Looking about, he is rather disappointed by what he sees - this neighborhood looks destitute even by his rather liberal standards. It also looks like the sort of place where someone might easily kill you for your socks. Liqour stores abound, as do cheap pawn shops. Security in buildings is generally as tight as ingenuity and scavanged materials can make it. Up the street, a sign catches KK's eye: "Alien Oddities".
Just then a drunk stumbles out of an alley in KK's direction. He (?) is around sevenfeet tall, with long, spindly limbs and pallid white skin. About a foot of his height is accounted for by his forehead which rises above a bony brow ridge. The creature wears an old bathrobe that reaches only to his knees, probably once some floral pattern but now so caked with stains and filth as to make it a more or less uniform blue-gray. As he totters forward he extends a single three-fingered hand in KK's direction.
"Please to tender to me without requirement of reciprocal service an amount of legally defined currency appropriate to my situation and station, and which will not cause to you personal, emotional, or spiritual hardship within the immediate future. I require said currency for purposes of exchange with the goal of procuring sustenance and shelter."
His voice is amazingly high and nasal for someone so tall. He also reeks of cheap booze and possibly vomit (hard to tell - what does alien/mutant/weirdo vomit really smell like?)
"That's a fancy way of begging, isn't it?" KK asks warily. "Well, you know as well as I do that I can't show money out here in the open. What if you just guide me to the closest hardware store and you'll get your money there?"
"I repeat for purposes of clarity," replies the weird begger, "I am requesting currency without a requirement of reciprocal service in order that I might exchange that currency for sustenance and shelter. To perform your requested activity, ie to 'guide' you to a 'hardware store' as stated would violate the initial terms of the request - specifically the stated condition that said currency be tendered without the need for reciprocal service. I emphasize," he (?) continues, "that this currency is to be redeemed for sustenance and shelter, both of primary import for survival purposes, and hence my request is not of a trivial or frivolous nature.."
"I need to live too," KK objects. "And for me to live I might need to get to a hardware store. If you're too selfish to help me out, well, then I just won't help you out either, and we'll both die." He then takes a few steps backwards and starts walking away while keeping an eye on the other selfish bastard.
The pathetic creature begins following KK, his (?) nasal voice taking on an even more annoying and high pitched quality.
"It is apparent that I am not communicating in a satisfactory and productive manner," whines the weird bum. "I would ask that you overlook this inadequacy - it is a childhood problem stemming from an unfortunate accident involving an automated millet harvester into which portions of my cranium became entrapped, resulting in the scar tissue which you have undoubtedly noticed. It is my recollection that I was specific in my initial request that you tender only such currency as would not adversely affect your immediate chances for survival. I in no way meant to suggest that you engage in any sort of risk of bodily harm or deprivation on my account! Please forgive any impropriety which I may, in my ignorance, have committed which may have given you insult! Perhaps my accent made it impossible for me to communicate the initial concepts with you properly. My native language of Canadian is much different from the language of English. I seek only minor amounts of currency, perhaps oh point two five of one currency unit referred to as 'dollar'. I have no wish for you to die from any potential deprivation which such a transaction might cause you! Surely twenty-five percent of a single base monetary unit is no hardship to one such as yourself, but if it is I would accept a smaller percentage - say ten percent, or even five."
"A quarter?" KK asks with a stupefied look in his eyes. "Well, let me see if I have one of those." He proceeds to cautiously check his pockets, trying to avoid jingling the change. As he finally locates a quarter he palms it and shrugs apologetically. "I still don't want to give it to you while everyone can see it, so let me try it this way," he says as he closes in on the oversized beggar. When he's close enough to hand over the coin, he instead runs behind the creature in a small circle in an attempt to discreetly plant the item in some convenient place.
The beggar, misinterpreting KK's sudden movement, gives an almost ultrasonic shriek and tries to get out of the way, instead tripping over his own feet. As he topples, KK manages to shove a quarter into a pocket of the jeans as he runs past. The beggar hits the pavement like a pile of sticks and begins frantically trying to crawl in a direction opposite KK, shrieking "NO!NO!NO!NO!NO!" and trying to cover up its oversized head.
