[Location: Beacon Park]

Blake is hanging out in the Park. He usually comes here to 
sketch, but is still in his unfortunate Dry Period, with nary a 
creative idea in his head. This is good and bad: Good because 
when he's not absorbed in a project he actually engages in 
activities such as eating and sleeping, and looks a lot healthier 
at present than he normally does; and Bad because, well, without 
a project to engage him he's resorted to kinda wandering the City 
aimlessly. Like now. He wanders the Park aimlessly.

Blue Raja gets kicked off of a bus for "disturbing" a man and 
coughs as the bus leaves him stranded, in a weird city. 
He blinks at the sign before him, "Beacon Park" 
"Oh, dear," he mutters, "Its not a dream." 
He walks into Beacon park. It's very hot when you wear a 
turban...

Blake is bored. Hideously, gut-wrenchingly bored. And for a guy 
like Blake, that can be dangerous. He casts about for something 
to engage his attention. Balloon-Selling Lady. Nah, don't feel 
like getting slapped today. Good-Humor Man. No...those popsiscles 
melt all over his clothes and make him feel all sticky for the 
rest of the day. Guy in Weird Turban-Thingie. Oh, heck no. 
Probably would just try to pass off some Watchtowers or 
something. Go sit on a bench and look at the ducks. Yeah. That's 
safe. Blake sighs and tries to look at the ducks paddle about, 
but damnit, they're boring as hell.

Blue Raja looks confused as he stumbles through the park. Hot. 
Very Hot. Ooh! there's a duck-pond! Water! Raja wanders towards 
the water, just to be in the aura of coolness that it might emit. 
He sits on a large rock and sighs. What a weird day.

It isn't all that cool by the pond either, but Blake doesn't 
care. He never gets hot--yet another piece of useless trivia 
about him. Now you see why he never takes off that jacket. He 
leans back on the bench, propping up his elbows. A little girl 
goes to feed the ducks and slips a bit on the muddy bank, landing 
on her backside with a plop and a wail. Aw, no, she's okay, her 
mommy's picking her up. Nothing to worry about...Hey. Turban 
Guy's come near. Oh good, he doesn't want this bench. One weirdo 
is all this bench can stand, Blake reckons.

As he sits on the rock, Raja closes his eyes and takes a deep 
breath of the air. Ah, yes. Smells like duck-poop. How nice. 
Thoughts run through his mind quickly, like a rental movie in 
fast-forward. What is he doing here? How did he get here? How can 
he get back? 
Raja opens his eyes again, and watches a goose fly overhead. He 
turns to follow its graceful, if not noisy, path in the sky. As 
it goes over the trees, Raja sees a familiar figure on a bench.

Blake sees the goose too. That reminds him of something. He pulls 
out a pad of paper and a pencil and goes to work on his plans for 
a Rube Goldberg Goose-Clocking Apparratus. No, he'd never really 
hurt Harpo, but the bird has sure been getting on his nerves 
lately. Or maybe he's just been noticing it more.

Blue Raja scrutinizes the figure on the bench. Could it be? Is it 
true? After everything that has happened to Raja today, the 
familiar form of Spleen is very welcome. Getting up off of his 
rock, Raja is elated to see that it IS Spleen. But how in the 
world...? Well, that doesn't matter now. They can find a way out 
of this together, that's all that counts. "Just hope he doesn't 
do any repulsive flatulence in his excitement." Raja thinks.

Out of the corner of his eye, Blake sees Turban Guy stand and--it 
seems--gawp at him. Ooooh, lovely. That's what he wants today. A 
guy dressed the way Bugs Bunny used to dress when he was supposed 
to look like a swami pestering him. No doubt he saw that bit on 
the news about Superman and wants to ask some stupid question or 
another. In an attempt to look busy, Blake fishes desperately 
through his pockets for a cigarette, but comes up empty. Rats.

Blue Raja almost runs towards Spleen, a huge, right smile on his 
face. "Spleen! Spleen! Mygosh! If you only KNEW what has happened 
to me to--" Before he can finish his sentence, or even finish 
running towards Spleen, a badly placed rock trips him.

Blake doesn't flinch as Raja goes flying to land facedown at his 
feet. Ah, a cigarette, hiding in his left inside jacket pocket! 
He rolls it back and forth between his fingers, looking down at 
Raja impassively. "When you go out in public dressched like that 
you schould alwaysch bring your schtunt-double," he offers 
unhelpfully.

