Half-Light Heaven
Chapter 1 : The Rookery
“Mr. Gull! Have you been able to find the soul, yet?”
Aaron Gull flinched at the interruption. His long, thin fingers finished the precise crease in one of the last pieces of his origami and he looked up into the broad smiling face of his roommate, Mattias Eldrich.
“What soul?” Aaron’s focus faded. The noise of The Rookery, his warm neighborhood bar, full of polished, dark wood, filled the void left by his fleeing attention. He loved working here because of the constant, calm din. As soon as he ceased to notice the noise he knew he was in his zone and that hours of productive work were ahead. And today he squandered every minute.
“I read an interview with you advisor. He says that we are this close” He squinted through the space between his thumb and forefinger “to finding the link between the soul and the brain.”
Aaron chuckled. Mattias always knew what to say to cheer him up. “I saw that article. I’m pretty sure Dr. Wu said ‘Mind’ not ‘Soul’. Dr. Wu does tend to get pretty dramatic about our work, though. Do you want a beer?”
“Four o’clock is usually pretty early for me, but sure. You’re done with your paper?”
Aaron gathered up the scattered papers on the pub table with a sigh and shook his head. “For today I am. I’m useless.”
“All mathematicians are useless.” Mattias grabbed one of the six 3d geometric paper shapes on the table and held it up. “You make up for it by being brilliant and eccentric.”
The waitress placed two glasses of cloudy beer between them and they both took a long sip.
“So, if not soul searching, what are you working on?” Mattias said absently watching the waitress walk away.
Aaron stole a glance as well. “Me, personally? I am mapping out electrical propagation patterns around neural microtubules originating from quantum processes.”
“Holy shit, that is awesome! I don’t even know what that means, but it just sounds awesome. My coolest project so far has been a class recommendation web site.” He took a long pull of his beer still shaking his head in disbelief. He leaned forward and looked Aaron dead in the eye. “But you can never, ever say anything you just said to me to any girl, ever. I remember now why I never asked before. ”
Aaron shrugged. “I try not to bring it up to anybody. I only told you because you asked.”
“Fair enough.” Mattias leaned back and locked his fingers behind his head trying to look casual as he stared at three stunning women that just walked through the door with a man draped in various layers of billowing black cloth like a post-apocalyptic monochromatic shaman. “While we are on the topic of women.” Mattias nodded toward the women as if Aaron had not noticed the most stylish and beautiful people that have graced The Rookery, which tended to the engineering and mathematics crowd, in its existence. For a brief moment they were even backlit by the snow glare of the open door as if they were angels, too bright to see directly.
Mattias continued “What I mean is that I met a girl, Tara, and I was hoping to have her over tonight. “ He looked pleadingly at Aaron “Do you think you could make yourself scarce?”
“Oh. Well I su..”
“Hey!” The rock star shaman in black had his arms flung out at his side and his face jutted toward Mattias. “Were you staring at my friends?!”
“What?” Mattias stammered. “Uh, no!”
Aaron found himself sweating, heart racing, leaning away from this crazy little man yelling at Mattias who was at least twice his size. Mattias has a temper. Aaron wondered how long before he was going to have to save this stranger so he could keep his roommate out of jail.
Just as Aaron completed that thought, the draped man changed his posture completely and seemed totally relaxed. “Ha! Just kidding, mate!”
His smile seemed to be the signal for Aaron to release a cold sweat. Aaron looked at Mattias and both let out nervous chuckle.
The mousy guy grabbed Aarons print outs of journal articles covered in arcane mathematical formulas and geometric etchings and turned to his beautiful companions.
“I told you this is the right place. If these gentlemen can’t help us, no one can!” He turned back to Mattias and Aaron, “Right, guys?”
“If you say so.” Aaron stammered, not knowing what else to say.
“My name is Saron. Saron Lark. And these incredible, incredible looking women are Riya, Caroline and Kaliope!”
Riya was tall with dark grey almond shaped eyes and smoky features, framed with wavy, long, dark brown hair. Her clothes seemed to writhe with dark purple patterns and swirls. Next to the diminutive Saron she seemed 7 feet tall, especially with his arm around her waist.
