancers of Dustard or Mapletown and the Mown Mancers of Mustard which are stories made of an altogether different cloth…

                #3805

                In reply to: Mandala of Ascensions

                Whenever Nabuco projected to human consciousness, they had the habit of seeing him as a plump looking bearded vagrant, like a Pavarotti turned homeless. It had annoyed him for a while, but now he didn’t mind as much.

                Nowadays, he was mostly off the bliss addiction of the Rays, so in a sense, it was fitting. If he were still in physical human form, he would probably have taken on quite some weight. And that made him a sort of pariah too, splintering off the great order of ascension, or whatever They called it nowadays.

                With them, there was no denying he’d lived quite the grand life, being ascended and all. They used to called him Master Nebuchadnezzar — well, often Master Nabuco.
                He’d gotten on the rayroll almost by luck. He was credited for inventing the chibubble technique, as a way of extracting bubbles and peals of laughter when people get all hot and excited. At the peak of the technique, somewhere around the 1968s, he had recruited and incorporated many gnomes into the fold, as nature spirits known as gnomes had a uncanny knack for extracting laughter off people. With the call for sexual liberation and getting closer to nature, they had plenty of opportunities to get people high, and chibubbles were all the fancy.
                It had started to go down as fast as it rose, people were no longer interested in nature, gnomes working condition when forced to move to urban environments were a disaster, and the chibubble production plummeted. Now, the industry was a thing of the past ; sometimes there were a few chibubble memorabilia kept by other Masters interested in speculating on its rare value more than for anything else. Now kitten videos on social media had replaced the chibubble gnomes business and driven a new unseen growth of the Gross Divine Product.

                He didn’t know if the gnomes were responsible for it, but living so close to them and nature for a while, somehow opened his perception to the falsity and the insanity of their quest for power. So instead of finding new venues for innergy extraction as they all did, he’d resigned.
                Nobody had heard about anybody resigning before, so they suspected him of trying to be original, and maybe disrupt the clever and immutable laws of the universe.
                Long story short, he’d managed to escape their clutches, and live on his own, and off unhealthy junk thoughts habits. Those were the worse, the craving of decadent thoughts, maintained by the entertainment and news industries, the social media and all of it. In the long run, that or the fuzzy bliss were faces of the same coin, and debilitating in the end.

                Even when he tried to block them, he could hear the thoughts, prayers and all the inner chatter. The spirit world, or however it is called, was a medium ideal to carry those thoughts and reverberate throughout the whole universe. Like sound waves travelling under water for large distances. Now, he could resist the urge to answer, seduce and insinuate. Many of the thoughts were so naive and would welcome anything. He was still a junkie, and those offerings were never helping getting him off the wagon.

                Humans hoped for ascension, but ascended masters like him who were trapped in a false blissdom could only hope to resume their path by descending to human form. Such irony.

                There was one voice that seemed to stand out. It had the flavour of “dangerous” pinned onto it, the kind of bright colours that venomous snakes and toads have on earth to warn predators to keep off, or else. It could only mean one thing, a genuine seeker of truth, someone who had the potential to tear the veils to shreds.

                He’d seen quite a few of those, they were usually young, and for many of them terribly naive and easily corrupted by displays of power. Search for truth and search for power were sometimes so easily mistaken one for the other. The bright colours would fade over time, but they were still dangerous, too unpredictable to be trusted fully. Learned Ascended Masters knew well to leave those to their own device, while tending to the less critical minds.

                But what did he have to waste, especially now? Nabuco zoomed towards the origin of the thoughts, observing at a distance, the young Domba.

                #3803

                In reply to: Mandala of Ascensions

                Lord R’eye, the one-eyed ruler of the known universe, was known by many names, a great lot of them completely forgotten by the masses. He had to constantly reinvent Himself, borrow new disguises, create factions, sprinkle in a few miracles, create order ab chao and voilà.

