Notopia

  “But I thought … or at least I hoped that it would all be over now.”

  “Even though it was the recesses of Roger’s mind that allowed Urkabis into Notopia, he has mutated beyond the influence of Notopian laws, or he was taken over by something entirely different. He continues to kill dreams, and most recently, he drove Enrique from here in a horrible way. No doubt he has learned a new method to destroy a dream. Gwen, we have nothing to combat him with.”

  Gwen’s mind began to churn. If the story of Shemyaza were real and had taken place here in Notopia, he would not have wanted people to dream. His whole plan was for him and his cohorts to use humans for their selfish pleasures. He certainly did not want them finding new desires and new ideas. He needed them to be dependent upon him. Was it Enoch that dreamt up a way to rid Notopia of this outside scourge?

  “Leo, we need to go to the museum.”

  “May I ask why?”

  Gwen sprang up from the bed. “We need to find a painting, and we need to find Rick.” She walked around her bed, and something new in her portal painting caught her eye. A rope dangled from the bridge. “And we have to go NOW!”

  Leo rolled off the bed to his feet just in time to see Gwen march past him into the hall. “Ok, let’s be off…” he said realizing she already was.

  They hustled up the steps of the museum rushing past the foul-smelling statue. Gwen went directly to the podium that held the register. Turning the pages to the letter E, she quickly found Enoch’s name. “Aha! I knew it!” she said, as they walked to the painting, Gwen explained the Enoch/Shemyaza reference to Leo.

  “So, you hope to gain another clue from Enoch’s painting. You think that whatever Enoch dreamt up to rid Notopia of Shemyaza can be used against Urkabis,” Leo said.

  “Let’s just hope we find it. And Leo, I think you were right when you said something entirely different took over Roger’s dream.”

  There was Enoch’s painting, hanging close to the entrance to the Spiritual Wing. It was a painting of the museum itself. One sphere was missing, but this painting was generated thousands of years ago. Across the bottom were the same cuneiform markings and more hieroglyphics. On top of the sphere was a cylindrical shaped object with a small pyramid on top of it. Gwen pointed at the painting and said. “That’s it! It must be here somewhere. We may have to get on top of the sphere to find it.”

  “On top? You have got to be crazy! Perhaps with ladders and scaffolding we could climb up there, but what will you do then?” Leo asked.

  “I’m not sure, Leo, but we have to try. We must get on top.”

  “Now just you ease off the throttle little lady,” Rick said. He had seen them head to the painting and followed them. “I think you want to go into the attic.”

  “The attic, but why?” she replied.

  “I don’t know Gwen. Your crazy picture from inside there started glowing earlier,” he pointed toward the Spiritual Wing. “When I went to check it out, the figure inside spoke to me and told me to tell you to go into the attic.”

  “Then, let’s go, Rick,” Leo said. “Lead the way.”

  “Only one way into the attic,” Rick pointed. “Right there.”

  A mere ten feet from Enoch’s painting was an unmarked door. Leo got there first and tugged on the handle.

  “It won’t open like that,” Rick said. “This door has been here for several thousand years, and while this building has changed, this door has not.” Roger pressed the handle in, put his shoulder to one side of the door and leaned into it. Slowly, it began to move. It seemed to pivot in the center, and the backside of the door was very thick stone. “It only opens to a gentle firm and slow push.”

  “I haven’t been up there for a very long time,” Rick said. “I hope you find what you are looking for.”

  Leo and Gwen went in, and there was the spiral staircase she had seen in her vision. “Come with us, Rick,” she beckoned.

  “Too many stairs for me, Gwen. I will stay here and watch the door.”

  As they ascended the stairs, they occasionally got s bird’s eye view of the entire Notopia area. There seemed to be many more cleared lots than houses. Notopia was dying fast.

  ***

  Charles and Shelly stood on the sidewalk facing what used to be Roger’s house.

  “His house is gone, yet that thing is still here. I don’t understand,” Charles said.