Caroline had caramel hair that fell in soft ringlets around her sharp glasses. Her emerald green eyes were friendly and inviting. She wore a thin shawl over finely patterned muted colors. To Aaron it seemed that she would look as natural curled in front of a fire with tea and a thick book as she would walking down a runway.
Kaliope looked imperial, sharp and severe. She was even taller than Riya and seemed to dare everyone in her presence to be less than exquisite. Her hair was straight and black. Her clothes, though simpler in pattern compared to the other two women, were, even to Aaron’s fashion blind eyes, finely made with fabric that seemed to move on its own.
“Well, I’m Mattias and this is Aaron. You said you needed help? Do , do you want to sit?” Mattias stammered. Aaron had to admit, as off putting this small, loud fellow was, watching Mattias squirm under the onslaught of someone even more self-confident than himself was entertaining.
“No time for that mate. You guys are math geeks? Is that right?”
“Well, I’m the math geek.” Aaron said “That’s fair to say, right?” he asked Mattias.
“Oh, absolutely. I’m just a keyboard jocky.” Mattias agreed.
“Rrright.” Saron paused, considering what that might mean. He pulled a postcard from his pocket and put it on the table between them. “This is what I need your precision minds for…”
Aaron picked it up. On one side was a cartoon picture, much like the ones he saw on pamphlets handed out on Halloween by the more annoying evangelicals in his neighborhood. It was heaven’s gates and there were tiny faceless people milling about the outside. Inside where giant disembodied hands, presumably from God, welcoming the believers into Paradise. But the light emanating from the hands fell through the gate in such a way that only one side of the throng were bathed in light. The others were caught in the shadow of the walls. There were blanks between the hands and the walls _ _ _ _-_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _.
On the other side was a Johnny Cash stamp, Soren’s address and the words The Fall Having He.
“It’s a code, you see?” Soren said.
“For what?” Aaron shook his head and handed the card to Mattias.
“A party.” Riya said.
“That’s right.” Soren’s eyes widened and he shook his finger in the air. His movements seemed to settle from their normal kinetic vibration into a more somber and serious rhythmic flow. “But not just any party. Ohh no. This party. It’s magic. I’ve been an art student for the past five years. I’ve been in bands that have toured all over. I’ve been to every kind of party imaginable. But I’ve never, NEVER, been to a party like these parties. As soon as you walk through the door you know in your blood that this is where you are meant to be, that these are the people you are meant to be with, that this is the music you are meant to be listening to. I don’t know how to describe it. “ Soren was silent for a few moments looking at the ground trying to gather the words. “I don’t know. You just have to go. You WILL go, with us, both of you, if you figure out this code.”
“What does the code have to do with it.” Aaron asked.
“It’s the passphrase. You have to have it to get in. I’ve been to three. The first one just had geo coordinates and the passphrase and instructions on it. It was easy. The second one was a code where one letter means another and there was a key like on a cereal box. This one, though, has got me stumped.” Aaron said.
“You could always just wish to get in.” Kaliope mentioned
“Yeah, I’ve heard that, but I don’t want to take the chance. What if it doesn’t work? Then I’ll be stuck there just outside. It’d be unbearable.” Soren said shaking his head.
“It’s not a code.” Mattias threw the postcard on the table.
“What?! What the fuck is it if not a code?” Soren asked.
“It’s an anagram. All the letters are right there, just out of order. Aaron can solve it.”
Mattias stood up and started gathering paper. “This is perfect. You should go with them. It doesn’t look like you were going to get any work done anyway and Jen is going to be over soon. I can take your stuff back to the apartment.”
“I don’t want to get stuck at some party…” Aaron began as he folded his laptop and put it in his messenger bag.
“Aaron. It’s Aaron, right?” Soren interrupted.
“Yeah.”
“Aaron, you can have my keys when we get there. Seriously. You will not be stuck. Just sort that postcard and, if you are ready to go and I’m not or you can’t find me, just bring my car back here and come get us in the morning.” Soren pleaded.
