I put on the spectacles and pressed the power button on the right earpiece.
Whoa, I thought. Pass me a barf bag.
There was the usual sense of dislocation and head spin you always experience when being bumped into a virtual environment, and then there I was, all gnarly and queased out, standing in what appeared to be a cavernous room at the center of a large 3-D circular structure. The only illumination came from a spotlight that dangled high over my head. The pale, silvery light it cast extended just beyond the edge of the structure, then pixilated out into blackness. I looked down to find myself standing on a medallion consisting of a black-and-white yin-yang symbol. It appeared far down, farther than it should have, given my small size – that’s typical of VR, the impression that you’ve suddenly shot up a foot in height. I pirouetted slowly – no point in moving quickly; that would only make me dizzier and contribute to the not great feeling that I was going to spew any second. Why had I eaten all those cupcakes? The yin-yang symbol was composed of tiny black and white squares, like the tiles in a mosaic. It was about four feet across. Around this central medallion spun concentric circles made of some kind of metal, possibly brass, one after the other. I squatted carefully and ran my hand over the surface of the circle closest to the center. Like the compass, it was densely covered with writing; thankfully, this writing was in English. I dropped to my hands and knees and peered closer. “Fire, earth, lake, heaven …” I read haltingly, crawling in a clockwise direction.
“South, southwest, west, northwest …” A voice from beyond the circle of light.
I stiffened and glanced sharply up. Too sharply: head-spin. “What?” I croaked, my gorge wobbling about in my midsection in a way I didn’t trust.
“That is the Later Heaven Circle you are reading,” the voice continued. “It is the vehicle of divination and represents change and movement.” The voice sounded like it belonged to an old man who spoke fluent English, but with a definite Chinese accent.
I pressed my fingers to my temples and closed my eyes, trying to slow the tilted ring-around-the-rosy going on in my brain. “What are you?” I managed to say. “Are you a disembodied voice or an avatar?”
“An avatar,” replied the voice. “In the original sense of the word.”
I sat back on my haunches and opened my eyes slowly. Easy does it – that was the trick. “What?”
“A variant version of a continuing basic entity,” replied the voice. “Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary.” And with that the avatar floated forward from the blackness. Like most such animations, it was featureless, but its creator had taken the time to characterize it with an old man’s stoop and shuffle. It held a cane in its right hand. The handle was a glowing green globe.
I frowned. “You look familiar somehow. Do I know you?”
“You do!” The avatar chuckled. It placed the tip of the cane on the first concentric circle, which was about the same height as a stair riser, and hoisted itself onto the compass. Folding its hands over its stomach, it rocked tentatively back and forth on its heels, humming softly.
I recognized the posture instantly. “The Grandfather?”
“Indeed,” it replied. “I’ve been expecting you.”
I stared, unable to believe my eyes.
“Aren’t you going to say something?” it asked. “After all, it’s been three years.”
“Three years since you died.”
“Yes, and …?”
“Well, that’s the point, isn’t it?” I asked. “You’re dead. That means you’re no longer real.”
“That depends on what reality you inhabit,” replied The Grandfather. “Where do you think people go when they die, Miranda?”
“Heaven … hell,” I said. “To tell the truth, I never thought cyberspace was an option.”
“There are worlds between worlds. This right now … where we are now … happens to be one of those worlds.”
“But don’t you belong in … I don’t know … some Buddhist heaven or other? I mean, you were such a big deal. In life, that is.”
“There is no Buddhist heaven,” it replied. “There are the Six Realms. And, not to put too fine a point on it, I am stuck between realms at present, and will be until we can solve the problem of my brother’s disappearance.”
I was so not satisfied. “Right. Stuck. Yet you somehow managed to get yourself encoded into a virtual reality tour?”
The avatar nodded. “So I could communicate with you.”
That sounded pretty out there. “How do I know you’re not some artificial intelligence entity modeled on The Grandfather?”
“Why would you think that?”
“The way you talk, for one. Your English. The Grandfather sounded like he’d just got off the boat from Shanghai.”
The avatar shrugged. “An upgrade. Just a matter of installing a dictionary. But let’s get on with it. We really don’t have much time. Did you know that your cousin Aubrey is due for a massive heart attack in two weeks? It seems that her potassium levels are dangerously low.”
It was like it had reached into my body and squeezed my heart in its hand, like my heart was caught in some kind of vise; for a moment I could barely breathe. Poor Aubrey. I could only dimly remember the cute, bouncy teenager she had been, a little plump maybe, but never fat. “Stop it. How can you joke about something like that?”
“Oh, I’m not joking, Miranda,” the avatar replied. “This will most certainly happen if we have not rectified the situation in two weeks’ time.”
“But how do you know? How can you possibly know?”
“We have our ways.”
“We? Who’s ‘we’?”
“The feng shui channel, of course. It’s more than just a way to distribute content, you know. Much more. Oh, and did you know you are scheduled to be eaten by a shark within the next twenty-four months?”
“What?”
“Off the coast of Bermuda.”
“I didn’t know I was going to Bermuda.”
“Surprise.”
