by Curtis Hox
Masumi moved to one of the bare walls and squatted with her back against it. She said nothing as she regarded the new door. Alice remained where she was.
“This is going to ruin my night,” Masumi said. “Doesn’t look locked.”
“It’s not,” Hattie said, stepping around the bookcase on the floor. She bent down and grabbed a corner. “Help me.”
Everyone did as told, moving the large bookcase in front of the door, hiding it from view.
She faced Masumi. “You saw for yourself. Do you agree?”
“I did, but what’s behind—”
“You asked to see another instantiation. You saw one. What’s behind that door is not important right now. I need all of you to trust me. That doorway is a central part of what it means to join our new Society. All of you must show discretion and not mention that door or, of course, open it.”
They both nodded their heads, except Masumi. “I don’t like this talk of silence, secrecy, of hidden doorways that lead to God-knows-where and a command not to inquire.”
“Anyone who talks about that door betrays all of our trusts. Can we agree on this?”
“When,” Masumi asked, “can we open it?”
“When we’ve succeeded in creating our new Society, all of us will walk through that doorway, one at a time. All of us.”
“How do you know it doesn’t hide a concrete wall?”
Hattie refused to answer. She wanted some mystery, as seductive and tantalizing as it was. She also wanted a demonstration of dedication.
More than that, she wanted obedience.
Until she fully established her Society and consolidated its power, they stood on precarious ground. It could crumble away. Right now, the door was a test. Only Hattie knew what stood behind it.
None of them had stitched the interpolations, like she had, or knew that Towns had only incanted the first of five interrelated combinations. Together they formed a framework, a whole. The instantiation of this door was just the beginning. Where it led was vital. Finishing it was vital.
“Are you convinced?” Hattie asked.
Masumi refused to answer.
The group allowed Masumi a few moments to contemplate the appearance of a doorway in a wall that had been complete only moments before. She had endured a moment of horror at the thought of what might lie beyond; then she’d realized that the door probably led nowhere. She guessed that behind it stood drywall or concrete or brick. Still, its existence was enough of a miracle that her mind struggled to categorize it as a true instantiation of bleedover requiring new metaphysical classification. The apple and the door were real, if the word was to hold any weight. Masumi was willing to trash all her work in computing cognitive science, if so.
“Four years I helped Dr. Ross debunk the N.P.B.,” Masumi said. “I’ve turned my back on it to understand what’s happening in this room. This is no hoax; this is no misinterpretation of complex phenomena.” She looked at Towns. “First an apple, now a doorway. Surprise, surprise.”
He smiled a big beaming grin, as if she’d just agreed to go to the prom with him.
“Well?” Dr. Sterling asked.
“I got what I asked for.”
“Now you have to deal with it.”
“Exactly, and so does Towns.”
* * *
Masumi didn’t speak. Towns understood not to bother her.
He’d seen her walk this way before, with her chin almost on her chest, in a straight line as if anyone in the way had better move.
Her book bag bounced but didn’t slow her as they followed a well-lit path through the quad. Each time her legs moved, her calves glistened like wet silicone in the lamplight.
She led him to the Student Center, a low, circular building nestled off to one side of the dorms.
A few students played foosball in the game room, while others watched a big TV surrounded by loveseats. The food court had just closed, but the university club was open. The Polar Bar also served a few domestic beers to those willing to let the staff scrutinize their IDs.
“I didn’t know the school had its own bar,” Towns said.
Masumi ordered a pitcher and chose a tall, circular table with two high stools.
A band was clearing the stage, while a few fans loitered.
She filled her large plastic cup and waited for him. He did the same. Then she downed the entire drink in a few gulps.
“What the fuck is going on?” Masumi asked. Her shaking hands almost spilled the refill. He opened his mouth to reply, but she cut him off with a raised finger. “This is absurd in the truest sense of the word.” She stared into her cup, waiting for the suds to drop. “I have no idea how to explain any of this. And neither do you.” This time she drank only a quarter. “Are we really going to stand up in front of the world and offer a demonstration with no explanation?”
“She’ll offer an explanation—”
“How much do you know about Dr. Sterling’s work?”
“I’ve read enough to want to come to Riodola. I know she believes the N.P.B. is as real as any other thing in nature.”
“But bleedover can’t be real, Towns, not like gravity.”
“Isn’t it enough that we can observe the phenomenon, and manipulate it?”
“Shut it.” Masumi snarled at him, a sure sign he was onto something. “You’re right; sorry. I should be less annoyed. This feels more challenging than any other discovery. Newton would shit and run for his Daniel if faced with bleedover.”
“What’re you talking about now?”
“The history of science, Towns. I bet you have no idea that the seventeenth century’s greatest British natural philosopher, Sir Isaac Newton, spent decades in addle-brained pursuit of Biblical prophecy. Knowing that is called perspective. You have no awareness that you’re at the center of something momentous, do you?”
He knew that was true.
Besides, the idea that the two of them were sharing drinks clouded clear thinking, so he took another sip.
