Sky Parlor: A NOVEL

by Stephen Perkins

  “Oh, I guess that could have been worse, huh?” the girl said while a faint pique of terror colored her face.

  While still within the hold of his rescuing grip, Bobby’s curious gaze roamed over the girl’s features and for a moment, his attentions became galvanized by the mystic depth of the dark gleam in her eyes, and though he knew everyone on the varsity cheerleading squad, she appeared unfamiliar, and yet, while his memory harked back to the mysterious figure in his strange dream, his mind snapped with a charge of instant recognition.

  “Have I seen you before?” Bobby wondered while she remained in his grasp. “Are you…new on the squad?”

  “No, I’m not,” she replied.

  Upon her full scarlet lips wavered a suggestive smile.

  “But I believe you’ve seen me before – though you may not yet remember – in another life and from another time,” she added, cryptically, “But you do recall your recent dream, the one you’re thinking about – right now?”

  From afar, seated next to Lucius at a round-topped cafeteria table, Boudica turned to witness Bobby’s gallant rescue. She stabbed her half-eaten green food package with her white plastic fork and pushed it across the table.

  “Hey, I tell you what,” Bobby proposed to the young woman as he began to relinquish his rescuing embrace. “I’ll help you put this banner back up,” he said, adding a cajoling smile, “and you can help me this afternoon in the auditorium with my science project – what do you say?”

  Bobby noticed the lamb white sheen of her skin gleam as if from an inner light.

  “Yes, you can help me,” she said.

  The background noise of the cafeteria seemed to melt away, and Bobby heard the girl’s voice shimmer within the folds of his brain as if broadcast from another dimension.

  “And in return, I will help you,” she replied, “This afternoon – while we’re on stage together in the auditorium – I will be your guide in helping you to better focus your mental intention when using the silver light cube. You have it in your pocket – remember?”

  “You’re Abigail,” Bobby said, his brow wrinkled with astonishment. “But how…how could you be here?”

  “They’ll be time enough for explanations, but very soon, you will understand everything,” was all she replied.

  “Will we ever see a time when women don’t need a man for anything?” bemoaned Boudica.

  “From what I’ve learned about human interaction between the sexes,” Lucius remarked, looking away from his floating holo-screen, “the concept of chivalry is not just historically traditional, but from the vantage point of scientific observation, biologically grounded.”

  Lucius winced as he saw Boudica’s freckled features begin to pucker with resentment.

  “Must you always be so analytical all the time, Lucius? I mean, you and I, and his father, practically built Bobby’s stupid science project for him – and he’s probably going to get an ‘A’ while failing to give us any credit.”

  Lucius proceeded with careful consideration before countering.

  “We don’t know that for sure, Boudica, and maybe, Bobby isn’t the big jerk you think he is, that’s all I’m saying. After all,” Lucius went on to point out, “three of his friends are dead, and though that praetorian threatened us not to say anything, I think we should tell Bobby what happened, and what we saw. To me – and while I understand your reticence at saying anything about what happened – those praetorians are the real jerks. I think every indication exists, they may be a party to kidnapping, and murder.”

  As he turned to watch Bobby fetch a chair to help the cheerleaders with their banners, Lucius detected a glint of horror coiling around Boudica’s pupils.

  “Despite what that sergeant praetorian said,” Lucius went on as he watched the resentment fade from Boudica’s face, “I think, not only should we tell Bobby about what happened after we left his house, but I think it’s only right, we should also let him know it’s become painfully obvious something is amiss about the arrest of his friends, and what may have really happened to them, and maybe ZEN isn’t telling the truth. Surely, smart and perceptive as you are, Boudica, you know what I’m saying is true.”

  Lucius felt Boudica’s delicate hand on his shoulder. He sensed her eye’s bright emerald begin to reflect a jolt of fear.

  “I know we should tell someone, Lucius, but,” he heard the uncertain syllables stammer upon her lips, “those praetorians, if they ever found out, they could kill us just like maybe they did with Bobby’s friends. This isn’t like when we were younger, standing up to a bully like Bobby on the playground. You remember our field trip to praetorian headquarters,” Boudica warned.

  Lucius detected the opaque sliver of fear eclipse the bright emerald green of her pleading eyes.