“Oh, man.” I was starting to quease again – all those cupcakes doing their cupcake dance in my stomach. Eaten by a shark? “What you’re talking about is in the future,” I protested. “How can you possibly know what’s going to happen in the future?”
“There is no future, Miranda. There is no past. Now is all there is. The present moment.”
“Maybe for you … because you’re dead!”
The avatar sighed. “For you too. For all sentient beings. You just don’t realize it.” It shook its head. “I’d forgotten how contrary you can be.”
“I have an inquiring mind.”
“All well and good, but we need to focus. Can you focus?”
A shark? Really? “I can focus.”
“Well, do. Now, what do you know about our problem? What did your grandmother tell you?”
“She told me that I was in charge of the lo p’an, but she didn’t tell me how to use it and, honestly, I don’t read Chinese –”
The avatar interrupted me mid-sentence. Its tone was withering. “Mastering an instrument as complex as the lo p’an requires much more than the ability to read Chinese. A good geomancer will have some innate talent, but he must also apprentice himself to a master and study for many years before his readings will be accurate. Of course your grandmother did not tell you how to use it. She did not know how to use it, and neither will you. It is I who will use it.”
“So how come I have it?”
“Isn’t it obvious?” asked the avatar. “Because I am a digital entity. The lo p’an is real. Digital entities cannot carry actual objects.”
“So I’m a lo p’an mule?”
“Essentially.”
This came as both a relief and an affront. I snorted. So much for my big important mission, so much for me being The Chosen One.
“And a Seeker.”
“Pardon?”
“A Seeker,” the avatar repeated. “That’s you.”
I should h
ave known. Classic avatar speak. You’re not a player; you’re a Seeker. It’s not a game; it’s a Quest. You don’t win or lose; you Triumph or are Utterly Destroyed. That sort of thing. It was just something about being an avatar; if they had DNA, which they don’t, the impulse to indulge in avatar speak would be in their DNA. “What do you mean, Seeker?”
“One who seeks Qianfu.”
I sighed. “I hate to break this to you, but this is not going to be as easy as you and A-Ma seem to think. Over a hundred years have gone by. Anyone who knew anything about what happened to Qianfu’s bones is long dead.”
“There are records,” the avatar said. “Databases –”
“Hello,” I interrupted. “Which databases?”
“All relevant ones.”
“Databases are only as useful as their data,” I countered, “and in case you didn’t know, unmarked graves tend not to be in databases. That’s why they call them unmarked.”
“Oh, you’d be surprised at what ends up in a database.” The avatar’s tone turned breezy. “But you downloaded a virtual tour of the lo p’an, Miranda. Don’t you want to take it?”
“I guess,” I said. “Wait a minute. How did you know I was going to download this tour? I didn’t even know there was a feng shui channel before tonight.”
“We have our ways,” replied the avatar. “Now.” Stepping back and turning slightly away from me, it extended its arms out wide. “What we appear to be standing on is a 3-D model of a geomancer’s compass, much enlarged. An ordinary compass aligns with the magnetic pole to determine directions or bearings in the physical realm. A geomancer’s compass, on the other hand, is used to select a place to live, in agricultural planning, and to align the dead. The idea is to use the laws of heaven and earth to maximize chi. Do you follow me?”
“Sort of,” I muttered. “You know this is all bogus, don’t you? Utter hooey.”
“I most certainly do not,” it said crisply. “There are other differences between a lo p’an and an ordinary compass.” It pointed to the words carved into the concentric rings. “Take these feng shui formulas embedded on the Heaven Dial, for example. You won’t find these on an ordinary compass.”
“Formulas for what?”
“Various things.” It began pointing out the different formulas. “This one has to do with the eight main life aspirations. That one there, Flying Stars, that’s a time and space system. And this … this formula focuses on the interaction between a particular element – water, wood, fire, earth, or metal – ruling the front door of a building and the elements ruling the birth dates of its occupants.”
Suddenly, as if a switch had been thrown on, the metal surface on which we were standing began to rotate slowly in a clockwise direction, like a merry-go-round. I staggered a little, then struggled to regain my balance, not easy in a virtual environment. “What’s going on?”
“We are standing on the Heaven Dial. Underneath this dial is the Earth Plate. The Heaven Dial rotates freely on the Earth Plate. Look out!”
I jumped just in time to miss tripping over a taut red velvet rope that stretched from one side of the compass to the other, eight inches above the surface. “What’s that?”
“That’s the Heaven Center Cross Line. It crosses the Earth Plate and Heaven Dial at a ninety-degree angle.”
The compass was picking up speed.
“Can you stop this thing?” I complained. “I’m dizzy.” I sank down onto my knees, then pitched forward onto my hands.
“I’m trying to demonstrate how the lo p’an works,” the avatar objected.
“And I’m about to heave chocolate cupcakes and fruit punch all over your precious compass!”
The avatar sighed. “All right.” It hoisted its cane into the air. There was a clicking sound and the compass slowed, then lurched to a grinding stop.
I rolled over onto my back and laid my hands over my forehead. Both were clammy. My heart was racing and my stomach was a swamp with attitude. “Remember, I’ve got I-spex on,” I gasped. “CanBoard hasn’t worked out the registration error yet. Balance is an issue.”
