From Newsgroup: rec.arts.comics.creative

On Sun, Jul 27, 2025 at 4:59rC>PM Arthur Spitzer <arspitzer2@gmail.com> wrote: <snip>

Time for LJC to really smoke hard on her cigarette?!
And will Deft ever have time for a shower?!!!

I sure hope so D:

"Question! What the hell are you doing here?"
"Your pardon, Lady Johanna. I was trying, in fact, to find the rest of the Brigade. You wouldn't know where 'Buckets' is, would you?"
She tossed her hair out of her eyes and blew smoke in his face. "Of course I do; the rest of the present Brigade just got sucked into an alternate
dimension through it. Why weren't you with them?"
"Customs, dear lady. Your O'Hare airport is rather set against my bringing along Obsidian here...I was delayed."

Ahhhh, very nice. X>

"Actually, I'm not. Sid, do something about that, okay? Now, where are you off to, Lady Jo?"
"You know how much I hate that, Question. If you must know..."
"I always must."
"Fine. 'I love a mystery.' Play it your way. I'm trying to find a way to t'get into the Administrator's office so that I can find out what's happened to the rest of the Brigade and Kit, and I can't be standing here wasting time with you and your mind games."

I don't quite get what the mind games are here.

"Funny how the Netromancer managed to catch so many precognitators off
their guards, isn't it?" the Question asked, more to himself than to his tem- porary companion.

It's a good point! I just figured it was a plot device!

She, for her part, ignored him, having learned long ago that
the Question lived only for answers and tended to find them himself.

Good characterization~

She walked in and tried a door. Locked. She tried another, and further along, another. The Question repeated her actions on the other side of the corridor. They kept to their tasks for a long while, neither noticing how long the hall grew as they did. Eventually, the Question glanced up.
"My lady, I fear this may take longer than..." She was nowhere to be seen.

Niiiiiice.

"This would be a great deal easier if I still had the Eye," he
muttered to himself. Then he smiled thinly. "Of course, that's why I'm here... Ramaj, I do trust that you shan't try to con me when I do catch up with you."

Man, everybody wants this thing, I like it. X>

He twisted a knob, and the door swung open, its swing arm
squeaking. Taken aback for the nonce, he closed it again.

...taken aback for *what?* ...oh, I see, I was only familiar with the,
er, slangier meaning.

The secretary didn't even look up from his work as he strode into the room. Nightshard pulled gently against him, towards the door, as Obsidian keened lowly at his heels. The Question involuntarily shivered. Rarely had he
experienced such cold impersonalness, not even in Hell. At least there the torments were customised to the victim--the last time, anyway.

Damn, that's a great expression of how Kafkaesque stuff is fucked up.

Down the hall, there was movement. The Question darted towards it. When he got close enough, he recognised the signs of Elric's passing through: papers flying everywhere, people wandering in a daze, Chaos reigning supreme. "Everyone's coming out of the woodwork on this one," the Question thought grimly to himself as he entered the office and broke its single exterior window.

Lots of tying in to other people's characters, I like it!

Ramaj was aching from an unearned hangover and various serious abrasions. He was thankful for the immediate distraction from his surroundings. Everything around him seemed to be catching a severe and malignant alternative genesis fever. This could have been the realm of
the dancer, but there was something unsettling about the change. Ramaj
had a sense that the changes were not occuring as he witnessed them but somewhen in the past or future. A land were destiny was unchained and capricious. He looked at his hands and watched the play of the colours
he could have been across his skin. He shut his eyes and in the back of
his mind his dirty secrets winked out to be replaced by others, some
benign, some unspeakable.

D: WOW. That's good shit

I really need to get a wider mouthed duffel for Ol' Bart. While we are complaining about things, I think I lost five pounds from my lower back.
I don't think that I will ever skate like that again, and don't believe
that I did. How do you talk me into these things?"

Heeheeheehee

Ramaj had been talking with his eyes shut. As he started to razz
Deft he felt his own comfortably nasty secrets reassert themselves in his skull. He opened his eyes and saw the skin which had marked him, begin to reassert itself as he reached for the Zippo.

oooooooooh.

"Well, it is said that Xeroxes is one of the indistinct powers,
A Faceless One. One of the beings created to fill the voids that nature
so abhors.

Huhhh interesting.
The first record that I have been able to dig up that might

be related is a reference to a deity of pharonic bureaucrats, one that
did not adhere to the animal head motif that was popular around that
time, but appeared to the faithful in an unusual guise. Each of the worshipers would swear by what was left of their immortality that this
deity would appear as themselves, even when groups ..."

Hmmmm, hmmmm... *decides to just throw a big quote on the wiki*

"Hey, I feel better now! It's been all wierd, but now that you
are starting to bore me, it's all better!"

X3

Ramaj lit up,
inhaled the sweetest incense known to man and felt his eyeballs explode
in pleasure. Deft gave him the "you know you totally killing yourself
but there is just no sense in talking to you, I should know" look.