  “They told us what those disrupter guns can do, and just think, if they can blow up a surveillance drone or tear down a city wall, imagine what could happen to us?”

  As she turned her head to glimpse Bobby helping the smiling cheerleader while peeling off and applying some masking tape to the errant banner, Lucius began to wonder about his best childhood friend, about her conflicted feelings toward Bobby, and about what occurred with the praetorians in the alley near Paramount Gaming Complex. Was her attitude towards him just a façade to hide a secret crush? While mulling over Boudica’s narrow-eyed stare at Bobby and the cheerleader, he began to consider further, that since his biotransformation into a saint, he had learned a lot from her about human emotion, interactions, and even human psychology. From his earliest fond memories, she had served as his indispensable behavioral model, and taught him how to assimilate with the majority living in Columbia known as ‘breeders’. In a way, he imagined, while empathizing from Boudica’s perspective, to her perhaps, he represented the little brother she never had, and maybe, the shrinking fear she exhibited was just her way of demonstrating her protective and even maternal nature, of protecting him from what she felt was inevitable harm. He also began to imagine – though her fierce and independent nature was tied up in her resentment of Bobby and seemingly all males of his type, her authoritative father, for example – she would, someday, make some breeder an excellent life companion and nurturing mother to their children.

  Then, he sensed the presence of something ominous, hovering like the blackest cloud threatening to burst forth with a storm’s apocalyptic lightning and biblical rains. Lucius looked up, and there they stood – a pair of Bobby’s varsity teammates – looming like twin monuments casting behemoth shadows over the cafeteria table’s white surface in their bright blue and white football jerseys, stitched with a depiction of a warlike eagle brandishing sharp talons.

  “My father always said saints are evil; that they want to kill all of us breeders until there are none of us left in Sky Parlor,” he heard the deep voice intone.

  “Yeah, uh-huh – wouldn’t be surprised, if this freshman saint here is the other suspect ZEN says the praetorians are looking for who kidnapped and probably murdered our teammates Jefferson, Tate, and Roland. Maybe we ought to tell Coach Hammond or turn him in to Chief Praetorian Blythe – what do you think?” He heard the second voice, deeper and more threatening than the first.

  “Oh, look Lucius,” Boudica quipped, “a paleontologist’s dream, two living fossils of early Cro-Magnon who still use their bare hands when they soil their smelly loin cloths.”

  “Hey guys,” Lucius heard a fast-approaching Bobby’s cheery greeting. “You know, I just can’t wait for this afternoon, when I get to show everyone that cool science project you helped me with,” he complimented, addressing Lucius and Boudica while flashing his wolfish smile. “I see you’ve met Loman and Ken, two of my best offensive linemen – what’s up guys?” Bobby said to his pair of frowning teammates. “You’re coming to see me perform my science project in the auditorium this afternoon, right?”

  Their rock jawed chins nodded in affirmation as they remained still as sentries with muscles rippling like stormy ocean waves bene
ath the sleeves of their crisp uniforms.

  “Is there a problem?” Bobby wondered.

  “Just be careful about making friends with damned saints is all, Bobby,” the one named Loman replied, glaring at Lucius.

  Loman’s chiseled body braced like the sleek contours of a jaguar about to pounce, thrusting forth his chest that appeared carved from pure deposits of limestone.

  “Yeah, that’s right, Bobby,” the one named Ken added.

  The beefy extremities of Ken’s broad-shouldered frame poised in a tense battle stance like a battery’s loaded howitzers. The facial tendons beneath his clean-shaven skin appeared to stretch like frayed strings threatening to snap apart.

  “My dad says that during the damned bio-transfer,” Ken murmured in a low octave, “the souls of saints get replaced by demons who hate humans.”

  Bobby wagged his head and shuffled his feet like a graceful dancer, skipped around the circumference of the table and stepped chin to chin with his pair of teammates.

  “Now look guys, we’re all angry and sad about what happened. But is taking it out on Lucius here going to make things better or bring our teammates back to life?” he tried to reason.

  Lucius’s peripheral glance caught an unexpected but admiring smile beginning to quiver upon Boudica’s fulsome lips.

