 
The Mediator Pattern

by J.D. Lee

Artwork by J.D. Lee

Edited by Julane Marx

Cover Image courtesy of Salvatore Vuono / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Cover Image courtesy of Nick Coombs / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

TLF@Trueleefiction.com

www.Trueleefiction.com

Copyright © 2012 Truelee Fiction

All Rights Reserved

ISBN-13: 9781311402776

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. This book contains material protected under International and Federal Copyright Laws and Treaties. Any unauthorized reprint or use of this material is prohibited. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without express written permission from the author / publisher.

This book is for the universe.

It is for my friends and my family.

If I have them, my foes and my enemies.

All of you who exist here.

All of you who have left.

Even those who come and go.

Everything that is or ever will be

or hasn't had the guts to exist.

This book, The Mediator Pattern,

is for all of it.

Table of Contents

Chapter I

Chapter II

Chapter III

Chapter IV

Chapter V

Chapter VI

Chapter VII

Chapter VIII

Chapter IX

Chapter X

Chapter XI

Chapter XII

Chapter XIII

Chapter XIV

Chapter XV

Chapter XVI

Chapter XVII

Acknowledgments

The Mediator Pattern
Chapter I

Harsh rays of light jabbed at the jumbled mess of sheets. A hand darted out from the pile and hovered over the digital alarm clock atop the cardboard box beside the bed. The hand, anticipating the rude scream, silenced the shrill beep as soon as it started. Marcus Metiline, pulling a mashed cigarette from a crumpled pack on the floor, rose from the mattress, dragging his feet and tucking in his shirt as he shuffled toward the bathroom.

Reaching the doorway, he stood and watched himself in the mirror as he straightened the cigarette and brought it to his lips. He patted his pants for a light. From his right pocket, he pulled a matchbook. Seven matches remained. Marcus ripped a match from the book and lit it. Fire illuminated his reflection as his lungs filled with smoke.

Exhaling, Marcus shook out the match and approached the pedestal sink. He rested his elbows heavily against it and examined the already healing cut above his eye. Dim rays of light scrawled across the shadows on his face. The glow of his cigarette burned, emphasizing his round cheeks, deep eye sockets, and two-day stubble with each long drag.

Marcus groaned. He wasn't an old man, but he wasn't young anymore either. He mashed the smoldering cigarette butt into the puddle of water in the sink bowl left by the leaky faucet and pooled by the clogged drain. Patting his swollen, lacerated brow with a dab of dripping water, he stepped back from the mirror and yanked his coat from the hook on the bathroom door.

He emerged from the bathroom. His gray trousers clashed with his one-size-too-small, brown coat. He rolled his sleeves and wore his coat open. His socks peeked out, showing just a bit below the cuff. His black shoes were scuffed and worn, in terrible need of a polish. In contrast, his buckle sparkled and glinted in the light, prominent along his waistline.

Marcus moved toward the bed and bent down to retrieve the crumpled pack of smokes from off the floor. A ringing and humming initiated behind him. The telltale sound of a message from the corporation's standard-issue fax machine sitting half cocked upon his small writing desk.

Marcus had been expecting this message. This meant his assignment was to begin soon.

Standing at the fax machine, a boxy metal device with paper sticking out from one end and a telephone and dial pad upon its face, he removed another cigarette from his pack and lit it, this time from the box of strike-anywhere matches upon the desk. The machine began to pull the paper into itself, feasting on the wood pulp. The buzzing of tiny machine parts could be heard coming from within its hull. The bottom end began to eject the once blank paper with clear, well defined, typeset letters upon it. Marcus snatched the paper from the device.

ATTENTION MR. MARCUS METILINE

Your clearance arrangements have been made and you are scheduled to meet with Mr. Colin Belis, CEO of The Belis Corporation, this afternoon. You will have a seventy-two-hour security clearance in order to meet with Mr. Belis personally. If you need more time, further clearance will be required. Please keep your portable fax machine nearby as we may need to contact you again.

\- The Inner Office of Colin Belis, The Belis Corporation

Marcus Metiline crumpled the note and tossed it on the floor. He took deep successive drags off his cigarette as he made his way across the room to the cabinet in the corner. He reached in and removed a small device with a cumbersome wheel of glossy paper affixed to one end.

Civilian portable fax machine, Marcus thought to himself. "What will they come up with next?" he asked aloud to no one.

Colin Belis, Marcus pondered, such a powerful man. It's been years since we've seen him. The radio stopped reporting on him and The Belis Corporation. He mulled over the implications of such a meeting. No one outside of his inner office is allowed within two thousand feet of him, and he's requested a personal meeting with me. This must be good. If nothin' else, it should pay well.

Marcus attached the porta-fax machine to his belt, snatched up a spare roll of the glossy paper, threw it in his briefcase and left the apartment, latching the door behind him.

He shuffled down the long cramped hallway, passing unit after unit of studio-sized apartments. Reaching the exit, he swung open the heavy steel door and descended two flights of concrete stairs, those stairs that always seem to be just a little taller than they should be. He wondered what a child would do faced with these stairs, crawl maybe? He quickly discarded the thought, replacing it with the relief that his apartment complex was an adult-only facility; no one under the age of 21 was allowed on the premises.

Still, he thought, damn these stairs.

He tossed his cigarette in the bronze butt-bucket at the base of the stairs and fiddled with his keys as he began unlocking the three internal deadbolts on the large cage-like door between him and the street.

Now on the sidewalk, Marcus slouched as he fished his cigarettes out of his pocket and once again patted his pants in search of his matches. Finding both, he lit the cigarette and puffed away at it. Five matches remained.

People in suits flooded the sidewalk, moving quickly on their way. A lady in a smart woman's pant suit waved away Metiline's smoke as she passed, sneering at him in distaste. Marcus shrugged indifferently. After all, his neighborhood wasn't one of those smoke-free zones. In fact, he purchased the apartment specifically for that reason—that, and the age requirement.

Marcus pushed his way to the edge of the sidewalk and waved his hand, signaling an approaching taxicab.

An all plastic, translucently white, three-wheeled vehicle silently pulled to the side of the road directly in front of him. The BelisCo emblem was distinctly engraved on the hood of the car, and behind the emblem, the engine could be seen, its pistons pumping silently but with vigor.

The driver reached over and rolled down the passenger window to greet Marcus.

"Sir, this is a non-smoking passenger transport," he politely informed his fare.

Metiline retorted in disgust, "A non-smoking cab in a smoking zone? I'll wait for another."

The window ascended to its closed position and the vehicle drove away. Other than the sound of the thin wheels on the pavement, it ran in complete silence as it melded into a flood of white cabs.

It was ten full minutes before another transport recognized Marcus's signal. By which time he had already finished his cigarette. The cab halted in front of him and a driver emerged, making his way around the vehicle to assist his fare into the back seat.

Holding the door cordially for Marcus, the cabbie asked, "Where to?"

Marcus grumbled an address to the cabbie and sank into the seat. The man shut the door and returned to his position behind the wheel.

Moments later they stopped in front of a large standalone building with outdoor seating. The sign above the thick-paned glass, double doors read, Cafe Diem: coffee, cannabis, and cigarettes.

Marcus paid the cabbie and exited the vehicle. He watched the cab leave before entering the cafe.

The tables were nearly full with people puffing away on cigars, reefer spliffs, and cigarettes. Only a few folks had coffee at their tables. On one wall, a newly installed, long, glass-topped bar with gold trim and fold out stools extended to the back of the room. Atop the bar, courtesy walls partitioned individual seats. Between each set of occupied partitions could be seen a bundle of cables protruding from the bar's surface. Above the cable bundles hung a brass bell, and on the wall, a menu was posted, highlighting the available products. Running the length of the bar and repeated to the back of the room, the words fax-bay were etched in cursive.

Marcus made his way to the back corner of the room and found himself a seat at the fax-bay. He set his briefcase down, reached under the bar, and folded out the red leather stool. The cable bundle popped out as the stool locked in place. Marcus took his porta-fax from off his belt and set it on the bar. He plugged the device in and rang the service bell.

It wasn't but a second before a stunning, blonde gal with green eyes came up behind Marcus. She was no more than half his age. She was wearing a skin-tight halter top, patent leather high-heels, and an apron that pressed flat most of the ruffles in her skirt.

"Mr. Metiline!" the young girl exclaimed.

"Hi Stacy," he replied without turning. "Can I get a cup of coffee, black, a pack of cigarettes, and one of those primo reefer spliffs?"

She nodded.

"Do you want anything in particular?" she asked as she pointed to the menu on the wall.

He turned to her and said, "Surprise me."

Just then she noticed his swollen brow and the healing cut above his eye. Extending one of her chipped pink nails to his forehead, she lightly touched his wound.

"Mr. Metiline, what happened?"

Marcus thought about it, but realized he had no answer for her. He was known to get into the occasional scuffle and thought nothing of it earlier in the morning, but now, faced with Stacy's inquiry, he could think of no reason that he was injured, no scuffle, no brawl, nothing. Since the alcohol prohibition last year, a forced sobriety, his memory had been pretty good. His liver too. It struck him as odd that he had no answer for her.

With nothing else in mind, he fabricated a loose story about a disagreement between a door and his face. He didn't need her, of all people, to think he was getting old, to think he was losing his memory, or even his mind.

"Ah, those pesky doors. You ought to be more careful, Mr. Metiline," she said with a smile, and turned away to fill his order.

Marcus watched as she sauntered toward the double doors embedded on the back wall. Her long legs went on forever, eventually meeting with the shadows of her ruffled skirt. Even beneath those ruffles, he could still make out the plump, roundness of her ass. He wasn't usually the type to stare, but he knew Stacy and he liked Stacy.

As she disappeared behind the swinging doors, Marcus turned back to his fax device.

A moment later, a slender, young hand placed a cup of black coffee in front of Marcus, the BelisCo emblem plainly stamped on the thick plastic cup. He turned to Stacy and she handed him a pack of cigarettes, the pack also sporting the BelisCo branding. He tore into the wrapping and brought a cigarette to his lips. Stacy extended a light. She lit it, and he puffed away with deep drags.

She smiled and said, "It's my break time, mind if I sit with you?"

She didn't wait for an answer. She fished two reefer spliffs from the pocket in her apron and handed one to Marcus. The other, she brought to her soft, red lips.

"Sure."

A vague smile played across his mouth as Marcus unfolded the barstool beside him and Stacy took a seat.

She noticed the fax device and asked him when he had gotten it.

"Two days ago," he said, "I can't afford these damn things. It's on loan for a job."

Marcus took a gulp of the coffee and said, "This one might actually pay off. It's through BelisCo. In fact, I'm meeting with Colin Belis himself this afternoon."

Stacy's eyes widened, "What job does he have for you?"

She anticipated his answer with large, childlike eyes. Something behind those eyes just lit up sometimes. She still had that spark, that fire of life, the glint of wonder. Marcus envied that about her.

He spoke into his coffee, "Well, if they hired me, it's gotta be a patent dispute."

"Duh," Stacy mocked. "Do you know what kinda patent?"

"Find that out today I s'pose."

Stacy chuckled and said, "Well, that makes sense. I know you'll do great."

With absolute sincerity, she added, "You're the best patent mediator I know."

She paused, then giggling, "After all, you're the only patent mediator I know."

Just then his porta-fax began humming and beeping as the paper wheel turned and fed the device. A message presented itself from the other end.

ATTENTION MR. METILINE

THE CONVERSATION YOU ARE HAVING

VIOLATES OUR AGREEMENT.

IF YOU CONTINUE THERE WILL BE

CONSEQUENCES.

PROPRIETARY INFORMATION.

CEASE AND DESIST.

Passing between Marcus and the message he received, before he had the chance to ponder the espionage required for such a message, was Stacy's slender young hand placing a cup of black coffee in front of him, the same black coffee with the same BelisCo emblem plainly stamped on its thick, plastic cup. He turned to Stacy and she handed him a pack of cigarettes.

"It's my break time..."

She broke off, seeing the contorted look of concern and confusion on his face.

She asked, "Is everything okay Mr. Metiline?"

Marcus looked back toward his fax to find the message no longer protruding from its base.

Something lingering in the back of his mind, something more ominous than the threatening warning he received—or didn't receive— compelled him to gather his things and leave the cafe. He hurriedly unplugged his porta-fax, fumbling with the cables.

Finally detaching the device, he turned to Stacy, "I've gotta go."

He clipped the fax to his belt, snatched up his briefcase, and turned to leave, his coffee untouched. Stacy extended her hand, gently grabbing Marcus's shoulder. He turned to face her.

"For later", she said, sliding a spliff into his coat pocket and patting his lapel gently.

He forced a weak smile in an attempt to show her that everything was okay. She knew it wasn't. He quickly made his way to the front doors and pushed his way through them.

Emerging outside, he hastily hailed a cab. By the time the cab arrived, Marcus had begun pondering his schedule for the day; he started thinking about his meeting with Colin Belis and the importance of such a meeting.

He grumbled his destination to the driver, thinking intently as he seated himself in the backseat of the transport. Once they arrived at the main entrance of The Belis Corporation headquarters, Marcus Metiline's mind had forgotten entirely of the eerie déjà vu he had experienced back at the cafe, and only a distant fleeting sense of unease persisted.

Marcus now stood before an imposing metallic building that jutted harshly into the clouds. As far as he could see, to either side of him, the steely walls of BelisCo lined the sidewalk, extending for miles down the street. The sheer size of the building was impressive to Marcus. He wondered how Belis was able to sneak this modern day Tower of Babel past God. As he looked for the entrance, he realized that there were no seams; no doors, no windows, no entrance, and no exit. There was only the massive slick metallic wall, spread in all directions but down.

Then he spotted a single red button, just below what he assumed to be the address; a single digit, a person-sized 1 etched into the metal. As he approached the comparatively minuscule button, his reflection flickered and danced and stretched and contracted until the florid glow of the button sat centered upon his distorted face. To the side and a bit below the button, almost too small to read, were the words, Loitering Is an Executable Offense.

Marcus knew that, even in his own neighborhood, although it wasn't typically enforced. He knew though that this particular law would be strictly upheld in this zone.

He firmly flattened the palm of his hand against the red button. A small, rectangular section of wall silently melted away to reveal the black vinyl mesh of a speaker. A female voice spoke clearly through the mesh.

"You are early, Mr. Metiline."

Chapter II

The Rise of Colin Belis

Today, The Belis Corporation is a household name. Anyone can look around their office, kitchen, living room, or in the streets and find the famous BelisCo emblem. BelisCo has brought cleaner, more economical transportation to everyone. They have revolutionized business with the fax machine and the electric typewriter, and most recently the porta-fax, consistently bringing jobs to millions of citizens. The Belis Corporation, however, took decades to build. Through apt business decisions and discerning investments, The Belis Corporation grew into the global godsend it is today.

It was in 1956 that oil tycoons Evelyn and Wilson Belis made two important purchases, a technology company in Texas (Houston Instruments) and a silicon-based semiconductor patent from Dr. Arid Filch, an inventor in San Jose, California. Beginning as a research company, The Belis Foundation developed the integrated circuit; a component that allowed for electric circuits to be embedded on a single silicon wafer instead of bulky component-based circuit boards. Later, working closely with NASA and the US government, The Belis Foundation became the sole funders of the US space program.

In 1959, Wilson Belis invested millions in Richard Nixon's presidential campaign. The Belis Foundation offered strength and integrity to the Nixon administration. Backed by The Belis Foundation, Nixon won the 1960 election by a landslide and subsequently served two consecutive terms. During his time in office he pioneered the socialization and privatization of government bodies. NASA was the first organization to fully privatize and became The National Belis Space Agency it is today.

In 1962, with desperation rising toward the American involvement in Vietnam, Nixon contracted The Belis Foundation for weapons research. The Belis Foundation developed new weapons, advanced armors, and an unrivaled form of espionage: an unmanned aircraft. The logistics of this unmanned device remain top secret. The troops were home by the fall of 1964 and the country of Vietnam was reunited by the summer of '66. It has been speculated that if not for The Belis Foundation's involvement in the war, Vietnam may have been the first battle the US lost.

In 1967, The Belis Foundation purchased Electronic Business Machines and within days of the purchase, pulled all units from circulation and stopped production of the EBM 14 business machine, due to the flaws in the earlier EBM device. "The EBM 14 was a sloppy design that posed a danger to the user," a spokesperson for The Belis Foundation said. Belis produced a highly efficient electric typewriter to take its place three years later.

By this time they had merged with many of the up-and-coming technology companies. EBM, InLet, and Houston Instruments became part of The Belis Foundation Research Consolidation. This combining of technologies and streamlining of business was made possible by the Johnson-Nixon repeal of the oppressive monopoly restrictions toward the end of the previous decade.

In 1969, The Belis Foundation successfully put men on the moon using what they referred to as, "the world's first para-computer[...] with an integrated circuit-based design[...]" for the backbone of mission control. The specifications remain top secret.

Working closely with universities and the Department of Defense, The Belis Foundation began work on a top secret project referred to as ARPANET. The Belis Foundation claimed that it was able to surpass any one of their single para-computers, as it acted on principles that "involve the sharing of packeted information between computing devices." The Belis Foundation officially referred to the setup as, "an internetworking of computers."

When Johnson took office in 1972, it was decided that the internetworking of computers would pose a threat to national security if made available to the public. To protect the people of the nation, The Belis Foundation facilitated the government in keeping the "Internet" privatized and all documentation regarding the ARPANET became the proprietary property of The Belis Foundation.

The Belis Foundation continued working closely with the Department of Defense, developing missile guidance systems and advanced ballistics in the early '70s. As the decade passed, the line between the D.O.D. and The Belis Foundation grew thinner and thinner. The country became more powerful, its people safer—and it was thanks to the ever-present Belis Foundation, solving the nation's problems as they were presented.

A few small tech companies arose during the mid '70s, but were quickly stifled by the enormous presence of The Belis Foundation.

Over the following ten years, The Belis Foundation monopolized on the sole ownership of heightened efficiency by way of a computer-driven research company. In 1979 the world was stricken with its second energy crisis of the decade, and as pressure mounted for the US to find a solution, President Jimmy Carter gave complete privatized control of the DOE to The Belis Foundation.

That same year, the 17-year-old genius son of Evelyn and Wilson Belis, Colin, developed a combustion engine that utilized tri-bonded oxygen as fuel, removing entirely the worries and dangers of energy and oil production. The system rapidly intakes atmospheric gas, compresses and ionizes the gas molecules, and passes them into a specially tuned resonance cavity that "shocks" the molecules into re-bonding into the necessary tetrahedral shape, creating tri-bonded oxygen. The tri-bonded oxygen, or ozone, is then released into the combustion tank where it turns the asymmetrical shaft, pumping the pistons, and producing an amazing amount of torque. Once the ozone has lost its bond it returns to oxygen and escapes into a secondary resonance cavity where hydrogen atoms are injected. The oxygen and hydrogen are brought to harmony, at which time many of the atoms bond to create clusters of water molecules: pure H2O. The remaining oxygen atoms naturally form di-oxygen and are safely released into the air. The Tri-Ox system, as Colin Belis named it, is the same system that serves the populace to this day.

Producing drinkable water and breathable O2 as its exhaust, the production of the Tri-Ox system marked the transition of The Belis Foundation into The Belis Corporation. Up until then, the Belis family had only operated commercial business through other channels such as EBM. Upon completing construction on the new facilities in San Jose, California, the Belis family began production on the new vehicle under the new-but-now-famous moniker, "BelisCo". It was the first vehicle that came in an entirely sealed plastic encasement, only serviceable by The Belis Corporation.

That same year, The Belis Corporation revolutionized business by introducing the fax machine. It doubled productivity in the workplace by allowing messages and documents to be scanned and sent virtually anywhere in the world. The Belis Corporation installed fax receiver and transmitter stations across the nation. Within a year no person in the nation was outside the reach of fax communication in their town.

