Evidently, the trolley was some form of minor god. Tran so had not seen the likes of it before. But the trolley was not the speaker he had heard earlier, the one with the child’s voice. There was someone else in the room. Human, or god? He wished he could see more than just a rectangle of the chamber below, wished he could see more of the girl —
“Freeze, sir.”
In that instant, with these two words, the mystery of the third voice, and of who — or what — owned it, was solved. And he comprehended, in that same instant, why the voice had sounded familiar. This time, it had not issued from beneath him. Before he looked up, across the grille, to the other side of the duct, he knew the voice belonged to a crawling god. Out of context, but unmistakable. Funny how his mind hadn’t made the connection earlier. Preoccupied with the girl, perhaps.
He lifted his face.
There were two of them. Identical to gods of loose ends and traffic infringements, squatting there, in the duct opposite, they watched him intently with their compound eyes.
“Hello,” he said.
“Who are you? What are you doing here?”
Deciding to tell the truth — or at least, the partial truth — Tran so Phengh said, “I am seeking answers to questions.”
“Questions? What questions?” The crawling god on the left scuttled closer so that one pointed leg, glittering in the light rising up from the sleeping chamber, rested on the brink of the grille. “To me, friend, you appear to be spying on my staff.”
“Your staff?” Again, Tran so Phengh looked down at the girl, whose face was upturned now, listening. His gaze fell into those eyes: beautiful and warm and brown.
When he reluctantly lifted his head again, to explain, the crawling gods had gone. Silently vanished. Squinting, he tried to locate the deities as they ran off down the dark tunnel —
There came a popping sound.
And the duct fell out from underneath him.
Tumbling once through the air, glancing off the softness of the bed, he crashed heavily onto the brown shag carpet. On his back, he lay in pain at the girl’s feet in a settling cloud of dust and pattering debris.
She smiled at him.
He groaned. After a moment, he moved his arms, his legs. As he lay there, trying to breathe, reassured that no bones were broken, that incredible face kept looking down at him. Smiling.
Crawling gods came across the floor toward him, from an open doorway. At least six of them. They held position in a semi-circle around him as he managed to sit up.
“You could have killed me,” Tran so wheezed, glancing toward the ceiling panel through which he had fallen: it swung, creaking, back and forth on its hinges. Another crawling god clung upside down to the tiled ceiling. As he watched, this deity vanished, moving swiftly into the hole and out of sight, dislodging detritus with its scrambling legs; something sharp landed painfully in Tran so’s left eye and he groaned once more.
“You are trespassing,” one of the crawling gods explained. “This area is for paid guests only. And staff, of course. But not just any staff. This is not a free-for-all. We run a tight ship here in the Department of Hospitality. Go tell your boss that.”
Tran so rubbed at his injured eye. “Hospitality? You don’t know the meaning of the word. And I don’t have a boss.”
“Renegade, eh? Well you are interrupting our new employee training. It sure seems you missed yours, in whatever third-rate department you skulked away from.”
“I am not a new employee,” the girl said, bemusement flickering across her face. She glanced coyly at Tran so. “There are no new employees, sir. I’ve been doing this job since I was born. I certainly don’t need training.”
Tran so got to his feet, brushing himself off. Crawling gods scuttled anxiously, as if he might bolt. His eye watered profusely. The same eye, he realized, the parasite had been in.
“I’d like to clarify something.” He looked at the girl. “I wasn’t spying.”
Shrugging, and tugging at the hose she carried, so that the little trolley squeaked closer to her leg, she said, “If you’ll excuse me, I have work to do.”
“My name is Tran so,” insisted Tran so.
“Sir,” the crawling god called up to him, “you’ll have to come with us.”
He could have kicked them all aside, like crabs, and run away, but what would be the point? He wanted to stay in this room. He wanted to talk to the girl, to learn her name, to touch her hands and feel her neck, hot against his lips. He might never see her again if he fled.
But the damned gods would not let him stay.
“Where will you take me?” he asked them.
