Static Mayhem

by Edward Aubry

Jeannette escorted Alec back to the carpet of pansies. He walked on his own power, but moved slowly, as if exhausted. Harrison thought it was not much better than Alec was before, but at least he was not giving them all the heebie-jeebies.

  "Do We have any further business, young Captain?" the Queen asked. Harrison was about to say no, thank you very much, have a nice day, we'll be going now, but suddenly her words hit him. The power in her question, what she offered so freely, and with so little ceremony that the others had probably missed it, stunned him. He had almost missed it himself. His next words would likely be the most urgent and critical of his entire life (at least so far), and he had no clue what they should be. He wished he had rehearsed a response to universal, open-ended offers from omnipotent beings. He froze.

  Then he heard himself ask, "Do you really see everything?"

  The Queen responded with a silent gaze. It was not hostile, but it drew out, and its duration made him worry. Had he misread a boundary to unfortunate effect? Right around the time he was thinking, I can't stand it anymore, she spoke again. "Doctor," she said, still looking at Harrison. "Your patient looks as though he may be ready for that nap."

  This was true. Alec's eyelids had been alternating between drifting down and snapping up. Jeannette gave a professional nod. "Yes, Milady."

  The queen turned to her. "In the outer chamber, you will find some splendid couches, any of which should suit his needs elegantly."

  Jeannette nodded again. She was still propping Alec up, starting to steer him back the way they had come. "Thank you, Milady," she said.

  "Professor, get the door for them, will you?" said the queen.

  Hadley jumped. "Yes, Ma'am," he said, then immediately corrected himself. "Yes, Milady!" He was substantially less composed than Harrison would have expected him to be, but Harrison realized that this was first time he had really taken notice of Hadley since they had entered Faerie. They were all having trouble focusing, and Harrison had been unable to properly keep track of his people. Now that he was truly paying attention, he could see that Hadley was distraught. The man was perspiring in a room with a perfect climate. It was difficult to gauge, but the scientist also appeared to be trembling. Jake had suffered an adverse physical reaction to this environment, Harrison remembered, and now he began to wonder if Hadley was going through the same thing. With luck, they would at least make it outside before Hadley threw up. Harrison was not at all curious how the queen would react to someone vomiting in her audience chamber. He hoped it was simple nervousness. This really was not Hadley's world. He was no doubt longing for the security of his laboratory. Still, Harrison sensed that it might be something more serious. Well, he thought, Hadley would just have to ride it out.

  "Take the children with you," the queen continued. "They must surely be bored by now. My attendants will see to their entertainment."

  This seemed to be a strange command, and Harrison felt the first faint stirrings of suspicion. He heard the same thing in Jeannette's voice as she said, "Yes, Milady."

  The queen heard it as well. "They will not be taken from your sight," she said. Jeannette accepted her assurance and gestured for Claudia and Jake to follow her. They both seemed disoriented and were eager to go somewhere. Anywhere. "And Doctor," said the queen in a deliberate tone, Jeannette turned back, on guard. "See to it that none of you eat anything."

  It was an appreciated, and unexpected, reminder. "Yes, Milady," said Jeannette. "Thank you."

  Five humans walked the path of pansies back to the elaborate, living door. Apryl started to follow, then stopped. She had not been included in the list of people being removed from the room, unless Titania thought of her as a child. That was possible, Harrison supposed, but unlikely. He could tell that she was torn. She probably wanted to go out and safeguard Jake and Claudia, but she did not dare offend the queen by leaving without being formally dismissed. Harrison saw her catch Glimmer's eye and pointed to her chest, and, as subtlety as she could, lift her shoulders. Glimmer shrugged back, without the subtlety. Apryl looked over her shoulder. The others had made it to the door and were exiting. If she were supposed to go, she was missing her window. If she were supposed to stay, she shouldn't move.

  "Abril," said Titania. Apryl turned to her with a start. The queen offered her a warm smile. "Relax. If you'd done anything wrong, you'd know it by now. Do you wish to step out?"