At this time Colin Belis was already finishing his third year at university earning a double major in physics and mathematics; he had designed the Tri-Ox vehicle over his spring break. By the age of 23, Colin Belis had earned multiple doctorate degrees in various physics- and mathematical-themed programs. Graduating top of his class each and every time. No one came close to Colin Belis in intellect, ingenuity, or charm.

By 1990, Wilson and Evelyn Belis, at the ages of 62 and 53, had become the sole facilitators of the research conducted by NBSA, The Department of Energy, Department of Defense, and possessed majority control over all major technology corporations, as well as ownership of the nation's transportation and fuel. The last technological gift bestowed by Wilson Belis was the implementation of a worldwide corporate "internetwork" upon which all communication would occur. The system linked together corporate and private party fax hubs across the globe and filtered all communication through BelisCo.

The fax machine became a household device. Everyone in the nation began purchasing BelisCo fax devices in place of the old EBM electric typewriters. Many people preferred using the two in tandem and the fad of near-instantaneous transfer of typed messages took hold.

In 1992 Wilson Belis passed his legacy on to his son, Colin Belis. Colin Belis's first act of business was to declare the San Jose facility as headquarters of BelisCo and In 1993 Colin Belis purchased San Jose California, creating the first zoned city: a corporate city. Zoned cities offer the best in convenience and accommodations. The zoned cities offer 24 hour transport availability, grocery stores, and cafes. They offer the option of family zones, age restricted-zones, even smoking or nonsmoking zones. Unlike other cities, in a zoned city everyone can live in peace. The zoning concept, according to Colin Belis, "represents the true American dream."

Once zoned, San Jose rapidly grew into the largest and safest city in America. Riots began flaring up across the nation, which only further fostered the growth of San Jose. During the nation's uprising, threats were made to government officials and buildings; some threats were carried out. Colin Belis offered the government a solution, "a cure for the violence," which was turned down by then president, John F. Kennedy Jr. Many considered Kennedy's refusal of Belis's assistance to be bullheadedness due to his age; after all, he was the youngest-ever president.

After the rising violence and national hostility of the early '90s that culminated in the bombing of the pentagon and the attempted assassination of President "John-John" in 1994, complete rein to facilitate national safety was granted to The Belis Corporation.

Colin Belis quickly overhauled the CIA and FBI, melding and altering the agencies to deal with domestic acts of treason and technological abuse and misuse, renaming the agency Info-Security Enforcement in 1995. The ISE became responsible for the monitoring of all data transmissions in and about the US. "The ISE keeps people safe," says Secretary of Defense Parker Wallace, "...the ISE remains the greatest facilitator of peace and order, aborting crime and protecting economic and government security."

After the ISE was in place and t...

"We're ready for you Mr. Metiline."

Marcus Metiline placed the brochure back into the mess of literature atop the table and looked up in the direction of the voice.

A young, slender woman with long, dark hair and black, button eyes stood over him, her shoulders straight and arms held tight to her sides. Marcus could tell she was military once, maybe still is. She wore a navy blue zip-up vest with a plunging neckline and matching pressed slacks. Marcus could sense her impatience and displeasure.

He rose to his feet. She turned and walked away, motioning for him to follow. Marcus obeyed.

Speaking into the air ahead of her, she said, "You are very early for your meeting, Mr. Metiline." She looked back at Marcus and added, "I have been instructed to show you around. The grand tour so to speak."

Marcus could tell she had no desire for touring. She continued walking as if to evade Marcus Metiline.

He called to her, raising his voice a little to make sure she heard, "You got a name?"

Without looking back she replied, "You can call me Reg."

She stopped at an empty section of hallway and turned to face the wall. Marcus caught up to her and, now standing beside her, said, "Reg, that's a nice name."

He added, "Is it short for something? Regina maybe?"

She reached for her neckline. Marcus watched as her fingers fished between her breasts. He realized he could see her bra from this angle. He also realized she was looking at him. With disdain on her face, she pulled out a shiny red card and swiped it quickly at the blank wall. The wall melted away silently, revealing a large corridor.

She stepped inside and turned to Marcus, "It's short for registration, as in my job here."

She snarled and then sighed, adding, "Follow me."

They continued down the hallway. The walls glistened and sparkled, and on further inspection, Marcus realized they were electrified, or had electricity. It was contained in a manner he had never witnessed before. He noticed the ceiling was of the same material. The electric streaks shimmered and glowed, zigzagging behind thick heavy glass, weaving gracefully all around.

The lightning bolts seemed to be carried and swirled along by a fluid-like substance. It was beautiful.

As he approached the end of the hallway, his eyes followed a single lightning bolt to its source. He perceived an enormous arrangement of small copper spheres, wires, rods, and lights. He didn't recognize the machine.

Reg grabbed Marcus's shoulder, pulling him into a side room.

"Strip," she commanded, pointing to a curtain in the corner.

Marcus obliged. Once undressed, he realized the room was cold. The walls were steely. The air was thin.

As he emerged from behind the curtain his attention was drawn toward the far wall. The wall was made of glass panels, doors he realized. Beyond them, the vague glow of fluorescent bulbs glinted off tarnished steel.

An old used up meat locker; all it's missing is ghastly, bloody hooks, he thought.

It was just then, standing there naked, cold, and vulnerable, that he began to consider his recent choices, those that led to this moment. Didn't he know how foolish this was? How little he knew about this place. Christ was the paycheck big, but at what cost? Being here, like this?

He maintained his composure, that ever-present look of contemplation plastered across his face, turned to Reg, and managed to say calmly, "Can I smoke?" Marcus located his cigarettes amongst his pile of clothes.

"Absolutely not." She pointed to the sprinkler nozzle above her. "Give me your clothes."

Marcus dropped the pack on the pile, strolled over to Reg, and handed over the clothes. She examined them momentarily and then placed them upon the table behind her. A multi-jointed maneuverable structure was suspended above the table. She positioned the structure over the pile of clothes and clicked a pedal switch with her foot. A television screen illuminated, revealing Marcus's pile of clothes on the table. Reg toggled a dial on the screen and in a moment the clothing became gauzy and translucent. His possessions could be made out beyond the fabric facade of his garments.

Marcus growled, "Why did I need to undress? It seems redundant."

She pointed her thumb to the meat locker. "For the grand tour," she half-mocked.

A knot formed in Marcus's stomach.

"Step inside please," she sighed unhappily as she flipped a switch on the console before her.

At that, one of the glass panels whispered open. One wouldn't know it, but Marcus was wary of entering that room. He reluctantly passed beyond the dingy glass panels and headed for the center of the room. He turned to face Reg but saw only metal wall. He felt how small the room was, how close the walls were, how cold the floor was, how imposing the lights had become. A single horizontal beam of rose colored light invaded him, then a vertical beam. The knot in his stomach rose to his throat.

"Let the tour begin," Reg's voice announced over a speaker box in the ceiling.

The lights increased in amplitude till Marcus could perceive nothing but blinding white light. The light dissolved to reveal a large factory. Marcus was positioned above rows of machines. He looked about, attempting to orient himself, taking in his sudden surroundings. He was clothed, not in his own clothes, but he was clothed. Below him, large mechanical arms grasped and kneaded conveyor belts, stamping and shaping the parts that glided past. The sounds were deafening, gears grinding, metal mashing, pistons pumping. In an instant the factory flickered and then faded.

Marcus stood in a large, brightly lit room. Walls of pure white surrounded men clad in protective suits. The men stood huddled around an intricate apparatus along one wall. Marcus could make out the raised square keys of a typewriter-like keyboard, as well as the glossy edge of a screen embedded in the console. Beyond the men, on the other side of a crystalline breach in the wall, were a single row of arms, similar to those in the factory only smaller and more delicate. They clamped and soldered at small green chips. Then the arms disappeared, the men and the walls faded away, and the console flipped into oblivion.

This process continued, first presenting Marcus with an unfamiliar environment, then the sudden ebb and wane of his surroundings, and finally a transition to a new place, a new experience. He glimpsed offices, saw rows of desks with small television-like screens upon them, typewriter-esque keys attached. He hovered over delivery bays, watching the unloading of trucks below. He witnessed board meetings and the sea of uniforms at lunchtime in the cafeteria. He experienced BelisCo, and in a moment, he was returned to the drab cramped meat locker; naked and cold.

"Get dressed. Mr. Belis will see you now," Reg announced over the speaker box.

Chapter III

Ashram Trounce opened his eyes. The pungent smell of ammonia, fertilizer and processed silage feed filled his breath. He rubbed the backs of his hands against his eye sockets as he tried to orient himself.

Ashram found himself lying on the ground in the center of the cattle subsection of his massive animal complex. He groaned.

It wasn't the first time he had woken up somewhere other than his old, twin bed, but it was the first time he couldn't remember how he got there.

Have I been here all night? Ashram considered.

His dark surroundings were shredded by the sun rays breaking through the wooden slats that composed the walls. It was the only light he'd have until he left the barn. In the shadows, he could see the movements of the animals in their stalls as they too began to wake.

Ashram Trounce got to his feet. He knew he needed to get out of there without alarming the animals. He didn't have time for that today. As he quietly shuffled through the complex, he struggled to recall his evening.

He remembered making his glass of warm milk on the stove and preparing himself half of a cucumber and mayo sandwich as usual. Then he laid in bed with The Times Publication, reading an article entitled The Rise of Colin Belis; a rare biography of his colleague and friend, Colin Belis. Then it was now and he was in the barn.

Strange, he thought.

There wasn't time, however, to worry about how he arrived in the barn; he had a big day ahead of him. After all, Trounce Farms was the last remaining polyculture farm in the San Jose city limits. Not by choice, but thanks to the distribution contracts of BelisCo, Trounce farms was the only farm in California; proudly supplying the growing population of San Jose since 1993. If not for Belis and his zoned city, Trounce farms would have vanished years ago.

Today, Ashram would continue that relationship of success. It was time for the annual Belis-Trounce Distribution Agreement evaluation. Each year, Belis and Trounce alternated hosting the meeting's location, and this year it would be in San Jose at BelisCo. Ashram needed to prepare for his meeting, and not one thing he needed was in the animal complex.

Chapter IV

Marcus stood motionless. His arms felt heavy. His body was tired and achy. He could feel the harsh rays of the fluorescent lamps beating against his retinas. His head throbbed and his lungs felt both full and empty. His stomach turned over inside him.

"What just happened?" Marcus asked. He stared in the direction from which he entered.

Reg repeated over the loudspeaker, "Please get dressed, Mr. Metiline."

Marcus at once saw his clothes neatly folded in a pile before him. This is too much, he thought, I'm gonna smoke. I don't care if it'll set off smoke alarms, I don't care if it induces mass panic, I want a cigarette. He rummaged through his pants pockets, no cigarettes. He went for his coat, nothing, not even the spliff Stacy had sent him on his way with.

"Where are my things?" he demanded as he half-crouched over his no-longer-neatly-folded effects and scowled through the metal wall.

"They will be returned upon your departure," the speaker box advised coldly.

Marcus grudgingly dressed himself. As he put on his coat, a section of the wall slid open. Beyond the opening, he could see curtains; the curtains, behind which he first undressed. Marcus exited the meat locker. To his surprise he was alone.

Reg's voice broke the silence of the room, "Please follow the red arrows to Mr. Belis's office. He is expecting you."

Marcus saw the source of her voice, a speaker embedded in the far wall, beside the door. Below him, a faint red arrow began to glow, pointing in the direction of the voice.

Marcus took heed and followed the arrow. Once again, he found himself in the large corridor with swirls of lightning and electrical streaks dominating the thick glass walls. He looked in the direction of the peculiar arrangement of copper spheres and wires, hoping he could get a better look at the strange device, but it was not there.

In its place stood a large tower, only the base of which was visible to Marcus. The enormous contraption palpitated and flexed as the electrical bolts traveled to and from it. Millions of coin sized mirrors made up its skin. Between each mirror, Marcus could make out small golden knobs that seemed to expand in opposition to the mirrors' contractions. The massive structure hummed and boomed and shrieked like a swarm of tin bees excited by an orchestra of hammers and hacksaws. He saw dozens of corridors, identical to the one he was currently occupying, along the walls surrounding the imposing tower.

Marcus's fixation subsided and he broke his gaze to continue along the red arrowed path to Belis's office. The throbbing arrows led Marcus beyond the machine and into another of the electric tunnels; he could see the dead end, but followed nonetheless. As he walked, his arms began to feel normal, his stomach eased, and his eyes were no longer achy and throbbing.

This tunnel was different. He marveled at the display all around him. Tiny balls of light crashed against the walls and ceiling, exploding in a plethora of colors and swirling together into shimmering tendrils of electricity that slid and writhed along the glass, like billowing rings of ionized smoke. The clouds of lightning struck the end of the hall and retreated. When Marcus reached the end, the shiny metal wall slid open.

Marcus Metiline faced a vast darkness. His shadow stretched along the floor ahead of him, framed by the flashes of light from the corridor behind. Cautiously he proceeded, the glow of red arrows framing his steps. The wall slid shut behind Marcus with a loud thud, sealing him in the dark.

His eyes had trouble adjusting, and as he looked about him, he could only make out rows of dim lights in the distance. Lights that were too far away to bestow any illumination upon Marcus's surroundings; no more useful to him than twinkling stars billions of light-years away. Although large, this place was damp, stuffy and stifling. He made his way across the cavernous room.

Gnashing metal, labored breathing, and low growls resounded throughout. Not the sound of machines hard at work, but the sounds of caged, defeated animals. Marcus knew this was a purposeful darkness, an orchestrated blindness, and he was glad for it.

Marcus figured he had walked about a quarter mile before encountering the end of the red arrow pathway; a dimly lit staircase. He stepped onto the first step and was carried to the top. At the end of the moving staircase, Marcus faced a pair of enormous double doors. The doors possessed no handles or knobs and were lined by thin threads of rose-colored light. The doors hissed, clanged, and darted upward toward the ceiling.

Beyond them, in the distance, was a man. The man faced away from Marcus, gazing out a large wall of windows. A dismal colorless light flooded the room through the panes of glass. The walls were lined with an overwhelming number of Romanesque plaster sculptures; Jupiter held his lightning bolt proudly overhead, Mercury stood frozen in a sprint, his winged helmet in hand, a bare breasted Minerva sat in the corner examining a scroll, and beside her stood a winged man, a god Marcus didn't recognize. This wasn't the only statue unfamiliar to Marcus.

All around the room stood various amalgamations of man and beast. To his left, a group of hyenas with human hands crouched over a small child with feathers for skin. On his right, was a bloodcurdling display of anguish; a man's middle portion possessing the face of a warthog and the legs of a goat, holding in one hand a long curved blade and in its other the head of a man. These two macabre sculptures specifically stood out to Marcus.

High along the rust-colored walls, various paintings were intermittently hung. They were in no particular order. All of the frames, however, contained similarly themed images. Most striking to Marcus was the horse demon depicted in The Nightmare. Marcus knew this painting and he did not care for it one bit.

In the center of the room rested a large oak desk with wrought iron edges. It sat upon thick, swollen legs that were carved to mimic horse's hooves. A single pair of oversized chairs neighbored the hooved desk; one behind the desk facing Marcus and the other before the desk, its back to him.

The man at the window turned to face Marcus.

He wore a waxy, white pullover smock adorned with jewels, and wide legged canvas-like pants held in place by golden tassels. His hair was long, dark and thick. His face was framed by a wiry but neatly trimmed beard. His eyes were big and round. He stood tall, taller than Marcus had expected. His presence commanded the room. He looked more like a religious leader than an innovator.

The blue gemstones inlaid upon his collar glinted and twinkled as he approached the desk.

"Please have a seat," he offered as he sat.

Marcus approached the desk and situated himself in the oversized chair, taking note of the silver dusting across the man's lips and the abundance of gaudy bracelets he wore. The man rested his elbows upon the desk.

With his chin nested neatly in his palms, the man quietly sang, "As you may have guessed, I am Colin Belis."

As Colin Belis spoke, he shifted whimsically between tones. His voice was strong yet elastic, commanding yet calm, flexible but steady. Each syllable escaped his lips in an irregular song.

"Science is no different from religion, Mr. Metiline," Colin Belis began lecturing at Marcus Metiline. "They both request belief of their followers. For example, the particle physicist must rely on probability and mathematics and a belief in the correctness of the two; an astronomer must believe in the planets and upon his limited observational tools and laws of motion."

His face lit up as he continued, "The electrical engineer must believe in the electron. And a spiritual man, a man of religion, he must consult his intuition and his surroundings to concoct a god."

He pointed toward the plaster Jupiter. "It seems as though, in this light, gods are attainable."

He crossed his arms and settled in his chair, concluding, "The only difference between gods and science is in the evidence. In truth of fact, it is merely the categorization of evidence that brings about the belief in a god, or science. The same evidence may lead two different men into differing conclusions."

He leaned forward, his hands grasping the arms of his chair. "But what most do not realize, Mr. Metiline, is that it is the science that is the line between men and gods. God uses science to create man and man uses science, in turn, to describe him. A man who believes in a god has as much evidence in his mind to support his belief as the man who believes the world to be round and stuck in rotation around the sun. It is the personal experience."

He went on like this, unprovoked, rambling about scientific breakthroughs, gods, logic and the like. Belis preached as if Marcus were to find some prophetic universal discovery about life buried amongst his words. Maybe this was a tactic of Belis', or maybe he just liked to hear himself speak.

Finally, Marcus interrupted, "Why do you need me? You have your hands in everything. Why not deal internally, or send the ISE after this Avant fellow?"

"The situation is a delicate one, Mr. Metiline. Time is of the essence."

Colin Belis paused, and then continued, "You were hand picked for your unique talent. You possess a particular ability that will prove useful in this dispute."

Straight faced, Marcus butted in, "Then this is not necessarily a patent mediation?"

Belis hesitated, and then answered, "On the contrary Mr. Metiline, I believe Dr. Avant is in violation of certain laws and this patent that he" – Belis cleared his throat – "filed is very similar to one of my own. I cannot yet prove it, and this where you come in."

Belis appeared to be calculating his words, formulating the correct string of thoughts as he uttered them, pausing to choose the right verbal coefficients.

Belis went on, "This discovery of his is not greatly understood by myself or my people, but due to the mechanisms involved in this patent..."

He slid the paperwork across the desk to Marcus, "It seems to be quite dangerous."

Marcus began thumbing through the pages. He fanned them out in front of him to see the plans, the formulas, the descriptions, all at once. Marcus had a unique ability indeed. It was not something learned in schools or taught at university. It was not trickery or magic. It was natural, something he was born with, a quality any inventor would envy, even Colin Belis; Marcus could see the true nature of how things work. The complexity of a problem posed no obstacle to Marcus Metiline. Marcus was able to piece things together like a puzzle. He needn't understand the specifics, because he saw the picture as a whole.

After a moment, Marcus asked, "Can I smoke?" He corrected himself, "Do you have cigarettes?"

Belis nodded and opened a small baroque wooden box on the desk. He turned the box to face Marcus. It was filled with cigarettes. Marcus removed one and put it to his lips.

"Hold please," Belis requested.

He flipped open the plastic cover of a small black box on the desk and depressed a button. Marcus could hear the whirring of gears as the wall of glass behind Belis ascended upward.

Now, with the air from outside moving freely about, Belis held a light for Marcus.

The first drag was harsh. Marcus let out a deep hacking cough as he exhaled the cigarette smoke. The smoke felt dry. It tasted bitter, stale, disgusting; as if it were the first cigarette he had smoked in years.