                He owned a few bodies, strategically placed here and there, one of his favourite in Geneva, quite involved in banking affairs. His bodies were a rare indulgence, and he couldn’t stay too long either, as his massive energy could easily get stuck with the lot of them, down to density.
                Overall, he was much more comfortable managing his immense wealth “up there”, in the cosmic realms he had helped shape. So many underlings were ready to carry on his biding, and apart from a few small number of very close ergo very dangerous confidants, many of the minions didn’t even know each other, or that they were, for the most part, owned by Him, and part of the same team.

                This was a cut-throat business, He had to admit, and everything was based on it. Manipulation and deceit, coercion, coaxing, anything necessary to control and manage the Empire.

                One of those confidants, Lord Apex had been summoned and appeared almost instantly.
                He had this charming archangelic halo and aura, but Lord R’eye would have none of it. A correction was in order, the latest results were extremely concerning.

                “My Lord?” Apex asked in his mellifluous voice.
                “My dear Apex, remind me what responsibility I gave you last century?”
                “Of course my Lord, the Innovation project, the Great Disclosure and Holographic Contact projects, amongst other proj…”
                “And how much progress have we had with those?”
                “Well, my Lord surely knows that so much herding is delicate. The interference with Lord Bael’s projects too, you should know…”
                “The Desert and Green Revolutions projects, indeed. A great success, so much pain and anguish! That’s what I’m talking, you should learn from Bael.”
                “But my Lord, that has caused quite a conundrum with the Mars simulation, which, by way of fractal holographic recurrence, could well impact the whole delicate matrix we weave…”
                “Stop your angel speech, Me’dammit. Plain Anguish, so I can understand every word. The Hell pits cannot wait to have you, so you better give some good explanation.”
                “I mean, my Lord, that were the sheeple able to glimpse that the Mars experiment is but a reflection of a deception of grander scale in the cosmic realms, that the aliens saviours, or whatever saviours or… masters of any genre, are just ways to fleece them off their power… “
                “Everything would unravel like a pile of dominos.” Lord R’eye’s voice made very clear that he had full grasp of the situation. “So,” he continued with the nicest menacingest voice “you better make sure that doesn’t happen.”

                He dismissed Apex with a wave of a thought.

                If the net of illusions unravelled before they have time to create the Earth 5th Dimension in time to double their profit, it would certainly be a disaster.

                A few humans lost through the gaps were a hard to accept reality, but so long as they could cut the losses, it was not dramatic. But they were talking another order of magnitude. It could be a definitive blow. It always had been an issue when the net of illusion became too big in the past. They had bigger and bigger holes. So they had to start again, destroy, and recreate civilisations.
                Stupid humans, if only they knew that Ascension was not the way out.

                #3800

                In reply to: Mandala of Ascensions

                Dispy was starting her own secret Descended Dissent Classes.

                It was not long ago that she had a very sudden and all-encompassing revelation at one of her flights above the great tundra of Siberia, which she liked for some reason to fly over, counting the red spots made by the fly agaric mushrooms in the tundra.

                She’d been very disturbed by the revelations about her assignment to the Mars mission. She’d genuinely thought she was in for the support of the greatest advancement of humanity since quite many decades, and to realize it was all a quite twisted experiment made her uneasy at her core. She had some profound respect for her teacher, and despite her usual impulses to immediately confront Medlik for the inherent contradictions in his self-professed compassion and wisdom talks, something in her had told her to remain quiet and observe. And more surprisingly, she had complied. And observed very attentively.

                During her flight afterwards, the same strong impulse had told her to land in the tundra, right next to a very nice patch of red. Being ascended had the wonderful benefit she wouldn’t feel the bone chilling cold, and she could just immerse herself in the joy of the scenery, and at the same time felt all very quiet and full of love and, strangely, a sort of distant regret for not being able to feel more of the cold and the whole scenery. And in the silence, she had a sudden unraveling of reality like never before. She could see the contradictions she noticed, one after another, destroying every layer of what she thought she knew, only to be left as a silent, quiet and very aware presence. She could have stayed like this a long long time, but she felt the call for the next Ascended class, for which she was late, as usual.

