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  • #2938
    Jib
    Participant

      In all that chaos, noboty noticed a strange woman in a red coat wearing sunglasses, and taking pictures of everything. She had just come through the portal, which she cleverly put in the Mary Poppins pocket of her coat.
      Not even the cat had noticed her.

      #2937

      Yikesy, who had been quietly observing the assembled gathering, gave a whale-like shout. Fortunately, he had remembered to wear his voice-muter gadget, and for most of those gathered in the room his shout was nearly imperceptible.

      Sanso, who had his voice-muter-deactivator turned up full volume, leapt up in alarm. In the process, poor Janet went flying, landing on Sir Ed, who had been starting to stagger unsteadily to his feet. The impact of Janet’s ample frame hitting him full-force caused Sir Ed to lose his footing and, in his descent, he knocked his head on a charming wooden replica of a Tahitian dancing girl. (This was actually the same one which had earlier been mistaken for a hippopotamus.)

      “What is the matter, Yikesy?” asked Sanso, managing to keep a clear focus in the midst of the ensuing chaos.

      Yikesy smiled smugly. “I knew there was something strange about this map, and I have cleverly worked it out: there are 257 place names and all of them, except 12, have 5 letters and start with the letter E.”

      “Of course, I should have spotted that!” exclaimed Sanso. “Well done, Yikesy.”

      #2933
      TracyTracy
      Participant

        “Honey, we’re shrunk!” explained Bee. “Remember that jelly baby I gave you half an hour ago? It was a miniaturizing potion. We’re inside the Magpie shaped teapot on the shelf in the kitchen.”

        “That would explain the strange shape of this room and the curved chimney alright, but what to we do next?”

        “Well, there’s a snag.” said Bee. “The re-enlargement jelly babies are still in the bathroom. We’re going to have to find a way back there.”

        Just then the sound of muffled voices became louder and closer. “Anyone fancy a cuppa?” they heard Pearl asking.

        And then the earth moved. Bee and Mari Fe were hurtling from one side of the teapot to the other, crashing into each other, trying to find something to hold onto on the slippery walls.

        #2931
        TracyTracy
        Participant

          “It’s just a jump to the right, Mari Fe” whispered Bee, trying not to giggle. Mari Fe was giggling so hard the tears were rolling down her face.
          “Give me a minute Bee” she gasped, wiping her eyes. “I need to get a grip before I can continue.”
          SHHH! they’ll hear you! They don’t know you’re in here!”
          “In ~ where are we, Bee?” asked Mari Fe, looking around at the strange dimensions and shape of the room. “Where are we?”

          #2930
          Jib
          Participant

            Janet heard a door squeak like an agonizing mouse. Her heart jumped in her chest when she recognized the half bald man who came through… and the implications. The old clock rang. Janet didn’t know Mari Fe had such an antique in her house. Maybe it was on the other side of that door.

            Riff Raff… “, she said. Her throat was suddenly tight and she could barely swallow. “What are you doing here ?”

            “It’s astounding, time is fleeting
            Madness takes its toll
            But listen closely, not for very much longer
            You’ve got to keep control”

            “Who’s that man,” asked Pearl, “he’s ugly. And why is he singing… and sweeping the old clock ?”
            “I think we’re in a time wart, again”, said a crestfallen Janet.

            #2928
            Jib
            Participant

              Aqua Luna was listening to her favorite channeler on the radio. He spoke for Glasnik, a being from another dimension where people were more like translucent snails. She had always loved the way the man came into a trance, he was snorking and sneezing while moving his head up and down, and quickly bouncing between right and left.

              This particular channel was about new crystaline portals. She didn’t understand all that he was saying, she was not very clever her mama had told her so many times. But listening to the message was giving her the sense of being part of some huge secret and she could still quote his words. That part about crystalline portals was giving her creeps, it was hard for her to imagine what would beings from other dimensions look like. Except for a snail, of course.

              “So this is all about mystery and watermelon seeds. (laughs from the audience) Does that help you ?”

              Aqua Luna was even more confused. It was the end of the channel and she couldn’t listen back. She passed her frustration on Cornella’s keyboard, rubbing vigorously between the keys. Indeed, mysteries are countless in this dimension as she inadvertantly found the right password to unlock Cornella’s computer. The machine bipped and she was logged in.

              She was so startled by the sound that she bounced back and fall on her butt. She got up as she could, she was not a sportswoman, rather the contrary. She was ranting in her mother tongue when she realized the screen was different. It looked like a kind of map, with little dots blinking on it.

