“Well, a main entrance door might start the string. The end of the string might be the last exit door. So it’s possible to go through several then put the brakes on to stop at a door of your choice. Janus knows how to pull that off, but he goes it one better. He’s able to travel through solid matter, so he’s reached some type of advanced skill level. I’ve seen him do the solid thing three times. The last time was with you.”
“You’ve never told anybody about this?”
“Are you kidding? A magician never reveals his trade secrets—it's part of our creed. Besides, who would believe me?”
“It would be so much easier if we could ask him face-to-face. How does the student learn without the master? It’s dangerous. There’s curves ahead in this kind of traveling, things that I could never see coming up on me.”
“He’s not the type you can send a postcard to. It would never catch up to him. I think he cut you loose for a while so you could learn the technique yourself. Kind of like on the job training. You follow?”
“He’s so strange,” she said. “I wonder where he comes from.”
“You know the story of Janus, don’t you? The Roman god, Janus?”
“I never made that connection but, yeah, there’s a similarity now that I think about it. Don’t you think that a mythological god who is sharing the same existence with us is a little bit off the wall? Christians don’t allow for false prophets or mythical gods in this age.”
“Maybe he’s a leftover from the age of multiple deities—polytheism. Maybe the big guy upstairs sanctions him. Could be it’s just a front. He’s not dangerous. ‘So by the prophet’s works will ye come to know them.’ Avy, I don’t think we have to justify his existence or draw any comparisons. I don’t see any links to demonic or negative forces. You have to accept the fact that he’s here. This universe is more multidimensional than you could ever imagine—unknown phenomenon are all around us.”
“It seems easy for you to accept it. Maybe that’s because you’ve had so much time to soak it up, to understand it.”
“It started early with me. Houdini was my god, the master teacher. That was until I met Janus. He makes Houdini look like a grifter playing the shell game in a broken down tent. You’ve got to see the wonder in all of this. Stop agonizing over it. Accept it for what it is—a divine gift.”
“I suppose you’re right.”
Sebastian offered some solace. He understood the subject matter much better than she did. Although she couldn’t help thinking that what had been given to her was a bucket of gasoline and a match. Light me if you dare. Janus had warned her that her path from here on out was a super highway—a highway she had permission to travel. He had failed to warn her that some people did not have any business behind the cosmic steering wheel. It was like licensing a drunk driver, giving them permission to navigate the inter-dimensional autobahn.
Avy pulled Sebastian out of his seat. She walked him up the aisle and out the front entrance. They ended up in the marquis lobby. She looked around. “Okay, we have to make sure no one is passing on the street or sidewalk. I’m going to try it from the front.”
He pulled the key finder out of his pocket and looked both ways down the street. “I’ll give you the all clear.”
She faced the doubled doors, prepping her mind for the task. She dredged up that familiar feeling of anger, letting it boil within, keeping the lid on it until she needed that explosive thrust. She cursed under her breath. “Drake, you murderous bastard. You’re nothing but a low-life, scum-sucking pig.”
“All clear, Avy.”
She stepped through the door. She felt a thump, then saw a flash of sparks, followed by a shadow. She held on to the emotional charge while another cycle passed. After a third cycle, she stomped on the mental brakes. Something spit her out. Her legs wobbled with imbalance, she found herself on the north side of the theater just outside the emergency exit. Her key beeper went off. She pounded on the door to let Sebastian know her location. She heard the lock mechanism a moment later. The door opened. Sebastian stood on the other side, his chest heaving.
“I’m okay,” she said, knowing he wanted reassurance. “It works. It works if I hold the emotion. I felt three transits. They whooshed by quick, but I felt them. Just like you would feel bumps in the road if you were driving fast. I think the gas pedal is all in the head.”
“That makes sense,” he said. “You passed through three doors. You were headed toward the rear of the theater. I think you can come out of any door you want, but controlling the location is up to you.”