“I haven’t driven in a while…” Aaron grasped.
“You’ll be fine, I’m sure.” Soren said
“Aaron, seriously, you should go. How long has it been since you’ve been to a party. You practically said tonight that you were getting burned out. A little fun could go a long way. Plus, what else are you going to do? Hang out here and make paper Dungeons and Dragon’s dice all night?” Mattias said with Aaron’s laptop and papers already in hand.
Aaron looked at Mattias, Soren and the girls and gave in. “All right. Leave me a pencil.”
Chapter 2: No Outlet
“Half-Light Heaven. That’s the passphrase.” Aaron sat between Caroline and Kaliope in the back seat of Soren’s oddly angular old sedan.
“Shibboleth.” Riya said from the front seat.
“What’s that?” Aaron asked.
“That’s what they call it, the ‘shibboleth’. It keeps the outsiders out and the insiders in. Rumor is that you can enter the party if you get it wrong or without one but your experience will be much different.” Caroline added.
“That’s what I heard, too.” Soren said from the driver’s seat. “Make sure you get it right.”
“Weird.”
“But worth it.” Soren added. “Also, you have to be there within a half an hour of sunset or they won’t let you in. Don’t leave unless you are ready to go home. They won’t let you back in.”
Aaron looked out of the window and tried to get his bearings but did not recognize where they were. He hadn’t been very far from campus his and this looked like the deep woods. Even if he had been here before, the fresh snow cover made uniformly white and indistinguishable. He had been working on the shibboleth for at least a half hour.
“Seems to be a lot of rules for a party.” Aaron said, almost to himself. “Where are we?”
“We’re almost there. It is about a half an hour from town. Tucked waaay back in the woods. It’s perfect.” He turned to Riya. “Honey, would you open up the compartment there? In the owner’s manual cover there’s some party favors. Feel free to pass it around.” Soren shot Riya a smile and an exaggerated wink then turned his attention back to Aaron over his shoulder. “Wait until you see this place. It is practically a palace.”
Aaron looked at the front panel of the car as Riya dug through papers and fast food sauce packets crammed into the glove box. All of the instruments looked like small cathode ray tube tvs behind an single downward angled pane of plastic or glass. The steering wheels inner hub sloped down and was attached to the wheel in only one place. It looked vaguely like a yolk, if not for an airplane, for a starship. The whole dashboard looked as if someone from the past designed a car that they thought represented the future. But none of the screens seemed to be working at the moment.
“How do you know how fast you are going? Is this thing safe to drive?” Aaron asked.
Soren turned around with an unlit cigarette dangling between his lips. “Are you fucking kidding me? The Aston Martin? This car is a solid as the day it was made!”
Riya pulled out a small baggie full of white powder from the plastic sleeve of the owner’s manual. She smiled. “This is a nice surprise.”
“I thought you’d like it.” Soren looked over and flashed a smile. “I mean, you’d have to like it a lot to ditch me for that multiple gold ring wearing douche at the last party.”
“I came back to find you and you were gone.”
“I got an invite into the lower levels. I couldn’t wait around.”
Riya pulled a small pile out of the bag with the tip of a key, put it up to her nose and inhaled deeply, throwing her head back.
“I’ve never been down there. What’s it like?” She leaned in closer to Soren and squeezed his upper thigh. Her eyes were playfully challenging Soren to answer.
“Oh, amazing, of course! I’m sure. I mean, I don’t really remember.”
Riya squinted at his answer and pointed her perfectly lacquered nail at him. She would have seemed angry but for the thin smile curling the edge of her lips.
“Seriously! Don’t look at me like that!” Soren said as he grabbed her finger, pulled it down and kissed her.
“The road!” Aaron found himself yelling as he grabbed Soren’s shoulder.
Soren jerked both hands to the wheel. “We’re fine! Relax! Have some of this. Don’t do it all. I haven’t had any yet.”
Riya handed Aaron the bag.
Aaron quickly passed it to Kaliope.
Kaliope struggled to get enough of the powder on the corner of a credit card.
