And the 'sound of music' it was. Julie Andrews was on the beach attempting to sing a reggae version of "The hills are alive with the sound of music..' to a crowd of elderly Jamaicans drinking tea. The ever-paranoid Caroline instructed the women locked in their secret control tower staring at monitors to scan for SirDave in the area, being certain that this must be Nabuhitian tea and that Julie Andrews was at the very least acting as his mole for the Nabuhitian aliens.

Jiggin music!  

 Bobo loved to jig! So he follwed the music only to find.....

Holograms and zombies.

. 

Just down the street, the Kingston Museum of Advanced Film Technology was showing a rare 3D projection of Wes Craven's haunting adaptation of The Serpent and the Rainbow by Wade Davis. 

A freshly tanned Bill Pullman was serving free rum punch and signing autographs in the air conditioned lobby. 

Tincup couldn't resist the urge to cool off, down a refreshing island libation and meet one of his favorite actors, and fellow admirer of David Mamet.

Think the coffee was demonic? Try free rum punch from hell... staggering aimlessly around the museum grounds I must of veered off into the service area since I found myself in a deserted hallway and lurching sideways like a Bowery gin head Icrashed through a side door. What opened before me was nothing less than what looked like sthe stairway to hell itself... straight down into the gloom for  before obsured by a dusty vapor...

. 

Tincup surmised that The Serpent and the Rainbow might actually have been a bona fide documentary about voodoo cults and resurrection of the dead when he shook Bill Pullman's cold, pulse-less hand and stared into his lifeless eyes. 

Then again, that could also have been the result of the astounding quantity of 151-proof rum the actor drank and the steady stream of ganja smoke he inhaled, evidenced by a distinct odor permeating his clothing and hair. 

No matter the reasons, it seemed obvious this museum was not what it appeared to be. 

Something evil lurked below and he was determined to uncover its dark secret. 

Tincup knew that a box-shifting puzzle was next on the menu (aren't they always, in mysterious museums?), and as he rolled up his sleeves to start shifting boxes so that he could reach what looked like a trap door in the ceiling, he remembered with a thrill of glee, that at this point in time, an attractive female usually entered the scene to help (or hinder)  the hero in his quest...

No time for puzzles now - not in the state I was in. Besides wouldn't it be more prudent to explore every single inch of this place carefully noting every little device and contraption, then solving the whole mess before ever puling a single lever? While this tactic had never worked at all in the past I clung to my credo with alcohol inflamed bravado. Bending down to tie a loose shoelace I toppled forward down the stairs..

. 

To his surprise, Tincup did not experience a hard, painful landing at the bottom of the stairs.

Instead, he came to rest atop a warm, wet, soft, squishy surface that emitted a strange, low hissing sound and a stale, wretched stench. 

Nearly toppling over again, he managed to find his footing on the slippery floor while trying to adjust his bloodshot eyes to the foreboding darkness. 

That is when he remembered the small, official Tex Murphy gumshoe-model penlight in his breast pocket. 

As the thin, wavering shaft of light illuminated the underground chamber around him, he was startled to discover a wall-to-wall carpet of mutated human bodies in various stages of decay. 

What in heaven's name was going on here and how could he resist the detective's urge to explore further into the deeper passages of inky blackness that lay ahead? 

This was where the clothespeg that he had stuffed into his pocket along with a bunch of other odds and ends, came to good use.

Pinning his nose with the clothespeg against the stench, so that he could hold his tiny flashlight in one hand and have the other hand free to steady him, Tincup picked his way gingerly through the mass of bodies to an opening in the darkness from which emitted a faint, ruby-red glow...

. 

Tincup entered the narrow opening cautiously and was relieved to find a dry floor beneath his feet in the room ahead. 

As he scanned the area for clues to the mangled horror in the basement, he also found the source of the faint ruby glow. 

It was an illuminated display case for Brick Red Cap Ale sitting atop a large stack of shipping cases. 

What an odd place for a pub sign, the intrepid detective thought as he investigated the area more carefully. 

He soon realized the chamber led to another passage leading even deeper underground. 

..as Tincup tiptoed on, he heard a whizz and a click. Oh no!  Twisting back, he saw that behind him, the display case had opened.  It had actually been a door, and out of it came...

... a very attractive girl, right on cue. But at the same time something very disturbing happed to me/Tincup. I/Tincup suddenly had a sort of out of body experience where I saw myself from an overhead 3/4 view and could only do anything by addressing myself as Tincup, and had to fumble around for a way to move this strange avatar around. As the alluring women came closer a coversation bubble appeared out of nowhere. "What do think of my new dress?". I/Tincup couldn't talk but was forced to scroll through options on this bubble - Demons of Hell this was going get tiresome *very* quickly... I/Tincup paused to consider my/his options since the last time I/he was faced with a similar quastion the consequences had been quite dire..  