  "No, Milady," said Apryl. Harrison hadn't expected that, but evidently the queen had.

  The ivy at the door wove itself back into a curtain, blocking the rest of the party from Harrison's view. Only he, Glimmer, and Apryl remained in the presence of the queen.

  "Harrison?" Titania said, and he suddenly noticed that he had turned his back to her. Despite all that she had done to set them at ease, he still feared that if there were a wrong move to make, it was his destiny to make it. Trying to seem humble, he turned to face her. She looked upon him with a mother's eyes. "Ask me again," she said.

  He tried to remember the question. Oh, yes. "Do you really see everything?" He hoped it conveyed awe, rather than an accusation of untruthfulness.

  "No," she said. "I do not."

  Her reason for dismissing the others fell neatly into place. And yet, her reason for keeping him here, for allowing the question in the first place, still eluded him. No doubt she saw Harrison as Alec's lieutenant. As soon as he thought it, however, the word stung him, and he wondered why. Then he remembered, and his vanity poked him with a finger of shame. Captain, indeed. Wake up, Harrison. Get back to your station.

  During the fraction of a second that it took him to wallow in self-doubt, the full nature of her words registered. "You're not referring to yourself in the plural."

  She made a dismissive gesture. "Pretentious twaddle. That was a show for the little ones." She was still standing, and had stepped off the throne platform. Her wings were unfurled. They were segmented, and no two sections were the same color, not even corresponding sections on either side. It was like looking through a soft, asymmetrical, stained-glass window. Her beauty, he thought, was boundless, and he wished he could watch her fly. Looking ever so slightly upward, she focused on his eyes. He noticed, for the first time, that he was taller than she.

  "We have no room for that, I think," she said. "You and I."

  Harrison's palms started sweating.

  The queen frowned.

  "Will you all relax?" she said. "You're all so tense."

  Glimmer giggled. "I missed you," she said.

  "Likewise," said the queen. This overwhelmed Glimmer, whose glow increased dramatically. Then Titania returned her gaze to Harrison. "I see a lot," she said. "Most things. Not everything."

  Harrison gulped.

  "The slave remark was a jest," she offered.

  "Oh." He wasn't sure whether it would look good or bad for him to say he knew that, particularly since he had not known it.

  "I won't be seducing you today," she added.

  "Ah," he replied. He hoped his relief was evident. But not too evident.

  "You have questions," she finally prompted him.

  This was it, then. He wasted no time. "Do you know what we're going to try to do?"

  "Yes," she said. "You plan to set off what you call a static mayhem bomb in New York City. To reverse the effect your world has suffered."

  Hearing her say it out loud, when she had not been part of their planning, somehow made it seem less insane. "Is it possible?" he asked. "Can it work?"

  She thought before she answered this one, and he could not tell if it was because she did not know, or was trying to come up with a way to say it. Finally, she gave her answer. "No."

  So. He had been right to think it seemed too easy. He wanted to ask why not, or what would happen if they tried it anyway, or if there was something else they could do, but none of those questions really struck to the core of what he wanted to know. The questions were reactive. If she really had answers, he knew he should start with the bigger concerns.

  "Te
ll me what happened," he said.

  She closed her eyes and bowed her head. Earlier, he had been so afraid of offending her that gestures like this made him nervous. Now that he allowed himself to believe that he, and his friends, and his questions, were welcome in the Faerie court, her reaction took on a different quality. She was moved. He had asked the right question.

  "Sit," she said. "This will take some time."

  Harrison turned to see furniture growing out of the floor. There were a bench and a chair, both smaller scale versions of the thrones. He had not noticed them when they came into the room earlier, but of course they probably had not been there then. Glimmer immediately lit on one arm of the bench, and Apryl sat next to her. Harrison gathered that the single chair would be meant for the Queen herself, so he sat on the bench as well. Titania walked toward the chair without sitting, then turned and walked away from it.

  She was pacing.

  She was nervous.