              #2926
              ÉricÉric
              Keymaster

                On their way to the car for more convenient tools for the job, Janet continued to counter Pearl’s objections: “Oh, let’s do it and be done with it, we’ve got other fish to fry. Now that the plan to make Ed disappear and extort all his secrets from him is nothing but a fiasco, we’ve got at least to cover our tracks. ‘No guarantee where they’ll end up?’ Fine! Works great for me if you should ask! Wonderland? All the better!” Janet vituperated.
                “Yeah, you probably right. Better be done with it before the next surge…”
                “Shall you elaborate?”
                “No time for this, deary, we’ve got work to do, bring on the pocket-sized forklift before others come out of this bleeding-though portal!”

                #2922
                F LoveF Love
                Participant

                  “Bugger!” exclaimed Pearl. “There is a Portal Worker in the bathroom. He says the portal is temporarily closed for repairs. He says there was a surge of unprecedented proportions, and they have to check all the portals before they are used. It is just routine procedure, he says.”

                  Janet smelt a rat. “Hmmm, how very strange. I have never heard of portals being repaired before and what would cause such a huge surge?”

                  (aside from the writer: what is a surge?)

                  “I know! weirdo. So, I asked him if we could stick a few bodies in the portal anyway, but he said he couldn’t guarantee where they would end up, and it was against company policy. What shall we do? Slim Lips is starting to come around”.

                  #2917
                  TracyTracy
                  Participant

                    There wasn’t a cloud in the sky over the mudflats of the Guadalquivir river delta. Bob and Dennis were having a late breakfast of tapas on the terrace of a local bar: battered cuttlefish testicles, ensaladilla Rusa, and reindeer meat montaditos, washed down with fino sherry.

                    “ We better get back to work, Dennis. I have a feeling we’re very close to finding something.” said Bob.

                    “Excuse me, did you mention work?” a voice piped up from a table behind them. “I’m looking for work. Just got out of jail yesterday ~ oh don’t panic!” the man in the scarlet sweater said, noticing their raised eyebrows. “I wasn’t in there for any crime, just for being an illegal immigrant. My name’s Barry, by the way, pleased to meet you.”

                    “Well, Barry, this is your lucky day!” replied Bob. “It just so happens we could do with an extra pair of hands today. Nothing permanent, or legal ~ ha ha ~ but a bit of cash in hand might come handy, eh?”

                    Barry was well aware of Bob and Dennis’s mission, but he didn’t let on.

                    “Be happy to, yes! What kind of work is it?”

                    “We’re looking for a p p p p portal, m m m mate” said Dennis.

                    ~~~ ~~~

                    In almost no time at all during the afternoon work in the mudflats and marshes, Barry shouted “Bob! Dennis! I think I’ve found it!” He was holding a large stone disc , looking for all the world like a Marie biscuit.

                    #2915
                    TracyTracy
                    Participant

                      While Baltazar was unconscious in the attic he had a strange dream . He was being handcuffed and arrested for being an illegal immigrant.

                      #2914
                      TracyTracy
                      Participant

                        “I wish I knew, Ed. And don’t call me Chicken!” she added crossly. Mari Fe wasn’t sure what to do next. She needed to keep an eye on Ed, but she needed to revive Baltazar and get him in place for the exchange of the Kings during the parade.

                        “Help me carry him up to the attic, Ed. I’ll tie him up and we can decide what to do with him later.” and then exclaimed, “ Oh lordy, what now!” as the doorbell rang. It was Rogelio from next door, the man who was to play the part of Baltazar in the parade.

                        Mari Fe didn’t know what to do so she hit him over the head with a handy tagine that was displayed on her old Micronesian teak cabinet.

                        “Firmly handled, Chicken”, Ed said, “But why on earth would you do that ?”

                        “Don’t call me Chicken!” Mari Fe replied, thinking to herself I really must stop resorting to violence. “Help me carry him up to the attic, and we’ll tie him up with B… with that man.”

                        Halfway up the stairs Mari Fe had an impulse to hit Ed over the head, with the detachable head of one of her mannequins. Plunging headlong from one disaster to another, she wished she had done it after the other two bodies were already in the attic. Now she had three large men cluttering up her stairs, and nobody to help her carry them up to the attic.

                        “I’m in a pickle now”, she said. “I hope Bee arrives soon, with Janet and Pearl.”

                        #2907

                        Yann was proud of himself, he had answered his first phone call in Chinese.

                        When they first arrived at the hotel, it was a wonderful and colorful place, all those reds and warm yellows, with well chosen touches of blue and green. The morning light was illuminating the lobby in a soothing way, it seemed as if it was gently brushing the leather of the armchairs and sofas. He noticed an old cleaning lady carefully sweeping the tiles of the floor one by one.

                        “I love this place”, he had told Yurick. “It’s so peaceful, I feel energized.”

