by Dima Zales
This shape is also surrounded by ones like it, some more or less round, some with different temperatures, tastes, and smells. All, however, play similar lullaby-like music.
Overwhelmed with curiosity, I choose one specific shape and touch it.
I don’t feel anything at the touch.
Instead, the shape sucks me into itself like a black hole.
I swirl in a whirlwind of sensory data until my consciousness short-circuits and my awareness ceases.
Chapter Eleven
I’m walking toward the kitchen.
There’s a jingle of keys, and then the front door opens and Felix steps in.
“Hey,” I say. “What are you doing home so early?”
“I always try to eat lunch at home when I can.” He changes his sneakers for his home flip-flops. “I’m only here for an hour.”
At the mention of lunch, my stomach growls like a grouchy dwarf.
Felix grins. “Yes, I’ll make something for you too.”
I’m back in my room. Back to sitting in a lotus pose.
I finally got to experience Headspace.
Now that I’m out of there, I can really appreciate how trippy that place was.
It also seems like I just had my first conscious vision. That, or I saw the most uneventful hallucination in the history of mental illness.
Untangling my legs, I get up. According to my phone, it’s lunch time.
Time to go plunder the fridge.
I’m walking toward the kitchen when it hits me.
If what happened was a prophecy, keys are about to jingle.
Keys indeed jingle, and the front door opens just as it’s supposed to.
Felix steps in.
“Hello there,” I say, deciding not to follow the script in the vision. “Home for lunch?”
“I always try to eat lunch at home when I can,” Felix says, just like he did in the vision.
This is interesting.
Even though my script changed, his did not. Probably because I saw the future and know how to fight it, but he doesn’t.
I wonder what this says about Felix’s free will.
He changes his sneakers for his home flip-flops just as before.
“I’m only here for an hour,” I say in my best imitation of Felix’s voice. “That’s what you were about to say, wasn’t it?”
“Good guess,” Felix says, but he looks a little spooked.
“Not a guess.” My stomach growls just as loudly as it did in my vision.
Felix grins. “Why don’t you explain it while I make us some lunch?”
“Explain what?” says Fluffster’s voice in my head.
“You woke up?” I look at the furry domovoi.
He sleepily bobs his little head.
I bend down and pick him up. “Come, I’ll explain what happened.”
I make my way into the kitchen and place Fluffster on the table.
As Felix makes a large omelet, I tell them all about my meditation efforts and today’s Headspace experience.
“Are you sure you didn’t take any LSD today?” Felix drops three slices of cheese into the skillet. “Or Mescaline or DMT—”
“I’m sure.” I scratch behind Fluffster’s ears. “No drugs today.”
“I’m jealous.” Felix folds the omelet in half so that the cheese ends up melty in the middle. “I’d love to see those shapes and have synesthesia or whatever it was you had.”
“Hold on,” I say and run into my room.
I grab my laptop, put it next to Fluffster on the kitchen table, and search the work of M.C. Escher.
“Here.” I bring up a lithograph called Belvedere. “This might give you a feel for the shapes, at least.” I point at the man holding an impossible cube.
“That hurts my brain.” Fluffster rubs his whiskers with his little paws. “How could you even draw that, let alone make it?”
“You can’t make it,” I say. “At least, not in the real world. You can make something that would look like that from some angles, but that’s about it.”
“Oh, I love Escher’s work,” Felix says over his shoulder.
I nod sagely. As a magician, I love visual illusions of any kind, and Escher was one of the true masters of deception. I don’t mention any of this, though, because that might make them realize I use some of these visual illusion principles in my effects.
Felix brings the skillet over to the table, placing it in the middle. “Have you seen his Ascending and Descending?” he asks. “It has those endless stairs that also show up in Inception. His Relativity painting was featured in one of the Night at the Museum sequels, and in Labyrinth.”
Instead of answering, I pull up the paintings in question for Fluffster. His beady eyes boggle at the strange gravity in Relativity and then follow the figures who trudge stairs in the never-ending square stairwell in Ascending and Descending until he looks away and mentally says, “That made me dizzy.”
“I didn’t see something this cool in Headspace.” I get Felix and myself big plates, and a tea saucer with oats for Fluffster.
“Yeah.” Felix plops a big chunk of omelet on his plate. “Speaking of Christopher Nolan’s films, did Headspace remind you of what happened at the end of Interstellar?”
“Going through a wormhole?” I grab myself some food. “Maybe when I touched the shape and swirled into the vision.”
“No, I mean the part where Matthew McConaughey was inside the black hole,” Felix says. “He was supposed to be outside of four-dimensional space and was able to see into and influence the past.” He looks at Fluffster and adds, “Spoiler alert.”
“Perhaps it was similar in spirit,” I say thoughtfully. “I, too, felt like I was outside reality. The difference is that I had no body in Headspace. But now that you mention it, I guess each of those shapes was a bit like the black hole structure he was in.”