Blue Raja groans painfully, and rolls over onto his back. He 
looks at the blurry, upside-down face of Spleen. Same as 
always... what?... "Spleen smokes?" he thinks suddenly. "Since 
when did Spleen... Oh, whatever, at least it's Spleen." 
Raja carefully picks himself off the ground, and sits on the 
bench, next to Spleen. "Spleen!" he says to himself again, to 
remind himself that's it's true, "What's going on here? Did you 
get on that bus, too?"

Uh oh, Weirdo Quotient on the bench has been violated. Blake 
hastily moves away from Raja, scooting over to one end of the 
bench. He gives Raja a particularly scrutinizing stare. "I never 
take public transchportaschion," he says at length. "I find it 
disturbsch the other passchengersch." He pauses. This guy is 
calling him 'Spleen'...despite the insistance he's made in the 
past for at least the ungrateful police force to use that name, 
it never really had caught on. Well, this guy must have heard it 
somewhere. "What do *you* want, an autograph?" he asks warily. 
"Or juscht a faschion tip?"

Blue Raja is almost knocked back on the ground by Spleen's 
comments. "Spleen? Hullo? It's me... Jeff... Remember?" Raja 
wonders what the bus did to Spleen. Maybe it altered his 
personality? That would explain the smoking... and those RUDE 
comments... 
Raja straightens his turban, and takes a different approach on 
the situation. If Spleen's mind HAS been damaged, then it's best 
not to screw it up any more. "Erm... Spleen, where are we 
/really/? Everyone says this is Beacon Harbor, but... well, I 
don't even think such a place is real... except for the fact that 
I'm HERE, which is beyond the point.."

Uh oh. He wants to be 'remembered'. Blake had always dreaded this 
happening--he knew that one day, one of the other kids from the 
Boy's Home would bump into him on the street and beg to be 
remembered. Seeing as Blake hated everyone else at the Boy's 
Home, he could never decide to be civil or not. Oh well...may as 
well be a Nice Guy.
"Jeff...er...yeah," Blake says, trying to sound convincing, 
although he's pretty sure none of the kids he grew up with had a 
British accent. "Yeah, schure I remember you. Nische uh...hat." 
There. That was civil. He twiddles with the cigarette some more, 
trying to decide whether he should really smoke it or just put it 
away. "And of coursche thisch isch Beacon Harbor. And I'd like to 
claim it'sch real but I'm not even schure myschelf 
schometimesch."

Blue Raja silently thanks the man upstairs for not screwing up 
Spleen's memory THAT much and continues to lure Spleen back into 
his normal self. "So, what we need to do is catch a bus back yo 
Champion Cit... Did you just call this a HAT?" Raja mentally 
facepalms. Blast. "Aherm... A bus back to Champion City, then 
we'll tell the others what happened, and they hopefully won't 
bother us too much about it... OH GEEZ!" 
This time, Raja DOES facepalm. "We had a meeting! I'm sure 
they're busting in on some evil entity as we speak! Come on, off 
with us now, Spleen! We're going to miss it!" 
Raja leaps to his feet too quickly, and falls back onto the 
bench. "Ow." he mutters.

Blake decides that maybe he does need this cigarette, and starts 
searching for his lighter. "Know what?" he asks, locating the 
lighter and flicking it open. "I haven't a clue what you're on 
about." He lights the cigarette, inhaling, then exhaling a good 
double lungful of smoke. "I hope you'll scheriouschly conschider 
my schuggeschtion about a schtunt double," he adds. Okay, so the 
guy's a nutball. Blake can defend himself.

Blue Raja shakes his head, trying to make the little stars before 
his eyes disappear. He almost misses Spleen's comment. "What..?" 
He sputters in a totally undignified way. "Spleen, you said you 
remembe..." Oh. Relapse. Or maybe not. This was getting strange. 
Raja suddenly gets to his feet (not blacking out this time, 
though), and starts rummaging through the bushes. "Okay. Haha. 
Very funny guys. You really had me going there for a while. You 
can come out now. Joke's over. I..." Raja stops searching the 
bushes. One of the forks had fallen out of his pocket. A very 
good "distance fork", too. It clatters across the gravel path and 
bounces off Spleen's foot. "Oh drat."

