Justified and Ancient, or Strangers with Candy

It was Friday afternoon, and Moira Baker, Howard Lake and Mackie MacNamara were gone. Putz weg! Although the master of modern chemistry, Franz Alter, was summoned back to his beloved mother, Irwin Bowers was trying to figure out what might have happened. His thigh wasn't in pain anymore, but he could not decide if he was hungry or thirsty, warm or cold, and tired or alert. It was very strange, but not really unpleasant - or so he thought. Meanwhile, Jules Pollack was dealing with Diana Spinoza and Benny the Cat, It was quite clear that Diana Spinoza had managed to learn quite a bit about the outlandish cosmic horrors that gnawed on the reality of the intrepid investigators, but there was more to it: Benny the Cat and Diana Spinoza seemed to be thriving in some form of strange symbiosis. Diana Spinoza would become unconscious, her eyes rolled back into her head, and as she seemed to shiver, Benny the Cat would provide seemingly random snippets of information in a a New England accent. However, when Benny the Cat told Irwin Bowers and Jules Pollack that their friends were in danger, Jules and Irwin followed the scant trails that Mackie, Moira and Howard had left. It was difficult work, since they seemed to have departed in different directions. A call to Nefertiti Studios revealed only that the studios were closed, and although Irwin Bowers had a particularly nice conversation with Miss Gale, who was in charge of the studio until 10pm, no new information was gained. After much deliberation and another one of Diana Spinoza's episodes, it was decided to visit Nefertiti Studios to see of there were any other clues that might help Jules and Irwin,

Billy the Cat. Might he be a very minor Old One or a mere Feline Fantasy?

Jules and Irwin found Miss Dorothy Gale locking up Nefertiti Studios on a Friday evening, and she was glad to meet Mr. Bowers, with whom she had had such a pleasant conversation. A cheerful chat with Dorothy Gale took a new turn when Miss Gale simply asked: "what does a nice girl like me have to do to get a drink around here?" Irwin and Jules did reply that they weren't entire sure of where you might find a good beverage in New York nowadays, but Dorothy Gale guided the investigators into a taxi and off to the Cotton Club in Harlem. A voice in the back of Jules's head kept reminding him about his friends being in danger, but he decided to shelve the thought and enjoy the moment!

The Cotton Club offered a fantastic evening. Mikey the Doorman was given an allowance of sorts, and then Miss Gale and the investigators entered a world of champagne and fantastic music. Young Cab Calloway was performing, and Dorothy Gale danced with both Jules and Irwin, carefully taking turns and enjoying every single moment. Cab Calloway noticed Irwin Bowers's stiff-legged dance routine, Bowers being wounded and all, and he imitated it while swerving around to Minnie the Moocher,. The crowd went wild. The disappeared fellow investigators were conveniently forgotten.

Moira Baker, Howard Lake, and Mackie MacNamara had scant recollections of the last day or two, Or of three. Their minds were filled with fragments: people, champagne, the rush of dancing, of strange chemicals, of more people, Kelly Ventura, Lola, Richard Strauss, Patrice Montague, and above all, Victor Aymes. There were otherworldly signs, bloody hands, a weird knife, all strangely connected, yet detached. The three investigators woke up in an enormous sofa under a skylight in a dimly lit room. It seemed to be night outside. Mackie, Moira and Howard were all suffering from horrendous hangovers, and Lake really looks like years had been taken from his life. They had no clue about how they ended up there, or exactly where they were. It was fairly quiet, except for a phonograph record that had reached the end, and kept on hacking. The room smelled of cigar and cigarette smoke, incense, and patchouli with a alight touch of vomit.

Lying down at one end of the enormous Empire-style sofa, Moira was wearing what seemed to be a uniform from “The Nutcracker”. She was holding a mechanical whisk in one hand, and an oversized dildo in the other. At the other end of the sofa, Lake was lying down in a puddle of saliva, possibly his own. He was wearing a short white tunic with prominent stains and a Corinthian helmet. He had been sleeping next to a long trident and a mannequin’s head. Mackie was in the middle of the sofa. She was wearing flowing light blue robes and a tiara not unlike the statue of liberty. She was holding a stage magicians’ wand and lying down next to an empty champagne bottle.  It was more than a little complicated to find their way through bric-a-brac and cocktail debris, but eventually they found a light switch. By now, they all noticed a slight din from a city, but it was difficult to piece together what had happened. Moira was becoming increasingly concerned that she'd killed someone, while Howard and Mackie realized that the strange symbols they remembered were associated with legendary Mu, the lost continent supposedly located in the Pacific Ocean.

Meanwhile, Jules and Irwin woke up in their five-star hotel rooms. It was already late on Saturday, May 1, and they had both had a smashing time the evening before. Irwin Bowers was feeling more than a little antsy, though, and not even generous amounts of nitrous oxide and a bottle of champagne seemd to help. Where was good old Franz Alter? He could usually arrange for a pick-me-up, or at least that what was Irwin hoped. 

