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  • #3288

    “That’s amazing”
    “How wonderful!”
    “Wow, so great!” … For a moment, was all they could say, in varying lengths and tones of “ooo’s”.

    While they were looking at the show from a distance, Sadie realized they were not alone.

    “Madam, if I may disturb, it seems you have dropped your key”
    The robot which had suddenly appeared looked vaguely like the one which had dropped them underwater, except for the octopus costume. After all, all robots looked the same.
    Sadie took the key a bit suspiciously, and in the second she took to examine it and as she was about to reply it wasn’t hers, noticed the robot had already vanished.

    “How strange it looks just like the sister key to the one Maurana got in France, the key from the ferrets… Wonder never ceases…”

    “Honey, may I interrupt your voovvvs and borrow your key for a minute” she asked Maurana.

    The two keys seemed to match, and when pressed together, clicked and became one, without any visible seam.
    Without notice, it suddenly escaped Sadie’s grasp, and darted towards the crystal, as if activated by it.

    Sadie covered her ears, thinking it would shatter the crystal, but its vibration absorbed the key, and it started to glow more wildly.

    A voice started to echo deep under.

    “My name is Adamus St Germain, please ask your three questions.”

    #3285

    Secretly, Sadie had a beautifully laid out plan in her head, like a vacation plan with stop-overs at luxury hotels, and activities to entertain the children.
    That made her slightly miffed about the succession of sidetrack adventures and the lack of focus of her protégés.

    The plan was simple enough, they had to take the magical crystal from under the whale’s noses, and get back to the closest Time sewer, where they could funnel up (her fancy verb for “complete”) the special reboot edition of the Time Draggler’s show.

    Surprisingly, Linda Paul’s interest and instructions seemed to have weakened and her usually generous and unwarranted input have been inordinately limited. Maybe the summer heat wave had mollified her, or her projects had shifted since the pilot of the Time Draggler’s show had failed to grab the network’s attention and fulfil its promises.
    She couldn’t say. But something in what the techromancer told her had stuck, and she couldn’t quite shake it out. “A train will come for you, and you will have to catch it, this Time is your train.”
    The hell if she knew what Time that was anyway.
    But one thing was sure, this one-time gig was growing on her, and she didn’t want to get back to dog food tasting. So one way or another, she’d have to make it work, and move the drag’s lazy butts to make a heck of an entertaining show.

    “Look! I vink vey’re over vere!” Maurana was getting the gist of the telepathic conversation.

    It was lucky the interior of the cave was lit, as outside the night had fallen like a cold black carpet on a pack of dust bunnies, dropping the water’s temperature. Luckily, the suits seemed to have their own warming as well as glowing mechanism.

    Terry was over Consuela, who seemed unconscious and in a REM sleep.
    “Hey! Consuela learnt your eye rolling technique!” Maurana gleefully tuned towards Sadie.
    “Don’t be silly, I think he’s in shock, pass me that electric eel, to wake that bitch up.” Terry was always for a bit of drama. It seemed to do the trick.

    “Woah, you can’t believe the stuff I’ve seen…” Consuela’s pupils were dilated so much it was hard to see the whites of her eyes.

    “Classic case of red algae intoxication, no need to consult the ezapper for that” Sadie said. “It is known that dolphins use it as a shamanic tool to astral. The concentration in these waters is surprinsingly high. Nothing than some fresh water can’t cure.” Too much time under water, she started to babble like a fish.

    The Time window wouldn’t stay indefinitely open. She needed to get them move, and take back her authority. With children like them, one thing that worked was to shake some shiny stuff in front of them and let them follow it.
    “Anyone interested in a Whale Queen’s Race?”

    #3284
    TracyTracy
    Participant

      Pooh
      – An Original Song
      by Consuela
      I get on with life as a writer,
      I’m a loose kinda person.
      I like basketball on Sundays,
      I like diving in the week.
      I like to contemplate scooter.
      But when I start to daydream,
      My mind turns straight to exercise mat.

      Boom boom shake da boom-boom-boom!

