Wheel! Of! FISH!

A Guide to Introspection

2004-04-29 - 12:36 a.m.

You may wonder where I've been.

Well, that's for me to know, and you to find out.

You think you know me? You will never know me.

You know what I allow you to know.

G'heh-heh ... I'm edgy.

At any rate, True Believers, I commend you to observe what I've been occupying myself with in my absence:

The Planetary Guide to the New College of the Invisibles

Savor the flavor.

Incidentally, let's continue this story, shall we?

---

Clouds were gathering, low and green and beetle-browed, over the great bay to the south. The morning sun cantered towards its zenith as the day in New Orleans, the city of the strange, drew on. Two figures made their way down the twisting streets of the Big Easy, casting narrowing shadows to the west.

"Ahhh, that was fun. It's always a delight to tweak Curare's big shadowy nose. And I've wanted to get a look at that Junglefreak of his for years now. Yeah, THAT one's going in the archives," Wheel chuckled to himself as he pushed a recessed button on the left arm of his spectacles, transmitting image files to his data satellite. He idly spun the Mask on his right forefinger, making strange whirligig sounds.

Beside him, Quentin Holte walked quietly with his hands folded behind his back.

"Rather a topping bit of coincidence, too, wouldn't you say? The way you landed in the room where Curare happened to be playing solitaire 'til dawn? I mean, since you were thrown across practically the ENTIRE city of New Orleans, it's just uncanny that you ... ahhh ... landed ... iiiiinnn ... ahem."

Wheel trailed off and slowed to a stop as he realized Quentin was no longer walking beside him. He turned and saw the Invisible known as Archimedes Lochs standing still in the road, head bent, regarding a sprig of forget-me-not pushing through the cobbles.

"Ohhh, right-right. Yes. Sorry about the ... earlier distraction, old man. And the ... you know ..." Wheel mimed being grabbed by the throat and flung into the air, flailing his arms. "It's just that I can only take so much of that endless kung-fooey you and 'Hero and your ilk seem to love so much."

Quentin raised his head a few centimetres, and raised an eyebrow.

Wheel held up one hand. "Not that there's anything wrong with that, you understand. I'm sure that tossing all that chi around is very satisfying. Just not my cup of tea ... and I really wanted to ask you two exactly why you were fighting."

Wheel's mouth twisted for a moment.

"And for that matter, it wasn't terribly polite of you to flat-palm me out of the way in the early going, either."

Holte spoke softly.

"At least you did not reach escape velocity."

The Psychedelic Illuminate sighed.

"Yes, yes. But that's all in the past now. Let's put it behind us."

Quentin looked over his shoulder at the shattered front window of the El Mariachi Bar, a few meters behind them, which he had crashed through less than ten minutes ago. Wheel snapped his fingers impatiently, drawing Quentin's attention back to the fore.

"The PAST, I tell you. Let us live in the now."

Wheel pulled open the right side of his shirt, revealing a yawning star-filled gulf, into which he idly tossed the Mask. He reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out a yo-yo formed of a long strand of golden fleece axeled between two ancient skull doubloons. He looped it and spun it in a neat around the world, leaving a trail of sparkles in the air.

"So, if I might inquire formally: Archimedes Lochs ... by the Seal and the Covenant, by the rights of the Brethren ... what brings you to this city of the lost?" Wheel grinned. "It's the cheap rum, isn't it?"

He walked the dog as they strolled along, striking electric sparks off the cobbles. Holte quirked a smile. "Not quite, Wheel. I was engaged in an investigation into recent activities involving the so-called Estrodome, along with Actionhero ..."

Wheel chuckled. "I heard about that. Seemed like kind of a funny bit of business. What was this Agent AAM ...?"

Quentin cut him off with a gesture. "Let's NOT talk about THAT. However, as I was saying, in the course of my investigations, I found out that the ladies in question had, somehow and for SOME reason, managed to capture Padraig."

Wheel stopped short, dropping his yo-yo into a neat isosceles swing. "Padraig is here? When did THAT happen?" Holte shrugged. A moment passed, and the two proceeded on. "So you were trying to find out where they were keeping Padraig, I imagine?"

Holte nodded slowly.

"Right. And I supposed getting thrown across the city into one of Curare's fronts didn't help with that."

Holte shook his head slowly.

"And now I suppose you'll want to go find 'Hero and whoever he's met up with."

