The Mummies of Blogspace9: Chapter Eighteen

June 25, 2011
Seville, Spain
Hanson                 http://www.historyismine.blogspace9.ex

Hey there, Laney.  It’s three in the morning here in Seville, and I can’t stop thinking about you.  Love you.  Also horny.  I don’t want you to worry about me.  I’m more angry than scared at this point.

If we were to set aside logic and common sense (and Laney, watching a harem full of dead concubines planning their day DOES REQUIRE setting aside logic and common sense), then we’re left with the possibility that something quite extraordinary is going on.

On the off-chance that our new friends Perdido and Gumecindo Duran are not garden-variety internet pedophiles looking for mischief while their porn loads, might they in fact be undead conquistadors still intimately connected to our pyramid?  No offense, Peridido or Gumecindo.  I’m just trying to cover my bases.

I ask this, Laney, because if there is a whole pile of Inca gold inside that pyramid, guarded by walking mummies, and if you now have a mummy-hunting handbook on your night table (if that’s what Malleus Momias is) then you could be in some danger.

Also, what the hell is a Sopay?  Perhaps our undead Facebook friends can help us out with that?  As for me, I’m taking things one day at a time.

The police came for Sacramonte a day after my rescue.  Two squad cars pulled up to the flamenco restaurant just as the dinner dancing got underway.  National security, they claimed, shaking their heads as they closed the place down, sending confused unfed tourists scurrying onto the street.

I was holed up in a miniscule three-bedroom apartment not far from the restaurant.  It’s home to a family of Gitanos led by Julio, who smokes cigarettes and watches soap operas all day, and his wife Xenia.  I share a room with their three middle-aged sons who I suspect are pickpockets, given the uncommonly large number of wallets lying about.

“I don’t know what you are talking about.” I heard Sacramonte tell the police.  “What American boy?  I am a simple businessman.”  But they took him anyway and held him for three days of extended harassment.

I would have helped, but I’m a wanted criminal.  That being said, I’ve been restless.  I have some lingering questions about the nature of life, afterlife, etc. that demand my attention.  Thankfully my adoptive family made some alterations to my appearance, and set me up with a brand new identity.  There are advantages to living in an apartment littered with other people’s wallets.

Estebe Uberoaga I became.  Of Bilbao in the lovely Basque region of northern Spain, I have papers identifying me as a welder.  I am also, judging by the contents of my wallet, an aficionado of coffee and karaoke.

Having spent several days in hiding, I was eager to get out.  I wanted desperately to return to the Archive, but that was impossible.  Even with my new identity, I would still need my investigator number.  And the moment I typed that in to a computer, I would be identified as Bruce Hanson.  And subject to arrest.

Instead, I went to the University of Seville.  As Estebe Uberoaga, I acquired a day pass to use the library.  And much to Estebe’s satisfaction, the historical archives at the University of Seville are nearly as comprehensive as the Archive of the Indies, at least as far as conquistadors are concerned.

In a climate-controlled case right in the center of the reference room, I found a handwritten document listing the names of the 62 cavalrymen and 106 infantry who accompanied Pizarro at the battle of Cajamarca.  And I’ll be damned if the names Gumecindo Duran and Vasco Cuellar aren’t among them.

I found no other reference to Duran in the database, or in any other index.  But I did find a Vasco Cuellar who was ordained in Seville in 1550.  That was nearly twenty years later, so it probably wouldn’t be the same guy unless…well, unless he’s an immortal of some sort.  Can you help us out with this one Perdido?  If you’re reading along, can give the porn a rest for a moment or two to chime in?

Father Vasco Cuellar next turns up in Trujillo, Peru in 1577 on a list of missionary clerics, but I couldn’t find any further mention of him.  I might have turned something else up, but I was arrested at the library.

As luck would have it, Estebe Uberoaga is a member of a Basque separatist organization responsible for a series of bombings in northern Spain.  Apparently, one rolls a giant pair of fuzzy dice when engaging in identity theft, and I rolled snake eyes.

The result was an unpleasant nine-hour detention in Seville’s Central Lockup, which looks like the green room for a reality TV show about intoxicated cross-dressers who bawl while professing great affection for their estranged mothers.

I made very few friends, though a cheerful fellow by the name of Sexy Boom-Boom Carolina promised to teach me to dance the Mambo if I ever made it to Malaga during Carnival.  I know, right!  Who knew Malaga did Carnival?

The detectives came for me just after midnight and interrogated me for two minutes, enough time to confirm that I was not Estebe Uberoaga.  I must have picked up the wrong wallet this morning at the hostel, I told them.  But I nonetheless agreed to sing karaoke as a condition of my release.  My rendition of Desperado was well-received.

I’ll be changing my identity again soon because I plan to continue my investigations.  And that’s largely because I don’t have a choice, or a passport, or any money or prospects.  But I still have you, Laney, and that keeps me going.

June 25, 2011
Cupertino, CA
Administrator      http://www.admin.blogspace9.ex

As a courtesy to our users in Spain, and in due consideration of the questionable legal situation in which one of said users is currently compromised, posts by Bruce Hanson will not be visible in Spain, or Portugal (because our programmers can’t determine how to do one without the other).  Nor will said posts be visible in the People’s Republic of China (which has ongoing intellectual property issues).

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