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A raucous explosion of laughter cackled in the neighbourhood, waking up Bea from her afternoon siesta.
“SHUT UP!” she bawled covering her ears with a cushion, and looked desperately at something she could throw at the window. Alas, save for a manikin’s leg that looked like she owned a pegleg, and a piece of half-eaten banana, there was nothing she could find.

She resigned herself to waking up, and pried open her little wrinkled eyes in the late afternoon purple light.

Every time she woke up, she had to reacquaint herself with her reality. Not that she was such a junkie on computer duster, as that rat had rudely implied, it wasn’t only that.
A few months before, she had an epiphany. Many years of meditation, guided, in groups, alone, with zen masters and copious reading had amounted to nothing but the occasional nice fluffy feeling. It was when she had decided to drop it all of sheer frustration, and burn all the stupid self-help books that something had chanced upon herself.
She’d lost her ego. Poof, disappeared, like that.

Before that, she was completely adverse to endings, and to any form of deleting.
But now, she understood the words she’d read many years ago that had infuriated her profoundly at the time : “Everything must be scrutinised and the unnecessary ruthlessly destroyed. Believe me, there cannot be too much destruction. For, in reality, nothing is of value.”

She was. And every waking up was a wake up to her eternal self.
So obviously, the external appearances left a bit to be desired, now that desire was not. Continuity was never there in the first place.

But to live, she had to find again what new reality she had just awoken to, as she did every morning, and after every siesta.
Truth is, she kind of liked it, the non-continuity of it. Before, she would have gloated to whoever that name of an old friend of hers, that she was right about it, the unnecessary of that continuity babble. Now there was no need of it.

A loud cackle outside stirred her back to reality.

His mother had told him not to trust what he would see. Somehow she’d spoken as if she knew more than she wanted to tell.

After the mayhem with the quakes, and the meteor impact, he thought that was it. There was something more to the reality of these events.

But then, nothing could have prepared them for what happened next. “Bloody aliens?”

Suspiciously, everyone seemed completely hypnotized and blissfully eager to follow them wherever they led. He had tried to wake Yz up, she was usually the no-nonsense one, but she’d looked at him with vacant eyes barely recognizing him with a faint “Johnny?”.

He started to get really suspicious when one of the robots started looking at his behaviour, not packing like the others. It even tried to force him to drink water —dehydration was common in these airtight environments, it said. It was then it dawned on him, that there must have put something in the water. But for what? A Mars take-over?

How he was somehow immune? Well, for a while he’d collected the water dripping from the stones, and had analysed it, found it very pure. A few days ago, before the whole string of disasters, he’d tried to drink it, see how it tasted, and it seemed safe. Must have been why. By now, most of the stones he’d collected had dried up, and his water supply was limited.

While pretending to slowly pack his things, he was looking at everyone queueing in short lines, all very ecstatic to go to the implausible blue boot-ship surrounded by watchful Finnleys. The exodus had a very eerie feeling about it.

He could see most of the persons he knew, even the new ones, Prune cuddling a box with her hamster family, Hans, even that daft Lizette and the mines guy. The religious nuts were so stoned they were all following an obviously overdressed robot with a headpiece they probably took for their religious leader.

But wait… His mother? He hadn’t see her. Where had she gone?

It was a quiet day in the mines.
Godfrey’s teams were operating at less than 10% of the usual. Most of the Indian guys who worked there had taken unpaid leaves for the observance of the Ganesh festival.

It was all a bit silly, come to think about it, for so many reasons.
One obviously, was that the dates were aligned on Earth’s calendar, for supposedly practical reasons, but which had nothing to do with the environment they were living in now. What good was a lunar calendar when Mars had two main moons, the lovely named Fear (Phobos) and Dread (Deimos), and of course completely different day times and years.
Anyhow, that wasn’t the least of the incoherences. You’d normally have to find a natural body of water to immerse the elephant clay statues. Good luck with that on Mars. But there was no stopping the rituals to find ways to survive. He’d heard an artificial pool would be temporarily erected at the Matrimandir to allow for the ritual to be performed.
A waste of good water, if you asked him.

