CHAPTER 26 - DARK VOICES AND LIES

Jimmy Whashisname lay exhausted across his desk. His blue candle, but a stub with only the dimmest illumination in his subterranean junior journalist’s office deep within the bowels of The Times building. He was snoring. Jimmy’s head lay drooling upon his latest effort and journalistic analysis. Yet another article by Sissy Talbot, special correspondent to The Times. The article was heavily marked and annotated in Jimmy’s lower case handwriting and the gleam of his writing in crayon sent little flickers of light bouncing across his acne covered face.

BAFFLES COMPUTER me-PHONE DOES NOT WORK IN SECOND LIFE
Sissy Talbot, Special Correspondent to The Times. Times Semaphore
Capital City

Fans of Baffles Computer’s “me-me-me-me” products were angered today to learn that the highly anticipated “me-Phone” does not work correctly in Second Life.

Last week avatars lined up in ones and twos throughout SL’s numerous mercantiles and malls to be the first in their Sim to get a hot new me-Phone. Jobless Steves, disgraced CEO of Baffles Computer, inventor of “me-Products”, had touted his new me-Phone through all of SL’s media outlets and escort services, and the hype surrounding the new product was intense.

Unfortunately a number or problems have surfaced in recent days, such as; the limited life of the squirrel in the energy wheel, and the ugly fact that the me-Phone will not continually tell its owner of how attractive they are, how intelligent they have become since their purchase, and how much cooler they are than those who don’t have the me-Phone. Another appalling failure of the me-Phone is that the highly touted “call me” feature does not work, and the phone will not allow the owner to talk to themselves as claimed. This failure results in the embarrassing contact with another avatar therefore thwarting the very purpose of the me-Phone. The Times attempted to contact a Baffles Computer spokesman, but she was not answering his phone.

A cold breeze came from nowhere, and the blue candle flickered. Jimmy woke up in a start. He thought he heard a noise somewhere in the darkness. No, he had ‘felt’ the noise. Or was he just dreaming. This journalism work was really hard and tiring and he often found himself dreaming of the articles he was working on.

He had been dreaming of taking his new me-Phone to meet with his hero Jobless Steves. Jimmy had dreamed he was in the famous paperless office of Steves and that the carpet was covered in lime jello and when Jimmy looked up Steves was missing, but the Baffles Computer Clown was spinning his head and insanely shouting, “rebate?, reabate?, sucker!, sucker!”. The room was all wrong. The angles were askew, nothing was square. Jimmy looked again, and in his dream, he was standing in a long never ending line at a closed window of some huge government bureaucracy. He was last in line but he could clearly see the sign over the window. It said “Pay Your Nerd Tax Here.” After what seemed like an eternity he reached the head of the line. A skeletal bureaucrat wearing dusty green eyeshades was shuffling me-Phone pictures of Jimmy labeled “looser” on the counter before him. Without looking up the skeleton said, “i before e! Except after c.”

Sparkle Basevi was desperate to learn what had happened to her missing love Ed Hallard. He had gone to Capital City the day before, to see the Naval Board, and had promised to return early that afternoon. But he had not arrived on the early evening blimp flight from the Capital. Sparkle had waited until the last arrival at 9:00. No Ed. She had been trying to call his cell phone all afternoon, and throughout the night. No answer. Sparkle phoned the Navy Board at the Long White Hall and after getting forwarded a dozen times she spoke with a Naval Board person who said they had never heard of Ed Hallard. “He’s a Captain, a Captain in the reserves”, she explained. The voice on the other end of the line said, “Ok give me a moment ill check the reserve officers list.” After a long time a different voice came back on the line and said “No Ed Hallard on the reserve or active lists.” The voice hung up the line. Sparkle took the first available seat on the blimp to the Capital at noon.