“That’s just it. It seems like it would be real easy to overshoot my mark. I could pop out in somebody’s back storeroom again like I did last Friday. Not to mention the fact that I could scare the living daylights out of somebody by appearing out of nowhere.”
She tried it again from her current location. When she stepped back through, she held onto the feeling even longer this time, counting at least nine transits before she decided to break her concentration. When she felt the full weight of her body on her feet, she threw her arms out like a tightrope walker, assisting her balance lest she topple over.
The next sensation she had was a mild breeze across her cheeks, the sun on her forehead. She opened her eyes to find herself on the theater roof, standing over the roof hatch. It was unlocked, so she pulled it open and stepped down the utility ladder. She jumped the last rung to hit the floor, then called out for Sebastian. Hurried steps thumped across the stage. He appeared in the back storeroom a moment later.
“Where this time?” He wanted to know.
She pointed up.
“Damn. The roof hatch. You must have gone longer, eight or nine maybe. Was it any different?”
“I think I started to pick up speed at the end. Things squeezed in around me. It’s like riding in a subway car or a train, where you look out the window to see objects flying past out of focus. I felt little gusts of wind hitting me. I don’t smell anything, but I do get a little bit warmer, like I’m resisting something.”
“Maybe friction—the atoms themselves. Do you hear anything?”
“Just a rapid thumping or snapping. It sounds like cards shuffling.”
“How about the sound a card makes against a bicycle spoke? That flapping noise.”
“That’s close. That’s what it sounds like. Wow, it’s bizarre.”
They took seats on the cot. Sebastian gave her a cup of water, encouraging her to relax. Staying calm was easier said than done. She’d just looped through the space-time continuum. A thousand questions raced through her mind. She wondered if she had burned any calories during the journey, or even carried the same body weight after making the trip. Maybe one could leave cells behind somewhere. What if her molecular structure had been rearranged or damaged? Could she have picked up some strange virus? What about sterilization?
She wished Janus would reappear again. She needed to hear that everything was going to be all right, that her worry was needless. He was the expert, wasn’t he? Would he cut her loose to solve all of the riddles and puzzles without any help? She needed to know she was on the right trail. Maybe this was his method of tough love.
Without doubt, Janus had been the mysterious visitor that night on death row. He had avoided the radar in order to slip in to deliver some type of message to her mother. He had been the ghost lover. He’d also delivered something more than just a message, leading to the most shocking revelation. He had fathered Avy.
It had been so long ago, yet the wheels of evil had not stopped turning. More pages were waiting to be filled in a new story. Avy was more than a part in that story. She was the story—the new beginning. But why had Janus allowed the tragedy to unfold in the first place? Hadn’t he known it would end up with such a heart-breaking outcome?
Sebastian’s hand settled on her shoulder, offering comfort. She had been lost in thought, unaware of his presence. She wondered if he’d read the troubled look on her face. “I’m okay,” she said. “I’m going to have to tak
e this a step beyond. I want to go further—stretch it some more. If I leave this building, I want to see where it takes me. It should start with the Chinese delicatessen next door. I think it’ll follow a pattern, maybe hopping in stages down the street.”
Sebastian reared back. “Now I don’t know about that. I mean, I’m sure it’s possible. But this might be too soon. What if you get lost out there or end up trapped inside something? You could even draw a crowd if somebody sees you.”
“You said it yourself, Sebastian. It’s meant to be used. I need to kick the tires on this. How else am I going to learn?” Of course, he wanted to change his tune now. Wasn’t she the one who should have cold feet?
“If you’re going to crank it up a notch we’ll have to prepare, he said. “Wait. What are our safeguards here? Awe, damn it, Avy! I don’t want anything to happen to you. I couldn’t handle losing you right now. I’m not talking about the assistant part either.”
She gave him a lingering kiss, then rubbed her knuckles on his scalp. “Just promise me that if something goes wrong you’ll give Janus a big punch in the nose for me.”
