Some kid who lives in the California desert part of the year

It’s about time you got here! You’re lucky refills are free– since you’re paying for this meal. Why? You asked me to meet you here, you want me to tell you stuff– stuff which most of us don’t want getting around– and then you arrive late.

Look– you could have chosen some time other than four o’clock on a Friday afternoon for this meeting, particularly the Friday of a long weekend.

Yeah, well here wasn’t my first choice, either, and I can’t help it if you needed to meet me as soon as possible. What’s so damn urgent, anyway?

You can’t be any more specific than “somebody” is after you? Well, that is pretty vague. No surgical masks, weird attacks, or anything else? Well, then, you are screwed. Sure you didn’t piss off the Church of Scientology, the NSA, Homeland Security, or the Mob? Maybe a street gang? Just what did you do, anyway?

Hey, I am taking it seriously! Any of those guys could be nasty if you piss them off. Yeah, although I do admit that the Scientologists would probably just sue you to oblivion. That’s their favorite method, from what I have heard. Hubbard codified it or some such thing.

So, what did you do? It might help narrow things down a bit.

Okay! Okay! So you didn’t do anything you can think of. Just your normal stuff, eh? Okay, here comes the waitress. Think it over while you order, and let me know if you come up with anything, or just give me a summary of what you’ve done the last few weeks since I saw you last.

Okay, so you come up with anything?

Wait a minute! YOU were involved with the Thorne robbery? And you forgot about it earlier? Hell, ANYONE could be after you! You know his love of collecting artifacts, rituals, and other trouble. What did you get? Cash?! You were a lookout.

So… in other words you are screwed all around. How much cash, by the way?

Yeah, you got screwed all right. No, I wouldn’t go back to who hired you. They might just be cleaning up loose ends or something.

Well, it isn’t completely hopeless. You know in this business nothing is impossible. No, I mean it literally. There are actually some folks who specialize in “impossible.” One of them is Slip Kid over in the Slabs.

Slab City. You ever seen “Into the Wild,” or the book by the same name? True story, some kid graduates from college and decides to reject normal society. Sound familiar so far? Anyway, he takes to a life a hitch hiking and wandering around North America until he winds up starving to death stranded in the remote Alaskan wild. Before he got to that last bit he traveled around for a bit with an elderly hippie couple, then reconnected with them in the California desert near the Salton Sea. The place was an old Marine base or something, abandoned at the end of the Second World Was and home to misfits, loners, weirdos and the desperately poor ever since. That’s were Slip Kid spends winters, and that’s were you need to go if you want him to help you disappear.

Hell, I don’t know for how long! Maybe permanently! Do you know what some of the stuff which was rumored to have been taken by your employers?!? There was that Aztec Doomsday artifact thing– the one someone swapped for a fake just before the last Aztec Emperor tried to use it against the Spanish. That’s got to be worth a lot to someone. I just hope that they don’t want to use it. An Aztec apocalypse would have to be nasty!

I don’t suppose you know what got taken? No, of course not. Even that could be worth something in a negotiation.

All right. It might be a little early, but Slip Kid usually gets to the Slabs sometime after Burning Man. For some reason he loves that festival. Pretty much as much as Dirk Allen hates it, if he’s still around. Do you know what it is like to be drunk in a hot, dusty, Nevada desert in August is like? Sure, Burning Man is known for drinking and drug use, but most of that is AFTER the sun is down– and there isn’t as much of either as is rumored. But it is a great place for weird people to meet and do weird things without anyone batting an eye. I think Slip Kid likes the perverse idea of doing business in a no-commerce zone– but don’t quote me on that. I’ve never been and for all I know he likes the idea of wandering around naked in public or something. There was the rumor a while back that Slip Kid made Dirk Allen meet him at Burning Man’s Center Camp in order to trade him something to help Ol’ Dirk get a new body or something. No one knows what Dirk supposedly traded Slip Kid. If it is even true. Maybe you can try asking Slip Kid about and see if he’ll tell you, and then wonder if he told you the truth.

Yeah, well Slip Kid and Dirk go way back, and both were annoyed by each other from the start. They met each other at some house party held in the basement of a house whose renters were out of town somewhere in the Mid-West, Great Lakes region. I think it was mid-1980s or something. Dirk was there for free booze, and maybe women, Slip Kid was there with some friends, one of whom I gather was a co-worker with one of the ones hosting the party.

One of Slip Kid’s friends was female, and a dabbler in the occult. Dirk was trying to impress her for whatever probably nefarious purpose, and Slip Kid was a lightweight as far as drinking went and had been doing quiet a bit of it. Somehow or another he wound up interrupting Dirk’s dialogue, and only heard less than half of it. Slip Kid’s interruption was some sort of disparaging comment on an attempt he had made at reading something Dirk wrote. A big “oops!” but not as big as these days. Dirk was more mellow back then– which still is far from what a normal person would think of as mellow. Anyway, out and out killing the little snot was decided against by Dirk. Somehow the altercation ended with all parties involved alive and in heal-able condition. And Dirk sticking Slip Kid with the handle “Slip Kid.”

