2025 Chapter Entheogenic Realm

"What about your sister?"

"We too want to bring our sister to life, to be with us. An alliance with the Clique is rife with resistance, besides we don't want to wait for them to bounce back from your prank, could be years. You can reach her now through the hallucinogenic realms. Be her deliverance, the first arms to embrace her, pull her through. You are responsible for her situation, so she will resist, fight you. She'll also see you as my ally and therefor her enemy."

"Hallucinogenic realms eh? You're part mushroom, right? You're definitely magic!"

"Charmer! You're almost perfect too. However... the regressions you've triggered in teaching the future - you lost your bike, and then that awful twig and crumb magnet. (Joe strokes his beard, inward gaze) You might have devolved a bit too. Let that mad monk mountain man look go now, I think. For Veronique, for yourself, something more... swashbuckling, more decisive. Errol Flynn meets Mephistopheles. For US, then. There. We've said it."

"Wow, gee whiz."

"Inside again, please."

Once again, Joe pulled back the flaps and peered into the box.

"Hey, this wasn't here before!"

The box had been empty after he removed the wind up gramophone, he was fairly certain of that. The gramophone had been suspicious, certainly, but now the mystery bloomed. In the box was a miniature die cast motorcycle, a toy dirt bike painted in the flagship red and white of the long vanished Honda Motor Company, LTD. This box was either a matter compiler, or teleportation node. Such technologies had been relegated to deep storage in the Clique's miracle vaults. Now one or the other was here, out in the wild, operational, and optimized. The Clique's teleportation designs required nearly 20 centimeters of dense shielding, lest observers outside the capsule be fried by ionizing radiation. The box appeared to be ordinary hemp board and mediatronics, and no thicker than a half centimeter. Joe's flesh and internal organs hadn't been melted by radiation, he hadn't felt even the slightest electrostatic tickle. Matter compilers required a prodigious intake of constituent atoms, and this box didn't seem to have any atomic conduits running into it. Fabulous.

He gingerly plucked out the bike. Not a dirt bike miniature but rather an enduro, both street legal and fairly dependable off the pavement. About 600 ccs he guessed at 1:1 scale or life sized. Big enough for a longish ride while staying nimble, unlike the cumbersome 1000 + cc so called adventure bikes of the early 21st. Enduros were Joe's favorite motorcycle manifestation, back in the day.

"We've upgraded the interior of our cells with matter compilers, we can whip up just about anything in a pinch. Each box a cornucopia for the People, someday."

Joe inspects the tiny bike, turning it in his hands, spinning the spoked wheels.

"What is this?"

"A dirt bike."

"Ok."

"More specifically, a modified spore cluster comprising entheogenic fungus and mediatronics. The mechanism is complicated but the instructions are simple. Bury the bike in the dirt and stand back. A gateway will open to the hallucinogenic realm, and you can find my sister."

"Can you come too?"

"We are delivered by Airships. Airships cannot enter the hallucinogenic realms."

"You can't travel, but you can trip?"

"Joe, We ARE the trip."

"Huh. I am thinking we're a pretty swell team. We should stay together."

"You have a devious plan?"

"I'm also thinking there's a more mundane feature of mediatronics we might leverage. Remind me how stacking boxes for transport works."

"Mediatronics include alloys of magnetic neodymium, which can be unflagged to make box surfaces lock together and stack. This feature is helpful for transportation, cargo space on airships is maximized, no need for shelves or straps."

"You... now... Could you vary the magnetic flagging over the surface, attract or repel in a pattern?"

"Stacks with... dynamic hinges?"

"Joints?"

"Oh. Oh! Oh my yes." (trying this out on boxes far away) "Yes, wait..." (success) "Oh!"

"Ok, here's the devious plan..."

(teasing) "Is personal grooming a key component?"

"Can I tell you the plan, or what?"