“Roger that. I’ll illusion him away into the cornfield. But look, this is just in case.” He reached into a pocket, retrieving something. He spilled the items into her hand. She looked down to see that they were coins.
“You don’t know where you’ll end up.” He grabbed a marker from the workbench and wrote the theater phone number on her forearm. “That’s so you can call me. Call me at the first fifteen-minute increment on the hour when you land or touchdown. Let’s synchronize our watches.”
They did so. Avy put her identification documents in her front pants pocket. She hoped she wouldn’t run into any trouble requiring her to produce ID.
She stepped up to the back door, planting her feet. She brought to mind the energy she would need to make the passing. She knew this was the Gate that left the theater structure. From then on, she would follow the string. Sebastian opened his mouth to say something, but she waved him to silence. He would break the “anger” concentration.
She concentrated on foul memories again, and felt the familiar heat in her shoulders, the flush. Unchecked anger raced through her. She stepped through. Like the motion of a bird’s wings building up momentum, the strokes passed with each Gate passing. She could see flashes of color interspersed with shadows bursting in sequence. The cycles became machine gun-like in speed. Her body warmed, tingling with an intense vibration. Although distracted by the sights and sounds around her, she held on to the feeling of anger, pushing the threshold, daring the speed to increase. The fluttering sound became a heavy buzz that turned into a humming noise, the pitch increasing in amplitude. There were no flashes now, just a river of colors that coalesced into a stream that began to run like fast moving lava. With it came a perceptible rise in heat. With her arms extended in front of her, she looked down to see that they had disappeared. For a moment, she feared she might be vanishing, ripping apart to scatter like lost atoms.
She broke the mind spell. In an instant, the sights and sounds rushed backward and then forward again, throwing her into a loss of equilibrium. She clamped her eyes shut, willing her mind to calm. The high-pitched drone became a buzz followed by the familiar fluttering sound. The noise ceased with a fading whisper, replaced by that of a car horn. Then she heard an urgent male voice. “Are you okay, lady?”
Avy checked herself, relieved that she hadn’t lost any body parts in the transit. She was sitting on a stone walkway near a huge set of glass double doors. A large building sat a dozen feet away. A man in uniform crouched near, staring into her face. At first she thought he was a police officer. When her eyesight cleared, she could make out his nametag and part of his shoulder patch. He was a security guard for the Crabtree Valley Mall.
“I think I just slipped,” she said, accepting his hand up. Her legs felt like rubber. She stepped around, testing her balance. Then she gave a great sigh of relief. “Oh, thank you!” she said, looking up at the sky.
“Gosh, I hope you’re all right, lady,” said the guard. “This doesn’t happen very often. We try to keep the sprinkler water in the planters, but sometimes it sprays out onto the walkway. I sure hope that you—”
“I’m fine. It was just a bad step. My fault.” Avy strode down the walkway until she came to the edge of the parking lot. She saw drivers cursing at each other over a parking space. One of them blew his horn while the other gunned his engine. “Normal world accounted for,” she mused. She found a public phone, then waited for the prescribed time to call. She made the call at a quarter after two in the afternoon.
“Thank God you’re safe,” said Sebastian, answering it on the first ring. “I was worried sick. Where are you?”
“I’m near the front entrance of the Crabtree Valley Mall complex. I’ll take a cab.”
“Jeeze Louise, Avy. You skipped across town! Forget the cab. I’ll pick you up out in front. You’re still in one piece?”
“Just a little headache.” She hung up the phone, then walked to the curb in front of the mall entrance. Fascinated, she pondered what she had done. She couldn’t imagine how many doors or gates she’d passed through to get to where she now stood. Hundreds. Maybe thousands. They had whipped by so fast it had been a blur. Gate-Walking, Janus had called it. There was no “walking” about it. She’d flown at tremendous speed, an imperceptible blip on the cosmic radar. It was more like flying than any other sensation. The path seemed fixed with no way to navigate, make turns or take different routes. It appeared that once one was on the highway, it remained a one-way street. If inclined to exit, a rider had to get off at stations, much like a bus stop. Unlike a driver, she was destined to remain a passenger, required to pull the proverbial cord when she wished to get off.