Blake peers at the fork. He pauses, curiousity getting the better 
of him, although he knows it would be best to try and avoid 
further conversation with this weirdo. "Okay," he says. "If I 
aschk why you carry forksch with you, will I get a lecture on the 
unschanitary condischionsch of public eatieriesch?" Never mind 
why you poke through bushes asking the squirrels to come out and 
quit playing jokes.

Blue Raja suddenly realizes that it's hopeless. Spleen is TOTALLY 
gone. Fine then. Raja sits next to Spleen and starts to explain. 
"Well, Spleen, first you should "know" my name. I'm the Blue 
Raja. You may ask why I wear swami robes and speak in a British 
accent. Until the beginning of this century, India was a..." 
Raja realizes that this is usually the type of conversation that 
causes peoples' eyes to glaze over, and gets to the point. 
"Well, I carry forks because I throw them. Yes, I know that's the 
most preposterous thing you've ever heard, but it's true. I throw 
forks. 'Why for?' you may ask? Well, I fight with them. Yes, I 
know, I know... /Extremely/ unacceptable. That's not what forks 
are for. Well, I don't really give a fork, now do I?"

Well now, this is *completely* different. Blake splutters. "Well 
why didn't you schay scho *before*?" he asks, dropping his 
cigarette and grinding it out under his heel. "You're a 
schuperhero, are you?" This is more like it. "And I bet you're an 
immigrant meta, too. I hear moscht of them are confusched and 
behave oddly when they firscht arrive." He goes to shake Raja's 
hand.

Blue Raja is confused at Spleen's sudden hospitality. "Immigrant 
Meta? What?" Yep. Spleen is really out of it. The poor fellow has 
gone totally bazonkas. Despite this, Raja shakes Spleen's hand 
gratefully. "Well, now that we've established what (?) I am, we 
can find a way to get me back to Champion City. When is the next 
bus out, anyway?"

Blake shakes his head. "I told you, I don't ever take bussesch," 
he says. "And I've never heard of that plasche. If you're from 
Outschide, I guessch there'sch no way back anywaysch." He stops 
himself. "But maybe you ought to asck schomeone at the busch 
schtaschion," he says. "Maybe you're not an Immigrant. I'd hate 
to causche you to jump to concluschionsch. Um...Schorry I'm not 
much help," he apologises. Wait. "Hey, wait," he says suddenly. 
"You know *me*. Did you hear about me on the newsch? If you did, 
you couldn't be an Immigrant."

Blue Raja starts at the news that he can't go back. What about 
his mom? What about the other Mystery Men? What about...? Raja 
pushes all of this out of his mind for a while longer. 
"I used to be in a superhero team with you... in Champion City. 
We were called the 'Mystery Men.'" 
 Getting an idea, Raja pulls out his wallet, and takes out what 
looks like a folded piece of paper. He unfolds it and shows it to 
Spleen. 
The paper is really a picture. Seven relatively happy people 
stand in a junkyard, giving each other bunny ears and making 
funny faces. Names are written under each person. 
Raja points to a mad looking man in a black coat. "That's Mr. 
Furious;" a lady holding a bowling ball that contains a ghastly 
grinning skull. "Bowler;" a tall man in a tight blue costume, 
that looks quite funny with the bunny ears that Bowler's giving 
him. "Sphinx;" a young guy dressed totally in purple, that is 
giving the camera a peace sign. "Invisible Boy;" another, older 
man, holding a shovel. "Shoveler;" a person that doesn't need any 
introduction, "You;" and a person in a turban, who is hard to see 
because he is falling off a stump. "and Me. The Mystery Men."

Blake leans over to look. He's silent as Raja goes over each 
person in the picture, then turns his attention to the article 
beneath it. "'By Becky Beaner'," he reads aloud. "Sche'sch a 
reporter here..." Frankly, he's confused. He looks over the faces 
of the people in the picture again, then suddenly draws back. 
"What are you trying to pull?" he says angrily.

Blue Raja, startled once again by Spleen's quick attitude change, 
holds up two spoons in self-defence. "Nothing! I'm not 'pulling' 
anything! Look!" He flips the arcticle over. "The Champion City 
Chronicle" it reads in large black letters. "I have no idea what 
you think, Spleen, but these are my friends, and it happens that 
you're one of them."

