BS: Once a Mudcat, always a ? (Story thread)

Subject: RE: BS: Once a Mudcat, always a ? (Story thread)
From: katlaughing
Date: 08 Sep 07 - 01:12 PM

Lindy Loo finally cleared the fog she'd been walking in and came out to see a glorious bright, shining, stupendous Light in front of her. Off to the side, she saw the redheaded woman and others in some sort of conflict. She turned towards them, but decided they had things under control. She walked on, her eyes glued to the light, almost like the super glue which held certain things together which she would not mention in polite company. Suddenly, she remember just what she was, her antennae went up, her neck elongated, her form became wraith-like and she skimmed above the ground seemingly without any support of feet or legs; it looked as though she was in a diaphonous gown, an angel almost. She felt free, free at last of the earth-bound humanoid form she'd been prisoned within, free of the constraints of gravity, free to be herself, ready to go home at last to Elmorphrador.

Nearly reaching her spaceship, she was brought to a screeching, well a softly screeching, halt by an invisible force. She heard a strange plucking and a wallering like a cat, perhaps? No a voice, that was it, one of those strange human voices raised up in pain? No, it sounded more joyful and the plucking? Its fingernails being ripped out? No, she felt it then, in the region of a human heart in her alien form...a plucking of what should have been heartstrings. She heard the strumming now, of an instrument, yes, the hourglass-shaped one and the scraping across the cat-like one, then she heard the mighty bellows of the artificial lung instrument, wheezing a cacophony of melodious tones all bunched together and the voices. She heard the voices and turned around. Something was happening to her. She was morphing back into her chosen human form! The last thing she remembered was hearing the voices singing...

Once you're a Mudcat
You're always a Mudcat,
You can't go back,
But you can come back
'cause once you're a Mudcat,
A Mudcat you'll always be!

Subject: RE: BS: Once a Mudcat, always a ? (Story thread)
From: Amos
Date: 08 Sep 07 - 12:45 PM

The sound of a crumpling Madison prime was like a banjo thrown among pigeons. The Madison clone whirled, his hand reaching into his pocket. Argent's left arm whipped out, throwing Red to the ground, and his right had the Smith and Wesson up before the clock-eyed clone could clear his raincoat. When the clone's gun appeared, a single slug from the blue-steel barrel of Argent's weapon tore a neat hole between his eyes and a much larger one out the back of his synthetic skull. Some sort of smoke rose gently towards York's cave from the back of the fallen clone's corpse By the time the shot's echoes had faded into the pines, Argent had Smorch frog-marched into the clearing with the blue-steel barrel trained just below his fattish skull, and his thick right arm deftly hoisted into the small of his back.

"Go take care of Madison, Red", Argent muttered, and she scrambled to her feet and strode back into the shrubbery.

"Seems to me we have a discussion to have, fella.", Argent said quietly to his captive.

"But I don't have a lot of time, as there's a download coming in that is due to complete in the next twenty minutes. So I think you need to talk real fast."

The captive did not look happy; but after a nasty poke in the back of his skull with the Smith and Wesson's evil end, he seemed inclined to cooperate.

Subject: RE: BS: Once a Mudcat, always a ? (Story thread)
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 08 Sep 07 - 02:58 AM

Just out of sight, in the bushes, naked except for his empty holster, Madison prowled through the underbrush. As he rested, panting in the clover, he thought back on how unbelievably easy his escape from the craft had been. When he had uttered the words "I've got to stop me", he had unwittingly spoken the sacred words of the third prayer to Cthulu. The aliens fell to their knees with a single shout. Suddenly the ship had flooded with light, a light of such clarity and brilliance that the aliens had been sent scuttling for cover. With this, the image of a huge deus ex machina had appeared in the doorway, and Madison had merely stepped on to its broad feathered back, fearlessly. No, it wasn't the first time that one of the fantastic creatures had appeared just in time to save Bake's blacon.
But Madison knew the caper was far from finished. As he stole through the thick underbrush, stealthy as a wraith, or at least the wraith of some large horned grazer, he came upon crime scene after crime scene.
The bodies of the slain lay just off the trail that lead from the lake to the main folkie cabin. He was shocked to find the mountie, as well as the bodies of other characters mentioned in earlier postings. Then, he heard voices from a clearing ahead. Blake squatted behind a chokecherry and focussed his trained ears, ears sharpened by the many years of having carefully avoided Yoko Ono recordings. He parted the branches and beheld a scene of suspense: There stood Red having a conversation with Argent. What they didn't see was the figure in the woods behind them, a figure whose shadowed hand clearly held a revolver. Madison nearly cried out, but he feared it would serve only to provoke the clone to quicker action. Then he saw the clone pause, stowe the revolver in his coat, and greet the pair. Finally Madison knew he would have to risk it, cry a warning before it was too late. It was at that moment that a pair of brass knuckles caught him squarely in the side of the temple, sending the temple bell resonating like the mission bells at the end of Vertigo. Only Kim Novak wasn't there as he went to black. The last thing he remembered was the gruesome mug of Smorch.
Then darkness.

Subject: RE: BS: Once a Mudcat, always a ? (Story thread)
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 21 Aug 07 - 11:51 PM

"HUH?" He shouted, sitting up in the plastic comfy plastic cot he had been sleeping in. How long had he been asleep? "What is Blake Madison doing?" he suddenly inquired aloud, to his own surprise. "Why," he thought, "just catching up on some well-deserved shut-eye in a vinyl coccoon on a f#cking alien space craft is all!!" He rubbed his eyes vigorously. The dull glowing interior of the extraterrestrial fusilage refused to disappear. Blake wondered about the guy in his dream. The big red-headed lumberjack guy from the folkie camp. He remembered the big good-natured grin, then the eyes filled with shock and fear, and then Blake had shot him, and...Madison touched the fingers of his right hand to his lips, smelled and tasted cordite from the gun flash residue there. "It's not a dream," he whispered, then said again loudly "what am I doing?!"
Stiffly, he rose from the cot, placed both feet on the eerily vibrating deck of the alien craft, and muttered "I've got to stop me."

Subject: RE: BS: Once a Mudcat, always a ? (Story thread)
From: Amos
Date: 21 Aug 07 - 10:59 PM

"I don't believe this!!!!" Argent muttered loudly into the little communicator. "These records are hundreds--thousands of years old, the people even older, and you're saying they have some connection with the weird light show I'm picking up over the lake here? What is this, "E.T. Gets Even"??? He was feeling upset, and he knew she could tell it from his voice.

As always, Teresa knew what to say, and as always, listening to her made him calmer and saner, and even smarter. She spoke for almost a whole minute.

"OK, honey. You're right. Listen, send me those histograms and the lab's data parsing on the possible combinations of segments. We'll just play the damn thing as it lies, even if it lies in la-la land."

He smiled at her retort, and folded up the communicator. His face had cleared, and he looked around at the late afternoon pastoral scene -- the single lenticular baby cumulus cloud over the lake, the gently rolling hill down to the cookhouse, and the apparently furious redhead who burst out of the galley and stormed into the woods. She was shaking and trying to look nonchalant at the same time, which perplexed him. He shrugged. He had a good twenty minutes before Terry would get him the analysis files.

He reached in the back of the truck, took out his Wesson, and checked it, shoved it into his back pocket and strode quietly down the hill toward the galley door, keeping one eye on the direction the girl was taking into the woods beyond.

Things were getting interesting, he had to admit that much. He wondered what Blake Madison was doing. The thought worried him for some reason he couldn't put his finger on, and he brushed it to one side.

Subject: RE: BS: Once a Mudcat, always a ? (Story thread)
From: JenEllen
Date: 04 Jun 07 - 03:45 PM

"Enough," Red said softly.

Agent Rex Edgewater hit the wall of the freezer with a less-than-satisfying thud, and slid to the floor. The Russian had worked him over pretty well, but Rex knew from the previous photos and crime scene evidence that he had committed to memory that he'd gotten off lightly.

Red walked over to him and squatted down. She looked at him intently and then gave a deep sigh. Edgewater managed to open an eye when he heard her stand back up, and the look she gave him sent a wave of nausea through his battered body. He'd seen that look before. It was the look his mom had given him after the family vet had said 'there's nothing more we can do' and put the dog to sleep. It was over.

Thankfully the Russian followed her out of the freezer, and Rex heard the door slam and the lock catch. He sat catching his breath for a minute then tried to stand. He held his arms tightly around what he was sure was more than one broken rib, and walked to the door. Through the tiny window he could see Red and Ivan arguing. The Russian had his blood up after the beating and spittle flew from his mouth as he yelled at Red.

The commotion must have been something, because in an instant the little Chinese woman was at the door of the kitchen. Rex could see the look of shock on her face, but then she was gone. She had moved into the kitchen and was too short to see from his vantage point. He did see Red throw up her hands in disgust and surrender. She fished an mp3 player out of her pocket and left the room. When she did, Ivan Turgenev spun around and looked at the freezer. Rex jumped and skittered back towards the wall, but the Russian only looked into the window with one red eye, and then disappeared. Rex's energy was spent and he sat down to wait.




Outside in the sunshine the day was like any other, but inside Red's head there was a storm brewing. It wasn't as if the scene was a novel one:   She had seen people hiding things before, and she had seen Ivan do his work in extracting information before, but something about the past few minutes didn't ring true for her and she saw the same was true for Li Su when she'd told her what Rex had said. AGENT Rex, as it turned out.   Bloody hell.

She looped the headphones over her ears and looked to any casual observer like she was stretching for another run. She saw Argent at his campsite, watching the kitchen door, and quickly hit 'play' on her player. She jogged off to the opening powerpop chords of OKGO's "Invincible" like a woman with places to go.
When they finally come to destroy the earth
They'll have to go through you first
I'll bet they won't be expecting that




Curtis York sat placidly in his cave. The wait was over. His initial shock and confusion had passed and now the universe had opened itself up to him in a small jade tablet and he could hear every molecule in his body humming along with him in delight. He grinned with his new-found happiness. What is the meaning of life? He knew it now. What came first, the chicken or the egg? Knew that too. Why do fools fall in love? Bingo, knew that one too. The one thing he didn't know was that a scruffy man with a handgun had seen him in his cave and was slowly and deliberately coming up to kill him.   



