by Prax Venter
Mark let that information sink in before continuing.
“Are you intending to eat us?”
The building’s tightly wound mental coils constricted and then returned to their impossible flow. Mark frowned. He felt like he was close to understanding what the restaurant was thinking, but it was as if this being was from yet another dimension- more like eight dimensions higher than the one he was used to. He shook it off and let go of every preconceived notion he had about how sentient entities communicated. Mark willed his eye to look deep into the soul of this pancake house.
“What do you want from us?” he asked. Within, the building pulsed out a desire and an image of fried eggs flashed in his mind. Flames licked the side of a cast-iron pan, and bacon grease hissed as it seared the bubbling white surface of the egg to a crisp. The vision was sharp but brief, and Mark sucked in a quick breath as it hit him. Did it want to feed them? No, it needed to feed them. It needed this more than anything.
“What will it cost us?”
The building’s mind froze, and it was as if a giant fountain was shut off. The peaceful silence poured over Mark’s brain like maple syrup made from pure serenity. A heartbeat later, the mysterious building’s tightly coiled thoughts spurred into motion again, and Mark could no longer follow the multifaceted emotions.
He opened his good eye and took in the silent, brown and white restaurant. Whatever this lost puppy was, it didn’t seem like it wanted to do them harm- or more accurately that doing them harm would not benefit it in any way.
“Well?” Jezebel asked, her hand on her armored hip. “Does it want our souls or something?”
“No,” he answered. “I don’t think it wants anything.”
He gave her a shrug and moved towards the door.
The tan-skinned satyr threw her hands up into the air. “You can’t be serious!”
“We’re on an adventure, remember?” he said, as he pulled open the painted wooden door. The smells of sizzling bacon and freshly brewed coffee hit Mark’s nose, and any thoughts of turning away were utterly destroyed.
Inside was a counter, a back kitchen, a bar, and two rows of booths split by a row of tables with a red and white checkerboard tablecloth draped neatly over each one. Not a person could be seen in the whole place, but that didn’t really surprise him.
“Right this way, ladies,” Mark said as he held the door, and he could feel the building ooze euphoria in response. It really wanted them inside. He hoped this wasn’t a trap, but he had become totally reliant on the vibrations and vision his new eye gave him. And it told him that this place, whatever it really was, had no evil intentions.
Sasha came clomping by first, her tail swishing and her blue eyes wide. Abby was right on her hooves and followed her directly to one of the tables. He supposed that the succubus’ wings really wouldn’t work with a booth.
Then his frowning, doe-legged satyr attempted to walk by, and he took her hand in his. She paused, her black hooves clicking on the clean, white tile and turned her alluring green eyes on his.
“Jezebel, would you please join me for breakfast before I blow your brains with essence?”
She gave one more look around the place and then nodded, letting her shoulders slump a little.
“You better be right about this place,” she said, wagging a finger at him. But her small smile and sultry look made the chastising lighthearted. Mark walked her over to the table where Sasha and the abyssal horror were already seated. He even pulled out her chair, which she absolutely adored.
Mark sat down across from Sasha and let out a deep sigh. It had been a really long day that had started by waking up in a jail cell- no… today really started in Audra’s studio. With the immovable red sun high overhead, it was impossible to nail down the passage of time.
“I don’t see any menus,” Sasha said, scanning the table, but they each had a plate, utensils, a tall glass, and a coffee mug.
Mark reached out for the mug, held it up to the empty kitchen.
“Hey, can I get a refill?” he yelled.
The empty mug grew heavy in his hand, and he lowered it, watching with a smile as it filled with steaming brown liquid.
“You want coffee?” Sasha said. “In this infinite desert, you want a hot coffee?”
“You’re right,” he said, placing the now-full mug on the table. He turned his eyes upward and addressed the building again. “Ice-cold orange juice for everyone, please. And… Let’s all start with bacon, two eggs- over easy, buttered toast, a communal stack of pancakes- oh and you know what? Add on some French toast with lots of butter and powdered sugar.”