They have such a good relationship. <3

The
Greeks apparently had contact with a similar entity, but I haven't been
able to find any reliable info on it. During the Dark Ages, many
monasterys were destroyed for 'suspicious efficiency', but no direct references were made. Toward the beginning of the Renaissance there is
a lament 'for our brothers who adopted the daemonic organizational
practices of the bastard devil of Far Cathay' which may place Xeroxes at
the foundation of the brilliant Chinese governmental structure. Xeroxes
was a forward thinking entity and kept up with the bureaucratic
innovations that his mortal charges invented. At first he used papyrus
and quills, then he moved to vellum and quills but those were slowly replaced by paper and well... more quills. This was all very portable stuff, but
then the mortal bureaucracies began using adding machines and filing
cabinets and tapes... things that require shelter... Xeroxes adapted. In short, he plucked a room from the Room-Continuum and took advantage of
his new flexibility. Gradually it acquired the trappings of the modern office and was able to do more of the eternal work of catagorizing and
filing automatically. Then Xeroxes drops from the record. There was some disturbance in the sixties that could have been the office, but most
data about it have been erased. There are few powers in the universe
that would motivate Trenchers to um, unite, and Xeroxes was one of the outside chances. But it seems like his office has hung out it's own
placard."

Ohhhh, an interesting origin. I'm not sure it makes sense based on
other references even in this story for the Office to be *that* new,
but these *are* rumors.

"Moriarity, Ms. Holden"
"Aha, a pair of Fuzzies, I win this round."

The tall man crooked the staff in his right arm and bent down to shuffle the Net.Back deck.

No idea what this is referencing. X>

"You are known to me Ramaj Singh, but I cannot answer you. When
I had a name I was counted as hero, perhaps a force for good, but Now I
am Only A Stranger".
The Dvandom Stranger looked down and was non-plussed. Ramaj and
Deft were looking up at him, *still listening*. These NTB people usually interrupted by this time, How did the rest of it go? An uncomfortable
silence ensued.

X3 X3 X3

"And I am formally known as Conty, though the informal titles
make quite a list. Who is the tall one?"

Huhhhh. Don't know who this is either. X>

"This is just the perfect place for you then, any crazy fantasy
can be satisfied here. It makes for a perfect getaway from the habit of serial thought. Any combination of never existing phenomenon can be experience. You could experimentally verify cold fusion."
"That sounds too good to be true.", Ramaj said carefully.
The Stranger knew this to be his cue.
"This is not a Story! Not a Dream! and Not an Imaginary Tale!
You are close by the Elsewhirls, but you are Outside the Continuity.
Here lay all the realities too improbable to exist, retired or unborn,
side by side. Here you just need reach out to grasp the change in your
life that you feel you need, if you can pay the price."

Ooooooh, love this shit. :D

"So the Trenchcoat Brigaders are bending local reality by tapping into the power outside of the Continuity. This is how I was able to hit
the window from atop a charging skateboard and how Deft could prosecute
his marathon skate through the building of Chicago without counter-suit."

Honestly I just assumed this was normal Looniverse-type stuff

"Each of your trenchcoaters has their own interpretation of what makes their lives so... special. Remember that their intrepretation rules
in their own reality".
"So since it is working for them, we should probably leave well enough alone", Deft broke in.

That's true, that's part of what magic is. n.n

Ramaj awoke refreshed, aching slightly. The covers that remained
on his bed had that familiar smell. He lay back for a moment, practicing breathing.

oooooooh. Nice. :D

He opened the door and looked
out. There was no junk mail and the paper was sitting pretty on the mat, advertising the skill of the paperboy's perfect throw. Ramaj slowly
picked it up. It was the San Francisco Chronicle. For thoroughness sake
he opened the mailbox and confirmed that there was no mail at all. He
knew that he might have no allies at all, but decided to beard whatever
was in the living room.
Thankfully it was definitely Deft who looked up at him puzzled and said, "This channel is showing nothing but reruns".
"And the others?"
"Reruns"
"Well, we might as well eat."

Cute and domestic! :D

"Really, Mister Stranger, you have quite nearly caused Deft to
pass his grilled cheese sandwich through his nose. Is this dignified behaviour as you were taught it?", Ramaj was reflexively talking, terrified, "Your mother should probably give you a good talking to, what is your
home number", Ramaj stopped. This last was probably pushing it a bit.
"Ahh.. I've got blisters on my sinuses!"

X3 X3 X3

"You are still Outside the Continuity in a non-existent place
where you have regularly received the paper since you first subscribed.
You may live here until your days run out if you chose."
"There are people who... depend on me, I cannot stay".
"If all they show is reruns, I don't want to stay. Geez, that
hurts!"

Oooooooh. Nice nice heroic choice~

"Wait a minute, by all accounts I have read, the Stranger is someone that rarely does anything for those who petition. Why are you sending us home?"
Ramaj started to stand up, worried.
"Here we stand Outside the Continuity where all such accounts are meaningless and I did not say that I was sending you home."

The air crackled.
:D

Drew "fun stuff fun stuff" Nilium
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