Red did her best to look nonchalant, she'd had loads of practice considering her upbringing, but still couldn't help but be puzzled when she couldn't find the man with the mermaid tattoo. The pictures on his camera of the crime scene were one thing that could save her provided Madison had skipped camp. However, the man appeared to have left too. Confusing, and it made her just a bit edgy. She wasn't in control of the situation and didn't like it one bit. Where was he?



A few hundred yards from the dead Dundee, another body crumpled to the ground. Madison's clone nudged the fleshy man over with the toe of his wingtip and crouched down to poke at the drawing of the mermaid that was inked into the man's skin. He then grabbed the camera from the dead man's grasp and proceeded to smash it with a rock. He could hear the crackling of plastics as the pictures of the crime scene were dashed to oblivion, as well as the pictures the man had taken of flashes in the night sky. The clone then stood and heard faint happy humming. He scanned the area and saw a man in a cave in the rocks above him. He began to climb.

Subject: RE: BS: Once a Mudcat, always a ? (Story thread)
From: JenEllen
Date: 13 Apr 07 - 02:03 AM

Agent Rex Edgewater felt all the blood drain from his body down into his boots in an instant and the sensation left him lightheaded. It was only through sheer coincidence that he caught Curtis York's eyes before Red did. They had scrambled up to the cave after Red spotted York and growled: "There's the sonofabitch". She took off up the rock face and scraped her knee in the climb. In the brief instant that she looked down to examine the scratch, Rex gave York the look—the universal secret agent sign for 'undercover shut-uppa you-face'—but York gave no notice that he'd understood. In fact, the guy looked darn near drugged.

He wasn't answering any of her questions, and Red was getting angrier by the second. She gave York's shoulders a shove and sent him stumbling back into the cave. When she went to follow him, she looked down into the dirt on the floor of the cave and stopped dead in her tracks. Covering the floor on the mouth of the cave were thousands of scratches in the dirt. Weird symbols and glyphs that Edgewater didn't recognize, but if he was any judge of character he knew that Red did. If York was responsible for the markings, and by the looks of the dirt on his knees and under his fingernails he was, then he must have been at this for hours--if not days.

Red didn't follow York back into the cave. She stood where she was and began to tremble slightly. She turned around to face the world and covered her face with her hands. When Rex moved beside her, she dropped her hands and said flatly: "Madison's not here."

She didn't speak on the walk back to the camp and frankly he had no idea of what to ask. When they got back to the main camp, Red went directly to the back door of the kitchen. She turned around and almost seemed surprised to see him there. "Get away from this," she said. But he told her that he'd offered to help her, and he meant it. He lied and told her that if Ivan was her friend, then he was his friend too. His words came out in a rush, but it had no effect on Red. She just shrugged her shoulders and went into the kitchen.

The commercial-grade freezer door stood imbedded in the far wall. It wasn't guarded, and it wasn't locked. The pair walked towards it and Red showed no hesitation in throwing open the door. The cold air hit Rex's sweat-dampened skin and sent a shiver through him. There, on the floor next to a flat of orange juice concentrate, was Scrump. If not for the neat bullet hole in his forehead, looking all the world like a napping elf. Red seemed uneasy about just where to grab the body, and muttered something about going to get a blanket. She walked past Rex and out the door of the freezer like she didn't see him.

Rex Edgewater squatted down on his heels next to his fallen comrade. Funny how the life of an agent can slip away so unnoticed. The guy probably saved the free world a half-dozen times and now this. In his reverie he whispered: "Jesus, Jake. You wall-eyed jackass. How'd you end up like this?"

The freezer suddenly darkened and Rex spun around to see a furious Red. Behind her, filling the door and blocking all possible escape, was Ivan Turgenev. The giant menacingly pulled a cleaver from his apron string. Red walked slowly towards him, and said in a hissing whisper: "I know the wall-eyed jackass, Jake Scrump, because he tried to put me in prison for life. How do you know him?"

Subject: RE: BS: Once a Mudcat, always a ? (Story thread)
From: katlaughing
Date: 12 Apr 07 - 10:55 PM

(I am chuffed, well chuffed that you all have kept this going and in such stupendous fashion. Almost like old times! Thanks, dear friends! Love it!)

Subject: RE: BS: Once a Mudcat, always a ? (Story thread)
From: Amos
Date: 12 Apr 07 - 10:20 PM

(Oj, Jumpin Jaysus!!!)

Subject: RE: BS: Once a Mudcat, always a ? (Story thread)
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 12 Apr 07 - 09:54 PM

The real Blake Madison struggled against the grasp of his captors. Somehow he never expected aliens to be this beefy. These guys were ripped. I the pictures he had seen of Aliens...the Roswell casualties, ET, and others...they always looked so willowly. But these guys had fingers that could rip the bumper off of a 59 Cadillac. As two held him, another alien guided his stumbling cyborg clone into the canoe, and dragged it back in place over the hatch doors.
At this moment, Madison noticed a figure he hadn't yet seen, a short stocky figure in a hooded cloak. "Hey! Yoda! Tell your henchmen to let me go!" This figure turned, looked at him momentarily, and clearly said "No, I cannot." The figure then pressed its hand against a glowing plate on the wall, and the hatch doors opened, leaving the canoe bobbing gently over thin air. Then, slowly, the canoe began to descend. "Hey, now what the hell!" said Blake. "Where's he going with my clothes?" The short figure approached him. "He must borrow your things for a short time. They will be given back. He has a job to do."
Madison guffawed. "Him? He can't even walk straight!"
The short figure issued its own grim attempt at a guffaw. "And neither do you, most of the time, Mr Madison. Besides, he is but newborn and learning quickly. Soon he will execute his tasks flawlessly. No one will suspect him...until it is too late."
The figures guided Madison toward the open hatch, and for a second he thought they meant to toss him out. Below him, but at a point still one hundred feet above the lake, he saw the figure pull something shiny from the coat pocket...the 38 revolver. "Aw Christ," said Blake, "now what the heck do you guys have him up to?" Without a sound or an answer, Madison was pulled away from the hatch, and it closed.
The short figure laughed again and said "I can't believe you get paid to figure things out, Mr Madison. Isn't it obvious? We have certain..secrets...that must be maintained at all costs. We don't like to meddle in human affairs, but there are those who are coming close to solving our little riddles, and they must be eliminated. The other Madison is your double in every way, down even to his fingerprints, even to his DNA. When he completes his work, we will not be implicated. It will appear to be a series of random killings. If he is caught, those who know you will marvel that you could do such things."
"But I couldn't do them," said Madison. "And if he's my double, neither will he!"
"What," the figure asked "would keep you from killing?"
"I have no motive."
"The other Madison does, though. A very good one."
"Well...my soul then."
"And that is just the point. The other Madison is merely your physical double. Even we can not manufacture a soul. He is a machine."


Dundee was distracted from his reading of a Thomas Wolfe novel by a light plash from the lake. He stretched in the sun, and stood up on the bank. He saw a man in the boat who was looking fixedly at him. "Ahoy!" said Dundee, and waved. The figure in the boat waved back, then, pulling at the paddle, clumsily made its way toward the shore.

Subject: RE: BS: Once a Mudcat, always a ? (Story thread)
From: Amos
Date: 12 Apr 07 - 08:53 PM

Argent sat with his back against the right front wheel of the Rover, watching the afternoon sun and strumming the well-worn Martin, thinking. He had his feet propped up on Bannock's sleeping belly, and felt the sunlight warming his toes.

...it would make the mountains ring,
If I had you.
If I had you..
In between the rains and the seasons they send,
The pain that a word from you can command,
But I would gladly trade away winter winds that swing
Through all the rites of Spring, if I had you,
If I had wings..."
But I would travel this world,
Richer than a king,
With a million gifts to bring, if I had you,
If I had wings....


The half-forgotten lyrics brought him calm, which he had not felt all day. He kept running the patterns of the jade tablet through his mind, and the strange ghostly outlines revealed in his camera's viewfinder by the colored lenses in certain combinations. He knew what they looked like, but he was seriosuly balking at falling into a Close Encounters frame of mind. HE needed a better explanation.

The microcell in his shirt pocket rang and he answered it, squinting up toward the still unmoving baby cumulus above the lake. As he listened to Theresa's report, his face grew a couple of shades paler, and his feet jerked so hard he woke up the dog.

Subject: RE: BS: Once a Mudcat, always a ? (Story thread)
From: JenEllen
Date: 12 Apr 07 - 07:47 PM

While Blake Madison was trying to come to grips with staring into his own--albeit cloned—eyes, somewhat closer to camp Curtis York was huddled in a cave entrance staring at the sky. There was no way possible that the stories Dundee had told him about the little Chinese woman being descended from a race of space creatures were true, but when he showed him the jade tablet that Dundee had stolen from her while he was mucking cages in circus employ? Well it was slightly less incredulous. And when he heard the woman in the hot springs speak the name Madison, just as Argent said she would? It short-circuited what was left of his grip on reality and left him staring up towards the sky in wonderment.

The whole thing could be filed under un-fecking-believable as far as he was concerned. In his few short months of working with the circus, Dundee had managed to gather scraps of stories that when put together would make Spielberg salivate into his socks. The circus as a cultivating ground for some of the world's most successful spies and cat burglars—well, that was a lead that two generations of intelligence operatives would spend their lives trying to prove—but the fact that Les Serrures had in fact harbored extraterrestrial life in his circus in exchange for eternal life? And the fact that he kept it from the Portuguese mafia for as long as he had? It was nothing short of miraculous.

Curtis York needed some time to come to grips, but it didn't look like he was going to get it. He heard people walking up the trail and talking. It looked like he was going to get some visitors.




Red Locks gathered herself in a self-hug and tried to rub her arms and calm herself before Rex got back from the garbage cans. She had jokingly referred to the corpse in the freezer, but hadn't expected the new guy to take her up on it. This was turning out to be a really shitty day.

When he returned and looked at her expectantly, Red panicked again. "Listen, you know that guy I was talking about earlier? I really need to find him. Maybe later we can.."

But Rex Edgewater cut her off by simply putting his hands on her shoulders and looking into her eyes: "Hey," he said "Whatever that big guy was yelling about, it's cool. I can give you a hand."