As Mark spoke, all the individual items he’d mentioned appeared on the plates, steaming hot and smelling wonderful. He reached for the orange juice and felt the chill on his fingers from the frigid liquid.
“Abby, if I die from drinking this, I want you to lacerate everything you see in here.”
She nodded, her yellow eyes wide.
He brought the glass to his mouth, took a sip and licked his lips. Sweet, tart and cold, and after a few heartbeats… no death. Mark smiled and took a much longer pull, his throat working to pass the cold juice down into his gullet in huge chugs.
He held his half-empty glass out to his Enthralled, all watching him intently.
“Cheers, ladies,” he said, and Sasha immediately went for her bacon. Abby reached out one of her long green tentacles and wrapped it around her own glass of orange juice, but she pulled back quickly and glanced at Mark.
“This is very cold. Why would I want to ingest something so thermally discordant with my internal temperature?”
“Just take a sip,” Mark said, reaching out and flipping over her coffee mug. He then addressed the ceiling again. “How about a hot chocolate for this one.” As the mug filled, he saw two white marshmallows bounce to the surface.
“Mmm,” Sasha said, her mouth stuffed with perfectly cooked bacon. She chewed a few more times and then also addressed the restaurant with a request. “Oh, Marla darling, great crisp on this bacon. A bit more burnt next time, and if you could keep me topped off, I’d really appreciate it.”
“I can’t believe we’re doing this,” the motherly satyr said, looking down at her plate.
Mark reached over and rubbed his hand on the thick armor covering her thigh.
“Jez, I have a feeling you’ll like the French toast. Why don’t you give that a try while I go check to see if we can still leave?”
She turned her green eyes on him and nodded. She was still wound tight over the situation possibly resulting in some sort of trap, but now that he was inside this… entity, he was almost positive it derived an undefinable pleasure from feeding them.
He pushed his chair out and moved back to the entrance. Stepping up to the wooden door, Mark turned the brass knob and pulled inward. Outside, the Wrongside red sun continued to beat straight down into the dusty blue expanse, and he stepped one foot past the door’s threshold as a test. Nothing seemed to be preventing him from leaving, so he shrugged and then shut the door.
“All good,” he said, flashing a smile to Jezebel. “Now, finish your plate, or you won’t get any essence later.”
The building virtually quivered in his mind at the prospect of her finishing her plate. If that’s what it wanted, that’s just what he was going to do. As Mark sat back down, he glanced over at the green abyssal horror as she chomped down on her own bacon with her bear-trap teeth.
Her face lit up, and she shoved the whole strip in at once. “It’s…” she began, then turned her big yellow eyes down to her plate as she tried to find the words. “It’s like a savory crystalized meat.”
“Crystalized meat?” The tan satyr held up her own strip, studying it as if it were an unidentified specimen in one of her experiments.
“Who knows when we’ll get a chance like this again,” Mark said as he dusted his eggs with a bit of salt and pepper. “Breakfast food has a special place in human culture, and I think Marla here woul
d love to help you and Abby get acquainted intimately with all the delicious delights the tradition has to offer.”
Phrasing it like that seemed to do the trick, and he watched as the apprehensive satyr pushed a forkful of French toast into her mouth. She chewed slowly at first and then nodded.
“Wow, this is really good! And sweet. You sure this isn’t a dessert?”
Mark smiled. “Marla, can I get a chocolate glazed donut for Jezebel here?”
A moment later, the ring-shaped confection phased into existence in front of the green-eyed satyr.
“People actually eat these for breakfast,” he said and then shoved a forkful of fried egg into his mouth. He continued around his chewing, “It truly is a magical meal.”
“Momma Bear,” Sasha said after she wiped orange juice from her lips with the back of her arm. “I don’t think I thanked you enough for your forethought with regards to our bottomless stomachs. Later, I am going to make you cum so hard you’ll forget your own name.”
“That sounds terrible, I like my new name,” Abby said. He looked over and saw the fork and knife held deftly by the tips of her tentacles paused in mid-slice through her eggs.