  “Neither do I Charles, neither do I,” Shelly added.

  “Whatever that thing is, it is not a dream. I don’t know how much time we have left,” Charles said. “Perhaps we need to gather everyone, maybe strength in numbers is what we need, to overwhelm the thing.”

  “It seems to find a way to adapt or evolve through everything we throw at it. It is as if it treats our attempts to hurt it merely as input. Then, it processes the data and adjusts its makeup, acquiring the skills it needs to defend itself.”

  “You may be onto something there Shelly.”

  “What, what am I on to?”

  “It responds to our actions,” Charles said.

  “Yes, but if you are thinking we can do no actions then it will just keep killing.”

  “No. What we need are a series of actions that will induce it to make changes that are circular in nature. Perhaps we can induce a loop of adjustments, it might be possible to get it stuck in that mode, like a computer that is performing a circular function. If it can only make one change at a time, then perhaps if we give it multiple challenges that require conflicting solutions it will be unable to adapt.”

  Charles felt sure he was right. “Let’s head back to Leo’s basement. We got some scheming to do.”

  ***

  Finally, Leo and Gwen reached the Attic. It was just as she had envisioned it. She knelt and wiped off the four stone tablets; taking a closer look, she could see that they were hardened clay and they were covered with cuneiform markings. She then turned to the pottery; each housed a paper scroll, just like in her vision.

  “Leo, what does the writing on this little pot say?”

  “I can’t read that Gwen.”

  “Look closer, there is a name in the lettering.”

  “Yes, I see it now, it reads Pandora?”

  “This is what I was talking about Leo. This is the mythical Pandora’s box. I think that whatever has taken over Roger’s dream came from here.”

  “You mean Urkabis? I heard you say that name before, where did you learn that?”

  “Roger told me that is what it called itself in his office.”

  “So, this Urkabis is not human or a dream. It is a disease of sorts?”

  “Based on the Pandora story, he is an evil pestilence, and he is attempting to infect humanity through Notopia.”

  “But that is all a myth!”

  “Was it? It does say ‘“Pandora” on the lid, and we are looking at ancient clay vessels for a story about two other supposed myth-like characters. I’m not sure what we are dealing with here Leo, but right now it’s all we have to go on.”

  “Okay, Gwen, now what are in the jars?”

  “Papyrus scrolls, I think,” Gwen said. “But I am not sure.”

  “Aren’t those usually fairly long? I don’t think we have enough space here to unroll it.”

  “Historically, yes, but these are different. These rolls look fairly short.”

  Indeed, they were. The first scroll unrolled was only three feet long. It had four right angles marked on it—one in each corner, and then a random placement of hieroglyphics in the center area. As Gwen unrolled the second scroll, the room began to turn a bluish hue. Leo and Gwen looked up, and through the skylight, they could see only a bright blue luminescence. Leo went to the side window.

  “It’s a rainbow, Gwen. More dreams are coming in.”

  “Gwen scrambled to the window. NO! Oh my God! Leo, what are those people doing? You have to get down there!” she pleaded.

  “Why? “

  �
�Leo if we see the rainbow so does Urkabis!”

  “And he will be drawn here to kill!” he finished her thought. “Keep working here. I will be back.” He ran for the stairs, yelling for Rick as he descended.

  “Hurry!” she said.

  She turned back to see the first scroll had rolled back up a bit. She used one of the stones to hold down one corner and then another. Hmmm …these little right angles look curious. I wonder? And with that, she aligned the edge of each stone with each of the markings on the paper. She now unrolled the second scroll, which did not have any hieroglyphs on it. Instead, it had an off-centered hole about two inches in diameter and four cuneiform marks on it. The marks were spread out with one near each corner.

  “Rick! Rick!” Leo continued to yell as he darted down the staircase.

  “Yes, sir! Everything okay up there?”

  As Leo reached the bottom, he said to Rick, “Yes, she is fine, but that rainbow out there is going to bring Urkabis here. Is there a backdoor on this museum?”