Red's subconscious grasped onto Rex's and mimicked his slow deep breathing, and for a moment she actually felt like they could sort this crazy mess out.



Nearly an hour later, sitting on a bunk across from Red in the dormer of the cabin, Rex Edgewater felt glad he was sitting down. Red still had no clue who he really was, or why he was here, but she told him just enough that he was pretty sure he could get a new office in headquarters—one with a window—if there was even a fraction of truth to it. Her old friends, the Russian and the Chinese woman had invited her here for a family reunion of sorts. She had no idea that Madison was coming, apparently he'd been hired by a jealous wife to spy on a wayward husband, but in the process a man had been killed and she felt Blake may have an idea of motive/murderer. They had stowed the stiff in the freezer, and now the Russian was having fits because if the cops were to connect him with the killing, he'd be in deep doo-doo. She didn't want to move the body without getting the go-ahead from Madison, just to avoid messing up any evidence, but now Madison had disappeared. The last place she'd seen him was in this cabin, but there was no sign that he'd been here or had ever returned.

He could see that Red was getting frustrated, and to this point he had gracefully avoided all talk about his employment with the government. Even though he knew the answers to many of his own questions, he asked just to see if she would lie to him.

"So you and this Madison guy? You are…" he wiggled all sorts of implications from his eyebrows.

"No," she smiled wanly. "I'm not his type."

"So you work together?"

"No," she replied. "It's just a long story." She looked to the ceiling and tried to think. This was a red flag for Rex. Liars look for things to say in the oddest places. Then again, maybe she was beginning to trust him and was just looking for a way to impart some knowledge about herself that she felt wasn't so great. She continued: "Have you ever heard of the Fechamento crime family?"

"Who hasn't?" he answered.

"Well. Papa is my grandfather. His sons are all my uncles." Rex faked a look of shock and concern as she continued: "A few years back, when they were picked up for trafficking, a rival family wanted to kidnap me and get a ransom. Only, I knew better than anyone that Papa would have me dead rather than pay a cent, so a friend hired Madison to look into it. Not only did he save my life from kidnappers, the information he learned on his investigation cleared me in the trial against Papa. I owe the guy a lot."

"Okay. That's good enough for me." Said Rex. "But we've looked everywhere. Maybe the guy went for help? Maybe he went home? What else can we do?"

Red sat for a moment before springing from the bunk. "Holy shit," she barked. "I can't believe I didn't think of it sooner." She went on to tell him about the strange man that came out of the trees when she was in the hot springs. Rex had to keep reminding himself to pay attention as the little detail of Red skinny-dipping in a hotspring kept tugging at his mind. She said the weird guy had flipped out when she mentioned Madison's name. Then he had gone back into the trees. She knew that guy would know where Madison was. They had to find him.

As soon as they hit the trail, Rex was glad he had agreed to come along--the view of Red's backside was worth the price of admission. However, when Red drew his attention to a man she saw sitting in the mouth of a cave above them, Rex Edgewater recognized Agent Curtis York, RCMP and prepared to have his cover blown.

Subject: RE: BS: Once a Mudcat, always a ? (Story thread)
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 11 Apr 07 - 04:16 AM

Blake Madison awoke from a deep dreamless sleep with a powerful urge to visit the gentleman's room. As he sat up on what was apparently a plastic tanning bed, he banged his forehead sharply on a clear plastic cover that encapsulated it. "What the f...!" Madison said. He glanced around and his first impression was that he had just caught 40 winks at Tomorrowland in the entry lobby for Space Mountain. And he was the only one at Space Mountain. Except for a dim figure across the cavernous, dimly luminescent room. This figure lay in a similar tanning bed to his.

Madison banged on the plastic coccoon. "Hey! Gotta pee! Somebody!" There was no answer. Near the other tanning bed lay a long silver shape. It looked like a canoe. "Sheee-it", whispered Madison. The whole memory of the alien abduction struck him like a rabbit punch. He glanced down, noticed he was clad only in his Fruit-of-the-Looms. "Shee-it," he said again. He took a quick inventory of body parts, and everything seemed to check out ok. Then, as his fingers passed across his face, he felt an odd sensation...yes, a patch the size of a tennis ball had been shaved out of the mop of hair on his forehead. He tenderly touched the flesh there, felt no pain, no horrific scar or stitching. "God I need a drink," he said aloud.
It was then that a movement at the edge of his vision caught his attention.

The lid of the other coccoon was slowly lifting. A dark figure sat up, and rose from its bed. With a strange, stiff, and stumbling gait, this figure made its way to the canoe, removed something from inside. Then it stood erect, turning slowly toward him, peering at him from across the vast space. It paused momentarily, then shambled in his direction. Madison pushed with all his strength on the lid. It wouldn't budge. The shambling figure drew nearer, something about the square jaw, touseled hair and flattened nose made him catch his breath. The figure came to a stop, 3 feet from him. Then it slowly raised a bottle of Four Roses and took a long slow tug. Madison stared at a slightly less good-looking replica of himself, and the figure stared back, opened its mouth, and spoke.
"Sheee-it," it said.

Subject: RE: BS: Once a Mudcat, always a ? (Story thread)
From: Amos
Date: 10 Apr 07 - 08:31 PM

"These stone disks were found in a series of geometrically formed caves in the Tibetan borderlands...they have spiral grooves, and the grooves are composed of tiny hieroglyphics. The disks are some kind of ceramic, with traces of cobalt bonded to tritium. You know where tritium comes from, Terry?"

"Nuclear fusion, Wallace. Don't play with me."

"That's right, Terry. But no-one on this planet knows how to bond it to cobalt in a lattice structure. The goddamn disks are nearly indestructible, and they are electronically charged in some mysterious way that resonates when you stimulate the disk with the right frequency. Don't ask me. Anyway, the only trace of these 'glyphs is from these disks, and the only known trace of these disks was from the Peking Museum of Pre-Histpory, back in the 1930s."

"Well, so what? What do the hieroglyphs mean?"

"I'm not finished. The scientists date these damn disks -- there were over 100 of them originally -- to about 216,000 years ago. They're associated with a race of very short people, about three feet tall with large braincases fore their height, who were found in that region."

"Wallace, you're talking nonsense. 216,000 years ago, nobody was writing things down on stone disks."

"I hear ya, but that what the carbon says. And that's what the legends about the Drxopas people's origins says, except they make it a bit more."

"What? Well, where were these origins?"

"Somewhere the other side of Sirius."

Theresa Argent, for the first time in he rlife, was out of words.

"Oh, and Terry? One other thing...you know anyone about three feet tall with an Eastern descent? I do. That gal from the circus. Tell Frank we'll get him the translations as soon as we can get someone to figgure the damn alphabet out...gotta run..."

She sat there ignoring the handpiece. staring at the paneling and the bookshelves, until the rage and tears subsided. Then she went to the wall, raised an oak panel, and poured herself a double of MacAulay single malt.

Subject: RE: BS: Once a Mudcat, always a ? (Story thread)
From: Amos
Date: 10 Apr 07 - 08:01 PM

She had come back from CostCo with the BMW station wagon loaded with supplies, enough for a month if Argent didn't come back. She had just closed the frige door on the last of the fresh celery when the chime -- three tones in fourths -- sounded from the polished oak box in the library. She frowned and loped into the study to answer the silvery handpiece.

"Terry, it's Wallace. Where the hell did you get those 'glyphs you sent in? "
"Wallace, I told you where I got them. Jade tablet, remember? Frank? Treehuggers? Dead folkie? C'mon!!"

"It's just a bit incredible Terry. No folkie I ever met would have had any means of acquiring those traces."

"Why? What are they?"

"Does the name Baian-Kara-Ula mean anything to you?"

"No. It sounds like some piss-poor charcter from STartrek NG."

"Well I would have thought so too, until the IT crew came back from that wild chase you sent them on...or Frank did. Let me tell ya..."

Subject: RE: BS: Once a Mudcat, always a ? (Story thread)
From: JenEllen
Date: 10 Apr 07 - 06:00 PM

Li Su washed the lunch dishes as quickly as possible. She had seen the Dropa in the sky and saw Argent taking the lenses from his truck. She knew also that the man named Dundee had given Argent the jade slab that he had stolen from her. Only she knew their real power, and that was that the rock was an updated version of the disks left at Baian-Kara-Ula. When the Dropa had first visited her people generations ago, they found that the jade was a much better conductor for their musings and left the disks in favor of the new material. Now, their many secrets may be discovered, and Li Su didn't like the thought of that one bit.

Ivan, on the other hand, was lost in the thoughts of earthlings. He began serving the lunch meal while singing Red Elvises pop songs at the top of his very large lungs. He had seen them at a boardwalk concert once in Santa Clara and had since committed every song to memory.
One Monday morning, sitting at the bar
I saw a girl who looked like movie star
I took a seat and give her wink
Hey honey-pie, can I get you drink?
She looked at me and I read her lips
A keg of beer and potato chips
However, it only took a moment for his mood to sour. He saw Red enter the line and he also saw the man who entered the line behind her. His brow furrowed and he watched the young man clumsily flirt with Red. He felt his blood burn when Red flirted back. When she reached the head of the line and reached for a plate, Ivan shot her a look of disgust. She looked back blankly and continued on to one of the picnic tables with the two men. Ivan smoldered as he finished dishing up the heaping plates of food. She was just like her mother that way. You push, she pulls, you say be careful, she smiles at strangers. He had had enough and when he had served the food and slid the final pan to Li Su at the sink, he took off his apron and left the kitchen.

Rex sat at a sunny picnic table, across from Murray and beside Red. The big man talked and told stories, but Rex didn't hear a thing. He had to keep reminding himself that Red might be the most beautiful thing he'd ever laid eyes on, yes, but she also might be the cold-blooded murderer of a special agent.

As they sat there, two little girls ran up to the table and began to tug at Red saying "you said last night that you'd show us.." Red smiled at the girls and she began to softly juggle two oranges and an apple that were in a bowl on the table. The little girls laughed and tried to mimic her with no success. At this, Murray boomed: "Damn, girl. You ever think about giving up this glorious life of folk music and joining the circus?" Murray excused himself from the table, laughing at his own joke.