The only good thing about it was that there was more calm than usual, mostly robots diligently carving the walls, and harvesting the yellow stones.

The day before, there had been an unusual ruckus after a heated speech by the Head Nutter of the Religious Nuts, the old wrinkled as a prune Mother Shirley. She spoke of dread and doom, and having to repent and all. Gosh, did she put on a show.
He smirked. All that was missing was a human sacrifice, and they would be irrevocably back to the good old ways of the religious fanatics…

Even his Hindu friends seemed to have been affected and shown a renewed fervour at their own rituals. After all, their Lord Ganesh was supposed to remove obstacles. Or well, truth is, He was also supposed to create obstacles for the demons. But you’d never know whether you were on his good side or not.

Maybe the unusualness of that day gave him some heightened attention, but Godfrey started to notice some other strange patterns.
The Finnleys on duty were acting glitchy this morning. Looking through the console, he’d noticed there were some logs for the past days’ activity missing, and an unusual activity around some of the old tunnels which were used for temporary storage of the sulphur’s crates.

An irrational doubt started to creep on him, enhanced by the feeling of unusually low activity inside the dusty bowels of the red planet.
There was really no reason to worry, he tried to reassure himself, but as he’d liked to repeat, better be safe than sorry.

He pushed the intercall button and called for an emergency evacuation drill.

Prune was listening to Maya and Yz, not daring to talk, much less to disagree.
Yz was back to the planet from her maintenance drill on the mothership, and had found their remote outpost overloaded with new clueless settlers.
Now, even Maya, who was always the understanding one was fuming at the vexing situation and couldn’t help but complain about the new Mars settlers’ manners (or lack thereof). The matter was of importance, but somehow Johnny couldn’t help but find it hilarious.

“Johnny! Stop laughing, it’s not at all funny!”
“I’m sorry, it’s the nerves!” he replied “I didn’t want to poke fun at your horror story, Mum.”
“You damn right, it IS a bit of a horror story. Well, I don’t know what kind of a story it is. These new settlers that moved here are disorganized conflict and chaos all the time. And now nobody has a permit for sand scooter but me. So everything I do takes me 6 times as long with everyone else… and its hot!”

She paused a little, smiling at Prune, then turned to Yz, who seemed equally annoyed by the recent mess.

Prune ventured a word “But you really love the idea of cooperative community sharing, don’t you.”
Maya nodded, then continued “but it sucks! IT SUCKS!… and it’s all a bit weird too. It’s a daily juggle with what I’m willing to say yes to, and where I draw the line and say no.”

She sighed. “But some of it is fun, obviously. But much of it isn’t. I think everyone is struggling with finding themselves disconcertingly in a totally new place.
The new place for me is never being alone to do anything, where before I almost always was, and really wanted people to do things with. But they are LATE and I can do things on my own easier.
I prefer being a hermit while preaching about community. And doing things my own way while pushing for cooperation!”

It didn’t help that Maya had agreed to help organize the event for Mother Shirley (though the party had changed the event location to the nearby fancier townlet of Romars without notice, instead of their rugged but peaceful village).

The event had attracted the usual throng of nuts and illuminated sycophants, which would have dissolved just as well, if not for an unusual occurrence: Mother Shirley had claimed to have a divine vision by merging consciousness with the AI of the ship. She had seen floods and rains. Image that! As if water on Mars, was not ludicrous enough, now floods!
All of a sudden, all hell broke loose and the religious nuts managed to create a panic, and had loads of people rush for the higher ground… Well, you guessed, to their previously quiet outpost.

Of course, she had said nothing of the water-rocks she and John had found. Better not to encourage the nutters.

Strange new place, indeed…

When Matilda, the local bag lady, saw the scene, she almost fell on her knees and prayed.
But then as the child seemed more than a passing gin induced vision, she told to herself “get a grip, Mati, there’s a child who obviously needs your help by the smell of it, no offense deer.”

