by Travis Borne
Hiss! Then louder. Hiss! Her ears became tinnitus sirens and something, that hose, that, that, SNAKE, encircled her. Among the rapids of blood she saw the serpent’s lumps. Then the head rose up mere inches from her face, slowly, slowly, dripping with blood as if it had just received a coat of wax, and it glared into her white panicked eyes with its yellow scary ones. Amy felt fear, anger, and overwhelming anxiety. She folded. But she couldn't get away from any of it. The snake drove the anxiety into her soul like a train hitting a mountain of cotton at 160 mph. The runaway plague went deep and got lost in her mind; she felt it stirring her sanity on a level she never knew existed. Then something grabbed her and pulled her out.
“I’m so sorry,” her father said.
She said nothing, and it took her a while to reassemble herself. There’d been some damage, that much was clear, but after she was finally able to communicate again, she accepted that she wouldn’t take it back even if she could. She kept learning from her father, and today was the lesson he’d held from her during the blissful eternity they had shared. Amy realized he was deeper, more enigmatic—and more insight only birthed more questions. But now she knew her father had been, and continued to be, tortured by these demons: unlike hers, which had always been friendly, quirky and weird perhaps, but never scary. Would she ever be the same now? Perhaps her father was more special than even she had known. Beyond that wall in his mind, she’d seen countless monsters, some boiling over with a substance she never, ever wanted to experience again.
“You will experience that,” he said, taking in her thoughts as she pulled away. He knew exactly what she was doing too; she was trying to repair the damage. “You will get that and infinitely more, if you decide to go back.”
She shuddered at the thought but didn’t understand what he meant. His walls were back in place, and although she wondered how he could manage to keep this, whatever it was, locked away from others, she was glad he could.
“You will learn more, and there will be more pain.”
Amy picked herself up just like she had done countless times as a human. Her genuine self fought Lee in the cave that day, and her printed self had to fight his descendants before they’d eventually departed from city #2, Hope City. She picked herself up in the face of her father’s recently revealed hell, which was worse than Lee’s oldest son who’d been left in charge, and his rogue band of fools, raping her and the other citizens of Hope City, the worst city. She had agreed to all of that, though: the plan, and knew she would absorb every ordeal for better or worse just as her father had told her she would. Every detail, every thought the printed Amys had, she received. It was bad, and she couldn't fathom that going back to rescue the others would be worse.
“Jim and I have already decided, Dad.”
“You still want to go, even after what I just—”
“Yes.”
Herald saw her stand tall in his mind. She was tough and he knew not a soul who was more so. What she had to endure, he also had endured, for she was the channel and he witnessed everything; he was the vengeful god of the seven cities. And he, through her, decided which were worthy and which deserved exactly what they’d gotten. He went off on the tangent, feeling anger: the filth, disgusting humanity... “What they got—” Herald choked up.
“What?”
“Nothing.” Herald had the power to say nothing, and really mean it—something Amy, even after all of the lifetimes, the myriad virtual worlds she’d existed in, and having had existed with her father, and Ana her mother, and the other good souls for what felt like an eternity, were just beginning to learn. He smiled, and he hugged her with his energy.
Then, teal hues surrounded them; an octopus of lights went around father and daughter like the smoke from a possessed fire. Ana was near.
105. TV Bowling Ball
Teal swirls became intense and bright. The essence of Ana was starlight twinkling between the grooves in her own record, her own unique frequency.
“Ana, my love,” Herald said. And she fell into him. The swirling of Herald’s golden glitter and her spell of stars became a lake receiving a sunrise: a galaxy in a bottle, being poured into a world. Ana separated from Herald and her world formed around them. Within a nanosecond, which could paradoxically have been a yottasecond, they possessed their human form again.
“Please, Hija,” Ana pleaded, having had absorbed the parts of the conversation Herald had chosen to leave beyond the bounds of his wall, “you know your father is right. And your bodies, if the two of you could even get back to them, well, they would be very old by now.”