The pages on the desk began to flutter in the open air. Belis moved a heavy crystal paperweight atop the pages, pressing them down tight. Marcus noticed that the air was different here. It seemed dirtier, heavier.

"I've seen enough," Marcus said as he leaned back in his chair and inhaled deeply on the cigarette. He let out a small cough. He examined the cigarette, seeing that it was a premium smoke, not a BelisCo cigarette, but a brand he had never seen before. It tasted bad to Marcus. He put it out in the open head of a tarnished, nickel plated lion that stood beside the desk.

"It's incomplete." Marcus advised, placing his finger onto a formula on the final page. His gaze was fixed on the clouds outside the window. He had never seen such filthy clouds.

Belis's face contorted. His frustration was obvious. He didn't know it was unfinished.

"What floor are we on?" Marcus inquired.

"The top," Belis said quietly, contemplating the information, turning it over in his head.

Could it be that so high up the clouds were a different shade, a shade that was usually hidden by the gray and white clouds below, Marcus wondered. After all, Marcus had never flown in a plane, nor climbed a mountain. The top floor of BelisCo was the farthest climb in altitude he had ever made. How different things seemed up here.

Marcus focused his eyes on Belis. "I'm going to need to see this Dr. Avant," he announced.

Belis cautioned, his singsong voice becoming dry, serious, gravely monotonous, "Dr. Avant cannot know of my involvement, you must approach him carefully. I want this matter resolved quietly."

Colin Belis stood as he fished a cigarette from the box. He slipped it into an extravagantly long purple and silver holder, lit it, and smoked elegantly as he came around the desk.

His loose-fitting clothes undulated in the breeze. He sat himself atop the desk and fluidly draped one leg over the other. Marcus saw that he was wearing sandals. He noticed his toes; they were long and talon-like and sported a gleaming orange polish.

Belis leaned closely, scrutinizing Marcus, while puffing away on his tacky cigarette holder. Rings of smoke collided with Marcus's face as Belis inquired, "Do you understand?"

"I do," responded Marcus. He was uncomfortable, but he didn't show it.

Colin Belis cooed, "Perfect."

At that, the seriousness in Colin Belis's face vanished and he leapt to his feet with childlike fervor. His voice returned to its original whimsical tone as he said, "Let us drink on it."

Marcus knew it wasn't an offering, it was a command.

Belis made his way to a large escritoire-style cabinet on the far side of the room. Its accents matched his desk. The two pieces of furniture coordinated well, in contrast to the eccentric assembly of decor along the walls. He slid the heavy cabinet door upward, removed an opaque, unlabeled bottle and proceeded to pour three glasses. Marcus scoured the room in search of the third drinker, but saw no one.

Belis casually strolled back to the center of the room. He handed Marcus a highball glass containing a shimmery, burgundy-colored liquor, and then made his way to the Jupiter statue, placing the third glass in the sculpture's free hand.

"Always pay homage to the gods," Belis said with a grin. He held his glass up, signaling a toast. Marcus echoed the gesture and both men brought their glasses to their lips; Jupiter remained still.

The liquid smelled putrid, like old rotted food. It tasted just as bad. Marcus gagged as the thick liquor coagulated down his throat.

He saw that Belis did not drink, but it was far too late.

Marcus felt the room twist around him. The walls began to close in and his chest felt tight. He felt as though his heart was trying to escape through his throat. The liquid settled in his stomach and a chill enveloped his core, creeping into his appendages.

As Belis approached, Marcus could see the menacing look on his face. He could hear the feigned concern in Belis's voice as he asked, "Is everything okay Mr. Metiline?"

Marcus managed to groan, but beyond that, no sound could escape him.

"Of course it is," Belis exclaimed in his obnoxious singsong voice.

Marcus's body became numb, and as his glass shattered against the hard wooden floor, the room went black.

The last sound Marcus heard as he slipped away was the uneasy, elastic sound of Colin Belis's voice as he sang, "Don't fret Mr. Metiline. It is all standard procedure."

When Marcus came to, he found himself in the cold, cramped room attached to the meat locker. Reg was standing near the long armed apparatus with the electric-typewriter-like keyboard and television-esque monitor. Her attention was focused on the magazine in her hands.

Marcus could make out his BelisCo cigarettes, his spliff, his wallet, porta-fax, and briefcase, all neatly stacked upon the table beside her. Marcus struggled to his feet. Reg peered over the magazine.

"Mr. Metiline, you're awake," she said with her usual disdain as if she had hoped for him to never wake up.

"What the hell," Marcus growled taking deep breaths between his words, "what just happened?"

"You fainted," Reg replied matter-of-factly, "Mr. Belis called me into his office about an hour ago. You had toppled out of your chair and wasted a perfectly good glass of three-hundred-year-old wine. Mr. Belis prides himself on that wine. It's a collector's item. And it probably cost more than your house."

She folded the magazine and set it aside, collecting his things as she spoke, "He was fuming when I got there. You're lucky Mr. Belis is such a reasonable man." She handed Marcus his effects.

"He drugged me," Marcus stammered, trying to mask his confusion.

"Impossible," she said. "Not Mr. Belis. You fainted."

She was convincing.

Reg went on speaking, "Since you ended the meeting early with your..."

She paused, searching for the word, and then continued, "episode. Mr. Belis has provided written instruction for you." She handed Marcus an envelope.

"Inside you should find everything you need," Reg asserted as she tapped the envelope with her finger. She was tired of talking to Marcus Metiline and he could tell.

Marcus chided, "Then let me be on my way. Where's the exit?"

"Follow me," she sighed.

They moved quickly through the electric corridor. At the end the wall melted away. They hurried down a hallway and emerged in the room in which he and Reg had first met. Before long Marcus had been escorted out of the building entirely.

Now standing where he began before he entered the godawful Tower of Belis, Marcus tore open the white envelope. All that it contained was a few lines of writing; an address.

Marcus removed his pack of cigarettes and began to pull one out. He remembered the stale, dry smoke he had in Belis's office and tucked the pack back into his pocket.

Marcus hailed the first cab that passed.

Once in the back seat, Marcus said, "Take me here," and handed the piece of paper to the driver.

Chapter V

The sun had begun to set as Marcus Metiline arrived at his destination; Tranquility, California, 232 miles south of San Jose—a non-zoned territory well beyond the outskirts of town, far past the Weller Processing Plant and even farther past Trounce farms. Marcus's shadow stood against the faded white panels of a circa-1920 farmhouse. He took out a cigarette and lit it. Four matches remained. To either side of Marcus was empty, desolate dirt road. Before him, the two story-house slouched amongst fields of dust and tumbleweeds; the farm itself had dried up years ago. The windows were boarded shut and the residence wore red 'CONDEMNED' tags all along its face. Its wrap around porch ceased half way along its path, collapsing tiredly in the dirt. The front door, or what was left of it, swung wildly in the wind, crashing closed against the crooked doorjamb then opening wide to reveal the dilapidated, shadowy interior.

Marcus referred to the piece of paper, confirming the correctness of the address. Satisfied, he extinguished his smoke and started toward the door.

The first stair gave way under the weight of his step. He could see insects scatter amongst the splinters as he withdrew his leg from the tattered wood. He passed over the remaining two stairs, placing himself carefully atop the leaning stoop.

Once in the doorway Marcus noticed the silence.

It's absolutely serene compared to San Jose, he thought to himself.

Marcus broke the silence, calling out as he peered inside, "Dr. Avant?"

Only the wind responded, howling as it slithered and snaked through the cracks and crevices of the house. The whitewashed wooden panels creaked as the house swayed in time with the breeze.

He stepped through the dimly lit entryway. The room was fully furnished with early 20th-century accents. A paisley patterned lace cloth sat atop a box television on the floor in one corner of the room. A pair of reclining chairs, whose fabric had worn away to reveal springy innards, faced the television. A thick layer of dust garnished all the surfaces of the room. Looking about, Marcus thought, Why would Belis send me here?

Then, in his periphery, he glimpsed motion. He made his way toward the movement. As Marcus walked he saw various framed photographs of a man and his family hung askew along the tilted walls. Some photos were of weddings, some of graduations, and some of picnics—all were old and all were painted in years of dust.

Marcus called out, "I'm here to see Dr. Avant."

Silence.

He saw a figure pass across the doorway ahead of him. He headed for the doorway and found himself in the kitchen. The sun had now set and only slivers of silver moonlight shining through the slats of the boarded windows lit the room. In the gloomy light, Marcus could see the source of the movement; a shadowy figure hunched over the counter across from him. The figure turned quickly, and headed toward Marcus.

Marcus addressed the figure, "Dr. Avant?"

The figure didn't respond. It simply moved. As it passed Marcus, its eyes glinted in the moonlight and Marcus could see that it was a man, and he recognized him. He possessed gray shaggy hair, thick rimmed glasses, and a long, unkempt beard. His eyes were a cold blue and his cheekbones sat like knots under his parchment skin. He was the man in the photographs, older and under groomed, but this was him; this was his house.

The old man headed for the lock-handled refrigerator beside Marcus. He opened the fridge, rummaged through the contents and shuffled back to the counter across the room. Marcus leaned over to see what the man was fiddling with inside the old refrigerator and saw nothing. The fridge was dark and empty.

Marcus watched as the man repeated his pattern around the kitchen, from counter to fridge and back, over and over.

The old man took no notice of the new body in the room. In fact, it seemed to Marcus as though he were being purposely ignored by this man.

As the man repeated his path to and from the counter yet another time, Marcus realized he was not being ignored, but that the man somehow did not see him. Marcus reached out, successfully making contact. He felt a cold chill on his fingers as he grazed the man's sleeve. Still, the man remained unhindered on his course around the kitchen, not perceiving the presence of Marcus Metiline.

A sense of unease fell over Marcus. He hurried to the center of the room, placing himself between the fridge and the counter in an attempt to obstruct the old man.

"Are you Avant?" Marcus spoke sternly.

Then Marcus was alone. He stood in the doorway of the kitchen, slivers of silver moonlight shined through the slats of the boarded windows. The room was as empty as the rest of the house. In the far corner of the kitchen was a thin door, remnants of faded pink drapes hung on either side of its single, boardless window.

The door swung open loudly, startling Marcus from his confusion.

"You're about 92 seconds early, Marcus," a man said from the doorway as he stared intently at the pocket watch grasped in his right hand.

"Then again," the man added as he snapped shut the pocket watch and tucked it away, "it's not an exact science."

The man stood, his eyes intently focused on Marcus, as if anticipating a question. Then, before Marcus could get the thought from his brain to his tongue, the man said, "Yes yes. Marcus Metiline. Contracted by Colin Belis under The Belis Corporation, for a patent dispute. I am Dr. Avant. Let's hurry up then."

The man motioned for Marcus to follow and turned away. Marcus collected his thoughts, came to terms with the moment, and exited the house through the thin door, following Dr. Avant.

Avant slowed his pace so as to walk beside Marcus. In the distance, Marcus could make out the silhouette of a barn backed by the immense full moon. As they walked, Avant turned to Marcus.

In the solid beam of the full moon, Marcus could plainly see Dr. Avant. His blue eyes sat behind thick Buddy Holly–style glasses that he incessantly repositioned as they walked. He had his gray hair slicked down with grease in all but a few spots that sprang up in tufts atop his head. He wore a white lab coat spotted with stains, and Marcus could see the top of a blue and yellow checkered Windsor knot peeking through the collar of the coat, nested between the flaps of a white high-collared button up shirt. As Marcus inspected Dr. Avant, he realized that this was the man he had seen in the photographs.

Avant interrupted Marcus's thoughts. "I understand you met One, or was that the last time around? I apologize. It gets difficult to keep track."

Dr. Avant spoke quickly. His words were clear, well-enunciated, but uttered at machine-gun speeds. It was as if each new syllable was more pressing than the last, and if he were to hesitate on one, then the magnitude of them all would collapse into nothing.

"Excuse me?" the question made no sense to Marcus, and his confusion sat plainly on his face.

"When you arrived here, did you not see a man preparing a sandwich in the kitchen?"

Avant looked over his shoulder toward the decrepit farmhouse, "He's rude. Won't speak to anyone. Can't, in fact."

"I'm sorry," Marcus said, "I'm not sure I'm following. There was no one in the kitchen when you appeared."

Avant rebutted, "Correct. But there was." His emphasis settled upon the final syllable of his statement.

There was indeed, Marcus thought to himself, but it was a delusion. That man wasn't there. It was another déjà vu, wasn't it?

"Did it feel like déjà vu?" Avant asked Marcus.

Marcus had no chance to respond.

Avant continued speaking as the two men came upon the barn, "If it felt like déjà vu, then it wasn't just then, it was another time."

Marcus remained silent, listening. This man was speaking in riddles that confounded Marcus.

"That man was there and he will be there again, and again, and again..." Avant trailed off as he unlocked the various padlocks on the barn door.

Avant swung the unlatched door open to reveal a well lit room. The ceiling was high. Bright lights hung from the rafters, illuminating the coils, copper rods, and various tools and contraptions strewn about. Each component of the room cast its own unique shadow upon the dirt floor. The wind made its way around the room, rustling handwritten notes that were scattered about.

Once inside, Avant shut the door and turned to Marcus. The room was still.

"You're a smart man," he said, "You've probably even figured it out by now."

He held up a finger and rushed over to a plain metal desk buried by erratic stacks of papers and books. With utmost precision, he removed with his thumb and forefinger a page tucked beneath a thick, leather-bound book with the words The Harmony of the Worlds embossed into its binding. The whole event took no more than a few seconds and then Avant was face to face with Marcus again. He shook the page at Marcus.

"This—this is One," he said. He proceeded to explain to Marcus that One was his first experiment.

"You see, out here things are thinner," he said, "My experiments work."

Chapter VI

You don't remember, do you?" asked Avant, "That's okay. I wouldn't expect that you would." He held up the sheet of paper.

On the sheet, Marcus could make out a pair of toroidal donut drawings bound together by a spiraling arrow. The arrow originated in the midsection of one donut and terminated in the center of the other. Below them was written, among other things, a formula that Marcus recognized. It illustrated the relationship between energy and time.

"The arrow is the experience," Avant said with machine-gun precision, "and the tori are anchor events; events that remain unchangeable and static."

Avant explained, "This first one's center is the alpha event, event A." He pointed at the first toroid and then the second, "Where this toroid then has a beta event, event B, that composes its center. The surfaces of the surrounding tubes of each event represent the minor events that accumulate around the alpha and beta anchors. It can be seen that such a surface allows for a near infinite number of arbitrary minor events linking alpha to beta in a causal time-like fashion. There is not only one way to get from one event to the next, but instead, for causality to be preserved, it is only important that the alpha event reaches the beta event, however that may occur."

He took his attention off the paper and focused on Marcus. "You see, events in time and space are coupled together by harmonic resonances like musical chords in a galactic song. It's all about finding the right harmonic."

He folded the page in half so that the two donuts sat back to back and said, "This is how a set of events truly exist; a closed event loop. The arrow ends where it begins. Time does not flow like a river, Marcus. Instead, closed event loops, such as the earth around the sun, sunrise to sunset, or the hydrogens around an oxygen in the water molecule—they exist, perpetuate, and repeat, living out their possible evolutions and outcomes in a cosmic canister. All the while they maintain the ever-evolving temporal coupling between alpha event and beta event. The layman presumes, naturally but incorrectly, that one event occurs and then disappears into the past, and a new event takes its place."

Avant paused, taking a very brief moment to collect his thoughts. Then, with his eyes wide, said, "The interesting thing I have discovered, Marcus, is that the layman's presumption is wrong. All sets of events in time, even those that appear to come after, or before, or beside, or atop some other event, coexist simultaneously. Past, present, and future remain perpetually entwined, indefinitely floating and joining and repeating in the temporal jelly that fills the cosmic canister."

He unfolded the page and began tracing his finger along the helical path of the arrow. "You see, the arrow represents experience, the path one takes from alpha event to beta event. To us, the page remains flat, like this, and time remains linear, possessing a definite beginning and end. When this page is folded, you can perceive the closed loop created. Although the human mind perceives these slices of reality to evolve or fade away and be replaced by a new event, they do not."

He folded the page once more, and went on, "It is only perception. The normal experiencer floats, so to speak, from one loop to the next, never remaining long enough to consciously experience the repetition that is the true substructure of the events. The human mind is a powerful thing; it is the mechanism that defines the shape and order of things."

He referenced Kurt Gödel's solution to the Einstein field equations, and discussed Planck space, eigenstates, and the Zeno paradox in length. He declared motion and distance as illusory constructions. He made mention of pattern recognition, and lectured on perception and bosonic fields. He explained how the uncertainty principle was flawed, that the position and momentum of a particle are only unpredictable due to the lack of reference location when dealing with the mostly empty scale upon which they exist, and contended that the principle does not hold for the visible world. He made mention of Jung's archetypes, Hofstadter logic, and the subconscious mind, discussing the true fabric of, "the real," as he called it.

Finally, he concluded "Quantum mechanics has it all wrong. It's time that is discrete, quantized, not energy. Energy is an infinite continuum, space is entirely relative, and time is not necessarily linear."

It made sense to Marcus. The excited and determined ramblings of Avant gravitated toward each other in Marcus's mind and adhered like magnets. The puzzle pieces fell together and he understood. But, now that he had a moment to speak, Marcus still had many questions. He chose wisely.

"How do you know me?"

Seemingly ignoring Marcus's inquiry, the doctor continued speaking as he tucked the sheet of paper in his pocket.

"Out here, away from the city, I have discovered something, Marcus Metiline, and it already involves you. Something inside you knows that." His voice slowed, becoming graver with each word, "This world we live in is a fraud. It is an illusion cast upon us."

He turned away as he spoke, "Leave your briefcase. I'd like to show you something."

Avant went to a small three drawer file cabinet. From within he withdrew a small device. It consisted of three copper spheres suspended by thin wire from a common axle. The axle shone, glinting in the bright hanging lights. The device sat upright in Avant's hand as he walked.

"Let's go outside," he said.

Outside, Avant grasped the device in his palm and began rotating it, whirling the copper balls around their base. As it gained momentum it began singing and humming, chiming and ticking. Then, as the sounds resonated through the air, things changed.

The cold silvery moon was replaced by a fiery golden sun. The night sky turned blue. The withered, dried up weeds were replaced with rows of thriving, blooming apple trees. The chirp of birds replaced the hollow cry of wind. The cracked brown soil was rejuvenated, given new green life. The decrepit farmhouse stood proud and glistening amongst its orchards, its panels freshly painted, its boarded windows replaced by handcrafted light blue shutters over panes of sparkling glass.

The sound of the device blended into the background as Dr. Avant spoke, "You see, reality isn't concrete. It is malleable."

He spun the device more rapidly. The blooming apple trees moved forward in time. Their blossoms shed before Marcus's eyes, giving way to ripe, red apples. Avant plucked an apple from its branch and tossed it to Marcus. Marcus inspected the fruit and then reluctantly took a bite. The apple that didn't exist seconds ago tasted sweet, crisp, real.

Marcus took a second bite, and while chewing said, "So this is what Belis was afraid of? This is the device in your patent?"

"You don't get any less stubborn. Forget about the patent, Marcus. The patent only brought you here. It served its purpose. Belis met with you and you came here."

He stopped spinning the device.

The sun flickered, the birds ceased, the moon sprang back into place, the sky turned black, the trees unmanifested, the grass regressed into dirt, and the half eaten apple, even its lingering taste, disappeared.

Now, amongst the moonlit return of desolation, Avant said, "I know you, Marcus. You have been here before; where you are standing now. We have had this conversation, and I am going to ask something of you."

Marcus was still amazed by the manifestation and subsequent demanifestation of his surroundings. He spoke quietly and contemplatively, "You say I've been here before? Explain it to me."

"Let's go back inside."