In the adjacent room, Diana Spinoza was more than ready to discuss some of the arcane knowledge she had accumulated over the last couple of weeks. She was also quite ready to somehow break into the New York Public Library, and the maniacal intensity of Diana's personality did not improve on Jules's hangover. As dusk fell over New York City, Diana Spinoza suddenly became stiff, and her eyes once again rolled back into her head, showing only the whites. She started trembling ever so lightly. Benny the Cat jumped on the bed and rubbed himself against Jules before declaring that Jules was going to get an important telephone call. After this, Benny the Cat curled up and fell asleep as the telephone started ringing. It was Dorothy Gale, and she excitedly told Jules that she might know where Moira, Mackie and Howard might be. They may have ended up in an empty loft apartment on 42nd Street and Broadway. Jules picked up Irwin, who promptly changed into golf attire so that he could carry a golf bag full of guns and ammunition. Nobody would suspect an innocent golfer on a Saturday evening!

Moira, Mackie and Howard were finally on their way out of the loft. They were carefully sneaking out of a corridor that seems to lead to a narrow flight of stairs when the stair creaked as they heard hushed voices: "Where are the fuckin' faggots?" "Let's find them, they must be upstairs." The intrepid investigators went back to the loft and took up positions around the entranceway, with Mackie brandishing a fishing rod, Howard a trident, and Moira a gigantic dildo. They were ready for a bout of fisticuffs when Mackie surprised them all by bouncing out into the hallway, flashing the klansmen and yelling "boobies!" The Klansmen were perplexed, and as they asked about the whereabouts of any homosexuals and blacks (the reader may insert derogatory terms of choice here), Moira dashed up to Howard, kissing him passionately and insisting on privacy while Mackie gyrated her firm bosom, alternating between clockwise and counter-clockwise motion. By now, the Klansmen decided that this was not what they were looking for, at least not right now, and they proceeded down the stairs to an elevator.

Jules Pollack, Irwin Bowers and Dorothy Gale were in the above mentioned elevator car, and they were not ready to flash anything except their loaded guns and Dorothy's stiletto blade. The elevator door opened, and a several gunshots were fired in the dimly lit stairwell as the two parties tried to grasp the situation. This was further complicated when Mackie, Moira and Howard attacked the klansmen from behind. Irwin Bowers had just fired his shotgun at the head of one of the klansmen, while Moira Baker was pummeling another one with the giant dildo, when Mackie felt an odd form of power surge pulsating through her body. It was a tingling sensation, raising her hair on end and filling her head with a staticky noise. She grabbed the leader of the klansmen by the arm, and to the horror of everyone, his arm began melting or burning up to the elbow! He shrieked in utter terror before he fainted. Mackie had no clue what had happened, but this strange occurrence had clearly affected Howard Lake, who felt entirely drained. This was also the cue for the investigators to flee the building before the NYPD arrived.

Dorothy Gale is native New Yorker ("Daarathee Geale") from the Lower East Side, Her father is Italian, her mother is of British descent, but none of that really matters. She has a brother, James "Johnny" Gale, who's studying archaeology at Miskatonic University. Dorothy wants to have fun and earn money, preferably in the entertainment industry, and that is why she ended up working for Nefertiti Studios. She will not take any crap from anyone, and if matters get out of hand, she carries a mean-looking stiletto in her garter. Dorothy Gale is incredibly funny and witty, but she is also kind and considerate unless offended. She is very knowledgeable about New York City, including the outer boros.

The lost continent of Mu

The mythical idea of the "Land of Mu" first appeared in the works of the British-American antiquarian Augustus Le Plongeon (1825–1908), after his investigations of the Maya ruins in Yucatán. He claimed that he had translated the first copies of the Popol Vuh, the sacred book of the K'iche' from the ancient Mayan using Spanish. He claimed the civilization of Yucatán was older than those of Greece and Egypt, and told the story of an even older continent.

Le Plongeon got the name "Mu" from Charles Étienne Brasseur de Bourbourg, who, in 1864, mistranslated what was then called the Troano Codex or Madrid Codex using the de Landa alphabet. Brasseur believed that a word which he read as Mu referred to a land that had been submerged by a catastrophe.^,Le Plongeon identified this lost land with Atlantis and, following Ignatius Donnelly in Atlantis: The Antediluvian World (1882), identified it as a continent that had once existed in the Atlantic Ocean:

“In our journey westward across the Atlantic we shall pass in sight of that spot where once existed the pride and life of the ocean, the Land of Mu, which, at the epoch that we have been considering, had not yet been visited by the wrath of Human, that lord of volcanic fires to whose fury it afterward fell a victim. The description of that land given to Solon by Sonchis, priest at Sais; its destruction by earthquakes, and submergence, recorded by Plato in his Timaeus, have been told and retold so many times that it is useless to encumber these pages with a repetition of it.”

Le Plongeon claimed that the civilization of ancient Egypt was founded by Queen Moo, a refugee from the land's demise. Other refugees supposedly fled to Central America and became the Maya.