It seems unlikely that Dirk Allen knew that “Slip Kid” was a little known song by the Who, and a song Slip Kid liked. It seems that the song contained a line about being a “soldier at thirteen, and Slip Kid had thought that was really cool since the song came out the year he turned thirteen. In other words, he liked the nickname, and probably didn’t realized that, in Dirk’s perpetually intoxicated state of mind, “Kid” was supposed to reflect how young Slip Kid looked and that “Slip” was meant as in there wasn’t much to him.

They parted ways and I doubt either cared that they didn’t cross paths for a great many years after that.

Slip Kid drifted away from the fringes of the Occult Underground– as well as out of college, but the suggestion of the college, if I have heard right– and into a job at some comic book distributor. He decided he wanted a change of scene, and transferred out to their San Francisco area branch, and the company went out of business.

Being something of a survivor, Slip Kid took a job as a bicycle messenger, where his Slip Kid name first really took hold– although at that time it referred to his weaving in and out of traffic. He also moved somewhere cheaper– an aging house rented by, unbeknownst to him, by a bunch of the local Occult Undergrounders, the ones organized around the Comte– the San Francisco guy, not who you are probably thinking of.

Okay, so you weren’t thinking of that one, never mind. Just let me continue. Well, I think knowing all of this might help you, unless you really want to go and ask someone you don’t know anything about to save your life…? I didn’t think so. If you think I have wasted your time, I’ll refund your money.

Anyway, I’ve heard about this part of Slip Kid’s life from the Fruit, who was one of the guys living in the house with Slip Kid. He swears Slip Kid had a great ass at this time from all of the Kid’s time on a bicycle. Too bad Slip Kid wasn’t at all interested.

Anyway, Slip Kid spent this part of his life collecting rituals from people and writing them down in a series of notebooks, along with all sorts of other crap. Turns out he wanted to be a great writer and also recorded idea for stories, dialogue, miscellaneous facts, and just about anything else. He was also into role playing games– not the computer kind, those were still really primitive at the time, I think. The kind where guys since around a table, roll dice, drink pop, eat junk food, and get fat. Well, unless they were burning it all off biking San Fran’s hills and not eating much ’cause they couldn’t afford much. The rumor is that he had an incredible treasure trove of rituals, including some no one else had written down anyway. He didn’t use many of them– his famous comment was one regarding the Unspeakable Servant ritual. When someone asked him why he hadn’t ever tried it he said something like: “It requites poking out an eye! I’ve only got two of them, and neither are all that good to start with! Suppose I screw up the ritual? I’d be down one eye, and could wipe out on a delivery and lose the other one!” For most of them he didn’t think that the cost was worth the benefit or something. But he did keep extensive notes on who tried which ritual, and what they said about the results. Plus, he did try to attend people’s attempts at them, and recorded his observations.

He also had a computer, and was in the process of transferring his note into electronic format and getting them organized, when that nastiness went down. You know, when those two gangs blew into town and started trashing everything and killing everyone. Yeah, well that’s what happened to his project of organizing his rituals collection. Incidentally, some of his notebooks are what are rumored to have been stolen from Thorne. If you can recall enough details, Slip Kid might be interested in who has those notebooks now. He did try to buy them from Thorne on at least a few occasions.

But I am getting ahead of myself. You see, one of the people Slip Kid got rituals from was some guy who came through town every now and then and seemed to take an interest in the Kid. Not sure why, and neither was Slip Kid. Said so himself. There were a lot of people who were better at rituals, knew more about the occult, and, hell, even had better handwriting than Slip Kid. But this guy would teach Slip Kid some of the nastiest, most powerful, spells no one had ever heard of. And they all worked.

Have you ever heard of the ritual “Asshole”? It is one of those ones people book in with their other spells labeled as something else, you know as a trap. It is usually described as a ritual to cause bad luck in your enemies. You think people would figure out something is wrong when part of the process includes desecrating a holy book, preferably the Qur’an, preferably by defecating on it! Slip Kid certainly didn’t try it!

What the ritual does is make it so that anything the caster does is taken in absolutely the worst possible way. You may have been trying to save the elderly nun from being run over by pushing her out of the street, but to everyone else it will look like you were trying to rape her. That sort of thing. The better you do at the ritual, the longer it lasts and the more extreme peoples’ reactions will be. That was one that the guy taught Slip Kid. No one ever heard of it before then, and the oldest copy of it anyone can find is a photocopy of a page torn out of one of Slip Kid’s notebooks. If you have an old enough copy, you can make out some of the stats and stuff of an elven spell caster bleeding through from the other side.