Avant headed for the barn. As the two men walked, Avant said, "The man in the house, shuffling about the kitchen, as I mentioned, is a failed experiment, the first. You may have noticed, he is me. Actually, he is a projection of me, a mathematical miscalculation. You see, I assigned him a temporal resonance. Although at the time I had mistaken the basic construct, and because of that, that version of me is doomed to repetition. For him, that is the only moment he will live. To us, he ages, he grows weak, and he will eventually die, but to him he is still the same man I was then, preparing that sandwich in the kitchen. The house, the contents of the fridge, they are as new and fresh as the day I abandoned them two years ago. It is a brand new experience each time. It is sad really."

They entered the barn. Avant guided Marcus to a room in the far corner. It looked like a small classroom. Chairs sat in pew-like rows facing a large chalkboard. Scrawled on the board's surface were exhaustive equations, philosophical notes, sequences of numbers, and the letters A B joined by a figure eight. Across the room sat a small tower-like device. Marcus recognized the device. It had similar characteristics to the arrangement of copper spheres, rods and wires he had seen prior to his BelisCo grand tour, a fleeting memory.

Avant requested, "Take a seat."

Marcus sat; he had nothing to say. He simply listened.

Once Marcus was seated, Avant said, "This world is an illusion; a fragile veil that Colin Belis has created."

On any other day Marcus Metiline would have scoffed at the idea, but considering this day, he found himself wondering how far this illusion went.

"When you met with him, that was the real world. Do you remember anything strange about your meeting?"

Avant waited for an answer.

Marcus did remember strange things, and not just the morbid decor or eccentric behavior of Colin Belis. Marcus recalled his grand tour, the aches and pains, the tower. He remembered the dirty, heavy air, the harsh, unsatisfying cigarette, and the poisoned glass of wine. He remembered how different things were in BelisCo. He nodded.

Avant said, "That was not your first meeting with Belis. Well, it was, but it wasn't. Nothing is as it seems."

He walked over to the tower-like device as he continued, "Colin Belis is not a world leader. Since I discovered his illusion I had been waiting for an opportunity to do something about it, to release us all. You are the first to be removed from the illusion and brought to the real world of Colin Belis. You were the first, ever. And I have been around for a very long time."

He placed his hand upon the device.

"The device that casts the illusion can only be disabled from the outside. This is why I filed the patent. It took me many different attempts, but the patent frightened Mr. Belis. He sensed the doom of his kingdom. Once he pulled you out, Marcus, I started you on a journey. Those flashes of déjà vu that I know you experience are cognitive echoes of your previous passes through the loop. Let your instinct guide you. Hopefully this time will be successful. You need to disable the device. You need to remember."

Marcus took out a cigarette. It reminded him of Colin Belis, but he lit it anyway. Three matches remained.

He inhaled long and deep. The butt grew bright red and then faded as smoke billowed from the corners of Marcus's mouth. He leaned forward in his chair, resting his elbows firmly on his knees.

With his cigarette pinched between his teeth, Marcus asked sternly, "How many times?"

Avant began counting invisible objects in the air, pointing his finger decisively at various nothings, and then concluded, "This is our thirty-second meeting."

He corrected himself, "I'm sorry, thirty-third."
Chapter VII

As Marcus puffed on his cigarette, Avant began fiddling with the device. He squatted to reach the array of knobs and switches located on the floor. As Avant dialed the knobs and flipped the switches, the moment began to grow increasingly familiar to Marcus.

The drab colors grew infinitely vibrant, stacked atop each other, gaining depth and beauty with each layer. The lights grew bright. The tangled sounds of a dozen conversations reverberated in Marcus's ears, jumbling together in a cacophony of nouns and verbs. Marcus sat still, observing. His cigarette hung limply in his hand as the room swallowed him in its details.

All of Marcus's senses bombarded him at once. The cross-shaped impressions on the screwheads contrasted with the faded varnish of the wooden panels, then melted together into a lump of indistinguishable textures. The rafters flexed and throbbed, emerging and retreating into the shadows as nuts and bolts chattered along their surfaces. The chalkboard folded in on itself; its dingy green paint drawn deep into its tattered frame. The hanging lights shook and swayed, blinked, and blended into a fluid of blinding wattage.

Marcus's cigarette alternated violently in his hand, shifting between states of ashen lump and leafy tobacco. The smoke danced and spiraled, following prismatic shapes as it ran its course around the morphing cigarette.

Beyond the folding tendrils of smoke, the crumpled chalkboard blossomed. Marcus watched as the wooden and granite flower seeded the room with its green, oil based mist. The paint coagulated midair. The walls grew infinitely close, the floor shot through Marcus's feet, the ceiling collapsed, the lights buzzed, and the room exploded.

Then the layers dissolved. The agreeability of controlled sensation returned. His surroundings became an orderly arrangement of subtly differing moments. No sound was louder or more quiet than any other sound. No light was brighter nor dimmer than another. No shadow loomed any darker than another, but each instance, each sliver of reality, was proportionately unique, uniformly vivid, and equally tangible. Marcus possessed an intimate connection to the room.

He saw the various chairs that he had sat in, felt the individual contours, and relived the exchanges of dialogue associated with each. He recognized the desk. He acknowledged the coffee pot and the empty mug he had once drank from. He knew the number of bolts that bound the device. He understood its operation, knew the number of turns of wire in its coils, the positions of its many knobs and switches, even its operating frequency.

He listened to the number of lectures the doctor gave about the Belis generated illusion, perceiving and knowing the various changes, omissions, and additions. Marcus gained the entirety of the different explanations, the concreteness of the similarities, the benefit of the repetition, and most importantly, the strength of Avant's conjecture. He possessed as much information as the doctor could spew in thirty-two meetings, and at the rate Avant spoke, Marcus knew quite a bit.

He also knew what would happen next.

Marcus's cigarette smoldered as he exhaled a cloud of smoke.

"How about the mug this time?" he said.

"You remember. Good. Welcome to my world."

Avant stood and gave the top of the device one heavy push, whirling it clockwise.

With that, Marcus's previous manifestations in time dwindled and were replaced by the novelty and unfamiliarity one would expect; everything was new again, and Marcus's cognitive echoes, as Avant called them, retreated from reach.

Sparks jumped between the wires that were wrapped upon the device's base, gravitating upward as the machine hummed and whined. The cracks and pops of arcing electricity and the sizzle of ionized air sounded in time with the singing device. Unlike the demonstration outside, this sound filled the air densely, creating a heavy, inertial field around Marcus. He felt the sound permeate his entire being. It made its way through his skin, sliding between his muscle fibers, navigating his circulatory system, overwhelming his nerve endings, and vibrating him down to the marrow in his bones. His cigarette fell to the floor.

Avant said nothing as he made his way toward the desk. He quietly picked up the coffee pot by its handle and proceeded to fill the mug to the brim. Then the room flickered, Avant vanished, and Marcus was alone.

A rushing wind replaced the stillness of the room. As the wind spiraled around him, Marcus watched the porcelain exterior of the mug dither. Piece by piece, the ceramic disappeared until only the coffee remained. Marcus could see the swirls and bubbles as the liquid sloshed against invisible walls. Beams of light bent and refracted upon its muddy surface as the shaped liquid stood proudly upon the desk, maintaining the molded structure of its now missing exterior.

After a moment, the heavy field around Marcus retreated and the wind began to slow. Its rushing forces deteriorated into blurs of white and blue, then halted to reveal Avant. The doctor was moving around the desk, white ceramic pieces piled in his hands. Marcus watched intently as Avant replaced the pieces like a puzzle, rebuilding the container he had disassembled.

Once Avant finished covering the liquid cylinder in its ceramic skin, he said, "You see, events that are seemingly entangled can be separated and tuned individually. Yours and the coffee's temporal evolution was made slower than that of myself and the mug. Hence the display you just witnessed."

Avant took the mug in hand and drank of its contents, saying, "I believe we are through with demonstrations. Let's get to it."

Marcus shrugged. Picking up his cigarette, he took one last drag, and mashed the butt into the floor.

Avant returned to the device, where he crouched to reach its controls. It had since stopped humming and spinning. It was tired, wilted and slouched like a worn out spring. It glared mercilessly as Marcus watched Avant locate the compartment door beside its base.

Avant turned to Marcus and said, "I've made a few adjustments this time around. Practice makes perfect."

He stood up and pointed at the exposed circuit. "Not to beat a dead horse, but it will be like this. You'll need to short the distribution of the crossover coupling. Beneath the access panel, you'll find two thick wires wrapped around a common ferrite core. Flip the switch below the ferrite." He ran the syllables off as fast as one breath would allow him.

He paused, took a breath and said slowly, "It might look a little different."

Marcus grumbled as he got to his feet. "If your devices can do this much, and this truly is an illusion of Belis's... shouldn't his be capable of so much more? Why can't he stop you?"

Avant replied in his typical verbal sprint, "His presence here would collapse the whole infrastructure. Just as a potter cannot live the life of his clay, nor can any creator directly experience that of his creation, so too is Belis limited. His communication with the illusion is one-way. The device he has created produces outgoing data transmissions by highlighting cognitive activity of certain individuals within. Belis's only window into the illusion is by way of these reports. It is programmed to seek out glitches and self-correct. My patent was seen, by the machine, as an error—an accidental replication of the device within its own illusion, a fractal, a Universal Turing Machine, a paradoxical anomaly, a danger. In its attempt to self-correct, a move I anticipated, the device orchestrated a scenario in which a job for you was created, one that would allow Belis to bring you from the illusion without suspicion, without damage."

Avant headed for the door as he continued, "There is no doubt the device has already begun running algorithms in an attempt to predict the outcome of my patent's existence, but it does not anticipate me and it does not anticipate what I can do."

He left the room.

Marcus took out his matches and a cigarette. He stood alone in the room pondering the various manipulations Dr. Avant had shown him. He inspected his matchbook as he considered its reality. He turned the book over in his hand, feeling it edges, experiencing its shape. He flipped open the cover; two matches remained. Marcus ripped a match from its binding and brought it to his nose. He inhaled the pungent sulfur, allowing it to linger, tasting it in his throat, experiencing it. He considered its reality as well. As he strained to formulate his place in it all, he brought his cigarette to his lips and struck the match.

The flame froze in mid-ignition. The device popped, the room palpitated, and the air rippled like an agitated puddle. The visible, streaming currents made their way to the tower-like device. The ripple ceased upon its surface and the device's confident stature was reborn. It screamed at Marcus.

The chairs began to teeter. The floor shook beneath Marcus's feet. He knew what was happening—what has been happening—what is happening. He didn't know how he knew; only the knots in his stomach told him he was right. His unlit cigarette fell from his mouth. He stepped aside reflexively as the top drawer from the file cabinet across the room whizzed by his head, crashing heavily into pieces against the far wall. File papers flew into a flurry around the room, spiraling and spiraling as if gravity itself had failed to latch onto them.

The lines on the chalkboard began to merge. The mathematical masterpiece scrawled on the board warped in on itself; numbers became letters, and letters morphed into colors. The left floated to the right, and the top replaced the bottom. In an instant the room toppled on its side. Then Marcus was on the ceiling.

All around him, the walls began to fold into wonderfully vibrant kaleidoscopic patterns. Circles and spots melted into surging, neon octagons that split into an infinitude of rose-colored triangles. Like a fluid, the triangles that once were the walls whirled about Marcus's head. The room continued flipping and the vortex of geometry continued to gulp and swallow at the room around him. Oddly, through it all, he was not dizzy.

It sounded as though the room itself were one machine of cogs and gears spinning, grating, and pushing as the world around Marcus folded, latched and shifted, melted, and spun before him. The whirring of gears approached closer and grew louder as the attributes of the room became increasingly indecipherable.

Like a puddle of oil paints, Marcus thought to himself.

"It looks like a muddled palette of paint," he coughed the words out.

Bubbles took form as the vocalization left his lips.

Then the whirling display around him froze. Pages of paper lingered in the air, the metallic fragments of the file drawer, the triangles, the swirls, the puddles, all static, all unmoving. The room had stopped gulping. It had stopped swallowing and breathing.

Marcus found himself absolutely content with the state of things; no longer confused, not a sign of fear or worry within his entire being. He was satisfied and happy, serene. A childlike wonder washed over Marcus.

He was drawn to the suspension of vocal bubbles. They sparkled and gleamed, even in their frozen state. They compelled him.

He watched himself reach for one, his index finger crookedly extended.

On contact, the bubble burst and the room went dark. Fear consumed Marcus Metiline as he closed his eyes.

A faint whine in the distance replaced the whirring and gnashing of machinery.

He awoke to find his hand hovering over a digital alarm clock atop a cardboard box beside his twin bed. Harsh rays of light jabbed at his eyes. He halted the shrill scream of the alarm clock as soon as it began, as if anticipating it. Squinting and shielding his face from the light, he drew himself out of the tangled mess of sheets and reached for the crumpled pack of cigarettes on the floor.
Chapter VIII

As Ashram approached the double-door exit, he depressed a small button in the wall. The aluminum doors whispered open, disappearing into the barn frame and revealing the expansive, rolling hills of Trounce Farms. Sunlight bathed the fields, cascading across the vineyards, orchards, and crops. The tree tops were greener, the corn more golden, even the blue sky seemed to hug the ground tighter here than anywhere else. Light dew was deposited across the grass and leaves, sparkling and glistening as the cool breeze softly moved the plant life into a calm, hypnotic dance. It truly was a beautiful sight.

Ashram stood in the massive doorway of his animal complex. He breathed in the morning air, stretched his arms, and basked in his scenery. It was a clear day in Tranquility and beyond his acres of farm, he could see flawlessly white clouds drifting westward over San Jose, 200 miles north. They gracefully carried themselves along the distant sky, taking care not to obstruct the towering steel block of BelisCo glinting on the horizon.

Ashram depressed another button located upon a small pedestal-mounted box, and a moment later, an unmanned BelisCo transport arrived silently. Ashram let himself in to the front seat of the vehicle, closed the door, and opened an access panel embedded in the dash. There, he flipped a switch labeled, home.

The transport instantly initiated, quietly moving along its predetermined track. It traveled through a variety of orchards: apple, tangerine, banana, avocado, mango. It effortlessly climbed the hills as they came upon the vast writhing vineyards of grapes and tomatoes, efficiently terraced on either side of the road. They continued as they wound through immense fields of wheat, corn, cannabis, soy and barley. The transport carried Ashram through miles of cultivated landscape before, finally, they arrived at his home.

There, Ashram slowly opened his door and eased himself out of the vehicle. Once both of his feet were on the ground and the vehicle's door was secured, the transport silently drove away, leaving Ashram alone before his house.

He slowly made his way up the sloping ramp to his door. Removing a large key from his pocket, Ashram shakily guided his hand toward the thin slot on the wall beside the doorjamb. The large, wooden door swung inward revealing a marble clad entryway that hosted a massive spiraling staircase with gold accents upon its banister. A chandelier hung prominently from the distant ceiling. Its dangling gold- and silver-wrapped crystals sparkled, orchestrating a galaxy of tiny, dancing stars upon the walls and floor. The grandiosity of his entryway always comforted him.

The room echoed with the sound of his sandals slapping against the hard floor as he made his way to the stairs. His loose-fitting trousers undulated as he climbed, swaying back and forth with the rhythm of his slow steps. As he traversed the perfectly cut stones, as gorgeous as they were, Ashram Trounce began to regret his extravagant taste.

He paused halfway up the staircase, resting heavily against the gaudy banister. He hung his head, examining the swirls in the marble floor as he took short, calculated breaths through his pursed lips. Ashram wasn't a young man anymore, and he knew that one day these stairs would be the end of him.

Chapter IX

Marcus awoke determined. His muscles ached. His eyes throbbed. His arms felt heavy. He struggled to his feet, cigarette pursed in his lips. His lungs felt thick and full. His breathing was labored and slow. He felt tired, worn out. He quickly placed his palms flat on the mattress and seated himself.

Instinctively, he withdrew his matches and flipped open the book. Seven matches remained. He inspected them thoroughly, and then placed the matches back in his pocket. His mind was clear, his intentions were well defined, and his senses were keen. Marcus had a plan.

He chewed the cigarette as he recited Avant's instructions in his mind; flip the switch beneath the access panel. Avant's voice was distinct and his instructions were prominent, brilliant in Marcus's frontal lobe like a flash of light in a dark room.

He sat there on the bed until his strength returned to him. Then he made his way to the small, circular window embedded in the wall beside his twin mattress.

Marcus stared through the window, down into the busy street. He saw the multitude of BelisCo emblems displayed upon storefronts and billboards up and down the busy boulevard. He saw the sea of BelisCo taxi transports braiding down the streets. He watched as the silent masses shuffled along the sidewalk. He took note of the brilliant shining sun, the bright blue sky, and the flawless white clouds as they drifted westward, high over building tops.

Marcus watched all these things intently as he considered the truth Avant had revealed to him—had been revealing to him. Marcus wondered which of the persons below were real, and which, if any, were suspicious of their reality. He wondered if they had destinations to reach, families to love, employers to placate, or if they were simply loop-like constructs to maintain the semblance of reality for the rest of them.

Then, roughly two-thirds of the people flickered and clicked off, vanishing before Marcus in the blink of an eye. It was as if the illusion had answered Marcus, answered him in the best way it knew how, through demonstration.

After a moment, the sidewalk repopulated, the people returned, reemerging from nothing, and continued on their ways.

Marcus nodded to the sky, in no particular direction, nodding to the machine.

"Game on," he said.

He gnawed his cigarette as he watched for more signs from the device, more direct communication, more challenge. His brow strained as he inspected the bustling city landscape; nothing. The scene was still, normal, so to speak.

Before long, his cigarette had been reduced to a moist clump of tobacco and stained paper. The filter was chewed through, and hung limply from his bottom lip. He spit the mess from his mouth and brought out another. This time, he lit it. Six matches remained.

As he smoked, he moved across the room to his fax machine. Atop a desk in the corner stood the boxy device. As he leaned heavily against the desk, he casually extended his hand, palm up, below the machine. Just as soon as he reached for it, the internal mechanisms activated and Marcus heard the spinning of tiny gears humming within its hull. It whirred and buzzed and beeped, and after a moment, Marcus was presented a printed communication from the Inner Office of Colin Belis.

He held the page in one hand and with his other he forced the burning tip of his cigarette through the company letterhead. He watched as the smoldering point incinerated a hole in the page. The embers quickly consumed the BelisCo logo.

Satisfied, Marcus crumpled the remains of the page and let them drop to the floor.

He plucked his coat from the bathroom door, did not collect his porta-fax, left his briefcase on the cabinet, and hurriedly exited his apartment.

Marcus shuffled down the cramped hallway lined by doors, then down the flights of stairs, where it dawned on him. The pieces fell together like a puzzle, as it always had for Marcus, and he understood. His plan changed. He possessed no foresight of the future, for as with all the instances, this was his first time through, but his memory was strong and his awareness was stronger. In that moment, his intuition surpassed that of Avant and he knew his place, his purpose, his destiny.

He mashed his cigarette in the brass ashtray at the base of the stairs.

Once through the triple locked gate and onto the street, Marcus took out a cigarette and placed it in his mouth. He brought out his matchbook and inspected the sticks inside. He counted them; six matches. As he went to tear out the match, he saw a familiar woman approaching with an even more familiar look of disgust. The buttons of her smart pantsuit sparkled below her chin as she stared, scowling viciously at Marcus. He placed the smoke back in its pack, and returned it and the matchbook to his coat pocket.

Marcus knew it was the cigarette that bothered her. He hadn't even lit it, and this was a smoking zone, but he knew she was right.

Marcus moved aside, allowing the woman to pass, and made his way to the curb. Stepping off, he effortlessly dodged taxi transport after taxi transport, flawlessly anticipating their movements as he made his way across the busy street.