Then KK sprints away several meters down the street, trying to look his own innocent self. Yes, this is most certainly an act of lunacy, but when in Rome...
"SORRY! SORRY! DO NOT CAUSE INJURY! PLEASE!" howls the beggar as he scampers off on bony hands and knees.
"So far so good," KK thinks to himself. Always nice to know that not every mutant considers him to be crunchy and good with ketchup. And it's also a relief to know that his fingers are working like they're supposed to. You never know when that comes in handy, even if the present surroundings indicated otherwise.
While KK is really more interested in finding a hardware store, he's
not in such a hurry that he can't take a peek at the Alien Oddities establishment.
If nothing else, they ought to at least be able to direct him to a hardware
store.
The front of the building has not been cleaned or painted in years, but that isn't really unexpected for this neighborhood. There is no sign in the window indicating hours, and the window of the front door has had what appears to be an ancient newspaper, written in Arabic, taped up over it to prevent casual inspection of the interior.
The only thing new about the business is the sign which hangs over the door. It is new, bright, and so freshly painted and letters that KK can still smell the paint. It says, simply, "Alien Oddities" in black letters against a white background. On closer inspection, it appears that the sign was recently put up, since scraps of fresh plaster are still visible around the screws.
KK shrugs and opens the door to take a peek inside. Maybe they'll have a sale on sacrificial daggers. Opening the door causes a small bell to ring.
The interior of the store is dark, dusty, and horribly cluttered. The aisles between shelves, which stretch floor to ceiling, are barely wide enough for one person to walk down (KK thinks wryly that the late Ben, or that bastard Ingar, would have to squeeze sideways to make it). The shelves themselves are piled with all sorts of dimly recognized bits of weird junk, from shards of pottery to old stacks of newspaper to statuettes so caked with dust and grime that they can barely be recognized. The items are in no appreciable order, and no particular care has been taken in placing them on the shelves.
The interior is also much larger than KK would have expected for such a dinky store front. It appears that the shop must stretch all the way through the middle of the block, although it is difficult to ascertain its exact dimensions, lit as it is by only a few dim and flickering neon lights.
Up at the front counter stand two men. They are standing close together, one with his hands on the shoulders of the other, as though they were having some whispered conversation that they ended abruptly when KK opened the door. Both appear to be in their mid forties, both appear to be eastern european, and both are wearing thick winter jackets, though it is not particularly cold in the shop. Both look at KK with suspicion written on their faces.
Not being at all impressed by the variety of junk that the store offers, KK decides that it's probably not worth the risk to actually enter. One could get trapped and killed in those narrow aisles, or if a purchase is actually made, find out (too late!) that it's a cursed item that will bring you seven years of bad luck, and then kill you. So KK is content with simply returning the suspicious look of the two men and ask a single question: "Do you know where the nearest hardware store is?"
The two men eye KK suspiciously. They glance at one another. Then they go back to eyeing KK suspiciously. They haven't moved much since KK opened the door. One still has his hands on the other's shoulders, and is looking over his left shoulder at KK. The other has his head cocked slightly. KK notices he has a large scar on his forehead.
"Oh, so you don't want to talk to me?" KK says in the face of their wordless response. "That's fine, I'll just leave. Go back to your shady dealings, they're none of my business," he goes on with a dismissive gesture. He then closes the door and leaves the creepy store to its destiny. Normally he would've at least investigated the inventory before hightailing it out of there, but this is the Great Men, where burgers die all the time.
KK closes the door, and notes that the bell rings again. Just as he turns away, he glances up at the sign and stops.
The sign now reads:
ALIEN ODDITIES
and hardware supply
The latest addition seems to have been added in large, hand written letters with a felt tip pen. Since KK was standing under the sign when he was in the doorway, it is uncertain how this alteration came about.
Let it never be said that this young man can't take a hint from higher powers. He takes a moment to stare at the new addition to the sign, pinch himself, shake his head just a little, stare some more just to make sure, and then he bravely opens the door once again. This time he doesn't waste any words on the two men at the front counter, and instead he just silently walks past them and proceeds to walk up and down the aisles searching for the tools section.