Anyway, not that long before they killing went down, the guy came through San Francisco and taught Slip Kid some ritual with a name something like “The Good With The Bad”. It was a fairly benign one– something taking a three lead clover and cutting one of the petals to make it look like a four leaf one, and other stuff like that. Sorry, that’s all I know about it. Anyway, it was supposed to cause something bad to happen to the caster which would prevent something worse.

Maybe Slip Kid thought things were going too well for him, or maybe he was just curious. Anyway, he tried the ritual. All I know for sure is that he got a telephone call which caused him to drop everything, throw some of his shit together, and jump in his aging Escort Wagon and head back to the Mid-West. Maybe his mom was in the hospital, maybe his brother was in trouble, I don’t know. Hell, I don’t even know if any of his relatives were or are still around!

It was just after he left town that those crazies from the Los Angles area hit town. The place he was staying? At some point it got torched. Burnt to the ground. We don’t know how many of his notebooks survived. He probably took at least a couple of them with him– or so most people think. His electronic copies may still exist somewhere. Of course, they are all on 3.5” discs, formatted for a Commodore 64, and I don’t know for sure which word processor he used. My guess is it would be kind of hard to find. If you can get the discs, and the proper equipment, you can probably get some really valuable rituals. And guess who was rumored to have some of the discs? Yep, the guy you helped rob.

How much did you say you got paid? Yeah, you got screwed.

Of course, as you can guess, if you can recall anything, Slip Kid would probably be grateful. You ever see “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade”? Remember what Indy’s father said about his notebook? Yeah, he wrote it down so he wouldn’t have to remember. Slip Kid might kill for a photographic memory, especially retroactively. Rumors are he’s working on that.

No, I am not done yet.

The shock of what happened in San Francisco was such that he shot right back out of the Occult Underground, got himself a job with the State. (No, I don’t know which one. Just one on the Great Lakes. Ask the Freak! No, that was a joke. He’s from– aw, never mind.)

That lasted until Slip Kid decided to go to Burning Man. He thought it sounded like fun. Well, as luck would have it that one weird performance art group went that year, too.

Yeah, I guess “weird performance art group” is redundant. It was that one with some stupid binary number as their name. Big in the Occult Underground.

Yeah, that number sounds about right. Anyway, they put on a show in the deep playa, and guess who just happened to catch it? From the beginning to end? And came away one of those sleepwalker types?

Yep, Slip Kid. Now, going for days without sleep and working your typical, responsible government job just don’t go together, soo… Slip Kid slipped right back into the underground.

Now, I don’t know how much to believe him, but Slip Kid says he’s lousy at the minor and significant charges– that he likes sleeping too much, but he’s pretty good at predicting the future, and that’s how you get major charges. He won’t say how many he’s gotten, but at least two seems likely, and lots of people say he’s got to have had at least three or four.

Well, he is the one who got that Medallion of Zulo thing to come about. Also, he seems to be the only person who can reliably get one for you. Yeah, I mean YOU. That’s one possible solution to your problem–

Hey! Sit back down. Yeah? Well how are you going to identify him? You’re just going to show up there and ask everyone for Slip Kid? Well, that might work, or Slip Kid might decide someone that indiscreet is best to be avoided and word might get back to the wrong people that’s where you are.

Relax. I’m getting there. How about you buy us a round of something good and alcoholic? Yeah, whatever’s on tap.

Yeah. You mean you don’t even know what the Medallion is, and you were going to run off with just its name and Slip Kid’s? Just cause you’re a budding bodybag doesn’t mean you have to be stupid, you know? Yeah, the Medallion of Zulo– it is the think, looks like junk jewelry, some coin sized and shaped bit of metal, got a crude drawing of some sort of humanoid with wings, maybe a fairy, maybe and angel, hell, maybe and angel who is a fairy!, on one side. Nothing as far as I know on the other. It touches your bare skin, and something worn by someone else, you turn into that someone else at the time he, she, or whatever, last wore that item. Actually, it also works if the last “somebody” was a dog, cat, or other animal. Sometimes it works if touched to a photograph of someone. Presumably animal, too. There’s an idea– no one will try to question you if you’re a horse!

Well, I thought it was funny! Another important thing, if you and someone else touch it at the same time, you become him and he becomes you. And, in any event, you can’t switch again until a half a day passes. 12 hours. I’m not sure why. I think Slip Kid says it has something to do with stress on your body. Anyhow, if you want to know more about it, look it up on fetish sites. That seems to be where Slip Kid got it.