                        The big smile on his face stayed there even when he first realized noone in the hotel could speak English or French, or even Javanese. Yurick was speaking Chinese after all.
                        But Yurick was not always here. He had to go out for a meeting with a certain Lulla for work. And Yann desperately needed to call a taxi. So he plucked up courage and called the hotel management.

                        “Ni hao [incomprensible Chinese words] ?”
                        Did it really ended with a question mark ? Yann was not sure. “Ni hao”, he said. He was so concerned by the thought of his awful pronunciation that he missed what the person answered.
                        “I number 447 (translated from Chinese). I wanting taxi.”
                        “[incomprehensible] 47 ?”
                        “No. 400, 40, 7.”
                        “Ah! 447. You are the French guy. (translated from Chinese)”
                        “Yes, French guy. I wanting taxi.”
                        “Ok, [incomprehensible]. Ok ?”
                        “Ok. Thank you.”

                        He hanged up the phone with an artificial sense of trust. That, he had learnt in that country was primordial. You launched your rocket of desire to the universe and trust that it would all end up as you desired. With that philosophy you better be clear with what you wanted.

                        #2905
                        ÉricÉric
                        Keymaster

                          The package was labeled in Sinese. Goat was fluent in a few languages after many a travel, and although Sinese wasn’t his mother tongue — he was only half-Sinese from his father’s side, he could read it well enough, and make himself passably understood in most of the Colonies.
                          It was a code, or more precisely, a reference. It said 时间舱23号, which you could probably translate as “Time capsule #23”. Back in the days, the Surge Team would bag and tag any strange artefact they confiscated during their missions, and usually would archive them in such capsules.

                          Although the concept of Time-capsule in itself for the old teams was soon to become somewhat of a mind puzzle if you thought too much of it, it still held value of… archaeological, rather than historical sorts for their descendants, such as himself. Of course, if you’d like some wild flowers, you’d rather pick them directly in the dewy meadows or mossy forests where they grew instead of taking them from the interstice of an old moldy book between the pages of which it had been laid down to dry, wouldn’t you. Now, anybody could easily become an historian with complete immediate sensory experience of past times at their perception tips —much like how it started, back in the twenty hundreds, with everyone able to become an amateur geographer in minutes with instant access to the satellites maps of Earth.
                          But being a map reader would never suffice to make you a sailor.

                          So, of course, Time capsules somewhat felt like such old dry plants if you were an historian. But if you were looking for ancient treasures or secret powerful artifacts, you knew you couldn’t just bring them from the past lest you disrupt the chain of events leading you to it. Many had gone madder than Lord Elmed trying to figure out safer ways. Time capsules were such a way.

                          “Now, I guess that fishy stench was there for a reason after all,” he sighed: to keep intruders and medlers off of its content, surely.

                          #2903
                          Jib
                          Participant

                            Terry was a bit confused by all these blinks in and out. He needed some cheese and decided to focus the multronic stream of his TTI (Time Travel Implant) to a fridge in the region called Spain.

                            Unfortunately, the flux went right through a mousehole and he didn’t quite get to Spain. He was in a dark room. Noises were muffled here and there was no smell he could recognize. Before doing anything foolish, he turned on his night vision and everything appeared with cartoonish colours and enhanced black edges. It was the only one available when he borrowed it from Dr Frankenlaughner’s lab. You got used to it, eventually.

                            The room was still dark, but a cartoonish dark. That was mysterious. A squirking sound, like an amazonian squirrel, startled him. His curiosity was picked. He took a piece of what was left of his Marie biscuit and began to walk as silently as he could toward the squirrel sound.

                            #2902
                            Jib
                            Participant

                              Madam Li was gorgeous in her red silk chinese dress. She might be the eldest of the Team, but she appeared to be one of the youngest. She was proud of her Chinese ancestry. The two golden dragons on her dress emphasized her silhouette and her hair artistically arranged like an empress.

                              She had just received the invitation to the Tartessos’ 3 King’s parade. Eventhough she didn’t much like travelling, it might be an occasion to go somewhere warmer. It was snowing again in Shanghai and she had been sent there to investigate this strange occurance in that part of the country. Not that it was really strange to her, she had been raised in Harbin, and its ice festival. But having cars half burried in snow in Shanghai was not a normal sight.

                              At the moment, she was staying at an over-heated serviced apartment near the Pearl Tower of Shanghai. One of the perks of being part of the Team. Ed had always offered them a good salary and an apartment provided with the job, and they could use the red fleet whenever the wanted.

                              When she had tried to open the window, and didn’t succeeded, the night sight from her window gave her chills. Reminding her that she so loved this city. All the lights, blinking in and out, creating organized or random patterns at every corner. The city had changed so much these last years.

                              Madam Li put the invitation on the table, she would think of it later and checked with the red fleet to book a flight as soon as she had found out about all that snow in Shanghai.

