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|| -------- -- ----- A E R I E O B L I V I A N A . singular book of text wandertainment by Frank Edward Nora ------------------- ----------- OSOAWEEK--ISSUE 042--5/11/95 <------- || OsoaWeek || Issues || Book 4 || -------> (Cup OWis042, Created v1 (4/27/99), Copyright 1999) = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = [[BEGIN042OW]] [[01042CV]] * * * O S O A W E E K 0 4 2 * * * May 11, 1995 "The weekly ezine of Obliviana Super Occult Amusement!" by Frank Edward Nora INSIDE THIS ISSUE! You must, repeat MUST, drop everything and check this out! Check it out... 01 042 CV--Cover !!!!!!!! A great place to start your journey of discovery! 02 042 IW--Into E-mber Forge of Wander !!!!!!!! Wild stuff, I gotta tellya. 03 042 HR--Hemisinister Review !!!!!!!! Sega Saturn & Some States of Consciousness 04 042 HT--Halfevil Times !!!!!!!! Horoscope: "Retrieve the elusive Fresca Boy.", etc. 05 042 ZP--Zope !!!!!!!! CRAN-JAY ZOPE 06 042 CZ--Classic Zope !!!!!!!! "Zope and the Horrible Fate of the Monroe Doctrine" 07 042 TS--Trick Sojourn !!!!!!!! New Nirvana Album! Diary of a Dreamfrank! 08 042 LA--Lord of Obliviana !!!!!!!! How to become a billionaire in 20 years. 09 042 SU--Superior !!!!!!!! "She's like a breath of fresh madness." 10 042 IS--Into E-mber Severe Repair !!!!!!!! Blasted brilliant! 11 042 SR--Severe Repair !!!!!!!! "Finfora" DEEP IN YOUR HEART YOU KNOW IT--OBLIVIANA RULES! INFORMATION: OsoaWeek042, May 11, 1995. Published weekly by Obliviana Super Occult Amusement, obliviana@aol.com, 1-800-OBLIVIANA. All contents copyright 1995 Frank Edward Nora. This release is Predatorware--you are free to make digital copies, so long as they're not altered or sold. All other forms of reproduction require permission. You're Prey unless you get a Predator Deed for this release. Contact us for more on this concept. Character count: 33230 / Line count: 909 *OW* [[02042IF]] Into E-mber Forge of Wander [:[FOW003]:] FORGE OF WANDER E-mber 003, May 11, 1995 Well now, the third installment of Forge of Wander already! Whattaya know. It must be cool to be you--to get all this free infostimulation--delivered FREE to your E-mail box every week! INFORMATION: Forge of Wander E-mber 003, May 11, 1995. Published weekly by Obliviana Super Occult Amusement, obliviana@aol.com, 1-800-OBLIVIANA. All contents copyright 1995 Frank Edward Nora. This release is Predatorware--you are free to make digital copies, so long as they're not altered or sold. All other forms of reproduction require permission. You're Prey unless you get a Predator Deed for this release. Contact us for more on this concept. You can cancel or subscribe to this E-mber anytime, via E-mail. *OW* [[03042HR]] Hemisinister Review ***VIDEO GAMES*** SEGA SATURN--FIRST IMPRESSION The next wave of games is coming, all the magazines tell us, and the big three are Nintendo Ultra 64, Sony PlayStation, and Sega Saturn. The long wait is still going for the first two, but a few weeks ago, Sega released the Saturn by surprise. I don't think it was such a good idea. The system itself sells for $399 with Virtua Fighter. Six other games are available in the $39 to $59 range I think. Of these, the one I was most interesting in was Daytona USA. Then I tried it. Yag! Pretty bad. In fact, the other games I've seen in motion (Panzer Dragoon, Virtua Fighter) look pretty bad too. Bad in terms of what it promises, not bad in terms of if it were a Genesis game or something. It's just all so 3DOish... This is a "limited" release for the Saturn--I hear that when it "really" comes out in September, it'll have to match PlayStation's $299 price tag. That'll do wonders for their image--as in, why is this machine suddenly worth 25% less? I think Nintendo has the right idea--stay out of the video game wars this Xmas. I hear Ultra 64 isn't coming out till April '96, on the expectation, I suppose, that all the CD-based systems will crash and burn. The advantage of being first cannot possibly offset a bad first impression. Heck, 3DO and CD-I have been out forever, and look at them. In the final analysis, I guess I feel uncomfortable spending $50 for a CD that cost $1 to manufacture. At least with cartridges you're getting something solid--a circuit board in a plastic housing--durable as hell. A CD-ROM is fragile, fleeting. One major scratch and its history. All I know is, I'm the sort of impulse buyer who'd get a Saturn right now, if it didn't totally suck. ***TV*** DR. QUINN: MEDICINE WOMAN Never saw it. ***CONSCIOUSNESS*** SLEEP When you go to