  “What has coach been telling us? That part of being a champion is facing adversity and overcoming it, that life or the game of football isn’t always an easy ride. So, tell you what,” Bobby emphasized, his gleaming blue eyes frozen over with cold sincerity, “Let’s save the rage we’re all feeling for the game tonight, and beat the demons out of Arcadia on the field.”

  Lucius took note of Bobby’s unexpected but deft use of psychology as the Eagle’s varsity quarterback again flashed a smile and slapped both of his teammate’s rock-hard shoulders with an affectionate tap before they slunk back across the cafeteria towards their own table.

  “Turning over a new leaf, Bobby,” Boudica kidded.

  “Does this mean you’ll accept my invitation to the prom – BABE?” Bobby bated, adding a playful wink while glancing at a grinning Lucius.

  Boudica’s mouth began to gape in a half-feigned display of shock. A chuckling Lucius cowered as he saw her hand drawn like a butcher’s meat cleaver preparing to hack at his shoulder like a shank of meat. Anger like the comet flash of a sun ray reddening the belly of a cloud streaked across the whites of Boudica’s eyes.

  “He’s not funny, Lucius,” she wailed, “I swear Bobby – oh!”

  Boudica rose from the table with her fist brandished like a balled mace. With his lips molded into a defiant smile, Bobby shuffled back around the table. Drawing a chair close to Boudica, he prodded her in cruel deliberation, leaning his cleft chin forward.

  “Go ahead, babe, whoops,” he apologized, throwing up his hands as if to appear defenseless, “I mean – Boudica. C’mon,” he dared her as Boudica’s eyes smoldered like a bomb crater’s fiery pits, “go ahead, and give it your best shot. You know,” Bobby jested while Boudica bristled, “Boudica’s even more beautiful when she’s mad, not only the smartest, but the prettiest girl at Columbia Prep, isn’t that right, Lucius?”

  Bobby’s hand reached out to envelope Boudica’s fist which was still cocked to strike at his vulnerable chin. Lucius’s attention grew intent as Boudica felt Bobby’s forceful grip transform to a tender caress upon her skin. His chin drew closer and Boudica felt Bobby’s lips caress the freckled texture of her tense hand. With amused observation, Lucius watched his best friend’s expression transform from shock to dismay and for a moment, while a soft film settled over the intense emerald of her eyes, she seemed to finally relent to Bobby’s display of affection, before her face once again constricted with disgust and her hand pulled away with the agility of a frightened reptile squirming for the protective cover of prairie brush.

  “Oh, that’s very nice Bobby, but I’m still not, and never will be your BABE,” she exclaimed while her lips vacillated between a grin and a frown.

  Glancing at Bobby, Lucius thought he detected Boudica’s resentfulness seemed less forceful, and that his suspicions about her covert crush might be legitimate. Fascinating, he began to think, how she seems simultaneously repulsed and yet attracted to Bobby – was this what breeders called flirting?

  “I’m sorry. Well, maybe someday,” Bobby said as they both sat down at the table. “Until then, how about we just settle for working on becoming friends, huh? Let bygones be bygones, B – I mean, BOUDICA?”

  “We’re sorry about your friends, Bobby,” Lucius said. “But there was something that happened after we left your house, I think you should know,”

  Lucius heard a frustrated breath like the slow leak of air from the tire of a sustainable bicycle escape Boudica’s jutted lower lip. He watched as the tangled tassels of her ruddy bangs floated askew, imagining her skin’s ghostly pastel resembled the hand-crafted marble of a noble edifice. With an abrupt motion from her decisive hand, she swept the unruly strands aside before they fell in a disheveled heap over her right eye.

  “Um; yeah, Bobby,” Boudica admitted. As if resigned, she settled her hands in her lap. “We saw your three teammates getting arrested by praetorians near the Paramount the other day,” she said, darting her eyes at Lucius as if for confirmation. “And like we all heard ZEN news say, they were never seen again.”

  The muscles in Bobby’s face shifted like the grinding gears of an engine.

  “What do you mean, you saw them – arrested?”

  “We saw them walk onto the sustainable bike trails and some praetorians came and arrested them for unsustainable behavior,” Lucius revealed. “Funny thing is though,” he added. “There seemed to be a lot of drones on patrol.”

  Bobby jostled with the seat of his chair and leaned forward.