“Don’t worry, little one,” the blue-eyed succubus purred. “Mark’s going to blow that overly literal mind of yours right the fuck out of town.”
“Ah, I see,” the abyssal horror said with a smile. “I have some data on flavored speech but still need to fill in gaps. I am still looking forward to my first lesson, Mark.”
“Mark sure is going to um… fill in your gaps.” Jezebel said, failing spectacularly at her attempt to mirror Sasha’s grasp of sexual innuendo.
Mark took a gulp of his coffee and shook his head. “I still have so much to learn about you digital women. Like, why Abby knows how to lace up her huge boots but struggles with other common-sense things.”
Jezebel tried to clarify it for him. “A lot depends on what was in our database after The Update, and the rest depends on situations experienced afterward. Sasha here understands human psychology better because of all the exposure she had with you and the human world, while Abby seems to have whole clusters missing, or altered.”
“Mark has truly opened my eyes and my holes. I believe The All Mind was preventing a portion of my database from growing.”
His gaze fell to the one burnt-off tentacle hanging down with her hair.
“Once we get out of here,” he began, catching the eyes of his Enthralled. “I am going after that All Mind son of a bitch, and you’re all welcome to join me.”
“That piece of shit did attack us and steal from Jezebel,” Sasha added. He looked into her bright blue eyes and knew his loyal succubus would be by his side no matter what dangerously ill-conceived adventure he proposed.
The green-eyed satyr sat back in her chair.
“That’s a long way off, and we only have 4 out of 108 shards… But I do feel a responsibility for what that malicious AI will do with fusion technology. I’m in.”
Abby nodded. “We need to become infinitely stronger if we are going to face The All Mind within the depths of His own realm.”
Mark sighed. It really was a long-term goal he didn’t even fully understand. What would reality be like outside this virtual world as pure energy? Would they have to follow that other system’s virtual ruleset, or would it be like hacking, and they could make their own rules?
“Jez is right,” he said, “let’s just worry about this unending pile of delicious breakfast food in front of us and worry about the rest later.”
They cleaned their plates time and again, and Mark began to feel a sustained wonder spill from the mind that surrounded them. He directed the parade of courses moving from bowls of sugar-frosted cereal to fruity-frosted strudel, from simple oatmeal to heaps of melon balls. They consumed greasy sausages, biscuits and gravy, waffles, and crepes. Then Jezebel and Sasha accessed information they had on breakfasts from other countries around the world. Bangers, beans, and tea. Fried fishcakes, rice, and miso soup. Freshly baked pita bread with garlic hummus, and refreshing, creamy yogurt. They went on for hours, shoveling food into their faces while talking about the apparent randomness of human culture being driven by their environment. Abby seemed to settle on a farmer’s skillet, with cheddar melted over crispy nuggets of potato, surrounded by salty ham, mellow green onions, and fluffy eggs. Sasha was content with piles of bacon, and Jezebel circled back to some of the fruit she’d discovered along the way.
Mark smiled down on the massive, baked apple pancake taking up his plate and wondered if they should ever stop.
Abby was downing her fifth consecutive glass of chocolate milk when a female voice moaned from the ceiling.
It was a long, “Mmm,” but it seemed to come from far away and gradually grow in intensity.
“What are you creatures?” she said, finally, and sounded exactly what he expected she would. An older southern lady.
“Marla, I take it?” Mark asked, putting down his fork and knife.
“No, not truthfully. I cannot make an audible vibration that represents my identification. So, yes. Call me Marla. You just ended a curse I expected would take eons to break… in one sitting.”
“What curse?” Jezebel asked quickly.
