The Geomancer's Compass

by Melissa Hardy

  Brian interrupted. “Uhhh, excuse me, Honored Grandfather. How exactly would we … you know…deal with the ghost?”

  “That would be my job,” replied the avatar.

  “Yeah, but how would you deal with it?”

  “Brian!” I pleaded. “Not now!” Brian and his thirst for knowledge! It was beyond irritating.

  “It’s technical,” said the avatar. “You wouldn’t understand.”

  “Try me.”

  The avatar sighed but, seeing Brian’s eager expression, launched into the same kind of explanation it had tried to give me during my disastrous encounter with the giant virtual lo p’an back in Calgary. “Well, first I must gather the energy from the Twenty-Four Directions. Then I must enhance and direct it, tapping the energy intrinsic in Earlier Heaven and using it to affect the energy flow and avoid the energy inherent in Later Heaven –”

  “Hold on. Whoa.” I held up my hand. “Do you see now?” I said, turning to Brian. “Are you satisfied? It’s mumbo jumbo.”

  “I think it’s interesting,” Brian insisted. “I was listening.”

  “Well, stop listening and let’s get on with this!”

  “She’s right,” the avatar said. “Now is not the time, but I’m glad to see that you are interested. If we make it through this … ordeal … we shall talk further. Be assured of that.”

  “I’ve been thinking,” I interjected. “If you’re the one who will be dealing with the ghost and Brian’s doing all the heavy lifting, what’s there for me to do? I mean, I don’t mind staying back in the car. I could … like … keep watch or something.”

  “Absolutely not.” The avatar shook its head. “Your job is essential to this mission. Only a skilled geomancer can deal with a hungry ghost, and I can only do that in this world if you keep me in the picture.”

  My hope deflated like a balloon some kid stuck a pin in. “So I’m the nerd on site?”

  The avatar nodded.

  “But what happens if she can’t?” Brian asked. “What happens if it is Qianfu and you time out, or she loses the connection?”

  The avatar looked very serious indeed. “Well,” it said, “then you die.”

  Ten minutes later, the avatar floating ahead of us like some kind of St. Elmo’s fire, we stole across the deserted highway and picked our way through the tangled scrub and weed-choked grass that lined the road to the golf club’s parking lot. Brian carried the shovel and hedge clippers, while I carried the suit bag folded over my left arm; the Zypad was fastened tightly around my right arm. Our I-spex bathed the scene as it unfolded before us – the scrub and grass, the gutter of rank-smelling mud that gave the road its ragged edge – in a greenish-golden light. It was a mixed blessing the I-spex conferred: on the one hand, they furnished light and made it possible for us to interact with the avatar; on the other, they seriously messed with our proprioception – our ability to sense exactly where our body parts were in relation to other body parts, or to anything else. The experience was a little like walking down steps in the dark, when you don’t know exactly where the next step is. It was way disorienting; it made us both clumsy, and made me dizzy. I don’t do dizzy well. I made a mental note to check with Brian on whether he’d kept his barf bag from the virtual tour. I was pretty sure that, before this night was through, I was going to need it. A barf bag or a body bag, one or the other.

  We reached the parking lot. Brian cast a covetous eye toward the Segways ranged alongside the clubhouse. “Are you sure you don’t want me to steal a couple?”

  I couldn’t believe he was still on about that. “Are you nuts?”

  “It would make for a faster getaway.”

  “If you do that, I’ll have a heart attack. I’m already as nervous as a cat.”

  “That’s because you drank all that Fizz at dinner. I told you to take it easy.”

  “No Segways, Brian.” The avatar’s tone was firm. “It’s too risky. And no dawdling. The longer this takes us, the more likely it is we’ll lose our connection. Miranda, lead the way.”

  “Why don’t you lead the way?”

  “Because I don’t know where I’m going. I’m a virtual entity, not omniscient. It’s up to you to take us to the grave.”

  “But I’ve only been here once,” I objected. “In daylight.”