Red quickly caught the fruit, gave it to the girls and haltingly told them to run off and go practice. She then turned around and slowly began to finish her lunch. Rex noticed the change like a cloud had gone over the sun and said: "Aw, c'mon. You like the circus. Everybody likes the circus."

Red laughed a humorless laugh and leaned towards Rex. All he felt was the warmth of her shoulder against his arm and his heart skipped a beat. Red said softly: "What if I told you that I ran away from the circus to join the real world?"

The cloud that had gone over Rex's sun was in fact, Ivan Turgenev. He walked up behind the pair as Red leaned into the young man. As she backed away, Ivan spoke softly but forcefully: "Lida, I need to talk to you."

Rex watched as the two walked a short distance away. He recognized Turgenev immediately and his previously fluttering heart fell straight into his shoes. He couldn't hear what they were saying because at a few tables over, a kazoo chorus appeared to be warming up with Stevie Wonder's "You Can Feel It All Over".   He saw that Turgenev shook his finger at Red and pointed towards the kitchen. She paled and looked to be offering up apologies or excuses, he couldn't tell. All at once, Turgenev let out a growl and spun back towards the kitchen. Red returned to the table and hastily grabbed her plate and cup.

"What's the matter?" asked Rex.

"Nothing. I just have to move a dead body." she muttered half-jokingly, hoping that false truths would get her off the hook with this guy.

"Oh." replied Rex, picking up his dishes also. "I'll help."

Red could no nothing but stand there in astonishment as Rex took the dishes from her hands and whistled along with the kazoo players as he walked towards the kitchen.

Subject: RE: BS: Once a Mudcat, always a ? (Story thread)
From: Amos
Date: 10 Apr 07 - 04:34 PM

Argent watched solemnly from the doorway as "Rex" hopped around and got into line behind Red and started a conversation with her. He whistled for Bannock and headed up the hill to his Land Rover, figuring the dog would want some food and water, and not feeling especially hungry himself. As he approached the camp site, he felt a chill down his neck as though a Newfoundland fog had suddenly nestled under his hairline, and a faint whistling in the distance, a low, distinct soughing sound, too clean and regular to be wind, caught his ear.

He turned and looked around. Beyond the rocks on thehillside, out over the lake, a silver blur was rising out of the noon-day glare, shimmering and whistling in a quiet, shrill tone. He blinked, and stared. For an instant he thought he'd seen a canoe flying throguh the air, but the image vanished in the blur of silver, a blob of spatial glitter and distortion that quickly ascended high above the treelines and with a blink of silver light, took on the form of a grayish-white cumulus cloud, except that it seemed to keep a subtle cirrostratus hazy glow around it.

As he watched the cloud settled and hung, not moving. The dozen other clouds, wooly cumulii, were strolling slowly across the azure sky following a light low-altitude breeze. This one just hung there.

Argent scratched his head, and put some food out for Bannock. He checked the cloud every few minutes, but it hadn't moved.

He rummaged around in the back of the Land Rover and pulled out an old Pentax, a telescopic lens and abox of light filtering lenses.

He stood there, leaning against the bonnet of the old truck, for over an hour, focusing, switching lenses, and clicking the shutter. Bannock, fat with lunch, curled up in the shade under the truck and snoozed patiently, with one ear cocked, in case he was needed.

Subject: RE: BS: Once a Mudcat, always a ? (Story thread)
From: katlaughing
Date: 10 Apr 07 - 01:01 PM

After an extended visit to the facilities, Lindy Loo walked back into the main cabin where folks were lining up for the midday meal. She quickly scanned the room, saw Mz. Red with the big fellah and some new guy. Her antennae almost went up with surprise, but she managed to keep them down and covered. Tuning into her Inner Module ScapeScope & Missive Receptacle Tablet or IMSSMRT, she uploaded his photo and read the Identifier. Hmmm...an Operative. Well, there's another one she'd have to keep her eyes on. She wondered, idly, why he hadn't dropped the clothing as everyone else in the room had done, including her. Thankfully, after eons of working at it, the Intergalatic Morphing Lab had got it right so she looked just like a real human, breasts and all. She actually was beginning to identify with her "body". In an aside, she mentally posted a note on her IMSSMRT to perform a routine detachment scan on herself as soon as she had a few free moments. It wouldn't do if she became so enamoured with her human self and the 'Catters that she actually wanted to become one and stay there forever!

Subject: RE: BS: Once a Mudcat, always a ? (Story thread)
From: JenEllen
Date: 10 Apr 07 - 12:20 PM

Agent Rex Edgewater found the rest of his flight uneventful. He had gathered his bags at the airport and taken a taxi to a crummy motel on the highway. Therein he quickly showered and changed from his suit to a pair of faded jeans and a Colin Spring t-shirt that his last girlfriend had left in his apartment. He tousled his hair and looked at himself in the mirror. Scruffination appeared complete. Hopefully the folkies were too drunk or stoned to pay him much attention.

On his way out the door, Agent Edgewater pocketed his room key, his cell phone, and a handkerchief-wrapped bundle. Inside was his secret pride and joy Hohner Chrominica. The guys in the office would piss themselves laughing to know it, but Rex had loved the 'harps ever since he was 10 and his uncle had pressed one into his hand as he was rushed off to summer camp. Occasionally he would spend sunny weekend days noodling in the park. When passers-by threw him a buck, he'd take himself out for coffee. Such was the life of a secret agent.

He thumbed a ride from the highway and when the kindly strangers dropped him off at the end of a soggy rut-laden road to nowhere, he thanked them and started walking. The storms had passed and it was a sunny day, so he stuck to the quickly-drying median and made good time. He heard the water before he saw it, and reached the swollen creek well before noon. Lucky for him, but unluckily for some poor bastard, there was an enormous car parked and half-submerged in the creek. He scrambled a bit, then took a running jump to land on the expanse of trunk. He walked across the sturdy but groaning roof, and jumped too the hood. One wildly flailing jump later, he was in.

The camp was a hum of song and of lazy activity. A dog sauntered up from a nearby campsite to greet him. Rex squatted down and ruffed the dog's neck in greeting, but warily looked around the meadow. A few clumped cabins, a big main building, and a smattering of tents and outdoor showers hung from the trees. Shouldn't take to long to acquaint himself with the new territory.

He heard the dog's owner call from the camp trailer. A tallish man in a bush hat waved him over to follow the dog.
"I apologize," said the dog's owner. "He feels the need to make a nuisance of himself on a regular basis."

"No problem," replied Rex. "I like dogs. What's his name?"

"Bannock. And yours?"

"Oh, sorry. Rex." With this Rex stuck out his hand and shook the man's hand.

"Well, welcome, Rex. You are just in time for some grub." The man nodded toward the main building to where a line was forming. He got a whiff of something warm and spicy, enchiladas maybe, and then saw Red trotting towards the line. Definitely a hot tamale. "Go ahead," the man said. "I'll catch up with you in a minute."

Rex walked as fast as he could and managed to stumble and cut his way into the line right behind Red. She was talking to the man in front of her.
"You haven't seen Madison?" she asked.

"Naw. Not since I crawled into the cabin the other night. Maybe he just got lucky? Chicks dig the rumpled look."

Red chuckled and replied, "We do, do we?" She sobered a bit and continued: "Well, I hope you are right. Some people's friends, huh?

The big man grinned at Red and said, "You know…. Once upon a time, an anthropologist was cataloging South American folk remedies. A tribal medicine man told him that fronds of a certain fern are a sure cure for constipation. When the anthropologist expressed doubts, the shaman looked him in the eye and said, "With fronds like these, who needs enemas." Goes to show you just can't tell."

Red threw back her head and laughed. "You heard about the Tells, didn't you?" she replied. "Evidence has been found that William Tell and family were avid bowlers. However, all the league records were destroyed in a fire, so we'll never know for whom the Tells bowled."

Red and the big man dissolved into chuckles. The man saw Rex looking at them and said "This one doesn't miss a beat."

Rex seized the opportunity and said to the man: "You know, back in the 1800's, the Tate Watch Co. of Massachusetts wanted to start producing other products. They chose to make compasses for the pioneers traveling west. Their watches had been excellent, but the compasses were so unreliable that people often ended up in Mexico or Canada. Thus the expression, "He who has a Tate's is lost."

Red turned around to face him slack-jawed then erupted into giggles. She linked arms with the both of them and said: "I don't even care what's for lunch anymore, you two just need to sit by me."

At that moment, Rex knew he was exactly where he wanted to be.

Subject: RE: BS: Once a Mudcat, always a ? (Story thread)
From: Janie
Date: 04 Apr 07 - 12:57 AM

"Hell's Bell's," thought Josie.

It didn't matter if it was 3, 5 or 10 years between the times she bumped into the big Irishman. It always turned into trouble.

She'd been infatuated with him for 25 years, very much against her better judgement. She'd known him for a rogue the first time she laid eyes on him. Knew she had been just one notch above a one night stand at that first gathering, and had never made that same mistake with him again. They kept in casual touch on the 'Cat, bantering on threads and occasionally pm'ing each other, maintaining that oddly intimate relationship that you do sometimes with folks on-line. At the gatherings, he flirted with her just enough to keep her alert to his whereabouts, just enough so that she couldn't quite drop him from the radar. She played the role of girl pal. Actually, she preferred it that way. And truth to tell, they really did have fun.

But there was always trouble. And she was always rescuing him--at least by her lights. Once in a blue moon, he'd stop by on his way through Dayton, or she'd stop by on her way over to Norfolk, on the Virginia coast, and one of them would play hookey from work, and pal around for the day. But there had that once, what was it, maybe 8 years ago when he had showed up on her doorstep, unannounced, needing a place to hide. It was then he had told her about the circus--probably wouldn't have if he hadn't been drunk-and brought up some pictures on the internet for her to see. She'd taken it all with a grain of salt at the time, and hadn't given it another thougt since then.

But she remembered the faces of the two-maybe because they were so different from one another, and when she saw them step out the back door of the kitchen, she suddenly knew he had been deadly serious.

She had find and warn him.