Felix chews excitedly, swallows, and says, “Yeah. Maybe each of the shapes you saw corresponds to a vision of a place and time. Maybe similar shapes are similar locations at different times. Maybe the smaller shapes are shorter time intervals—which is why they’re made up of bigger shapes and vice versa. Milliseconds make up seconds, and seconds make up minutes and so on—”
“Maybe.” I mindlessly poke at my food, my hunger gone. “Also, maybe the foreboding music wasn’t something I should’ve avoided. I chose a calm shape, and I saw a boring vision of you arriving home. Maybe the scary ones are of danger to my life—and that’s what I would want to see in a vision, so I could prevent it in the real world.”
“Your Headspace reminds me of some kind of user interface,” Felix says. “The shapes are like icons you need to click; the visions are a sort of virtual reality. I bet being a seer is about how many icons you have access to and how good you get at operating the strange UI.” He grins in excitement. “This is further proof for my simulation theory. Maybe Headspace is outside our simulated world—which is why you couldn’t comprehend it with your normal senses. I bet that’s how seers are able to—”
Fluffster yawns in my head—and judging by Felix’s expression, the domovoi did so in his, too.
“Can we talk about something more important?” Fluffster pushes his half-finished saucer to the side. “Ariel didn’t sleep at home again.”
Felix and I exchange guilty looks.
“She was even more hyper the last time I saw her,” Felix says. “But I’m not sure what we can do.”
“Maybe I could talk to Vlad and Rose,” I say contemplatively. “Learn more about vampire relationships?”
“That’s a great idea.” Felix stuffs the remainder of his omelet into his mouth.
“I’ll stop by Rose’s apartment right after this,” I say.
“And I have to run back to work.” Felix pushes his plate away.
“You go, and I’ll clean up,” I say. “Just leave me another FELLATIO gizmo before you go.”
Felix looks extremely uncomfortable. “We still don’t know his password.�
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“You’re supposed to be working on that.” I grab his plate and stick it in the dishwasher.
“Well.” He gets up. “I’m no closer to it than I was before.”
“I won’t go face Nero again any time soon,” I say, suppressing the rabid butterflies that accompany the thought of getting within put-pocketing distance of Nero. “You have time to figure it out.”
“You should try using your powers to determine the password,” Felix tells me. “Try getting a vision of what would happen if I tried ‘apple’ as a password, then try ‘app1e,’ then ‘app13,’ and so on, a bit like what I do when I guess the password by brute force. Only you’d be doing this in Headspace, with no danger of discovery.”
“I have no idea how to bring about a vision so specific.” I put away my own plate. “Also, even if I could, it takes a long meditation to bring about a vision. Guessing the password like that would take forever.”
Felix sighs. “Can you at least look into the future and make sure I’m alive after we try this hack again?”
“That might be easier.” I put the skillet into the dishwasher next. “I’ll give that a try.”
“Great,” he says and walks out of the kitchen.
I continue tidying until Felix comes back, holding another FELLATIO gizmo. “I activated it already.” He hands the device to me.
I take it to my room and hide it inside a deck of cards like the last time.
“See you later,” Felix yells from the hallway, and I hear the door slam shut.
I return to the kitchen and keep cleaning.
When the counter is spotless, I decide to go talk to Rose about vamp relationships.
She greets me excitedly. Before I get a chance to utter a single word, I’m forced to park my butt on her living room couch and accept a cup of tea.
Lucifur uses this as a chance to honor me with a rub against my legs.
“This is about Ariel,” I say when Rose takes her seat in a stuffed chair across from me.
I explain about my roommate’s “friendship” with Gaius. As I speak, Rose’s expression darkens. Whatever she knows about this, I have a feeling I won’t like it.
When I finish, Rose says, “I can’t talk about this without Vlad being here.” She bites her lip. “I swore I wouldn’t, you see, and I don’t want to break an oath to—”
“That’s fine.” I smile at her. “I can come back and talk to Vlad when he’s here.”
“He’s rarely here during the day. And I don’t think you should come here at night.” Rose reddens.
“Say no more.” My face must be as red as hers. “Just tell me when he’ll be here during the day, and I’ll swing by.” I pull up the calendar app in my phone.
Rose gives me a couple of days and times when Vlad should be there, and I record them all.
Next, I share my Headspace adventures with her. By the end of my explanation, Rose looks as proud as my parents did when I finished college.
“That’s excellent progress,” she says. “You should go practice your powers some more. I know I would if I were in your shoes.”
She’s right, so I gulp down my tea, step over her cat, and make my way back to my apartment.
“Can I watch?” Fluffster asks after I get into my meditation pose once more.
“Sure,” I say, closing my eyes.
I sit there, breathing for a while, but nothing happens.
Ariel’s situation keeps popping into my head, as does my joblessness and the Baba Yaga phone calls.
Do I need to go to the gym and do yoga every time I want to get into Headspace? That would be great for my body, but not very practical in terms of actually using my powers.
“My mind wanders too much,” I explain to Fluffster in another few minutes, after I officially give up and stand up to stretch my legs.
“Why don’t you watch some YouTube?” Fluffster suggests. “That’s what I do when I need to unwind.”
I picture him watching cat videos and grin.
