by Gwynn White
You were right, he would say. I need more clean underwear.
That wouldn’t explain why he was packing computer gear. He didn’t know where his dad was taking him or what he might need. Luckily, she never moved, not a thin eyebrow or a lip smack. Not even when he dropped a cup in the sink.
He left the laptop in his room and wiped the history this time. She might snoop this time and there were too many breadcrumbs about the Maze and something called the Sessions. The Maze led in plenty of directions. The Sessions search went nowhere, unless his dad was interested in channeling a new age spirit that lived under an oceanic volcano.
Her teeth were grinding a hard plastic plate, jaws flexing. This was the kind of pressure that could chew through braided cable. Had her dad not fit her with a bite guard, she would’ve already ground her molars down to nubs.
There was a bagel with cream cheese and orange juice on the counter and a flyer for a local homeless shelter where she sometimes volunteered. It was civic duty, helping those less fortunate than her. She had made the breakfast for him before crashing. He chugged the juice and snatched the bagel so she’d know he ate before leaving.
She would want him to wake her up, tell her he was going. But he hated doing that. Sleep was the best part of her day. She deserved to rest, earned that little reprieve. Sometimes life is like that, she would say.
That wasn’t Grey’s philosophy. If you don’t like it, then get out. He could change things, not end up like his parents or anyone in his family. There were ways to change the brain, ways to control destiny.
A new universe awaits.
Maybe this weekend was one of those ways. He’d figure out a way to bring his mother with him. She deserved to glow. Not the dentist. If he could write all that in a note, she would understand. He went back to the kitchen and scribbled on a scrap of paper.
Gone to Dad’s. Love you.
“What?” Grey dropped his bag and followed his dad into the bedroom. “You promised.”
“I said I’d look into it.”
“I’ll pay whatever I have to, I already said that.” He tried to keep the whine from his words and failed. “Mom doesn’t know about it, either.”
His dad continued packing.
“I thought this was something we were going to do?”
“We’ll do something else. How about fishing?”
Grey’s voice rose. “Look, I’m good at computers, I know virtual reality environments. I brought all my gear. I know more than you. I can help.”
His dad stared at a ball of black socks. “I thought you didn’t know what I was doing?”
“I don’t.”
“You been on my computer, son?”
“No, Dad… I was guessing. I was researching and, you know, hoping you were… but I don’t know.”
“I let you stay here, feed you and everything a dad is supposed to do. Have some respect, that’s all I’m asking?” He paused, then pointed. “All right?”
“Yeah.”
“Now this isn’t kid shit, you know. I’m not letting you go for your own good. Life ain’t a video game, Grey. You don’t hit restart; you don’t respawn all fresh and new.”
Liar. If he was awareness leaping, that was exactly what you do. You go into a false reality, you make mistakes, you die, and then do it again!
His dad threw socks and underwear into a suitcase along with pants and shirts. His movements were stiff and jerky, a far cry from the glowing angel that came home the last time. Either he was having withdrawal or someone got to him. Maybe he asked about Grey coming and pissed someone off. Adults sometimes shit their pants like children when they got slapped.
Especially when it’s another adult.
“I’m doing this for you.” He left the suitcase open and started the shower. “I set up security cameras in the apartment, so don’t be going through my shit. I’ll know about it. You can smoke the weed if you want, I don’t care. I’m a shitty dad, so what’s it matter?”
You’re not a shitty dad. Just not much of a dad.
His dad winked, flashed a perfect smile and closed the door. Grey waited until he was in the shower before grabbing his dad’s phone. It asked for a passcode when he swiped.
0-0-0-0.
Of course it was. His dad was lazy. When he came out of the shower, Grey was in the kitchen, eating cereal. His phone was exactly where he left it.
Grey woke early.
He lay in bed, occasionally dozing off. When his dad bumped a chair or dropped his suitcase, he would force his eyes open and listen. Finally, the front door closed.
Grey snooped around the office for security cameras. His dad was bluffing. It had that tone, the one that told him Santa was real and the Tooth Fairy was broke. He decided to risk it. If he was wrong, he’d catch hell.
Nothing new.
Another white card was clipped to the refrigerator. The edges crisp. Today’s date was stamped above a thick, black exclamation point. Suspiciously void of information, there were only random black lines on the back.
The first invitation was still clipped under it—white and crisp, the date from a few weeks back and an exclamation point. The two creases were flattened out.
Grey hovered over a bowl of cereal and tapped through his phone. The Find a Phone app was loading a map. Two black icons appeared several miles apart. One was labeled Grey.
The other Big Daddy Dentist.
His dad barely knew how to operate his phone. How would he know the GPS was linked to Grey’s phone? Not in a million years.
Three bowls later, Big Daddy Dentist was on the interstate south of the city. Grey turned his dad’s computer on then went to the bathroom until his legs fell asleep. The car was still moving southbound when he finished. He was off the interstate, travelling on Route 66 toward Lake Mansour.
The hell is he going?
The computer was locked. A password had been installed.
So he knew Grey had been snooping through the emails and thought he’d teach him a lesson. Grey tried the word password and 11111, but neither worked.