  "Last year, only a few weeks before the summer solstice," she began," on an island, on a river, there lived a man. This man was quite an ordinary sort of man. He lived alone. He was a good neighbor. He held an honest job for most of his life, although by the time this tale begins, he had grown too old to work anymore. He was a kind man, but a sad man, and although he never talked about his sadness, it was his one driving force. He lost someone, long ago. Who it was, or how the loss occurred, we will never know, save for one overwhelming detail. Whoever he lost, that person was taken from him by a weapon, a machine of some kind. A gun, perhaps, or some kind of explosive. Something built by man. An abuse, in his eyes, of human ingenuity.

  "This man lived out his life in the shadow of his sadness, and over time, in the secret place in his mind, he began constructing a fantasy. His fantasy was a world, like his own, in many ways, but unlike it in one very important particular. The chemicals and the manufacturing processes required to make modern weapons had never been developed, nor even been discovered. Guns, bombs, missiles, things of this sort, did not exist. They were impossible.

  "He carried this fantasy with him, and over time, it developed in greater detail. Technology, and science in general, were supplanted in this new world by magic. Problems were solved, not by invention or discovery, but by spells and charms. He would go to this world at every opportunity. At first, he would only go there when he was alone, or at the end of a long day. Eventually, though, the day came when he set aside his work and began living out his life in restful solitude. On that day, he entered his meticulously constructed fantasy world with no plans to emerge. He was entitled to this retirement. He knew his world was imaginary, but the real world had no more pressing need of his time, and so they parted amicably.

  "Then the voice came.

  "At first he thought he had created the voice on purpose, as part of his fantasy. But it came even when he forbad it to come, and then he knew he could not control it. He reasoned that he had an illness, and he wanted to seek a cure. The voice told him that the only people who could cure him would do so by taking away his private world. He couldn't bear that, so he bore the voice instead.

  "Then the voice told him that he could replace the real world with his fantasy world. The voice told him how to do so."

  Titania paused, and Harrison wondered if this was so he could ask her another question. Although the tale she spun was troubling, he found her voice, and her tone, comforting. He wanted her to continue. She did.

  "You probably already understand that the voice was a being of pure, manifest evil. It was goading the man into furthering Its own agenda."

  "Ru'opihm," whispered Harrison. Glimmer hugged herself.

  Titania nodded. "That is one of Its names. It has others, but that will serve as well as any."

  "This fantasy world," interjected Apryl. "Was it … your world?"

  Titania's lips curled into a melancholy smile. "A shrewd insight, Abril. Yes, it was. After a fashion."

  Harrison looked at Glimmer, who was looking at the queen. "Are you saying," he said, choosing his word carefully, "that the old guy, somehow … made you up?"

  Titania shook her head. "Quite the opposite. He found us. Some people can find us. See us."

  Harrison digested this. "Shakespeare."

  She confirmed his guess. "For example." Harrison sat quietly, absorbing the tale.

  "Our worlds," she went on, "yours and mine, have always existed side by side. Touching, but not crossing. Picture a great wall, with no doors and no windows, but possessing a single keyhole. Not big enough to pass anything through, not even useful to unlock anything, but just big enough, and open enough, to see through."

  "A wall between Earth and Faerie?"

  "Not exactly. The realm of Faerie was but a part of our world, much as the realm of America was part of yours. Like you, we called our world Earth. In fact, our worlds had many similarities, so many that many humans who looked through the keyhole never recognized that they were seeing another place altogether. For the most part, they could only see through the hole when they slept."

  "I think I understand," said Apryl. "Is that why we all know what unicorns and faeries are? Even though they never existed for us before? Parts of your world made their way into our stories. Our popular consciousness."

  Harrison turned to Glimmer. "Did your people tell stories about a Rolls-Royce? Or a subway?"

  "We called them science tales," the pixie said. "Kid stuff."