sleep at night and then wake up in the morning, there's not a gap in your sense of time. That is--you get a sense that time has passed, even though you can't remember anything from it. In dreams, you're certainly experiencing and processing things, but they say that dreams make up only a portion of the sleep cycle. So does this sense of time passing come only from dreams? Or are you conscious in some way during those portions of sleep when you don't dream? It almost seems like something else is going on--like somewhere in there you're experiencing something for which no memories at all make it to your waking mind. What am I talking about? Well, for example, you might have a whole nother life you go to. You could exit one second and return the next, that second being a whole day of another life. I read about this idea somewhere--some kind of "Seth" or "Oversoul 7" book? I dunno. But it is an intriguing idea. And it need not even be in another world or another time--you could be multiple people in THIS world. Since no memories cross over, you could do, say, June 2, 1995 as person A, then go back and do it as person B, then person C, and so on. Heck! You could even be the entire population of the world! But I don't think so. Maybe just a few. Anyway, sleep holds many mysteries, and I hope to discover all of them someday, with Obliviana... DRUNKEN Pretty cool. Things are simpler and funnier. A pleasant dizziness and a good occasional experience. Black & Tan beer is the best way to get this going. Don't drive or fly F-15's drunk, though. Relates to Pan or Dionysus or something; an elemental force. "Man made booze, God made grass, who can you trust?" (phrase I remember from burnouts in high school). But I do think a god of some sort made booze. *OW* [[04240HT]] Halfevil Times This time around, I present to you an installment of the Halfevil Times Horoscope written back in 1993 by Anything But Monday co-creator Mike Massotto. While I created and did almost all of the Horoscopes of this format (what was previous called "Here's Your Horrorscope"), Mike tried his hand at it twice, this being the second one. It appeared in the experimental ABM Packet 1, dated May 16, 1993. Check it out! ***HALFEVIL TIMES HOROSCOPE*** by Mike Massotto Aquarius (Jan 20-Feb 18) Depict a casual murder in pastels on the wall of a Dairy Queen nearest and dearest to you. One, no both of your parents will have extramarital affairs. A chance meeting with a fairy will leave you rich and sterile as a mule. Indulge in utter stupidity. Pisces (Feb 19-Mar 20) A waning moon signifies the beginning of Nipplethon '93 in your medicine chest. For luck, smash four mirrors, walk under a ladder, step on a few cracks, and have a black cat cross your path. This month, banality is your forte. Juxtapose napalm to a whorehouse. Willie (Feb 29) Hey, everyone born on May 31st, duck! Give Atlas a break, carry the whole damn Earth on your shoulders for a few minutes. All that stands between you and good health is a desert of Crystal Light. Retrieve the elusive Fresca Boy. Aries (Mar 21-Apr 19) Sorry, you'll have to jog a million miles, but you'll have a million days to do it in. No, the dead will raise you. You just put that viola back where you found it. Exercise restraint when dealing with those molemen under your porch. Taurus (Apr 20-May 20) Dress to kill, but only maim. A bed of nails, a bed of hot coals, a bed of flowers, a bed of rice--each shall be your respective resting place on Wednesdays this month. Astral travel before the holiday rush. Frig that sh*t! Gemini (May 21-Jun 21) A Pulitzer Prize-winning hamster publishes your memoirs in quipu. Write a check to the US Government paying off the national debt--it might just clear. You've become fed-up with force feeding those Siamese quintuplets. For laughs this month, try self-immolation. Cancer (Jun 22-Jul 22) Pre-heat the oven to about 400 degrees and climb right in. Spend less time on your cereal collection and more time on your bomb collection. Contemplate bubblegum-flavored twat. Don't be surprised to awake in the night to find a nude Kareem Abdul-Jabbar hovering over your bed. Leo (Jul 23-Aug 22) Ragu is your spiritual marinara. Your mission: slay Frank Purdue. Whoops, your lucky number is 666! That verbal contract you made with your brassiere is legal and binding. Virgo (Aug 23-Sep 22) Your devil-may-care attitude just grabbed Mammon's attention. Jury duty is your duty, but your duty is not the jury. Lightning never strikes the same place twice, but in your case, three times is a charm. Rope-a-dope