“I’ll start from the beginning,” she said. “In ancient Greece, the philosopher Thales got the ball rolling …”
Towns tried to listen as she began with the dawn of philosophy in the West. The bar was low-lit enough to leave half her face in shadow while illuminating the other. He sipped and nodded and occasionally said, “Interesting,” while he told himself to play it cool.
An hour later, she was onto Copernicus and the troubles of the sixteenth century when she signaled for another pitcher. This one lasted into the nineteenth century. Then, as if she’d just remembered, she explained why he needed to read about Descartes and the problem of Newton being a mystic. Towns still pretended to listen.
The third pitcher arrived when she began on Darwin. Masumi finally showed signs the alcohol was taking effect when she stopped staring at her cup and began gesturing at him, as if he might understand better with her flailing arms.
“Excuse me for a minute,” Towns said.
He walked to the bathroom.
Once inside, Towns took a deep, centering breath and stared at himself in the mirror. He had no hopes for a romantic encounter, he told himself. He just wanted to end the evening without doing anything too stupid.
As he left the bathroom, he tripped over the doorsill, then stumbled to one knee. Masumi giggled a little.
“Come on,” she said. “It’s closing. I have beer in my apartment.”
Towns followed, lamb-like, hopeful for slaughter. “Great.”
“Don’t get any crazy ideas. If we’re going to give a demonstration together, we might as well get to know each other. This is not a social call, in that sense.”
* * *
The word “that” rang in his head as she led him to the university’s best living complex, the Miramar.
He saw a twenty-story private apartment building rise up above the other dorms. She explained it was filled with small but modern spaces for fully funded graduate students (like herself) or wealthy undergrads whose pare
nts had spent enough cash to keep them out of the less impressive dorms.
She flashed her ID in the lobby and gained entrance to one of four elevators. After the elevator doors closed, he looked directly ahead and tried not to think about what he was doing.
She said, “Do you have any idea the implications of what a new culture science would mean? Nature itself has to be drastically different from our earlier conception. This means human consciousness has entered a new level of knowing—if Dr. Sterling is right.”
He listened and agreed.
Towns had a hard time concentrating because the oldest of human behaviors was on his mind.
Just chill, he told himself as they walked to her apartment door.
Once inside, they entered a pocket of moonlight flowing in like quicksilver from a wide window. Her apartment was decorated with an old futon in the living room and a single bed in the other. A black-and-white poster of Albert Einstein hung from one wall. A line of tiny cacti in pottery sat on the sill.
The modest skyline of Jersey City and, behind that, the more impressive view of downtown Manhattan lit up the night sky. They had a perfect view of the Statue, and beyond that the Verrazano Bridge. Masumi walked to the window in the half-dark and stared at the metropolis that symbolized modern America.
She eventually flicked on the main light and pointed at the futon.
Towns did as instructed as she retrieved two bottles of light beer from the refrigerator. She sat on the carpeted floor, then handed him a beer.
“How do you do it, Towns?”
He stopped in mid-sip. “The incanting?”
“Of course. I mean, how did you know to add those—”
“Death growls?”
“I was going to say abominations. Yes, death growls.”
“By accident.”
“Accident?”
“Yeah.”
Masumi waved her bottle at him. “You don’t realize it, but you just mentioned a concept that has stumped thinkers for centuries. Do you have any idea how important it is?” She looked at her poster of Einstein. “That’s him in his later years when he was at Princeton struggling with the implications of what they were calling the new physics.”
“N.P.,” Towns said.
She waved at him. “Now that is an accident.”
He squinted to see the caption at the bottom of the poster.
He read aloud, “God doesn’t throw dice.”
“No,” Masumi said. “But if Dr. Sterling is correct, then human culture does. In a world in which the impossible happens, Einstein’s simple maxim seems as quaint as a geocentric universe.”
“They used to believe that, didn’t they?”
“Ever heard of Hume?”
“Who me?” he managed.
Masumi spent the next few minutes explaining contingency and causality, and he pretended to listen like every word was golden.
She said, “Modern science is predicated on a spurious notion: that we can understand the ultimate cause of things. But many problems in engineering that modern science addresses are based on finding the proximate cause of a problem and fixing it. We’ve had great success with this; our applied technologies have conquered the world.” She stopped to make sure he was listening. “Thus, it seems the world has some degree of order to it. Thus, the reference by Einstein to a universe (God) that doesn’t allow for a random toss of dice, an accident. However, the true philosopher understands that such notions are difficult. Hume suggested that causation …”
She paused.
Towns was smiling at her in a drunken stupor.
“You haven’t been listening.”
“I have.”
“What am I talking about?”
He stumbled over a few inarticulate words until managing, “Einstein didn’t approve of gambling.”
“I knew it! You haven’t.”
She signaled toward his bag. “Let me see the book again.”
He was unsure, at first. Then he remembered.
“Oh, that one.”
He dug out Descartes and tossed it to her.
Towns leaned back, resting his head on the couch, shutting his eyes for a moment.
Masumi flipped to the earmarked page, then back and forth to check how the typesetting had changed. She ran her fingers along the text, as if that might tell her anything.