      Do I love exercise mat more than scooter?
      Do I love exercise mat more than scooter?
      I like to use words like ‘pooh,’
      I like to use words like ‘tart.’
      I like to use words about scooter.
      But when I stop my talking,
      My mind turns straight to exercise mat.

      Boom boom shake da boom-boom-boom!

      Do I love exercise mat more than scooter?
      Do I love exercise mat more than scooter?

      I like to hang out with Godfrey,
      I like to kick back with Flove,
      But when left alone,
      My mind turns straight to exercise mat.

      Boom boom shake da boom-boom-boom!

      Do I love exercise mat more than scooter?
      Do I love exercise mat more than scooter?

      I’m not too fond of italian bank,
      I really hate germans,
      But I just think back to exercise mat,
      And I’m happy once again

      Boom boom shake da boom-boom-boom!

      #3283

      When Huhu arrived at his destination, Irina was sunbathing to the last rays of a big red gorgeous sunset that painted the waves in iridescent shades of purple.
      At the same time, the sun’s course had already started a new day on the shores of New Zealand, where her sister was living, and she surely would be thrilled. Long had she waited for the 2222-2-22 marker.
      Here, in Hawaii, they would still be in 2222-2-21, for a few more hours.
      Irina started to shiver. 22°C her watch read. As if she needed to be any more quirky about this date…

      “Good boy!” she said to the parrot, taking the key it was carrying. Huhu tittered in contentment, cracking some of the pistachios she fed him distractedly.

      She’d just received additional information from the Management. Elusive as usual, and leaving a great deal to interpretation, including the interdiction.

      They’d promised to get her her dream island as a retirement plan. Some said it was the original land of the mermaids (who used to have as much feathers as Rio Carnival’s samba dancers), right off Italy’s Amalfi’s coast. Among its perks, it boasted to incorporate 8 staff, and a private grotto — that, if anything else than her fine waist line, would surely entice Sanso into other steamy booty calls.
      She’d seen the pictures of the properties, her first thought though was that she needed to shoot the interior decorator. In short, it was almost her moral duty to get it, and change the decor. On the whole, she was convinced the island would do her good.

      So, when she looked back at the previous instructions to see how good she’d done on her mission’s objectives, she shrugged a little. She’d understood instinctively right when it was delivered that it was a clever cipher, especially given the late date shift. So she had reinterpreted the actual commands, and leisurely waited for the travellers to appear, and get comfy. By now, she was certain they trusted her telepathic commands well enough, so that solved the trust conundrum.
      Basically, she was a major proponent of her own interpretation of old Ho’oponopono rituals. Instead of the usual mantra “I love you. I’m sorry. Please forgive me. Thank you.” hers was a bit more straightforward and was around the lines of “Green sickness to you. Peace be with you, and bugger off.
      Said a few times with proper intonation and inner work, and it was know to her to alter dramatically any block or resistance into a great flow of pure unfettered energy. So she had adamant faith that all she needed to do to complete her mission was to focus on herself and solve the resistance within by letting go.

      The last message was short.

      22 the code * whale that * BO

      It could only mean one thing. 22 was a clever cipher meaning conundrum as in a catch 22, but also an obvious reference to the temperature. So it could only mean one thing: tamper with the code on the 22nd, and send it on the way to the whales, with a bug on it.

      “Mr R, please, fetch!”

      The discrete, yet always present robot caught the key with grace, and on her careful instructions, proceeded to alter the code of the key.

      Irina was enjoying herself immensely, and found it a pity nobody could witness her true genius. “The ones who’ll read that key later, well… they are in for such a wild goose chase!”
      The second part of St Germain’s encoded hologram was now ripe with wonderful and bewildering information about blubbits and the magic kingdom of Peasland with obscure and arcane references of magic numbers like 57, that would have anybody sane turn mad as a hatter in no time. Hopefully the whales would be immune to the nonsense, but probably not humans.

      Now was the final part of the plan.

      “Mr R?”
      “Madam?”
      “I hope you are ready for this delicate reinsertion mission. Do you still have that octopus suit of yours ready?”
      “Of course, Madam. Right away Madam.”

