Sky Parlor: A NOVEL

by Stephen Perkins

  Marissa wagged her bowed head while disgust riddled her senses.

  “No,” she replied, accentuated with a hint of venom, “Under such circumstances, I think I would rather burn in hell than reign in heaven with you, Mister President.”

  Ulysses donned a disarming grin and again settled his calm hands upon her shoulders.

  “That is a most unfortunate sentiment, Marissa,” he divulged. “But I’m afraid,” he softly demanded, “we must now think beyond the limited parameters of our own desires, thinking only of the future of humanity.”

  “Meaning…Mister President?” She spat.

  “Meaning…Marissa,” Ulysses replied, “I’m afraid you do not have a choice in the matter, whatsoever.”

  Marissa’s face transformed into a grotesque mural. She lurched forward to strike but while in mid-air, Ulysses’ gripped her hand with the force of a cruel vice.

  Whimpering, Marissa was driven to her knees.

  “You mustn’t fight that which is inevitable, my dear,” Ulysses declared through his clenched teeth. “Neither of us can afford to be placed on the wrong side of history.”

  Ulysses loomed over her and she felt the glare of his dark eyes boring beneath her trembling skin like cruel radars.

  “And, I must caution,” the president’s saber sharp whisper threatened to slash her ears into ribbons, “I will not tolerate any refusal to play your important role, Marissa.”

  Ulysses’ brandished his free hand. She winced as it plunged toward her like a striking sledge. Marissa felt the vicious blow’s scorpion’s sting and for a moment blinded, the world seemed to have been wiped away into a velvet black slate.

  She sulked and began to wildly sob and, as the president’s looming shadow engulfed her, a twisted scowl etched upon his granite face.

  “Never, do you hear me, Marissa?” Ulysses’ voice struck like a dooming gong.

  22

  HUNTED

  After Desmond watched Abigail disappear into the forested wilderness, choruses of screeching crows perched on the highest limbs of pine and birch trees rose to a blistering crescendo. Turning to head in the direction of true north through thick brambles, bushes and tall grass, the sound of the shrieking black crows gave way to a disturbing quietude disturbed only by the crunch of his boots upon the layers of pine needles and twigs scattered about the forest floor. With each cautious step, he began to wonder: Could keener foresight have prevented the dangerous scenario he now found himself embroiled?

  Through the lanes of trees and network of branches he could see the forest’s great expanse clear into a wide meadow centered by a dark mill pond. Ghoulish pools of green algae floated amid a harbor of cat-o-nine tails growing like ghostly buoys from the dark mirrored surface. Carefully, Desmond navigated around the pond’s muddied banks while a pair of menacing black-winged dragonflies circled about his head. Fear like a sinister thief crept into his mind and he began to doubt it had been wise to ever think he could escape Sky Parlor and survive among the hazards of such a barren wasteland. Tributaries of cold sweat streamed beneath his orange coveralls as he sought temporary sanctuary within the crevasse of an outcropping of moss ridden boulders perched high upon the crest of a grassy hill. Some bothersome mosquitos alighted upon his face, and after swatting them away, Desmond’s vision stretched and marveled at the boundless miles of mountainous greenery.

  Something rustled within a patch of tall grass and grasping for the straps of the weapons, he saw a small woodland animal scurried past him and hurriedly scaled the nearby rocks.

  A morbid thought haunted:

  They’ve left me out here to be hunted down by Icarus Blythe, then left to be eaten by the crows and the squirrels…

  While a bracing cool wind swayed the meadow’s tall grass, he mulled over impressions of President Ulysses. What was there to say about a man who would stage the public drama of a simulated space mission as a trojan horse to mask the assassination of someone he considered a possible political rival? He’d been outmaneuvered, he thought, and perhaps by his own naïveté about Ulysses’ unlimited capacity for treachery.

  Scanning among the surrounding wilderness, he caught a glimpse of a white helmet and a swatch of orange moving among a twisted column of brambles. Ducking down into a slim nook carved between slabs of a behemoth outcropping of rocks, he heard the splash of thick soled black boots treading across a babbling brook.