Blake narrows his eyes at Raja. This is the nastiest trick 
anyone's tried to pull on him yet. But... He sighs and looks 
away. "I don't think anything," he says at last. "I've no idea 
what to make of it." He falls silent, staring off into the 
distance.

Blue Raja looks sympathetically at Spleen. Something weird is 
going on, but he still can't help but feel sorry for the guy. He 
plops down on the bench, and looks at the unfinished sketch of 
the machiney-like thing. "Wow!" he gasps. "That's a good 
picture!"

Blake barely glances down at it. "Yeah, whatever," he mumbles. 
"Okay--Wait, wait," he says, snapping his fingers. "I got it. 
Okay scho, there are all thesche parallel universchesch, right? 
And they schay that the Infinity Effect can reach into any one of 
thesche universchesch and yank people out and bring them here. 
*And*, they schay that schometimesch, the schame people can 
exischt in one universche asch in another. Scho *maybe* I 
exischted in your universche too." He seems proud of his logic 
and believe me, this just goes to prove how uncharacteristically 
stable he is right now, being on hiatus from his art.

Blue Raja looks blankly at Spleen for a moment, then, in a blink 
of understanding, he gets it. "Oh... gosh." Raja quickly does 
some calculations in his head and realizes that it IS possible. 
"So... I can't /EVER/ go back to Champion City?"

Blake shakes his head. "Not if the Infinity Effect brought you 
here, no. That'sch what everyone schaysch, anywaysch. Maybe...you 
schould aschk schomeone elsche. I've never really known anyone 
who got here that way, not really. Scho I don't know that much 
about it, I guessch..." He trails off thoughtfully. "Asck 
schomeone elsche," he fairly pleads. "Never take my word for 
anything, I never know what I'm talking about."

Blue Raja hmms. "Actually, in my 'universe' You were usually 
right about a lot of stuff... I could've trusted you with my 
life, there... Why should it be different here?
"...What IS this Infinity Effect you're babbling about? Is that 
what's responsible for bringing me here? What is it?"

Blake blinks at Raja's first comment, but instead turns his 
attention to his question. "I don't know," he admits. "It'sch 
a...a...phenomonon, I guessch. Like...a portal? To other 
worldsch. Juscht...aschk schomeone elsche. I'd better not try and 
explain it." He fidgets somewhat on the bench. "In uh...in your 
universche," he begins timidly, "we um...we weren't *great* 
friendsch, were we?"

Blue Raja hesitates, and thinks back to the good ol' days... 
actually, yesterday... He recalls a time when Spleen and himself 
were the only ones at the Junkyard. It was great fun. They 
swapped stories that didn't make sense, played go fish with a 
deck that was missing thirteen cards, and laughed a lot. "Yeah... 
I guess you could say that we were /friends/."

Blake leans back on the bench. Finally he shakes his head. "No, 
it'sch too much, I can't imagine it," he says at length. "I mean, 
juscht knowing you were friendsch with schomeone in a parallel 
universche while in thisch one you don't even know their--Oh 
wait, you schaid your name wasch Jeff. Almoscht forgot. Schorry. 
I...guessch I'm gonna have to get usched to thisch..." He shakes 
his head again. "Thisch ischn't at all the kind of day I thought 
I'd have thisch morning," he smiles. "Uschually there'sch more 
copsch, and yelling and schtuff."

Blue Raja looks out at the duck pond. All the ducks have left. 
"What time is it?" he wonders. He looks at his watch. It isn't 
there. Hmm... someone must have taken it when he fell asleep on 
the bus. Which reminds him... "So, if YOU'RE here, are any of the 
OTHER Mystery Men here, too? I mean, if there's two of you maybe 
there's two of everyone?"
Blue Raja has a hidden agenda for asking this. Is his mom here, 
too?

Blake holds up his hands. "I don't know about everyone," he 
admits. "But I do remember hearing that you can't be in two 
plaschesch at onsche scho...I guessch *you're* not here. Which 
could mean your entire *family'sch* not here--but again, you 
schould probably aschk schomebody elsche who knowsch more about 
the whole thing. But...yeah. Carol--Bowler--isch here, and 
Furiousch, although I haven't scheen Furiousch in agesch and 
Carol only onsche in a blue moon. Her dad'sch here too, by the 
way," he adds, in a tone that suggests "and yes he's a skull in a 
ball".