      #3282
      F LoveF Love
      Participant

        Livy and Me
        – a suspense novel
        by Flove

        “I’m going to need expensive Italian real estate, big, expensive Italian real estate.”

        He had not known love or loss until he risked losing his brave basket ball player Livvy.

        His contented life is shattered when he learns that the lazy Dead Kennedys plan to bankrupt Livvy and he knows he has to stop them or his heart will die.

        At 40, the Exercise Mat Salesman from Belgium is both delightful and friendly. But will it be enough to protect Livvy?

        He goes to a Basket ball tournament in Hawaii where he acquires some expensive Italian real estate and Scooters. It finally seems that he will be able to stop the Dead Kennedys that wish to bankrupt Livvy.

        However, when Livvy calls, begging him to come home, he is forced to decide what is more important: stopping the lazy Dead Kennedys that bankrupting each other, or preserving his relationship with his basket ball player?

        Flove delivers a brave and poignant story that explores the love between a Exercise Mat Salesman and his basket ball player.

        “Never have there been more chilling villains than lazy Dead Kennedys that bankrupt each other.”
        – The Daily Tale
        “Are we seriously supposed to find a delightful and friendly Exercise Mat Salesman from Belgium heroic?”

        #3281

        “Isn’t that the greatest thing about those underwater goggles”
        After the shark threat had vanished, Sadie had contemplated for quite some time her new-found underwater abilities, and how to shift the weight of her body gracefully underwater. And then, she realized she could roll her eyes in the most peculiar way, with the membrane of the transparent skin massaging her eyeballs in the most relaxing manner. She’d never felt so good about rolling her eyes, and that was saying something.

        “BrllllSssadiieeee” came the urging sound in bubbles and gurgles, with a hint of despair dragging her out of the lovely eyeball massage session. The underwater acoustics needed some fine-tuning, so she had her wits to thank for understanding quickly the situation.
        Despite what might have looked like her sending messages on her ezapper, at the same time she was having in-her-body experiences, she was merely testing experimental echo-localization to pinpoint the spot where the pod of whales would be most likely found. The feedback buzzing had prompted her minutes ago that it had found 6 potential spots, and one only which was the most probable and located less than an hour’s diving distance. One thing she knew was that you had to be careful with automatic location instructions, so she’d run a second independent check and was waiting for the results when the alarmed look of Maurana turned and rolled in front of her face, almost giving her a fright.

        “Gbbbllood gracious, Maurana, what’s the matter?”
        “Gbblbl wooohoooglllbb bbbllrsfffftt plk plk plk skwooobbll!”

        “Oh, for fucks sake,” she telepathied “will you stop nattering in French, be more articulate.”
        “The others are drowned and I no longer see them, it’s awful, what should we do?!” the thought came back with force and a bit of campiness.

        “Well, that would depend what it is you want” straight answers were not Sadie’s forte.
        “I want to have our party with costumes and dances, I want to be the black pearl of the Ocean, I want to have more glitter and less molluscs, more chic and less kelp…” she started to sob profusely, half-choking and breathing from her tears. “I want my friends, and to be back hooooome”
        “Bloody hell, Reggie, now is not the time to lose your shit, pull yourself together dammit.”

        The reaction was immediate, the telepathic swearing was so out-of-the-ordinary that Maurana looked twice at Sadie, with her bob cut surrounding her face like a heavenly halo. Suddenly self-conscious, Maurana started to reapply some waterproof mascara to cover the stains.

        “I found them,” said Sadie with infectious calm “the ezapper’s first scan took them for a pod of whales or octopi for some reason. Let’s go get them, then we go visit the whales. But first, you have to try this, it will soothe you…”, as she started to show some more rolling motion of her beautiful blue eyes.