His dad once had a secretary he didn’t trust, an older woman that drank coffee by the barrel. She was also happily married and dressed warmly. He kept his office computer password-protected because she was nosy, he’d said. He wrote them down so he wouldn’t forget. Grey had suggested where his dad could keep it.
He flipped the keyboard over.
A few minutes later, he was scrolling through email. There was nothing new as far as he could tell. The inbox was loaded with spam and dating site weirdness such as Sugar Daddy and Just 15 Minutes—invitations from future dental secretaries with bright smiles and promising measurements.
The previous email from ! was gone. It wasn’t in the trash or filed in a folder. Even a search of the entire computer turned up nothing.
But there was an invoice for scuba gear.
Shit.
His dad was a hundred miles away and heading for Lake Mansour. This was a bad sitcom of double-talk. Grey had it all wrong. He wasn’t doing some sort of underground illegal immersion reality trip. Grey would’ve bet his college fund (if there still was a college fund) that his dad was dabbling in awareness leaping and it turned out he was hiding out at a hedonistic resort on the water.
His dad wasn’t looking into new ways to explore reality; he wasn’t risking everything to become wealthy or enlightened. He was just a fornicating asshole spending his son’s college fund on water sports and strange.
He slammed the keyboard. Who’s the bigger asshole?
The plastic cracked. He pounded the seat and collapsed. This was worse than being left behind. Now there was no hope of awareness leaping. None. Zero. He was stuck in his life.
Get the grinding plate ready.
There was only one icon on the GPS. His dad had dropped off. Grey followed the route back to his last location. He’d disappeared sometime in the last ten minutes, about ten miles from the water. It appeared to be a long private drive that led to a s
prawling house.
Either he’d turned off his phone, which was impossible, or he’d figured out he was being tracked. Equally impossible.
What did it matter? Let him find out he was being followed. Grey would rather get super stoned and listen to music than scuba dive off a wave runner with a bunch of fake assholes.
Grey torched up a bowl, turned the music up and ate more cereal. He took a second tour of the bathroom, watching videos until his legs were numb again. He streamed the same ones from the other night, the highlights of Maze competitors, mucus gel dripping off their toes.
A new universe awaits.
Mid-afternoon, he took a shower. A respirator was hanging on the showerhead.
That’s weird.
Why would a respirator be in the shower? And why didn’t he take it with him? Unless there was equipment at the resort. A rubber disc was next to the soap, the type used to plug the tub. Maybe he was practicing.
Something’s lining up.
His dad was too nervous before he left. This was adult stuff, he had said. But not the adult stuff that involved hedonism. He was sort of scared.
And he was practicing scuba diving in the bathtub.
Grey rinsed his hair, washed away the pleasant buzz and slowly dried off. Something occurred to him with an edge of hope. With the towel wrapped around his waist, he left a damp trail to the kitchen and tore the white cards off the refrigerator.
It was the one on the bottom he looked at, the first one. The one with the creases. This was more than an invitation. His dad hadn’t folded the card to put it in his pocket. They were crisply lined up, perfectly parallel.
Grey folded the card.
They closed like shutters, the edges falling just short of each other, keeping the exclamation point exposed. The random black lines on the back of the card aligned with the thick exclamation point. He dropped it on the floor. Swallowed hard.
He’d heard of this.
He’d heard of people getting invitations in the mail, ivory cards with very little information, nothing that could be tracked. No return address, just the recognition that you had been selected. Hope had returned.
It was staring up in the form of a symbol.
The Sessions
A room without windows.
There was a door on each wall but no windows. And next to each door was a monitor that pretended to be a window. The images were of a lake. The opposite shore was too far to see. Dr. Henk Grimm assumed it was an ocean, not a lake. Nonetheless, they were not windows, they were images on monitors, so they couldn’t be trusted.
Was there really a man in a boat with his son?
Henk was sent to the room upon arrival and locked inside. For the privacy of others. That didn’t make sense. They all saw each other the first night of the month-long Sessions retreat. There were no masks, no mystery. No plates of blow, no orgies at the end of the night. They knew why they were there.
So why lock us in?
His room had two couches and a coffee table. No matter where he sat, he was looking at a monitor with a lake and a father and a son in a boat. The sun was just off the horizon, early morning. That was another thing, there were no clocks.
Time is relative, Micah said. Be here, now.
If Henk wanted a Zen teacher, he would’ve gone to the mountains and saved a fortune. He’d paid for technology magic, not belly-gazing bullshit.
He sank into a couch with a tepid cup of coffee. The robe fell open, his genitalia running wild. He left it that way. If someone was watching, enjoy.
The door behind him opened. Henk spilled the coffee, staining the white robe. He quickly stood, wiping his hands on the lapels.
“I’m so sorry, Mr. Grimm,” Rema said.
“Dr. Grimm.”
“My apologies, Doctor. I did not mean to startle you.”
Rema was Indian—dot not feather, his father would say. She was also gorgeous. Silky black hair, olive complexion, with a sexy English accent. He had a taste for blondes and blue eyes, but he was willing to explore new pastures. Exploration was why he was there.