“Is this cocaine?” Aaron asked. He’d seen people smoke a bong but he’d never seen any hard drugs in real life. He felt his chest tighten watching the small pile disappear into Kaliope’s nostril.
Soren laughed “I hope so, I paid enough for it!”
Kaliope handed the baggie back to Aaron.
He passed it on to Caroline.
“You’re not going to have some?” She asked.
Aaron smiled and nervously laughed. “No. I don’t think so. Thank you.”
Carline shrugged. She took bump then handed it to Soren over his shoulder.
“Aaron, you should try this. It doesn’t get you high so much as amps up your environment. Its safe! Ask Riya. She’s a pharmacology major.”
“It’s true.” Riya added. “For a very long time doctors didn’t even think cocaine was addictive because its effects are so mild.”
“What about people having heart attacks and things like that?” Aaron asked.
“It can happen, but only if you do a lot of it and you have an underlying condition.” Kaliope shrugged.
“It just makes me horny.” Caroline added, smiling at Kaliope. Kaliope raised her eyebrows and smiled back.
“Well, if he doesn’t want any he doesn’t want any. You mind helping me out, love?” Riya scooped a bit onto her key and carefully brought it toward Soren’s nose as he leaned over.
The back of the car jumped. Kaliope and Caroline both yelped and threw their hands in front of Aaron as if to protect him. No one’s yell was as high pitched as Soren’s. The car’s backside scraped the snow then swam out into the middle of the road, squealing sideways.
Soren’s arms were straight as rods grabbing the wheel, swaying a split second behind the spinning wheels. Within seconds the car was back under control. “See? 1985 Lagonda. You know that these cost more than a Ferrari? Great car. Great car.”
The last lights the control panel flickered, then died. Soren slapped the top of the dashboard and the headlights flickered and the car seemed to stall for a moment but continued to run.
“I’d better not do that again.” Soren muttered. “Almost there. Where’s the coke?” He called out to the rest of the car as he turned onto a road labeled ‘Private Drive, No Outlet.’
“Right here. I think only a little spilled.” Riya said holding up the bag.
“Good. Everyone ok?”
Aaron started to laugh.
“What’s so funny?” Soren asked angrily.
“Sorry. I was just thinking about how I never would have guessed this morning I’d be in an Aston Martin with a rock star and three models doing…going to a party.”
“When you put it like that, it sounds pretty cool. But I’m not a rock star. I could barely afford to put out my last EP. And I don’t think any of these girls are models. If I remember correctly; Kali is pre law, Caroline is a film major and Riya is in the pharmacy school.”
“Communications, actually.” Caroline corrected. “And thank you, Aaron. I think it is sweet that you see us all as so glamorous.” She put his hand on his leg and smiled.
Kaliope grabbed her hand, leaned forward and kissed Caroline deeply, just inches from Aaron. She unbuckled her seatbelt and climbed over Aaron to sit in Caroline’s lap. “Excuse me.” She said to Aaron. Aaron scooted over into Kaliope’s vacated seat and watched, briefly as the two women began breathing heavily and kissing loudly. He looked away and out of the window.
The tunnel of the trees made this area seem like night had already fallen, though it was just after 5 p.m. and sunset was still at least 20 minutes away on this late September day.
Aaron muttered. “Half-light Heaven”
Kaliope pulled away from Caroline and asked “What?”
“Half-light heaven…the shibboleth, it’s a clever name. Today is the equinox.”
“Oh.” She said, and pecked one last kiss from Caroline and climbed off of her into the middle of the seat. “Sorry. I just needed that. Plus, I didn’t want him to get the wrong idea.”
“Oh. No, no! I didn’t have any ideas at all.” Aaron stammered, though he had to admit, now he was feeling like the odd man out. Aaron thought about Soren’s explanation that the drug is only an enhancer but he doubted Kaliope would have pounced on Caroline over top of him without it.
The tunnel of trees seemed to go on for miles through a few gentle bends.
He noticed that his knees, for no other reason than he was feeling so incredibly awkward suddenly, were drawn together and pointing toward the door. His face, he realized, felt flushed. Whether it was from being turned on or embarrassed he couldn’t tell.