        #3280

        The whitewashed blue trimmed village by the sea had an air of tranquility despite the abundance of colourful beach dresses and accessories draped outside the shops, and the red and blue parasols shading the cafe tables and chairs. Locals and holidaymakers strolled about, unhurried and relaxed, and the blue sea twinkled enticingly beyond, as if the street disappeared into the ocean. Mirabelle imagined shoppers carrying bags of vacation purchases wandering right into the water, perhaps to continue their strolling on the seabed, idly perusing it’s treasures and trinkets; wandering back out again on to another street somewhere, dripping at first and leaving little puddles in their wake.
        I wonder how deep you could go? she wondered, If you could walk on the ocean floor for as long as you liked?
        Lisa, however, was more interested in the shops and had disappeared into one of them, lured by the gaily coloured scarves. She chose two and held one in each hand, wondering which one would be more reassuring, more comforting. A scarf is something to hold on to in a storm, she thought ~ and then wondered where the thought had come from.

        #3273

        Consuela was always the more independent and adventurous. She didn’t realise at first that there was something not quite right about the perilous situation.

        Breathing under water was strange, and it felt like a not quite adjusted piece of garment (an ill-motherfucker-fitted thong Maurana would have said), as though her lungs were filled with a light yet mucous fluid.
        They’d all struggled and kicked the water in violent spams in the beginning, thinking they were about to die when the wetsuit automatic mucusbags went off, as a security measure for drowning, she’d guessed.
        But then, the magic happened and they realised they could breathe like fishes.
        Then the shark panic attack happened, which left them swimming for their lives with their prosthetic fins (and more or less graceful movements). But the shark didn’t seem interested after all, or it was driven away by a more juicy prospect, because they soon found themselves following a strange string of parallel lighted dots that dived deeper under water like an oddly placed seacraft runway. At least, that was what she thought at first, until she arrived at the cave’s entrance and realized nobody was actually following her.

        The others didn’t follow… She only had to hope that they would catch her later with a taxi or something…
        The thought of being able to discover the underwater cave trumped all sense of caution, and the lure of the prized crystal of exotic properties was enough to send her further down, despite the feeling of flashing tentacles creeping around in her peripheral vision, then gone in an instant the moment she turned the head around…

        #3269

        Gliding through layers of consciousness, Belen carried her precious cargo of the Santa Maria and its birds towards her destination.
        There were various variations of the same 2222, and she carefully adjusted the course along the 202 years gap, so as to swim to her favourite version of it. It required much love work on her part, addressing, piecing and peacing off many parts of human consciousness, while at the same time tenderly caring for the memories stored with her immense ghost body.
        The 2020 version they had just left, she knew, was already on the proper track towards global enlightenment. There were still horrors, concerns and anxiety about the course of the future, but with a greater perspective, it looked like the positive actions were gaining momentum and leaning towards a brighter fuller and richer future.

        She could feel the Contact Crystal pulsate steadily and it opened her blowhole chakra. Blowing her mind, as it were.

        The Big Island was like a beacon, with the flows of lava rippling heatwave signatures in the ocean, and it didn’t take long to enter the stream that would lead them to the pod and the meeting point.

        As she sensed they’d arrived in 2222, and that they were floating on the surface of a calm ocean, she gently opened the energy bubble sealing the ghost and alive cargo of birds and vegetation, so they could breathe in the pure air and enjoy discovering around.

        “Belen, look at you, not a ounce more of blubber since we last met! You ought to tell me how you keep so fit”
        “Batshatsassani!” Belen was pleased the see the great female orca who’d come to greet her.
        “Still with your entourage, it seems” her friend said without a hint of malice, blowing a few rings of bubbles around in a relaxed manner. “Let me accompany you to the ceremony.”
        “With great pleasure, dear. Rest assured, I won’t carry my entourage along for the time of the ceremony.”
        “It would have been cumbersome, no?” Oftentimes humour (and irony in particular) were a lost subtlety on the orca’s mind. Belen just smiled to answer, revealing a great range of ghostwhite perfect baleens.

        As they swam their way along the beautiful clear ocean, they were greeted by a pod of joyously rambunctious great dolphins, a good half size bigger than their common dolphins cousins she’d seen swimming near the coasts of Portugal. The leader of the pod was doing acrobatics to retrieve and play with a funny scarf made of colorful feathers. It was no surprise the dolphins were playing games, really. That or chasing food took the best of their time. But the scarf was the strangest thing Belen had seen in a long time and it triggered some kind of forgotten memory. Odd thing for her to not remember a memory, unless it was from another probable dimension… She followed the urge to ask.