“And how would you and Jim—”
“He’s not the only one who wants to try, Dad.”
“Who else?” Ana asked. She was in the kitchen of the cabin, sitting close to Amy at the aspen-wood table. Herald sat on a stool behind them at the counter; he remained quiet as if he’d known all along, and a smile relaxed on his face. Ana removed her hands from her worried face, pulling them down over her lips then interlocking her fingers. Her teal aura faded away completely, as did Herald’s gold and Amy’s purple.
“Noit and Taleena,” Amy replied. Herald shook his head, and his smile said I knew it. “We’ll head back to Traxis—”
“And you’ll do this how?” Ana interrupted.
“Noit. You know this, Mom. And I can help him do it, even Jim. We can join our minds and make it happen, just like everyone did to get back for—”
“That was different.”
“But we can still do it. I know we can. And after Traxis it should be easier to get down to the next tier—at least Noit said it would be.”
Ana was shaking her head to all of it, then looked at Herald. He sent her the smile he’d been incubating, then something caught his attention. He headed toward the TV which sat facing the corner. In his mind it was a little boy hunched over with a dunce cap on. He lifted the bad boy by his legs and tossed the screaming toddler through the window, shattering the glass. Turning around, as the screams faded from his mind, he now couldn’t wipe a beaming smile from his face. Amy started laughing, then he popped too, and they shared a moment that loosened up some of Ana’s seriousness.
“We can do it, Mom. After Traxis we’ll head back to Frisson using the old transference methods—”
“And get one of the space-jets? You think they still work?”
“They should be in working condition, Ana,” Herald said, “remember the time difference between the planes—”
“And your bodies,” Ana said. The effect of Herald’s earlier stunt was wearing off and her seriousness was returning. Herald took a seat next to her. “They’ll be far too old to be of any use.”
“Mom—”
“What are you smiling at, Herald?”
“I, well, sort of knew this was coming. Go on, Sweetie Pie.”
“We’ll take the space-jet—old farts can still drive, right?” She looked across the table at her dad. His smile was mutating like a conversation in itself, and Amy read him like an eye-test chart, the most prominent characters hitting her like spotlights. The smile was in part the somber one he’d sent to Jon as Jon looked back after descending the ramp of the borrowed craft, and, the one he shined on her when she was three years old and they were picking flowers outside by the lake. She reflected the latter, and he absorbed it. “—then, we’ll head through the wormhole: two quick stops, get Noit’s body, then Taleena’s, then return using the same route we used to get to tier three. After high-level six we’ll divert, straight through, shooting like a bullet toward Earth’s plane, bypassing all of the others. It’s almost the same way we did it for the final retrieval, just a few more steps, and a little less help, that’s all—” She looked to Dad and winked. “—and as long as the space-jet is still in working order, we should have no problems whatsoever. We’ll be following Taleena’s route so we should arrive at the correct level of entropy. Earth’s plane should be perfectly in sync with our arrival.”
“You’ll be too old, all of
you—”
“We don’t care, Mom,” Amy said. “We want this, even if we don’t make it. The ship is powerful and we can provide assistance in the rescue.” Ana shook her head again. “Come with us, Mom.”
There was a knock at the door. Amy got up to check but she already knew who it was; she was expecting her husband, and the others.
“I told them, Jim,” Amy said as she opened the door. Jim’s swirls of reds and deep blues assimilated his thirty-year-old human form, and his toes materialized on the floor, then his flannel, white T-shirt, and jeans, enwrapping him like living paint. Herald didn’t remove his eyes from the authentic version of Jim, the one they had once upon a time wished Amy had never met.
He took uneasy steps and Herald’s nod set him at ease, but Jim still felt nervous; a shit was poking at his ass and his aura was a red-alert light betraying him to the last glimmer; it faded away as he glanced over to the bathroom.