Subject: RE: BS: Once a Mudcat, always a ? (Story thread)
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 03 Apr 07 - 11:39 PM

Rollin in my sweet baby's arms
Madison was lying in the canoe, his head propped on a life preserver, singing along with the Leon Russell tune being pumped from his Ipod. Occasionally he would take a long pull on the quart of Four Roses and tug the fishing line that ran just under his big toe. A little action always seemed to tantalize the small mouth bass, or so he believed. Despite the tugging he hadn't had so much as a bite all morning, and now the sun was high in the sky.
where was you last Saturday Night? he sang in an oblivious off key fashion, the discreet Sony headphones preventing any sound from his mouth reaching his ears.
The song ended and Blake scrolled through the song selections, finally deciding on Lay around the Shanty and Put a Good Buzz On. This reminded him that he had hidden a doobie in the secret pocket of his wallet, and as he sang along, he rooted through the pockets of the slacks he had shed an hour ago until he found the stash. He lit the spliftie, exhaled deeply, and his shouted "wooo HOOO!" echoed across the lake. He had finally managed to put the entire puzzling affair of Smurch's murder out of his head. "These things have a way of working themselves out," he thought, his mouth unconsciously yammering the thought out loud. He tipped up the whiskey, and suddenly felt a ferocious yank on the fishing line. With a Hot damn! he jerked the pole to set the hook, felt the line running out against the drag as the fish dove deep. He stuck the joint between his lips and stood up for leverage, peering over the side. "Ah crap," he said. He was hung up. On the topmost branch of a 230 foot high Ponderosa Pine.
As the line strained, then snapped, Madison looked up to see the bay doors of a huge hovering craft sliding open to admit him and his canoe. Mouth agape, he pinched the ash on the doobie and flicked it into the bottom of the boat as John Prine sang into his ears you may see me tonight with an illegal smile, it don't cost very much, but it lasts a long while.
The doors latched shut under him, and the canoe settled onto them with a metallic creak. It was dark, dark and cool inside. As his eyes adjusted, he noticed several shadowy figures moving in his peripheral vision, and strangely luminous orbs...eyes. Blake realized he was holding the fishing pole like a baseball bat poised over his shoulder, and reckoned the aliens in the craft might see that as a threatening gesture, so he slowly placed it in the bottom of the boat. Taking the lid off of the Four Roses, he offered it with a grin to the shadow-watchers. "No? Well...hope you don't mind if I have a quick snoot." He gurgled down some bourbon, held up his forefinger and said "OK, now listen. I don't know what you guys have in mind, but no messing around with my belly-button...and anal probes are strictly out of the question!"
No sooner had Madison spoken these words than the shadows rushed in on him, he felt a tremendous throbbing sensation in his temples, and lost consciousness.

Subject: RE: BS: Once a Mudcat, always a ? (Story thread)
From: Amos
Date: 03 Apr 07 - 10:47 PM

(Whooooee!! Damn shame Jen has to go on vacation right at this critical passage. But hell, they're all critical...)

Subject: RE: BS: Once a Mudcat, always a ? (Story thread)
From: JenEllen
Date: 03 Apr 07 - 10:31 PM

Red grudgingly gave up her search for Blake Madison and edged her way into a singing circle that appeared to be having a helluva time. A reed-thin woman was singing a song about a bird-of-paradise tattoo. As Red sat down and joined in the chorus, she rolled over questions in her mind. Where had Madison gotten off to? And better yet where was that book he was bogarting? She felt lucky that no one had figured out about Scrump yet, but that was only a matter of time. When that inevitably happened, how was she going to protect herself? She was pretty sure that Ivan wasn't responsible. The guy was shot-- not crunched and folded in half in a footlocker at the bottom of the lake. And Scrump had been shot, not poisoned, so that probably let Li Su off the hook. Then again, after their spotty history, she wouldn't put anything past them.

Suddenly, the man beside her with the wild beard and wilder eyes burst into song. He sang about Lydia the tattooed lady, and Red began to notice a theme. She also noticed that the gentleman in question felt the need to do an interpretive dance to accompany his singing. Naked as the day he was born and a damn sight hairier--Red shuddered and looked away just in time to see Li Su standing in the door of the kitchen. She was watching a man go up the hill and shaking her head. The guy walking up the hill didn't look like the guy who had interrupted her in the hot springs…. He looked like Argent. Great. Another bozo to keep tabs on.

When the dancing man finally crescendoed and the admiral had married Lydia, Red took a deep breath and began:
Rapid Roy that stock car boy
He's too much to believe
You know he's always got an extra pack of cigarettes
Rolled up in his t-shirt sleeve
He got a tattoo on his arm that say "Baby"
He got another one that just say "Hey"…..



Miles above and beyond this scene, Agent Rex Edgewater took a cd from his bag and slid it into his laptop. He chose a particular interrogation from the menu and put his headphones on. He had handsomely caught the attentions of a stewardess when he boarded the plane, and she had spent the past half-hour trying to get him to notice her, but he was deep in concentration and thinking about Red. The laptop screen showed a dismal brick interrogation room. At one end of the table was Scrump. At the other end was Red. Just when Edgewater thought the two couldn't be any more different, Scrump would get more agitated and Red would get more relaxed. It would have been comical if there hadn't been millions of dollars and several lives at stake.

"Miss Locks, you have been advised of your rights?"

"Yes. And my lefts are feeling lonely."

"Miss Locks, you are aware that you have been connected to both the Les Serrures ring and the Fechamento crime family?"

"Merely an accident of birth. Anyone with a crackerjack badge could have figured that out. Do you have a crackerjack badge, agent?"

Scrump grimaced and began laying out evidence on the table. If any of it was new to Red, she didn't show it. He grilled her about her bank accounts, and she waved it off as a family trust. Surely the Fechamento family lawyers had given him the papers? Scrump questioned her about the accident at the grounds that killed so many of the staff. Red reminded him of Blake Madison's testimony at the grand jury trial that had exonerated her on all counts. Red smiled placidly and Scrump continued his barrage of questions. She had him outclassed by a country mile and he knew it. By the time the family lawyers arrived, Scrump was pit-stained and furious. Red was immediately released and had the audacity to shake Scrump's hand on her way out the door.

Amazing, Rex thought as he turned off the screen. If he could put her away for Scrump's death, he'd be a hero. If it turned out that she was actually innocent, he just might ask her out for a drink.

Subject: RE: BS: Once a Mudcat, always a ? (Story thread)
From: Amos
Date: 03 Apr 07 - 07:33 PM

"Sweetie, I'm going to beam you some images. They're not good but I need to know what they represent -- they are symbols of some kind, ya know? Icons, or glyphs or Sanskrit doodles. Hell, I dunno what they are, but they might be important, and they have something to do with that buncha ex-circus players Wallace was asking abut. Can you get him to mainline it to IT and get their visual form algorithm cooking on it? I just know there's some meat behind these potatoes. "

He stood leaning against the Rover, comfortable in the afternoon sun, and listened to Theresa. He could tell she was on edge about this piece of work, but she was biting her lip and coming through like a trouper. He reflected for the ten tousandth time how fine and fortunate it was to have a woman like that in his life.

"Tell him he does it or I come home empty handed and the place is wide open to the depredations of Edgewater, Scrump and, oh, yeah, Blake Madison, the private dick. He want that? Twist his gonads a little, honey. He'll see the light."

She said something terse which made him laugh warmly.

"Ya know who loves ya, Terry? Me. Talk to ya soon, darlin' and thanks for being you."

He set the microcell to transmit the digital files showing the telltale lines on the fridge. Then he whistled up Bannock, who was tired of chasing worms and looking around for something intertesting to do, and unpacked his Dreadnought, and strolled down to the rustic ranchouse where the strains of a fun time were floating up through the afternoon air.

Bile them cabbage down!
Bile them cabbage down!
Only song I know to sing
Is bile them cabbage down...

Bannock loped cheerily down the hill behind, ahead of, through and around him, as the music grew louder.

Subject: RE: BS: Once a Mudcat, always a ? (Story thread)
From: katlaughing
Date: 03 Apr 07 - 07:23 PM

(YES!! Thanks , you two! I'll try to come in later this week!)

Subject: RE: BS: Once a Mudcat, always a ? (Story thread)
From: JenEllen
Date: 03 Apr 07 - 06:48 PM

Although he'd never admit it out loud, Agent Rex Edgewater was continually surprised at what the government chose to hide from its ordinary citizens.

When he had been recruited for special cases early in his career, his roommate had celebrated by renting every X-Files DVD he could get his hands on and subsequently quizzing Rex on the details of alien life forms and all sorts of "The Truth is Out There" nonsense. Rex had played along good-naturedly, knowing full well he'd never come across anything worth writing FOX about. He did the job, and he kept his mouth shut. That was what the agency prized above all things.

That, and Rex's uncanny ability to connect the dots.

As he sat that night in his dark office, surrounded by teetering files that dated back well before World War II, dots began to form before his eyes. Unbelievable dots that made him doubt the sanity of his employer. A circus as the foremost training ground for the greatest spies of the 20th century? Where was the logic?

The data had been collected over the years in great detail. The old Frenchman worked both sides of the line for a while during the war, making deals with both the Germans and Russians to save his own hide, but in doing so found he had great aptitude. This scared Rex Edgewater to his very soul. How many demons in this world were presented with something so heinous only to find they were good at it, good enough to perfect it to art? Whatever number that was, add one more.

The Frenchman teamed up after the war with a Portuguese family with mafia ties and had been tailed and photographed stealing everything from state secrets to bio-weapons, jewelry to statuary, and in one strange case--a prized orchid. They were unstoppable and apparently had no conscience. After reading notes of suspected jewel thievery and the supposed case of the lion-tamer's filling the carcasses of dead rabbits with the jewels and feeding them to his charges to pass (haha) through customs, Rex stopped reading and put his hands to his eyes. He needed a drink, badly.

As he stood to grab his coat, he knocked over a pile of files and sent them sliding across his desk. A photograph skittered out of the top file and Rex caught it before it flew to the floor. The picture was grainy, and taken from some distance, but showed a little girl of four or five, walking hand in hand with a man that Rex knew to be Ivan Turgenev. The bloodthirsty bastard was probably taking the little girl off to throw her in a pot of stew. When Rex went to put the photo back into the file he saw another photo, this time in much better resolution, of the girl. She was probably ten now, grinning like a goon and hanging upside down from the bars of the tiger cage. The tiger looked nonplussed, the girl ecstatic.

