SHIP'S LOG:

Microwave Explosion

Larry Fantasio 8/12/2020 10:27pm

"You are an idiot!" the Queen screams at me. Again.

"Please, please, keep your voice down.The CGA has voice recognition running everywhere near the airfield. They could have the boys from the Magician's Union on us in no time."

The Queen has no response. She knows that would be worse than whatever I have in store for her.

"What DO you have in store for me, Mr. @Larry Fantasio, magic apparatus repairman, and idiot?"

The Queen of the Hudson and I go way back. I've been cleaning her clock for years, repairing broken tricks, buffing her cups and balls.

"I never told you what I did before I came to Poughkeepsie."

"And I never told you what I was going to do with the Chinese Lightning Box. How I was going to save the world, Put it back like it was."

"Well, about that. Actually, I did know what you were going to do. And I saw what happened when you did. And trust me, it wasn't like it was."

"What are you talking about?"

"I got my Magical Apparatus Repairman Certification at House of Foo."

"That's a lie. They don't exist any more. They've been out of business for a hundred years."

"They just went underground. Things were getting too hot. And they were developing tricks too dangerous for anyone to ever own. Like the Specularii Psychomanteum."

"Some kind of mirror, I assume? A beam-splitter?"

"Exactly. And it tells the future. Or, futures, plural, actually."

"And it told you...?"

"I'll explain later. Right now we need to steal this airship."

And there, floating above us, nose connected to its mooring mast, was the Microwave Explosion.

Melvin Splitsturd 7/6/2020 11:33pm

The Queen is gone.

Long live the Queen? She apparently had no heirs. Princess or prince. So the twigs line the halls of the reed-covered lodge, by the little-water place, waiting.

Some say she was in her chambers, with the Chinese Lightning Box, alone. When her attendants brought themselves to open her door, no queen, no box.

Some say she left to walk the woods outside the reed-covered lodge, box tucked under her arm. But none dare search for her there on account of the bulls from the Magician's Union on the prowl.

Some say she was hungry for a late night snack and never returned. (The fate of the Chinese Lightning Box is not explained in that version of the story.)

But oh how the twigs loved their queen. It was she that gathered them and gave them hope. It was she who clothed and fed and educated them. It was she who taught them to hack the databanks of the Cloning Governance Administration and escape the oppression of the Magician's Union with her tricks.

What will they do? Who will lead them? They wait, staring aimlessly, waiting for her throne to be filled again.

Hey! What's everybody looking at me like that for?

Presto LaRue 5/22/2020 11:47pm

Me and da boys arrive and we find dis mess. Who's ever seen such a mess? Broken glass, broken wood, broken ornamental casing and lacquer all over the place? It's a cryin' shame, I tell ya.

And it's gonna be a real cryin' shame for whoever done dis. Ya see, we got a hot tip we was gonna find da Chinese Lightning Box here, but turns out somebody's busted it up. Busted up one of the most powerful eldritch tools ever to be manufactured by House of Foo, Inc. And dat stuff ain't easy to come by anymore.

Lemme make it clear the Cryptic Order's REAL unhappy about dis. Anybody who knows somthin' and ain't tellin's gonna wind up in the same state as the perpetrators, you hear me? Like in the Chinese Water Torture Cell, except you ain't got no key, see?

Presto LaRue
Marshal of the Inside Sentinel
Magician's Union, Poughkeepsie Branch

Queen of the Hudson 4/14/2020 10:22pm

The box is wide open, and branches crawl through it.

Mirrored infinity box. (This has got to be the most haunted building in town, just on account of the mirrors. A barber shop, a salon, and the big pane glass mirrors reflect each other up into a loop, into the nautilus shell, getting more narrow by degree, as it curls up and up),

the path from the reed-covered lodge leads away, away from the little-water place, up and over the wood, a crazy funhouse hallway, twisting and turning and walled in cheap carnival glass,

but now the branches are breaking through, shattering glass and wrestling with the frames, pulling them apart and stretching stretching stretching them like an accordion, out out out and never in, farther and farther and turning and pulling the path, stretching mirrors. Now great writhing roots crash through the floors and pull the box apart.

My beautiful Chinese Lightning Box. Now in pieces on the forest floor.

What have you done, @Larry Fantasio?

