by Mark Russo
I watched the serpent look into the distance. I wanted to talk to him but I didn’t; my mind was still elsewhere.
James turned his head. “This mountain was not here before.”
“Did we go the wrong way?” I asked.
“I’m sure we didn’t,” he replied in a low tone.
The snake slithered by our side. “I don’t think you guys realize where we are, do you?”
We both regarded him with slightly less hatred.
“Emma, you are the one supposed to climb up there,” the snake added as my face expressed several different emotions.
“I’m not letting her go alone.” James’s voice was raucous again.
“Just try it. Go ahead.”
I noticed two tiny arms protruded from the serpent’s body. One had four scrawny fingers pointing at the mountain.
James nodded, not adding a single syllable. He slowly trod forward, as if he believed what Vagras said to some extent. He lay his left foot on a boulder and climbed. I saw him slip and fall not a second after, landing with his back in the same spot he had been before. He tried again, and the very same thing happened. “Did you do that?” he asked the former teddy bear, almost barking.
“No. As I told you already, you weakened me so much Emma can control me.”
“What is it then?” I asked. “You said I should be the one going up.”
“I don’t know how, but this mountain is the Path of Mind, believe it or not.”
He was not making sense, but I was getting used to it. “I am the one supposed to climb my way up. I get it.”
“Yes, Emma. James will be here with me. We will wait for you to return,” Vagras said.
James scoffed mildly and approached me. “What if something happens to you? I won’t be capable of helping.”
“I will manage. It won’t take long.” I faced the mountain. Plane K could trick you and make things look familiar, but that piece of rock did not. It was just a pile of treeless black rock.
After a few unstable steps on unstable ground, I found a gravel path scrambling up the side of the peak. My steps became steadier, and, for the first time since I had jumped into the rift, I felt the stroke of a tepid wind on my face. It was not real, and I knew it, but I still enjoyed it. As I walked more, I realized I was not getting tired from the steepness of the path. Plane K completely switched off my human body.
The path twisted around the side of the mountain, and I had to align my feet and cling onto the rocks while pushing forward. When I could walk again normally, I noticed a long valley opening at the feet of the crest, maybe a hundred meters freefall. I moved on as the trail narrowed and became steeper.
The wind blew stronger, and I had to kneel to keep my balance. I began crawling; the smallest pebbles were sharp below my knees. The strength of the next gust lifted me and flung me in the air. My body flipped as the ground appeared below and above me a few times. I landed on both feet at the top of the mountain; the wind had spared me some effort.
I found myself in a square-shaped esplanade bordered by a rock wall one meter tall. More gusts of wind reverberated around me, and I heard them whistling through the rocks. The soil in that area was sandy. Plunged a full centimeter deep in the thick rock powder lay a metal box that resembled a first-aid kit from World War I. I had seen those in TL—a history world I had to visit for an exam during high school.
I got closer, lifted it and pulled the handle. The inside revealed nothing but a thick layer of rust. I put the object where I had found it—it was nothing but a piece of dirt.
My eyes lifted, and I was before another me—one of my doubles, I thought, despite not having summoned any.
“Hello, Emma,” she said.
“Hi. Do we go for each other’s throats already?”
She chuckled. “Is this how you introduce yourself to a stranger?”
“In Plane K, yes. That’s what I would do.”
“Vagras was right. This is the Path of Mind,” the other me admitted.
“Come on, what are we doing here? We must find those spires. If you don’t mind, I’ll just go.”
“I’m not keeping you here.” She paused for a moment. “But do you know where to go?”
I looked down and exhaled. “Can you please, please just tell me what to do? Let’s sort this out quickly. Please.”
She appeared by my side. “You know what to do. You knew from the start, from the first moment you accepted all this.”
I pushed her backward, in a high school brawl fashion.
“Okay, I expected this. You just won’t listen. You can go back.”
I turned and began stomping away. “Wait. Can you make the wind carry me back to my friends?”
The spiteful version of me smiled like she was waiting for me to ask that question.
“Yes, and the next time you come here, bring me a present. You know, it’s a polite thing to do.”
“Sure. Will do. Now, can you please shoot me inti the sky? We have some bad guys to catch.” I couldn’t see if she did something specific, but it was effective.
I flew over the mountain, and high, piercing the obscurity of Plane K’s permanent night sky. I landed close to James, and his didn’t even seem surprised. We had been through a lot.
“Did you find something?” he asked.
“I don’t know how to answer that.” I gathered my thoughts. “Yes and no, I’d say.”
His face showed no specific signs of understanding.
“There was a double up there. Not one of mine, but it looked like me. She made no sense at all.”
He shrugged, like he knew that already.
Vagras appeared from behind him. He seemed bigger than I remembered. “Did you find it?”
“What? Was there anything to find?”
“The box, there should have been a box.”
I looked at him sideways. “There was a box, but it was empty, like a tiny metal box.”
James’s eyes widened. “There was another box like that by the spires. I saw it too.”