She read: the brash ones, the brave ones, ever the rethinkers, the seers into the seams, unalterable in their reassessment. Nature breaks open her secrets. Science’s handmaiden comes of age. No longer a handmaiden. Now, a madam in her own right.
She skipped to the bottom of the page where a random display of asterisks, umlauts, and other dingbats suggested that the only real content lay in the readable words. She returned to the interpolation, read more slowly.
A hint of excitement threatened to bubble up in alcoholic enthusiasm as she considered the phrase, No longer a handmaiden. Masumi refused to let herself get hopeful. But this gem suggested, just a little, that the N.P.B. was real. The messy stuff of culture might be coming of age. She might be one of the first people to unpack a new understanding of nature.
Jesus. Pull it together.
Even though she was thoroughly drunk, she started reading the actual book.
In fact, drinking-and-reading (as Masumi liked to call it) was a hobby of hers. If she were going out, she might have a few drinks before with a favorite book. She knew this wasn’t as effective as engaging the material sober. But dulling her intellect also dulled her anxiety. She definitely enjoyed the experience more.
She noticed that Towns had fallen asleep on the couch. She gave him a slow once over and realized he wasn’t unattractive. She inched forward on all fours and got an even closer look. He was skinny, but not misshapen. He had a nice head of red hair, and a cute face. She wondered if he were a virgin.
“You’re something, aren’t you?” she said.
Masumi moved closer, careful not to wake him, yet.
She ran her fingers along his legs, up to his knees, and gave him a little squeeze.
At that moment, she decided to seduce him. She hadn’t been laid in almost a year. And there was something about that growl she couldn’t describe.
* * *
Towns awoke to Masumi crawling on top of him. All thought of what was happening fled as he realized she was undressing him.
She peeled off his shirt and started on his shorts before he could think straight. He had very little experience with this sort of thing and bungled trying to unhook her bra. The night progressed quickly, a blur, to the point his shorts were down at his ankles, caught on his shoes, while Masumi sat on top of him, panties still on, but shorts tossed aside.
She ground away with such vigor he feared injury, but he would not ask her to stop for a gazillion dollars.
When the moment actually began, Towns could only think about the fact it was happening and how he wished he’d showered. He kept fearing she might fall off and wondering where to hold onto her. At one point, he grabbed her elbows and messed up her rhythm, and they had to start again. This wasn’t like the other two women he’d had sex with, both girlfriends, both happy to have someone to call their own. Masumi was different. And he was just drunk enough not to blow his load immediately, but too drunk to do anything well.
When it was over, he was convinced she wasn’t satisfied, while his own orgasm felt less like a climax and more like an imposition.
Masumi retrieved her shorts and said, “If you say anything about this to anyone, I’ll deny it.” Then she winked at him. “Our little secret.”
She curled up on the couch next to him. When she fell asleep, he breathed deeply in post-coital confusion.
He didn’t feel like sleeping yet.
Instead, he dug into his book bag and pulled out a novelization of the remade Battlestar Galactica TV serial. He had been meaning to read it, but hadn’t had time. He managed the first few pages before falling asleep with the image of a half-naked Masumi bouncing up and d
own on top of him like a superhero sex goddess.
CHAPTER FIVE
Hattie stood at her desk in the Cultural Studies Department in Dalby Hall.
The voice message she’d left for everyone was joyous but direct: The dean has given final approval for moving my institute into the library. I also plan to have the Cultural Studies Department transferred to the subbasement by the end of the day.
The move would take all weekend. She was paying a private company to do this out of her own pocket. None of that mattered, though. She simply wanted the institute and the department in Landash before the press conference.
“We have two days to prepare,” she said to herself.
Swiftness was vital before Stephan Ross could formulate a plan of attack. Once the demonstration began, they couldn’t turn back. The truth couldn’t be denied, and momentous change would eventually follow. Even so, she hoped the event would be anticlimactic, the real work beginning with the creation of her Society and the challenges of knowledge building.
She heard voices in the hallway.
Eliot … and?
A knock on the door.
“Come in.”
The door swung wide to reveal Eliot leading Corbin and Dreya Lyell. Hattie caught her breath at sight of her old enemies.
Corbin was dressed as if he might fly to Miami Beach with a wide-collared shirt open at the neck. He also sported his two gold Rolexes, one on each wrist.
Dreya, though, had dressed appropriately in regular cotton slacks and flats. She had pinned her hair up, as if she might take a quick trip to the grocery.
Hattie could see she had aged well, regular trips to her aesthetician having smoothed out the lines at her eyes and lips.
Eliot signaled for them to sit.
Hattie remained standing behind her desk. She tried to appear composed, resisting the urge to look to him for help. For a moment, she let herself believe the last three decades of strife had nothing to do with the Lyells. They lived in a world of commerce and politics that affected external society. She lived in an insular place.
Dreya glanced around at the cluttered office of wall-to-wall books. “Impressive, Hattie. Have you really read all these?”
Corbin offered, “Probably more than once.”