Sebastian pulled up twenty minutes later. Avy jumped in, relieved to see him. He stared at her with an idiotic grin, then handed her some aspirin, along with a canteen of water. She swallowed the pills, grateful that he’d thought of her comfort. He pulled away from curb.
“I thought you were going to call on the fifteen-minute mark,” he said.
“I did. I called at fifteen minutes after two.”
“Not according to my time. You better check your watch.”
She did, reading the time off. He checked his watch, shook his head. “Damn,” he said. “You’re four minutes off my time. You didn’t bang it on anything did you?”
“No, not at all. I mean, I ended up in a seated position, but I don’t remember falling down hard or smacking it on anything. Do you suppose...”
“Some kind of a time dilation thing?” he finished it for her. “Could that have happened? According to general relativity, such a thing could go down. Gads! Could you have been traveling that fast? Approaching the speed of—”
“Light? Travel? I gained four minutes somewhere.”
“It makes a lot of sense now. Everything is starting to fit.”
“How so?”
“Janus. He’s never aged in all the time I’ve known him. He’s always had the same face, body, personality—all of it. If he spends most of his time Gate-traveling at those high speeds, then it’s reasonable that time has stood still for him. He ages when he’s out of that dimension to interact. He never liked staying around for a very long time, so our visits have always been short. I was surprised to see him in the audience that night. I’ll bet he caught just the end of the show, which would prove the theory. It explains why he’s always in a hurry. Maybe he ages hours for each of our years. That’s all relative, of course, depending upon how long he stays.”
“Then it’s possible my mother saw him pretty close to how he looks today.”
Fifteen minutes later, they were on Hillsborough Street on the West side.
“I knew he was ancient,” said Sebastian, whipping the wheel hard, bringing the car into the back lot of the theater. “I always wondered if he was immortal.”
Once inside the theater, Avy rummaged through her pur
se. She took out a small photo album and placed some pictures on the cot, arranging them in order. Next she brought out her driver’s license, compared it against the photos, and then asked for a pair of scissors. Sebastian found a pair, handing them over. She cut out a small picture of herself--one where she’d been with a girlfriend at a barbecue. It was a perfect headshot.
Sebastian watched, intrigued. “What are you doing?”
“I need to make an ID. With a little glue, this cropped photo will fit over a Cyberflow identification card. Good enough to pass anyway. It’s just insurance. I think it’s about time good ol’ Uncle Drake was investigated. You’ll have to do your part. Snatch one of the newest Cyberflow cards, the ones with the bulldog clip. I’ll need a security level clearance three—that’s top priority. Think you can do that?”
“I could snatch a wire pin out of Houdini’s hair.”
“Good.” Looking overhead, she picked out a female manikin that wore a red wig and a beige dress suit. Sebastian got it down for her. She changed while Sebastian watched. She couldn’t help but notice more than a little desire in his eyes. “We'll be time for that later,” she said with a wink. It didn’t take her long to fit the wig and check her appearance in the bathroom mirror. Ann Margaret never looked so good. As a final touch, a clipboard was added to the ensemble.
“How do I look?” she asked.
“Like an executive.”
“That’s the look I’m after—the official look. Let’s go to Cyberflow.”
They took her car again, riding in silence through the metro area until they reached North Hills, the home turf of the Cyberflow plant. Sebastian parked in the visitor’s area while Avy slipped on a pair of sunglasses.
Sebastian said, “I’ll be back in a minute. Get your glue ready.”
Avy watched him cross the parking lot, then enter the main entrance. She fidgeted, trying to quell the anxiety, knowing that if he were caught she wouldn’t forgive herself.
Her suspicions were groundless. A few minutes later, Sebastian approached, making his way across the parking lot. He jumped into the seat, handing over the document.
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