“Now I remember,” said the avatar. “You were the one with the weak stomach.”
It was true. Most children’s parties when I was a kid ended up with me in the bathroom heaving up cake, and no car trip or airplane flight was complete without its upchucks. On the plus side, my dodgy stomach made it possible for me to focus on my studies without the usual socially generated, alcohol-fueled events that were beginning to distract many of my peers. A mixed blessing, I guess you’d say.
“I seem to remember you throwing up on me once, didn’t you?” noted the avatar.
I flushed. “When I was like five.”
“On my birthday. If I’m not mistaken, you managed to hit the cake as well. That was memorable.”
“You were jiggling me on your knee,” I retorted. “I had candy coming out my ears. What did you expect?” I rolled carefully onto my left side and slowly up to a seated position. Then I got onto my hands and knees, steadying myself before standing gingerly, adjusting my I-spex, and taking deep breaths in an attempt to settle my stomach.
“Are you all right?”
“Yes. Just, let’s take things easy, OK? No spinning and jumping.”
The avatar seemed disappointed. “That animation took hours.”
“Well, sorry, but I’m not an avatar and I’m not dead. I have a stomach and a head and, right now, neither of them can handle the round-and-round-we-go part.”
“If you insist. Now, where was I?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” I said vaguely. “Dials, plates …”
“Rings,” said the avatar. “There are eighteen of them in this particular compass – it varies – but only three are critical to our enterprise. Now, listen up, Miranda. They are the Twenty-Four Directions Circle, the Earlier Heaven Circle, and the Later Heaven Circle …”
Boring!
“This one is the Twenty-Four Directions Circle; it describes the realm of the earth and the energy that flows in it. This is the Earlier Heaven Circle; it describes the realm of the underlying permanence of the Tao, the principles or laws of existence that do not change. And this one –”
I held up my hand. “Hold on. You lost me. I don’t have a clue what you’re talking about. Grandfather? Grandfather?” My field of vision had begun to crackle with dropouts, and the audio was fading in and out. My I-spex were losing their charge. “You’re cutting out,” I said, as my eye screens went black.
“Being eaten by a shark is a painful death,” I heard the avatar say in a faint voice, as if its owner was tumbling down a well away from me. “That’s what they say-ay-ay-ay-ay.”
And there it was – the void. Nothing for my senses to grapple with – no color, no sound or sense of touch. I told myself that I was not floundering in nothingness, which was what it felt like, but suspended in a kind of air lock between reality and virtual reality. Even now, after years of operating in VR environments, a kind of terror wells up in me – the brain finds a sudden lack of sensation difficult to reconcile with conscious thought, and it panics. This happens to everyone, I told myself, just hold on and it will be over.
Then there was a click and the dead hum of the empty channel. All I could say was, thank the Celestial Worthy of Numinous Treasure.
I peeled off my I-spex and squeezed my eyes shut. I rubbed them hard, then opened them. When I had logged onto the virtual tour, I had been seated at my workstation. Now I stood in the approximate center of the large open area assigned to interns during the summer. Darkness had begun to seep into the big room; all that was left of the flaming sunset was a coral-edged horizon. I checked my watch. It was going on nine o’clock. Then my phone rang. Without checking the call display, I answered it. And instantly regretted it. It was Brian. Groan.
“Randi,” he greeted me. “Cuz.”
I winced. I hated being called Randi and he knew it. “Hi, Bri,” I countered. Problem was, he didn’t mind being called B
ri. In fact, he kind of liked it.
“Long time, no hear.” Why did he always sound so cheerful? It was massively irritating.
“What do you mean? I saw you at A-Ma’s funeral.”
“Seeing is not hanging out with.”
I was glad the webcam was turned off, so he couldn’t see my face go scarlet. He was right, of course. I had made a point of avoiding him at the funeral. It would have been too weird hanging out with him and not saying anything about what A-Ma had told me, all the while knowing that we would be going on this fool’s errand to Moose Jaw in a couple of weeks.
“Yeah, well,” I said, “I had a lot on my mind.”
“I guess there’s not much we have in common, now that you’re like a one-woman brain trust and I’m an illiterate gardener.”
“Hey, you’re a dyslexic bonsai master, not an illiterate gardener,” I corrected him. “There’s a difference.”
“No there isn’t.” He was joking and he wasn’t. Brian had always been supersensitive about being dyslexic. How not? The Chinese-Canadian community placed an insanely strong emphasis on education; most of the kids we grew up with would go on to become professionals – lawyers, doctors, scientists, or accountants. Not Brian. So understandably he had a bit of a self-esteem issue, which would have made me feel sorry for him if his relentless cheerfulness hadn’t annoyed me so much. Brian needed to take a few sadness lessons. Seriously. He was way too enthusiastic about everything. “But that’s not what I’m calling about,” he continued. “I’m calling about this romantic trip for two that you and your pathetic loser cousin – now, who would that be? Oh yes, that would be me – are supposedly taking to Moose Jaw. Like, tomorrow.”
“What? Did Mom just tell you?”
“Tonight. An hour ago. You mean you’ve known about this all along?”
The Geomancer's Compass Page 5