by Gwynn White
Leta paused outside of the glass bay. She placed her fingers on the wood.
“They’ve changed the paneling since the last time I was here,” she said.
Abby grinned without turning back. “The last time I was here, there was a stone slab. We had to rope down—” he began to say, but Leta interrupted him.
“It’s beautiful,” she said. “Do you think it’s real?”
Abby let out a slow breath and, without looking back, he said, “Yeah, sugar maple.” He couldn’t have answered without the wheels that automatically spun in his head.
“Sugar maple,” she said softly.
“So, you’ve been here before?” he asked.
“Yes. You said you have, too.”
“Years ago, before colonization.”
At the end of the corridor was another glass door, this one leading outside. When Abby drew close, another series of emerald beams performed the same rapid scan. This time there was no accompanying verbal identification. The glass door merely slid open.
Abby started out into the tangerine plane, but stopped. Through his peripheral, he saw Leta still sliding her fingers across the smooth gloss finish of the wood paneling. The way she delicately drew her hand up and down, allowing her fingertips to follow the grain, slow and sensuous, reminded him of an innocence he once had. He was reminded there were those who hadn’t seen sugar maple.
“Are you coming?” he asked.
The corners of her mouth pulled back. “Yes, of course.” She dropped her arm, focusing on the small spot she had touched. Abby sensed a subtle reluctance. Then she met her coal eyes to his and approached the door to be scanned.
Outside of the corridor, a vast flight deck extended away from the towering geodesic sphere at the same high point as the one the Arcadians traversed from in the Homeland. Everything else around the two—everything—was different. The sky was brighter, bluer, a wet, inky cerulean blue. Everything was wet and inky. Not because of the early morning hour. Light behaved differently on all planes, and on the Arcadian Plane, the hues were exaggerated, saturated, as if a huge brush had swathed a coat of fresh acrylic across every surface, across the entirety of the landscape. The sky was blue, but the light was tangerine. The air was thick with the sweet fragrance of the fuchsia and lavender tulips at their feet. Abby had forgotten to shorten his breaths, and his first inhalation out in the open pained his lungs. Towering up above, leafy and full, was a large oak, most likely a syn, but so rare back in the Homeland. All around them, small dots hovered: insects, perhaps also syn, surely syns, but still insects.
Leta’s mouth was agape.
“Arcadia,” Abby said. “Home of the elite.”
Abby lifted his fedora and raised his hand to rub the morning light into the pores of a face that for too long had only caught the dew of falling compressor mist or gathering fog.
“Yeah,” she said, gazing from side to side. She forced her chin forward with a muster of strength. “I believe we go this way.”
When they stepped onto the walkway at the side of the flight deck, a series of yellow cautionary lights illuminated below the surface then animated into large moving triangles. The shapes floated forward to a series of high-end luxury craft, rare back in the Homeland. Each craft bore high-gloss enamel further accentuated by the Arcadian ambiance; the polished chromium appeared liquid and the mustard yellow and racing red finishes were lineless, inky pools of color. Far below to the other side of the flight deck, an iridescent green blanket of wheat took the place of the Planar Plaza, snug against a lush deciduous forest, a forest that stood surrogate to the harbor and Manhattan sector. The entire NorEast Meg was absent. The Hudson River still ran her familiar path along the high-sided palisade cliffs, miles out to the shores of the Atlantic Ocean that, in Homeland, lapped the high harbor sea walls at the Bubble’s edge.
They continued to the end of the platform and came to rest next to a military craft with a high-polished chromium finish, a sleek styled specialty model manufactured by one of the same luxury brands peppering the flight deck.
“Ahh,” Abby said. “A Delta Wing. Would you look at her? Not a single line, all flow.”
“She is beautiful,” Leta said. “Far more elegant than any of the Bureau craft in the Homeland.”
“Well, the Arcadians wouldn’t want an eyesore.”
