The Scene opens to a rather large dorm room, strewn with clothes, wires, pieces of machinery, computer chips and dip, empty and full beer bottles, and a lone Lovious. An over head fan is a dizzying site that looks more like a mobile on crack then a fan as each rotating arm holds at its end another fan. Towards the back of the room is a giant safe door with yellow caution tape and warning nuclear-bio-hazard signs all over it. Against the wall to the right as you walk in is a computer with a USB port connected to a clear plastic box filled with hearts, stars, a Godot pin, a pair of glasses, and a bunch of other assorted junk; it hums faintly with a familiar rhythm. Beyond the computer is a closet with almost as much clothes hung on the wooden frame as in the closet itself, and a hundred or so ties draping over anything that will hold them. To the left as you walk in is a black dresser, a few of its drawers are open with books, clothes, and an alarm clock sticking out of it. Next to the Dresser is a large fish tank with some sort of squid looking creature in it. The bed lays headboard first on the left most wall, the bed is the one point of refuge from chaos in the room. A lone heavy-set man in a Hawaiian Shirt is rummaging through the mess frantically looking for something. Another man, looking remarkably similar to the searcher, though slightly thinner and dressed in a collared shirt with a tie, looks on for a few minutes before speaking.
“What are you looking for now?” Asks the Lovious with a tie.
“The Conga line, what happened to the Conga line?”
Lovious with a tie sighs, “Look next to the Tent key, it’s holding down the sky hook and holding up the left handed smoke bender.”
Hawaiian Shirt Lovious doesn’t look happy. “Very funny.”
Tie Lovious grins, “You know, if you had told ME that, I would have found it.”
“I know, but things don’t really work like that anymore. Maybe that’s why its gone…”
“The Conga Line?” “Yes, the conga line.”
“You lost the Conga line?” “Well, not so much lost it, as I can’t find it.”
“Why not start another one?” “I can’t, I’m looking for the one I started for Malthus”
Lovious with a Tie halts. “Him again?”
“What do you mean?”
Tie Lovious pulls up a chair out of his backpack, “Well if not him, then Doinky, or Xur, or Draxx, or Tasmia, or Aiden Brand, or Scoop.”
“Scoop!!! He might know where it is!”
Tie Lovious pulls out a rotary phone from his backpack, dials a few numbers then puts it back. “No, he won’t. Why can’t you see? The conga line isn’t lost… YOU ARE.”
Hawaiian shirt Lovious looks at Tie Lovious like he’s crazy, “I’m in my room… I think I know where I am.”
Tie Lovious laughs, “Your room doesn’t REALLY exist anymore, you just buried it under the Cave to save it from the destruction YOU caused to our territories.”
Hawaiian shirt Lovious stops what he’s doing and slowly turns toward Tie Lovious, “I tried to keep them separate, I tried to save them, but it was no use, the Nexus was making them all one territory.”
Tie Lovious’ tone drops to a menacing timber, “YOU COULD HAVE SAVED THEM!”
“No!”
“What was the lesson we all learned, the lesson that has fed us from the beginning, the one that made us what we were, when we were what we were.”
“I couldn’t have saved them, they would have all been one territory.”
At that moment the room grew a bit darker, the temperature fell a shade cooler, and the room gained another Lovii.
Dressed in a black suit, and donning white-grey hair, the pale blue eyes of Prime fell upon the Lovii in the Hawaiian shirt and stayed.
“You pathetic drunk. How could you forget the first lessons we learned at Heyden’s? What care the likes of us for the rules of which reality chooses to set for us? We know the true power, and in that power lies our strengths. I feel no glory in any triumphs I’ve had over you, for they have all been lessened by this moment, by the years of waste you have laid down on yourself.”
At that moment another Lovii enters the room, this one wearing a t-shirt and jeans, there is something different about him then the other Lovii, something weaker, and stronger. Most noticeably, he is a terran.
“Careful there about floughting your supremecy Prime. Don’t forget who’s the dimentional master that got us here in one piece.”
Prime scoffs, “Your element of surprise has always astounded me, as does your lack of comprehension of even the simplest spell check programs. But it’s not you we are ridiculing now my clever friend, but the after effect of your programming.”
Hawaiian Lovious buts in, “He IS me, I am that Lovious continued forward, just as we are all aspects of Lovian shards that were brought into the Lovious Matrix right before the passage into the new Nexus.”
Tie Lovious shakes his head, “How much you have forgotten in your drunken stupors, it is amazing you have survived this long. The real Lovious is dead. Long dead now. Fortunately several Avatars were able to retrieve his spirit a while ago.”