  “You’ve got the grave’s coordinates dialed into your GPS,” Brian reminded me.

  “Oh, right.” I checked our coordinates. “This way.” I led them around the outside of the parking lot, in the direction of the first hole.

  I was struck by how very different the course looked at night – drained of color, and teeming with elongated shadows that swayed and loomed in the slight breeze. And it was noisy – I could distinguish cricket chirps and owl hoots and frog croaks, along with scurrying sounds and the whisper of something running softly through the wheat. What was that? A hedgehog? A coyote? How big were coyotes? Did they attack humans? I shivered in my CanBoard hoodie. It was chilly for August, but then this was Saskatchewan.

  “Check those out, why don’t you?” Brian pointed toward the sky.

  I tilted my head back and gazed into a thick carpet of twinkling stars stretching overhead as far as the eye could see. “Wow.”

  “Ah, yes,” said the avatar. “I had forgotten how many stars are visible here, how clear the night skies are. Not like Vancouver.”

  “See that flare?” I pointed at a light streaking across the sky. “That’s a satellite pass.”

  The avatar shook its head. “The sky is cluttered with so many things nowadays.” It sighed. “When I was a boy, there were only the stars.”

  “If it weren’t for satellites, there would be no satellite Internet or radio or TV,” I pointed out. “No GPS. Speaking of which …” I checked back in with the GPS. “This way,” I said, and picked my way down the gentle slope of the hole and past the inky ponds that flanked it, followed by Brian; the avatar took up the rear. Once again I consulted the GPS, then headed down the cart path, around a copse of cedars to the second hole, and along the edge of the pond to which I had consigned so many balls earlier that day. In the midst of all this, it occurred to me that I might have to pee sometime soon. Great, I thought. Just what I need.

  The third hole, zigzagging one way, then the other, then back again, was like an obstacle course. The avatar floated effortlessly over the mounds and bunkers, but Brian and I had to walk around or clamber over every landform and, remember, there was that little problem of proprioception. I stumbled like a drunk and timbered twice, landing once on my backside with a wicked jolt, and once on my knees, ripping my jeans. Brian was more coordinated, but he still managed to trip a couple of times, catching himself just short of falling. But the worst thing was that I was now convinced I had to pee. Soon.

  We reached the fourth hole.

  “This is it!” Brian was saying. “The fourth hole. Where the grave is.” He pointed to the eruption of earth crowned with bushes.

  “The fourth hole?” the avatar asked. “The fourth, you say?” It shook its head. “So unlucky!”

  Brian elbowed me in the ribs. “See? I told you. The number four is unlucky.”

  “Not to mention that abomination.” The avatar pointed to the porta-potty. It had been shrouded in darkness at the edge of the green, but now that we turned our I-spex in its direction, it shone the same neon blue that pool bottoms are painted.

  “The porta-potty!” How could I have forgotten? I was saved. “Thank heavens!”

  The other two turned to look at me.

  “I have to pee.”

  “Now?”

  “Yes, now!”

  “I told you not to drink so much,” said Brian, sounding exasperated. “You know you have a bladder the size of a pea.”

  “Don’t say ‘pea.’ ”

  “Well, go on then,” he said.

  “But I hate porta-potties.” I had only used a porta-potty once, when I was a child at some park. I could still remember the strong odor of disinfecta
nt barely masking the other smells, the gaping dark hole down which I dared not look, and, worst of all, the feeling that the molded plastic walls were closing in around me.

  “So pee outside.”

  “Outside? Like a dog?”

  “It’s not going to kill you. Go over there. Behind that tree.”

  “But, Brian –”

  “Honestly, Randi!” He dropped the shovel and headed toward the berry bushes, hedge clippers in hand.

  “When I first came to Chinatown in Vancouver, men would come around every morning to collect the contents of privies, which they would then use to fertilize their gardens,” recollected the avatar. “These men were called night-soil men. Those were good times.”

