The Man From Taured

by Bryan W. Alaspa

  "Can you show me more wonders like you just did?" Whitten asked.

  "You have barely glimpsed the wonders that await you," the Void replied.

  "Can you make me immortal?" he asked.

  "You shall have it."

  Whitten smiled. The smile did not extend up past his nostrils like his reflection, but it was wide and he bared his teeth. He could see the world laid out before him, the people bowing at his feet. He could crush those who had opposed him. He would not have to grovel for money or to anyone ever again.

  "Give me power," Whitten demanded.

  "More than even your mind could comprehend."

  "Then I am yours."

  ***

  What happened next was lost to Whitten. One moment he was standing there in front of the mirror, staring at some all-black, negative space version of himself. The image was smiling at him, the surface of the creature's body rippling like black water. Whitten felt his heart swell and as if his entire life, everything he had been hoping for, dreaming about and wanting was about to come true. Then, the next instant he was in bed.

  The bed was just a cot thrown into another corner of the barn. Often he would have to fight off barn spiders and other creatures that had decided they would like to live in the very warm space that was his lab. The machines around him would hum and vibrate all night long. The electrical bolts would crash from one sphere to the next, but to Whitten it had all become music that his brain needed to sleep.

  His head was spinning. He could still remember the visions that had pelted him when the black substance entered his mind. The world was vibrant with colors that he had never noticed before. He felt giddy like a kid on Christmas.

  He had to get back to work. He had to continue his experiments with radio waves and vibrations and see if he could punch a hole into another world. If he could just tap into the world right next to this one, the dimension next door, then the rest of the walls could be breached.

  He stood and ran fingers through his tangle of hair. He also found his glasses on the floor, the frames bent. He didn't remember when that happened. He also had dried blood on his nose and chin. He must have looked like a ghoul.

  Whitten walked to a sink in another corner and ran cold water over his face. There was a tiny square mirror over the sink and he was indeed terrifying-looking. He had bruises under his eyes. When had that happened? His lips were cracked and dry.

  A thought occurred to him.

  How long had he been out?

  It was not uncommon for him to lose track of time. There were times when he lost days out here in the barn. He had never lost consciousness, though.

  Whitten straightened his shirt and tucked it back into his pants. He thought about putting on a tie and a coat, but decided it didn't matter. He had to see if the rest of the world had changed already. Maybe the breach in the dimensional walls had already allowed the Void into this world. Maybe the world was dark, controlled by the entity he had met last night.

  He decided he was presentable enough. Perhaps he should head into the house and take an actual bath and change into clean clothes. Did he have clean clothes?

  Whitten headed for the barn door. He grasped the door handle and yanked the door open. The bright sunlight pierced his brain like a thousand jabbing knives. The cool air blasted through his shirt and chilled his skin. The sky was a brilliant blue and the leaves were a bright green. It was, to anyone else but himself, a beautiful day. Although the air was cool, the world itself was bright and sunny. Some of the leaves were starting to change along the tree line that was the end of his property.

  It was then that he noticed the strange bulky black vehicle parked in his driveway.

  Whitten felt the saliva in his mouth dry up instantly. When had he last had a visitor? It had been a long time. No one came up to the home of the crazy man where the strange sounds came from the barn.

  He attempted to smooth his shirt a bit, but it was all hopeless. He was a mess and in no mood or condition to receive visitors. Yet, there they were. From where he was standing he couldn't see actual people inside the car. He also had never seen a car quite like it before. Cars were still enough of a novelty that seeing them was relatively rare. It had four doors and everything about it was coal black. Whitten had never seen a car that black.

  "Dr. Whitten?"

  The voice startled him. He tried not to show how much, but the sputtering that came out of his mouth pretty much showed that he was startled. That was not a good thing. That immediately gave the speaker the power and that frustrated Whitten.

  Whitten turned to see a tall and thin man in a black suit and vest standing to his right. The young man also wore these strange dark glasses that were just black discs right in front his eyes, held together by wire frames.

  "Y-yes," Whitten replied. "That's me."

  The young man stepped forward and extended a hand. Whitten took it and they shook. The young man had soft hands, but a very firm handshake.

  "I'm with the government, Dr. Whitten," the man said. "My name is Ezekiel, by the way."

  "I have worked with the government before," Whitten replied. "What branch of the government are you with?"

  Ezekiel smiled and looked at the ground. "Well, that's hard to explain, Dr. Whitten. The division I work with is sort of off the books. We check on things that we find a bit strange. We're familiar with the work that you've been doing with the long-distance radio transmissions. That's good work."

  Ezekiel's smile faded and he cast his eyes toward the open barn door.

  "The problem is the work that you've been doing lately," Ezekiel finished. "That's what we need to talk about."

  Whitten felt a thousand butterflies in his stomach. How long had he been out? He looked down at his hands. Even though he had just washed, he noticed that the fingers and fingernails were filthy, crusted with dirt and grime and grease. Had he been working in his sleep? What had he been doing?

  Whitten turned and walked back to the barn door, grabbed the handle and closed it.

  "Shall we go inside?" Whitten asked, indicating the house.