  “Yes. Urkabis? Is that what you are calling that thing?”

  “Good. You come with me, and I will tell you about that thing and my plan along the way.”

  Rick and Leo reached the front of the museum where about a dozen people stood, and one dream had already emerged. “Everyone! Come over here quickly; we don’t have much time,” Leo hollered.

  “We have to work together to save these dreams. Urkabis is this creature’s name, and he can’t purposefully kill people, only dreams. So, Rick is going to take this dream inside and get him to safety. I want you two ladies to direct the new dreams to the door where Rick will be waiting. The rest of you come with me.”

  Leo took the others to the far side of the rainbow. He realized that from ground level you could not see through the rainbow. As dreams arrived, he would send people through the light, hoping to confuse Urkabis just long enough for the dreams to get away.

  Gwen had found matching cuneiform marks on the scrolls and on the stones. When she placed the second scroll on top of the first, with the markings aligned, a specific hieroglyph appeared in the opening. Rotating the top scroll one-way or the other brought another hieroglyph into view. In all, four different hieroglyphs were displayed.

  She remembered the cylinder had similar markings on it. Gwen compared the hieroglyphs on the cylinder to the ones revealed by the scrolls. Yes, they matched, but she wondered, What now? She pressed them, and nothing happened. She tried pressing them in the order she found them. Nothing. It must be a combination of some type, of that she felt sure. She looked again at the cuneiform symbols that stood for 1, 10, 100, and 1000. She had tried ascending order and descending order. She double-checked that the symbols matched exactly with the cylinder. What else could it be? Just when I think I have something figured out, a new twist is added, she sighed to herself.

  “That’s it!” she said aloud, “They add.” She quickly returned to the cylinder and, pressed the first matching hieroglyph. Then she pressed the first and second together. Next, she tried the first, second, and third. Finally, she pressed all four simultaneously. The cylinder began to rotate slowly, and the roof above opened. The cylinder telescoped upward, extending beyond the building, and she could see the rainbow overhead, and ran back to the window to look below.

  A man emerged from the rainbow, and the people hurriedly shuffled him toward the museum where Rick had set up an escape route, but he never made it to the door. Urkabis seemed to appear out of thin air, jumping in from nowhere, landing on top of him like a bird on its prey. Gone was the knife, and with a flick of his hand, a bony protrusion extended like a jackknife, which he used to slash and rip the dream open like gutting a fish. Urkabis stood there holding the dream down until the blue fire burst through, and with his usual screech, he sucked in the fire. He then turned to face the rainbow and wait for his next victim.

  It didn’t take long for the next dream to hit the ground and a barrage of fist-sized rocks came hurtling through the rainbow, pelting Urkabis. When Urkabis raised his arm to block the stones, four people rushed through the rainbow, taking the dream with them. Urkabis was confused. He staggered right, then left, then lunged wildly with his bony blade, striking one of the people. The dream, a black-haired woman, darted off in fear into the woods. Within seconds, the others let her go, and all reached the museum safely and made their way inside. Urkabis didn’t follow but instead turned back to the rainbow to await the next arrival.

  The cylinder began to rumble, and a variety of lights started to flicker. Gwen could hear a low hum from inside it that grew steadily in intensity. People on the ground could now see the tip of the beacon atop the museum. A spotlight from the beacon illuminated the creature below. Urkabis turned to face the light, and he began to ooze more green slime from the base of the spikes and thorns on his body. The intensity of the light strengthened, and a few thorns popped off Urkabis, who was now in a struggle with the beacon’s light.

  Two more dreams landed and were shuffled into the museum while Urkabis was in the hold of the beacon. The ever-rolling mass in the abdomen of Urkabis began to swell, and the glow grew more intense. Urkabis began to sizzle and smoke as if he was burning from the inside. He positioned his lethal bony blade against his abdomen and began to slice himself open right below the bulge. The intensity of the light beam diminished, and his cutting deeper caused the beam to stop.

