Chapter Two: The Girl With The Golden Googles.

"Well, we are waiting."

Again, Lola Getz cocked her head to the side, giving her that insectile look. If dinosaurs could become birds maybe bugs could become people, Martin thought. Anything seemed possible after what happened today at lunch and what was happening now. This wasn't the world, he thought, it was the world behind the world. Some Lovecraftian Oz. Some David Lynch Wonderland.

Martin shifted the package in his hands. Something in the package seemed to shift and roll around inside, hitting each side as he tilted it this way and that. It felt both light and heavy. A cigar box with a roll of pennies inside? A single masher marble? A bottle of pills? A mahjong tile? A glass eye?

Martin had the impulse to hold it up to his ear and shake it like a Christmas present but he could feel Lola's eyes on him. He opened his mouth, then shut it. He wasn't a storyteller, he didn't know how to explain things.

"Once upon a time might help...or at least start with your name. Names are...important."

At that there was a little giggle from the other Lola. Lola Wants. She stopped coloring and looked up at Martin. She smiled. Her teeth were small and perfect and somewhat cruel. The smile crinkled the corners of her eyes. She had gray eyes too. The whites were also yellowed. Hag eyes in a little girl's face. Martin couldn't tell how old she was. Sixteen? Twenty-six? Sixty-six? Any option seem viable. She didn't seem like a bug, she seemed like a very pretty amoeba. Something that would reach out with a pseudopod and pull you in for closer inspection. Or consumption.

Then she picked up an orange crayon and returned to drawing. She drew a figure eight. Or an infinity symbol? It didn't matter, she colored over it with black X's and little blue stars and spirals.

"Martin. Martin Hollys."

"Hollys. Plural."

"Yes. Plural."

"Well, Mister Hollys Plural, where did you get that package?"

"I met a girl. In the park near my work. I think, no, I know she's in trouble."

"This...girl...she gave you this package?"

"No, not exactly...she...I think she's been kidnapped. Taken."

"And this package was left where?"

"On a park bench. With YOUR card. There was a note on the other side of the card."

Martin fished the dingy card out of his pocket and held it out to Lola Getz. She looked down at it but didn't move to take it from his hand. Martin felt a desire to flick the card at her, throw the package on the floor of the break room, and leave. It bloomed hot and sour in his stomach and chest, it made the air feel thick. He didn't flick the card at her. Instead he turned it over and read the little note.

"Cherry/Hyperion Park/1pm/pagoda/CF/TSW/maybe/more likely one of the harem."

Lola Getz stopped looking like an insect. She sort of shrank into herself, collapsed into herself. She sat down in one of the odd Victorian chairs and gestured for Martin to sit in the remaining one. He did. It wasn't very comfortable. The fabric of the chair felt sharp, the angles forced his body into a strange posture. Upright and curved.

He placed the package and the card on the table, on top of a drawing of a unicorn. The unicorn had a weird looking little gremlin riding on its back, kissing or biting the unicorn's neck with its red mouth. Many of the drawings on the table shared a theme of monsters and cruelty. Minotaurs being castrated. Imps whipping little girls. Old women cooking horned oni in huge black pots. Cobras being defanged. Sharks being rammed by orcas. Dragons having their wings amputated by surgeons.

Lola Getz leaned over to Lola Wants and said something in another language. Hindi? Latin? Japanese? Martin half expected them to start clicking some aboriginal tongue? Lola Wants said something back but kept coloring. Lola Getz slammed her hand down on the table. Drawings of murder and rape and mythology whipped off the table and floated to the floor.

Lola Wants stopped her current drawing - a narwhal being pulled into a black hole pattern of X's and stars - and grabbed a blank sheet of paper. With a few quick strokes, she drew a picture of a young woman sitting inside a red pagoda. The woman looked pixie-small, drowning inside a greenish trenchcoat. A Tinkerbell with short cropped hair dyed fire engine red. On her head, amongst her red hair, Lola Wants drew two golden circles and colored them in. Martin reacted immediately.

"Yes! That's her! She wore these goggles on her head that were spray painted gold, even the lenses. That was the first thing I ever said to her, 'Nice goggles', so, so, you do know her then?"

Lola Getz exchanged a look with Lola Wants, who just shrugged and nodded.

"Yes. She is an employee of ours. An employee of sorts. A courier."

"What's her name?"

"First tell me what happened? Who took her?"

So Martin did.

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And stay tuned for Part Three of our story: Hyperion Park Black And Blues