On the opposite curb, he stood before a pair of large, double doors. The words, Tools and Quip, were etched into the steel frame above them.

The doors slid open, inviting Marcus into the hardware store. Once inside, Marcus headed for the counter. Behind the row of cash registers, a young attendant sat reading a comic book. The attendant had dusty blonde hair bound tight in a ponytail and sported round, neon-blue framed reading glasses perched atop his crooked nose. Bib overalls and an orange shirt completed the ensemble.

Marcus cleared his throat.

The attendant remained unaware of his customer.

Marcus ripped the book from the kid's hands. "Where's your tape and watch kits?" he growled.

"Aisles 17b and 36f, man," stammered the attendant as he struggled to stay on his stool.

About forty minutes later, Marcus returned to the counter. He placed seven items on the desk; a roll of aqua-nylon tape, a small, black, plastic case of watch tools, a six-volt camping battery, a spool of electrical wire, a two-inch pipe and a pair of donut-shaped magnets.

The attendant diligently counted the items and quietly announced the total, "Thirty-four, sir."

Marcus reached in his pockets for his crumpled money. He felt something that wasn't there before. With his fingers, he could make out a roll of tape and a small boxy item. He took the item out to inspect it.

In his hand, he held a small watch tool kit. It was identical to the one on the counter before him, except this was a walnut case.

He patted his coat pockets, placed the box back in his pants and said to the attendant, "Nevermind."

Marcus exited the store.

The attendant called after him, "Sir. You need to let me see that item."

Marcus turned to see the young attendant running after him. There, on the street, Marcus furnished the walnut case for the attendant's inspection.

"I hope you don't think I stole this," Marcus said calmly.

The attendant was out of breath. He took the box from Marcus and turned it over in his hand. He looked at each of its six sides and declared between breaths, "We don't carry this item."

He sheepishly conceded the box to Marcus and headed back to his double doors.

Marcus returned the item to his pocket and hailed a taxi transport.

Once in the vehicle, Marcus grumbled an address and pulled down the convenience tray hidden in the back of the seat. Marcus rummaged through his pockets, extracting seven items and placing them on the tray. Each piece was hidden deep within a separate pocket. Once his pockets were emptied, he sunk into his seat and looked over his items.

On the tray, sat a roll of aqua-nylon tape, a small walnut case of watch tools, a six-volt battery, a spool of wire, a two-inch pipe and a pair of donut-shaped magnets.

Marcus hadn't seen such craftsmanship since prior to his days in San Jose. The items bore no identifying markings. They had no manufacturer's notes or serial numbers. Not a single one had the famous BelisCo moniker, as all items in zoned cities typically acquired on import.

Each item was strangely elegant. The wire spool was made of a dark cherry wood, instead of the standard dull, white plastic. The tape had a high quality sheen to it; Marcus could tell it was top of the line. The tool box was simple, well constructed and solid, with quality hinges. The tools inside had tips of tempered steel with handles of violet-swirled ivory. The magnets were perfectly shaped, their contours smooth and seamless, a work of art on their own; perfect twins. The battery was much smaller than the camping battery he intended to purchase. It possessed no markings and no voltage warnings, only a deeply etched set of positive and negative symbols below their respective terminals protruding from the top of the seamless, black casing. Energy hummed inside as it sat on the tray.

Marcus knew exactly where these components came from. He had no doubt in his mind. He had been given exactly what he needed, just when he needed it.

By the time the taxi transport had reached its destination, Marcus no longer had a mix of components and tools upon his convenience tray. Instead, before him sat a device very similar to Avant's handheld tower machine. Marcus's version, however, had no orbs suspended by wire and stood no taller than a pack of cigarettes. On either end of the pipe, the shape of the toroidal magnets could be made out beneath uncountable rows of spiraling wire. The coils moved counter-clockwise around the device, enveloping its exterior in glossy, nylon-insulated copper and crossing at the center of each end's opening where the wires were swallowed by the shadows of the small pipe and magnets. Marcus leaned back in his seat, admiring his creation.

Marcus's door opened.

"We've arrived, sir," the cabbie interrupted Marcus's silence.

Marcus swooped up his machine, and quickly exited the vehicle.

He stood before the glass, double doors of Cafe Diem. Beyond the glass, Marcus could see Stacy as she served two coffees to an older couple in the cafe.

Upon entering, Marcus's senses were flooded. His mind became inundated by all of his visits to Cafe Diem. He saw himself arrive at different times in the same day. He experienced himself sitting at an array of different stools along the fax-bay on the far wall. He listened to Stacy's cheerful voice as she took his order a dozen times. He felt her beaming joy and true sincerity as she asked to join Marcus over and over again. He plainly saw his warning from BelisCo, and this time he knew the cause. It happened two instances of this moment ago. He witnessed himself grow overly excited about his Belis contract, and say far too much. Marcus knew that if not for everything else, that instance could have ended in ISE detainment for both of them, a punishment worse than death. However, he knew that wasn't the case.

Marcus continued to experience his overlapping evolutions in time as he stood motionless in the doorway. Although his constitution and determination remained, and his knowledge did not falter, the layers of Cafe Diem dissolved around him, and Marcus was returned to now.

He maintained his composure as he made his way to a vacant arrangement of chairs. Stacy smiled at him from across the room as he slid a chair from beneath the table. Marcus kept his hand tucked under his coat, holding tight to his device. He smiled in return, his lips tight across his teeth, and then sat; his body rigid, his back straight in his chair.

After a moment, Stacy made her way to Marcus. She had a coffee and two spliffs in hand.

"It's my break time, Mr. Metiline. Mind if I join you?"

With his free hand, Marcus pulled out the seat beside him and smiled cordially at Stacy.

"I'd love it if you would," he said.

Stacy had never heard such sincerity from Marcus. He was always friendly, but also closed-off and distant. In that moment, Marcus seemed very much there. She knew something was different. After all, Stacy thought she knew Marcus fairly well, better than any other customer, and although she knew it to be out of place, she liked this side of him.

Stacy placed the cup before Marcus and sat beside him. She placed the two spliffs between her soft, rosy lips and lit them gracefully. She puffed a few times until they were smoldering and then handed one to Marcus.

With his free hand, he accepted the spliff. He dragged heavily, taking three successive breaths of the cannabis smoke. Then, while holding his breath, Marcus asked, "Is there somewhere we can be alone?"

Stacy didn't hesitate. "Follow me," she said with a smile.

Stacy led Marcus through the cafe, and together, they disappeared behind the double doors embedded in the back wall.

Now, out of the main room, the two of them stood in the kitchen. Along the wall, an arm's reach away, sat various coffee pots on kerosene burners. Each bore a label of its contents. Opposite the variety of coffees stood an outdated gas-powered stove. Its hood was painted in decades-thick strokes of grease that climbed the walls and hung in globs from the ceiling. Straight ahead was a dark hallway, long and stifling, lined by cracked and tarnished makeshift doors.

"We'll go to my place," Stacy said as she took Marcus's free hand and guided him down the hall.

She stopped at a run-down door shoved crookedly in its jamb. It was one of many in the hallway, but this was the only one with a single pink flower clinging to its face.

"I think it brightens things up," Stacy said to Marcus as she tapped the flower.

She smiled and lifted the door by its knob, forcing it open with her shoulder. The door creaked and cried as it widened, just enough for them to pass.

The room was smaller than Marcus's apartment, and had no windows, no kitchen, or even a bathroom. Marcus assumed it to be a standard community worker apartment, and considered nothing further of the missing rooms. He was surrounded by peeling baroque walls that desperately hung onto dozens of densely packed pictures. A single dangling light bulb cast dancing shadows as it swung slowly overhead, exaggerating and then concealing the tears in the old, drab wallpaper. There was a cot-style bed against one wall. Its frame was rusted and tired. At the foot of the bed, an empty vase sat on a small table bolted to the wall.

Marcus brought his device out from underneath his coat and placed it on the table next to the empty vase.

"I can't stay long," Marcus advised as he extinguished his spliff, "but I need you to have this. Keep it close." He motioned toward the small device on the table.

Marcus pulled an envelope from his pocket and placed it in Stacy's hands, clasping his own over hers.

"Everything is in here. When you're ready."

He leaned closely. He could smell the coffee and cannabis on her. It was soothing.

He whispered, "Trust me," and then pushed past her, toward the door. "I have to go now."

As Marcus made his way down the tattered hallway, he realized how old this building looked. Especially, considering the relatively new Cafe Diem attached. Even compared to the rest of San Jose, this was an old complex.

Marcus pushed his way through the double doors and into the main room of Cafe Diem. A moment later, he was out of the cafe and onto the street.

Marcus hailed a cab. He was headed to The Belis Corporation. Marcus Metiline still had a job to do.

Chapter X

Marcus sat on the edge of a white, plastic, ergonomically contoured chair. His hands were clasped firmly in his lap. The beaming image of Colin Belis stared at Marcus from atop the neatly stacked magazines on the glass-topped table before him. Belis's two-dimensional countenance was encased by a halo of golden rays and surrounded by white songbirds frozen into the flat, blue background. Green blades of grass lined the edges of the cover and over them were the words The Rise of Colin Belis printed in italics along the bottom of the page.

"Fall," Marcus whispered to himself.

The waiting room was empty. Bright fluorescent lights illuminated the horizontally running steel bars embedded in the purple-hued wall. Thick glass circles were dispersed in a grid-like matrix across the floor, radiating distorted eggs of light on the marble swirls of the dome-shaped ceiling above.

Marcus was still feeling the effects of the farewell spliff he had smoked with Stacy. He paid no attention to the eccentric, postmodern decor of the waiting area. He kept his eyes locked on Colin Belis. He stared as he waited. He knew what he had to do. He cycled his plans through his brain, echoing Avant's instructions.

It seemed to be only minutes to Marcus, when a tall, broad-shouldered man entered the room, breaking his meditation. The man's frame blocked the light and casted an elongated shadow across the room, enveloping Marcus and alienating him from his surroundings. The man moved closer. His shadow encroached, looming over Marcus.

"Can I help you?" Marcus asked as he strained his neck up toward the towering man's face.

Light ripped at the boundary between the man's silhouette and the marble above, blurring the shape of his flat, square head.

"I am Reg," the shadowy giant responded, "Follow me." He had a surprisingly soft voice for such a large man.

Marcus grunted as he stood to his feet. Now facing the soft-spoken behemoth, Marcus was able to better distinguish his attributes. The man, Reg, wore his reddish-brown hair short and high above his ears. He possessed deep black, button eyes beneath thick, wiry eyebrows. His jaw extended a good two inches beyond his thick neck. He wore a skin-tight, navy-blue deep-necked zippered vest and matching pressed slacks.

Marcus's nose sat in line with the bottom of the man's zipper neckline. The navy blue accentuated the man's pale skin stretched taut against his pectorals and oversized collarbone. The veins in his neck throbbed rhythmically with the expansion and contraction of his chest as he breathed his salty breath through his nostrils and down upon Marcus.

From the way he stood, Marcus could tell he had been in the military, if he wasn't still. Probably from the same outfit as the last Reg, Marcus thought to himself.

"You're not Reg." Marcus grumbled into the man's chest. "Where's the girl with the attitude? I've been— "

Marcus stopped. He realized that what he was about to say would help him no more than it would make sense. More than that, Marcus's cognitive echoes, as Avant called them, began to flow and Marcus recollected in a flash that Reg had not once been the same, a fact that only further solidified Marcus's suspicion about his particular existence.

"I am Reg. Follow me," huffed the man.

If nothing else, at least Reg's disdain was consistent, Marcus thought.

The giant turned and headed into the hallway toward the east. Reg filled the hall. His head barely missed the sprinklers above, and his shoulders spread from wall to wall.

Marcus silently followed.

Reg led Marcus through the same wall and into the same corridor as he had followed his guide's female counterpart before. The walls beamed with silvery streaks of electricity that skated along the glass plates of its construction. Marcus saw the direction from which they emerged and at their source, spotted his target.

Unfortunately for Marcus, there was Reg. He was never in any shape to take on a man of Reg's stature, not once in his life. He considered all the time he could have spent learning to fight, all the practice he'd have acquired. Maybe a grappling class or two would have benefited him right now. After all, didn't he have a world to free? Marcus wondered how much of a punch he could deliver and how deep into Reg's thick skull it would penetrate. Then he pictured his own knuckles shattering against the Goliath.

Reg looked back over his shoulder, glaring as if he had heard Marcus sizing him up inside his head. Reg's barrel chest expanded, then his nostrils flared and his chest shrank as he exhaled loudly at Marcus.

"Through here," he said and vanished beyond a door.

As Marcus considered his physical ability, and mentally examined his poor health and equally lacking training and stamina, it occurred to him that he didn't have to overtake this monster. He wasn't even on the right side of things yet.

With a smile playing on his lips, Marcus calmly followed Reg into the examination room. On his way into the cramped room, Marcus began to undress. By the time he had reached the scanning table, he was in his underwear.

Marcus noticed that Reg was bending his knees to fit in the room. The room attached to the meat locker was substantially smaller this time around, and Marcus knew it had everything to do with relative perception and his present host.

"Those too," Reg motioned toward Marcus's briefs, his giant hand swatting through the air.

"Let's get this over with," Marcus muttered as he removed his remaining garment.

There, cold and naked, Marcus once again began to consider his surroundings. If Reg is different, what else can change? He asked himself, to which he had no reply. Even with all of his experience from his previous visits, Marcus couldn't predict what would happen next, and that frightened him. His cocky smile faded.

A shiver ran down Marcus's spine as he entered the meat locker.

Once Marcus was situated in the center of the room and the fluorescent lights had reached peak amplitude, the walls dithered and as before, were replaced by the intricate machinery of the BelisCo factory. The massive automated tools stamped, pulled, and welded pieces of metal, shaping and constructing, belting out a symphony of shrieks and cries over the consistent drumming of hammering steel.

Marcus was clothed, standing on the catwalk above the machines. He recognized the flowing sleeves upon his arms, and was startled to discover the gaudy number of clanging bracelets upon his wrists. Upon further inspection of his clothing, he discovered the neon orange polish upon his talon-like toenails beneath the flowing drapery of his pants.

As Marcus was transported to the air above the delivery bays, he ran his hand across his lips, confirming his suspicion. While standing in the clean-room amongst the engineers in full-body suits, Marcus stared intently at the silver streak across the back of his hand. And as the walls separated toward infinity and his senses vanished from him, Marcus felt his stomach wrench and heave as its contents entered his throat.

Marcus blacked out.

A putrid stench permeated Marcus's nostrils as he returned to consciousness. His brain was heavy and dull. Confusion had become a physical sensation, manifested in the distance between breaths and the void between thoughts.

Marcus strained to open his eyes. He knew something had gone wrong, terribly wrong, but he couldn't say what. His mind whirled and spun, wobbling through blurry memory after blurry memory, stumbling to discover some profound meaning in the distribution of similar instances, to no avail.

As his eyes adjusted to his brilliant surroundings, Marcus realized he had no idea where he was or what had brought him here. A dismal colorless Light flooded the room. The walls were colored in a rust-red with framed paintings intermittently distributed high upon its face. A plaster white Jupiter held his lightning bolt over head as his beveled eyes stared down on Marcus. All around the room stood various amalgamations of man and beast. To his left, a group of hyenas with human hands crouched over a small child with feathers for skin. On his right was a hog-goat-human mutation carrying a sword and the severed head of a man.

"Hello, Marcus Metiline," sang a voice from out of sight. "You are so narrow-minded to have thought me blind to your attempts," oscillated the singsong voice.

A pair of silver lips bordered by a thick beard appeared before Marcus. "I know what you're up to." The lips moved out of sync with the words.

Suddenly, Marcus was yanked to his feet. Once upright, he twisted around to see an enormous man in navy blue standing behind him, his arms folded tight against his massive chest.

Realizing he was trapped, Marcus spun back around to face the bearded, silver-lipped man. The man leaned casually against a hoof-legged desk, twirling a book of matches in one hand. He ripped a match from the book with his talon-like fingers and ignited its flame. He twisted the stick in his hand as the flame danced and flickered about. Five matches remained.

The man pursed his lips and exhaled, extinguishing the fire. He lit another match, and inhaled the sulfuric smoke as he spoke to the flame, "Such a clever catalyst for a smoker. A book of matches."

He blew out the match and lit another. Three matches remained. The silver lipped man smothered the flame between his forefinger and thumb and lit another.

"You can't stop this," cooed the eccentric stranger.

Marcus could hear the muscle-head behind him chuckling beneath his breath. He could feel the sticky, warm air on the back of his neck as the man snorted and laughed.

The man before Marcus let the match fall to the floor and removed another from its binding. Two matches remained.

The phosphoric, sulfur smoke had coagulated in the center of the room, assaulting Marcus's respiratory system. The pungent fumes inundated his senses as his mind continued to reel around its disconnected pivot. Shadows of memories darted through Marcus's subconscious. Each image vanished as quickly as it arrived; leaving only insoluble fragments suspended in the soup-like substance that was once Marcus's brain.

The man broke another match from the book and said, "See you again soon, Mr. Metiline."

Drool ran down Marcus's chin as he struggled to stay on his feet.

The head of the match sparked into ignition as the silver-lipped man struck it against the matchbook. The flame froze. Its reaching tendrils retreated into a glassy, orange and red sphere. The room moved toward the frozen ball of flame. The two men swelled before Marcus and then flipped inside out, their internal organs briefly visible, and then vanished, guts and all. The walls jerked and contracted as they kneeled toward Marcus, spilling their asbestos innards onto the carpet in violent gasps and gags. The multitude of statues stretched upward, distributing their attributes along the bent, vomiting walls.

As the room choked on its contents, pushing and pulling them about, Marcus felt himself carried away. The dismal light gradually diminished to a single fractured band surrounded by an expanse of deep oily blackness. Detached from inertia and gravity, the spiraling oil moved effortlessly across Marcus's vision, eagerly consuming the remaining shimmers of light. Its slimy insatiable skin seemed guided by crooked, invisible, glass gears. The blackness gnashed and whirred as it finished off the light and began gulping at the remains of Marcus's sensations.

Then it stopped. Once all else was gone, the swirling black oil ceased in its evolution and the grinding of broken glass and hum of disjointed machinery was replaced by the faint shrill of a digital alarm clock in the distance.

Harsh rays of light jabbed at Marcus as he found his way from the jumbled mess of sheets and stopped the screaming alarm clock atop the cardboard box beside his twin bed.

Chapter XI

Marcus Metiline, pulling a mashed cigarette from a crumpled pack on the floor, rose groggily to his feet and shuffled toward the bathroom adjoined to his room. Reaching the doorway, he stood and watched himself in the mirror as he straightened the cigarette and brought it to his lips. He patted his pants for a light. From his right pocket he pulled a matchbook. Seven matches remained.

Marcus Metiline ripped a match from the book and lit it. Fire illuminated his reflection as he began inhaling deeply on the smoke.

Marcus exhaled, tearing through the dense tendrils of smoke as he approached the pedestal sink. Amongst the dim rays of light scrawling the shadows on his face, the glow of his cigarette accentuated his round cheeks, deep eye sockets and four day stubble with each drag. He rested his elbows heavily against the sink as he examined the freshly healed scar over his eye. He struggled to remember what brawl he had gotten into and on which night. It had been a long time since Marcus had been blackout drunk, but even so, he could not conceive of his wound's origin. He groaned. Marcus wasn't an old man, but he wasn't young anymore either.

He inspected himself in the mirror as he burned through his cigarette. He straightened his collar, and tucked in his shirt. Then he mashed the smoldering butt in the sink and pulled his brown coat from the bathroom door. As he exited the bathroom, Marcus pulled on his one-size-too-small coat and rolled up his sleeves. He moved toward the bed, bending to retrieve his crumpled pack of smokes off the floor.