  A crow alighted on the high branch of an adjacent pine tree.

  Desmond’s limbs shivered as an unearthly shriek unleashed from its long midnight black beak.

  While his gut began to throb with a dreaded ache, Desmond’s shaking hands swung one of the disrupter weapons from around his back and though at first, he fumbled, he felt his clammy palms finally able to firmly grip the lightweight gun stock. He could see three praetorians emerging into the grassy meadow from behind a thick garrison of shielding poplar trees. Shifting his back to steady himself against the backdropped edge of the enormous rock face and feeling precariously balanced on the tightrope median of death or survival, he summoned an iron will.

  Noticing his hands had ceased to shake, he fastened his finger around the trigger housing and hoisted the sleek disrupter to fire at the advancing trio of hunters. Reams of blue lightning flamed from the barrel and the green boughs of treetops lined at the edge of the meadow erupted into a pluming inferno of smoke and searing fire.

  Cathartic ecstasy surged in his veins as Desmond heard the agonizing screams and the exploding crackle of wild flames. Scraping his arm across his wet forehead to relieve his furrowed brow from the stinging trickles of soaking sweat, Desmond dared to jut his head around the behemoth rock’s jagged corner.

  While his blood raced, he glimpsed the wasteland of charred meadow wrought from the hot barrel of his weapon. Dizzied from the manic blast of adrenaline, and while his composure dangled from a threadbare string, Desmond shook his head and re-shifted his feet to better position his torso against the thin crevasse of rock.

  Again, summoning his will to help crush the rage of tumultuous fear, he sensed the faint crunch of a heavy boot tamping down on a clump of dewy moss.

  He panned his squinting eyes upward.

  Was there someone approaching from up above, atop the summit of the rock and attempting a clever ambush?

  A keen thought arced like a mad electric spark:

  Yes, Blythe!

  Desmond saw the streak of limbs soar down like a manic eagle from the very crest of the rock face and, as if issuing an intuitive warning, another shriek burped from the black beak of the crow from atop the nearby pine’s towering boughs. He heard the thud of boots crash to the ground and the silhouette of a familiar face flashed before his widening eyes.

  Grimacing in determination, Desmond adroitly maneuvered his hips and swiveled the weapon waist high. He aimed and depressed the disrupter’s trigger. The thick trunk of the pine splintered into fiery fragments and wildly tottering, it quickly toppled.

  He winced from the horrid crunch of severed bones giving way beneath the felled tree’s immense weight. Mournful cries of the absconded crow echoed across the meadow. In deliberation, with his weapon still gripped tightly and trained upon the flaming boughs of the felled pine, Desmond emerged from the rock’s crevasse. Swatting his arm to fan away the belching plumes of black smoke, he heard the pained grunts of a dying man muffled from beneath the twisted labyrinth of burning branches.

  A few more steps and peering downward, a satisfied grin began to wiggle across Desmond’s sweat streamed face.

  There, mere feet from the soles of his scuffed and muddied boots, laid the mutilated body of the hunter, Icarus Blythe.

  “Not so much fun when the prey has the gun, huh?” Desmond enquired as garbled syllables choked from Icarus’s blood-soaked mouth.

  “Don’t you want to hear my last words, Alderman Starr?” Icarus feebly coughed through the clots of blood seeping from his torn lips.

  Desmond’s grin melted into a severe
frown and levelling the weapon, his confident fingers gripped the trigger housing.

  “I believe, chief, I just did,” he replied before the felled pine erupted into a mushrooming bonfire.

  Traipsing across the wide meadow, Desmond made his way through to the other side and navigating through the dusk darkening forest, spied the teleportal Abigail had told him about centered among a circle of pyramidal stones and well-feathered gravel. Placing his hand upon the palm identification module on the outside panel, the teleportal’s holo-door whooshed aside.

  “Identification please,” he heard the androgynous voice chirp.

  “Desmond Starr, Alderman of Columbia,” he tersely replied.

  “What is your destination, Alderman Starr?” the voice asked.

  “Sky Parlor – Trade and Transportation Commission building – Columbia, please.”