The sides of the cockpit slid seamlessly back as the two approached. Abby slipped into the cushion of his seat and stretched. “Oh, mama, that is comfortable. What do you think?”
“I could get used to this,” Leta said.
The canopy illuminated with assorted augments.
“Unable to read. Subject blocked. Please authorize.”
“523 Burning Chrome,” he said.
“Welcome to Arcadia, Commander Squire,” said a soft female voice.
Abby scrunched his face.
“And welcome aboard, Delta Wing 238. I am your pilot, Donna. Please tell me your chosen destination and I will plot the route.”
“The Winslow Estate.”
“The Winslow Estate,” repeated Donna. “Flight time to Mahayana: one hour, twenty-three minutes. Beginning pre-flight.”
“Why do you make that face?” Leta asked. “You made that face in the Bubble.”
“The title. Commander.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I received the promotion after I retired. We all did. It made our peers that stayed on more comfortable.”
“Like Director Lin.”
“Yeah, I suppose.”
The Delta Wing silently lifted from the platform and veered south, down the Atlantic Coast, gradually gaining altitude and speed.
“Mahayana is an odd name for an estate,” Leta said. “Don’t you think?”
“You know these Arcadians. They like to name their things. Mahayana is Sanskrit for great vehicle.”
“Still odd.”
“Winslow is in transport and shipping. The great vehicle, it’s a pun.”
“Aren’t puns supposed to be funny?”
“What? You don’t have a sense of humor?”
“I just don’t find it funny. At best, it’s clever.”
On the horizon, Abby caught sight of two tiny glints: Arcadians soaring away from the Bubble. “Look there,” he said. But she didn’t. She was shaking her head.
“Hey. I was joking about your sense of humor.”
“No. It’s not that.”
“What is it then?”
Leta held up her hands. “All of this. There is so much. In the Homeland, there is so little.”
Abby nodded. “Seems impossible. The last time I was here, the place was barren, mostly crabgrass.”
“How were they able to terraform an entire plane in a generation?”
“Well, you know unified field physics? The matter of the outer planes comes together in a different physicality. We’re still in the same time and space, just different composition.”
“Of course, I understand. Still, except for the Farm Plane, I’ve never seen this much…” She paused.
“You want to say waste, don’t you?”
“How can there be so much?” she asked.
“Oh, I agree,” he said. “I haven’t been here in decades, but I’ve heard the rumors.” He held his hands up. “They did it. This is beautiful beyond belief. A trick of blues and greens.”
“What?”
“Well, I don’t know if it’s the same for the Umbra.” A quick spin of a wheel in his head. “Hmm, interesting. Somewhat.”
“What?” she asked again.
“Oh, nothing. Anyway, they didn’t terraform. This isn’t all real. Some, sure; the rest, no. There are hidden resonators that create the illusion. They work with the Arcadian light to match the over-defined saturated colors, like antennas, sending out a range of light waves to stimulate each of three types of receptors in the eyes to varying degrees.”
“Three receptors?”
“Yeah. There are three types of receptors, con
es, in the back of the eyes: L, M, and S. Each one reacts differently to the spectrums. The tangerine tint, for example, is yellowish-green light, and that stimulates both L and M cones equally, but not so much the S cones. The red light, on the other hand, stimulates L cones more than M cones, and S cones hardly at all. Blue-green light stimulates M cones more than L and S and is also the peak stimulant for rod cells. And lastly,” he said, pointing out of the window up toward the sky, “blue light stimulates the S cones more than red or green light, but L and M cones more weakly.”
“So, what does all of that mean?”
“The brain combines the information from each type of receptor to give rise to different perceptions of different wavelengths of light. Humans have evolved to see more shades of green than any other color. Green makes them happy”—Abby gestured down to the vast fields and forests of iridescent green—“and blues soothe them.” He waved his other hand up toward the inky sky. “Blues also soothe Umbra, by the way.”