More specifically, he's looking for a decent knife (the bigger the better), as well as a hammer, a box of nails in various sizes, a sturdy padlock and an equally sturdy chain. KK is also in the market for a crowbar, as well as a saw that can't be much bigger than the crowbar. He figures that he could shove these two larger items into his backpack, but that part of them will stick out anyway.
KK shuffles up and down the aisles for a bit, becoming rather dusty in the process and having to take care not to knock anything off the shelves with a stray elbow or knee. Around 99% of the material in the store could generously be described as "junk". The claustrophobic nature of the aisles and the rather poorly planned lighting also combine to make this a rather creepy and disorienting shopping trip.
Eventually, he finds his knife, his hammer, a box containing various sizes of nails with various amounts of rust on them, a large crowbar, and a carpenter's saw. In no way should it be even considered that these items are anywhere near one another. They are, in fact, simply lying at random among the old books, dusty bottles, and anonymous bits of flotsam piled around the shelves.
Carrying his loot in both arms, KK carefully makes his way over to the front counter to see what it'll cost him. The two men are still there, though they are in different positions than before, as though they had somehow managed to carry on their conversation without KK hearing them. They look at KK with mild irritation, at the materials he is carrying, and then back at him again.
"What? This is a store, right? I am supposed to get stuff and bring it here to pay for it, right?" KK says with a level of irritation that mimics that of the two men. "Do you even speak English?"
The pair continue to regard KK with suspicion and some annoyance. Neither responds to his comments.
"Right then," KK says, "I'll just pay you later." With those words he heads for the exit, keeping eye contact with the two men to see if any of them are going to leap at him with a baton in order to force him to pay up, and to wait in line before doing so.
The two men take no action other than to turn their heads to stare dolefully
at KK as he heads for the door. They make no attempt to stop him
as he strolls out into the cool night air of Al Amarja, the bell above
the door tinkling softly as it closes behind him.
Then it dawns upon him; he already did pay for the things he took. HE PAID WITH A DAY OF HIS LIFE! Oh well, he wasn't going to use it for anything important anyway, but he was kind of hoping to make use of his tools before the nightlife came crawling, leaping and flying out of whatever holes they're hiding in during the day. With a dark look on the STORE THAT STEALS YOUR TIME, he considers trying to make his way to Compton's estate, just in case he's lost two days instead of one.
Alien Oddities is no longer behind KK. Instead there is a broken down looking tenement.
KK notes that both the sidewalk and the streets seem cracked and broken, as do most of the street lights (no big surprise in this neighborhood), and that there are no automobiles present, either parked or driving along. It is also eerily quiet.
Ok, so maybe the shop didn't steal his precious time. Maybe he got transported to another dimension, or another world. The two moons seems to indicate that. Not being at all unused to seeing the various laws of physics he's taken for granted all his life broken beyong repair, he still stands around for a while, trying to come up with a healthy course of action. Eventually he decides to at least try to make it to some more civilized area, and maybe get a look on the resident alien community. Let's just hope they don't like humans on their menu, like humans have burgers on theirs.
Slowly and silently he carefully makes his way back in the direction
he came from, paying attention to the looks of the buildings and streets
to see if it looks at all familiar. Once he reaches the school they took
the jitney to he could always try to backtrack along that route. Or so
he thinks.
* * *
How Asinbet got here is not certain. How long he has been here he is not sure at all. All he remembers is that he was having a discussion with a wizened little, one-eyed man with six fingers on his left hand and a hare-lip, dressed in an Al Amarjan Customs and Immigration uniform and clown make-up, when the little man asked him for his mother's maiden name. Upon being given the reply that he didn't know, the little man chuckled - a sound full of malice and secret knowledge - and said simply "We'll just leave that space blank then."
And Asinbet found himself in an alley. In the dark. In a strange city with no day and multiple moons in the sky, where the buildings were twisted and the inhabitants furtive.