Sparkle was sick with worry. Ed had departed for the Capital with dread and worry about that evening long ago. The evening of the ship wreck that he refused to talk about. However everyone in Heart of the Ocean village knew of the disaster great detail. The night that Ed, then a first mate on the Duckpin II, had saved two shipwrecked persons and a dog off the coast near the village. There had been a horrific storm, an explosion, and cries of “murder, murder!” and then the Duckpin II crashed upon the deadly Ripple Rock and was smashed to bits by seasonal ice bergs. Ed was hailed by locals as a hero, for pulling one person ashore he had ventured out into the surf again to rescue yet another. And then a third time to rescue a dog that showed his gratitude by peeing on Ed’s leg as they came ashore.

That was the night she first laid eyes on Ed. He was stripped to the waste, drenched in bunker oil, his strong hand badly smashed, blood flowing from a horrible gash on his manly chest, gasping for breath and spitting up sea water with bits of nori. It had been love at first sight for Sparkle. A few days later, during a quiet dinner at Madam Bitter’s Bistro and Hotel, Sparkle proposed and Ed after thinking for about a micro second did what a Navy Man was never supposed to do. He surrendered to her love.

While on the Blimp she called her old classmate Sindy Blazer’s office. Sindy was out, but a young man who answered Sindy’s line said she would be at the Museo that night. Perhaps she could catch Sindy at the Museo.

When Sparkle arrived at the Aerodrome she took the famed Rapido into the Memorial Park Station. She had an afternoon to look for Ed, and leaving the station she headed toward Beast Avenue and the Long White Hall. She approached the building with some trepidation. Sparkle had never been here, but she had heard about the magnificent structure, its traditions, and its heritage, and its strange Naval Code. She reached the vast wooden staircase. Two recumbent lions lay sleeping and purring on pedestals flanking each side of the stair. She paused and tried to remember what Ed had said was the Navy tradition for the lions and for ensuring good luck. Then she remembered. Yes, don’t wake up the lions. Tippy toe past them, and you will live another day. That was the tradition. She noticed that the lion on the left needed dental work and it was drooling a bit making a portion of the wooden staircase slippery.

She tippy toed up the stairs and approached the grand reception. Gorgeous young marines stood at attention as they flanked a small woman dressed in a navy blue suit with batwing sleeves and with her auburn hair in a tight bun. The young receptionist wore rimless coke bottle bottom glasses tinted with yellow.

“Ahmm”, said Sparkle.

The young woman looked up, here eyes magnified to the size of those little saucers at Madam Bitters Tea Room, quickly assessed that Sparkle was not Navy, and then looked down. “Take a number, please take a seat,” she said. She motioned toward a waiting area.

Sparkle took a number from a wheel of random numbers and turned to the waiting area. It was a very large hall with room for perhaps 30 or 40 avatars. Sparkle guessed there were about 50 or 60 avatars present. All were dressed in civvies. Sparkle looked at her number – 2415 x10-5 It was going to be a long wait. She decided to wait in the gift shop.

The Navy Board gift shop was full of colorful nautical maps, model ship kits, faux medals for seamanship, stewardship, and animal husbandry. Sparkle spied a lovely little hand bag fashioned from hemp and tar by prisoner’s held in the HMS Splitpea not far from Capital City. There were lots of books on every imaginable nautical and salt water related topic. On one sagging shelf was Fowltropps 98 volume work of the History of the Blue Ocean Navy. On the next isle were volumes on Shipwrecks, Disasters, and Insurance Claims in the Merchant Marine. I wonder she thought. She began to carefully examine the titles. Yes, there it was. ‘The Calamity of the Duckpin II’, by Admiral Elbow N. Scrag. Sparkle pulled the slender volume from the shelf. She rapidly spun through the pages and found the photo section. There were pictures of the DuckpinII at the shipwrights prior to her launch, and pictures of her steaming out to sea and into the sunset off the pirate infested coast of Nice. Also one of the Duckpin II in a sadder time as she sat at The Bangledesh Docks about to be auctioned to the highest bidder. There was a picture of a group of people standing on the deck taking in the sun, and a last picture of wreckage, flotsam, and jetsam, scattered across the familiar Amazon Beach in the village. She looked closely at the picture of the group standing on the stern of the ship. The picture included the Captain, one named Crawley, a seaman named Princep and a First Mate named Hallard! It was Ed. He looked so cute in his little white uniform. He looked like a kid she thought. So young, and so yummie. A tear formed on Sparkles cheek and fell with a little splat onto the picture. Right on to a small but obviously unhappy family and their very large dog.