  Ezekiel attempted to see around Whitten, the young man's face fixed in a serious expression. Then he gazed up at Whitten and a smile broke out.

  "That would be fine," Ezekiel said.

  Whitten nodded, his insides quaking and shaking from nervousness. What was this about? How did they know anything? What was happening? Had the world started changing?

  They entered the back of the house. The place smelled like dust, mold and mildew. There were dishes in the sink with rotting food. The place was a bit of a mess, but Whitten was rarely in the house. He had little need for the food in here because he had food in the barn. They passed through the kitchen and into the living room where there were two dusty couches in maroon fabric. Those were hand-me-downs from his mother and he had sat in this room a total of three times in the five years he had lived here. Whitten brushed dust off the fabric and removed some papers that had been stacked for ages on the old coffee table.

  "Please, have a seat," Whitten said, indicating the love seat. He brushed more dust off of the full sofa across from that and sat down.

  "Thank you," Ezekiel said. He had removed his round dark glasses. "Nice house."

  "It's a mess," Whitten said. "I spend most of my time in the lab out in the barn."

  "I could have guessed that. So, what experiments have you been working on lately, Dr. Whitten?"

  Whitten cleared his throat and crosses his legs. He smelled a foul odor, but he wasn't sure if it was himself and his lack of showering or something in the kitchen.

  "How is that relevant?" Whitten asked.

  "I am a duly appointed representative from the government, Dr. Whitten," Ezekiel replied calmly. He removed a small notebook from an inside pocket of his jacket. "I have been appointed to this position by the President himself."

  "But you work for some secret organization that has no name," Whitten replied. "What am I to make of that? Can you eve
n show me identification? Do you carry a badge? A gun?"

  Ezekiel smiled. Then he reached into his coat pocket and removed a small billfold. He handed that over to Whitten. He opened it and saw an identification card inside. Inter-Dimensional Enforcement Agency.

  "What does this mean?" Whitten said, handing it back.

  "Dr. Whitten we are living in an amazing age," Ezekiel said. "Humanity has never advanced as fast or as far as it has in just the past few decades. The world is becoming a smaller place as we find new and faster ways to travel. It is not ridiculous to think that humanity will soon conquer space and nearby planets. These were the stuff of books, fantasy stories, Dr. Whitten, but no longer. Humanity may be growing faster, developing faster, than the world can handle. We are one of the organizations that tries to make sure the advancement is right and appropriate."

  "I see," Whitten said. "So your goal is to curb the advancement of humanity? That doesn't sound like the land of the free and the home of the brave to me."

  "We don't want to stop people from advancing, but advancement without rules and without some kind of regulation will create chaos. It could be destructive. People could die."

  Whitten cleared his throat. "OK. So, you already know that I work on the radio wave experiments. I have worked hard for the government that you claim to work for. Why are you here now?"

  "We have been monitoring you, Dr. Whitten," Ezekiel said. "We know that you have moved on to other things besides long distance radio communications. Well, check that, perhaps you have moved on to other forms of long distance communication. Communication to other dimensions?"

  Whitten felt fear in his heart. How did they know this?

  "You're spying on American citizens?" Whitten asked.

  "We keep track of people we feel might be important," Ezekiel replied, as if this made it OK. "You were conducting experiments that we thought were valuable. But once you made contact with other dimensions, well, we have to step in. The world is not ready for this kind of thing. Not yet."

  "How can you say that?" Whitten asked. Now the fear was slowly being replaced with anger. "How can you decide what advancements are correct and which are not?"

  "The walls between dimensions are there for a reason, Dr. Whitten. They are not meant to be breached. The entity that you spoke with is vastly dangerous."

  How did they know? Dear God, here was a man at least ten years younger than Whitten telling him that he knows about other dimensions and the Void. How was that possible?

  "How do you know about this?" Whitten asked.

  "Do you think you are the first?" Ezekiel said. "Do you think that there are not others out there trying to break down the walls between dimensions? There are people all over the world conducting experiments like yours and who have been for years. Some of those experiments have led to disaster. We know of the Void. The Void has been plaguing mankind for centuries, Dr. Whitten. The devil, demons and other entities that have been banished to the realm of superstition all stem from it. It is imprisoned where it is for a reason."

  "How can you know?" Whitten replied. "Have you spoken to him? Do you know how he was imprisoned?"

  "You've spoken to him, then?"

  Whitten realized he had been trapped. "Yes."

  "He showed you things didn't he?"

  "Stop calling ‘he’," Whitten replied. "The Void is beyond male and female, even though it is a living thing. It is powerful and beyond our understanding."

  "And yet you would work with it, or him, or whatever it is to bring it into this dimension?" Ezekiel still had that smile on his face. It was as if he were discussing the weather and not the discovery of the century. "The Void would enter this world and absorb it into itself. It wants nothing but to conquer and destroy. You should know this."

  "What you say is not true," Whitten said. "It just isn't."

  "You telling me that it isn't right doesn't make it any less so," Ezekiel said. "I don’t have to come here and tell you what we do or why we do it. We do not have to justify our existence or why we are here. We also don't have to explain what we know or how we came into existence."