Larry Fantasio 3/8/2020 10:41pm

Beyond the reed-covered lodge, by the little-water place, there's a wood. Some would say a sadly shrinking wood, diminished by the encroachment of sidewalk and asphalt, and run off and old tires and the occasional discarded washing machine. But in the draw is a copse where all the rivulets cross, and a wild heart still beats in the heart of those woods, tiny now, not much larger than two elephants. And this heart beats, and can be driven to beat wildly with the right encouragement.

It is to this beat I apply my magician's tools: the wand and the top hat, cups and staves and pentacles and rings. That bit of forest has enough frustration in it to break through the bonds of this cardboard sky and tunnel a path to the reed-covered lodge, to open the way for the Queen of the Hudson.

And her box.

Melvin Splitsturd 2/3/2020 9:00pm

The term "twig" was originally used derisively, but has been adopted by my people. Of course I never heard it back on the Microwave Explosion, but none of me knew what was even going on back then! Nobody did. It was suddenly just "we're the Melvins!" and we started coming out of the woodwork.

But here they have a name for it: twigs. Little branches. Guess they've been growing them in Poughkeepsie for a long time. Enough to have a whole Cloning Governance Administration to keep 'em in check. And beaten down.

Still, it's been great to be accepted into a community of clones, even if I'm the only one of me.

Queen of the Hudson 12/30/2019 9:51pm

"And this is the box?" I ask.

Melvin 117 has it buried in his arms.

"Uh... yes! Yes your... uh, majesty."

He looks around like he's not sure what to do, then holds it before me, squinting, like I might breathe fire.

"Bring it to me."

He looks around again, then walks up the steps of my dais.

The Twigs in my court stand and reach for their weapons. Denizens of the shanty towns around Poughkeepsie Field, homeless from the city, others that got lucky and found their ways up the social ladder but still remember where they came from. The clone population grows daily, thanks to the combined efforts of the Cloning Governance Administration and the Magician's Union. An endless supply of workers and little people to keep the companies going serves them both. Clones who want to be free.

I lift my hand, and they stand down. Melvin 117 hands me the box.

It wasn't always like this. Why am I the only one that remembers?

One ship -- the Microwave Explosion -- and one expired delivery of biofilm. That's all it took. That's the danger of biofilm -- it's not a localized medium. It's BIOFILM. It's all connected. Once one frame exploded, the whole movie went up. Clones everywhere. Forever.

Why am I the only one who remembers?

Because I've seen myself at the other end of the box.

I saw myself as Queen.

I can lead us all out of here. I can lead us all back to before it began.

Because now I have the box.

Melvin Splitsturd 11/14/2019 10:01pm

Something in me says I'm the 117th Melvin... and the only one left. But I might as well be the original, wot? Same memories, same me. When it was all of us, it was easy to just go with the flow... but then we flowed right out the doors of the Microwave Explosion and landed hard on the ground outside the Poughkeepsie Field. Well, some of us landed harder than others. The ground was pretty pulverized with Melvins when I landed, and our warm soft goo broke my fall.

Poor me. There wasn't a clean jumpsuit amongst us (not that our jumpsuit was ever clean) but the kindly waifs who live in these garbage patches outside the airfield are kindly folk, and dressed me in their finest moth eaten tweed and hurried me off before those bulls from the Magician's Union showed up and started busting heads.

The little ragamuffins want me to meet their queen.

Because I've got a Chinese Lightning Box.

Larry Fantasio 10/9/2019 11:36pm

Psssst! Hey! Over here! Yeah, under the streetlamp, and up the rickety stairs behind Pop's place.

Just so you know, the big boys from the Magician's Union aren't the only people keeping their eyes out for that Chinese Lightning Box. If you hear anything, the Queen of the Hudson would be mighty interested in knowing about it. Even the tiniest scrap! She'd make it worth your while, too. Just keep it on the down-low from those union boys and the CGA and you'll be right as rain.

You can find her at the reed-covered lodge, by the little-water place.

And tell her Larry sent you.

Presto LaRue 8/30/2019 10:25pm

The Magician's Union ain't too jazzed about this missing lightning box business. We know youse crows and ragpickers rousted those piles o' twigs in the shanty town out near da landing fields. If'n any o' youse found somethin' interesting, you better let the Cryptic Order know about it, pronto, capisce? Unless you wanna find youself sawed in half.

Presto LaRue
Marshal of the Inside Sentinel
Magician's Union, Poughkeepsie Branch