the Pope. Never fear this month, instead be horrified. Libra (Sep 23-Oct 23) Graft a live blowfish to your forehead and proclaim yourself Christ. Your dog finally has its day and spends it giving cunnilingus to your wife. The underpinnings of that framepoint on superfluous vaginitis are gay in the final analysis. To you, the real McCoy is nothing but a Hatfield incognito. Scorpio (Oct 24-Nov 21) A full moon grants you the power to give people orgasms just by staring at them. Collect the monocles of Nazi war criminals. Your rent just went up geometrically. No, the subway is not your magical chariot. Wine, dine, and sixty-nine that ermine. Sagittarius (Nov 22-Dec 21) A tandem of queer madrigal singers teleports into your attic on the vernal equinox. Suggest origami to that frustrated steelworker. Are you aware of that sunken treasure in your septic tank? Mars in Cleopatra will cause the heavens to orgasm on your roof. Capricorn (Dec 22-Jan 19) If you had just one more second on Thursday, you would have lived. Everything you touch levitates ten seconds before exploding. An anvil will ricochet off your aquarium. Extinguish that burning bush in your yard, or if you like, turn it into a shameful tourist trap. Piss on that Conrad fellow, fast! *OW* [[05042ZP]] Zope CRAN-JAY ZOPE ZOPE Hey Ratty man! Check out what I found at the ice cream place! ZOPE shows RAT 17 a can reading "BEGULANT--CRAN-JAY BEVERAGE--'The refreshing taste of cranberries and blue jays--lightly carbonated--it's a good thing!'--(brand name) GULPEM" RAT 17 Oh, another of your Gulpem drinks! Wow. ZOPE Whattaya mean, MY drink? I just got it cuz it looked cool. RAT 17 I know Zope, but--but don't you sometimes pretend to be that guy Lester Gulpem, who invents all those drinks? ZOPE What the hell are you talking about, you little worm? RAT 17 I... I mean... you know Zope, I must have gotten confused. Y-you're right. You're not Lester Gulpem. Heh. ZOPE opens the can and takes a drink. ZOPE Delicious! Now Ratty, come on. Tell me about this Lester Gulpem. What, is he a guy who resembles me? RAT 17 I dunno, kinda. ZOPE Hey? RAT 17 I don't know. A little maybe. ZOPE (producing another can) Aha! Why don't you drink some of this, ya little freak, and then tell me! RAT 17 looks at the can..."LUISCOT--SODIUM PENTATHOL TRUTH BEVERAGE--'Tangy truth serum blend--Honesty is the best policy!--lightly carbonated--I like that!'--(brand name) GULPEM" RAT 17 Uh, I don't know, Zope. I mean, I'm not really that thirsty, and... RAT 17 looked up to see ZOPE holding a loaded crossbow to RAT 17's head. ZOPE Drink up kid! Be a good kid! RAT 17 O-okay, Zope. RAT 17 nervously drinks the LUISCOT. ZOPE (lowering crossbow) Well? RAT 17 Well what? ZOPE Tell me everything you know about Lester Gulpem. RAT 17 I'll tell you alright. You're a lunatic Zope. YOU are LESTER GULPEM. You're nuts! And you know what? I think you're just doing this to be cool. You know you're Gulpem. You're just being mean to me! ZOPE It works! Haha, it works! Hot-diggety! RAT 17 So you admit that you're Lester Gulpem, Zope? ZOPE Of course I'm Lester Gulpem--but where are you getting this Zope name from? I've never heard of any Zope! RAT 17 Oh no... *OW* [[06042CZ]] Classic Zope "Zope and the Horrible Fate of the Monroe Doctrine" 10/11/93 ZOPE Ah. ZOPE looks at INTERDIMENSIONAL DEMON 54. ZOPE My little pet Interdimensional Demon--go get me the Monroe Doctrine, you little freak! INTERDIMENSIONAL DEMON 54 Hoo haw hoo haw! MASTER JOE Zope, those demons of yours sure are weird little f*ckers. ZOPE Yeah, but they're useful--you'll see, Joe! Later. ZOPE (grabbing document from INTERDIMENSIONAL DEMON 54) Gimme that and go back to your pod, you deformed sh*t! *CRINKLE CRINKLE CRINKLE* MASTER JOE Zope, why are you crinkling up the Monroe Doctrine? It's valuable! ZOPE So it won't hurt when I wipe my ass with it. Now that I have demons, I'll never have to use regular toilet paper again--I can use all important documents! *OW* [[07042TS]] Trick Sojourn ***SONG OF THE WEEK*** Lush * "Blackout" (from their latest album, "Split") [:[END]:] *OW* [[08042LA]] Lord of Obliviana Internet debit--press a button, you'll be billed. Download the latest Obliviana VIAT movie for 25 cents? CLICK. There you go. The secret of success in the early 21st Century. Low-overhead digital publishing. Create it, offer it, and watch as the cash flows in from all around the globe. One million 25 cent clicks is $250,000. With almost no distribution costs, production and promotion become the biggest expenses. With cheap digital tools and