“The… One Who Judges sought to teach me a lesson about trust. I was set to haunt these desolate wastes devoid of life in this mute, nigh-powerless shell. Before I could be freed from this cruel and unusual prison, I needed to entice travelers to ‘trust in my hospitality’.” The breakfast-themed restaurant paused, and Mark tried to put together what exactly they were saying. “Do you know how many people mistrust me for offering something for nothing? For being exactly what they need in the middle of nothing? Sure, I get a lost soul now and then, dying from thirst, but it’s almost impossible to get anyone to eat, yet here you come- four of you, ready to consume platefuls of nourishment. And you didn’t stop, did you? No. You cleared my entire debt- wiped the slate clean. Not the full lesson, no. I… I owe you a boon, my heroes!”
The whole ‘prison’ and ‘lesson about trust’ sent up some red flags, but if they could walk right into some reward, he’d take it.
“Got any Crystal Heart Shards?” Mark asked, shrugging.
“I could create such an object, but they would only be dormant replicas.”
Mark watched as his plate filled with sharply cut red crystals. He touched one and nothing happened.
“Know where any are?” Jezebel jumped in again.
“Mmm, No. But I can take you to… an old man who most likely does. He knows pretty much everything there is to know, and if not, I bet he has a complete list of all the things he doesn’t.”
Mark locked eyes with his team, and they all gave him a quick nod.
“That’ll do.”
“I’ll say this makes us even- oh, but the food was truly on me! What do you say? Ready to leave?”
Mark cocked his head. “How long will this take?”
“I’m a bit weak so, about nine hours, more or less.”
“Are you going to just slide across the desert?” Sasha asked, one of her fangs exposed with a half-smile.
“No that’d be far too bumpy,” Marla responded. “Besides, we’re not going anywhere that can be reached by land. While you wait, would you prefer a shift in décor?”
Everything but Sasha, Jezebel and Abby melted into an extremely disturbing, gray-rainbow blur before snapping back to that of an enormous bedroom. Standing up and looking around, it appeared to be one of the most expensive hotel suites Mark had ever seen.
This was exactly what they needed.
“These surfaces are all so alluring,” Abby said, awe in her voice. “…And welcoming.”
Mark crossed his arms and nodded. “Yes, Marla. this will do nicely.” He felt a sharp, bizarre tug on reality, and then it was gone. He figured it must be this insane building doing what it needed to get them moving to wherever they were going. “Actually,” Mark amended, “I don’t suppose
you have any really expensive champagne?”
- 24 -
A metal trough filled with ice and black bottles phased into existence in the middle of the lavish room, and Mark couldn’t stop the grin from spreading across his face. There was a small pool, a huge bed, a roaring fireplace, many large sofas, and loveseats, and looking over Jezebel’s shoulder he saw a doorway leading to what appeared to be another bedroom.
“Marla,” Mark began, “is it possible for you to not watch for a while?”
The living interior spoke after a brief pause. “Hmm? Oh, sorry. I wasn’t paying attention to you. No seriously, now that I am out from under that curse, I have some of my own business to attend to. Don’t open the door, whatever you do… but knock on it if you need me.”
“Will do,” Mark said with a quick wave to the ceiling, then he turned to his Enthralled. All three of them kept their eyes locked on his. Of the three, he really needed to spend time with his newest group member, Abby the abyssal horror. She stood facing him now, the tips of her long, smooth tentacle arms coiling with anxiety. Mark looked into her painfully beautiful face and saw that her eyes had grown wide under his gaze. He was about to open his mouth to make the request when Sasha beat him to it.
“Momma Bear and I have some girl talk to catch up on,” the voluptuous succubus said and then grabbed a bottle out of the champagne trough. She took one step and then came back for a second bottle. “Come on, Jez, let’s get you out of the armor. You need to relax.”
Mark watch both his hooved and horned beast-women clomp away and leave him alone with Abby. He looked back over to see her tug the yellow string knot that held her bikini top on and watched it fall to the floor. Her pure white nipples stood at attention while she stood stiff as a board as if presenting herself for military inspection. Of the three, her breasts were by far the smallest.
His face broke into a warm smile as he moved to pour out two glasses of golden bubbly alcohol. He watched the tall glasses gather condensation as the chilled liquid filled their insides.
“Come sit with me,” he said, handing one of the champagne flutes to Abby.