“Who ratted me out, obviously”.
Godfrey said finishing a mouthful of peanuts from the smallish bag the air attendant had just given to them.
“So, what’s the next destination now? not home surely?” “By the way, this nice Australian family will rue the day they met you. You managed to make their only paying guest flee as soon as you arrived with that bawling baby of yours.”

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The mirage was no longer a fleeting evasive picture.
They could see the pyramid’s top quite clearly, drawing them to its spot. By the robot’s estimation, they should already have reached it two days ago.
But it stood there, unmovable, and somehow still out of reach, an always moving horizon line.

“May I suggest a drumming session?” Jeremy asked around the campfire.
Arona raised her head silently but intrigued. The rude cat jumped on a flat stone and questioned him “What do you know about drumming, young boy?”
“Well, obviously that place is protected from intrusion, and we have to find the key to its entrance. I found drumming can help align our intents and give us inner clarity. Maybe one of us will find clues.”

It took them some time to discuss about technicalities, assemble a drum with a piece of Arona’s cape, and silence out their chatters, but after an unmeasurable and undetermined amount of time, they were all drawn into a pridanic journey to the rainbow world.

When they came out of the trance, Jeremy looked at them, amazed and excited by what he had seen.

First, they had travelled, guided by a herd of unicorns, to the heights of Karmalott, only to find it deserted, with faceless spirits leaving it.
When they shared their accounts, it seemed they all had seen in some form, the old City descending, with the wilting beanstalk bearing its weight with increasing difficulty. A flight of storks guided many to a safe place, and they’d seen most people would be fine.

It was then that they saw the P’hope mounted on a creature flying awkwardly like a bat, descending towards the pyramid. Greenie recognized him and with him painful feelings of betrayal came back. George as well remembered old secrets, and why he was the King, and how his departure had precipitated Karmalott’s fate.
As for Irina, riding on a spirit zebra, she’d found that people from her past were after her and her dear Mr R, and had followed her on the island. Using the teleporting boxes of the temple could send her to a safe place. Maybe on one of Mars’ posts.
Arona realized, there was little hope she could claim her bounty, as there was no longer a City to bring Greenie back to. But then, a spirit tortoise showed her the Cup she was promised was lying deep in the underground clear lakes under the temple.

Jeremy was quick to point it out. “That’s it! The entrance is from below, we have to follow the underground currents.”

When Berberus arrived at Gazalbion, still wet from his swim down beanstalk through the City’s sewer waterslides, the Great Processor in person came to great him.

“Dear, dear, what have we here. That’s not so often the P’hope sends someone down here with us poor heathen… To what do we owe the pleasure?”

By the look of his office, the Processor was doing well. Small favours had earned him enough belief of his worth, and his office was full of amenities otherwise hard to come by and much more to sustain, down there.

“Would you share with me some hydromel, made from waterbee honey, you’re not mistaken. That should help you get more… comfortable.” He said his last word intently, giving a look at the hook-leg.

Berberus liked to have people guess at why he kept it so visible, while obviously he could have conjured enough belief to alter it himself. It gave him an edge over them. And the hook gave nasty scars too.

“Not drinking on duty.”
“Very well, suit yourself.” the Processor said drinking his voraciously.

“Any strange people coming lately? Out of the ordinary beliefs to contain?”
The other brushed off the question “No, not really… Now, about this promotion our dear friend the P’hope mentioned back in 2020, what do you think… Any chance to get out of this hellhole? Promised Land my butt. What do we get next? Flying whales?”
“You’re not. Answering. My. Question.” Berberus was already losing his patience and started to mentally conjure the many painful ways he could believe this talk would end.
“I have already answered it, and if you have nothing else to share with me, you might as well me back to your sad master.”

The Processor made a movement to get up from his chair, but a swift and precise swipe of the hook-leg anchored him back in it.

The other was looking at him with empty eyes, and the Processor’s mistake was to think he was an idiot that could be sent away easily.
He poured himself another drink, casually answering with a “We’re done. Get out.”