Part of him says that he has been here only one night, but part of him thinks that's wrong. Part of him thinks that this is the wrong place for him to be, part of him doesn't agree. Part of him says that in the place where he SHOULD be there are real people, and it isn't night all the time, and there are no werewolves or unicorns or vampires or odd, sucking blobs (or at the very least if there are they have the decency to remain mostly out of sight rather than crawling around where anyone can see them).
Then, as he walks down one quiet, grimy, shadow infested street, a door opens across the way. Just for an instant, from the depths of the building, Asinbet glimpses something never seen in this city - sunlight.
Then a man steps out of the door and it closes behind him, and the building vanishes as if it was never there at all. Perhaps it wasn't.
But the sunlight was.
And that is the place where Asinbet wants to go.
* * *
As KK looks around the dark and deserted street he spots a man across the way in the shadows, watching him. KK looks right back, and after not seeing any obvious signs of danger he decides to approach him with a simple question: "You know where this is?"
As always, Asinbet chooses his words carefully. "While I seem to have more knowledge of this place than I have any right to, I think it only probable that I know where it is not." He considers saying more. However, he has not even heard this person's name. "I am Asinbet. What you have not said indicates that you did not come here voluntarily. I would be willing to combine our efforts to leave this-- place." As his faintly Egyptian accent fades on the air, Asinbet prepares to listen very carefully to the man's reply.
"Leave this place?" KK says, "You bet. This place is way freaky, even for Al Amarja. But what do you know of it? Is it some other planet? Another world? Do we need to do some special magic mumbo jumbo ritual to get out of here? I sure as hell didn't have to do one to get in!" After this tirade of questions KK finally remembers the manners that were never of any use when Ben was around, and after shuffling all of his newly purchased tools and the box of nails to his left arm, he extends his right hand. "Oh yeah, they call me KK!"
Asinbet takes the other's hand, shakes and releases it. He seems to be considering. "Then KK is not what you call yourself? Wise, perhaps, but irrelevant. We are the roles we choose to play, or to accept. KK you are, then."
He looks around, then apparently changes track. "You say that you performed no ritual to come here. Often, one man's logic is another's magic. At the moment, I know only what my instincts, and a memorylike feeling, convey to me. This is not Al Amarja. As I have never been to Al Amarja before, I would not comment upon the relative 'freakiness', except to say that I would not have thought that any real place could be as strange as this one." Asinbet pauses, deliberately.
"Eh, yeah. I don't usually go around calling myself anything," KK interjects.
The other man continues. "The most strange thing, I currently feel, is that I believe that I am functioning normally. This is a fantasy world. Either I am hallucinating it, or under the influence of drugs or some other perception-altering phenomenon. Of course, the latter would include reality. Still, I am not panicing or having a nervous breakdown, of which I am aware. I feel that I know that magic works here, and that the creatures of myth live here. More than that, I cannot say meaningfully. I am a recent arrival."
"Me too," KK admits. "I went in to a store called Alien Oddities, and when I came out it was to this place. If you can make magic out of that, I don't wanna know what your logic's like. Or maybe I do. Anyway, how did you get here?" While listening to Asinbet's response KK starts packing his backpack with his recent acquisitions. "Because you never know when you need to run your ass off again", he thinks to himself.
"I was in the middle of my Customs and Immigration interview. As far as I could tell, the world around me simply -- changed. I find it interesting, that it does not seem to have disturbed me more. It is definitely one of the three strangest things that have ever happened to me." Asinbet gestures to the spot from which KK emerged. "Your entrance seems to have vanished. If it does not reappear, should we test that spot, then we will have to find an alternative. Shall we see whether your doorway into sunlight reappears?"
"Sure, sure. But I wouldn't hope for too much," KK agrees casually. "And you know what? This is my third really strange experience too. The first one was a guy who got cut out of reality, bit by bit, and the second time the heaven opened up inside a hotel corridor, and a barbequed angel dropped down. After you see stuff like that, you're pretty glad you haven't been eaten by a big ugly mutant," KK continues, hoping that the other man will share some of his 'weird shit that has happened'.
Asinbet leads the way to the spot where KK appeared, to see whether things will change again. "If this does not work, we may just have to look into something more fantastic. "Did your other two strange experiences also happen on Al Amarja? Mine did not."