“So, all of the vibrant green vegetation and the iridescent blue water is…”
“Mostly projection for the Arcadians when they fly over. Something pretty for them to look at that also hides the only thing down there that’s real from any undesirables that might slip into the plane.”
“What’s the only thing that’s real?”
“Their estates. They’re real.”
“And the sky?”
“Mmm. The sky”—he sucked a deep breath in through his nose—“the air. All of that is real, too.”
11
The Delta Wing soared down the coast of the Atlantic Ocean along the course Donna had plotted. The equatorial sky was the same in Arcadia as the Homeland, and though still mid-morning, the sun was already quite high when the Delta Wing slowed to a hover.
Donna’s sensors detected that Abby was resting, so she spoke quietly. “Commander Squire.” Donna paused. “Commander, we are about to reach our destination.” Another pause. “Commander Squire.”
Leta threw the back of her hand against Abby’s arm. “Squire,” she said loudly.
Abby shuffled and roused. “Are we there?” He glanced at Leta. Her lip was curled up to a smirk. “What? I was up all night.”
Leta gestured toward the console.
“Sorry for disturbing you, Commander,” Donna said. “We have reached our destination. Permission to extend security interface?”
“Sure,” Abby said.
“Commencing Homeland Security handshake protocol.”
He slid off his overcoat. “We’re pretty far south, huh?” He sucked his teeth with his tongue. “Eck. Donna, I don’t suppose we have any juice?”
A panel opened mid-console, revealing a small glass beneath a tiny faucet. It began to spout an orange liquid.
Abby grinned. “Orange juice, eh? Donna, could you add a touch of vodka, please?”
“Certainly, Commander.”
Leta sighed and crossed her arms.
“What?” he asked as he lifted the beverage from the dash. “I have to get that pollen taste out of my mouth. I’m not used to it.”
He sipped from the small glass. “Aah,” he said. “Not bad. Not great, but hey, a drink from a dashboard.” He held the glass toward Leta. “You should try some.”
“I don’t drink.”
“Right.”
“Security Protocol complete,” Donna said. “We will be entering Winslow airspace shortly.”
“Thank you, Donna.”
“Now that you’re awake, I wanted to ask you about the stone,” Leta said.
“The Jasper Stone?”
“The Jasper Stone, yeah. Why is this stone so special?”
“It’s not. I’m not that interested in the stone. I’m interested in the Maro who took it.”
“Why would he, or anybody, be interested in the stone?”
“What did Yun tell you?”
“Yun? You mean Director Lin?”
“Yeah, him. What did he say was the purpose of this little goose chase?”
“Goose chase?”
“Donna? How long before we land?”
“Approximately ten minutes, Commander,” Donna said.
Leta twisted her head away from Abby in time to catch the glint of two high-speed gliders flying past.
“What were those?” she asked.
“Chromium Raptors. Our escorts, I suppose.”
Leta tilted her head down. “I didn’t sense them.”
“Don’t be so hard on yourself.” He tapped the dash. “There’s a readout on the augments you probably can’t see from there.”
“Oh,” she said, “I’m sorry, this goose chase, I don’t understand what that means. Or ‘goose,’ really.”
Abby pursed his lip. “Goose chase means chasing our tails, wasting our time.”
“I see. But Director Lin said there was a chance the Jasper Stone could be a jadeite device.”
“Yeah, maybe the Bureau wants to use the Jasper to shift planes, or at least doesn’t want anyone else to.”
“Why?” Leta asked. “The Bureau doesn’t need it. They have remote quants.”
“Well, believe it or not, those remotes are a lot less reliable than they lead you to believe at the academy,” said Abby. “They still send you to the academy?”
“Yes, of course. I was top of—”
“No, I believe that they believe, apart from all the other bells and whistles, that the stone is a weapon. You see, the Jasper is composed of red jade, which makes it a chi stone. You know what that is?”
“Sure, an energy stone, right? Good karma.”