Rex chuckled at the sight and unconsciously sat back in his chair, his drink momentarily forgotten while the life of the Frenchman's granddaughter unfolded in front of him. The great cities of Europe seemed to be the Circus' playground. The photos and documents showed her sightseeing --and probably planning out escape routes-- with Ivan Turgenev, Li Su, and a man that Rex determined to be her uncles; Joam, Lupo, and Nuno Fechamento. There was also a great deal of documentation about a tussle between a Canadian, Malcolm Dundee, and the family. Rex shuddered to think he might have to work with the RCMP on this one. It was never as much fun as one might imagine.

The last, and most recent photograph was the one that burned itself into Agent Edgewater's brain. It was taken in the woods just outside a known nudist camp and folkie watering hole and showed her running through the trees. She had headphones on and was sweat-soaked. Concentration shaded her eyes and Agent Edgewater found her beautiful. He brought himself to heel by remembering that it must have been taken just before Agent Scrump was killed.

The investigation was his now. He stood quickly and began to gather everything he thought he might need. He would take the first flight west and try to reach the camp before dawn.

Subject: RE: BS: Once a Mudcat, always a ? (Story thread)
From: Amos
Date: 03 Apr 07 - 05:24 PM

He couldn't get over how familiar the engraved glyphs on the deep green rock looked to him. Bannock got restless and wandered in circles, smelling ants, and the sun climbed and declined. Finally he looked up, and frowned quizzically, struck by a new thought. He reached into the back of his truck for a vial, and placing it in his pocket, strolled down the hill to the back door of the kitchen He wandered through the door aimlessly, trying to look like a folkie in quest of a cup of coffee, but as it turned out his ruse was unneeded. The kitchen was finished with lunch and not yet busy with dinner preps, and neiother the giant Russian nor the Chinese girl were in evidence. He walked to the huge stainless fridge door, where he had glimpsed an intense conversation going on between Red and the cook crew the evening before, and took the vial out of his pocket. He sprayed the surface of the stainless steel door, and watched, astonished. The ultrafine powder settled where fingers had drawn figures and forms, and outlined the prints around the door handle, the palm-lines along the edge where it was usually pushed to close it, and across the wide center, an array of crudely drawn geometric forms.   There were five of them, in random alignment, and all five were perfect duplicates of some of the forms carved into the rock he had been given by Dundee.

Argent reached into a bluejean pocket and took out his microcell, balanced it between thumb and forefinger, and snapped three pictures of the forms on the refrigerator door. He grabbed a paper towel, and wiped the telltale powder off the fridge, jammed it into his pocket, and headed back up toward his Land Rover.

Uncurling from a dark corner on the far side of the kitchen, the tiny Chinese woman walked softly to the door and watched him climb the hill, watching and frowning unhappily until he disappeared from sight.

Subject: RE: BS: Once a Mudcat, always a ? (Story thread)
From: JenEllen
Date: 02 Apr 07 - 05:29 PM

Pere Les Serrures shivered a bit uncontrollably as he looked out from the balcony to the Pacific. The breeze coming in off of the ocean always chilled him. His frail shoulders were wrapped in a woolen shawl and the oxygen tank he had been tethered to so long ago hissed ceaselessly at his side. If he had the strength, say, of his current wife, he would have thrown the canister into the sea long ago. As it was now, he could barely lift his own arms, but the hiss never faded into white noise for him. It was a constant reminder, like the hiss of the disappointed crowd, or of the gas chambers that he narrowly avoided by making his deals with the devils. Every night it had been the same. His sturdy Peruvian nurse-wife would shuffle around the house on her fat little legs, and he would sit on the balcony looking for the green flash in the sky and thinking of days gone by.

In the days since he had received the phone call from Joam alerting him to the business in America, and his granddaughter's involvement in it, he had become increasingly agitated. He sat out at night, scanning the skies, and shouting out to 'La Bera' for water. He often thought that the stumpy thing had a kind heart, but the typical temper that one finds in browner people. She might sweetly bring him a glass, or she might turn a hose on him in a screaming rage. At this point he was beyond caring.

He heard the pots in the kitchen clatter, which only meant that the woman must be soaking the ever-present beans for the following day. He softly sighed and closed his eyes, desperately trying to remember the face of his beloved first wife, but only came up with the icy eyes of his long-dead daughter.

Peyrrine. When she had been little, she had been his GiGi, but in the times his memory could recall now, she was simply Peyrrine. Tall, slim, and with the detachment of personality that often frightened him despite his previous dealings with undesirable types on every continent. This girl who grew into such a woman. He remembered hearing her snap her collarbone. The cannon fired and her shoulder caught the lip as she flew from it. The noise, paired with the smell of the flash powder sickened him even in memory, but nothing scared him so badly as seeing her defiant face as she rolled out of the catch-net and back to earth.

He thought she had been joking when she said she had fallen in love with the tumbler. All of the boys looked the same to him, it was really only their father that he ever had any business with, but he knew better than to defy his daughter. When she had announced her pregnancy and he forbade her going anywhere near the cannon, she simply laughed. He wondered if his granddaughter knew how much time she spent air-borne before her mother's belly grew too big to fit in the barrel.

His business partners also took notice of the new additions to the family. The addition of the Portuguese family had made the circus profitable in more ways than one. The letters arrived in the dark of night, whoever delivered them didn't even startle the animals in their cages. There was simply one line of neat handwriting, detailing the object to be taken, and nothing more. The details were left to himself and Fechamento. For years the arrangement worked well. The circus prospered while others around it caved to popular culture. They stole enough to keep themselves afloat. That was until Fechamento started dropping hints about their shared granddaughter.

Les Serrures' memory may have been fading, but that day stood out clear in his memory. The two men sitting in the shade of the car, watching the young girl go to her studies. The big Russian and the little Chinese woman had proved excellent nursemaids from the moment that Peyrrine had decided that motherhood wasn't as glamorous as the big-top, and the unlikely pair schooled the girl as much as possible given their nomadic lifestyle. It was that sunny day, when Ivan was feeding the elephants, that their granddaughter needed a quiet place to study. They watched as Ivan grinned and she stepped into his enormous hand, one push and she had vaulted to the top of the elephant's broad back, and nimbly turned around to catch Li Su, who was tossed up quickly after.

Fechamento grunted in surprise, but Les Serrures had shot him a look that ended all thought of discussion. His granddaughter was not going to be involved in their business. No matter if the gigantic Russian could break into or out of anything with brute strength, no matter if the Chinawoman could squeeze between bars and slip into pipes, no matter if their granddaughter had inherited both her father's agility and her mother's sense of cool calculation. He'd see them all dead before it happened.

But it had happened. And now he sat, a useless husk of a man, waiting for the flash in the sky that would mean everything in his life to this point was for a purpose.

Subject: RE: BS: Once a Mudcat, always a ? (Story thread)
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 21 Mar 07 - 08:28 PM

Sorry. Been too busy to crank Madison up again. Maybe tomorrow...

Subject: RE: BS: Once a Mudcat, always a ? (Story thread)
From: Amos
Date: 21 Mar 07 - 03:30 PM

AHEM!!!

Subject: RE: BS: Once a Mudcat, always a ? (Story thread)
From: Amos
Date: 20 Mar 07 - 11:57 PM

sigh...

Subject: RE: BS: Once a Mudcat, always a ? (Story thread)
From: Amos
Date: 20 Mar 07 - 09:34 PM

----

Subject: RE: BS: Once a Mudcat, always a ? (Story thread)
From: Amos
Date: 20 Mar 07 - 02:47 PM

...

Subject: RE: BS: Once a Mudcat, always a ? (Story thread)
From: Amos
Date: 20 Mar 07 - 12:02 PM

The stranger was rustling up breakfast on his hill-top site as the sun rose. Bannock was highly interested, because the frying pan smelled like bacon. Argent whipped up some eggs in a cup and scrambled them in. When they reached the right texture, he dished them out onto two paper plates. He picked up one of the bacons trips drying on paper towels and sprinkled it in crumbs over one of the plates and slid it over to the dog. Bannock ate in an ecstatic trance, while the stranger sipped black coffee from a huge tin mug and ate his portion, a bit more neatly. He had just leaned back in satisfaction, his plate scraped clean, and lit a small cheroot, when his morning sunlight was interrupted by a shadow. He opened his eyes and squinted up at the towering figure of Man-Mountain Dundee, garbed in tattered blue coveralls and looking quite unkempt. His chinhairs sprouted wildly in all directions. His head aire, only slightly less abundant, did also. His armpits sought in vain to match the abandon of his chin and head.

"Mister Dundee, I presume," Argent said in a cautiously friendly tone. "To what do I owe the honor.".

"I found something I think might be important." Dundee replied simply. "SOmehow I get the idea youse should have it."

A giant paw came swinging toward Argent like an Airbus. It held a small rectangular slab of stone. About four inches wide and two thick, maybe six inches long, Argent thought, as he reached out to accept the offer.

"What is it?", Argent asked.

"I dunno. I get...you know... impressions, like. Like voices, only in pictures. I get 'em whether I want 'em or not. When I found this thing in a cave over there it felt, I dunno...important like. And I got the impression you'd know what to do wid it. 'S all I know, okay?"

"OK. Thanks for thinking of me." The man-mountain turned and lumbered down toward the edge of the woods, ignoring him.

He looked at the slab. It weighed about two pounds, he thought. The back was a greenish dark glaze, or polished by wear, with a quiet glistening backlilght to it. Jade? He couldn't quite place it.

He turned it over, and nearly dropped it. He leaned over and traced the hieroglyphic figures with his finger. Three hours later, he was still there, his brow wrinkled in thought, the coffee mug empty, lightly tracing the intricate inscriptions.

Subject: RE: BS: Once a Mudcat, always a ? (Story thread)
From: Amos
Date: 17 Mar 07 - 03:14 PM

(Butter Knives!!!?? Oh great day in the morning!! ROFLMAO!)


A

Subject: RE: BS: Once a Mudcat, always a ? (Story thread)
From: JenEllen
Date: 17 Mar 07 - 03:10 AM

Red left the kitchen by the other doorway and was startled to see that the bartender was standing behind the bar this early in the morning. He casually took the towel from his shoulder and polished a glass. The curious look in his eyes belied the even tone of his voice when he asked her: "So, you know those two?"