        “Were did they get that?”
        “Oh, it’s nothing important… Four strange aquatic thingies went down earlier this morning, making a whole lot of noise around. They looked like one of those aliens, but so clumsy we thought they were probably sickly and left there to die by their tribe. The ‘phins took the fancy red gills from one of them.”
        “Are you serious? Are they OK?” Belen huge heart felt panicky at the thought of the small creatures left to die without help.
        “Of course they are, I knoooow we have to keep our reputation, you know. Where they are now, I’m not too sure. But the octopi from the camouflage squad are on it, following them. According to the last I know, the aliens have been lost for awhile in the underwater caves. When they’re exhausted, we’ll send them somewhere else… Can’t attract too much attention to ourselves, with the ceremony and all…”

        #3265

        “Yes, I could be able to plot a new course, without doubt, even with that tile missing” Belen said to one of the dolphins of the neighbourhood who had come for an update on the stranded ghost galleon.

        I was weeks of Simultaneous Time, and being stranded was particularly difficult for a Conscious Breather such as Belen, even if the ghost whale now didn’t really need to breathe, the force of habit was strong.

        Peter, his usual jovial self had said nothing, and had merely enjoyed some forays inland, looking for the tile and the conch, occasionally bringing news from the strange neighbours of the nearby village.

        In the end, Belen couldn’t really remember who was who in the strange tales he made of it, there were so many humans involved and truly, their earthly concerns weren’t relevant to hers, and there was only little they could do to help with the situation.

        The Harmonium Convergence was about to start, the crystalline aquatic organs would start to play the tunes for the new dreams of the new era to be sung.
        And yet, the so-called magical conch was still missing. Belen dreaded coming back ashamed to the Youngers without the ancient divination tool. Frankly, it was more of a permission slip, as her orca friend Batshatsassani called it. She would say to her that “every modality, every ritual, every tool, every technique is a permission slip that allows yourself to give you permission to be more of who you are.”
        She knew she didn’t need it really, but she liked the rituals of old, and to be honest was a bit fearful of not only revealing they were not that important, but more, introducing new ones… Would the whale and whole cetacean family be ready for such an end to the religious era?

        While she was struggling with the thoughts, she managed to guard them from the psychic prying of her dolphin friend, by misleading him on meanders of the endless memory halls that she was guardian of.

        Peter suddenly appeared with a popping sound. “I think I found the conch!” he exclaimed with glee in his eyes. “Yes, it’s Igor, you know Igor…”
        “What about Igor, darling, you know I lost complete track of all these landers strange names”
        “He’s the guy who stole the…” Peter stopped realizing this wasn’t really a question about Igor. “The conch, he brought it back with him!”

        Then to his and her own surprise, Belen replied
        “Forget about the conch, darling, I’m sorry I’ve led you to believe it was important, but it’s not, not really. It’s just a ordinary object to lead the philistines astray. It’s not more powerful than the whiffling of a shillelagh. The true treasure is always within ourselves.
        Gather the birds, and let us prepare to leave in the next hour, the Harmonium Convergence is about to start in 2222, I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

        Baffled by the revelation, Peter knew enough to not contradict his whale partner, and went merrily with the new flow which seemed so full of excitement and potential new science revelations.

        Belen had a thought “Actually Peter my dear, any other conch we can find will do just as well. Just pick one on the beach before we leave. Dipping it in the Time stream will crystallize it just as well.”

        Peter replied excitedly “Whale that. Let’s spanghew that boat to 2222!”

        Just as a thought of love for the gift of such inner revelation, before she left the nice spot of the Spanish coast, Belen cleared her throat and :yahoo_sick: retched the most lovely green scented blob of ambergris on the beach, next to the spiral made of broken white shells that some drifters had drawn on the beach a few days ago.