A ringing and humming initiated behind him—the telltale sound of a message from the corporation's standard issue fax machine. The clunky device sat half-cocked on his small writing desk.

Marcus had been expecting this message. This meant his assignment was to begin soon.

Standing at the fax machine, a boxy, metal device with paper sticking out from one end and a telephone and dial pad upon its face, he removed another cigarette from his pack and lit it, this time from the box of strike-anywhere matches on the desk. The machine began pulling the paper into itself, feasting on the wood pulp. The buzzing of teeny machine parts could be heard coming from within its hull. The bottom end began to eject the once blank paper with clear, well-defined, typeset letters upon it. Marcus snatched the paper from the device greedily.

After inspecting the note, Marcus Metiline crumpled it and tossed it on the floor. He took deep successive drags off his cigarette as he made his way across the room to the cabinet in the corner. He reached in and removed a small device a little larger than his hand. Fixed to one end of the device was a cumbersome wheel of glossy paper.

Civilian portable fax machine, Marcus thought to himself. "What will they come up with next?" he asked aloud to no one.

Marcus attached the porta-fax machine to his belt, snatched up a spare roll of the glossy paper, threw it in his briefcase and left the apartment, latching the door behind him.

He shuffled down the long cramped hallway, passing unit after unit of apartments. Reaching the exit, he swung open the heavy steel door and descended two flights of concrete stairs, those stairs that always seem to be just a little taller than they should be. He wondered what a child would do faced with these stairs, crawl maybe? He quickly discarded the thought replacing it with the relief that his apartment complex is an adult-only facility; no one under the age of 21 is allowed on the premises.

Still, he thought, damn these stairs.

He tossed his cigarette in the bronze butt-bucket at the base and fiddled with his keys as he began unlocking the three internal deadbolts on the large cage-like door between him and the street.

Once through the gate and on the sidewalk, Marcus stopped, slouching as he fished his cigarettes out of his pocket. Once again he patted his pants in search of his matches. Finding both, he lit the cigarette and puffed away at it. Five matches remained.

People in suits flooded the sidewalk, moving quickly on their way. A lady in a smart woman's pant suit waved away Metiline's smoke as she passed, sneering at him in distaste. Marcus shrugged indifferently. After all, his neighborhood wasn't one of those smoke-free zones. In fact, he purchased the apartment specifically for that reason—that and the age requirement.

Marcus pushed his way to the edge of the sidewalk and waved his hand, signaling an approaching taxi. Silently, the taxi transport halted at the curb before Marcus. His reflection gleamed back at him on the tinted passenger-side window and then gradually disappeared, being replaced by the vehicle's interior and an old, gray-haired driver with his knobby fingers grasped tightly around the steering wheel.

"No smoking in here, Marcus. It's bad for things," the cab driver said almost too quickly to decipher.

The cigarette in Marcus's mouth lost its appeal. The smoke tasted dry and stale, ashy and bitter. He let it fall from his lips and to the ground, quickly stamping it out beneath his foot.

"How do you know my name?" Marcus inquired as he leaned in the window.

"Get in," the driver said, "You've made a mess of things."

Marcus was intrigued, compelled even. He opened the back door and seated himself, placing his briefcase on the floor between his feet. As soon as the door was shut, the heavy thud of the locks sounded, sealing him in.

Unease urged Marcus to inspect the license embedded in the dash. He leaned forward; this driver was not the man pictured.

Without warning, Marcus was jerked backward as the transport accelerated. The taxi veered in and out of traffic as it sped fluidly down the boulevard.

"You've gotten off track." The old man spoke as fast as he drove.

The vehicle continued to gain speed. Marcus's knuckles lost color as he dug his ten fingers into the contours of his armrest.

"My name is Avant. Doctor Avant," the driver introduced himself as he jerked the wheel, lifting the passenger-side tires off the ground and narrowly avoiding a group of fax-line response community workers.

Marcus heard the chime of the auto-mechanisms engaging. The vehicle corrected, placing its wheels firmly on the ground and then returning control to the speeding doctor.

Moments later, Marcus Metiline saw a vacant lot fast approaching. It was situated unevenly between towering housing complexes and surrounded by a drooping chain-link fence. Its gray soil looked charred.

As they came closer, Marcus saw vines of frayed steel cables reaching up from the ground in coordinated patches. No other plant life grew within the confines of the fence. Even the rays of the glowing sun seemingly curved around the plot of land, leaving it dark, gloomy, shadowed and dead.

The transport came to a sudden stop directly before the lot.

Avant looked over his shoulder and stared intently at Marcus.

After a long pause, he said, "We've met before, Marcus."

Chapter XII

After a long silence, and well after the carbon dioxide in the vehicle had exceeded comfortable levels, Avant unlocked the doors. Marcus stumbled from the transport, leaning against its body as he gasped heavily at the fresh air. The rush of oxygen was euphoric, almost.

Avant made his way around the vehicle to Marcus. "I have found, at least for me, that a sudden rush of oxygen aids in the reconstruction of neuro-synapses... or in your case, creation, since these synapses don't exist here. Yet," he said with confidence.

Gravely, he added, "And right now it is of utmost importance that we do everything we can for you to remember... to know."

Avant was right. Marcus's mind began to reel, compounding specters of experience and sensation at an exponential rate. Memories flooded his mind at random, presenting themselves vividly then retreating from his cognitive grasp like oil in water. Quickly, his mental capacity reached equilibrium and his expression turned from one of intrigue to one of boredom.

"Hello, Avant," Marcus said flatly.

"Does the name Cafe Diem mean anything to you?" Avant asked greedily, as if Marcus had been wasting his time.

Marcus responded dryly, "That's clever. Like 'seize the day.'"

Avant wasn't fazed by Marcus's jest. He nimbly retorted, "Beyond that, Marcus. Think hard. Close your eyes."

Standing on the sidewalk between the taxi transport and the barren, dead lot, Marcus closed his eyes tight, sealing his mind in darkness. He focused his thoughts, and as he did the near silence of the empty street was gradually replaced with the sound of conversation. He could hear orders being placed for coffee, discussions on the weather, and talks about cannabis cigarettes. Then the sweet smell of tobacco and cannabis permeated Marcus's senses. The clanging of the chain-link fence flexing in the wind was replaced by the clicking and clacking of dozens of pairs of hard-soled shoes and the occasional screech of wooden chair legs against linoleum. Soon he was entirely inundated by the sounds and smells. Marcus opened his eyes.

Before him, the flaccid chain-link fence warped and blended until its cross-hatched links had pressed themselves into plate-glass doors. The doors positioned themselves vertically and parallel to one another as the blackened topsoil swirled upward from the lot. The plant-like cables sprouted steely fingers that rode upon the swirls of black dirt as they joined in a towering vortex. The particulate storm lunged for the doors and held them in its grasp. Timber planks appeared from nowhere and arranged themselves into a cubic frame. Veins of gray soot climbed along the beams and morphed and spread into sheets of white plaster. The canvassing cables disappeared amongst the coagulating walls as the tendrils of debris solidified, taking on the attributes of a building's facade. Marcus watched as chairs and tables unfolded from thin air and the words Cafe Diem wrote themselves in red neon above the glass doors.

"Stacy," Marcus whispered.

"You did this, Marcus. And it is not the first."

Marcus watched as the scene before him oscillated between Cafe Diem and the unnatural lot. It waned and waved like a thin veil just before his eyes. The veil dithered and flexed. Then it disappeared entirely, leaving only the disparity contained behind the chain-link fence.

Avant said quickly, "There are more places like this one, Marcus, and each one creates a larger problem, but it is beyond repair. You see, the last time you and I met, I lied to you. We had not met only thirty-three times."

He paused.

"Well, it wasn't entirely untrue, it was the thirty-third time that I met with this Marcus, but not the first time you and I've met."

Avant looked Marcus in the eyes as he straightened the Windsor knot at the top of his blue and yellow tie, cleared his throat, and said, "I lied to you about a lot of things. But it is all in vain now, so I may as well be forthcoming. But know that my dishonesty had entirely noble motivations."

He took Marcus by the arm. "Walk with me," he said.

Marcus and Avant began down the sidewalk, turning right at the end of the shadowy lot. As they walked, Avant directed Marcus's attention upward to the sky.

Above them, a flock of birds flew in formation. A single bird broke off sharply from the group and dove toward the empty lot. As it glided over the fence, the little bird vanished in a burst of dust and feathers. Its remains sprinkled the ground at Marcus's feet.

As he watched the brittle bird bones disintegrate into ash on the sidewalk, Marcus noticed the blackness of the lot lapping at the pale cement like a rising tide. He stepped away, recoiling into the street.

"You see, Marcus: the poor people that were inside that building are dead, just like the bird. You killed them."

Avant spoke from behind Marcus. His speech was much slower than his normal machine-gun pace. His desperation, fear maybe, was beginning to show. His syllables began to fracture shakily, deeply contrasting with his familiar, fluid articulation.

"There are many more... places... like this one, Marcus. These holes. They are all forming... right now, all around us."

Avant pointed again toward the dying lot.

Even though they were now too far to make out the chain-link barrier, the black stain in the colorful cityscape was clear and well defined. It had obviously grown. The blue sky above the lot was painfully severed by the deep black shadow. It called to Marcus. He felt it drawing him in. Quickly, he pulled his focus from the void and forced his attention back to Avant.

Avant moved his lips but no words escaped them. His voice had drifted into thin air, sucked from his throat and pulled from Marcus's ears. The doctor mouthed in silence, defeated by a low, unnerving hum.

A pressure emerged from behind Marcus, first pulling at his coat then at his flesh. It moved to his chest, weighing on him and pulling the air from his lungs.

Avant grabbed Marcus's sleeve, forcing him into a sprint, dragging him down the street. As they ran in silence, behind them, the mist of death and decay grew. It gulped at the buildings and streets, swallowing them whole, collapsing the concrete and asphalt as it spread. Marcus witnessed the buildings turn brittle. He saw the elaborate, cracking spiderwebs split the walls on either side of him, and cringed as they quietly collapsed and vanished into ash and dust and shadow.

Then it stopped. Gray soot showered the remaining portions of street and sidewalk as the blackness spewed forth that which it had not consumed.

"This is what happens!" Avant shouted through the raining debris as he came to a sudden stop, turning to face Marcus.

The two men were painted in the gray dust. Tiny particles of ash and crumbling concrete clung to Marcus's brown coat and sat in piles around Avant's collar. They both desperately shook and patted their clothes, attempting to clean themselves of the death. Marcus could feel it on his skin, seeping into his pores. He felt it digging into him, consuming his surface, using him up.

It grabbed at his nerve endings, reaching deep into his core and filling him with a tangible, living emptiness.

As he frantically brushed at his pants and shook out his sleeves, Marcus's foot caught the curb. He felt his weight shift in the wrong direction, and Marcus's body toppled toward the ground.

He stumbled three steps with his arms flailing before he painfully caught himself with his palms upon the pavement.

As Marcus stood to his feet, he found himself face-to-face with the towering blackness. It throbbed and licked at the air before him, but remained still, contained, satiated—for now.

Avant rushed over to Marcus and, while maintaining a safe distance, he confessed, "This is what we've done. We've done this dozens of times... hundreds maybe. And now we reap what we've sown."

His speech had returned to its typical breakneck pace, which, as it always had, sucked the sincerity from his words.

"I knew it would happen again. Though, I hoped it wouldn't. I thought I could keep you from this one," he said.

He kicked a rock with his foot. It skipped twice across the pavement then disappeared, swallowed by the blackness.

Avant continued, "Your first one was Jacob, Jacob Weller. Near where we met later today, outside of Tranquility."

Avant paused.

Then he asked, "Can you even remember Jacob? Can you remember something that is happening to you now, but somewhere else, and as someone else?"

Avant stared into the breathing darkness, waiting for Marcus to respond.

Marcus wanted to tell him, Yes. At times. But it was too late.

Before he could formulate his response, the blackness lurched forward and they were once again enveloped in the deafening hum.

The weight of each and every collapsed building in San Jose sat on Marcus. Beneath his feet, the ground dried up and cracked in plumes of dust, curling upward as it gave up all signs of life. Structures around him burst as their innards spilled onto the street. The cement turned to ash and the asphalt to tar. Benches turned to soot, and fax-lines disintegrated into thin air. Eaten by rust, the porta-fax on his belt burst open; the roll of glossy paper crumbled and the tiny gears and cogs sprang from their shell, bursting into ash as they fell to the earth.

Then, Marcus collapsed.

As he lay amongst the piling debris, he peered through the clouds of ash and dust, searching for Avant. The doctor, it seemed, like the buildings, the benches, the porta-fax, and the fax-lines, had vanished, turned to dust like the rest. Marcus Metiline was alone.

The pressure upon him persisted, pulling Marcus into the ground. He desperately tried lifting himself, pressing his palms deeper into the dirt. He tried to carry himself out of the blackness, back onto the sidewalk, back into San Jose, back to the world where he belonged.

If I could only get to my knees, he thought to himself, but he couldn't. His muscles ached in exhaustion and his bones cried in pain. He felt only tired and cold. He gasped for air in short, labored breaths as his body struggled against him.

Finally, as had everything around him, he too submitted to the darkness.

As he stared into the sky, he took comfort in the remaining light of the sun. It bent around him, leaving no part of him bathed in light, but he could see it. As though he were in the vacuum of space; no warmth met his body, but his eyes were still overcome by the brilliance. Then it shrank in the sky. The sun shriveled to the size of a quarter, then a dime. For a moment, it appeared as though it could win. It oscillated, fighting back against the darkness, giving Marcus hope, but it stood no chance. There, on the ashen ground, Marcus watched as the sun, and the world around him, died.

Chapter XIII

When his strength had returned and his bones felt sure again, Ashram Trounce continued toward the top of the stairs. As he carefully placed his feet, he noticed the marble beneath him had been replaced by shadowy, steel plates that carried him upward.

Strange, he thought, yet somehow familiar.

At the top, he came to a large pair of towering double doors. The doors possessed no handles or knobs, and were lined by thin threads of rose-colored light. They hissed, clanged and melted upward to reveal a large office. The far wall was made entirely of plate-glass. Beyond it, fluffy, white clouds floated by, casting an occasional shadow upon the room. On either side of Ashram, eccentric plaster sculptures and poorly chosen art lined the walls.

This was Colin's office, Ashram recognized.

As he made his way to the enormous iron-edged, hoof-legged desk in the center of the room, he felt a confidence wash over him. He suddenly knew his purpose, his destiny, his place in the universe.

Ashram sat himself gracefully upon the desk. It wasn't his desk. He knew that, but something told him that, like a well-fitted puzzle piece, he was right where he needed to be.

A moment later, a portion of the eastern wall dissolved and a giant of a man appeared. He huffed loudly as he dragged an unconscious lump to the center of the room.

The broad shouldered, barrel-chested man dropped the lump before Ashram's feet, and quickly stood at attention, his arms tight to his sides. Ashram had not met him before, but he knew it in his core; the lump on the floor was named Marcus.

"We found these on him," the behemoth said as he handed a book of matches, a porta-fax, a crumpled pack of smokes, and a briefcase to Ashram Trounce. He quickly dropped all but the matches on the hard, wooden floor.

Ashram reached into his own pocket and removed an identical matchbook. He inspected them briefly, turning them over in his hand, feeling them each in his fingers. He compared them, finding the same number of matches, the same colors, the same shape, even the same wear on the bindings and strike-strips.

As he grasped both matchbooks in his right hand, they began to flicker. They oscillated back and forth; one fading away then returning only to have the other vanish. For nearly a minute, this tug of war between the matches continued upon Ashram's open palm, neither entirely existing at the same time, as if they were competing for the same space. Then, finally, the existential seesaw stopped and there was only one book of matches sitting alone upon Ashram's hand. No trace of its twin existed.

As the man on the floor began to come to, he coughed and drooled. He gasped and gulped for air. He lifted himself to his knees, staring up at Ashram in confusion.

"Hello, Marcus Metiline," Ashram sang.

Ashram continued, "You are so narrow-minded to have thought me blind to your attempts."

Marcus continued gagging reflexively. His spit landed in splashes upon Ashram's neon orange toenails. It was absolutely offensive.

Ashram wiped the spit from his foot, leaned toward Marcus and said, "I know what you're up to."

The behemoth jerked Marcus to his feet, forcing him upright and making him watch.

Ashram skillfully flipped a match against the book, igniting it. He knew exactly what he was doing. It felt impossibly right. In a flash, the match-head consumed itself in fire and the bright, yellow light engulfed Ashram wholly.

Ashram found himself on the cold marble of his extravagant staircase. He had been knocked to his knees, his cheek pressed tight against the icy stone. A lingering sense of unease persisted inside him. Ghosts of a struggling man and flashes of fire floated across his frontal lobe. The sting of sulfur and phosphorus persisted in his brain. He felt intimately tied to the man in his vision. Ashram was absolutely sure he had been there.

When? He thought to himself, It's been two years since I've been in his office.

Then the feelings left him, his certainty faded, and Ashram got his feet. He grabbed the banister firmly and continued toward his room.

Once at the top of the staircase, he paused once again to regain his strength.

"Thank the stars for Belis's machines," he said to himself between breaths, "Otherwise I'd never get anything done."

He continued on his way, taking his final steps to the archway of his master bedroom.

The room was massive, much larger than it needed to be. The floor consisted of an odd combination of bamboo and cotton. The bamboo was distributed in a matrix across the floor, framing individual trapezoids of thick cotton tiles. It almost gave the room the look of an unfinished attic. Large, irregularly shaped, colorless curtains sagged in patches from the ceiling, nearly reaching the floor. Beyond the arrays of drapery, distorted light billowed in through a stained glass wall. The panels of fabric swallowed the beams, creating various hues and shapes across the few pieces of furniture in the room, and those not tangled in drapery cast ghastly shades of green, purple and yellow upon the weathered, sagging skin of Ashram Trounce.

He removed his taupe smock and hung it on the wall. The wall instantly folded in on itself, swallowing his smock within. After removing a key from his pocket and placing it upon a small table, he fed the wall his trousers and made his way to the far corner of the room.

There, he sat himself upon a small stool before a large baroque box. The large chest before him was held closed by an old dried rope whose ends had begun to fray. It was wrapped strategically in a succession of figure-eights, deftly binding the wooden top to the heavy, metal bottom.

Crouching forward, he slowly untied the rope and lifted the lid. His skin stretched tight against his bones as he reached into the trunk and took from it a pair of open-toed sandals, flowing canvas like pants and a waxy, white smock with blue gemstones inlaid upon its collar; these items he kept perfectly folded and laid neatly beside him. As well, he removed a small black box, the BelisCo emblem carved into its face. Ashram placed the small box between his bare feet and opened it. Various brushes, polishes, and containers of makeup were held neatly within its confines.

As much as Ashram hated the idea, it was in the Belis-Trounce Distribution Agreement.

Each party must don a countenance of similarity as to maintain an air of negotiation not hindered by bias and conducive to agreement, article 130.9 subsection b, he recited in his mind.

Wearing makeup at my age? Ashram thought as he sighed audibly. He knew Colin wouldn't entertain a meeting with him if he showed up any other way.

"And so it must be," he murmured quietly to himself.

Hunched over in the corner of his enormous bedroom, Ashram proceeded to unscrew a small bottle of polish. He steadily ran the applicator against each of his long toenails, slowly transforming the flesh colored keratin to bright, neon orange. Once all of his toenails had been glazed in the offensive orange color, he took from the small, black box a brush and palette and began applying a silver sheen to his lips. He dusted his lips lightly with the feather-tipped brush, making sure to dab each millimeter of his dry, cracked lips. Upon completing his silver treatment, Ashram began applying long, talon-like nails to his fingertips. Then he took from the chest a dozen or so metal rings, another mandate of today's meeting. Each possessed vastly different characteristics; not one complimented another. He placed the large bracelets over his hands. They clanked obnoxiously against one another as he slid them down onto his wrists.