. 

As Isometric Tincup moved closer to the attractive, young female avatar, she grew blurry and distorted. 

"Yikes", she exclaimed. "A real gentleman wouldn't expose a gal's illusion of visual perfection. If you don't step back, I'll have to de-rez you too." 

Not wanting to cause a scene with the alluring, pixelated woman, he retreated exactly three nodes backward until her image resharpened. 

"Wow, this alternate reality is weird", Tincup thought. "I need to find a way out of this place and fast." 

Suddenly he noticed a small plate, of the Royal Copenhagen variety, nicely done in blue and white with a windmill on it, sitting on the table.  He looked closer and saw a small post-it note with the words, 'eat me' and next to that, a tiny pink pill.  'Kind of like an in-game hints system, I guess' thought Tincup as the strange woman advanced on him.  He reached out his hand and...

grabbed the pill, swallowing it in one go. Immediately his chest swelled, his hair went blonde, and he was suddenly wearing a pear of sunglasses.  He managed to catch a glimpse of himself in the shiny door of the now-open display case, and exclaimed;  "Yikes!  I've turned into Johnny Bravo! That must mean that my IQ has at least halved, if not shrunk to a quarter of it's previous capacity.....Hey, duh, what am I talking about? What does IQ mean?"

The attractive girl smiled smugly, and raised an eyebrow.

. 

Suddenly, Pixel Girl viewed Johnny 'Tincup' Bravo in a whole new light and she really liked what she saw.  

Fueled by an explosive lust, she quickened her advance toward the now-bleach-blonde detective and threw herself at him with reckless, sexual abandon. 

Just then, a flash of blinding light swept across the isometric room as a booming electronic voice urgently announced,

FATAL ERROR ALERT!

VIOLATION OF ROMANCE SCRIPT 

PROGRAM CRASH IMMINENT

...   

How long I lay there unconcious I have no idea. But when I came to the other-worldy god's eye perspective was gone and I was back in my own body again - phew, no more "me and myself". What a strange vision that encounter had been... I wonder if if the alluring pixel girl had had the same experience? Maybe she was stuck down here too.. Brushing off my wrinkled suit and patting down my mussed up hair I checked to see if there were any of those pills left.. damn! I'd taken the last one..

Oh, i didn't see post above, so... Red lights started flashing and sirens were honking. Johnny, being Johnny, wasn't paying too much attention.  He was too busy trying to look down the girl's decolletage.  He realized his breath wasn't quite as fresh as it could be, and reached into his pocket for his supa-fresh minty mouth spray.  As he sprayed, his sunglasses disappeared, his haircolor and style changed, and next thing, he wasn't Johnny Bravo anymore, but instead...

"Damn, i'd taken the last one"  said Tincup.

Tincup was actually a bit sad that things hadn't continued for just a bit longer while that girl was smiling at him so admiringly, feeling his big biceps, but, oh well, life had to go on.  As Tincup.  What a relief it was to have his brain back, though!

And that brain told him that he had to push on and find out who had turned all those dead people into mutants before they found him and turned him into a dead mutant as well.

So Tincup bravely pushed on through the dark tunnels of that underground labyrinth, until he came to...

..a Starbucks! In a labyrinth! Could this be the source of all these mutants? The people inside certainly seemed odd. On the other hand, they looked even more unusual as they left with, what looked like, green lattes. But Tincup was no dummy -no matter what people had been saying- so he left quickly and proceeded to...

Briskly walk AWAY from the Starbucks, but no matter which way tincup went he always seemed to return to the Starbucks! Was he doomed to returned to the cursed establishment? Suddenly he recognized a familiar face in the crowd of customers! It was...

. 

... his newfound drinking buddy, Bill Pullman sporting a new tropical shirt, designer sunglasses and a whole tray of 151-proof rum punches. 

"Heya, Tincup", the grinning actor exclaimed. "Ready for another round of my special libations?" 

it was..... SirDave's evil twin brother - the Nabuhitian General.  Or was it?  The likeness was uncanny, the voice identical.  Could it be that SirDave himself was his brother? 

Tincup's course of action was clear....

It certainly could have been SirDave considering all those medals for many exceptional accomplishments, particularly the Medal Of On-Her that was in boxes of Kelloggs Cornflakes in 2009. On the other hand, the pictured man has hair...assuming it's his. No that's not SirDave or his brother, but it might be...

. 

I REPEAT

... his newfound drinking buddy, Bill Pullman sporting a new tropical shirt, designer sunglasses and a whole tray of 151-proof rum punches. 

"Heya, Tincup", the grinning actor exclaimed. "Ready for another round of my special libations?"