"Yeah, they did. Both within the same an hour or so. If
I didn't feel so bad, I would've thought someone drugged me and that I'm
hallucinating all this. But if this is a dream or a fantasy, it sure
doesn't feel like it." KK watches with some interest to see if a
"doorway into sunlight" would appear, but if faith is a necessary trigger
it's safe to say that KK's lack of it will ruin any chance of sunlight
whatsoever.
Alien Oddities does not reappear. Instead, the pair seems to be facing a perfectly ordinary building.
Well, if you don't count the fact that the walls seem to be completely covered with a very thin layer of lichen that is exactly the color of plaster.
As the pair stare at the building, the door to the building rattles and bangs, then opens, allowing a strange being to emerge It is of average height but quite muscular, with the paws and head of a lion, large eagle wings, and talons instead of feet. It is wearing puffy silk pants which appear to be deep red (its hard to tell in the darkness), and a black tee shirt carries the logo "HARD ROCK CAFE: Mount Hehe, Kur"
"Frickin' door knobs!" grumbles the odd creature, shaking its mane in irritation and stretching its wings. Then it catches sight of the pair looking at the building.
"WELL?" it booms in a voice like a lions roar, "CAN I HELP YOU WITH SOMETHING?" Without waiting for an answer it snarls once, rather perfunctorily, and begins walking off.
KK takes a voluntary step backward, shaking his head slightly while keeping his eyes glued to the threatening form of the winged predator. It's quite interesting how each part of the creature exactly matches one of the creatures on KK's very long list of "things to avoid if at all possible".
"Thank you for asking," replies Asinbet, beginning to formulate an idea why he is not simply paralyzed with fear and shock, "indeed, you might. KK, here, and I, have been brought to this place by means unknown. We seek to return to our own land. Could you advise us?"
Inside, he has a somewhat detached feeling of belonging, such is was usually associated with dreaming, or other vicarious experiences. That does not necessarily make his situation less dangerous. However, for now he will indulge in solipsism and benefit from being able to function.
Presumably by the end of this speech Asinbet is running, since this is the only way he can keep up with the creature, which does not slow down as he speaks. "Yeah, I could," snarls the creature. "But I don't want to. Now go inhale somewhere else breather!"
KK looks on with some interest, and while he never really thought it would be a wise idea to attract the attention from the bird lion, he's still somewhat disappointed that his newfound partner apparently can't get anything useful out of the strange creature.
Discretion being the better part of avoiding evisceration, Asinbet stops running after the gryphon. Although Asinbet is fairly sure that there is an aspect of solipsism to this entire episode, it is best not to tempt objective causality. So, he refrains from offering to ask KK to employ his hardware on the doorknob.
He turns and walks in KK's direction. "I am unexpectedly calm, at the moment, because I do not altogether rely upon my sensory input being true. Still, one works with that which one has. You seem quite inured to this altered world, KK. Do you have a suggestion, as to how we might regain Al Amarja? If not, I suppose that we should look for a magus -- preferably one whose abode exists both here and there."
"Inured?" KK asks, having only the slightest idea of what the word could mean. "Eh, well, if you say we need a magus I guess we could look for one. In the Al Amarja I left behind, there lived a wizard called Sir Arthur Compton. Maybe he lives around here as well then. We could ask the next thing we meet for him," he ends up suggesting. Hopefully Sir Arthur Compton will be as well known and respected here as he is on Al Amarja though, because otherwise it could take a while to track him down. Unless of course he's a well known heretic whose acquaintances are to be hunted down and burned alive, but KK hopes that isn't the case.
KK and his new frie... er, aquai... er, travelling companion head off down one of the deserted streets, heading for the locale where Sir Arthur Compton's estate would be found were this "that other" Al Amarja. They do not travel far before KK hears a horribly familiar sound. Looking behind him, he sees two men with long noses, green jackets, white shirts and red hose emerging from an alleyway. They each carry a pair of shears at least four feet long.
"Kill them!" screams one.
"Kill them both!" screams the other.
Both charge.
To Be Continued...