Before he stood, Ashram held a small mirror to his face, inspecting his required facade. As he stared into the mirror, he combed his wiry beard and brushed his unkempt hair. Then he eased himself to his feet, his garments in hand.

Ashram pulled his flowing trousers on, one leg at a time. Then he tied them around his round belly with a golden tassel. He pulled the smock over his head and regarded his costume one last time as he saw his reflection dance upon the mirror across the room.

Horrible, he thought as he lowered himself onto his twin-sized mattress. He crossed his legs and casually took a small corncob-pipe and a book of matches from his nightstand.

Ashram suspiciously inspected the booklet; seven remained.

He continued staring intently at the seven matches for a few long moments, and then ripped one from its binding. He lit it, and shakily brought the flame to the bowl of his pipe. He toked heavily.

The smell of marijuana quickly enveloped the room. As Ashram inhaled deeply, his hands began to calm and his breathing eased. He looked intently at the six remaining matches.

The worn edges and tattered binding of the matchbook instantly transported Ashram back to the grim office of Colin Belis.

Ashram Trounce patiently awaited his host.

After a long period of sitting, he left the center of the room, traversing the large office, examining the sculptures and paintings one by one. The occasional swishing of his loose pants was the only sound in the room. He paused a moment at each of the dystopian displays, speculating about the importance of each one.

After completing his gradual, contemplative lap around the room, he turned his attention to the escritoire-style liquor cabinet. Ashram lifted the cabinet door along its track to reveal an array of handcrafted bottles, each containing its own uniquely colored liquid. Below the arrangement of bottles sat three highball glasses. Ashram ran his finger across each of the unlabeled bottles before settling on a blue-tinged liquor in a rectangular, frosted glass flask. He plucked it off the shelf, uncorked the container and proceeded to pour himself a drink. The liquid swirled around the walls of his glass as he tilted the spout downward. Once his glass was sufficiently full, he re-corked the bottle and placed it back on the shelf.

As Ashram brought the blue-filled glass to his lips, a ringing and humming initiated beside him, startling a large portion of his drink onto the floor. He turned his attention to a boxy, metal device resting on the table beside the cabinet. After a few moments of gears turning and mechanisms shifting, the device deposited a bold-faced message upon the table's surface.

Setting his glass beside the device, Ashram took the page in hand and read the words out loud to himself, "Dearest friend and colleague, please accept my most sincere apologies as I will be unable to attend our meeting today. Please accept a liquor of your choice from my personal cabinet as well as a personal escort, by own of my trusted employees, to your home. Your friend, Colin Belis."

Ashram folded the paper and placed it in his pocket. He lifted his glass off the table, leaving a shiny, blue ring on its surface, and quickly returned his attention to the liquor cabinet. Being a man of extravagant taste, Ashram located the largest and most elaborately crafted bottle on display.

As he removed the gem encrusted bottle, he muttered to himself, "It was supposed to be today."

He took another sip from his glass while he turned the bottle over in his hand.

Ashram grumbled, "Leave it to Colin to postpone the most important of meetings."

"But, I suppose I can still meet with the Wellers today," he declared hopefully into the glass.

He swirled the blue liquid, adding, "If not for the prohibition, this trade would be absurd."

Once he finished his audible complaint, he took one last sip of his blue liquor, savoring the rare taste. As he set the glass upon the table, the room filled with a sharp succession of hollow buzzing sounds, followed by a digital voice.

"Mr. Belis, the man you want is here," the voice crackled and hissed.

Then something took hold inside of Ashram. His concerns of agricultural distribution faded to be replaced by pure and absolute determination. A power beyond Ashram began to operate him. His muscles moved against him, dropping his glass to the floor, placing the elaborate liquor bottle back in its place and moving him to the center of the room. As an unaffecting bystander, Ashram watched his body fulfill these actions. All the while, he felt at ease, content, even damn right pleased with himself. He knew that this was how it must be; for them.

He saw himself depress the tiny red button on the large, oak desk and lean toward the mesh covered box.

"Disable him and bring him to me."

Ashram heard himself sing the words into the oversized microphone.

His hand located another button on the desk, pressing it firmly with Ashram's index finger. Behind him, a single, gray shade silently descended over the glass panes, separating the room from the bright, blue sky outside. As the rectangular panels in the ceiling clicked on over head, a dismal, colorless light flooded the room.

Then smoke surrounded him.

Marijuana smoke, he realized.

Ashram was once again sitting cross-legged upon his twin sized mattress, tendrils of smoke drifting from his lips. He stared intently, engrossed in the matchbook. The strange vision had already begun fading. By the time he had expelled the last of the smoke from his lungs, the experience had gone, vanished without a trace.

"Ahem."

Ashram turned abruptly.

Before him, a man flickered, his body visibly severed by a bundle of hanging fabric. His front third and right shoulder stood before the curtain and the rest of him, behind. The specter scattered and rejoined, forcing himself around the heavy fabric, fluttering and moving about. As he stepped toward Ashram, he floated through and out of the drapes, and solidified.

He wore a white lab coat spotted with stains, and peeking through the collar of his coat, Ashram could see the top of a blue and yellow checkered Windsor knot nested between the flaps of a white, high-collared button-up shirt. The man had greasy, gray hair that sprang up in tufts atop his head. In only the few seconds he had been standing before Ashram, the strange man had already repositioned his thick-framed glasses more than once.

"It would be in everyone's best interest if you stayed in Tranquility today, Mr. Trounce."

Chapter XIV

Where did you come from? How did you get in here?"

Being familiar with Colin, he had a feeling this was one of his tricks—his magical technology. Ashram anticipated such an answer, but received none. The man before him simply waved his hand through the air, casting aside the very vibrations of Ashram's words.

Moving quickly through his syllables, he said, "Whatever it is that's happening inside you, fight the urge to go to San Jose. No good comes of it. Between you and the others..."

He trailed off as he straightened his tie. Then, with his knuckles pressed firmly against his jaw, he realigned the vertebrae in his neck with a loud series of hollow popping sounds.

The man cautioned as he repositioned his head, "You've already made such a mess. Today is our last chance. You must, no matter what, stay in Tranquility."

His words increased in velocity as he continued, "Your world is a loop. These memories I know you've been experiencing, those without explanation within the probable scope of causality, they are... as difficult to comprehend as it may seem... just as real as you and I right now. What couldn't have happened because it happens in the future, or didn't happen in the past; they are echoes of your previous experience of today. However, something went terribly wrong the last time, yester..day. You are a very important piece of the solution. Ashram. You cannot stop Marcus again."

Then he paused.

Ashram recognized that name, Marcus. It echoed in his mind as it bathed him in familiarity.

The man continued with absolute gravity, "If you do... there is no way around it... you will all die. Maybe you still will. I don't know. This is all new territory."

The man shook his head as if trying to discard that last thought.

Ashram stood to his feet and said, "Well, haven't you just jumped right in?"

He placed his pipe on the table beside him and deposited the matchbook into his pocket as he stepped toward the uninvited guest. Extending his hand, he stiffly poked the man in the shoulder, confirming his presence.

As he backed away, Ashram said, "It seems only appropriate that you introduce yourself, stranger. This is my home and you are no guest of mine. You preach to me against all I know, and hope to accomplish what?"

The intruder was taken aback. He inspected Ashram momentarily, then, in an offended tone, rebutted, "I am your... I am Dr. Avant. Dr. Horatio Avant, but that's not important."

Before Ashram had a chance to interject, Avant began firing words off like a Gatling gun.

"Later today, something happens to you... some force overtakes you... and like a chess piece... it moves you through its plan; a terrible, terrible plan. It's far too late to undo what has been done, what you and the others like you cleverly accomplished behind my back, but I'm confident that if you are kept away, Marcus will have a fighting chance."

There was that name again, Ashram thought to himself, Marcus.

Avant continued, "You see, Ashram. You are sick. You are all very, very sick and this world is making you worse; Belis's world... It isn't supposed to be like this, but it is."

Avant hung his head, his brow furrowed. His shame was plainly painted along the deep creases that framed his lips. Avant was not happy with the way things had turned out and Ashram could see his frustration festering beneath the guilt and shame, surfacing.

"Belis's world?" Ashram retorted.

He wanted to know how his longtime friend was involved in this.

Avant replied, speaking more rapidly than ever, "Belis is no friend of yours. All honesty, you don't actually know Colin Belis. You just think you do. As impossible as it is for me to prove that to you, it is the truth."

It was obvious to Ashram that this man was telling no more than half-truths. His fast talk was a tactic and Ashram could tell; he was hiding something.

Ashram sat himself on his bed and waved his hand through the air, signaling his disbelief.

"Continue. Explain, if you would," he whispered as he loaded another green bowl into his pipe.

Avant continued, "Before me, you and Belis never met."

He paused.

"Where to begin?" he muttered under his breath.

For a moment, he rubbed his right temple in a clockwise fashion as though he were tuning a radio. Then, as if he had found the right frequency, he suddenly continued, "It was only one month ago that you had first shared the same room with Colin Belis. This world, your relationships, your loves and trusts, even your occupation is made up, a perpetual loop I have induced upon a large number of people. Colin Belis was one of those people... you are one of those people—"

Ashram removed his matchbook from his pocket and unfolded its flap.

"—I would use another ignition source, Ashram. Those matches are a loaded gun," Avant said calmly. Then he asked, "How many matches do you have left?"

Ashram inspected the book and said, "Six."

"Yes. I would save those; we wouldn't want your reality to reset before we finish our conversation."

"What?" Ashram was confounded, but still allowed the matchbook to fall to the floor.

"I'm not sure you understand the magnitude of what I am trying to convey. I'd like to show you something," Avant declared.

He took from his coat pocket a small device. Upon its face were a variety of different colored knobs and dials, and from its top hung a pair of copper spheres. He held the device tight in one hand, and with his other he began turning the knobs. After a moment, the device began to sing. It hummed and chimed and clicked as the small copper balls began to lift up and whirl.

As the small, shiny orbs accelerated through the space above the device, Avant approached the stained glass wall.

Once he reached the glass, he motioned for Ashram to join him. Avant pressed the device against the thick, crystalline panels. As he held it tightly in place, he began to turn a single black knob clockwise. The device increased pitch and whined loudly, enveloping the room. Then, after a moment, the whining disappeared, and with it, the red, purple, blue, green and yellow glass panels. Now, only the great expanse of Trounce Farms stood before the two men.

Ashram extended his hands. Once again using his tactile senses as proof of reality, he confirmed the dis-presence of the glass by placing his palms through the window, nearly falling to the ground two stories below. Ashram quickly regained his balance and turned to Avant, his eyes wide with wonder.

Avant directed Ashram's attention toward Tranquility, saying, "It turned on this morning. At least, that's when I first noticed it."

Ashram's gaze followed Avant's knobby finger. At its end was the winding road that lead to the Weller Processing Plant; the only factory in California equipped to process Trounce's product. It was a massive complex, one of the largest structures in California, second only to BelisCo. Ashram's eyes followed the black, paved road up the hill, but found no factory. Instead, a large column of darkness extended upward from the ground where the plant once stood.

"Do you see that, Ashram? That dark spot over there?" Avant asked, already knowing the answer.

He continued quickly as ever, "You did this sometime ago, but somehow I just noticed it. You've all been working against me. Hiding these... holes... not just against me, against yourselves."

Avant cleared his throat.

"I need to know what you've been doing in here. I don't—"

He corrected himself, "You don't have the time."

Avant looked Ashram Trounce in the eyes and said, "Can you remember what you did to Jacob?"

Ashram was clearly agitated. His hands began to shake as he clenched his fingers into fists.

Without the slightest hesitation, Ashram answered, "No."

He growled through his teeth, "Do you know what this will do to San Jose? How will they eat? they're all going to..."

Avant interrupted, "They won't starve. And it is not what I did, Ashram. It's what you've done... or, what has been done through you... I have no ties to this. Everything I have done for you—for everyone—has been only good... beneficial."

Avant removed his device from the opening in the wall. Quickly, the room was bathed in ghastly hues as the stained-glass tiles unfolded from dozens of microscopic points, coagulating outwardly, square by square, as they refilled the empty window.

Ashram shook his head. His longtime friend, Jacob Weller, had spent years of his life building that factory, and now, seemingly overnight, it had been swallowed up.

Impossible, Ashram thought. His fists were still clenched tight and his teeth even tighter.

Ashram hissed, "You come to my home. You blame me."

"Not you, Ashram. Your... this body. Can you remember what you've done? I need to know. I need to warn Marcus."

There was that name again. This time it hit Ashram like a train. He at once witnessed his hands ripping the matches from the matchbook. He watched himself strike them against their binding, light them ablaze, and then toss them at that man, Marcus. He experienced his neon orange talons clicking and clacking against each other as his fingers fumbled to pull the matches from their book. His parts moved like a puppet, all muscles and nerves beyond his control. He heard himself sing to Marcus, taunting him in various ways.

Then there was only Avant. Ashram stood beside his expansive stained-glass window.

He looked at his hands, focusing on the awful array of bracelets and the cumbersome claws he wore as nails. After a long moment of contemplation, Ashram looked up.

Staring emptily into Avant's face, he said, "What has happened to me?"

Avant replied sincerely, "You are not the only one. It is happening to all of you. Each and every one."

He placed his hand on Ashram's shoulder and quietly confessed, "It's only going to get worse. Unless you can help me discover what is happening. Help me, so I can aid Marcus in saving you all."

Ashram responded, "You keep saying that. Marcus is to save us, but how?"

Avant answered with machine-gun precision, "If Marcus can disable the device, then you'll all survive. Otherwise, you die. That is how it's been written. That is how it is. It is as simple as that."

He took a small, brass pocket watch from his coat and flipped open the cover.

"I've still got time," he said as he slapped it shut and returned it to his coat.

"Let's take a closer look at the factory. Hopefully it will trigger something of use," he said as he returned his eyes to Ashram.

No longer clenching his fists or grinding his teeth, Ashram only waited and watched; his arms limp at his sides, his mouth partially agape. He had no idea what to expect next, what fantastic story would be told to him or what strange vision would overtake him. He knew he had no say in the matter. He made no effort to move, no effort to speak. He knew his words would achieve nothing. No question he could ask of the doctor would educate him because he didn't know the right ones to ask, and so he only stood, silently watching Dr. Avant.

Turning a dial upon his device, Avant's solidity began to wane. His clothing and flesh began to wither. His shell quickly deteriorated into swirls of matter. Ashram watched as Avant's body disassembled before him. The white cloth of his lab coat floated clockwise. The blue and yellow checkered Windsor knot detached from Avant's neck and turned translucent as it drifted into oblivion. Avant's face folded toward infinity as it enveloped the room. Then, as the walls dithered and the ceiling dissolved, they were standing no more than ten yards from the towering, black expanse that now occupied the space in, around, and above Jacob Weller's factory.

Ashram's senses were flooded, inundated all at once. Almost instantly he was consumed. Slowly, the ominous, black column demanifested before him.

After a moment, his surroundings focused and Ashram was standing in a wide, four-lane driveway. Avant was nowhere to be found. Above him, etched into a green metallic sign, were the words Weller Processing Plant.

Chapter XV

Astonishing," Jacob said as he laughed out loud at Ashram, "After all these years he's still got you dressing up like a circus sideshow, eh?"

Ashram grinned, his teeth slightly visible from behind his silver-dusted lips.

Jacob Weller and Ashram Trounce sat in gray, straight-backed metal chairs, facing each other across a modest steel desk. Alone upon the desk sat a pair of gray coffee mugs, each distributing a fine mist of steam into the air between them. The room was disgustingly simple. Gray made up the walls, colored the tables, and had at one point consumed the floor. Even the coffee's steam was a pale shade of gray.

It had always bothered Ashram that Jacob could spend so many hours in such a drab, mediocre place.

"And what's worse? He never even showed this time," Ashram said as he took a sip of coffee, "He had one of his lackeys escort me back to town."

His talon-like fingernails traced the ridges and grooves of the blown glass of his large, gaudy consolation gift from Colin Belis. Other than his single, fluidly moving hand, Ashram sat perfectly still as he conversed with Jacob.

"I'm just surprised you still put up with all that. Don't you feel ridiculous?"

"Absolutely," Ashram sighed, "But let's face the facts. Without Colin, you and I wouldn't even be here."

"Shouldn't we give a little more credit to his parents and a little less to him?"

"His parents didn't purchase San Jose," Ashram retorted, "Without Colin we'd be doing something else entirely."

"That isn't necessarily a bad thing is it?" Jacob jested as he pointed all around him, twirling his index finger and homing in on Ashram's ridiculous clothing.

Ashram laughed for a few moments, his mouth wide and his laugh loud. Jacob was always the type to bring Ashram out of a slump, and he considered Jacob's point. He was right; something else wouldn't necessarily be horrible.

Then, without warning, his mouth closed tight.

Despite his sealed lips, his laughter continued unrestricted, filling the room, growing in amplitude.

Then, something behind Ashram's eyes changed. Jacob watched silently as Ashram's pupils lost their sheen and his irises went flat. Ashram stared through Jacob as his blue eyes turned a drab and cold gray, perfectly matching the dull, bleak office. Still Ashram's laugh carried through the room.

The air around him undulated and flexed in time with his laugh, radiating from the floor to the ceiling. His lips moved not an inch, nor did his body. His fingers had stopped tracing the gaudy bottle beside him. He was frozen in place.

Calmly, the words "I'd like to show you something," emanated from Ashram's body.

It wasn't the fact that Ashram's words came without cue from his lips or tongue, nor the odd, radiating tendrils surrounding him that bothered Jacob. Instead, it was the sound of Ashram's voice that troubled him. Through the unnatural presence of persisting laughter, Jacob could hear the subtle difference; his words did not possess Ashram's normal, friendly tone, but instead his voice had taken on an unfamiliar hollowness—an almost electronic quality.

Jacob nodded awkwardly to the still image of Ashram Trounce sitting before him. He was hesitant, almost fearful, of what he was about to witness.

Abruptly, Ashram moved to the desk, knocking the gray mugs to the floor and setting the large, jewel-encrusted bottle in their place. Its stones shone and sparkled, only partially matching the relative amplitude of Ashram's gaudy dress amongst the colorless room. Then Ashram removed the tan-colored cork and tilted the neck toward the desktop. There was no familiar flow of liquid or the sound of gulping air. Instead, a few tiny cubes fell from its mouth and deposited themselves lazily upon the desk. The small bits sparkled under the fluorescent lights.

Ashram held the bottle upside down. For a long moment the few cubes upon the desk sat still and lifeless and nothing more came from the bottle. Then, suddenly it expelled thousands. All at once the tiny, cubic bits deposited themselves in even rows and lines, occupying the entirety of the surface. Each one twirled and danced in place, glinting and shining. Then, once the last of them had escaped their jewel-encrusted prison, they rose into the air. They moved upward about an inch and then stopped, suspended above Jacob Weller's desk. After a moment their motion ceased and their shiny, crystalline surfaces turned as gray as the rest of the room. There they hovered, a gray blanket in the air above his desk.

Jacob watched, his mouth agape, his eyes wide, as Ashram sat the bottle down and lifted his right hand over a portion of the grid of floating gray blocks. Small cubes illuminated beneath his hand. First they turned a bright red, and then they turned yellow. Each one began to sing and hum as they gradually gained momentum, slowly turning in place upon the desk. As the cubes beneath his hand rotated, their drag could be seen as a ripple influencing the rest of the cubes. Ashram moved his left hand over another section of the table and the same process occurred.