  Harrison stared at her. It wasn't what she said as much as the fact that she had actually said it. There it was. All along, she had known details about his world that had confounded him, and all along he had known details about hers, without realizing it, for the exact same reason. He had known exactly what a dragon looked like before he ever met one. He had known that only a virgin could approach a unicorn. Of course she would have known some details of earthly, human civilization. And all along, in her insane, pixyish way, she hadn't felt the need to tell him any of this. That she was doing so now was almost certainly because her queen had already opened the door of revelation.

  "He broke down the wall," Harrison said, "didn't he? The old guy. And the evil thing. They broke down the wall, and the whole house fell down."

  "An apt metaphor," said the queen. "Evil persuaded the old fool that if he uninvented technology, he could uninvent violence. And so Evil directed him to construct the device, and then Evil powered it."

  "But why? Just to destroy? The house comes down and Evil dances in the ruins?"

  The queen shook her head sadly. "No. As much as Ru'opihm delights in the misery of others, Its true agenda is more dire still. For thousands upon thousands of years, this being has been a prisoner in yet another world entirely, put there by powers far greater than any we can conceive. And yet, the walls of that world also have holes. Not keyholes, really. More like pinholes."

  "Is that where all evil comes from?" Harrison asked.

  "A quaint thought," said the queen. "Some evil bleeds out from there, yes, but most evil comes from free will. Ru'opihm is no one's scapegoat." She took a moment to collect her thoughts. "Evil has spent ages pressing Itself against one of these holes, trying to send Its direct influence to someone on the outside, and It finally succeeded. It spoke to the old man. What It wants is freedom. By knocking down our wall, It put a strain on the walls of Its own prison. Those walls still hold, but the danger that they will break has surged."

  "So we need to put the wall back up, right?" Harrison felt like he was getting close to something. A purpose, perhaps.

  The queen shook her head again. "No. Resetting the wall will put too much stress on the system."

  "I don't understand," said Apryl.

  "I do," said Harrison. He felt numb. "If we push the worlds back apart, it will be like bending a really huge paper clip back and forth. Do it too much, and you get metal fatigue. The metal breaks."

  Harrison saw confirmation in Titania's eyes. "The device you are building," she said softly, "the counterbomb … if you activate i
t in New York, it will undo what was done, and within minutes Ru'opihm will be free."

  Harrison reeled. When she had said they would not succeed, she had meant that their success would doom them all. Both their worlds.

  After a considerable silence, he ventured another question. "What about all the technology? What about my special ability? Or Claudia's? Don't we have anything we can use to destroy this thing?"

  "Ru'opihm can never be destroyed," said the queen. "Only contained. But your observations are pertinent. The technology you have found, the gifts you have received, these were never part of Ru'opihm's plan. Some of these things were side effects, but many were laid out for you to use. The machines that brought your people together, fed them, kept them safe … these were not a product of chance. Did you not wonder at the ease with which you have been able to operate devices well beyond your ken?"

  Harrison had of course wondered that from the start. Everything had seemed so easy. His working theory had been that the more advanced technology became, the more user-friendly it would have to be. But that wasn't it. And then a nuance that had bothered him for months without his being able to explain why raced to the surface of his awareness. "They were all marked!" he said. He thought back on all the examples he had seen of a simple stylized symbol: a straight vertical line crossed with a wavy curve. How many more times had he seen it without noticing it? "We were meant to find them" He took in the queen's serious, heavenly eyes.

  "You have a benefactor," she said.

  "Who?"

  "Just as there is a being of purest evil," she said, "so is there a force for good in the universe."

  Harrison could feel himself becoming dizzy. "Does he … it have a name, too?"

  "Oh my, yes," said the Faerie Queen. "It has many, many names."

  Harrison closed his eyes.

  "Some of you have discovered powers you did not previously possess," she said. "Such as your ability with locks. This, too, was mostly by design. The coincidence you have found involving your birthdays was meant as a means of identification. Clues as to the nature of your talents. You, Harrison, were born on a day of celebration for two centuries of freedom. Your ability protects you from being imprisoned. Claudia, born on a day when hundreds of clamoring voices were silenced, has the power to be heard."