When Berberus got out, it was of his own volition, leaving a trail of blood up to the door.
He had managed to extract one word from the slob before his soul left his body: Sanso

The P’hope was closing his eyes on the wind business shadow market, as he was of course getting a share of the profits. There were not per se any physical currency in Karmalott, but people did their exchanges based on good faith, which was actually better than gold.

The good people had taken the habit to say that transactions were paid in bises, which was supposed to be a vague approximation for “Belief Support”, and a reminder of the city’s blazon, which was party per pale argent and vert, a waterbee eradicated counterchanged —which is easier seen that said, obviously.

The more bises people got, the likelier they were to manifest what they wanted.
So long as people were not too rich in bises, the P’hope’s power wasn’t threatened, and he kept a close eye on the biselords who always wore ample bear furs as a sign of power, and their invented coats of arms on their bellies, to harness the wishful power of their bises-ness.

The Time Seam Bar, as they renamed it, for all the efforts put in it had a slow start, but after a few weeks started to do extremely well.

Admittedly there was a bit of a public relationship boost offered (not quite completely out of generosity obviously) by the cable network. They’d been alerted of the re-purposing of the Time Sewer facility by the Queens after a routine control of their presence on cleaning duty. The report wasn’t glowing, but somehow a business-oriented member of the Board managed to get the Cable Network to lend some money and advertisement to bring the little venture to the next level.

Props got a major overhaul and interior designers helped rearrange the space. They even got the Queens an impersonator of St Germain, an old has-been forgotten star who was still on the Network’s payroll and whom they didn’t know what to do with. He was actually doing a brilliant St Germain.

Amar was in the room at the back, doing some accounting while Reginald was at the bar and Cedric was managing the fat dancers and, of course, St Germain’s shows. So far, the arrangement worked well, and they were quite proud of their success. Cedric’s mother couldn’t stop her praises and rants on the website’s page, so they had to moderate it a bit, but that was basically the most trouble they were in.

“Another day gone well…” Reginald was removing his wig and make-up, with Amar still counting the last cash made for the day.
“Reg’, I’ve started to remember things from our visit at the techromancer’s hut, I still don’t know what to do of it.”
“I’ve been remembering stuff too… Some scary shit.”

The whales’ dance on the dark bluish background lit by the tiniest reflection on floating seahorses and other sea creatures, made the scenery look like an eerie night skyline, full of moving stars.
The added feeling of weightlessness was empowering, and soon, the three queens passed side glances, barely interested by the words of wisdom of the hologram, and catching each other’s mind, almost asked their question at the same time.

Terry was the quickest this time, “Please, please, can you do a rendition of the Name Game with your disco ball lights, we’re all dying to do a dance! Please?”

Interestingly, the Hologram didn’t show any hesitation as it started to sing, and the three queens were all glowing as they adjusted their wigs, fins and other appendages.

The Name Game
Terry!
Terry, Terry bo Berry Bonana fanna fo Ferry
Fee fy mo Merry, Terry!
Sadie! Sadie, Sadie bo Badie Bonana fanna fo Fadie
Fee fy mo Madie, Sadie!
Come on everybody!
I say now let’s play a game
I betcha I can make a rhyme
Out of anybody’s name …

The lights were on, and the dresses glittered, Terry in the spur of the moment added kelp extensions to her wig to match the sardine tones of her suit, while Sadie’s only concession to fashion was a little glowing golden jellyfish that seemed to match her bob cut, and made for a funny pulsating hat.

Adamus was on, and unstoppable

The first letter of the name,
I treat it like it wasn’t there
But a B or an F, or an M will appear
And then I say Bo add a B
Then I say the name and Bonana fanna and a fo
And then I say the name again
With an F very plain and a fee fy and a mo
And then I say the name again
With an M this time
And there isn’t any name that I can’t rhyme.

A chorus of dolphins tried to join, having Consuela burst hysterically into peals of unstoppable laughter.