Chapter 3 : Half-Light Heaven
The trees quickly thinned and the drive spilled out of the thick woods to the edge of a small lake. On the other side was the house.
It took Aaron a second to absorb the view. It was a three story stone structure. Near the corner was a four story tower. Another peeked over the roof in back. It was broad and square. It’s lines were severe and it would look almost modern if not for the green, bronze roof accents. There were broad, stone steps leading a short way to the huge front door. Wrapped around one half of the house, mostly obscured by low trees, was a veranda topped with a green and white striped canopy and held up by round stone pillars. On the other side was an extended port. The drive led in a broad circle in front of the house and branched off into that port while the other branch led around the other side of the lake. It was made more imposing by the perfect reflection off of the still, dark water. For a brief instant, it looked like a carved stone fortress floating in space.
“Pretty amazing, huh?” Soren called over his shoulder to Aaron who was staring agape.
“I can’t believe we have houses like this around here.” Aaron muttered.
“Like something out of a European romance, isn’t it?” Riya said.
Aaron could almost picture Lord Byron lounging on a blanket between the house and the lake smoking a cigarette and reading something to Mary Shelley out of his journal.
“Yes. Yes it does.” Aaron said, realizing this whole trip would be worth it just to see the inside of that house.
“Are you sure there is a party going on here? I don’t hear anything.” Aaron asked at looked at the house was dark and still.
“The stone muffles the sound. The real party is going on down in the lower levels. Less to break down there, I guess.” Soren said.
They pulled into the port. A huge black man in a suit opened the back door and motioned toward the door where two other uniformly well dressed hulks stood waiting with their hand folded.
Soren ran around the car and stopped short when he saw a blond man leaning against one of the large square pillars of the port.
Keeping one eye on the man, he grabbed Aaron’s shoulder and pulled him down to his height so he could talk without being overheard. “Tell the password to that man at the door. I’d appreciate if you wait until we are all inside.” Soren pressed his car key into Aaron’s palm. “I am not entirely sure that my password is going to work for you. If it doesn’t, take my car and come back for us tomorrow. These things last all night, at least. I might not be allowed back for letting so many people use it but how can I refuse.” He smiled while looking at each of the women in turn as they walked toward the doorman.
Aaron was about to protest that he didn’t know the way home, exactly when Soren slapped his shoulder, chirped “Good luck!” and jogged toward the door. Aaron shoved the keys deep in his front pocket. It felt right to have them there. ‘At least I have options’ he thought.
“Hey.”
The man leaning thrust himself off of the column and stepped toward Aaron. He was tall, as tall as Aaron. He was built a bit heavier but he was not fat. He had an angular face underneath a wazed mustache curled at the tips. His hair was swept back. He had a rugged but simple and clean brown jacket, brown boots with thin soles, crisp denim pants and an oxford button down shirt. He was not smiling but seemed easy going.
“Hi.”
“Do you have a password?”
“Yeah, are you the one I give it to?” Aaron turned to see Kaliope whisper in the doorman’s ear, turn to him smile and cock her head as if to say ‘Come on…’ She disappeared into the dark and the door closed behind her. He was alone with the men in suits and this hipster that was making Aaron more and more uncomfortable, despite his easy demeanor.
“Heh. No. I can’t get you in. In fact, I am trying to get in myself. That’s why I asked. I need your password.”
Aaron stopped, surprised by this man’s candor and turned him. “I don’t think I can give it to you. They might not let me in.”
“They might not. They might not even let me in.”
The large man that opened Aaron’s door earlier stepped up from behind him. “You can come in if you wish, Andre.”
Andre looked down at his nearly finished cigarette, clenched and unclenched is jaw and looked at the man behind Aaron with unflinching hatred. “Fuck you! I do NOT wish to get in your goddamn party! Now, back off! I am trying to have a conversation with…”
“uh…Aaron.”
“…Aaron here.”
Aaron was standing straighter and stiffer than he was before Andre exploded. He turned his head and saw the large man shrug and hold up his hands and back toward the pillar opposite Andre.
“Sorry about that.” Andre said.