talented individuals, production need not be exorbitant. And much of the production can be handled with freely-distributed digital files. We're talking a pretty neat little business here (once the Digital Superworld gets going, that is...) So what does this mean to me, the Lord of Obliviana? It means that by the time Osoa is operating in the manner described above, being KNOWN will be more important than anything. This is where the Predatorware idea comes in. It allows for the free flow of Obliviana files, while still leaving room for money to come in. Something 100% free is viewed as inferior--Predatorware is free, but the costly Predator Deeds show that it has true value. Also, for me, free publicity via the press is vital--and Predatorware is a cool idea I think people will want to write about. Predatorware is one solution to the problems of software distribution I discussed in OsoaWeek040 (11040NH/startline282). Another solution is make software so cheap and easy to get, that it's easier to just buy it than get a copy from a friend. An Internet/That Which Will Come After the Internet automatic billing system would be a big move in this direction. If more people buy something, it can be priced cheaper. And if we're talking a worldwide market, stuff can be real cheap. This is the ideal. I think we might get there, but if not, there are other ways, such as Predatorware. I'm interested in all this cuz this is how I plan to make money for the rest of my life, starting in a year or two. So I'm real interested in all this. Something pretty cool, you know how I moved? I used to commute from Metropark station in Iselin, NJ. Now I go from Princeton Junction station--maybe 20 or 30 miles farther away from Manhattan. The thing is, you can take some Amtrak Trains both ways using your monthly pass ($249 in my case). So you get bigger seat, nicer atmosphere, a faster trip, all that. Pretty cool, eh? The 6:31 AM is the train for me! Yeah. You know it's weird. The way I've structured OsoaWeek now, I used to just go on and on in Lord of Obliviana to get to the 50K point. But now, it's just the two E-mbers which determine the minimum--LOA can be any length; it doesn't matter. So I don't know. Does this discourage me from rambling? Maybe so. Maybe so. June 4, 1995. Sunday. Wowie! Yesterday like I went on America Online and found out that a beta version of World Wide Web was available. I downloaded it, man! I'm on the Web, dude! Surfing the Internet! Whoah! And y'know, I think the WWW has enough novelty that its lack of content won't be such a problem. Yup. After a few hours of WWW, made up of tons of 5 or 10 or 15 minute sessions interrupted by system freezes and the like. Heck, it's a beta! (sounds like a catchphrase, eh?) So, let me go for now--I'm at +24 and I wanna keep it that way. Alotta stuff going on. Stay tuned and all that jazz. GET ALL OBLIVIANA. *OW* [[09042SU]] Superior SUPERIOR 225 She's like a breath of fresh madness. SUPERIOR 226 I want a sphere of solitude, okay? Witches, psychos, punks--I love all of 'em! All those girls! I want a sphere of solitude, to share. I want a purple mountain like a drill to drill into Earth. I like the strange and I am young. SUPERIOR 227 That, and the flaming blade. Was good. With stimulus and afterlash. Hunderstand Warmister. Hanging stranded on this wayassal. SUPERIOR 228 That frosty atmosphere always around you, at, say, college lounge, makes me, the lowly nerd, love you. Who are you and who am I? I care only for my own lust, I cannot deal with feelings. I have a fantasy life. Other. The truth, our bond, another universe, you really are occult like me. I like us. SUPERIOR 229 I was hon and, how I'm home so--solo and an apple. Game sovure, the delecaration and the fi-line. Beesp--not a game and not a sound, the laze of days of half awake Odd Couple on channel 11. Yeah. The New York like their New York. I am slow. I was the coolest and will be. Don't spill the flask of honesty, the stain will never erase. SUPERIOR 230 I believe that a chilly unknown morning drive is: there. EPCOT my thoughts, all that's gone, you need time travel to get it back. You wanna go into her gravity, but it's a dangerous game--you only wanna go in so far--you gotta be able to pull back, not get sucked in. A dangerous game, one that can be lost. But exciting, a thrill, titillating. SUPERIOR 231 Be thee i. Aladask am fortune. The grayness of places, I recall a situation, a little house and my otherness took its toll. What eve. It was to me a great turning around of few degrees. I recall DC, Honey