She turned to the index. ‘Hakes tooth’, ‘Halcyon, the wreck of’, ‘Hale, Admiral’, ‘Half Moon Bay’, ‘Half Pay’, ‘HalfWit, Third Sea Lord’, and then she found it. ‘Hallard, Ed, First Mate BONOR’. “BONOR?” spoke Sparkle to no one. A young naval cadet, perhaps 14 or 15 years old, was looking at the center fold of the current issue of Navy Babes Magazine across the isle. “That’s Blue Ocean Navy Officers Reserve, mam,” he said as he sheepishly turned to a dense article on knots and ropes.

What’s happening here Sparkle wondered? How could the Long White Hall, known for never forgetting anything, not even a misplaced silver spoon with a lump of sugar on it forget one of its own. Yet they claimed they had no knowledge of Captain Ed Hallard BONOR.

She rushed to Fowltropps work of the ‘History of the Blue Ocean Navy’. She found the section listing Ed’s graduating class at the Merchant Marine Academy back in 03. ‘The frightening 03’s’ Ed had always called them when reminiscing after a few too many lime laced Corneal beers. On page 1034 of volume 89 she found Ed’s name listed. Second in his class for seamanship, first in navigation, and in the lower quartile for drinking and carousing. Sparkle knew that all graduates of the Merchant Marine Academy automatically became members of the BONOR. They had no choice, that is until they reached the age of 80 or they drowned.

In the distance she heard her number called.

Sparkle ran to the front desk. The prim little girl with the glasses and the bun was not there. Instead a tall man of captain’s rank with funny little ribbons and an arm patch Sparkle recognized was calling her number. She passed her paper slip across the counter.

“Ah, Ms. Sparkle, how may we help you?” he said with a frown. There was a jagged old scar across his cheek running from the bottom of his right eye, past his mouth, and ending on his square cut chin. The Captain had the air of nonchalance that only came from deep concern and sorrow. Sparkle though his question odd, because she had not given her name. Sparkle had only taken a number.

“I’m looking for my betrothed Ed Hallard, Captain BONOR?” she said in as forceful a voice as she could muster in her 85 pound, 5’2”, size 2, girlish frame.

Without referring to any documents or picking up the phone the Captain replied, “Look Mam, there’s no Ed Hallard here, and there’s no Ed Hallard in the Blue Ocean Navy, the White Fleet, the Black Fleet, or in the reserves, or even in the Merchant Marine. None at all, I assure you, the Navy does not know of any Ed,” he paused, “Hallard.” Then he continued, “these Marines will escort you to the door.” She turned and the marines approached her.

The Captain was lying and lying badly. She had recognized his arm patch – The Stellar Seals of the Double Squids. The Captain was Naval Intelligence.

The sun had set by the time Sparkle found herself escorted down the stairway and onto the empty cold street. Her exit had been swift, and they had paused only for a short moment to tippy toe past the lions. Then the marines were gone. Sparkle was alone. Sparkle was pissed. And hell hath no furry like Sparkle scorned.

It was dark and it was very cold, and the street was dim. The only real illumination came from the massive and oddly architected building across the street. There was a large crowd gathered and a long long limo with gold wall tires was slowly approaching the far side of the building where searchlights stabbed the clouds and aggravated them into releasing snow.

Sparkle hailed a pedi cab, “Take me to the Museo,” she said. The cabby looked confused. “And step on it!”, she ordered. The pedi cab pulled a sharp U turn and stopped on the opposite side of the street. “That’l be 8 lindens,” said the cabby as Sparkle looked at the brightly illuminated Museo de Segundo Vida.