THE DUNKER, enthralled by the low, low price of a whole eleven donuts, purchases the box and quickly stores it somewhere nobody would immediately notice, question or perceive - where exactly that is escapes the notice of all three onlookers, but they all have to agree that the box has been hidden discreetly indeed, for one can see no sign of it on the man's shiny, slightly sweaty surface. Rather than question it, they continue on the tasks at hand, which happen to be a spot of drinking for Nigel and Joanie and a bit of whatever it is he does when he's idle for the bartender - bottle twirling, maybe? Nobody really gets to find out, as both Joanie and Nigel order another drink - both opt for a Dropped Croissant, interestingly. Nigel opts to drink his much slower than Joanie, and doesn't seem to enjoy it that much.
"Ugh. It's just wine with bread in it," he says, pulling a face.
"How can you people enjoy this?""It's a matter of taste, Nigey," Joanie replies after finishing her second round, more than slightly drunk already.
"We have it, you don't."Just then, though, Joanie's phone rings, and she immediately picks up.
"Yeah?... Oh?... Huh!... Yeah, a little bit, heh... Right now? Malloy-McCoy. Come over, maybe? We'll talk there... whaddaya mean? It's totally cool. There's drinks and stuff, and nobody says nothing to nobody. So to speak, heh heh. So yeah, come on over. You know where it is, right? Right. See ya," she says, then hangs up, laughing to herself. She turns to her two friends.
"Hey, guys! Shauna's coming over. Raven, too, I guess. She's all up in a tizzy about something, I guess. So she might kill the mood a little. I hope you don't mind!""Somebody's always got a problem, isn't that the truth?"* * * * *
John quickly follows the train of thought his magazine seems to have pointed him to, and realizes the blatantly obvious.
"Right, so it's a portal. Well James, this isn't even that weird for me anymore. Come on, James, who dares wins and all that junk," he says, pulling his buddy toward the hole.
"Well... uh... okay?" James mutters, not resisting one bit, and even walking toward the hole - standing side by side, they jump into the hole, and a nice little episode of darkness ensues. They fall. They continue falling.
Seven minutes later, they are still falling.
"Uh... I think hitting the ground is going to hurt..." James states at this point, but over the next three minutes this hypothesis of his does not get to be tested. Nor does this happen in the ten minutes that follow after that.
* * * * *
Not one to refuse the rag of enlightenment,
Larry goes ahead and soaks the rag, then puts it up to his face and whiffs.
[Larry's body roll: 3-1]
His immediate reaction to the extremely powerful, ether-like (with a strong hint of pure capsaicin) liquid evaporating right into his lungs is a powerful coughing fit, the rag almost falling out of his hands. But there's no amount of coughing that'll get this particular thing out, unfortunately for him.
"You're new to thith - it'th an acquired tathte," the Oldthinker informs, looking oddly... deep. As if the previous image Larry had seen of him was a mere reflection in a mirror. There's a reality to him now, some unplaceable quality he seems to be able to perceive, as if Larry had looked behind some form of curtain to see the other side.
"You want to take thlower breathth."Arielle, for her part, looks absolutely radiant, even while she holds a rag in front of her face to snort the fumes it gives off, which is normally kind of a turn-off. In fact, she seems to have become closer in looks to her image in the mag, although with a notable change, that being two dim white lights Larry can vaguely perceive within her face, placed where her eyes should be. Phinny, who seems to have gotten eight whiffs in, emits a sound of marching, and looks heavier than ever, though her silhouette has a sharpness to it. The marching falls in tune perfectly with Beagle's buzzing, which has also taken on a rhythm. Larry can make out tiny whirlpools on the bee man's surface, as well as unidentifiable patterns.
* * * * *
After thanking his overseer,
Dave walks in the direction he was just pointed in - it is a simple path, he finds, one rich in mold to chew on to keep himself nourished and grain alcohol to drink to keep himself both drunk and less thirsty than usual. It does not take him long at all to trudge along a red brick road and find his way to what looks like a village, all black mounds reinforced with chimney bricks, smoke pouring out of holes in the things. Standing a moment on the top of a hill and looking down upon the area, he becomes aware of the fact that the village is filled with small, flying underwear creatures flying this way and that, looking nervous and fidgety while they attend to their daily routines. The Garmentions, as he's dubbed them. However, none of them seem in any way familiar, which is something that makes sense, he guesses, since there's no real faces or anything like that to distinguish them by, and they're all of similar size.
* * * * *
Eta, in quite the dangerous mood, tries to bargain with Officer Rieux.
"If I'm going to answer that (or anything else that might pertain to the identity of my sources), then I'm going to have to ask a favour from you. If I share their name and you approach them and start asking questions, then it's very likely they won't trust me anymore and I lose an informant. If, however, you could offer a replacement, then I could be persuaded. So, what I'm asking is this: if anything comes out of the information I give you or if you hear anything related to this case, then I would like to be the first to know. Early enough to be the first reporter on the scene."She pauses for a moment. Officer Rieux has stopped taking notes, and appears to be staring right at her.
"You give me your word you'll do that and I promise: anything I have discovered and anything I will discover, you will be the first to know."Officer Rieux remains silent for but a few seconds more. She inhales deeply and exhales, and closes her eyes for a moment before speaking.
"Ma'am, you're currently the person with the possibly very important information, and I understand how you might be tempted to bargain with me, considering your profession and all. But I'm not sure you fully understand the gravity of the situation. From what you might see in the news or in the headlines, this all probably seems like some kind of surreal, quirky event that makes for a lot of interesting reporting. But beneath all that, there is one fact that you might be forgetting. People are dying because of all this. Twelve confirmed dead so far, to be exact, with around sixty people reported missing, according to the latest news. A whole neighborhood was nearly leveled not two hours ago. And we still don't know anything about what's really happening. So I guess what I'm asking here is, can we not bargain here? There are lives on the line, and the more me and my colleagues know, the more we can do to help," she explains, then sighs.
"I've seen the movies, and I guess that you have, too, so what I'm really asking is, could you please not be that person? You know what person I'm talking about, right? Can we not pull teeth here and just get down to solving the most important problem? You know, do some good? Maybe save a life or two, shed some light on the crisis we're going through?"
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Topic: The Forgotten Art: Approaching the Nexus (Read 271170 times)