  *

  While ensconced in his office at Sky Parlor’s Trade and Transportation Commission building, Commissioner Pembroke rose from behind his desk and, spreading out his holo-screen to the widest dimensions, watched in stunned silence the latest report on SAGAN’s mission to Enceladus.

  “This is Polly Trudeau and tonight, here at ZEN news, we can now report the most stunning development regarding SAGAN’s exciting mission to Saturn’s orbiting moon, Enceladus.”

  Stepping closer to the screen, Pembroke flashed out a long finger and poked at the holo-screen to increase the audio volume.

  “After SAGAN officials declared Columbia’s Alderman, Desmond Starr, dead after a perilous rescue attempt of fellow mission explorers Boudica Murphy and Marissa Cassidy, millions across Sky Parlor are buzzing about Starr’s widely seen zap-com video, informing everyone he is, in fact, not dead but still alive and well. What is even more controversial, in addition to the fact it seems Alderman Starr has miraculously risen from the dead is that, in the video, he stated the mission to Enceladus was a political stunt staged by President Garth Ulysses and Plato Charlemagne’s governing sustainability council and, rather than teleported to deep space, he and his fellow mission explorers were sent to somewhere else, to the unsustainable lands beyond Sky Parlor’s buffer zones that - as all generations of Sky Parlor citizens have known - were desecrated and destroyed by human and anthropogenically caused environmental degradation during the ‘Great Rapture’ centuries ago. If that isn’t remarkable enough, the holo-web seems to be abuzz with growing numbers who are now comparing Alderman Starr to the obscure legend of Jesus Christ who allegedly, as the mythical legend goes, was crucified but then resurrected. Not only has Alderman Starr been compared to an ancient legend told in a forbidden book long ago declared unsustainable literature by the sustainability council, but reportedly also declared he now urges everyone to follow him through what he claims to be a long dormant and secret passageway leading from the city so they, too, can see these forbidden lands for themselves.”

  Agog, Pembroke heard the faint creak of hinges. Poking out his finger to collapse the screen, he watched as the door to his office slowly cracked open.

  “I thought I told you I was busy right now and that I can’t take any appointments…,” Pembroke barked, assuming it was his secretary from the outer office.

  His face turned to cinder white as a pair of heavy black boots stomped forward. Pembroke’s pupils shrank into minute fly specks as the threatening black barrel of a disrupter trained upon him. Stumbling, his gangly legs back peddled to seek safe sanctuary, but to his dismay, there was none to be found.

  “You knew they were sending me out there into a virtual meat grinder all along,” he heard the resentful voice growl. “Didn’t you, Commissioner?”

  Pembroke’s trembling lips tried to marshal forth words but failed. Trickles of sweat beaded his ashen face.

  “You also knew about Tepper too,” the voice growled with greater force. “Didn’t you, Commissioner?”

  “I…I think you’re…mistaken…Dez,” Pembroke managed to squeak out.

  “YOU’RE A LIAR AND A COWARD,” Desmond roared. “Aren’t you, Commissioner?”

  “Please Dez, I understand you’re a controversial figure, but maybe you’re too young to understand,” Pembroke’s feeble reply leaked out, “it’s just…politics.”

  “Oh, I understand all too well, Commissioner,” Desmond said.

  Pembroke again heard the stomping advance of Desmond’s heavy boots and clumsily, he began to dash behind his desk but tripping, began to crawl toward his office window on his knees.

  “The truth is only controversial to liars and – politics is life and death, isn’t that so Commissioner?”

  Pembroke regained his feet but feeling that his legs had turned to trembling rubber, he reached out to grasp the sill of the window. His arid throat gasped for air and, turning his head, the vision of the city’s vast panorama spreading out behind him blurred in and out.

  “Well, Commissioner,” Desmond said, raising the disrupter barrel, “because you’re a liar, I’m about to dispense the summary judgement of truth.”

  Hellish flames licked from the disrupter barrel. Desmond watched as Pembroke’s body crashed through the shattered office window and plummeted eighteen stories to the pavement below, scattering in dismembered and blood strewn pieces.