Vagras crawled back and hissed at us, “You guys found the boxes the Reds have planted in the Paths.”
“I’m getting tired of saying it, but you are not making sense. Tell us the whole story,” I said.
James crossed his arms and stared at the Plane K inhabitant.
“Before the Great Communion ruled our world, another communion existed. The Reds were fascinated by humans, their world, and architecture.”
“Did they build that maze?” I interrupted him.
He nodded. “They built that and many other constructions. They wanted Plane K to resemble your world.”
I noticed James was paying closer attention.
“But then the Great Communion came, and all that changed. The plan switched to colonizing, conquering, expanding.” The snake strolled left to right, like trying to manage his stress. “The Reds were defeated, but they did not disappear for good.”
“What happened to them?” My friend’s voice was louder than needed.
“Few of them became part of the Communion, some were exiled, some are still around.”
“When do the boxes come into play?” I asked.
“The Paths were once accessible to all marchers, those acquainted with the Paths. Before being deprived of most of his powers, Valu, the Reds’ forefather sealed them with unbreachable enchantments.”
“But I can enter the Path of Mind. Am I not one of those marchers of yours?”
“You are, Emma. But you are also human.”
“So, humans, they see different things than you demons?” James asked.
“Apparently, yes. The boxes are powerful weapons we can use to defeat the Communion.”
“We? There’s no we!” James barked.
The wind rose again, and a dust cloud sprawled all around. I lost sight of both James and Vagras. When the dirt cloud dissipated, one more person stood among us. When I realized who she was, my eyes filled with so many tears my vision became blurry again
. We looked at each other, and she cried too.
“I remembered you being much noisier than this, Maria.”
“Who’s this serpent person?” she asked with her brittle voice.
“Now that you are all here, let me help. I might have just the right idea to win your world back,” Vagras hissed.
With Maria holed up in my arms, I spoke my mind. “James, let’s hear what the serpent has to say. We can always go back to our game at the ponds.”
“Yes, let’s hear this plan of yours, Frank. I hope it doesn’t involve killing me again.”
11
Charles
I hurled the lantern on the desk and waited for it to stop blinking, like the spirit of a strobe light has possessed it. Caged beasts act erratically, and that thing was no exception. It blinked a few more times, emitted a low frequency buzz, then it became silent. When it stopped making a spectacle, I opened a random shelf and hid the object in it. There was no use in a broken toy, nor could I make another try. We had to go another way.
I closed the heavy shelf’s door and heard someone knocking on my office’s one.
The person behind it didn’t wait for me to say anything and just broke in. “I really don’t like doing this, but we must talk about Pavel. Like right now.” It was Laura, the last person I wanted to get in my way.
“Okay, I agree. We should talk about that. It’s just … have a seat.”
She stared at the tip of her shoes while approaching the chair in front of my desk. “He’s getting worse. He couldn’t even complete a simple task I assigned him. I don’t see him being capable of facing the conversion process.”
“Well, probably he cheated on the tests. His results were almost perfect. Do you think we should choose someone else for you to train?”
She gave me a look I could not understand. “I don’t know. We are already a few steps down the path, and the conversion should have already started. I thought we might even skip it this time.”
That was a very nice thing to hear. “I’ll bring this topic to the Communion. Let them decide. I don’t think this represents a big problem. Long story short, probably humans should not have access to the Paths.”
She looked like she wanted to say something else but didn’t.
“Besides Pavel, how are you dealing with the other humans? Do you like mingling with them?”
Her face dilated, like struggling to contain an emotional response. “It’s getting better. Some of them have interesting things to say. Among all the worlds we have visited, this one seems like one of its kind.”
“I agree. Humans are creatures with very limited powers and abilities, but they created complex societies. Much more than any Communion ever achieved.”
She nodded. “Besides Pavel, all the rest is rolling out just fine. But you have been way busier lately. Is there something I can help with?”
I shook my head, like a small kid refusing a broccoli salad. “Sorry for letting you wait this long. I’ll let you know soon about what they decide on our conversion issue.”
“Thanks, Charles. I appreciate that.” She stood like a spring mechanism had pushed her and left the room, saying nothing else.
I went by that shelf again. The golem inside the lantern needed to leave his cage fast, and I couldn’t do it in Plane R, not yet at least. When the sashes creaked and revealed the poorly lit inside of the shelf, the lantern I had put there not five minutes ago had disappeared. I knew where I had left it, but I still searched every centimeter of that polished piece of furniture. The thing had just disappeared, apparently.
I closed the cabinet to investigate. It might have moved to some other place. I didn’t know Light Golems that well or how they’d behave trapped in an artifact. Not only that thing failed the task to take down a silly Path of Time marcher, it was causing troubles too. One thing I knew for sure, I had to find it.
I searched some other closets and lockers, all kinds of drawers and trays all around me, but I came up empty-handed. If that thing could move or teleport, probably it did outside my office—maybe outside the building. I rushed from my room. Where to head first? Think, as humans say, Vere. Where would you go if you were a creature made of light?