        #3262

        After they’d jumped in the robot (which had shapeshifted into a sand buggy big enough for them), they had to cling tight to the railing of the light vehicle, as the robot was driving recklessly into a jungle of unexpected leaves and green vegetation tentacles.
        It wasn’t long before they were back on the gorgeously rugged Hawai’ian beach, taken on an unexpected dune racing along the coast.
        The queens looked exhilarated, but Sadie was a bit overwhelmed, especially after what the Techromancer had told her.

        The wetsuits fitting session passed in a blur, as the breathable elastic material was made to adapt to their bodies. Really, the only thing left to choose would have been color, but it was able to change itself at will, with very little shades it couldn’t replicate to perfection, even the Bollywood shine and twinkle that was all the craze in the 2019s.

        “But we’re in the 2222s now!”, Maurana had voiced her disapproval of her choice of glittery fashion. Little did Sadie care about it. Her mission seemed to stretch to sidetracks and unneeded distractions on her path to Great Happiness.

        All four of them clad in their fancy bathsuits and looking more like hippy frogs than sassy mermaids, they followed the robot on the miles-long deck that led to the horizon.

        After half an hour of walking on the narrow bridge, they were at a good distance from the coast and Terry started to pant and breathe heavily in her green sardine scales costume.
        “Stop! I got to catch my breathe, how long it’s going to be now? We were promised a soirée! Not a walk on the wild side!”

        The robot, rolled back a few steps, and turned briskly.
        “Actually, Sir, this is a perfect spot for your whale training”

        And before they realized, the robot had opened the deck under their feet, plunging all of them in the ocean screaming.

        Thanks to her excellent training and natural sharp reflexes, Sadie was the first to realize a few things.

        • They were all alive
        • They were able to breathe underwater
        • Their suit enabled them to talk and understand each other in what sounded like whale-speech.
        • A looming shape was quickly closing on them, looking dangerously like that of a giant toothy white shark.
        • Her mind was a mysterious thing.

        Why? Simply because the previous thought was coinciding with another one which was saying unequivocally that she still hadn’t found a proper dragqueen’s name for herself, and yet another one, even more funny than all others, saying in between bursts of infectious laughter that her last words could well be whale speech, and would make a hell of an epitaph.

        She floated for a time moment stretched into an eternity, weighing all the rippling probabilities and wondered what her next move would be, as she was in the void of creation, hovering under a vortex of thoughts, with a sea of twinkling stars beckoning her further down the ocean’s clear bottomless depths.

        #3249
        TracyTracy
        Participant

          “Tuna wars!” Jack said as the alarm clock bleeped. “Tuna wars?” asked Lisa, but got no response; Jack was still asleep.
          There had been an impromptu gathering the previous evening, various friends had unexpectedly called round, some bringing their holiday visitors with them and they had sat drinking beer and wine on the patio until well after midnight. Lisa started clearing away the ashtrays and bottles, noticing the racket the sparrows were making ~ they seemed unusually agitated this morning, darting between the overgrown foliage flapping and shrieking. When Lisa had finished clearing up the debris, she kept looking around, wondering what was missing or out of place. Something didn’t seem right. What was it, what was missing?
          The tile! That strange convoluted tile shaped rock that she’d found on the beach was gone!

          #3240

          “Yes get lost!” muttered Adeline rudely. “Go back to where you belong and stop depriving some poor village of his idiot!”

          Just at that moment the plaintive hoot of an owl was heard in the far distance. Adeline recalled the strange way the flock of birds had been behaving the previous day at the beach. With a feeling of foreboding she remembered her promise to the Virgin Mary in the chapel.

          Were the birds a sign sent to warn her?

          She was filled with remorse for her cruel thoughts and actions towards Igor. The Queen and her men could not touch her now, but was she out of reach of all those Saints and Angels?

          “Would you like some toast with your coffee, dearest Mirabelle?” she asked sweetly, anxious to make amends and appease the powers that be. I promise I will say a prayer for the soul of dear Igor later, she silently vowed.