Outside, through a door that’d been left open wide, a world began to coalesce into a scene—Ana’s world was a flood carrying every detail, and the living paint was an artist on roids, one with omnipotent dexterity. The lake appeared, the lush, bright-green and just-green mountains, as well two other beings who materialized not far from the cabin. And the TV Herald had thrown out the window was there: almost round, rolling like a bowling ball down the hill toward Vallecito Lake. Noit ducked his head and entered the cabin after short Taleena.
“You're in on this, Noit?” Herald said, looking up at the tall blue one. “My best friend, you're like an uncle to Amy, and you know what will happen if she goes.”
“You already know, too, Herald,” he replied. The nude pastel-blue elegant one walked with grace and approached his friend, moving his head to the side to avoid the ceiling fan. Through transference, he delivered a hello that said, “Good friend, the time has come. Amy’s idea has been spreading around the ether, and now others are interested.”
“Your daughter is quite the convincer,” Taleena said. She was short, and pastel too, but yellow, and her head was large, round, and bald. Her ears were pointy like an elf’s.
“Your families?” Ana asked.
“They’re okay with it,” Taleena replied, “as well many others. Doubts are a new flavor within our stew. But one thing is stopping the masses from joining us, and they will be able to prevent us from leaving.”
“It’s Q isn’t it, Dad?”
“Yes.” Herald’s smile finally faded. “He still thinks the final tier is a means to become some sort of god. He wants more power than we already possess, his own universe, and I can no longer talk to him—”
“The slaps?” Jim joked.
“Q knows better than that, Jim.” Herald’s smile returned, with a hint of sinister audacity. “The crazy nut always had different plans and he still wants more—it’ll never be enough. We’ve lived for lifetimes within these dreams, we’ve experienced much, and we’re all a family, traveling no longer through one universe, but within the universes of our own making. We are safe here and we know it. And we can live forever, practically, if we so choose. But Q is the anomaly on this particular tier, which I believe to be—”
“Once you release it,” Noit interrupted, “Herald, everything will change.” Noit’s long finger extended and his nonchalant muscles tightened.
“What is it, Dad?” Herald looked to Amy, then to the love of his life.
“I am sorry, Ana. I have been too secretive, even with you. I only wanted the best… Noit, would you, please?”
“Are you completely sure, Herald?” Noit said, again using his mouth.
“The time has come, and before Q has a chance to stop us, we must finally have this talk.”
“If you say, then it shall be, my friend,” Noit said. “Can we, though, have our talk outside, by the lake?” He turned to face Ana. “I so love this place, Ana, every time you generate it.”
“Jim, would you?” Herald asked. “Some fresh fish for dinner tonight would be great.” Jim nodded happily; he knew exactly where the rods and reels were stored.
106. Spilled Beans
“Once I spill these beans, they can never return to the jar. Are you sure, Amy?”
“Yes, Dad.”
“Okay, but first—” Herald looked to Jim who’d just tossed his line. Obliviously, Jim became entranced by his favorite pastime. “—Jim, do you know the great thing about this domain, a realm of our own making, a world no longer in need of any base system or physical body.”
“Sure do, Herald,” Jim replied happily. He was winding his line slowly, and peeled his gaze from the clear water rippling before him like gold giving chase to silver. “The fishing, of course—” Jim laughed, then got serious. “—I love you, Amy. You're the greatest. But undoubtedly Ana’s world, here, and I treasure the land in which Amy and I share our lives.”
“Go on,” Herald said.
“We have a home, kids—virtual ones, but there seems to be no difference—a complete and perfect life. Everything is grand. One couldn’t be happier.”
“Well that, Jim, is the direct answer. Amy, same question. What do you think I’m getting at?” Herald and her were sitting on the large crimson rock overlooking the lake, their usual spot, and he absorbed her thoughts. He saw memories through her three-year-old eyes: Jerry was fishing and she was standing in front of him with her own tiny rod and reel; then she flashed to the present, and more objectively than she’d been in a long, long time, saw Jim as he was now. Jim was standing in the water, fishing boots and fanny pack, and, in the exact same place Jerry had been before it all began.