Ashram began moving his hands through the air. He clenched his fists and kneaded at the air. He rotated invisible knobs and turned invisible screws. Ashram clapped his hands and rubbed them together as though he were rinsing them clean. He poked and prodded at invisible nothings before him. He gracefully controlled the movement of the cubes as though he was conducting an orchestra, and each of these actions carried with it an effect upon the grid.

Once he had finished his orchestration of movement, the cubes were no more. Before the two men stood a small cylindrical device no larger than a pack of cigarettes. On either end of the cylinder, toroidal shapes bulged beneath uncountable rows of spiraling wire. The coils moved counter-clockwise around the device, enveloping its exterior in glossy, nylon insulated copper. In the center of the top, the wires sank into the opening, swallowed by the shadows of the small pipe. Beside the cylinder, atop the table, sat a white envelope, Jacob Weller written neatly on its face.

With both hands, Ashram pushed the device and envelope toward Jacob.

He said electrically, "Keep this close."

Then without another word, Ashram got up and left. As he walked away from Jacob Weller, the gray desk, the straight-backed chairs, and the empty, jewel encrusted bottle began to dissolve. It was as though Ashram's proximity to these items defined their tangibility. As the distance between Jacob and Ashram grew, the gray walls began to fade. The carpet slowly turned to concrete. The fluorescent lights waned and the ceiling grew translucent as Ashram exited the office.

Then, suddenly, he faced only a black expanse. It flexed and throbbed before him.

"What did you see?" Avant asked eagerly.

Slowly Ashram turned away from the column of death and decay that occupied his friend's property. He looked Avant dead in the eyes and said, "I did this."

His voice trembled and tears had begun welling in his eyes, but he continued. "I built him something. That's what made this. That's what started this." He waved his hand in condemnation toward the imposing, black column. "You don't have any more time, Avant."

As quickly as the words left his mouth, dozens of black columns appeared across the horizon.

"There is always time," said Avant, "There has to be time. I made this place. I'll meet with Marcus. He can fix this."

"I don't think he can."

"He can."

With that, Avant pulled out his small, black, knob covered device, turned a dial and dithered away.

Long after Avant had vanished into thin air, Ashram remained still. He stared longingly into the dark void, attempting to draw some comfort, some reason from its grip, but it was no use. Whatever reason there was for this prevailing darkness, this black vacuum, had long since been swallowed somewhere deep inside.

Finally, Ashram withdrew from the Weller property. He backed away slowly and made his way down the snake-like road back toward Trounce Farms.

His steps were long and exaggerated. He took his time placing his feet as he moved forward. No particular motive drove him, no destination called to him. Ashram only walked to walk. His mind swam with ghosts of his friend, Jacob. He saw his home far ahead of him, and beyond that, BelisCo.

Through his tears, Ashram realized the black columns all throughout the bay area; thousands upon thousands of them. They marched forward like an army. Like a swelling black fire, they consumed the sky and the ground.

He witnessed as San Jose was swallowed into the blackness. He watched as the tall redwood trees north of him curled up and shriveled away. He saw the Pacific Ocean rise up and evaporate, spreading itself into a thin, pixelated mist across the retreating sky. The ground swelled and shifted in the distance, forming deep cracks and tall ridges as it moved for him. Like a rising tide, it rolled forward, destroying everything in its path. The sun turned its back on the coast and the display of death and destruction, allowing the darkness to take control.

Ashram saw as Trounce Farms crumbled piece by piece. His crops died. His buildings vanished. The walls of his extravagant home collapsed in a storm of dust and debris, revealing the grandiose skeleton of marble and steel. He watched as his massive marble staircase dissolved, taking with it his beautiful crystal chandelier and ornate stained glass windows. He heard the cries from the animal complex as its roof folded in on itself and its walls burst away. In only a matter of seconds, the entirety of Trounce Farms was swallowed in darkness and the sky above had turned a deep oily black. The sun itself seemed to be avoiding Earth completely, as if some force were guiding the light rays around what little remained of the planet's decrepit ground.

Then it was on him. First, Ashram was stricken by a prevailing silence. His heart pounded without sound. No birds chirped. No leaves rustled. No insects moved. No noise escaped his lips. Even the steady whisper of his breathing had been muted by the darkness.

In a flash, the long, thin blades of grass beneath his feet and all along the hillside dried up and burst away in plumes of dust. The soil that held their roots in place turned muddy, drawing Ashram's feet into it up to his ankles. He began to struggle, tugging at his pant leg, digging deep into the canvas with his neon orange talons. It was no use. As the muddy topsoil resolidified around his legs, Ashram gave in to the encroaching destruction. He closed his eyes in submission as he lowered himself onto the resin-like ground.

"I'm okay with dying," Ashram mouthed as he pulled his chest to his knees.

He knew it was time.

As he sat there, curled and alone on the hillside, darkness all around, he thought to himself, What an interesting reasoning... realization... rationalization... consideration... admiration...

Then the pressure came. It stretched his final seconds. It toyed with him as he tried to submit, but the darkness didn't want him easily. It tugged first at his clothes and then his skin. It moved to his muscles and into his bones. It weighed on him like a ton of bricks, compacting his chest and stealing his breath. Then it worked its way inside of him. It began pushing from within. It pressed on his wrists and his knees. He felt it behind his eardrums, stretching the flesh, deafening him without sound. It wore on him, bearing down on his body, enveloping his soul, and overpowering his mind.

His eyes sprang open one final time as his last breath was torn violently from his lungs.

Then, as had the world around him, Ashram Trounce died.

Chapter XVI

The room was dark.

"Catastrophic loss of life. Cognitive stasis disrupted. Recovery impossible."

A flash of red lit the room. The banks of various cold, lifeless components occupying each square inch of wall space were infused with a momentary, eerie, florid glow.

"Catastrophic loss of life. Cognitive stasis disrupted. Recovery impossible," the voice repeated.

It emanated from above.

Suddenly, the comatose devices activated; blinking lights, scrolling sine waves, and oscillating digital graphs lit the room in an inconsistent coalescence of colors. Two oblong rings of light appeared on the floor, dividing the center of the room into thirds. Gradually, the rings grew in size and intensity until, finally, the ovate steel plates opened outwardly in a spiral, revealing a glimmering white light below. Gears ground and motors whirred as two stainless steel beds were lifted out of the white, water-filled tunnel. Light shimmered and danced as the beds cut through the liquid on their way to the floor. After a few long moments, their frames emerged entirely with not a single drop clinging to them. Along each of the beds, hanging distended from the frames, were bundles of cables that braided in and around each other and attached to a large computer-like device on the floor. Long silver tubes ran from the device's face and terminated in the left temples of the two men that lay motionless upon the beds.

When the beds reached waist height, the whirring ceased. They clicked in time with one another as their bases locked in place. The metal plates below reassembled, slamming the floor shut. After a brief moment of darkness, the floor turned translucent, perpetuating the long tunnel's diffused glow and bathing the imposing arrangement of electronics, computers and hospital beds in a harsh, white light.

"Catastrophic loss of life. Cognitive stasis disrupted. Recovery impossible."

The man on the right twitched violently. His arms flopped up and down as he started to cough. His torso wrenched upward, forcing him to sit. He withdrew the long silver tube with a loud slurping sound and quickly flung his feet onto the floor. His body convulsed as he held himself upright. Shakily, he massaged his perforated temple as he stood over the man in the neighboring bed. He stared long and intently, blinking wildly as he looked the man over with his steely blue eyes; he couldn't help it. It was a side effect of the machine.

Once his muscles had calmed and his blinking was under control, he placed his hand over the man's mouth. He felt for breathing through the man's thirty-five-day beard. Then he moved his open palm over the man's nose and round cheeks, feeling for air. He stopped just below the incision above the man's eye. He quietly examined the laceration. The skin around the incision was dry. A small vise-like contraption held the cut open, forcing it to heal around the large steel cable embedded inside. The cable attached the man's brow to a large apparatus on the ceiling. Millions of coin-sized mirrors and small golden knobs covered the cumbersome device above.

"Catastrophic loss of life. Cognitive stasis disrupted. Recovery impossible," the voice repeated again.

"Thank you. One moment," the standing man replied to the announcement.

He ran his fingers over the cold skin surrounding the cable protrusion in the man's head and said, "I really thought we could do it, Marcus."

After a moment of silence, he moved toward a row of computer monitors along the wall. He flipped a switch embedded on a console before him and a chair emerged.

He seated himself and moved a portion of wall leftward, revealing a glass panel of brightly lit keys.

"Welcome, Horatio Avant. Vocalize initiation code please," the wall of monitors requested as they blinked from black to white.

"Mediator," he said calmly.

"Initiation code verified. Accessing communications."

A moment later a single monitor lit up with a thin green line running horizontally across its face.

"How many did we lose?" The green line jumped up and down as the computer screen spoke.

"Directly? We were hosting two hundred and sixteen terminal patients through him. They are in a warehouse near here," Horatio said as he punched his knobby fingers into the glass keyboard.

On an adjacent screen appeared rows of hospital beds, each occupied with a different patient tethered to tubes and cables. On the monitors beside each of them was the faint glow of their flat lined ECG waves.

Then he added, "Indirectly, we've lost thousands."

Another monitor powered on. It showed a similar warehouse containing an identical setup of occupied hospital beds. They too were illuminated by the faint glow of their flat-lines.

"Tell me what happened, in detail," the green line quietly demanded.

"We hosted them in his pituitary, as discussed. We implanted the chip in him with success and began uploading information into his cortex six weeks ago, as much as we could fit, as much as he needed to build such a vast and convincing world. Once we induced the dream-state, his dimethyltryptamine levels shot through the roof, increasing over a thousand fold. I knew the increase in DMT would allow us to upload the rest of the patients into the chamber, occupying the new world I built in his mind. The program was simple."

Horatio cleared his throat and continued, "Once their minds were immersed, I started the time-loop. That was thirty-five days ago. Since their physical bodies were held separate, the loop allowed their cancers to heal in an accelerated real-time. At peak, we reached a ratio of nearly eight experienced days to one real day, or solar day. Which meant their cancers were regressing nearly eight times faster than any known treatment can accomplish. Their bodies responded perfectly to the artificial time scales they were experiencing and not that which was occurring out here, physically... We were adding not just minutes or seconds, but days and weeks to what would otherwise be death sentences... It was exactly as we predicted and we had great success. For the first fourteen days it was everything we could hope for. We showed an overall plummet in the cancer's growth kinetics as well as an increased healing rate of nearly fifty-four percent. From the data, it appeared to be working; physiological time had slowed."

He lowered his head.

"But by the fifteenth day, it had taken a turn. Cancer kinetics had grown exponentially in the host and by day sixteen we had lost a patient; Colin Belis. That's when I altered the program."

Horatio rubbed the small red dot in his left temple.

"I altered the program so I could enter. It wasn't easy. I had at first thought that my entrance into the reality had disrupted my programming, but once I was inside, I had discovered what had gone on and why I couldn't manually wake any of the patients. When Colin Belis's physical body was consumed by cancer and passed away, his mind wasn't expelled from the chamber; he had not left the illusion. He remained behind, lingering, devouring the patients' hard-links to reality and reprocessing them into his own conceptualizations, overpowering Patient One's constructs entirely. Somehow he altered the program's historical records, manipulating the causality structures, and built himself an empire within the illusion, placing a few patients in power and others within his control. He was choking them... I immediately assigned an archetypal representation of their collective cancers to a device within the program, a device under the control of Belis's empire. Utilizing this single infectious patient, Colin Belis, as an antagonist, a necessary half-truth, I attempted to guide Marcus toward attacking the cancer directly... fighting it psychosomatically, so to speak... by disabling that device. I honestly thought Marcus would be able to kill the cancer, all of their cancers, by disabling that device."

"Who is Marcus?"

"My apologies, the mediator. Patient One."

He pointed to the man on the bed behind him and then continued, "It took immense planning to create a convincing enough reality for Patient One to fight back, but it was all in vain. Somewhere along his thirty-fourth loop, the inhabitants began working against the program. Seemingly all at once, they took on duties bent on destroying the substructure of their reality. They went out of their way to subvert it. They stood directly in my way; in their own way. To some extent it was as though the program was on their side, working against me. They knew things they shouldn't know and did things they didn't know how to do, even Patient One. He had gained knowledge that I had never input into him, understandings and abilities that weren't part of the program. Him and dozens of others marched through the reality placing small devices in the hands of other patients, devices that wiped them and their anchor locations out of the reality. Repetitious loop after repetitious loop, they found ways to break the rules, killing each other one by one. Then all at once it collapsed."

He stopped. Then speaking away from the monitor, said, "Computer, what is the current mean dimethyltryptamine level of the patients?"

"Zero," came the voice from above.

"And Patient One?"

"Zero as well, Dr. Avant."

Turning back to the green line on the computer screen, Horatio said, "It's as I feared. They've been depleted of their dimethyltryptamine levels. Even if they hadn't worked against my programming, there's not enough left to process the real world, let alone an imagined one."

The green line asked, "Why did Patient One have to subdue the cancer? Why not put any or all patients on that path?"

Horatio hurriedly explained, "It had to be the mediator. Patient one is... was the only one tethered to everyone. He was the only one with enough influence."

"Apparently not," the green line said flatly.

"...We can't afford to let this get out," added the screen, "Clean up."

With that, Horatio Avant turned off his bank of monitors. The images collapsed in a sequential cascade of electrical fuzz. He stood to his feet and made his way across the room.

He paused in the doorway, looking back on his failure; the middle-aged man, the human network, the digital host, the cure he tried to give and the lives he took away.

He shook his head, then Horatio turned off the light, exited the small room, and closed the door tightly behind him. He punched seven digits into a small, metal box in the wall and walked away. The sound of the security mechanisms sealing the door filled the otherwise quiet alley.

As he walked, he heard the subtle yet consistent beep of the computer's failsafe countdown echoing off the alley walls. First, the controlled burn would begin, then the acid bath, followed by the encasement. Once it was through, it would be as though the lab was never there. The chamber would be filled and the computers all destroyed. There would be no sign of Marcus Metiline, no trace of Horatio Avant or the horrible things he'd done.

He quickly made his way down the narrow, brick corridor and emerged on a busy, neon-lit boulevard.

Across the street stood a large, brick building. Its face boasted dozens of dark windows and even more advertisements. In the center of the building, directly before Horatio, was a red neon sign that read, D NER, and below it, a single plate-glass door.

Horatio hurriedly crossed the boulevard and entered through the door.

He made his way to the back corner of the room and found himself a seat removed from everyone else. He picked up the triangle menu and twirled it pensively in his hand. The short list offered coffee, cigarettes, and especially suggested the apple pie.

A few moments passed before Horatio was greeted by a young, blonde-haired man in a bright red shirt. He wore an apron wrapped tightly around his waist.

While brushing his hands on the front of his apron he cheerfully asked, "What's up, Doc?!"

"Hi Martin," Horatio nonchalantly replied, "Can I get a cup of coffee, black; a pack of cigarettes, and a slice of that apple pie?"

Horatio knew Martin. He was a good kid. He was definitely intelligent, and had a great attitude about life, but sometimes he could talk too much for Horatio's taste. And after today, that was the last thing he wanted.

Martin nodded. "Since when do you smoke?"

Here it goes, thought Horatio, but he replied kindly, "Since today, Mart. Strange, strange day."

"All right Dr. Avant, coming right up."

He watched as the boy vanished behind the double doors embedded in the back wall of the diner.

A few moments later the young man returned. Surprisingly, the boy had nothing to say. Silently he placed a plate piled high with pie crust and glistening with apples on the table, along with a mug full of steaming, black coffee. After placing a napkin and fork on the table, Martin opened the pack of smokes and handed them to Horatio.

Horatio pulled a cigarette from the pack and placed it to his lips. Tobacco had never felt so inviting before. He patted his pants for a light. From his right pocket he pulled a matchbook.

He thought to himself, That's odd. I wonder where I got these.

It didn't matter. The cigarette beckoned him. He opened the matchbook and tore one from its binding; six matches remained.

As he lit the cigarette and drew deeply on its smoke, he heard the explosion.

The windows shook. Patrons quickly flooded out of the diner, looking to find the source of the blast. Beyond the plate-glass window and through the crowd, Horatio could see the faint red and yellow glow of flames reaching out from the small alley across the street. After a moment, the alley went dark; the encasement had begun.

As Horatio Avant smoked his cigarette and apathetically poked a bent fork into the pie before him, he watched the well-intentioned folks rush into the alley in search of people to be saved.

He knew they would find nothing, not there, not anywhere. As far as they're concerned, any body they'd discover, if they were to discover any, had been dead for a very, very long time.

Chapter XVII

Stacy awoke in a bed she did not know, in a room she did not recognize. Light flooded the modestly decorated walls, gleaming across the hardwood floors and illuminating the well-spaced picture frames. Something was strange, but she couldn't quite place her finger on it.

There, across the expansive room, upon a large pine table, sat a small white envelope leaning against a black, pipe-shaped item roughly the size of a pack of cigarettes. She felt drawn to the envelope.

Stacy threw back the layers of sheets and blankets, stood and made her way toward the table. Once across the room, she took the envelope in her hand and removed a single piece of paper from within it.

Unfolding the page, she read:

Stacy,

I can only imagine that tomorrow was a particularly wonderful day for you now. I've had so much to tell you in my lucidity, but with the already enormous load on the device I am limited to this single page and only so much can be said in such little space, so I will tell you the same thing I told the others.

I was put on a mission, a series of temporal loops, of which I will not waste space with the details. Suffice it to say, at the start of which I had a goal, a goal which I found out to be futile, so to speak. My goal was to rescue us all from the illusion cast by Belis and his corporation.

What I did not know then was that only a few were worth saving, and even fewer could be saved. You are one, but not the only one.

The world we've been living is a fraud; as is the one above it. The cramped, small apartment you resided in, the service job you hated, all created. A very smart man, a doctor I know, figured out a way to host us, our dying bodies, in a wonderfully elaborate dream; my dream. This was all in an attempt to save us, to heal us.

What the good doctor will forever fail to know is the very same which prevents him from knowing. That he is merely a construct of the machine, a complex algorithm, not a true human in the sense of an organism, but an algonism, a manifested data-structure placed along our path.

In Dr. Avant's world, we were cursed with terminal cancer, but even his world is as much a fraud as ours; the world in which our bodies have died.

When you read this our bodies will have been destroyed; set on fire, bathed in acid, and buried in concrete.

But do not let this concern you.

I am, we are, mechanisms of a much grander design.

The device I have given you has immeasurable power. Keep it close. With it reality may be whatever you make it to be—as it truly is.

You have a limitless power, Stacy. You are in control.

-Marcus

Stacy folded the letter and tucked it in the back pocket of her skintight jeans. She picked up the small black device on the table. She ran her fingers over the multitude of tiny, nylon-coated wires spiraling into its ends as she turned it over in her hand.

"Ahem."

Stacy looked up to see a poorly dressed man standing in the doorway. His gray pants clashed with his one-size-too-small brown coat and his black shoes were scuffed and worn.

He held his hand out, manifesting a small pink flower from nothing, and said, "I think it brightens things up, don't you?"

Acknowledgments

Many thanks to Julane Marx, my copy editor. Without her, I'd have struggled immensely with the styling and formatting of this book. Even those little typos that never seem to quit haunting, because of her, they've left me alone. She definitely knows what she's doing and I am pleased to have the opportunity to work with her.

I thank my family, my wife and my daughter, for their encouragement and for putting up with me while my fingers plugged away at the keyboard. And, of course, I thank my keyboard for putting up with my fingers. I extend many thanks to my readers and those that have provided feedback and critique, and to the universe because without the universe, none of this would be possible—let alone existent.
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