The tall, lethal Asian man paused and turned on his heel, and regarded Wheel silently.

"... and I should go ... the other way." Wheel held up a finger. "No need for another inscrutable silent gesture." He spun the gilded toy in a neat, tight whorling loop. "After you've met up with the Man of Mystery and whatever other hapless souls he's dragged into this, see if you can persuade everyone to drop by Dutrey's at midnight, barring anything dire. I'm of the mind that these synchronicities bear closer investigating."

Holte regarded him silently. Wheel sighed heavily.

"AND I'll buy the coffee."

Holte tilted his head slightly. Wheel's brow furrowed over his psychedelic spectacles.

"And the napoleons. Bastard."

Holte nodded with a small smile, and turned to walk down the bright cobble streets, now dappling with cloudshadow. He vanished down an alley, his footsteps clocking away.

The golden yo-yo spun neatly into the air with a flip and came down in Wheel's shirt pocket with a faint *whoosh*.

Wheel glanced around the silent street, and closed his eyes. He slowly, delicately, reached out with the quieter senses ... the ones that can only be used when the noisy, gregarious eyes and ears are not crowding everything else out. He smelt something on the air, sharp and bronze and sweet and hot ... he felt the air of the city breathing gently over his skin, whispering secrets ... he gently brushed against the metromind of N'Awlins ... and his eyes snapped open. He breathed in sharply, and let it out in a long, slow hiss.

The city was ... AFRAID.

He would need to look into this a bit further. Glancing around him, he saw an abandoned shopfront that looked appropriate. He stepped into the recessed doorway and threw a handful of purple silicate powder at the ancient, grimy brass-fitted door, softening it enough for him to push through it before snapping back into solidity. Wheel breathed the still, dusty air of the old toystore with the appreciation of a bon vivant in a winery. This had been a good place, once.

Wheel prepared himself. He sat cross-legged on the floor, folding his spectacles and placing them in his shirt pocket, and took out his medicine lodge from inside his shirt. Snapping open the catches on the Green Hornet lunchbox, from inside he drew out a small Crown Royal bag, a green plastic bubble pipe, a tiny, neatly-folded copy of Plastic Man Pocket Editions #15, and a green glass vial with a dropper. He breathed deeply and slowly, his eyes rolling shut and his body going loose. The shirt draped off his shoulders, chirruping to itself. All was silent in the store.

A tiny chime rang.

Wheel's hands moved surely but smoothly, his eyes remaining closed. He took up the tiny book, soaked in every fiber with a pure distilling of Jack Winks acid. He slipped it neatly onto his tongue, and held it there a few long moments before swallowing with a grimace. It was sweet as honey in his mouth, but bitter as ashes in his stomach. The chemicals set in immediately, Wheel's skin and bones and muscles drooping to lie in long coils on the floor, slowly puddling around him while he continued in his rubbery fashion.

He took up the vial, head bowed, and carefully pulled the barest tittle into his dropper. He tilted his head back and dropped a fairyjot of the golden liquid into each eye. His pupils immediately dilated ... and kept dilating until they swallowed his eyes, leaving spinning golden whorls against the blackness there. The vial contained exactly one dram of juice squeezed from Eris' apple.

Lastly, ripples flowing through his liquid form, his eyes wide and strange, he took up the pipe and from the pouch took a tiny pinch of dusty blue and green and gold leaf, tucking them into the bowl with his thumb and lighting them with a thought as he drew deeply on the pipe. Wonderland grass, kingsfoil, taduki and the tiniest pinch of the ashes of Jerry Garcia flowed into his lungs and through his tomnoddy oddbody.

Wheel's form collapsed into an elasticated heap on the grey floorboards of the old toyshop with a faint splat.

The shirt chirruped again, and made strange musical sounds as it flowed over Wheel, gathering him up and spreading itself across him until Wheel was a plastic sphere tucked seamlessly inside the shifting patterns and endless seashell chiming of the shirt. Blue smoke drifted out from the sphere in lazy curls.

With a creak and a chitter, it lifted from the floor, and hovered in the dark, still, hot air.

Wheel went down the rabbit hole, through the looking glass and took a left through the wardrobe before cutting under the rainbow ... to meet an old man, at the Crossroads.

More to come, True Believers!

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Incidentally, here's my contribution to the mindlessly entertaining quizzes that everyone's been indulging in of late: