The Empty Door

by E. R. Mason

Inside the mansion, they found themselves in a large chamber that resembled a ballroom. A giant red heart was embedded in the white tiled floor, and a wide stairway to their right curved gently upward. Though the size and architecture of the immense structure suggested elegance, it was nearly bare. There were no pictures decorating the walls and no dividing lines of elaborate woodwork punctuating the room’s mono-color decor. A chandelier should have hung from the high ceiling, but none did.

  Though the wasted gallery was unoccupied, the distorted sounds of heavy metal rock music blared through an open double door near the bottom of the staircase. A sitting room lay beyond. Cassiopia stepped down the three marbled steps that ran the breadth of the receiving area and moved to a position that provided a better view of the adjoining room. Several men in black tuxedos were milling about, some talking among themselves despite the loud music, others watching a large screen television. Most had drinks in their hands, and a few were smoking. Occasionally one of them would look over at the uninvited group of intruders but paid them no special attention. Markman began to take a step in their direction when he was suddenly distracted by a cry from Cassiopia. “Oh...my...God?”

  In unison, he and the robot turned to see what had caused her outcry. From a hallway annex to their left, a completely naked and quite beautiful young woman emerged into the room. Her smooth, tanned skin contrasted sharply against the gloss white surroundings. In her left hand she balanced an oversized, strawberry-whipped cream dessert, and in her right, a tall Pina Colada, complete with umbrella and straw. Her long, straight black hair divided at the right shoulder, half falling to the front, the rest behind. Her exposed body bordered on perfection; large, firm breasts that shifted slightly as she walked, tiny hips that kicked back and forth, and long, smoothly contoured legs that seemed to almost glow at the thigh.

  The carefree lady strolled directly in front of them as she proceeded toward the busy sitting room, oblivious to their presence. Cassiopia, aghast with her mouth open, followed the woman’s progress but seemed at a loss for an appropriate remark.

  Finally, Tel turned dutifully to Markman and said, “Woman—naked.”

  Markman made an annoyed face and replied indignantly, “I know that,” and returned to his appreciative stare.

  The barefooted woman sauntered into the crowd of malingering men and plunked down in a soft, green recliner located in the midst of them. She began to eat her dessert and drink her drink as the handsome attaches looked devotedly on.

  Cassiopia became irate. She looked at Markman accusingly and asked, “How do you know my roommate from college?”

  “Me? I’ve never seen the woman before in my life, and believe me I’d remember if I had.”

  “It’s Brenda; she’s my closest friend.”

  Markman gestured with his hands. “Well, there you go, it’s your daydream, not mine!”

  Since Tel was directly between the two, its motor driven head whirred back and forth as it attempted to keep up with the argument.

  “I’ll have you know that my roommate is full figured and flat-chested. I would never have given her a body such as that, not in my wildest imagination.”

  “She’s your roommate from college? Well, if I was going to have an erotic dream, I sure wouldn’t include a bunch of other guys in tuxedos as part of it.”

  They stared silently into the adjacent chamber, both worrying that their own subconscious desires were responsible for some of the more embarrassing segments of what was transpiring. Finally Markman began to smirk. “Did you want me to go interview her?”

  Anger flared in Cassiopia’s eyes. “That’s it. We’re leaving. There’s nothing meaningful here.” With that, she turned and stormed up the steps that led to the exit. Halfway to the door, she stopped suddenly and looked back at the room, her eyes wide with realization. “Wait a minute,” she said, half under her breath. “I do know this place. It’s her dream house!” She turned toward Markman with an astonished stare. “Brenda’s Castle, that’s what she used to call it. Her greatest fantasy was to inherit a place just like this. She’s mentioned it dozens of times.”

  There were a few seconds of silence as understanding seeped into Cassiopia’s stunned conscious. “Oh my God, I know what this place is! We’re in someone else’s dream!”

  Markman stood with a “please don’t tell me this” simper on his face. The astounded trio looked back at the adjoining room. The loud music had faded, and the tuxedoed gentlemen were now busily gathered around Brenda’s chair in such a way that she was no longer visible. The enthusiastic activity that was now going on was obscured by some of them but clearly was erotic.

  “Okay, that’s it, let’s go,” Cassiopia stammered. She marched indignantly to the door and lunged for the large, decorative handle. In shock, she watched as her hand and arm passed completely through the solid oak door. Quickly, she yanked back away with a short, involuntary cry.

  Markman came up alongside her, having seen what had transpired. He shook his head with aggravation. “Tel, come here and try the damn door.”

  The robot understood. It motored past them and reached for the door handle, only to find that its complex, mechanical hand and arm also pierced the dark, stained wood effortlessly. Without further command, it stepped completely through and disappeared—returning a moment later. “Penetrable barrier, no analysis available,” it said matter-of-factly.

  Markman took a deep breath and went next. His body vanished into the door panel without hindrance. An instant later they heard his slightly muffled voice. “Come on; it’s okay. We should be getting used to this sort of insanity by now, don’t you think?”

  The others followed in turn, first Cassiopia, then the robot. They regrouped on the steps outside. In the time it had taken to exit, the building had become slightly translucent and the effect was escalating. As it did so, the outlines of the interior gradually became visible, including the intimacy of the sitting room where Brenda’s fantasy was still underway, and which had progressed to a far more crude display of eroticism.

  They fled the disappearing dream house and climbed back into the waiting cruiser, relieved to find it was still intact. As Markman pulled out onto the blacktop highway, they peered back to find a calm ocean forming in the fog where just moments before the mansion had been. Waves were beginning to swell and splash onto a long strip of white, sandy beach. Some of the foamy water crept up far enough to reach the dead brown grass that bordered the roadway. Markman hit the gas, and quickly put distance between them and the expanding ocean.

  They drove the purgatory world between dreams. The robot continued to scan for life but reported none. Cassiopia’s irritation became focused on their apparent lack of progress. She looked around at the desolate landscape. “This place is as barren as the moon,” she said, half to herself.

  “What?” Markman asked over the drone of the engine.

  “I said, this place is as barren as the moon.”

  “The moon’s not that barren. It’s a former Earth, you know.”

  “What?”

  “The Moon. It’s much older than the Earth. It was here before the Earth. It was called Luna. That was millions of years ago.”

  “Oh brother. And I suppose now you’re going to tell me it was inhabited?”

  “Yes, by a civilization much less evolved than ours.”

  “Please tell me you’re not going to suggest that we lived on the Moon.”

  “Have you ever visited a place where you lived many, many years before, and when you first see it again, it gives you that strange feeling like you lived there in another life?”

  “Okay, I have.”

  “That’s the same feeling you get when you look at the Moon. The dark areas you see on it were the last of its continents. The rest was ocean.”

  “Scott, where do you come up with these absurd ideas. They are original; I’ll give you that.”

  “It’s not me. It’s recorded history.”

  “What?”

  �
��There are records kept in the Himalayas that go back farther than that. They’ve never been kept secret.”

  “So you believe we here on Earth came from the Moon.”

  “Not exactly.”

  “On no, I’m afraid to ask.”

  “Most of us here on Earth came from Mars.”

  “I’m so disappointed in myself. I should have guessed that was coming.”

  “I know it sounds absurd to someone from the west, but this stuff is common knowledge where I grew up. Children are raised and taught differently there. A great man once said, ‘knowledge not lived becomes sin.’ The eastern religions would be corrupt if they denied what they know to be true.”

  “So we’re talking about reincarnation now, is that right?”

  “Is it so hard to believe?”

  “From a scientist’s viewpoint, very much so. It is a wild speculation with no evidence to support it.”

  “But you do believe in incarnation, right?”

  “What? I don’t understand.”

  “Well, when a man here on earth dies, he leaves his physical body behind, right? I mean, it’s either that or he ceases to exist altogether, right?”

  “He leaves his body behind. Yes, I’ll agree to that. I don’t believe he ceases to exist.”

  “So then, the man had adopted and used that body while he was on Earth. So he was incarnated into that body, right? I mean, either he was incarnated into that body, or he never existed at all until his body was born.”

  “It could be that the man did not exist until his birth.”

  “If that were true, then every single thing you’ve learned, every instinct you have, all the wisdom you have within you, has been acquired in this one single life. In a universe billions of years old, you only get one short life to learn everything.”

  “I’ll admit that does not seem logical.”

  “Well if you agree that the soul existed before birth, then you are agreeing with the idea of incarnation. My masters used to laugh at the question ‘does the body really have a soul?’ They used to say, ‘There is a soul, and it has a body.’ If you agree with the idea of incarnation, that is, the soul using a physical body to visit the physical world, then reincarnation could follow pretty easily.”

  Cassiopia stared at Markman as he continued to guide the cruiser. “You learned all of this growing up?”

  “Yes.”

  “Okay, but if there were previous civilizations on the Moon and on Mars, there would still be evidence of that even after all this time.”

  Markman turned to Cassiopia with a strange look in his eye. “Yes, there would be, wouldn’t there.”

  In the distance, the black storm clouds had dissipated into a gray overcast. The air felt static charged and began to grow cool. The fuel gauge now worried Markman most of all. It was well below one-half and did not seem to be behaving in a consistent way. He tapped at the little glass window until something farther down the road took his attention away. He slowed the vehicle and stopped. No explanation was necessary, Tel spoke for him. “Heavy precipitation imminent.”

  “Look,” he said, and he pointed ahead. “It just started.”

  A clearly defined, and very intense wall of rain soaked the ground ahead of them. The stiff wind that had been present before was now gone, but the heavy curtain of water awaited them.

  “Things are starting to stack up against us,” he warned. “We’re using more fuel on the way back than we did going in. We probably won’t make it.”

  “Try to think positively, Scott. This is all coming from you.”

  “Think us some more fuel? I’ve been praying we’d make it since we left the wild party back there. Sorry to tell you, it’s not working. If it was, my wish for headlights and windshield wipers would have come true by now. How come it’s blue skies back there and hell up ahead, anyway?”

  Cassiopia looked back in the direction of the castle. “If I’m right, Brenda’s subconscious was dominant back there. Visitors through the SCIP door probably don’t have as much influence here as everyone else. Brenda’s dream probably ended, and now we’re back in your subconscious world. Try thinking happy thoughts, will you please!”

  Markman rolled his eyes. “Oh, right!”

  “How far would you guess we have to go?”

  “At least another twenty minutes, except that downpour is going to slow us. I don’t know really.” Markman looked back at the Tel. “And what about you? Are you weatherproof?”

  “My systems are functional to a depth of one hundred meters, Mr. Markman. Additionally, Dreamland fluid compositions are non-inhibiting.”

  “What’d he say?”

  “He said Dreamland water can’t hurt him,” answered Cassiopia.

  “Oh,” replied Markman, nodding his head. “That’s what I thought.” He stomped on the accelerator and headed for the line of rain, calling out, “Get ready, here it comes!”

  A moment later they hit the pounding rainstorm. In seconds, everyone and everything that was within the confines of the cab was soaked through. Markman and Cassiopia were forced to lean forward as close as possible to the windshield, in search of any added protection it might provide. Tel, meanwhile, remained seated upright in the back, completely undisturbed.

  The Dreamland monsoon quickly hindered their pace. The steady decline of the fuel indicator continued. Markman pushed the rover blindly ahead, faster than seemed safe for such conditions, hoping that an increase in speed might not mean an increase in fuel consumption. The torrential rain did not let up, but a short time later, the rover did.

  With the fuel gauge bottomed out, they coasted helplessly to a stop. The reassuring hum of the thought-matter engine was gone. Now only the sound of the unrelenting storm remained. Markman stared over at Cassiopia through the deluge. It was time to walk.

  As they trudged through the downpour, she wiped the water from the face of her wristwatch and stared fretfully at it. Over three hours had been spent in Dreamland, well beyond the limits she had intended. No one will ever come looking, she thought. We will make it on our own, or not at all.

  The steady rain pounded them. Cassiopia had packed a hooded windbreaker that she held in place over her head with one hand, though the brutal strength of the downpour left the thin material more a psychological reinforcement than anything else. Surprisingly, she found greater comfort in Markman. Despite the harshness of the weather, he seemed to have found a kind of serenity within it and appeared to need nothing else. He walked deliberately, water streaming down his face, one arm around her to reassure her. Tel, indifferent to the weather, led the way, adjusting its tractored speed to accommodate the soaked humans it so devotedly guarded.

  Finally, the dull voice of Tel gave reason for hope. “Visual object ahead. Solid matter. Two-point-two-five-two kilometers. Stationary. Mass and volume conform to SCIP dimensions”

  The foul weather countered by intensifying further. The remaining stretch of terrain took more than thirty minutes to cover. The unyielding rain had become so fierce that they would have passed completely by their target had it not been for the continuous monitoring performed by the robot.

  When the door was finally reached Markman seemed to awaken from his trance and stood staring in wonderment at the way water neither penetrated nor streaked the smooth silver mirror surface, but instead disappeared completely on contact.

  No one spoke as they prepared to evacuate. The Dreamland effects were illusory, but the fatigue that now taxed them was very real. They remained only long enough to peel away the soaked transmitter from the side of the doorway and adjust the dripping knapsacks on their backs. Without hesitation, they jumped back into the dry atmosphere of the SCIP laboratory.

  Chapter 25