He took a drag of his cigarette and flicked it down the drive. Aaron noticed, in contrast to the screaming a few seconds before, that it was so quiet that he could hear a frog jump in the water across the lake.
“I think I owe you an explanation. My fiance is in that party. I need to get to her. She might be in trouble. But these ” and he raised his voice “Goons” and dropped back to an even level “here won’t let me in without a password. I don’t wish to get in. I *need* to get in, you understand. And I can’t lie to these gentlemen and tell them otherwise.”
With that he raised his eyebrows and waited for Aaron’s response.
“Well, my friends just went in. I have his keys…” Aaron fumbled around in his pocket and pulled out the keys.
“I understand. Listen, you can go in first. Just tell me the password for tonight and I will follow you. But I can’t let you go in without warning you, Aaron: this is not a normal house, and this is not a normal party.”
“What do you mean?”
Andre sighed and looked up at Aaron. “I owe you the truth. You don’t know what you’re walking into. I told you I lost my fiance in that house?” Aaron nodded. “That is true. It was four years ago. In Brazil.”
Confusion fell on Aaron’s face. “What..? How is that..? What do you mean, ‘in Brazil’?”
Andre searched Aaron’s face. “This house was in Brazil. My girlfriend brought me to a couple of parties here. It was fantastic. We had the time of our lives. We felt like we were more in love every time we left. Looking back feels like a dream, half remembered. Then, she got the last letter. She couldn’t figure out the code. Time was running out. She needed to get in that party. So she did. She wished she was there. She was gone. I never saw her again. Her family didn’t hear from her. Two weeks later there was an explosion, or that is what they said. The house was gone. A crater.”
Aaron tried to wrap his mind around what he was hearing. Andre’s tone was serious and low.
“I gave up. I traveled like I had done before. I was in a hostel in Italy two years later. I saw a group of New Zealanders talking about a party they’d gone to. They described the house, this house. I knew, then, that it was the same place. I started scouring message boards on the internet. I’ve done odd jobs across the globe trying to catch up. And now it is here. AND I FOUND YOU, YOU SON OF A BITCH!” Andre yelled as spittle flew from his mouth and he jabbed a finger toward the door.
He wiped his chin on his jacket sleeve. “Please. Please tell me the password. And then get in that car and go. You don’t need to be here. You can walk away. I know I sound crazy. But my fiancé is in there and I have to get to her. Please.”
Aaron thought it over. Either he is crazy with grief and his fiancé is in this house or he is just crazy and she isn’t.
“It’s Half-Light Heaven.”
Andre grabbed him by the shoulders and hugged him hard. “Thank you. Please, don’t go in there after your friends.”
“Can I leave if I do?” Aaron asked.
Andre pushed him back from the hug. “Yes, of course. You are going in with a password. You will be free to come and go. Look at me, I’ve done it.”
“Then I have to go in…at least to give back these keys.” Aaron broke off and jogged toward the door.
Aaron whispered the password to the doorman and felt slightly foolish since there was no one but the man he’d already divulged his secret to that could hear. But doing it the way he’d seen Soren and the girls felt somehow safer.
As the door closed, Aaron looked back toward Andre. He was smoothing back his hair and wiping his red eyes with his hands. ‘The poor bastard. I think he really did lose his fiancé.’ He thought to himself. ‘nobody can conjure that kind of pain from nothing. But I don’t think he’ll find her here…’
Chapter 4 : Gaslight Grotto
Just beyond the front door was the most ornate staircase Aaron had ever seen. The stairs themselves were wood with a thick carpet running across most of the center. They swept out at the bottom of the stairs in a graceful horn shape. Atop the exquisitely carved, foot thick endposts stood statues of women in robes holding a lamp with four large globes flickering with light. The light illuminated the underside of the next floor stairs decorated with a painting of trees as if Aaron was looking at the sky.
Aaron felt a distant, deep rhythmic rumble-thump, rumble-thump. Aaron felt it emanating deep below him from the center of the house. The party raged unseen. He imagined a sweaty throng rippling across the dance floor to that unending rhythm. His chest tightened imagining the overwhelming noise and movement.