“I expected you earlier,” he said.
“Are you comfortable?”
“I’m showered and ready. How about you?”
“I am always ready, Dr. Grimm.”
I like it already.
She sat on the opposite couch. Her clothing was loose and slipped off her shoulder to expose a bra strap. Her teeth were a good color, but the left central incisor was twisted. If he went back to his practice, he could fix that for her. He’d taken the month off for these Sessions. His partner had taken over the client load. He’d told them he was going hiking to clear his head, that sort of thing. He hadn’t told them that if everything went well, he wouldn’t come back.
At all.
Rema unpacked her bag of pill bottles and equipment—a respirator, headset, stethoscope and other fancy gear.
“You’re not wiping my memories.” He pointed at the leathery skull cap.
“Of course not, Dr. Grimm.”
“I know what that does.”
“You’re only preparing for a short leap. It will be a temporary disassociation with your body. There is no memory wipe; you will return as yourself. There is nothing to worry about.”
She chuckled, truly entertained.
Her adorable smile and intelligent accent put him at ease. Honestly, he wasn’t opposed to losing his memories and starting over. That was sort of the point of the Sessions. So why was he scared?
Because when it came down to it, memories were a security blanket, his identity, who he was. His memories made him Dr. Grimm, not Mr. Grimm. It wasn’t easy giving up the blankie.
There was no reason to hang onto his identity. He wanted to forget it, to start new. Born again, as the Christians would say. What would it be like to program new memories, fabricate a past that would lead to a new Henk Grimm?
Not a new Henk Grimm. A new me.
He would drop his name because it was already tainted. He would pick something else, forget who he was entirely, believe a new past, whether it was borrowed or fabricated.
I would still be me.
“This is to help you relax,” Rema said. “Your vitals are slightly elevated. I expect you are a little nervous about today. That is natural. Have you been practicing mindful breathing?”
“Yes, of course.” That was a lie. He didn’t see the point in breathing on purpose. The body had that under control. “When can I get some fresh air?”
“You’re here to maximize your time, Dr. Grimm.” Rema adjusted the straps on a respirator. “We are not interested in what’s out there. We explore in here.”
She touched his head. It was the same line, the same gesture Micah had done during the welcoming event just before they were locked in their rooms.
“Take this.” She handed him the respirator. “Breathe deep.”
She urged him to lie back. He was stoned within minutes. Whatever they were pumping through the mask put him on the ceiling.
“What’s in this?”
“We are elevating your oxygen levels. There are some minor additions to help you relax. Are you feeling them?”
He heard her moving behind him and began to fantasize she was getting undressed. If she climbed over the couch and wrapped those brown thighs around his head, he would forget about all the money he’d invested.
I didn’t come for that.
Sex he could get without mortgaging his life. This was a spiritual journey into new realities. The only unanswered question was how far did he want to take it?
He didn’t have to enter the Maze, not if he didn’t want to.
They didn’t pressure him. In fact, they hardly spoke about it. Everything he knew was hearsay. There were rumors of players turning into gods, of never returning to their bodies, of new realities and endless dimensions. He didn’t have to enter the Maze to experience that; he could awareness leap recreationally and call it good.
But very few were satisfied
with that.
Junkies start off small and slow. They nurture the high, nurse the needle until they fall in love.
Henk couldn’t afford more than the one month-long Sessions. He would have nothing left after this. He would return to work and hold off the lenders as long as possible. And then it would be over.
I’ll end up in the Maze.
He hadn’t even made his first leap, but he knew it. He would enter the Maze and get rich or go crazy. If he went insane, at least they would wipe his memories. He wouldn’t know any better.
Does it hurt if you don’t know any better?
He was feeling light and porous when Rema took his pulse. Her touch was sweet, but the horniness had left him, replaced by something more spiritual. Not so grabby.
“Are you ready, Dr. Grimm?”
He nodded like a dopey patient coming out of surgery. She unclipped the respirator and led him to one of the doors. It was difficult to know which one it was. The room was perfectly symmetrical. It could be the bathroom.
There was a bubbling tub of semen.
He gagged. The roiling liquid popped like a six-year-old blowing snot bubbles. And the smell stung his eyes, clearing out the euphoria.
“I thought we were doing the—”
“The vertical tank is a bit more advanced.” She sat on the edge of the tub and raked her hand through the liquid. “This is easier for beginners, Dr. Grimm. You will lay horizontal for a very short trip. And trust me, you will get used to the smell.”
The adorable laugh was lost in a haze.
“This is a nutrient-rich solution, non-oxygenated. You will wear a respirator during this trip. Once you master the vertical tank, you will no longer need it.”
“No respirator? How the hell will I breathe?”
“Sit, Dr. Grimm. Think of this as a hot tub. You will find it pleasurable.”
She stepped into it, hands inviting. The bubbling goo burped around her knees, staining the fabric of her dress. He took her hand and stepped in.
It was warm and silky. His legs were being licked with hot tongues from all directions. His revulsion vanished. He wanted that sensation all over his body. Rema guided him into a sitting position and stepped out to fetch the respirator. The liquid clung to her calves.