She nodded cautiously and replied, "Yeah, we go way back. Actually, they were the ones who introduced me to folk music."

"You're kidding."

"Nope. I can honestly say if it weren't for those two I wouldn't be where I am today. Which is here."

"Do tell." Said the bartender as he took a tall glass out of the rack and motioned Red toward a barstool. "This one's on me. What'll you have?"

"Strawberry milkshake." The bartender looked at her incredulously as she finished: "What goes better with pancakes?"

When the bartender finally placed the glass in front of her, Red took a deep breath and began her tale:

"You might not know it from the look of them, but those two are some of the finest circus performers who have ever lived." The bartender stifled a laugh as he turned to look back into the kitchen, but Red pushed on: "Ivan was the strongest man in all of Russia, and Li Su was the smallest woman in China. It was fate that they meet and fall in love. Ivan would entertain the crowds by lifting carriages and cars, and there was even an elephant he had an 'arrangement' with—if the elephant would tread gently, he could stand on Ivan's shoulders and Ivan would give him treats of peanuts and ice cream after the elephant's handler had gone to bed. At the end of the night's performance, the lights would dim and Ivan would enter the big top carrying Li Su on a pillow. He would place the pillow on a barrel in the center ring and she would unfold like a blossom and sing in the sweetest voice—it was otherworldly how her tiny body could produce a noise to fill that tent, but she did it."

"And you know this how?" asked the bartender.

"They used to be my babysitters." The bartender choked a bit and Red continued: "Yes, babysitters. Them, and a wonderful geek with Tourettes'. I learned a lot about music, Russian literature, and by the time I was potty-trained I could swear like a Teamster." The bartender continued to sputter a bit before pulling up a chair of his own. Red took it as a signal to continue, please.

"My mother was a Les Serrures—of the world famous Les Serrures Circus? Twice a day, three times on matinee days, she would be shot out of a cannon. One day, my grandfather scored a major coup and signed on a Portuguese acrobatic family, the Flying Fechamentos. My father, the youngest Fechamentos brother, saw my mother. Poof, that was it. My mother always used to say "Les Serrures means 'the locks', Os Fechamentos means 'the locks'. Our eyes locked, and c'est finis." Sappy, but true."

The bartender's brows were knit in disbelief and concentration. "So you are all still in the circus?"

Red's face darkened slightly, "No. Les Serrures is no more…. There was an 'accident' and the three of us managed to get out with our lives. They are the only real family I have left. They sent me a message to come to this camp and I couldn't resist the chance to see them again."

"Any chance they have anything to do with that body in the freezer?"

It was Red's turn to choke and she wiped a bit of errant strawberry from her chin as the bartender explained: "I keep my lime wedges in the walk-in. I went in for the garnish and came out for the garish, if you know what I mean. I still haven't gone back in there."

"Well, I don't think you should tell anyone about him just yet. No sense turning the entire camp upside down, and possibly tipping our hand to a murderer. Just ask Ivan if you need more fruit. I need to go spread the word about breakfast." She stood to go find Madison and tell him that the quiet of camp was quickly unraveling.

The bartender nodded carefully before asking: "Circus, huh?"

Red smiled gently as she reached across the bar for a plastic cup full of butter knives. She palmed them gently for a second and then rapid-fired them one by one into the wall between the "Ladies" and "Gents". A perfectly symmetrical heart appeared in a silver flash. When the slack-jawed bartender turned back to her, she did a graceful back hand-spring and said "Ta-Da! Now, don't forget to save me some of those pancakes." And with that she was gone.

Subject: RE: BS: Once a Mudcat, always a ? (Story thread)
From: katlaughing
Date: 17 Mar 07 - 12:00 AM

Meanwhile back at the ranch folk house, Lindy Lou had been busy. She didn't even have to scan Josey to know she was scared, so once she got her settled, she could turn her attention to the others; she'd have to keep a close eye on her, though. She was one sweetie she meant to protect. Dang, but that Madison was some imaginative fellow. Just as well he thought it was all a dream. HQ snuck that one in under the radar, even her radar and she was pissed. It was probably that dirty rat, Fink Adye, trying to get her in trouble again. A girl like her could go clear across three galaxies, change bodies a zillion times, and lay a trail the best doghound of the Universe couldn't follow, but that Fink could still find her. And, he was too chickenshit (usefull word she'd picked up while here) to attack her directly. No, his subtlety was in the details, barely traceable and always designed to get her in trouble.

Having to implant some dream sequences wasn't hard BUT she sure didn't like interfering with folks that way. Good thing for her Madison was *open* to suggestion even though he put forth such a hard-boiled exterior, she knew he was soft-boiled inside. He'd better watch his peas and cues with that Mz. Red, too, or Lindy wasn't much of a character reader!

She sure wished they could get down to some more fiddlin'...she was dying to try some new licks she'd learned from a Jay Ungar DVD.

Subject: RE: BS: Once a Mudcat, always a ? (Story thread)
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 16 Mar 07 - 10:23 PM

Blake Madison's Dream

In his dream, Blake was walking in the woods surrounding the cabin with David Crosby. Crosby was telling him how good it was to see him again, and Blake was realizing that he and Dave had been buddies for a long time, although Dave was unknown to the others in Blake's inner circle. Blake secretly hoped he would run into Red or Veronika Wheatley so he could impress them with this casual friendship with his pal Dave.

Blake and Dave paused at the scene of Smurch's shooting and Blake remarked about the seemingly random nature of it, and Dave said "like a bolt out of the blue." This struck Blake as something significant, and Crosby beamed at him and Madison realized that it wasn't Dave at all but Bob Dylan, who was also a frequent guest in Madison's dream landscapes. Yes, it was Dylan, and he was beaming, shockingly. Then Dylan said "check that out." He pointed across the lake at a silvery football-shape that was hovering low in the sky.

Dylan and Blake decided they would walk around the lake to investigate. On their way, they discovered a bumper car track hidden in the trees. Most of the folkies from the camp were already grabbing cars for the big race, and Madison said "We better hurry or we'll miss the fun." But Dylan had morphed into Argent, although he still had Dylan's voice. Argent chuckled and jumped into a purple bumper-car, and Madison looked around and finally saw a rusty gray car that looked barely operable. He saw the strange but attractive Lindy-Lou woman waving a starter's flag, and all the folkies roared off. Madison pushed the pedal, but his car wouldn't go. He then realized it had no bottom to it, and he could use his feet to propel it, Fred Flintstone style.

Madison got off the line in a cloud of dust, and with the appropriate bongo flurry and gunshot sound effects. Soon he had passed them all, and in fact couldn't see them. The track became rough, then disappeared among the vines, roots, and strange flowers of what was now an exotic and vaguely threatening rainforest. He stopped the car, and realized he was surrounded by jungle, and that the jungle was surrounded by water. Behind him, he heard the folkies singing a song together...Christ, it was There's a Meetin' Here Tonight and they sounded exactly like the Limeliters and somebody, probably Argent, was warbling just like Glen Yarborough.
Madison found a way through the jungle and the folkies had set up an uncanny facsimile of the original Hungry i there in a clearing.

Madison found a seat at a little round table, and a shapely beatnik chick in tights, sandals, a striped sweater and beret walked up with a tray and he ordered a Four Roses neat. At this everything stopped momentarily, as if everyone was in shock...then they all laughed and indicated that there was a bottle of Four Roses on every table. Blake laughed with them, and the music began again, this time cool jazz; a sax and a bass player on stage. Madison was enjoying the music when he noticed Argent having a lively conversation with another man whose back was to him. They had spilled wine all over the table cloth, and it was dripping and pooling on the floor under them. Argent picked something up off of the table...it was the little book, the Lives of the Stars. Argent opened it, then looked straight at Blake, pointing him out to the other man, who turned and stared at Madison. It was Smurch, skin ghastly white, blood running down his face from the wound in his forehead, eyes sightless. Madison stumbled up and found a door behind him, burst through it out onto a street that looked like Sunset Strip.

A taxi pulled up, the door opened, and at the wheel sat the woman, Lindy Lou, who said dramatically "room for one more." He staggered back, the cab door closed, and the taxi drove off. As Madison watched it, a hand fell on his shoulder. He knew without looking that it was the corpse of Smurch. His heart pounding, he turned to see only a shadow-shape of something with eyes that burned into his, the long fingers tightening painfully into his shoulder. It leaned close and growled "get out of this!"

That was when Madison awoke, sheets damp with perspiration, morning light streaming into the bunk room. He reached for the book on the sill behind him, and was not surprised in the least that it was gone.

Subject: RE: BS: Once a Mudcat, always a ? (Story thread)
From: Amos
Date: 16 Mar 07 - 12:03 PM

(Wow!! Brill knitting job, Jen!)


A

Subject: RE: BS: Once a Mudcat, always a ? (Story thread)
From: JenEllen
Date: 16 Mar 07 - 11:10 AM

Red woke to the kind of crisp dawn that only exists after a good rain, and knew that today was going to be a beautiful one. Following shortly behind was the realization that bunks should be listed under 'cruel and unusual punishment' in whatever passed for the Geneva Convention these days. She ached in every joint and muscle, and wished she'd done more drinking and singing last night. A hangover would be less painful.

She gingerly got out of bed, trying not to wake her snoring bunkmates, and went outside. The pretty, floaty woman with the fiddle had mentioned a hot springs to her the day before and it sounded like a brilliant idea now. The grass outside was still wet, so she did a few sun salutations on the porch to work out the kinkies and headed towards a trail on the edge of the camp. She gave a look towards the kitchen-slash-Paradise Valley Bar and Nature Club when she heard pots clanging, but knew he wasn't going anywhere while there was breakfast to be cooked. She had time to spare.

She found the hot springs simply by following a trail of discarded clothing. Something in her would never let her 'randomly strew' anything, so she carefully folded her kit and slid into the hot water. Instant rejuvenation. There was something otherworldly about sinking beneath the mineral water and hearing it hum in your ears. She came up, took a deep breath, and then sank to the bottom of the spring. Yesterday was too weird, and too close for comfort, and as she surfaced, she had a flash of pre-dream memory. Blake Madison had some kind of book, and he was reading it before he went lights-out. Damn it.