I Shrunk the Kids at the train station, I think I was rejected by Erin, she'd gone down there, I couldn't get in touch with her, so I went down there, she wasn't happy to see me, I think she made me leave. Another episode, another stepping stone to becoming a true adult. Few get there. SUPERIOR 232 I am can write storefront street. The dewel is a not for King, was not Staten Island for me, girljoke wishway. The storald of my finish cangjonks. Lemning the crasha of college, I am said. Dire rail train me. The hiddest. I AM COMING! *OW* [[10042IS]] Into E-mber Severe Repair [:[SVR003]:] SEVERE REPAIR E-MBER 003 by Frank Edward Nora Welcome all of you! I am Frank Edward Nora, Lord of Obliviana and author of Severe Repair. Be brave in the fierce glow of my talent--keep a clear mind and a pure heart and you shall survive. Yeah. Anyway, you might remember a reference in earlier chapters to a book called "The Aleche Degrasion". Well, right here, right now, you'll find out what this classic novel is all about! Yo! Enjoy it! INFORMATION: Severe Repair E-mber 003, May 11, 1995. Published weekly by Obliviana Super Occult Amusement, obliviana@aol.com, 1-800-OBLIVIANA. All contents copyright 1995 Frank Edward Nora. This release is Predatorware--you are free to make digital copies, so long as they're not altered or sold. All other forms of reproduction require permission. You're Prey unless you get a Predator Deed for this release. Contact us for more on this concept. You can cancel or subscribe to this E-mber anytime, via E-mail. *OW* [[11042SR]] Severe Repair SEVERE REPAIR 42: "Finfora" What a day. While Carroll and Lunatether basically just hung out, I was roaming the worst sections of Peeferkihint, supposedly in search of a gay prostitute to help us in our bid for Deep Violt C. We had a meeting about it the night before, and it was decided it had to be me because I was the only human male of the three. I protested that Carroll was also a human male, just one in a scarecrow body. But no--they said I'd have to gain the trust of this person we were seeking. Great. As I wandered the back alleys I thought how I could have been home by now, back at the palace. Not here, not on these grimy streets, seeking out even grimier establishments. Yeah, I could home. But maybe, just maybe, Deep Violt C was worth it. Anyway, the day wound up a total bust. I don't even know what sort of places I was in. Drugs, dark perversions, crimes, all that. But no one near the sort of person we were looking for. A guy who would befriend this Stone Beverly, seduce him I guess, and then hopefully get the keys to Deep Violt C on Beverly's death bed. Then he'd turn the keys and deed over to us. Great. Yeah, after that first day, I told Lunatether she'd have to make a go at it the next day--I was dropping out. She said she would--that she had a new idea--to visit colleges and universities--where young people would do just about anything for money. I told her to go for it. I did find some cool stuff that day, though. Like this place--it used to be a bus depot, but now it was this bookstore, coffee shop, gaming area. Apparently there used to be a tunnel which extended all the way from there to the airport--at least ten miles--where they'd shuttle people back and forth. Now, there was a weird art exhibit in there. It was all dark, and there were these little displays lit up every few hundred yards, so you were there with the display, and there was nothing but darkness otherwise. Pretty neat. I don't know. One thing for sure though--my Overwhelm superstrength was in total mesh with me. That is, it was connected with my body's energy systems, and could totally recharge itself on my power, without any recharging sessions. Huh. I know they said that it was possible for this to happen, pretty lucky it happened to me. Superstrength means that nothing can hurt you--you can go anywhere, do anything, say anything, and you won't be injured, imprisoned, delayed, or anything. It's a nice feeling of security. But it does take the edge off of things. Danger makes excitement. I was lying on the bed in our room in Deep Violt Junior. Lunatether was exercising--she said she knew exactly what had to be done to keep her human body in peak condition. Huh. She always talked about her human body like it was a car or something. Which, I guess, it kind of was to her. "So what are you gonna do exactly tomorrow?" I asked. "Oh, a bunch of things." Lunatether said, huffing and puffing as she arched her body left, then right, then left again, and so on. "The bottom line is, we