  “We noticed too, there were a whole lot of praetorians already assembled in front of the Paramount,” Boudica said. “Like they were waiting to arrest someone for something – maybe.”

  Leaning further forward in his chair, Bobby rested his elbows on his knees and folded his hands. Again, his memory harked back to what his father had told him about Greenview, and he began to wonder, like assembling the puzzle pieces of a VR jigsaw he used to play with as a small child, if there was a link with the story he was hearing from his newfound friends.

  “Well, what happened after that?”

  The background chatter of the cafeteria floated away, and Bobby’s periscope gaze focused, watching Boudica and Lucius exchange what, to him, seemed curious glances, sensing, as he did with some of his dominated gridiron opponents, apprehension’s invisible specter hovering over them.

  “When I recognized their school uniforms,” Lucius related as he watched Bobby’s face sketch with darkening hues’ mottled array, “I asked the sergeant why they were being arrested.”

  “That’s when the jerks decided to push us around and threaten us,” Boudica said with a corner of her rosy lip curled into a sneer. “The sergeant, who held a disrupter to our heads, said he’d have us arrested, if we continued to interfere in an ‘ongoing investigation’,” Boudica added. Her voice modulated into a contemptuous groan as she curled both her index and forefingers, thrusting them into the air in the imitative shape of quotation marks.

  “Or he said, they’d do even worse, if we didn’t keep our mouths shut,” Lucius underscored.

  Bobby straightened his wide torso against the back of the chair. Tossing back his stallion neck, and crossing his well-proportioned arms, the interior of his mind seemed to resemble a mirrored funhouse where up was down and black, appeared to be white.

  Should I tell them about my father…about what he saw at Greenview…did the praetorians kidnap my friends and…?

  Bobby began to feel tortured, caught between keeping his word not to tell anyone, and the urge to forge trust between him and his newfound friends. Mulling it over, he found his thoughts twisting like a torn kite amid the hurricane winds of indecision
.

  “Not that I don’t believe you, about what happened to you with the praetorians and all,” Bobby attempted to qualify, “but you’re both certain it was them; my teammates, I mean?”

  Bobby saw Boudica and Lucius again trade affirming glances before both their chins nodded in agreement.

  Bobby swore, at that moment, he could hear the dissolution of his comfortable reality torn asunder like callous scissors ripping into the threads of a thin white sheet. His mournful eyes met with theirs, as if, in silence, they were huddling together in defensive isolation, quarantined against the infection of a morose virus attacking them from the cruel environs of the outside world.

  “Question is though,” Bobby wondered aloud, running his hand over his tuft of blonde hair and shaking his head, “why would the praetorians do such a thing, and then blame it on a saint that worked at Paramount Games?”

  “I think the praetorian trooper creeps are lying, trying to cover something up for someone,” Boudica conjectured. “Maybe – even someone very powerful.”

  Lucius folded his arms on the table. He hunched forward. His light brown brows molded into a contemplative arch.

  “What she’s saying may sound wild and inconceivable, Bobby,” he said, “but I think Boudica’s right. It could be,” Lucius further speculated, “there is evidence for foul play on the part of the praetorian troopers.”

  “This may sound even wilder guys,” Boudica said, pushing her wild mane of red hair off her shoulders, “but even though those creeps pushed us around and threatened us with their disrupters, I sensed they were afraid, that if they protested what they were doing while under someone’s orders, maybe they could end up the same way,” and a sorrowful mist appeared to float over Boudica’s eyes. “Dead, I mean.”

  Bobby’s recalcitrant lips moved to reply, but hesitating, he once again considered the informal pact of silence with his father. Finding himself stranded between extreme inclinations – between telling and not telling, between the honor of remaining firmly planted on veracity’s solid ground, and the thrill of impulsive daring while plunging off a rocky precipice to see if he could fly – he once more moved his lips to speak, but strangely, he found them somehow immutable. Though now, mulling perhaps he was unprepared to choose either option, Bobby crossed his arms as if futilely attempting to cover an embarrassing nakedness, and though imagining there may be no escape from a nightmare’s horrifying prison, his impulsive mind became stricken with unexpected enchantment, while envisioning the thrill of plunging from a rocky precipice into the unknown.