                She continued to ponder while she teleported back, and without word (again, quite unusual), formed the resolve to expose more of the truth she’d grasped. Create a fifth column for the Descended, something her old friend who liked spy fictions would definitely have loved to hear about. But for now, she would have to keep it quiet, and maintain her cover at the Order of the Ascended Masters. She’d worked quite hard (well, not as hard as many, but that wasn’t the point) to get to her coronation, so she now had a nice Light Clearance that allowed her to tap into the Coloured Light Rays. This would be helpful.

                In the beginning, she’d thought naively that concealing her true motives and secretly recruit like-minded students would be terribly difficult, but to the contrary, she found the light to be very responsive and easy to bend into subtle illusions of the truth. In short, she could still lie very well, and quite effectively. As though the light helped her in her attempts.

                At the moment, she just had one student, Domba. They were meeting out-of-body at a hut in Chernobyl. The place was actually quite nice, and teaming with wildlife and surprisingly gorgeous nature. The perfect hideout.

                Her course, well, was a course in spontaneity mostly. She would help people question reality, and authority. Something she had been lightwashed to forget for awhile too.

                Domba had a pure heart, and was full of illusions. It had been easy to recruit him. She had to start with what he brought to her. At the beginning, mostly quotes of spiritual teachers. She had to teach him to question and see by himself.

                “The Buddha said that when we dedicate merit, it is like adding a drop of water to the ocean. Just as a drop of water added to the ocean will not dry up but will exist as long as the ocean itself exists, so, too, if we dedicate the merit of any virtuous deed, it merges with the vast ocean of merit that endures until enlightenment.” – Padmasambhava

                That quote he brought was interesting. The idea of being a drop of water lost in the ocean was enough to make her lightskin crawl. Because it reminded her all too well of the manipulations of the ascended masters. Twisting just barely enough the Love stream, so that It would be redirected just were they wanted.

                So they meditated on that for now.

                #3794

                In reply to: The Hosts of Mars

                ÉricÉric
                Keymaster

                  “You can call us the Blue Enders” said gently one of the blue aliens, which by the shade of it, must have been a top ranking official.
                  Kale was a bit confused, and space had a jelly consistency that harped and warped around his ears. It may have been the injections they gave him after the meeting with the sculpturesque Fin Min.

                  She had explained to him, they had made contact with a unknown sentient civilisation, and that they had in their infinite and blue compassion decided to warn us of impending doom on the Mars colony. They had requested a translator to go with them on a rescue mission on their faster-than-light bluship named Sprakle Star.

                  Hazy and fuzzy, he was quickly put and wrapped in a ball of cotton, ear-deep into a globe coaster of roller proportions.
                  At least, that’s how it felt… That waccine must have been full of blue bees.

                  “Arrival on Mars orbital level 1, in 5,… 4… 3…”

                  At least, the Blunders had the good idea to put an instant translator in his ear-muffins.

                  #3793

                  In reply to: The Hosts of Mars

                  TracyTracy
                  Participant

                    Godfrey had started to sweat when Lizette had called him Gordon, fearing she might have blown his cover. Just as he made a move to clamp his hand over her mouth, the medical bay had lurched sideways, throwing Lizette with force in the direction of his approaching hand. The result of the two forces colliding on her face had knocked her out cold.

                    But nobody was paying any attention to them in the confusion. Godfrey slung Lizette over his shoulder like a sack of rice, and hastily retreated from the medical bay. The stupid woman had made everything that much more complicated. He toyed with the idea of just leaving her on the waiting room floor, but it was too dangerous. What might she blurt out when she came round?