Kaliope and Caroline were wrapped around one another dappled with light dancing through stained glass double doors at the top of the stairs.
At hearing the heavy door close behind Aaron they looked down.
“Aaron! Come up! There are some people we want you to meet!” Kaliope smiled .
“Unless you’re in a hurry to get down stairs.” Caroline said through a half smirk.
“I think I’d rather go with you.” Aaron bounded up the stairs relieved to delay pushing himself through a crowd. It occurred to him that his idea of the perfect party is likely much different than most students.
Kaliope and Caroline took him by the hand and led him through a series of doors. On every wall were ornately curved lamps with four inch flames. His eyes were drawn to every sumptuous detail he could absorb while keeping an eye on the sirens leading him to their brethren. Every inch of the wood that covered most of the walls revealed detail carved into each square inch. Above the woodwork and behind the ironwork lamps were what appeared to be frescos painted on leather. Every design detail was meticulously catered to please each level of perception as the observer approached. The gaslight from each lamp played across every crevasse to create an ever shifting pattern along each hallway and room almost as if the corridors were breathing.
Aaron, pulled behind the two laughing women, slipped through a tall door. They spilled onto a relatively plain triangular deck with a large fireplace at the apex on Aaron’s right. There were twin saunas bracketing the deck on the near and far side. The dark wood radiated noticeable heat even several feet away.
The deck jutted over a cavernous room. One side was covered in stained glass depicting mostly garden and sky with an occasional downward thrusting sword. One floor below was a large basin full of clear water. A large Gaudi-like tile sea serpent wrapped around the entire pool. The mouth was just below the water line with a cavernous maw continually drinking water from the surface of the pool. The back dipped under the water a quarter turn around the edge. The rest of the beast took, slowly, the form of stairs and wound fully around the pool growing thinner and lower until they disappeared just below the jaws, about 10 feet under water. The reflections of the grid of gas lamps that hung from the grotto’s walls made the large creature appear to undulate with small ripples of movement down its length.
A woman floated in the middle. She locked her large dark eyes with Aaron and smiled.
“…and this distractible fellow is Aaron.” Kaliope grabbed his arm pulling his attention from the grotto’s pool to the small host of people gathered around a low table full of wine bottles and cheese a few feet in from of the large fireplace in the wall.
Aaron blinked away the image of those almond eyes stubbornly lingering. “Yes, Aaron. Hi.” He said as he held out his hand to no one in particular. He found a full glass of deep red wine pressed there instead of a hand.
“Hello, Aaron. You should have a drink!” A woman who seemed to be a few years older’s round face smiled. “I’m Elsie.” She was plump but her features were soft and her skin perfect. She was wearing a low cut black dress.
“Elsie.” Aaron acknowledged and sipped his wine.
A man with dark features, long black hair and a well-trimmed black goatee swept around behind Kaliope and Caroline and took them both by the waist before offering his hand to Aaron. “I am Ozzie. Thank you for giving these two beauties a reason to visit us here in our corner of this behemoth of a house. People usually only come up here when they want something.”
Neither of the girls seemed surprised or bothered by Ozzie’s gesture. “Actually…” and Caroline spoke into Ozzie’s ear.
“Ahh. Of course. You know the price. Malcom?” Ozzie said in response and let them go.
Malcolm, a very large man, who up until this point, Aaron realized, had been throwing old books onto the fire turned from his task, leaned over the table and held out his hand.
Caroline undid her necklace. “This was given to me by my sister. Will it be enough?”
“For some, yes.” Malcom said with a bit of a new England accent and a slight lisp.
She dropped the chain and charm in his hand and he threw it in the flames without even looking at it.
He pulled a wooden box from the mantle, grabbed a small baggie of pills and threw it to their feet.
Malcom turned to Aaron. “Did you want something, too?”
“Uh. No. Thank you. This wine is fine. I am just glad not to be jostling around a hot dance floor. “
Malcom seemed satisfied turned back to a tall stack of books. He picked up the top one, leafed to the middle and tore out a page and let it drift into the flames.
