“That help?” Stan asked, smiling.
“Thanks,” Patty said.
“So how do you know where Helen is at here?” I asked Stan.
“We have a connection when we are close in distance,” Stan said. “I’ve kind of ignored it for years, but it’s still there.”
“A connection?” Patty asked.
Stan nodded, turning to stare out over the beautiful and very alien city around us. “We were married once.”
I just stared at my boss like he had become an alien.
Stan had been married to Lady Luck’s daughter. That must have been some divorce.
“Can you jump us to her?” Patty asked, since I hadn’t said anything.
He nodded and a moment later we were standing in the snow in what looked like a garden surrounded by stone walls. A brown stone patio filled the center of the garden and in the background was a single-story home with warm orange lights coming from the windows.
The most stunning, redheaded woman I had ever seen was smiling at us.
She wore a white dress that looked more like a thin nightgown. It sort of drifted around her frame and blew in the wind. She had to be cold since I was pretty certain I was seeing through most of that dress or nightgown or whatever it was.
She moved barefooted in the snow across the stone of the patio toward us, her bright red hair blowing in the wind.
All of us stood frozen as she approached and kissed Stan in such a way that most of the snow in the garden area must have melted.
Then she broke the kiss and said, “Wonderful to see you again, my husband.”
“Ex-husband,” Stan said.
She ignored him and extended her hand to me. “I’m Helen. You must be Poker Boy.”
I’m not sure if it was the thin blowing white dress around the naked body in the snow, or her radiant smile, but something caused me to pause before extending my hand as well. “Nice to meet you.”
Then Helen turned to Patty. “The famous Patty Ledgerwood, I presume.”
“An honor,” Patty said, shaking Helen’s hand.
Then Helen turned to Screamer and nodded and said nothing.
“Nice seeing you again as well, Sheila,” Screamer said, smiling.
I managed to take my eyes off of Helen long enough to look at Screamer with a puzzled look. Clearly he had met her before, only she had called herself Sheila to him.
Wow, did I have a lot of questions when we got out of here.
The woman in the thin, white blowing dress seemed like no Sheila I had ever met.
Screamer just kept his eyes on Helen, and she shrugged and smiled at him.
The next moment we all were inside in a warm living room with a crackling fire in a huge stone fireplace. Helen now had on regular jeans and a flannel shirt and her hair was pulled back. It didn’t decrease her beauty in any respect. But it sure made her seem far more human.
Outside in the snow, she had been a goddess. Now she seemed almost normal, if that was possible.
I pretty much doubted it.
The room around us reminded me of a mountain lodge, with warm-brown logs as walls and high ceilings with log rafters. Tan overstuffed couches and chairs surrounded the fireplace and a couple of scarred coffee tables filled the center area.
The air had a faint smoke smell from the burning logs and every so often the fire would pop or crackle.
Thick, dark-brown carpet covered all of the floor except a stone area in front of the fireplace. The carpet added to the feeling of warmth in the room.
I could spend a lot of time in a place like this, especially if it was snowing outside.
“Nice entrance,” Stan said to her as he pulled off his parka and dropped down onto a couch.
“You know I always play the part, dear husband,” Helen said, laughing. “Thought I was going to freeze off a part or two for a moment there.”
“Ex-husband,” Stan said more to himself.
“It was a show all right,” Screamer said, taking off his parka as well.
“I thought it impressive,” Patty said as we both took off our coats and sat on a couch facing Stan.
“Thank you,” Helen said, nodding to Patty.
Screamer moved to a chair near the fireplace and Helen sat alone in a large, overstuffed chair facing all of us.
“So did you find what you came for?” Stan asked Helen, his voice clearly telling me he wasn’t into any idle chatting, even though I had about a thousand questions I would have loved to have answered at that moment.
Helen smiled and her eyes lit up like a child’s eyes with a new toy. “And what do you think I came for?”
“One of the keys of Janus,” Stan said.
She laughed, a perfect laugh that might draw someone from across a room. “I did. I had researched it well and knew exactly where it was hidden. I found it within twenty minutes of arriving here.”
“And how did you plan on getting back with it?” Screamer asked, also clearly not interested in just having a social visit.
She turned to me, then glanced at Stan. “I knew Mother and Dad would send a rescue party. And I knew it would be you and Poker Boy and his team. And I knew Poker Boy knew the Silicon Suckers and would bargain with them to open the exit, since I am pretty sure the exit has to go into their territory.”
She turned to me. “You did that, didn’t you?”
“I did,” I said, stunned that she had played us like I played a sucker at a poker table.
“Great,” she said, clapping her hands together. “Then let’s get out of here before the Titans discover some of the gods are among them. I have a hunch they won’t like that much.”
“Do you know where the exit is at?” I asked.
Helen looked at me like I now had two heads. “No. Don’t you?”
I shook my head. “The Silicon Suckers just promised me it would be open with a tunnel to the surface. They never showed me where it was.”