are offering an amount of money that will blow these college students away. All we gotta do is find one man willing to do anything for money." "You mean, willing to sleep with another man." "It's more than that." she said after a pause. "He has to be trustworthy also. And smart. He'll have to know that he plays by our rules, nothing less." "Yeah?" "Yeah. I'm sure I'll find someone. Mr. Beverly should be less suspicious with an innocent, as opposed to the sort of people you met up with today." "Huh? Why'd you make me do it then? If you didn't want them?" "I didn't know. I thought there might have been enclaves of people just dying for the sort of opportunity we could offer them." "Yeah." I said. "Now we know. Talk about lost souls..." "Leave it to me, Prince. I'll find our mind. It's just like a chess game. You force people into making a decision, and either way, you win." "That's nice." I said sarcastically, and I got to thinking. "Kind of reminds me of that book I read, from the Warhomes. You know, The Aleche Degrasion." She stopped exercising and stared at me. "The Warhomes?" "Yeah. In the library. All those books were in you, too, right?" "Yeah." "Well this one, The Aleche Degrasion--I told you about it--how I had it with me when I crashed on an island in Daptin's Land with Treyess Arcomany?" "You told me about it briefly. How you and Treyess were lovers, and how that evil woman, Red Archer Booze, came out of a cloak and seduced both of you with her bottle of aphrodisiac." "Yeah." I said, musing on the times the three of us spent in pleasure. Pretty intense memories--almost as intense as when I blew Booze's head off. Too bad Daptin had to bring her back to life. But those memories, that sex... "What was the book about?" Lunatether asked. "Well," I said, sitting up on the bed, "It's about this guy Poale. He's raised in the mountains of this distant land--his parents were visiting for some unknown reason, but they died. So these monks of an ancient mythology took him in and taught him their ways. And he was a natural. In fact, if he'd been just a little bit better, they'd have declared him the rebirth of God or something." "Huh." Lunatether said, and she plopped down on the bed next to me, the sweet, pungent scent of her sweat exciting me. "Yeah, so anyway, this guy Poale was so pure, so high, that he could do all this amazing stuff. Like, they had this idea that each of us is both male AND female--and if you were pure and focused enough, you could shift back and forth as easily as opening and closing your eyes. Poale could do this, and in both forms, he was... they said he was very beautiful." "Yeah?" "Yeah. And... and he could talk to animals and plants--especially trees. He could FEEL all the life and energy around him. He was just so sensitive to anything--he was on the brink of infinity." "What was it that made him not be a god?" "I forget. Something about the time of his birth, his lack of ability to speak with planets, his susceptibility to certain forms of spirit dust, you know. Some very minor things." "Uh-huh." "Anyway, this weird organization, FOFTH, the, uh, Future Organization of the Fire Teapot Hegemony, they, uh, they contact Poale and his fellow monks, and they send him on this mission to a faraway country where a new hedonistic occult drug music lifestyle is taking over. And he's convinced by his teachers that he should do this. So he goes there, and the thing is, it's pretty cool, he has to infiltrate the organization both as his male self, Poale, AND his female self, which is named Finfora." "Two names?" "Yeah. The monks came up with it. Anyway, he goes over there, and a lot of the books is about how he slowly starts to get more and more sucked into the lifestyle, which is called Aleche. And what happens is, his female self gets much farther into the center of this, you know, what sort of turns out to be a cult of sorts. But he finds that as Finfora, he's more vulnerable to the temptations of sex, drugs, and everything else." "So what happens?" "Well, a lot of stuff. I don't want to ruin it for you. But as Poale, he resist the temptations and never really gets too far into Aleche. In fact, at one point, they all want to kill him. There's a lot of fighting and stuff, from all these weird groups. But the thing is, the same people he's fighting as Poale, he's in real good with as Finfora. The thing is, Finfora starts to succumb to her earthly desires, and she begins to fall in love with a young innocent." "So this Poale/Finfora person was a virgin?" "Yeah. He was like, just totally