                    #3791

                    In reply to: The Hosts of Mars

                    ÉricÉric
                    Keymaster

                      Before he retired and made cave carving his hobby, Pádraig was an IT engineer. That was a few years back, and not long after, most of them became redundant with the rise of new generations of NI (near-intelligent) phones and computers. He’d happily taken an early retirement, so that he could enjoy a simple life and get to reacquaint with his daughter. He’d succeeded at least on the first objective.

                      It was twilight when he’d left his cave, and looking at the horizon, he’d noticed strange shimmering, and a lone bird of prey circling the area in the direction of the restricted area of the desert.
                      It’d given him an idea.
                      He still had the old drone in his garage, from the time when they were all the furor. You could buy them on online stores very easily back then, even print them in your house. But then, some do-gooders became concerned, about privacy, security or all that bullshit, and they were banned. Actually, the only ones still flying where from the army, and they would tear down any unidentified hobbyist’s drone, and likely give them some jail time if they had the chance.

                      It was exciting to do something on the fringe of what was authorized. Pádraig couldn’t wait to see if he could make his old drone fly over the area, check what happened there.

                      He was a bit lost in his thoughts when the dog’s barking made him notice the white car parked in front of his aluminium trailer, which had triggered all his spotlights.
                      He had a moment of panic before he realized that the car wasn’t from the men in black or aliens, but worse. It was Imelda, his do-gooder of a daughter.

                      #3786

                      In reply to: The Hosts of Mars

                      prUneprUne
                      Participant

                        I dreamt about Mater last night. She was her old self, brilliant and snappily dangerous.

                        It’s been the first dream I’ve been able to remember in weeks. I don’t know why I expected the great beyond space to be less… claustrophobic, but there’s no escaping the confinement.
                        I was telling her I was missing home, the air, the smell of eucalyptus trees, the rains before winter. I think I even became sentimental about my sisters. Hardly a news from them these days, but how could I blame them. They are always busy on some down-to-earth cause, and I know better than to criticize those on the ground actually doing something to change the wrongdoings of the world.
                        When I started to cry uncontrollably, Mater told me I was a baby, and that I should man up. Typical Mater. Dido would have called her names under her breath, I think that was her way to express her love for her. People are silly.

                        In the dream, I stopped crying but the tears had swollen into a river, and I was starting to drown, things became hellish and I could barely breathe, but somehow I could still feel Mater’s presence, like a beacon. I made it out of the torrents onto an island. There were many refugees. The doctors had the strangest blue eyes, and Mater’s voice told me to trust the process but not the doctors. Then I felt all the blue eyes looking at me, and I woke up in a sweat.

                        Hans is still deep in a peaceful sleep, so I went out of the bedroom to get some water and check on the piggy and her litter. They are always sleeping blissfully too. It’s a wonder when you think of it, that I thought it was just getting fatter when it actually was pregnant from before we left Earth. Now they’re mostly an open secret, as everyone finds them so cute.

                        The most difficult was to conceal them from the reality TV show’s cameras. The hysterical fans are always scrutinizing every move we all make, and keeping some privacy is tricky, but apart from the external prying eyes, pretty much everyone here know about them and it’s like a game of hide and seek. I like how it fuels the speculations and paranoia of the Mars bunker debunking association, who think we’re all part of a mass cover-up. I’ve spent some time on their website when I couldn’t sleep the first weeks when we arrived. I would probably have never known about it, but I just searched for myself on the web, and found this thread about the new conspirators. I had to laugh at the beginning, but they raise reasonable doubts in the middle of their rants. By now, I know better than to raise the topic, especially after all the religious nonsense. Seems there are some people that get really annoyed when I asked naive questions about it, like Maya.

                        Like I said. People are silly.

                        #3784

                        In reply to: The Hosts of Mars

                        ÉricÉric
                        Keymaster

                          Pádraig was alone as usual with his dog when he felt the first tremors. Dust started to fall from the large columns of sandstone inside the cave. He wasn’t too worried at first, as the area still had some faint thermal and seismic activity, but the second aftershock took him by surprise.