  “Uggh. You are so not helping!” I steeled myself. People used porta-potties all the time and nothing bad happened to them. Besides, this was a fancy golf course; no well-heeled business dude was going to put up with some crappy porta-potty. Smarten up, I told myself.

  I laid the suit bag down next to the shovel, rummaged in my knapsack for my industrial hand wipes, removed one, and forced myself to walk over to the structure. Taking a deep breath, I reached out and opened the door with the wipe. A faint odor seeped out. Not too bad, I told myself. But the enclosure was narrow – only three feet square – and I tend to get claustrophobic under pressure. Please don’t let me have a panic attack, I prayed. Please! I stepped up into the porta-potty and pulled the door shut, again using the wipe. I pulled down my ripped jeans and lowered myself gingerly over the toilet seat, being careful not to let my skin touch the plastic. I didn’t want to think what germs might be on that seat. Dangerous germs in lurid shades of green and purple, with wiggly edges and malicious grins, as seen in Lysol, Mr. Clean, Chlorox, and Cepacol commercials. What can I say? I’m highly impressionable.

  A moment later, as I was relieving myself of the three cans of Guarana Fizz with which I had washed down supper, I heard a loud, high-pitched wailing sound.

  Beep! Beep! Beep!

  Yanking my jeans up around my hips, I struggled to my feet. “What is it? What’s going on?”

  Brian’s response was barely audible over the alarm’s high-pitched beeping: “Must … laser security,” was all I could make out. That and “Beam … broken.” Great. The perimeter of the grave was protected by a laser beam, and Cousin Doofus had just broken it!

  “I’m coming!” I shot back. “Hold on!” Like I was the cavalry or Mighty Mouse: Here I come to save the day! There was just one problem. When I tried the door handle, it refused to turn. I stared at it with disbelief. Had I locked it? I shook my head. I hadn’t locked it; I’d only latched it, I was sure. I rattled the handle, then tugged on it. I pushed it as far to the left as I could, then to the right. Nada. My heart pounded in my chest. This was so not good. The alarm sounded like a fanfare for Armageddon; meanwhile, I’m trapped in a porta-potty. “Brian!” I yelled. “The door’s locked! I can’t get out!”

  “The door’s locked?” Brian’s voice, nearby now. He must have left the stand of bushes and come down to where I was. “You locked it? Did you think I was going to burst in on you?”

  “No! I don’t know! I didn’t lock it!”

  “What?”

  “I didn’t lock it!”

  “Maybe it’s just stuck.”

  I ground the heels of my hands into my ears to blot out the sound of the alarm. “That alarm is driving me crazy!” I wailed. “Do something!”

  “Do what?”

  “Get me out of here!”

  And that’s when I heard it – or rather felt it, because at first it was more a vibration than a sound. And it grew and grew. It grew until it drowned out even the shrill honk of the alarm. It grew until it was so all-encompassing, so huge, that nothing but it and I seemed to exist, with me a mere speck compared to the swirling, howling, raging vortex of sound – equal parts wrenching despair and towering rage, as if the space-time continuum were being ripped from its bearings, as if the universe were collapsing into itself. The noise was so vast, so horrendous, that it was a few moments before it dawned on me that the sound, the vibration, the … whatever it was came not from the real world but from the virtual one. I fumbled frantically with the controls on the side of my I-spex and finally managed to find the off switch for the earphones.

  And then it was gone, all of it – the alarm too. My head spun; my knees sagged; my ears rang hollowly as though I were at the bottom of a well. What the …?

  A sharp rap against the outside of the porta-potty. Brian.

  “Brian, turn off your earphones,” I cried. “The off switch is on the side of your I-spex!”

  “What?”

  “The off switch! For your earphones.”

  “My earphones are off.”

  “So you didn’t hear …?”

  “Didn’t hear what? I heard the alarm, all right! My ears are still ringing.”

  “No, not the alarm. The other. Really loud …” I paused. Whatever had just happened to me, whatever I had just experienced … there were no words to describe it, not that I could think of, anyway. And coming up with a reasonable explanation wasn’t going to get me out of that porta-potty, which, in my books, was job numero uno. “Never mind! Just get me out of here.”