  Urkabis laughed intensely. “You can’t destroy your own!” he yelled. He turned back to where the rainbow was, and seeing it had dissipated, he bounded off into the surrounding countryside.

  What happened? Why did the beacon stop? Gwen looked all around but saw nothing to indicate why the beacon had failed. On the contrary, it appeared to be in good working order as best she knew. Perhaps because Urkabis was gone, and not threatening anyone the beacon had deactivated. Gwen decided to head downstairs to discuss all this with Leo.

  Leo met her at the bottom of the stairs. “You got it working! Thank god!” he said.

  “Yes, the beacon works, but it didn’t destroy Urkabis like I thought it would. Something made it stop. For a moment it looked as though Urkabis was going to cut himself open,” Gwen said.

  “Not quite, Gwen,” Leo said. “It looked to me like he was going to stab that mass that moves around inside him, and when he got close to doing that, the beacon began shutting down. This is not good, and I don’t believe the beacon can destroy it. All is not lost. Come and see what has happened outside.”

  Gwen walked outside the museum door and stood just outside the building. She could see a soft purple hue all around the base. “What is that?” she asked.

  “I think that is a barrier. I think the beacon has made the museum into a sanctuary for dreams and people to be safe from Urkabis. It can’t destroy him, but perhaps it can keep him out.”

  “Well, that explains why everything was still operating on the cylinder when I left it. I wonder how long it can operate, and how do we get everyone inside?”

  “We have to go round them up, Gwen. Once we get all the dreams inside, the firemen can keep a vigil on the town so that when people arrive, they can be brought here as well.”

  “It is going to get crowded in here,” Gwen said. “Leo, you round up all the firemen and start collecting the dreams. I’m going to gather up all of Roger’s notes, bring them here, and see if we can learn anything else.”

  “Okay, Gwen, but let’s meet back here as soon as possible. I am not feeling at all comfortable with the longevity of this situation.”

  Leo drove Gwen to her home and planned to see if any firemen were in his basement. Gwen sat close to Leo, his hand grasping the inside of her thigh, and she hugged his arm with both hands leaning up against him.

  “Leo, you know that if Urkabis kills either of our dreams, we will never see each other again.”

  “Stop it. I can’t think of that right now.”

  “Leo, I love you. One day I hope to find you in the real w
orld.”

  Leo stopped the car. “Gwen, you don’t understand, do you? Your dream is bigger than this place. That’s why you haven’t found it yet. Your dream will take you beyond Notopia. I love you as well.”

  Leo kissed her deeply and strongly. It was not a goodbye kiss, but rather the kind that he hoped she could always look back on and know that a man loved a woman and that was enough to exist on. Gwen felt their time together was short.

  Urkabis slipped deep into the forest area that surrounded Notopia proper. He knew the people would not follow right away, and he needed time to recuperate from the effects of the beacon. He lay on the forest floor as the boils and burns began to heal. The mass churned wildly in his abdomen like a baby trying to kick its way out. Urkabis soaked up the energy from the plants in the immediate area, withering them slowly as their cells evaporated. The beacon had been much stronger than Urkabis thought, and he would need time to evolve a better defense.

  Leo found Charles and Shelly in his basement. After explaining what happened at the museum, what Gwen had learned, and the plan to gather the dreams into the museum, they agreed wholeheartedly. They also shared their findings and concepts about combating Urkabis with Leo, who had begun to formulate a plan of attack.

  Charles said. “I suggest we start with that group of four dreams that fought Urkabis off earlier. Let’s get them back to the museum, and one of us can work with them on devising some plans based on what they did. It will be important not to duplicate anything.”

  “Agreed,” Shelly said. “Come with us, Leo!”

  Leo got out of the car, jogged up the path, climbed the porch steps, and knocked on the door. The porch was back in order, and the window was repaired by the magic of Notopia. Strata opened the door.

  “You’re here!” Strata said. “Do your friends know they are dropping you off?”

  “No, no. We want you to come with us. All of you can be protected at the museum until you find your seeker,” Leo said.