“Yeah, well, if the Jasper is real, then we are talking real chi, real energy. A stone that stimulates life force energy, amplifies physical vitality, strength, and passion.”
Abby ruffled through the jacket on his lap and pulled the vid card from the pocket. He held the squat image up to Leta.
She nodded. “I’ve seen it.”
“The old text says the energy of the warrior carved into the Jasper goes to the possessor of the stone. An energy of individual power and will that dispels the fear, worry, and doubt that holds one back, compelling the possessor to take action.” He raised his brow after rattling off the litany.
“That stone can do all of that?” asked Leta.
“Not this one,” said Abby. “This is a fake.” He put the vid back into his jacket and took the final swig of his juice.
“Do you think they believe the Jasper is real?”
“The Bureau doesn’t take chances when a guy like Winslow is involved, especially when the heist is pulled off by the Arden Mortuus. Winslow believes, and that matters.” Abby peered out of the window toward the island coming into view. “He would believe.”
“Yun said you know Winslow.”
“Knew ‘im, he’s cagey.”
“Cagey?”
“Cagey, yeah; he’s a clever, condescending ass who defines entitlement.” Abby lifted his eyes to Leta. “You’ll want to probe him, though you probably won’t be able to. He’s older than me and as wealthy as… well, an Arcadian.”
“So, you think he has mods in place to block me?”
“Most likely. Worth a shot, though. Try as soon as you see him, to catch him off guard.”
“I couldn’t find any photos of him in the archives, and there is no record of Winslow leaving Arcadia for the last fifty years.”
“The Arcadians, like Bureau special agents, are masked from image systems. You’ll know him when you see him because of his age. He was already at least fifty before the age mods became available.”
“Sounds like you don’t like him.”
“I’m indifferent. He used to come around the university before the Bubble, before the war. He was a private collector even then. He funded archeological research and most of the major digs, a lot of them anyway.”
“Sounds like he was a true patron.”
“Yeah, but artifacts tended to disappear from the digs he sponsored, and the rumors were that he ha
d a hand in it. Way too rich for anything to stick, though.”
“You said he’d believe the stone was real.”
“He bought into everything. Most collectors do, even the most sophisticated. Without them, there would be no market for fakes and I’d be out of a, let’s say, hobby. Besides, he’s an Arcadian, why wouldn’t he want that kind of power?”
“Wouldn’t you, Abernathy?”
Abby peered into Leta’s coal black eyes for a long moment. “It’s Abby. My friends call me Abby.”
12
The Delta Wing dropped vertically, at first in a near free fall then, as the craft eased ever closer to the Winslow Estate directly beneath, decelerating. He thought back to what he knew about Winslow. The Mahayana was the path, or the vehicle, of the Bodhisattva seeking complete enlightenment for the benefit of all sentient beings. The estate spread out in a circle, not much different than a mandala he had seen Buddhist monks paint with colored sand when he was a child.
The image of the mandala brought with it a flood of memories. His mother, a painter herself, had taken him to a MidHi gallery to watch the visiting monks create the mandala. He remembered the practice was part of a tantric ritual, and over the course of several days, he and his mother returned to the gallery where they would sit quietly for hours while the monks silently and patiently created the Kultson Kyilkhor, the ‘mandala of colored sand powder.’ He’d studied many more mandalas since then, and had discovered the further interplanar meanings. The word mandala was Sanskrit for world of harmony, and was thought to be a double entendre for both the physical and what the Buddhists referred to as the spiritual world. He wondered if the Buddhists meant more. Winslow’s estate, Mahayana, implied they did. The round orchard in the center, the square manor house, the circular fountains, parks, and the radial walkways. The structures decreased in size as the estate spread outward to small chateaus and finally, on the perimeter, symmetrically placed yurts. Manicured floral gardens, hedges, and other small orchards intermingled among and around the buildings in a lattice of colors and textures that, from above, appeared to be perfectly sized and mirrored in color, the entirety of the circumference bordered by a rolling, groomed countryside.