"Shit, Madison…" she exhaled as she broke the top of the water.

"What did you just say?"

Red splashed full-circle and saw a pale man on the edge of the tree line. She slid to protective cover at the edge of the spring, grabbing for her pile of clothing and barked: "Who the f*ck are you?"

After spending the night in a cave with the Dundee of his dreams, Curtis York could care less about the naked woman in the puddle. He had spent the night listening to the unbelievable tales that the lummox had told him, and had stumbled into the day in a sort of a trance. When he'd reached the clearing and heard the red-headed woman say "Madison", the words of the stranger he met came back to him in a flood.

"Be careful with Dundee. Don't do anything until you meet a particular redhead. She'll have a password."

"What password? What redhead?"

"You'll know her by the password."

"What password, eh?"

"The password is Madison. Blake Madison."

His reverie was broken by the hiss of the rock that just winged past his ear. The woman had managed to get her shirt on, and by doing so had given herself modesty and a greater reach of projectiles. "How dare you sneak up.." the woman's rant continued. Curtis York was oblivious. He turned back towards the cave and seemed not to notice the rocks bouncing off his legs and back.

Red scrambled from the spring and wrestled wet skin into the rest of her clothes. Her hands were shaking and her heart thumped in her ears. She hated being startled, and whether he knew it or not, that skinny-pale dude had just rocketed to the top of her shit-list. She ran back to the camp and straight to the kitchen. The cook was a certified giant of a man, made only more so by comparison to the dishwasher he had in his employ. The cook stood bent over the griddle, flipping enormous buckwheat pancakes and stirring a pot of blackberry syrup, while the tiny dishwasher stood on a chair enveloped in steam, happily scrubbing away at the pots and pans she gathered from the counter.

Red leaned against the doorjamb and purred: "Y'all need any help?" The giant spun around and gave Red a bear hug, happily reciting his part of the code in his heavily accented growl: "You can take out the trash!" The dishwasher chirped: "Is it hot in here, or is it just me?" and the three dissolved into giggles. It had been far too long since they had seen one another, but that was the way of the world sometimes.

Red sat on a dishtowel on the counter so that she could get a good view of the window and the door. She listened to the cook and noted the drawings that the tiny woman made on the side of the fogged up refrigerator. Whenever anyone would come too close to earshot, Red picked up the only instrument that could survive the heat and humidity of the camp kitchen—a plastic ukulele—and started singing "Sister Kate" at the top of her lungs. The other two would follow behind, and anyone passing would be treated to three-part harmony and nothing else.

I may be late, but I'll be up to date
When I can shimmy like my sister Kate

Subject: RE: BS: Once a Mudcat, always a ? (Story thread)
From: Janie
Date: 15 Mar 07 - 10:54 PM

Josey didn't learn about the shooting until she cam down to the main lodge for coffee the next morning. After telling her to keep it under her hat, Lindy-Lou had told her what happened. It scared her that she had slept through something like that--her tent wasn't but 50 yards from where the murder had occurred. It wasn't the whiskey, she'd been sober as a judge by the time she had gone off to her little tent. Maybe she should dig into her pockets and pay the difference to sleep in one of the bunk houses.

Lindy-Lou could read her thoughts, it seemed. She insisted that Josey move down and occupy the vacant bunk in the cabin where she was staying.

"Surely none of the 'catters would have done this," she mused. They could get awfully mean and rude on-line, but she had been to many a gathering, and knew that those on-line hostilities melted away when these people were together in the flesh, standing firmly on the common ground of their love of the music. It did worry her at first that she didn't see Malcolm or York anywhere, but when she asked, Lindy-Lou assured her the melodeon player was still hanging by the back of his jacket from the big pine at the edge of the clearing, his instrument carefully hung beside him, just out of his reach.

Subject: RE: BS: Once a Mudcat, always a ? (Story thread)
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 15 Mar 07 - 10:48 PM

Ah hell, bold didn't close after "The Lives of the Stars". Can you repair, Katlaughing? and put an "s" in "supposed"? :>)

Anything for you, my LeeJ:-)

Subject: RE: BS: Once a Mudcat, always a ? (Story thread)
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 15 Mar 07 - 10:34 PM

Just before he switched off the light, Madison opened yet again the small black synthetic-leather covered booklet which had been stamped in gilt The Lives of the Stars. He had originally supposed it to be one of those supermarket checkout books with all the skinny on Brad and Angelina. Opening it, the entire book seemed to be written in a combination of Chinese characters, heiroglyphs, and algebraic equations, and a small notation on the flyleaf that said "Dear Smurch, Don't be layte to the gayte, your ffriend Belzer".
Other than that, the poor sap's shorts pockets had held only a Swiss Army knife, the key to his Nissan, and three wrapped licorice, or maybe chocolate, hard candies.
Madison stashed the booklet behind the curtain by his bed, and lay for a few minutes thinking about the whole very strange situation he had found himself in. He had a strange momentary vision of a school of fish swimming around behind the windows of the submerged Mercury Caprice, and then fell of into a sleep that was filled with floating images that eventually resolved them selves into a surreal, but vivid, dream.

Subject: RE: BS: Once a Mudcat, always a ? (Story thread)
From: katlaughing
Date: 15 Mar 07 - 09:51 PM

(There are some good and helpful "guidelines/suggestions" on ho the story threads have worked in the past in this thread, fwiw.)

Subject: RE: BS: Once a Mudcat, always a ? (Story thread)
From: Amos
Date: 15 Mar 07 - 08:34 PM

The Mounty peered out from the mouth of the cave, wondering if the pre-dawn sprinkle was going to let up. His mouth felt like forest floor, mossy and sour, and his legs ached and his ass hurt.

He wished he had a drink. He wished he had a gig mug of steaming black coffee. He wished a lot of things.

A big drop, condensed from a rock fragment above his head, fell and hit his nose, splashing cold rainwater in his eyes. He blinked and winced and pulled back from the cave entrance.

A little further in, sprawled on a collection of pine branches, the large form of Malcolm Dundee snored, hiccuped, burped and stirred in a loud sleep.

The Mounty looked at him bitterly and kicked the broken handcuffs lying in the dust at his feet.

"God DAMMIT," he muttered. I wish I could QUIT you!!"

Subject: RE: BS: Once a Mudcat, always a ? (Story thread)
From: Georgiansilver
Date: 15 Mar 07 - 04:20 PM

I was obviously under a misapprehension here as I understood threads to be something one necessarily added to or took part in and did not take over as an individual. From my limited experience of the Cat I had certainly not observed the use of your 'tradition' but as you have suggested that I was out of order, I will take great care in not borrowing any of your characters in future and could only ask your humble forgiveness for straying into what you feel is some sacred area.
Presumably your invitation... (so, then what happened....?) is a throwing open of your 'individual' space to anyone who wishes to partake of your rendering....I find that somewhat interesting.
May all your posts echo your sentiments.
Best wishes, Mike.

Subject: RE: BS: Once a Mudcat, always a ? (Story thread)
From: Amos
Date: 15 Mar 07 - 12:15 PM

(GS: Traditionally, we use certain conventions in shared-fiction threads. One is not to mess with another's character overmuch. Another is to be flexible and creative about new plot developments and extend one's own plot developments from the existing plot elements in a way that does not shatter the attention. A third is to put asides in parentheses so they are visually separate from the actual story. A fourth is to creatively and flexibly contribute with due regard to the ordinary need for continuity and coherency. You (and Scrump) have not learned these fine points so I am calling them out here so we can play all under the same agreements.)

A

Subject: RE: BS: Once a Mudcat, always a ? (Story thread)
From: Georgiansilver
Date: 15 Mar 07 - 09:23 AM

You mean you....er...want....someone to carry on with .....your story Amos?

Subject: RE: BS: Once a Mudcat, always a ? (Story thread)
From: Amos
Date: 15 Mar 07 - 09:13 AM

(so, then what happened....?)


A

Subject: RE: BS: Once a Mudcat, always a ? (Story thread)
From: Amos
Date: 14 Mar 07 - 12:30 PM

In the balmy sundown light of a California spring twilight, Theresa Argent paced the rich Spanish tiles of her patio, ignoring the far reaches of the blue Pacific gradually turning orange in the dipping sun. The speakers hidden in the synthetic boulders scattered around the garden among the catii and bougainvillea were warbling with the voice of Christine LAvin.

It was the kind of love
You never recover from
Even though she's found another one
To take his place,
She never will escape the truth.
And at times like this
When the moon is right
And the air is foggy
Like it is tonight
She thinks about
What might have been
If she had just held on to him,
The kind of love
You never recover from...."

She muttered angrily at the swell of affection the song brought out in her, and tried to focus. She put down her cell phone and moved inside to the wood-paneled library, opening a polished oak box to reveal a sturdy metallic handset. She picked it up and pushed two numbers on its numberpad.

"Capo Two, High E", she said, feeling vaguely foolish. There was an electornic hum that burbled for several seconds, and a deep male voice came on.

"Yo Terry, what's new?"

"Update is one folkie taken out by unknown assailant; cover holding, but that Madison character you suggested is turning out to have more than one brain cell and may be a risk. One fiddler seems to be kin to Area 51 tribe -- he said you would understand that." she rattled off, trying to sound self---popssessed and competent. The effort didn't take.

"And listen, you flat-footed fathead -- if one hair on that man's head is harme dby this stupid cops-and-robbers game I will personally hunt you down and castrate you with a butter knife. A promise, not a threat. "

"Whoah, Terry!! Deep breaths here!! If this wasn't critical to national security I never would have asked the best man for the job to do it. You know that."

"I don't give a shit, Wallace. What I said stands. I need him back, and I need him back in one piece."

"OK, ok. I have duly noted your threat of physical harm to a representative of the United States government." He was trying to inject humor, but her mood wasn't amenable to it.

"Gummint, smummint, Wallace. This is me you're talking to. No crap on this one, you understand?"

"Read you loud and clear, Terry. Thanks for the update. I will bring him home."

She hung up, skeptical, and returned to the patio, breathing hard and wishing Daniel had never worked for people like that.

Stay with me...oh, stay with me.
This is the kind of love you never recover from....

She turned her back on the sweet melody and stared angrily out at the Pacific, hoping to see a green flash, fuming.