“We can reset the day!” She threw a rock into the water.
“That’s right, Amy. And why is this important?” Herald was cheating with her, sending mental clues, glints of memories—plus she now possessed his most terrible, yet most empowering gift, the one which he’d procrastinated at possible cost of everything—but he had to believe they still had a chance; he’d done the impossible before.
“Because here, if we don’t…we’d go crazy.” Her eyes went wide and reflected handfuls of the glimmering blue water. “We can choose to forget, because there’s almost—well actually there is, or would be anyway, if we didn’t… Too much time—there’s too much, Dad. We can forget things if we want, yes?” Herald was really cheating now, allowing access to loads of memories; they were mixing with the recent ones she’d somehow managed to revive. It was just as he’d always done with the woman at his side, the woman for whom he would create a universe, or end one: Ana.
Ana cuddled closer and her deep browns glossified. She held Herald’s arm faithfully; her hand crawled to his, and they interlocked fingers. Ana was as beautiful and as young as ever, and she shed a tear after receiving Herald’s warmth. The glimmer in her eyes also reflected the lake, and in the center of each was Herald’s thirty-year-old, acne-scarred, thin face. His long jet-black bangs had fallen forward, and in her mind, she saw him for the first time, again, as if he was looking down at her on the dance floor, in Club Subterranean. She said, “I love you, Herald.” But her eyes continued, saying, “I know something big is coming, because I know you.” It was the most serious version of Herald, just how he’d talked in the bunker, when, along with Rafael, he explained the end of the world, and when he explained to his loyal followers what they could expect during each transition, every tier they’d climbed to ultimately arrive at this one.
“What is it, Aim?” Jim asked, now reeling in his line a little slower. He quirked his head to the side, as if recalling some detail about her. Amy had fallen into her thoughts.
“Go on, Amy, you can do it, continue,” Herald said. A contented smile formed on his face, like a nomad’s, one seeing the first sunset after a long nuclear winter.
“We’ve—learned to exist in this new way? And we do it all the time without even thinking about it. We reset the day, we reset everything. It’s like a movie we’d already watched, a pastime we’d finally gotten bored of—we can experience these thing
s for the first time if we so choose.”
“That is a large part of it, Amy,” Herald said.
Noit bowed his head toward Herald and his mind said, “Go ahead, Herald, the time has come, we can no longer hide them from the pain.”
“Maybe,” Herald said mentally, replying only to Noit, “it is not too late.”
Herald’s and Noit’s words were just like they had always been, intermingling with the same substance far beyond his wall, in the most special place. The two of them, and only seven others, the anomalies, mixed their white-lightning trees. And the substance surrounding it had to come with that. Noit had his own demons, and like Herald and the other anomalies, had in time learned how to deal with them. The monsters in Noit’s world meshed with Herald’s all the time, as well did the branches on their white-lightning trees. Nine of them, among the clan which now consisted of millions, had become a Gordian Knot. Gordian Knots were besprinkled amid billions, trillions, more, just like clusters of galaxies in the physical universe. Some shone brighter than the entire stew, briefly, then popped to off.
“Jim, Amy, even Ana if I don’t remind her continually, and you, Taleena, and all of the others who are not a part of the anomalies, do henceforth and forever continually lose yourself. It has become autonomous, you filter out—pain. You live, essentially, a pain-free, altered version of life.
“Amy, perhaps it’s because you remain in close company with me quite often. I, as well Noit and only the seven others, whom you know yet I won’t name right now, are different. We are your anchors. Without us there would never have been the possibility of jumping along on tier after, paradoxically deeper, tier, nor existing on any of them for an extended length of time. You have achieved something extraordinary, Sweetie Pie.”
Herald turned to face the others. Taleena stopped looking for neat rocks; Jim stopped fishing.
“Now, Amy seems to be coming around using her own very special power. She is awakening, and it seems to be affecting others.” Herald paused and met eyes with Noit. “Pain.”