“Anywhere but here. We’ll take you to our supervisor’s office. He’ll give you what for. And he’ll contact your boss.”
Tran so nodded. Most of what the little gods said made no sense, but the lake god had called itself a supervisor. If the supervisor of these lesser gods was a step further up their ladder of divinity, perhaps he had regained the trail he needed to be on. Mysterious ways, indeed. Would he get an audience with the god of all gods? Would he meet the network?
The girl, he saw, wore a nametag. Hello. My name is Sandra. Such a wonderful name. “Listen, Sandra, I can’t help but think we were meant to meet.”
The crawling gods actually laughed at his line. The girl, however, paid him no attention whatsoever. So he let his hand, which he’d held out, drop. He did not know what else to do. Should he actually touch her, hold her arm?
“Sir, please come with us.”
At a loss, he let himself be escorted from the room.
Underfoot, the gods crossed his path hither and thither. He glanced back surreptitiously; Sandra was not looking at him, as he’d hoped. His ego withered.
They escorted him down a long hall.
Love had been so difficult, over the past months, to retain for Minnie sue. Ravaged by disease, she no longer really existed, outside of memories. Was he expected to remain at his wife’s side the whole while she wasted away? When Minnie sue woke from her comatose sleeps, she called him atrocious names, hurt him in every conceivable way, screaming the Red Plague’s obscenities at him. How many times had he knelt by Minnie sue’s futon while she raved and cursed and spat at him?
They passed dozens of rooms. In most, busy women cleaned, dressed in black skirts with white aprons. None, of course, were as charming or as pretty as Sandra. But there sure were a lot of rooms. A lot of women.
And minor gods, too, dashing from doorway to doorway, giving out instructions as they went, barking out annoying orders, watching over the staff as Tran so was led past.
These hallways, like the sleeping chambers, were carpeted. A rich, decorative layer that altered tones of deep reds and burgundies covered the walls. Lights, mounted in the walls, set in sconces between each pair of doors, illuminated hemispheres of warm amber over the ruddy carpeting and over him as he followed the minor gods. It became apparent that the entire place was a series of similar halls and rooms. Difficult to find his way back to where Sandra worked. Nonetheless, he tried to memorize the layout.
But the vistas were confusing and the proximity of all these women distracting.
Secondary hallways led off, either side. These also were doorlined. Some doors open, some doors shut. More rooms, more women, more gods. He heard the various droning sounds of mingled voices and the laughter of people trying to deal with tedium, and an ambient humming overall. He thought about Sandra, her voice, her smile. He wondered what it would be like to fuck her, and he wondered what had happened to make him so obsessed. Had it been the spray? His heart pounded. He felt strong, alive; he had not felt like this in years.
“Who sleeps in all these rooms?” he demanded. “What are they for?” No response. “Why are all these women cleaning?”
Again, no answer.
At the end of this hall was a device about the same height as Tran so, a great block-shaped thing residing under a sign that said simply ICE. At first, he thought this block m
ight be a primitive yet inert god, but as he neared he could tell it had never possessed sentience.
Beyond was an opening, a wide doorway into a large room. Lined, on three walls, with plush couches. Tran so stopped at the threshold and the crawling gods bumped into his calves and scurried around his feet. There were pictures on the walls of this room, what looked to be lakes, and beaches, but these were so clean, reposed under blue ceilings set impossibly high, that he knew they were no location in this world.
Against the furthermost wall to his left ran an elongated counter behind which, waiting motionless — so he had not seen it at first — was a god on treads standing erect, almost exactly like a god of dispensing. Ludicrously, the deity was dressed in illfitting clothing. Tran so saw it blink, and knew it was activated; he immediately walked across the room. “Where is the network? I wish to speak to the network.”
The god stared at him with tiny, cold eyes. One of the crawling deities quickly mounted the counter and scurried between them. “You are addressing a fulltime clerk,” it said to Tran so. “This clerk is in need of repairs. Once again, you harass our staff. The supervisor is in the chamber beyond. Please cease all questions and do not leave our side again without clearance.”