He’s a sleepwalker, remember? It was the sort of thing people on those fetish sites dream about! One of them dreamed it up, too. Jen Adams, I think. It was for a story. Oh, and you don’t want to get pregnant or menstruate while you are a woman, or the Medallion won’t let you change until you are done. And it likes to get itself lost. That’s one of the weird things with Slip Kid being able to get a hold of it relatively regularly.

He also has something else you can try. Something called “Age Cream.” If you think the “Medallion of Zulo” is weird, you haven’t heard about this stuff! The only place it seems to have shown up is on a website called “Choose Your Own Change,” under a thread about some magic ointment shop. Look for it if you want.

Basically, it is a cream for guys. A blue-green, clearish stuff used like a personal lubricant. Yeah, you heard that right. Rub it on, and rub it in. For every minute it is on you, you grow a year younger. When you are as young as you want, you, well, eject the years. Yeah, outta there. If you just leave it out there, another you forms and ages up to the age of the years you lost. So, for a guy like you, you’d be lucky to get a two year old!

Hey, it was a joke! Jeez, don’t be so sensitive. There are ways around getting a kid out of it, a way to get the years back for yourself, and a couple to give them to someone else. Considering you are still eating, I will let you ask Slip Kid about those.

Well, Slip Kid got those a while back, went to selling them, and then seemed to run out. So, the way I and some others see it, he used a major charge to bring those into being, but only brought a limited supply into existence. Which is why it it considered he got another one. Charge two.

Now, I was actually there when he got the second one. Me, him, and some other guys– well, two of the guys were gals, and there was one who, well, no one knows which he and/or she is– were in a bar along the Gulf Coast. Some oil rig workers were at the next table, talking loudly and getting more drunk by the minute. We overheard them talking about an oil rig they’d been working on, and how there were now a bunch of corporate bigwigs on the rig getting ready to celebrate the rig’s safety record. Well, Slip Kid gets this funny look on his face and blurts out how the rig was going to have a disaster, and not just any disaster, but a record setting disaster which was going to pollute pretty much the whole Gulf! Guess when that was and which rig?

Right. The Deep Water Horizon, less than twenty four hours before it went “Boom!”

I can’t say exactly what Slip Kid used that charge for, but after that he seemed to have little trouble getting the Medallion or that cream-stuff for people. He also started offering the service of spiriting people right out of reality if they so chose. Or at least were that desperate.

He took the whole “make dreams reality” very literally, and essentially, brought his dream worlds into being, as his own, private, pocket universe. He can bring people into that place, and, I would guess, out again. I wouldn’t count on “out again”, that part he’s never mentioned, and I have never really felt like directly asking him about it.

Whether or not he’s had any more major charges since then, I can’t say. There are rumors, and he does seem to be pretty good at guessing what’s coming, but I don’t know if he’s good enough to get charges for it. Some say he got another major and used it to create his own, teachable version of dream magic, since there seem to be some young folks who hang around with him who practice the same school.

Of course, they could just be other versions of him. Work it out! He has one thing which can change him into other people, and another which lets him create another, younger version of himself! All he needs is to use the Medallion, become some twenty-something guy, take the cream and make himself into a teenage version of himself, and a younger version, say ten. Then he just waits a half day, and both of them could become some other guys, or even gals. Whatever he wants.

That’s why I say those other sleepwalkers could also be him. Even that cute, emo girl I saw hanging out with him, or the emo guy who just looked like a girl.

Anyway, now for the part you’ve been waiting for.

Slip Kid lives in a big, old, converted school bus. One of those big, boxes on wheels. Engine in front, since he isn’t the only one with a converted bus by a long shot. He’s also got one of those three wheeled, motorcycle, Can-Am Spyder things. Since he’s got all those kids with him, he’s also got some other vehicles, although the bus and trike are the only constants out there.

Also, he is a red headed kid, looks barely old enough to drive, skinny as a rail, kind of like a male model, that kind of skinny.

Anyway, hopefully he, or some version of him, will be out there, since we’d better get going.

Yeah, well, you see, I called some of the guys who have been looking for you when I saw you coming in. Hey, I really need a major charge! And if I put both of us into danger, and I play it right, I can get one!

It’s not like this magic profession is getting me rich, and I’m not getting any younger, either! Winning the lottery would be nice, for example! Or finding one of Slip Kid’s amulet, rather than owing him a favor or something! You’ll note, we haven’t heard from Dirk recently, maybe he did finally swallow his pride and go to Slip Kid– maybe the Kid wanted too much, or what he wanted got Dirk killed when Dirk tried to get it!

Or maybe Dirk is just lying low. But two of those three is kind of nasty, and I’d rather rely on my own magic.

So, since there seems to be some sort of commotion at the door, maybe we should look for a back way out?