  Whitten sat there stupefied. This young man was a wisp of a thing and he was not one for violence, but right now he wanted to reach out and smash the young punk in the face. He wanted to grab the ashtray on the table in front of him and bash in the cretin's face and head. He wanted to taste blood on his lips and smash his skull until Ezekiel's brains were all over the floor.

  "I am just here to tell you to cease and desist all attempts to breach other dimensions," Ezekiel said. The young man stood up, brushing dust off of his pants. "This is the only warning you get. You are dealing with things that are ancient and very dangerous. Dangerous to you, but more importantly, dangerous for all of existence here in this planet and any other planet in our dimension."

  Ezekiel stared at Whitten for a moment, cocking his head to the side as if studying him. Whitten felt as if he were under a microscope. He stood up just so that he was taller than the young man.

  "I can tell how angry you are, Dr. Whitten," Ezekiel said. "I can understand that. I am telling you now that it would be a horrible mistake for you to act on that anger in any way that involves contacting the Void or breaching other dimensions. Let me ask, did he promise you immortality?"

  Whitten opened his mouth and then closed it again. He sputtered for several seconds, trying to come up with a denial or some kind of answer that made sense. Instead, he just shut his mouth and glowered at the younger man.

  "I thought so," Ezekiel said. "It – he - does that. It’s one of the things that the Void has offered to those of us in this dimension for years. Are you looking for that? Do you fear death, Dr. Whitten? I know you were close to your mother and she died recently. Has that affected you?"

  Whitten reached back, involuntarily, balling his hand into a fist, ready to strike the impudent man. He held his hand there, ready to strike, but something in the young man's face held him there.

  "Go ahead, Dr. Whitten," Ezekiel said, that infernal smile never faltering. "Strike me. I would rather you do that than continue with your dangerous experiments. You can even kill me if it will save this realm. I am willing to die for that. I do not fear death. Neither should you. Immortality is a lie, Dr. Whitten, and the Void is the master of lies."

  They stared each other down for what felt like hours, but was actually just a few minutes. Whitten lowered his fist. Ezekiel gave a nod of satisfaction, as if he had won.

  "I’m going to leave now, Dr. Whitten," Ezekiel said. "However, you are now warned and you know that we are watching you. I am going to trust you to be smart enough not to continue your experiments. If not, however, you will see what we can do to stop you. You won't like it."

  The rage flooded Whitten again. This was his chance, a voice inside his head was screaming, the one chance he had to kill this impudent swine. Ezekiel was alone. He was a skinny little kid and nothing could stop Whitten from smashing him over the head, pounding his head into the coffee table until he was bloody.

  "I can see from your face that you are tempted right now," Ezekiel said. "You want to throttle me. You think that what I'm doing is destroying your dreams. That is not the case. I am helping you. I am helping everyone."

  Ezekiel pulled back his coat. In a holster hitched beneath his armpit was a gun. It was apparently made of brass and it looked like it fired something other than bullets. Whitten had never seen a pistol like it before.

  "Plus, I have ways of protecting myself, Dr. Whitten," Ezekiel said. "I may look like a skinny young man, but I am far from it. There are things in this world and others that you cannot fathom. There are things you cannot possibly understand. Stop trying. Do what you can to improve the world, not destroy it. Fight for the light."

  Whitten quivered from head to toe in barely-contained rage. "You cannot stop me."

  Ezekiel sighed. "We can and we will if we have to. You are breaching dimensions with your radio waves and your direct contact with t
he Void via your mirror greatly weakens the dimensional barriers. You are causing great harm every single time you speak to the Void, Dr. Whitten. We have machines in place to keep him at bay, but you make it harder each time."

  Ezekiel turned at that point and walked back toward the kitchen. He walked without fear, as if he knew that Whitten would not come after him. As if he had defeated Whitten, taken the air out of his sails.

  Whitten stood rooted to the spot until the back door slammed and he heard the large black car start up and pull away. Then he clenched both fists and let out a long rage-filled scream. He grabbed the ashtray from the coffee table and threw it across the room. He rampaged, tearing apart the shelves, throwing the knickknacks across the room where they shattered into pieces and skittered across the floor. He kicked over the coffee table and tipped over both sofas.

  When he was done he stood breathing hard in the middle of the dining room. Behind him the living room was a disaster.

  What was he going to do? What did he do next? Did he pack up his equipment and flee? The Void had told him that the rift in the barn was only in one place. What if he couldn't find another?

  "No," Whitten whispered to his empty house. "No, they are not going to stop me."

  Augustus Whitten would not be deterred. He had to summon the Void. That was what he needed to do. He had to speak. This was what would make him famous and it was his destiny.

  The Void was offering him immortality. Who could turn away from that?

  "Not me," Whitten whispered. "Not at all."

  What he didn't know was that, as he whispered those words, his eyes turned completely black for just a moment.

  ***

  "So, they are calling themselves IDEA, now?" The voice said through the mirror and this was followed by a low rumbling sound that Whitten took for laughter. "They have been after me for centuries. Yes, Ezekiel is correct. They have been countering my movements each time. They are fools, Augustus. I have shown you the reality of dimensions and I have promised you immortality. That shall be the case."