Tran so Phengh noted the door that the crawling god had indicated: large, green, unassuming.
The clerk said, in slow, affected tones, “Welcome to the nostalgia suites. Do you wish a room for one week? For two? Are you single? Do you have a family?”
“A family?” Tran so stared.
“Yes. Are you a family man?”
With one sweep of his arm, Tran so knocked a small bell from the counter to the carpet, where it rang dully. “I stayed with my wife longer than most people would have,” he hissed. “And my son is dead. That is my family.” The rage was whirling inside him, eddying, ebbing. He felt tension in his limbs —
Yet bending, nonplussed, to consult an open logbook, the big clerk said, “Then I take it you will not be needing two beds?”
“Listen to me, you piece of — ”
The nearest crawling god jabbed at Tran so’s hand with one sharp foreleg; the pain was tremendous and Tran so’s knees buckled. Elbows out, splayed on the counter, he tried to support his sagging weight. He could not see clearly and his lungs laboured to fill.
“I told you this is no time to be insubordinate,” the crawling god said, as if from a distance, while the clerk bobbled its head and remained quiet. “We’ve let you walk about of your own free will. We’ve given you chances. It’s clear you don’t take this situation seriously. I know you don’t take us seriously. I know your type. Let me tell you, things are changing around here. Trust me, you don’t want to lose the privilege of mobility. I’m so fucking tired of you yahoos coming down here, on a lark, big fucking joke, take a job just so you can fuck guests or party. Mocking us who believe in the glorious vision of this place!”
Tingling with pain, and taken aback by the tiny god’s uncharacteristic rant, Tran so let himself be directed shakily around the counter to the green door of the supervisor’s office. He could hardly walk.
The door opened inwards before he had a chance to knock. Within the dimly lit chamber there appeared to be a human male, seated behind a desk, with his feet up. The man was looking at Tran so Phengh, a small smile on his face. His round eyes were glazed and unfocussed. He was older — greying and overweight — dressed in a hound’s-tooth suit just like the suit a dancer friend of Minnie sue’s had used to wear during her act.
Tran so was about to introduce himself when he saw that the grey skin on the paunchy face and on the large, veined hands was oddly smooth and worn, and that an introduction was probably ridiculous. In some places — such as both cheeks and part of the high forehead — an underlying, woven structure showed through the dermis that was clearly non-organic. Tran so was in the company of another god. Another malfunctioning god.
“Are you the leader of these crawling deities?” Tran so said. “The supervisor?”
The man-god twitched and the smile widened, just an increment. “Gods?” Its voice was rough and deep.
“Yes. Like yourself.”
“Me? A god? That’s rich.”
The eyes appeared humanlike, more human than any other god’s eyes. To stare at them and know this was no man was unsettling.
“Sorry, all of us here, we’re in the service industry. We’re here to serve. There’s no need to suck up. Please,” — this, with an uneven movement of the head, addressed to the tiny subordinates that crowded the doorway — “leave us be.”
The door shut quietly.
“They are creepy little spiders,” said the man-god, rumbling what must have been laughter. “That’s what they are!”
Now that the room was sealed, Tran so smelled the damp and mildew. Dim light came from a gooseneck lamp on the desk, which cast its greenish glow over the cream-coloured walls, the huge desktop, the crammed bookshelves. Over the god’s ample paunch. The features of its face were underlit dramatically.
“Take a seat.” Gesturing, with one of those plump, grey hands.
Tran so sat in a chair opposite. He was still reeling a little from whatever it was the crawling god had done to him. The chair creaked with his weight. There were pictures in golden frames on the desktop, turned so he could see them. The face of a homely woman; two homely children — boy and a girl. Tran so licked his lips. He would not say anything about the children or the ugly woman, though he was tempted; he would be cautious here.
“Call me Simon,” the god said.
All this time, those eyes, though intense, had not really seemed to focus on Tran so, who even waved a hand between the two of them in a vain attempt to illicit reaction. “My name is Tran so Phengh,” he said.