          “Thank you, you dear sweet child,” said Mirabelle. “What a terrible shame though that Igor took that beautiful shell with him. Be a dear will you; run after him and see if you can’t get him to leave the shell here with me. Quick, quick Adeline, don’t dilly dally. Run like the wind or you will miss him!”

          #3235

          “Not that!” snapped Lisa, uncharacteristically rudely. Adeline snatched her hand away, bewildered. “You can’t glue bits of plastic trash all over that, it’s special”
          “But it’s just a funny tile shaped bit of old rock!” said Adeline. “What’s so special about that?”
          “I don’t know, really” admitted Lisa. “I found it on the beach the other morning.”

          #3230

          The ghost captain of the Santa Rosa was an old Peaslander, Peter Pugh, otherwise known as Petit Pois on account of his vast girth. He’d had a fascination with whales all his life, admiring their immensity and smooth shapelessness, and had devoted his life to increasing his own blubber ~ unfortunately to the point where his legs failed to carry him further and he died, alone and frozen, on a cold winter Peasland beach. A particularly wild storm with immense waves had sucked him out to sea, taking most of the beach with him, but his spirit lived on, piloting the galleon for his ghostly lover, Belen. It was a match made in heaven ~ in their ghostly forms, they were vast but weightless, able to occupy the galleon fully, filling every nook and mossy cranny with their energetic formless bulk (but without sinking the ship or flattening the foliage).
          “Whale that!” he cried in response to Belen, excited to be teleporting to the balmy waters of the Pacific. The rough harsh climate of the Bay of Biscay reminded him of that cold winter in Peasland ~ he was looking forward to a tropical sojourn.
          “To the Big Island!” he shouted, and did a merry jig which caused a tsunami a few hours later on the Galician coast.

          #3228

          The techromancer was living in a techut, with a teak deck.
          The secretary at the entrance, all clad in white, arose from the surface of her glamour egazine and eyed the four of them with a reproachful eyebrow.
          “Do you have an appointment?”

          Tricky question Sadie thought It may well be the Universe testing my resolve.

          “Of course we do” she said, removing her shades with a deft hand, and the most convincing impersonation of a rich obnoxious elite member she could enact.
          “Don’t you know who I am?”

          The secretary looked a bit puzzled, but before she could answer, Sadie continued
          “Is the big guy here?”
          She pressed inside, leaving the drags a bit surprised for a second behind her, who after a look at each others, followed on her trail toot suite.

          Well, that wasn’t difficult.

          After a series of cumbersome curtains which looked heavy, mouldy and slightly alive, she thought she’d arrived at the final room, but the last curtain opened to the back of the techut, in the garden from which they had entered.

          Mmm, this one has some tricks, but nothing that cannot be ezapsolved

          She placed the ezapper on living signal locate mode, and found that she may have made a wrong curturn.
          She almost bumped into the silently curious drag queens, and arrived in front of the room.
          She signaled her friends in tow to wait for their turns outside.

          A guy in a hood with dreadlocks covering his face and strange lighting coming from his belt was sitting there in a meditation posture, surrounded by big glowing crystals which looked a tad fake.