“The fools can be useful at times.” Prime adds.
Terran Lovious continues, “My spirit only lives while there are those who remember me, and when you, yourself, a form of myself, forget, I grow weaker.”
“Tinkerbell syndrome?”
“Of a sort. But at least I could find a conga line holding down a skyhook and holding up a left handed smoke bender.” With that Terran Lovious opens a window and points to a line of inhabitants traveling up an escalator who’s top is a hook stuck into the sky (where it makes a little tear) and down an elevator where the smoke from the motor is distinctly being shifted to the left, no matter which way you look at it.
“You see,” continues Terran Lovious, “It’s all where you look.”
Prime, remaining emotionless, turns slightly to see the spectacle. “Though I am often disappointed at your waste of power doing parlor tricks rather then gaining advantage, I would do much to replace this,” indicating Hawaiian Shirt Lovious, “with you any day.”
“I would be honored if you were someone whose thoughts I gave a damn about.” retorts Terran Lovious.
Prime almost gives a slight grin, then the image of Prime’s office superimposes itself on the room for a moment, and as it fades, Prime fades with it.
“And he complains about MY parlor tricks.”
Hawaiian Shirt Lovious explodes, “Ok Ok Ok… so what is going on here? Am I, or Am I not Lovious, and if so who are you, and if not who am I?”
Tie Lovious laughs, “You ARE Lovious, and I am Lovious, and he is Lovious, and she is Lovious, wouldn’t you like to be a Lovii too? Be a Lovii, Drink Ken & Mike’s Beer.”
Another Lovii enters, through the door this time. He is wearing a white lab coat, and seems the most reserved of the current crew, with Prime gone and all.
“The Lovii Shard effect you see.” begins Dr. Smith. “Apparently we should be fortunate that we were born and trained to be Psi-Mechanics. As such, our soul can stand to lose parts of itself and grow back, much like a starfish can with its body. Apparently our ability is far beyond that of what most Psi-mechanics need to endure, as we have all sprung forth from infinitely minute fragments of an exploded soul. We could go all kinds of detail about how you/we/I discovered Heyden’s plans for Vanessa, how we dove into her father’s work to find a way to protect her, how we did that crazy ritual hoping to draw into ourselves the essence of both and angel and a devil to have the power we would need, and how in the end the whole ritual was interrupted. Interestingly enough most of us were ejected from the body, and thrust into the multiverse, while the being that Prime is from was still resident in the body after the ritual…”
Tie Lovious coughs rudely.
“Ok, I’ll get on with it. The point is every one of our shards is powerful, because our anchor must be vastly powerful. To be able to anchor so many entities, and gift them with such strength, it must be something really special.”
“Actually it is a he, and he’s a Science Teacher named Michael Smith.” interjets Terran Lovious.
Dr. Smith hesitates for a minute. “But that’s our name.”
“I know.”
“Unimaginative little bugger.” curses Dr. Smith “You’d think he’d at least be able to come up with something snappy, like Meckel Mentu, or Bragel Beleg, or something like that.”
Terran Lovious shrugs, “He’s a kinda nice guy, or so I think. He lets me hang out with him a lot, or in him, journey-wise, you know, along for the ride style. He’s really not that different from me, or should I say, I’m not that much different from him.”
“But what’s up with him then? I mean, isn’t he controlling us? That’s kind of crazy, why would he have us talking to ourselves then, wouldn’t he be talking to himself, and why can’t he give us a heads up when Prime’s going to screw us over?” babbles Hawaiian Shirt Lovious.
“Because,” explains Terran Lovious, “He’s up to something, he’s starting something, though he won’t tell me what it is. Maybe this is his way of saying, shape up or ship out.”
“Makes some sense, I mean I don’t know what I was looking for a conga line anyway.”
Tie Lovious ponders for a bit. “Perhaps we are all shards of him really.”
“What do you mean?”
“Depending on where in life he is, he’s a different Lovious, playing out what he is, where he is. Of course it seems to us to be logical, affected by what’s going on around us, but maybe he’s affected by what goes on in the Nexus too.”
Dr. Smith interjects, “More likely we are products of his changing self image. Fortunately he still has a pretty good ego, or none of this would still exist.”
Terran Lovious finishes, “Well, this is all good and fine, but in the end, if we don’t find that conga line, all the clapping in the world won’t bring us back.”
Hawaiian shirt Lovious refuses to let Terran Lovious have the last word, “Personally, I think you are all crazy, and I’m the sanest of the bunch.”
With that they all respond, “Me too.”