  Desmond emerged at the bottom of the trade commission’s marbled steps. Dusk had fallen over Columbia’s main thoroughfare and the lights of the city began to wink on. While the disrupter still cradled within his surehanded grip, Desmond watched as the plethora of sustainable bicycle traffic halted then began to part like ocean waves. With his gaze fixed on the far horizon, the lengths of traffic changed direction. In an orderly and methodical file, as if led by the tuneful song of a magical flute, they began to follow him.

  23

  Presidential Estate

  Restless and unable to sleep, Plato Charlemagne donned his silk bathrobe. Bolting from his comfortable guest suite and out onto the presidential estate’s high balustrade, he began to pace like a caged tiger. He halted at each end of the parapet’s ornamented iron railing to look up into the night’s star clustered silken sky. Like everyone else in Sky Parlor, he had seen the ZEN news reports concerning Alderman Starr. Though the public wasn’t aware, Ulysses had sent Icarus on a mission of his own to eliminate a political rival and, though inexplicable, he badly failed. Without Icarus Blythe and the overt strength of his armed praetorian troopers, his plans for a presidential coup had been rendered quite toothless.

  Realizing he was in a precarious position, he activated his holo-screen to find out where Doctor Zoe now stood.

  “I’m in a damned uncomfortable position here, Zoe,” Plato complained. “Ulysses, in his almighty hubris, sent out Blythe to take care of Alderman Starr with three of his praetorians. Starr walks away without a scratch and, as I’m sure you’re aware by now, the young alderman is being hailed by the millions of rubes in Sky Parlor as the resurrected embodiment of that old forbidden legend of Christ. Yes, damned uncomfortable indeed, Zoe.”

  Plato’s face deflated like the folds of an accordion. His arm and fist shook like a crooked staff summoning spirits.

  “So, not forgetting our deal concerning your outstanding debt of tribute to the council, it is paramount that we continue to have a fundamental understanding,” Plato said while wildly gesticulating at Zoe’s infuriating smile imaged on the holo-screen. “Will you still support the coming regime change, or not?”

  “We are both calculating men, Chief Councilor,” Doctor Zoe replied, his emaciated face sobered. “But as an honest man, I must candidly tell you,” he went on much to Plato’s dismay, “I shall wait to see how things play out. After all, Chief Councilor,” Zoe suggested, “neither of us wants to end up on the wrong side of history. Only patience can satisfy the hasty fulfillment of our desires.”

  Plato balled his fist and thrust it at the holo-screen. As he felt every pore festering with boiling vitriol, he stood silent, listening to the choruses of crickets chirping from the president’s manicured ga
rdens below the balcony. After a time, the chirping quieted and Plato heard the rhythmic clomps of what sounded like hooves coming towards him on the parapet. Staring off into the moonlit darkness, his startled heart began to wildly palpitate. A guttural cry shattered the velveteen night’s calm silence and slowly turning, Plato felt the scaly talons of a ferocious beast snatch about his thin neck. Before he could cry out, the horned creature’s talons compressed tighter and while gasping for breath, Plato heard the subtle crunch of neck bones and the snapping of his spine.

  Lifted high off his feet, the grotesque creature bore its salivating fangs. Plato’s arms desperately flailed for the edge of the parapet’s ornate iron railing as he fell backwards into the lush garden’s dark void far below. Illuminated by a moth-white spill of moonlight, the body thrashed and then became still. Abigail’s well-conceived holographic disguise melted away and she stood at the edge of the parapet, pleased another agent of evil had been banished from the earthly plane.

  “It seems, Councilor,” Abigail quipped, “your reach has quite exceeded your grasp.”

  *

  Ulysses turned like a dervish while wrapped in a sarcophagus of bed sheets, haunted by a solitary and troubling impression:

  Desmond Starr is still alive…!

  It seemed his displeasure and discomfort had turned into a disquieting and lingering madness that he was incapable of exorcising. He felt a shudder envelope the darkened walls of his vast bedchamber suite and he rose, only to discover he had been strangely transported to another time and place that, nevertheless, seemed familiar.