                          He almost fell violently backwards if he hadn’t had good enough reflexes to grab on the half carved ledge of the column he was working on.
                          His dog started to howl violently.

                          “Hush, Poppy!” the dust made him cough. “Must be those stupid government guys from the nearby base. I thought they’d stopped their nuclear testing decades ago…”

                          The dog didn’t stop barking though, but darted out in one of the carved galleries. It stopped just before going out of sight, as if waiting for his master.

                          “Oh, what now silly? I’m getting old for these games.”

                          But the dog was stubborn, a trait they had in common, his dead wife would have told him. So he relented, and went in the direction the dog was leading to.

                          It took him a few hundred meters in the tunnel to realize something odd had happened. The air was full of moisture, quite unusual at this time of year. He pressed on.
                          The dog’s paws were making tick-tick noises on the stones, and echoed in the chambers. His gait was less light, and he had to stop a few times to catch his breath. His life’s work was now quite monumental, and it could take quite a while to go from one end to another.
                          Before they reached the last chamber, he had to stop. His feet were getting wet.
                          It had been his dream for a long time, to bring water deep down to create a sort of natural healing pool, and bathe in the beautiful minerals, but he’d done some research, and although he’d always believed some underground river was nearby, he’d never managed to find it, or find any trace in the cadastral maps.

                          Seemed it wasn’t as far as he’d thought after all.

                          #3780

                          In reply to: The Hosts of Mars

                          TracyTracy
                          Participant

                            Kale quickly contemplated cutting the cords that connected him to the whole thing. For a fleeting fraction of a moment, he even considered the possibility of Flynn being involved in a covert nefarious plot with the dark haired woman, but dashed the thought from his mind. A slight nagging uneasy feeling remained when he remembered the way Flynn had got a bit too big for his boltcroppers sending the application without consultation.

                            But Kale was curious. He made up his mind not to accept the position (just in case anyone was plotting against him: with his past, it was as well to be cautious), but that he would attend the interview.

                            “You have been chosen” she’s said.

                            Kale recalled the frisson of excitement he felt in his ungirded loins when she’d said that, and the flash of knowing recognition in her eyes before the scornful smirk returned. He’d never been able to resist a girl in cobalt blue loingirders. Especially an exotic enigmatic one.

                            #3775

                            In reply to: The Hosts of Mars

                            TracyTracy
                            Participant

                              The fishnet tights in cobalt blue were actually made of cannabone, the relatively new hemp replicator compound, which was lightweight, flexible, and supportive. The attractive dark haired woman’s loins were girded in a matching cobalt blue cannabone loingirder.

                              #3773

                              In reply to: The Hosts of Mars

                              ÉricÉric
                              Keymaster

                                Finnley Morgan was towering over the slouched Eb with her impressive height of Nubian Goddess. Her unimpressed rolling-eyes look made him want to dig deeper underground and look with great care at the tip of his feet.

                                “Really this is your plan? Blue bending robot aliens?”

                                He could have sworn she guffawed, only that Finnley Morgan didn’t do such things as guffaw. Or snicker, or snort —well, that one, maybe in private on certain occasions.
                                Anyway, he didn’t have to reply.

                                “Well, just under 2 weeks, who would have guessed you’d deliver? The whole roster of generals wanted to raze the area clean as a baby’s butt, said it would be simpler, and here you come,… managing something…”
                                “Elegant?” ventured Eb, in a mouse-like voice.
                                “What? No, I mean, something unexpected… Well, that could well work now. When do you send the first tremors, meteors or other cataclysms so we can have your robots do the cleaning? We haven’t got all year now, and they look like they come with an expiry date, no offence.”

                                “None taken.” came the suave robot voice of Finnley on the walls.

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                              • India Louise had been switching her own book with Cuthbert’s that night. And as she was exploring some of the stories told in his, he was having a peek into hers. Very quickly, he became aware of a whole new continent, in that World, across the Middle Seas. In that continent far North of the one where ... · ID #206 (continued)
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