She turned to Stan.
“Sorry,” he said.
She looked at Screamer.
“We didn’t even know this city was here,” he said. “We thought we were going into ancient ruins to look for you.”
“Oh, no,” Helen said, slumping in her chair and covering her face with her hands.
I glanced at Patty, then back at Helen, the Queen of Hearts.
Looks like there was one little detail the Queen of Hearts hadn’t figured out in her little scheme.
A very important one.
EIGHT
Actually, what she hadn’t been thinking about, I had, from the very first moment I learned that Laverne wanted us to go down into the “tunnels” as this city was called by those who had never been here.
I wondered what people who lived in this beautiful place actually called it. And exactly where it was in reality. It certainly wasn’t under Las Vegas.
“Okay, a couple of questions,” I said to the group sitting silently around the fire. “Where exactly is this city in time and space? And what the heck is it called?”
Stan shrugged and looked at Helen.
“The city’s name is Elysium,” she said without looking up. “It exists in a time in the distant future from what I understand.”
Patty coughed, glanced at me, then asked, “Elysium, like in Elysium Fields, like in a form of heaven?”
Helen shrugged. “All myth and rumors of this place. But it is actually a pretty nice city from what I have seen of it.”
“Great, just great,” Screamer said. “We haven’t died and we’re stuck in heaven.”
I didn’t know what to think about her answer. Something was nagging at me, but darned if I could figure it out. Something about this city being in the far future, yet we had come into it in our time, and it seemed to have a protected area in our time as well, under Las Vegas.
Maybe it really was a city inside a giant snow globe buried under Las Vegas.
Again I tried to clear my mind of that stupid thought.
I needed to ask an
other hundred or more questions, but like everything with this rescue mission so far, most of the questions were going to have to wait until after we got out of here.
If we got out of here.
So I picked the one question that bothered me the most.
“So when we came through the door, we stepped into the future?”
“I believe we did,” Helen said, then sighed and slumped in the chair like a kid not getting her way.
The future. That was the key. I had an idea. It wasn’t much of one, but it was all I had at the moment.
I stood and started to put my parka back on over my black leather coat. “Stan, could you jump us back to the balcony we came in on?”
He looked at me with that studying look that only the God of Poker could give a person, then nodded and stood and put on his coat as well.
Screamer shrugged and did the same and so did Patty.
“I’ll be right here when you get back,” Helen said. “I’m still chilled from my last little adventure out there.”
Stan just shook his head and a moment later we were standing on the balcony looking through the snow and out over the beautiful city below.
The cold air hit my face with a bite, but actually it felt good and cleared my thoughts even more. The wind swirled the light snow through the buildings and now there seemed to be very few people on the streets below. Whatever the local time was, it must be getting late.
Back in Vegas it wasn’t even dinnertime yet.
Patty took my hand and I could feel her calming influence push through me.
I looked at the blank wall behind me where the door from Las Vegas into this city had been.
“So what are you thinking, Poker Boy?” Screamer asked.
I pointed at where the door had been. “We came in level to Freemont Street in downtown Vegas. Right?”
Everyone nodded, so I turned and pointed down. “We have to be a good thirty stories above the street level here. And we know the exit is underground and against the Silicon Sucker’s territory.”
“So more than likely it’s down on the main city level somewhere,” Screamer said. “That’s a lot of area to look for a door that is more than likely very hidden.”
“I agree,” I said.
I turned to my boss. “Stan, is it possible in our vision or in our minds, whatever, to overlay a view of Las Vegas from our time over this city? Same scale and everything?”
He looked at me and actually frowned. “We would need to be connected.”
“Screamer?”
He nodded and I indicated everyone should step to the metal railing of the balcony and face out over the city. Screamer stood between me and Stan and Patty had my hand on the other side.
Screamer’s main power was the ability to hook up thoughts, to see what others were seeing with a touch.
He touched my hand and suddenly he and I and Patty were all together again in my head. We had done this so many times over the last few years, I sometimes wondered if them being in my mind wasn’t more comfortable than when they weren’t there.
I like it too, Patty thought at me.
Me, not so much, Screamer thought back.
Then Screamer touched Stan and brought the God of Poker into the mix. And instantly a map of Las Vegas formed in my vision. Actually, more than a map, an image of the city as if we were in the air over the downtown area where we had gone through the door.
Rotate it so that the Strip is running along that big boulevard below, I thought to Stan.
He did, and suddenly the two main roads overlaid almost perfectly, only the one in this city kept going out into the distance, right through where the airport had been in our time.
This is a future Las Vegas, Screamer thought, clearly stunned.
“Stan, take us north, keeping the cities lined up, along our Highway 95 where the Silicon Suckers home castle is.”
Suddenly we were no longer on the balcony, but instead flying through the snow with an image of Vegas below us overlapping the streets and boulevards of Elysium.
It was even colder up in the air like this. My face and hands were going to take some warming time when this was over. I just hoped my nose didn’t freeze off.