Blue Raja smiles halfheartedly. "That's good." His smile 
disappears as he thinks about his mom, though. What about her? 
What'll she think when her son doesn't come home? Raja closes his 
eyes tightly, fighting back tears. No use making a fool of 
yourself... YET. He takes a deep breath, and opens his eyes 
slowly. "What am I to do, now that I'm here, and I'm not going 
back?" he asks.

Call him hardhearted but as Blake has never really *had* anyone 
to miss he's not really up to being more sympathetic at the 
moment. "Well, forgive the corny-nessch but...Fling forksch at 
evil?"

Blue Raja squirms uneasily in his seat. "Well, yeah, that. But I 
mean, BESIDES that. I can't very well live in this park, now, can 
I? And all I have is about $50, Well, I suppose I could sell my 
forks if push came to shove, but...?"

Blake shrugs. "Hey, I've lived in thisch park," he says. "There 
are worsche plaschesch. And if schome bum triesch to take your 
schpot you can alwaysch--Oh. But you can't do schome of the 
thingsch I can." He thinks about it. "No, don't schell your 
forksch," he says. "They're important." He thinks some more. 
"Okay, well," he says slowly, "and I don't know why I alwaysch 
bring thisch up, but...there'sch my plasche. There'sch tonsch of 
room. And I hardly ever usche it, except when I'm working. And 
there'sch an inschane goosche who thinksch he livesch there. And 
noone ever scho much asch wantsch to vischit it, scho I don't 
schee why anyone would want to *live* there, but...well, 
there'sch my plasche," he repeats lamely. "I guessch if I knew 
you in a parallel dimenschion I schould offer."

Blue Raja stammers, "No, don't go through all the trouble. I hate 
to impose. Just because I knew you in another universe doesn't 
mean I should just barge into your life and take over, you know." 
Raja stops, and looks out at the pond again. A teenaged boy walks 
along the path on the other side. He looks scared and alone, yet 
defiant. Raja's best guess is that the kid ran away from home. 
Unlike Raja, the kid can always go back. 
 Raja turns back to Spleen. "Insane goose, you say?"

Blake nods. "Yeah. He'sch a little nutsch, anywaysch. Okay. I'll 
take your haschty refuschal asch further evidensche that you know 
me. Well...I guessch I can give you schome money, then. I guessch 
I've got plenty. Don't really usche it for much. I mean, I'm not 
working right now but...I think I have enough schaved up, and 
all. But you'd have to tell me how much you need. What, you need 
a hotel, right?"

Blue Raja almost cries again. After evrything that happened 
today, to find a person so kind and unselfish is really lucky. He 
politely refuses the money. "It's good enough to have met a 
friend like you, in a city so large. I just hope we can stay in 
touch. I'm guessing that the crime rate here isn't extremely 
low."

Blake rolls his eyes. "Um...no," he says simply. "Well...um." He 
pauses. "Well, I guessch...if you need anything, juscht asck 
around for me. Schomeone will probably know where I'm at. Usually 
the copsch keep a pretty good tab on me. Only don't usche 
'Schpleen', people haven't really caught on to that yet."

Blue Raja says "What should I use, then?" The Spleen in Raja's 
universe was always very secretive about his name.

Blake blinks at Raja. "Usche my name," he says simply. "What, we 
were friendsch and I never told you my name? I...Oh heck, it'sch 
the kind of thing I would do. Schullivan. Blake Schullivan. 
You'll find that many many people here know that name."

Blue Raja nods. "Hmm. okay... Blake?... I'm Jeffery." he shakes 
his head. "...Azaria... just ask for the weird guy in a turban."
Blue Raja thinks wryly, "although if you do that, You'll get a 
taxi cab driver..."

Blake nods back. "Jeff? I wont tell you how many weird guysch in 
thisch town wear turbansch." He stands. "I need to get going. I 
hate to be unproductive in the schame plasche for too long at a 
time. But find me if you need schomething." He picks up his 
notepad from the bench and stuffs it away in his jacket.

Blue Raja gets slowly to his feet and thanks Spleen... er,... 
Blake... for his help. He realizes that he's been sitting in 
direct sunlight for over an hour, and he's wearing his thick 
costume. Ak. Hot.

Blake turns then and walks off, to find a new place to wander 
aimlessly in.

Blue Raja decides to look for a place to eat...