                              #2901
                              F LoveF Love
                              Participant

                                “Excuse me, are you listening to me?” Lady Em Dash had been telling her old friend, Sir Hyphen, about her latest adventurous escapade at the Mondaytorium, and was rather perturbed to see the Sir Hyphen was not listening with the attention she would have expected.

                                “Oh, I do apologise, Em—I am a little distracted. I received an interesting communication the other day—an email— and . . . well, I really can’t make any sense of it at all. It is rather on my mind, I’m afraid.”

                                “Really? Would you like to tell me about it?”

                                “I am starting to wonder if it is some sort of code.”

                                “Sounds fascinating!”

                                Sir Hyphen grinned apologetically. “I know it sounds strange, and I am really not sure it is the mystery I am making it out to be. It is just that . . . well it is from my old friend Lord Lemon . . . I have not heard from him for years, and, out of the blue, I received this rather strange email. He is usually so wise, so erudite, so profound even, that it disturbed me rather.”

                                Lady Dash nodded. “Emails are so old fashioned, aren’t they. What did it say to perplex you so, my friend?”

                                Sir Hyphen, not being one to speak in haste, considered the question for a long moment while Lady Dash, who did most things in rather a rush, tried her best to be patient.

                                “That’s the problem really—it is more just that it felt a bit . . . and it makes reference to Sir Ed in several places, which is, of course, disturbing in itself. You do remember Sir Ed don’t you . . . Sir Ed Steam?

                                Lady Dash blushed and rolled her eyes.

                                “Yes, I thought you would. Anyway, the rest of it is . . . most of it really . . . is just . . . gobblydeegook, for want of a better word. Which is why I began to wonder if it might be some sort of code. Here, let me read you some of it:

                                Deep within the Furcano, the Mother of the Blubbits was growling. Her belly actually. She’d spent days and days, like every good blubbit alien mother, spawning a furry and ungrateful progeny like every good blubbit alien mother, spawning a furry and ungrateful progeny, a reproduction of the future, much less messy and incommodious to just write new characters into a story than giving birth . . . “

                                #2898

                                The time travel mouse seemed rather anxious as it nibbled its Marie Biscuit: its long and coily whiskers were vibrating rather lazily, and he seemed to have been receiving transmissions from another dimension of time travelling.
                                “Oh dear,” it squeaked to Mari Fe. “It seems like I shall have to postpone our little nibbling, a task does call me.”
                                With that it disappeared. Mari Fe wondered what could’ve happened if she reversed time and revisited some memories. She decided to call upon the services of Terry, the time travel mouse, and he appeared.
                                “Hello,” he warmly cooed.
                                “Terry, I need you to take me to a memory.”
                                “And how does this memory play out?”
                                “Well,” she began.

                                #2897
                                TracyTracy
                                Participant

                                  The ten dogs circled the round kitchen table, all the eyes were focused on the left over roast potatoes including Mari Fe’s. Suddenly there was a little bang just in front her and she froze and glanced up. A mouse had appeared on top of the microwave, and he froze too, and stared at Mari Fe. Time stood still for a long moment as they looked at each other. Mari Fe wondered if he would like a Marie biscuit, remembering the last time he was here, and how he would only nothing else.
                                  It wasn’t until later that she began to wonder if anything had gone wrong with the teleport arrangements with Baltazar. It was a remarkable coincidence, the time travel mouse popping in like that unexpectedly, after such a long absence.

                                  #2895
                                  ÉricÉric
                                  Keymaster

                                    “Glo, ‘tis me or the story site is very very slow to load a new page today?”
                                    “Bugger if I know Sha! I s’pose it ain’t nothing to do with the rodents chewing cables in the cellar, init’?”

                                    :fleuron:

                                    In Langley’s most underground basements, the Department of Future Boons Investigations had diverted a significant amount of processing power towards a little known website that they had found held distinctive quantum resonance towards the actualization of future events.
                                    In short, they believed its random nonsense held key to future events. However the level of encryption had baffled even the most expert specialists.
                                    “Major! We had a breakthrough!” Johnny Ingrish passed his head into the smokey office.
                                    The Major didn’t like to be disturbed during his morning nap, but this was important. Indeed, a word too strange to be random had appeared a few times:
                                    Tartessos – Event probability: 103%
                                    103% ! Even the computers couldn’t think straight about it… It had to mean something.

                                    #2894
                                    TracyTracy
                                    Participant

                                      Mari Fe’s neighbour, Rogelio, called round with a bag of oranges, jogging her memory about the three kings parade plan. Rogelio was playing the part of Baltazar in the parade, but he was going to be kidnapped and substituted with the real Baltazar from the past. The real Baltazar was to lure Ed Steam into the portal, with some assistance from the surge team, and take him back to Tartessos.

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