“And you’re looking for a transfer?”
“Excuse me? A transfer?” Settling into the chair, stretching his legs. “Uh, that’s right. I’m looking for a transfer.”
“Good, good,” Simon said. “What do you know about our particular contribution to this grand facility?”
“Facility? I don’t know what that word means, so I must say I know very little . . . Let me ask you a question. What do you know about dark gods — the giants who took me prisoner? What do you know about them? They attacked me at the bottom of Lake Seven as I talked to another supervisor, who was actually nothing like you, and then they apologized, and tried to attack me again. But I escaped.”
“Ah ha! Giants? A sports fan? Me too, but the little lady isn’t fond of me watching games. You know, chores to be done.” Now one eye closed and opened slowly in a grotesque wink. “Sit back, young man, sit back and let me explain a little history of the nostalgia suites, and why they’re such a popular destination with the guests.”
“All right. Fine. But tell me what you know about the women who work here. Namely Sandra. I want to meet her again.”
“Interesting.” Simon chuckled. “I like applicants who ask me questions. As I said earlier, don’t be shy, young man. My door is always open.”
“Presently,” Tran so said, “it is shut.” He leaned forward. Simon’s expression never changed. Was the strange deity blind? “I am married,” Tran so said, “but my wife is very ill. Meeting Sandra has rekindled me. I am on a quest. Now I’ve met her, for the first time in ages, I feel alive. Do you know what that’s like? I sincerely doubt it. And I’m not being unfaithful to my wife because the woman I loved died a long time ago . . . I don’t know why I’m telling you this. Maybe it makes no sense to you . . . What do you think? Can I meet her? Do you understand what I’m saying?” He swivelled in his chair to get more comfortable. Most of the pain had faded to a dull, almost pleasant ache.
Simon, meanwhile, had apparently suffered some kind of lapse. Smiling, staring at nothing with its striking, blind eyes, a great deal of time passed before the body twitched and responded: “An interesting feature — ” rumbling chuckles rose up and shook the ample belly “ — are the windows. Have you heard about t
hem? The first time I saw them I was blown away, I’ll tell you.”
“I know windows of time,” said Tran so Phengh. “Windows of opportunity. Windows to the soul.”
“Well, specifically,” continued Simon, as a shiver ran down its length like maybe it was coming awake from a bad dream, if gods dreamt, or urinating, if gods pissed. “Specifically, we at the nostalgia suites are seven hundred metres beneath the crust. Yet each room has a window, we call them — that’s patent pending — which can be activated, at will, to show dynamic, lifelike scenes, exactly as if the view were pumped in directly! There’s a wide range of landscapes to choose from. We have the usual, of course: windswept beach; quiet glade with the occasional deer; water — ”
Simon’s feet suddenly slid sideways off the desk and he crashed loudly to the floor. Standing, lurching upright, like a drunk, the man-god resumed talking in the same tones — perhaps a little louder — as if nothing unusual had occurred:
“We have Fenton and Bellona! Sau Trenton in winter! Dozens to choose from! Truly astounding, truly! Surveys have told us that windows are the thing people love best about nostalgia suites. Our guests spend more time watching them than they do interacting with grams or sitting in front of plasma. Maybe they hope to see their grandfather crossing a street, or themselves, maybe, in younger days. But I know what they’re really doing. They want to see if the images are on a loop! They can watch the windows for hours and never see the seam. The seam, my friend, doesn’t exist! It does not exist!”
Tran so, who had initially been a little alarmed by Simon’s movement and speech — wondering if he might be in danger of being assaulted — had relaxed once more. He said, “When I came in here and realized you were a broken god, my first thought was to rest for a while, and then, when I had a chance, smash you with something hard, maybe from behind, in the head. Now I’m not too sure why I wanted to do that. Vigor, I suppose. Hormones. But I think I can just walk out of here. You won’t even raise an alarm, will you? I am not a man of violence. I seem to be slipping these past days.”
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