Consuela!
Consuela, Consuela bo Bonsuela Bonana fanna fo Fonsuela
Fee fy mo Monsuela, Consuela!
But if the first two letters are ever the same,
I drop them both and say the name
Like Bob, Bob drop the Bs Bo ob
For Fred, Fred drop the Fs Fo red
For Mary, Mary drop the Ms Mo ary
That’s the only rule that is contrary.

Maurana was shaking her head in seducing moves, pretending not to die of envy of the others, and expecting her turn.
And the music went on…

Okay? Now say Bo: Bo
Now Belen without a B: Elen
Then Bonana fanna fo: bonana fanna fo
Then you say the name again with an F very plain: Felen
Then a fee fy and a mo: fee fy mo !
Then you say the name again with an M this time: Melen
And there isn’t any name that you can’t rhyme
Maurana! Maurana, Maurana bo Baurana Bonana fanna fo Faurana
Fee fy mo Aurana, Maurana!

And they continued with all sorts of names for quite a while, even some of the whales’ and dolphins’ who were obviously enjoying the interlude.

“Did you get all that on video?” Maurana asked Sadie.
“Of course I did, the ezapper got it all. Linda Paul and the network won’t believe their eyes, it’s some heavy material! Even better than gold bars!” Sadie could barely believe what had just happened.

The whales seemed to have been so thrilled that after a moment of silence, a smaller one broke off the cycle, went to the huge crystal and took a heart shaped shard of it to offer them.

“I guess that’s their way of burning a DVD, what do you think?” Consuela was blissfully hopeless with technology, but could also have some moments of brilliance.

“We should go now” Sadie said looking up from the ezapper “it looks like some unidentified giant blue crab is coming at us, and we better let the whales handle it.”

“Are we going through that awful sewer again?” Maurana was starting to get green at the idea.

“I don’t think so, I had Sanso pick us up at the underwater cave thanks to Consuela surprise reconnaissance mission. He just arrived and he just texted me his location. It’s not far from here. He seems to have managed to herd a few octopi to carry us across. Always surprisingly resourceful this one, I might start to like him…”
Snapping from her emotions, she continued
“Time to say your adieus to 2222 ladies. Tonight, everyone’s a winner. We’re going to be famous.”

“There is a fine balance between touch ups and shoehorning”
Jonbert was half-listening to the rant of his tailor and shoemaker, as he was trying on a new outfit and tartan kilt.
Jonbert’s temper had improved slightly, and he was up to moderate amount of grumpiness as he’d learnt of the arrival of the elder whale, and of the throwing of his guests in the midst of the cetaceans. That explained how he could tolerate much of it.

“You can’t just shoehorn any pattern under the pretext that you fancy it. It has to be in harmony with the moment, in pure synchronistic bliss.” His tailor, Erldrich Lumoncelli, was often prone to bouts of philosophical ramblings that Jonbert had to suffer to get the perfect tailored suits he wanted.

“Oh, bugger that nonsense,” he suddenly shouted, unable to suffer more of the airy monologue. “You’ll give me that gold and orange tartan and those yellow dots on my green shoes if I tell you so. Orange will bring out my shiny hair and light complexion I reckon.”

Color-blind Jonbert wasn’t obviously as savvy for colour matching as he was for time-travelling business, but Erldrich knew better than to infuriate him with aesthetic negotiations.
“Very well Sir.”
He finished taking the measurements quickly, folded back the swatches of textile, and bowed out as if his house was on fire.

Jonbert pulled back his heavy mane of hair into a neat French catogan, truly a unapologetic snobbishness on his part, as it didn’t look very different from a usual ponytail, but somehow sounded more distinguished. Nobody likes to be compared to a pony, do they?
He walked past the great central hall of the submarine, into the Sightseethroughing Dome Room, and considered for a moment to visit the butterfly nursery, in case the new butterflies were hatched yet. But if butterflies had taught him something is that you couldn’t hurry and cut open a cocoon before the butterfly was ready. There was no such thing as a mythical half-caterpillar half-butterfly creature, every change was a complete change, and it had its own timing.

But now things were back on course, and the 22nd of February 2222 was still days ahead. Time again was on his side.