I’d still love you anyway, Patty thought.
Knock it off you two, Screamer thought.
Stan took us north slowly until finally I indicated he should stop.
We were right over the edge of the Silicon Sucker’s boundary. And clearly they still lived there, since there was nothing but huge mounds of sand and empty spaces over their Territory. The mounds of sand towered into the air over the edge of the new city.
The Silicon Suckers still exist, Patty thought, feeling as stunned as I felt.
I pointed to a wooden shack that had been built against the huge mound of sand. It looked very, very old and weathered. And sand covered the back half of the building. And on the front, facing the city, was a closed wooden door.
Is that the door home? Screamer asked in a thought that felt excited.
I could sense Patty was excited as well.
It might be, I thought back. It would have been a long ways underground in our time. Stan, take us along the edge of the Silicon Sucker’s territory to the west and then back to the east.
We spent the next five cold minutes drifting through the air, the map of our time imposed over the city below. Then we ended up back over the old shack half buried in the sand.
We had found nothing else touching the Silicon Sucker’s territory.
Looks like we might have found our door out, I thought to the others.
Part of me wanted to shout for joy.
And part of me was scared to death that we were wrong.
NINE
An instant later we were back in the warm room with Helen and the wonderful crackling fire.
Screamer dropped his grip on my arm and I was again alone inside my head.
“Any luck?” Helen asked.
“Maybe,” Stan said to her. “Get on a coat and gather your things.”
She jumped to her feet like an excited child and vanished.
Patty and I moved over in front of the crackling fire, holding our hands closer to the flames in a sad attempt to warm them.
In less than fifteen seconds Helen was back, bundled in a heavy coat with a bag over her shoulder. With a wave of her hand, the fire went out, the lights in the place dimmed, and white sheets covered the furniture.
“Planning on returning?” Screamer asked.
“You never know,” Helen said.
An instant later Stan had us standing in the desert in front of the old shack. The wind was blowing harder here and the snow felt like small grains of sand against my cheeks.
Up close the door looked very similar to the one we had come through on the way in. Same rough metal handle with strange inscriptions, same old wood. That made me feel a little more hopeful.
I turned to face everyone and held up my hand for attention. Then shouting over the wind I said, “If this is our door out and we end up in the Silicon Suckers’ tunnels on the other side, it is critical we say nothing and calmly walk to the surface.”
I looked directly at Helen and she looked back, very puzzled.
She then started to say something and Stan held up his hand. “If you can’t agree to Poker Boy’s instructions, you stay here.”
“And how can you make me do that?” Helen demanded, her eyes blazing as she turned to face her ex-husband.
She was so angry, I had no doubt that the snow wasn’t getting near her. I know I wanted to step back, but I didn’t.
Stan just kept his poker face and said calmly, “We will go through first and make sure the Silicon Suckers never open the exit again.”
“You would do that to me?”
“I would,” Stan said. “And I am sure your parents, once they know you are alive and living just fine, would agree with me.”
She started to say something and then closed her mouth. She turned her back on S
tan, staring at the wooden door in front of her. Her face was bright red, almost matching her hair blowing in the wind.
“It is critical we say nothing and walk to the surface,” I said again, looking directly at her and keeping my voice as even as I can. “Please? The Silicon Suckers have opened this tunnel for us. The least we can do is honor their customs in their land.”
Finally, she took a deep breath and nodded.
I glanced past her at Stan and he nodded. I had a hunch he was going to make sure she followed the instructions. I didn’t want to think of dealing with the Silicon Suckers again if he couldn’t keep her under control.
I took a couple steps through the sand and pulled on the door. It didn’t move.
Stan stepped up and made a motion and then pulled the door open, scraping back sand as he did.
A dark concrete tunnel led into the mound of sand inside the small shack and again Patty snapped on her flashlight and I led the way, holding her hand.
Screamer followed us, then Helen, and Stan came in last, pulling the outside door closed behind us.
We walked silently for about thirty paces and then around a corner to face another door.
I indicated everyone keep quiet with a finger against my lips, then I pushed the door open.
Beyond the door was a sand tunnel that I knew was dug by the Silicon Suckers. It had the same light that seemed to come from everywhere and the same scraping marks on the walls.
But the question was had we gone back in time or were we just walking inside a Silicon Suckers’ tunnel in the future without invite?
Patty instantly snapped off her flashlight and put it away.
I led the way up the steep slope of the tunnel, only glancing back to make sure Helen was still with us and that Stan had closed the door.
There were no side tunnels at all.
The climb had to be the longest in my life. But actually it took us less than ten minutes until the tunnel leveled and I walked out into the evening light and warmth of the desert outside of Las Vegas.
A bright red Ford pickup truck sped past on Highway 95.
As Patty stepped into the evening sun, Laverne and Benny appeared, both looking happy and angry at the same time. I didn’t want to think about what this family meeting was going to be like.
Smith's Monthly #18 Page 4