I went by the window in front of me. I looked outside, my head turning swiftly left and right, but no gigantic monsters were in sight.
“And here’s my favorite school dean. How’s it going, Charlie?”
“I think I lost … my watch. Did you see my watch around here?”
“Nope. But I have something else for you. Would you mind following me to the lab?”
Whatever, I thought. Let’s see what this nerd is blathering about. “Sure, let’s see what is happening there. Did you get that epithelial tissue synthesizer Cullman bought for us?”
“Yes!” he shouted for no reason. “But we have something more interesting than that for today.”
We walked past the retina scan devices since we also had subcutaneous sensors grafted in our forearms. Getting around had become easier ever since.
“When was the last time you and I had some fun? I’m talking about some Overwatch Three, of course.”
“I’ve had little free time recently. I’m busier. There’s lots to do this time of year.”
He raised his hands. “Yes, sure, sure. You the boss around here.”
I tried to laugh at his joke.
We moved through another of those sliding, transparent doors and reached his lab.
Two people were inside, but they both left the room when we entered.
I thought something was wrong with my clothes or my appearance, then I remembered I was the boss around here.
Brian turned on a 3D holographic projector and dimmed the light’s intensity. The room became even more science-fiction-like than it already was.
“This is the typical DNA double helix.” His tone was now formal. “So nothing special here. We are not here for this.”
“Why did you drag me down here then?”
He cleared his throat. “We examined a few DNA samples from some of our proxies and found this.” He pressed some buttons on the holographic projector interface, and the images changed. “This is what a proxy’s deoxyribonucleic acid looks like. I’m not delving into details, but its activity and features resemble those of dead people.”
I still didn’t see his point.
“They walk, but they seem dead if examined. This has some interesting implications we might leverage, I mean economically.”
“Do you want to sell our proxies?” I had never considered the option.
“How much is an obedient zombie worth?”
“Do you see them as handling some heavy-lifting activities?”
“That would be my first guess. We’d have to go the black-market way. But I don’t see this as a problem.”
We giggled like five-year-olds for a second.
“I’ll prepare a business model for this. I’ll send you within the day.”
“Thanks for showing me all this. Once I get that, I’ll bring it to finance to see what they say. We’d have to create a cover for this project, for it to work out. I don’t know, HR consultancy or some other bullshit.”
“That sounds just perfect, Charlie. Perfect.”
When I left the labs, I still hadn’t found that damn lantern. Who knows what would happen if a student picked it up or, worse, a member of the Communion. I went outside; it was cold, and I wore nothing but a suit. My chapped lips bled; a small droplet of blood hit my tongue.
I circled the building twice and searched all bushes, shrubs, and small trees, but nothing. On top of that, I got my shoes as dirty as they could get. I surveyed the school front; the construction appeared taller than I remembered. In one window, a light was on. Someone had been staring at me the whole time I had roamed outside. I rushed inside, hoping whoever that was, he or she didn’t recognize me.
I entered my room again and loosened the knot in my tie. I needed more air and maybe a huge cup of coffee. While I was st
ill exhaling all the frustration from my lungs, an invisible force lifted my human body and threw it against the opposite wall. I didn’t break any of the furniture or any of my bones.
“We will skip all the pleasantries, Charlie. Can you please share with me why you let that student go like that?”
I moved my eyes in the voice’s direction, since I had lost control over the rest of my body. My mouth opened after a few attempts. “She had a nervous breakdown. I had to let her go.”
“We both know it’s not true. Do you remember I can read your thoughts? Right?”
Well, no. I did not remember that. “I do. Can you please put me down, Aaragul?”
“I still enjoy the sight of you against the wall. I’ll leave you there some more. Will you tell me what I want to know, or do we have to go the unpleasant way?”
I moved my eyes in the shelf’s direction.
“I guess you are looking for this?” The Communion member had my lantern in his hand.
I focused on the thin iron band on his index.
“I know you are not Millat. My question is, who is inside this human suit?”
He knew already. I already blew my cover.
“Yes, I know it already. Can you please stop trying to hide this obvious truth?” His grasp on me reached my throat, and I had some trouble breathing.
“Okay, I will talk. But let me down.”
“Sorry to disappoint you. I want you to stay up there.”
“What pointless group are you part of?”
He read my thoughts; I opposed no resistance.
“Things just got more interesting, Vere. I’m sure we can work out our differences.” He finally let my feet touch the floor again.
“You will not kill me?”
“Oh no. There’s so much more I could do with you.”
“You and Valu never got along that well. He remembers that.”
“I wouldn’t bother him. He must be busy crafting the perfect plan to thwart Plane R’s second stage of colonization. Let’s leave him at that.”
*****
When Aaragul left, my legs were trembling, and I could not stop them. I circled my desk. I had no time for hiding, and running would be impossible. They would find me in no time.