  And that was when I felt it, felt it for real. The floor of the porta-potty began to quiver, then to quake. The toilet seat started jittering. I clapped my hand over my mouth and stared at the seat with horror. “Omigod!” I gasped.

  “Omigod what?” Brian’s voice, sharp with urgency.

  “There’s something down there!”

  “Down where?”

  “In the toilet!”

  “Quick, put down the lid and sit on it.”

  “What?”

  “You heard me!”

  I flung down the lid and sat down on it hard; it danced underneath me like the lid of a boiling kettle.

  “Brace yourself!”

  “Brace myself? How?” I searched the molded plastic walls to either side of me – there was nowhere to hold onto, nothing to grip. “Why?”

  “I’m going to tip you!”

  “Tip me?”

  “I’m going to tip the porta-potty! It’s the only way.”

  “Brian, no!”

  I felt the porta-potty lurch from right to left. “Whoa!” In a panic, I planted my feet on the door in front of me and pushed against it with all my might. Even so, it was all I could do to keep my bum pressing down on the seat. Then the porta-potty lurched right again, at a much sharper angle this time. It hung in midair for one heart-stopping moment, then crashed to the ground with a resounding thud. The impact caused the jammed door to burst open, and sent me sliding off the seat, over the door’s sill, and onto the grass, feet first. Brian stood over me, laughing. “Look what you did! I told you not to drink so much Fizz. You broke the toilet!”

  “Shut up!” I snapped. “It wasn’t my fault! There’s something seriously wrong with that toilet!” I held out my hands. “Help me up!” He grabbed me by my wrists and hauled me to my feet.

  “Brian! Miranda!” The avatar pointed toward the downed porta-potty with the green globe of its cane. We looked back in that direction, and Brian quickly wrapped his arm around my waist and pulled me aside. Just in time, as it turned out. The jittering lid flew open and an evil-looking and foul-smelling liquid started to ooze over the lip of the toilet.

  “What the …?”

  But it wasn’t just the tank’s foul contents oozing out of the toilet. There was something else as well. Something beginning to thicken and congeal, beginning to take shape.

  Suddenly the toilet lid began to chatter maniacally. It reminded me of this stupid joke toy my dad used to bring out at parties, a set of teeth that you wound up and they would chatter and lurch drunkenly around a tabletop. Only that was kind of funny, and this really wasn’t.

  And then it got worse.

  Poisonous green smoke started steaming from the hole.

  “I’d say we found
our man,” Brian said quietly. “Just like the Mounties.”

  “No shit, Sherlock!” I managed to croak.

  “It’s time,” the avatar said quietly. “Brian, Miranda, it’s time.” But we just stood there, dumbfounded and staring. All the smoke and ooze were melding together into something that was becoming three-dimensional … I don’t know how to describe it. It was compelling. It was hypnotic. “Don’t look at him,” the avatar warned us. “He’ll gain power over you if you look at him.” But it was as if its voice came from far away.

  “Him?” I repeated dreamily. “Who’s ‘him’?”

  “Qianfu! Miranda, Brian! Look away, I tell you!”

  Then the shape did something that got our attention – a real showstopper. It exploded, and green globs flew everywhere. Instantly, the spell was broken.

  I wheeled to face Brian. “What …? Where’d it go?”

  “I don’t know!”

  Then the avatar’s disembodied voice: “Give me the lo p’an, Miranda. Now.”

  I looked this way and that. “What? How? Where are you?”

  The myriad of green globs began to act like one of those schools of fish that elude predators by dazzling them. You know what I mean – the fish go this way, then that, moving as a unit, compressing and expanding and making all kinds of crazy shapes, and it all seems to be choreographed, only how could that be? They’re fish. And then, bam, a flash expansion and suddenly gone, and in its place the avatar, only much bigger than before – seven, maybe even nine feet tall.