Making my way to the living room couch, I turn on the TV and put on Pen and Teller’s Fool Us. On this program, two famous magicians provide up-and-coming illusionists with a chance to trick them, for a shot at a Vegas performance.
After a couple of episodes, I realize I’m as good as the hosts at figuring out how the effects are done.
Several more episodes later, I have a hypothetical plan for how I’d fool them if I had the chance. Of course, the pleasure of doing so is not worth getting killed by the Council.
Eventually, Felix comes home and we have dinner, after which he hides in his room, leaving me in possession of the living room TV.
I watch some more, then realize I never got back to meditation. Now it’s too late. Yawning, I head to bed, painfully aware that Ariel is still not home.
Taking out my phone, I text her, I miss you.
Then, remembering that I got a new phone, I add, This is Sasha. I got a new number.
I wait for a reply until my eyelids grow heavy, then give up and go to sleep.
The next day, Felix feeds me breakfast again, then leaves for work.
When I check my phone afterward, I notice that Ariel texted me back at three in the morning.
Hey, Sasha. Sorry I’ve been so busy lately. We’ll have to do something soon.
I consider a few replies and settle on:
Sure. I’m now free whenever.
She doesn’t respond right away, so I get on my computer.
It’s time to figure out how far Nero’s influence extends.
I navigate to the Federal Reserve home page and look at their job listings. A few positions vaguely match my skills and experience, so I apply to them. If Nero is able to manipulate these people, I’d be very impressed.
Next, I apply to a bunch of government jobs, and a few listings outside New York state—not that I’d take them, but just to see if Nero’s reach goes that far.
Then I apply to some completely silly postings. The Cirque du Soleil needs a contortionist, so why not? An upstate laboratory needs a snake milker—sure thing, I apply to that too. Having worked in the finance industry, I feel like I’m qualified to extract venom from poisonous snakes.
Tired of job searching, I decide to practice meditation and tell Fluffster he can watch me if he still wants—and he does.
I sit in the lotus pose, close my eyes, and breathe mindfully.
My palms start to get warm.
I focus harder, less worried about lightning hitting my eyes this time.
My phone rings.
The wave of anxiety isn’t as strong as before, but I’m definitely startled out of my meditative state.
The number isn’t private, but it isn’t familiar either, so I don’t pick up.
“Could this be Baba Yaga again?” Fluffster asks—clearly disappointed he didn’t see the lightning forming on my hands. “If so, how did she get your new number?”
“I have no idea.” I take my phone, navigate to the app store, and install the number-revealing app again—in case I somehow get a private call later. “One thing’s for sure: further meditation would be an exercise in futility.”
“You should relax, then try it again,” Fluffster says and snuggles up to me.
“Petting you will not cut it, I’m afraid.” I scratch under his chin, then get up and start changing my clothes. “I’m going to go to the gym and swing by a yoga class, and then try meditating after that.”
Fluffster approves my plan, so I make my way to the gym.
After I work out with weights, I stumble onto a kickboxing class and take it. Self-defense can come in handy with my unfortunate new lifestyle.
Muscles aching, I take the nearly empty yoga class next. It feels great to stretch after the earlier workout. Afterward, I reward myself with a visit to the steam room and a dip in the hot tub, and then have a nice healthy lunch in the gym’s cafeteria.
There’s a bounce in my step on the way home, and I’m certain I’ll be able to get into Headspace
without a hitch.
Opening the door, I hear some noises in the kitchen.
Given what Fluffster can do to an intruder, I know this has to be one of my roommates, so I call out a hello.
“Sasha,” Ariel shouts excitedly from the kitchen. “Is that you?”
“Yeah.” I hurry into the kitchen.
“There you are.” She lowers her sandwich and beams at me. “I’m glad we have a couple of minutes to talk before I have to run.”
I examine her perfect features.
She looks great. Even better than usual. She could easily be on a cover of a fashion magazine.
Is this some kind of love-glow?
Are we worrying over nothing?
Munching on her sandwich, Ariel peppers me with questions about my latest and greatest. I bring her up to speed on everything as she finishes her lunch.
“I’m so jealous,” she says, brushing the crumbs off her palms. “I want to go to the gym too. If you’d taken my call earlier, we could’ve gone together.”
“You called me?” I take out my phone and look through missed calls.
All I see is that unknown number.
“I called from someone else’s cell phone,” Ariel explains, taking out her phone. “Mine ran out of juice.”
“Is that someone else Gaius?”
“Maybe.” She smiles mischievously. “Hey, can you do me a favor and delete his number from your phone? He’d be upset if he knew I just gave it to you without asking him first.”
“Sure,” I say and delete the missed call.
“Thanks.” She walks to her room, and I follow.
Once inside, she puts her phone on the charger and opens her closet. Pulling out a pair of jeans and a T-shirt, she begins to undress.
“We can go to the gym tomorrow,” I say, surreptitiously examining her body for any signs of bites.
To my relief, I find none.
“That’s a great idea.” She shimmies into her jeans with the grace of a ballerina. “And maybe we can stop by the gun range and get you a new gun on the way.”