playful and asexual. As both sexes, people lusted after him, but he just accepted it and passed no judgment. He was bright and airy and happy and everything--but definitely not very emotional, at least at a human level." "So he--she rather--falls in love?" "Yeah. It's this guy named Bally. He's very naive and innocent and good himself--but he falls hopelessly in love with Finfora. She gets close to him because of his purity, because she feels comfortable with him." "Sound like a good story." "It is! So, uh, what happens eventually is that Finfora winds up getting totally wasted on drugs with Bally, and he... he takes her virginity." "Wow. This sounds like one confused person." "He is. It's like, as Poale he likes girls, but as Finfora he likes guys. It's like--the longer he goes into the mission, the bigger the gap gets between his male and female halves. It gets to the point where he thinks he'll have to choose between them, but he can't. Once he loses his virginity as a female however--as Finfora--his whole thing falls apart. He can't switch sexes anymore, so he's stuck as Finfora forever. His senses and his other abilities are also shut down--she says--Finfora that is--says that it was like a huge, dark curtain fell all around her, as her pure state collapsed." "Huh." "So her and Bally now get further and further into the hedonism of Aleche. And the thing is, she finds out that FOFTH, which was basically in control of the entire world, sent her on the mission not to try and stamp out Aleche, but because her--Poale--whatever--was getting too powerful, and they wanted to get rid of the threat he/she posed. They knew that with all the constant shifting between male and female, and all the earthly temptations, that Poale would eventually succumb, and he did. As a she." "How'd... SHE find this out?" "Her FOFTH contact just came out and told her. Said there wasn't anything she could do to return to her former state of glory, and that now that she was harmless, FOFTH would help her any way they could. And she was just... she couldn't deal with what had happened to her, so she just got into Aleche more and more, corrupting and destroying Bally eventually, till she became pretty much the high priestess of Aleche, completing her fall from grace." "Wow." "Yeah. From a frolicking mountain demigod to a spacey, corrupt cult leader. And the thing is--the FOFTH plot was even more tangled--cuz with Finfora at the helm of Aleche, eventually, they had what was essentially a puppet government in the Aleche cult. So they got everything they wanted." "Wow. And this was the book you just randomly chose?" "Yeah, kinda. I mean, I heard stuff about it while I was on the Derolbam Team--there was a movie and stuff, but I never saw it. I know it was considered a classic, and that a lot of troubled young people loved to read it. I guess they saw a mirror of their own fall from the innocence of childhood in it." "Yeah..." Lunatether said distantly. "I never had one of those. A childhood..." Ferrajalt regarded the woman. "How far back do your memories go?" Lunatether frowned and squirmed a little. "I don't know. I remember when you activated my matter handler, but--I have the impression that I was conscious the whole time. Just sort of in a sleepy, dreamy state. And... there was some stuff before that, but I can't tell if it was real or dream, but it has to do with Injure Bodoni and Ann Saply creating Leitmotif out of the Warhome matter handler. Scary visions, unspeakable powers..." Ferrajalt put his arm around Lunatether. "So--where did... you know, where did your MIND come from, your... your CONSCIOUSNESS? I mean, as I understand it, the spirit enters the body at the moment of birth. But..." Lunatether turned to Ferrajalt and he could see tears in her eyes. "You're trying to say that I'm still just a machine, aren't you? That I could never animate this body like a real woman." Ferrajalt was taken aback. "N-no!" he said, pulling her to him. "Come on! The thought never crossed my mind! If anything, Hilltop was the one who acted like a machine. You, you're a warm, wonderful woman. I was just... I was just wondering. On a cosmic level. Come on." He kissed her and she grasped him hard, as if holding on for dear life. It only made him feel worse for the lies. He did feel she was still a machine, nowhere near being Hilltop. But he couldn't--he couldn't crush this poor machine's fragile grasp on happiness. Even though he knew that someday, he would. [:[END]:] *OW* [[END042OW]] -------> ------------------- ----------- -------- -- ----- |