          #3226

          With years of intense Happiness training, and being herself a certified Happiness Coach™ in Rainbow Unified Bliss®, Lisa was reasonably adept at dispelling the occasional bouts of frustration that the six time travelers were experiencing while familiarizing themselves with the new time frame. Learning the new languages, both the local Spanish and the common language of the village tribe, English, was of paramount importance, and Mirabelle in particular was having difficulties. A basic vocabulary was easy enough, but when it came to grammar, Mirabelle was hopeless. Thus her communications were of a very basic and rudimentary nature, and she often felt unable to express her feelings, or her thoughtful observations on the many nuances, similarities and differences and overlaps of the current time and 18th century France. Not only was she obliged to learn two new languages, but was also learning to read and write. Often it seemed like all work and no play, too much pressure to perform, to learn, to do well at her studies, and yet play breaks were always frustrated in some manner because of her difficulties in communicating clearly. The fact that the others were progressing better with the languages made her feel alone, adrift in a sea of her own unexpressed thoughts.
          Adeline had a more relaxed approach to the language difficulties, less inclined to struggle with it and more likely to chatter endlessly to Boris instead, and ask him to translate when she needed some help. She had discovered an interest, and some considerable talent, in the art room, experimenting with the paints and materials, and spent many happy hours engrossed in her paintings and playful collages of mundane (but to her, bizarre) objects. She was like a magpie, collecting items that caught her eye. The bright colours and smoothness of plastic appealed to her, especially when transformed in shape by one of those odd little plastic fire making gadgets. Sunglasses were another favourite, especially the different shades of lens. It was not unusual to hear one of the villagers complaining that the lids to the tupperware containers were missing, or all the bottle tops had been removed, to find they had all been glued together, with the flyswatter, a few odd flipflop beach shoes and the mirror lenses out of someones shades. But the villagers were on the whole amused, generously indulgent, and good naturedley rolled their eyes at her creative curiosity.
          Boris was practical and capable, and true to form, was learning rapidly. He had no particular desire to express vague rambling thoughts (indeed, he was not a vague and rambling man by nature) and turned his attention to more practical matters. When he wasn’t chatting to Adeline, he was watching Jack tinkering inside car engines, or playing with Pierre’s camera and had quickly learned how to upload and play with the images on the computer. Often in the evenings Adeline would sit beside him and watch drowsily as the images changed in front of her eyes on the screen.
          Ivan and Igor were learning what they needed to learn while doing it ~ tending the goats and chickens, working outside on the land, or helping with various building projects. They had taken to the local bars like ducks to water, and spent the evenings downing copious amounts of beer and wine with the locals, all of them babbling and shouting incoherently, but seeming to understand each other in the camaraderie of inebriation.

          #3225

          “We jumped out of a plane without a parachute, what shall we dooo?”
          “Hang on, it will be over soon” came the answer.

          Luckily for everyone, the drop-off was no more than a foot high.

          #3224

          “What? You think I’m shallow? That I spend too much time on my appearance?”
          Terry Bubble paused a bit then said “Well, maybe a bit, of course yes! I guess that’s what being a drag queen means. You take care of yourself. You enjoy playing with your appearance. You can’t be amateurish about it, it’s about creating an illusion, it’s about making people believe for a moment,…” then he added pensively “and maybe yourself a little”.

          “If you ask me, big beautiful chocolate Maurana Banana, what others think about you is none of your damn nosy business.”

          The three of them crammed at the back of a tiny flying tuk-tuk with their glowing perspiration under the sunscreen and layers of makeup, attempting to keep the appearances up for as long as they could was extremely entertaining.

          “Get ready! We arrive at the drop-off in a minute!” Sadie shouted. At the front of the hovercraft, she was carefully guiding the driver through the jungle thanks to the energy map on the ezapper.

          #3223

          A long deck was stretching and unfolding from the shore into the ocean, passing above the shallow plateau of sand bathed in aquamarine waters, and the coral reef.
          After stretching for about five miles and six feet, it was seemingly above open waters where schools of colourful fishes and placid turtles where swimming blissfully.

          The submarine broke the surface of the waters on the evening of January 18th, at precisely 17:56 HST, Hawaii local time, a handful of seconds too early (or a minute too late) for fetching a prized synchronicity.

          Jonbert soon realized that, as usual, it could only mean one thing: others were late, synchronistic timing notwithstanding.
          Of course, other being late meant timing couldn’t be synchrone, and all figures couldn’t align properly.
          The first mate robot reported back to him on the top deck where he was sipping his scotch and enjoying the late sun after months spent underwater.

          — “Dear sir…”
          — “Oh forget about the blasted dear, I’m nothing dear to you, you ingrate piece of rubbish”
          — “Of course sir. If I may”
          — “Blurt it out, goddammit! Where are they?”
          — “Their signal doesn’t register at the resort we have booked for them.”
          — “What?! And where is it now?”
          — “The ezapper have been geolocalized at 5.56 miles inland, sir”

          That darned missed synch again

          — “Then, bloody go fetch them!”

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