“I’m Lucy.” She waved, drawing Aarons attention away from the flames. She was stunning, even more so than Kaliope and Caroline, with long blonde gentle ringlets cascading over her shoulders to a perfectly toned body. Her features were sharp and her grey eyes exuded confidence and intelligence. Aaron could imagine Lucy in a smart suit at the head of a table in a board room despite wearing a simple bikini at the moment.
“And this is Amon” she gestured to a fellow with dark features and stubble and an equally chiseled body. It struck Aaron that he did not have a swim suit and that it was probably a good thing considering how puny he would look among these extraordinarily beautiful people. Amon was watching the girl in the water, who, Aaron realized was still looking at him.
“Malcom..” Malcom was in a dark silky robe. He was heavier and out of shape compared to most of the others in the circle but had a confident bearing.
“and Bella…” Bella was quite a bit smaller than the others, with blonde dreads and a bit of a pudge despite her slight frame. She was wearing a bikini and skirt covered in embroidery and beads.
Aaron nodded to everyone in turn.
Caroline was examining the pills against the soft flickering light of the nearest lamp.
“We were discussing the Singularity. Bella, our resident techie, thinks it is inevitable. Have you heard of it?” Ozzie asked.
“Yes. The idea that mankind will someday create computers that outthink themselves.” Aaron replied.
“Exactly…” Ozzie paused and turned to Lucy “Doesn’t he look familiar. He looks familiar.”
“Definitely familiar.” Lucy agreed, never taking her eyes off of Aaron.
Aaron blushed.
Amon glared, his whole manner darkening.
“People are generally stupid.” Amon growled. “It doesn’t seem difficult to create machines that put them to shame.”
“What about the creative spark? The soul will always separate humans from machines.” Elsie countered.
“What if there is no soul?” Aaron asked.
“Oh, there is a soul. Too many people throughout time have had experience with the soul. Why, there is even a researcher here, at this very university, who is seeing it scientifically. Dr. Wu…Lucy was telling me about reading his papers…” Ozzie went on.
Aaron interrupted. “I work with Dr. Wu. We haven’t seen the soul, no matter what the flyers to the conferences he jets off to every other week say. It is all sensationalism to get more grants.”
Lucy looked skeptical. “That seems risky. From what I read, some of the pattern you are seeing in microstructures of the brain cannot be explained without some yet unknown outside influence. Is that true?”
Caroline and Kaliope looked at each other. “Aaron, we are going downstairs. It looks like you are getting on ok here.”
“Sure. Thank you.” Aaron replied absently and turned back to Lucy.
“Well, yes and no. We do see unexplained patterns, but that is what my work is about; trying to explain it. I don’t think we need to resort to the ‘soul’ to do that.” Aaron answered.
Ozzie watched the girls leave and bit his lip and picked up a notebook and pen sitting by his chair. Lucy saw and rolled her eyes.
Elsie reached over and spread some soft cheese on a cracker. “Tell me about these patterns. I don’t know anything about it.”
“Well, there are these small structures in neurons that are basically thin cylinders. They are so small that quantum processes actually have a distinguishable effect on their behavior. When they were first studied it was expected that they would be chaotic with quantum collapses more or less happening at random. But patterns were seen. There are persistent patterns that are repeated or repeated with variation. We are just learning how these patterns affect the rest of the neuron but it appears that the effects are substantial. Many in the field believe they are responsible for any phenomena that has been unexplained until now like brainwaves and other aggregate effects.”
“So, because those patterns should not be there according to traditional theory, and the fact that there are no smaller bits that can be affecting these microtubules, they belive that something even more ethereal is at work. The soul.” Lucy added.
“Ahh. But you see this, Aaron, and you don’t believe it. What do you belive?” Elsie asked.
“I don’t believe anything. I am following the evidence and trying not to color my work with belief. Right now I am working under the theory that it is merely emergent behavior. Almost chaotic as was originally predicted but that, through accident of initial conditions, formed patterns over time.” Aaron shrugged.
“And how far has that theory taken you?” Amon sneered
“So far, I haven’t found the right conditions to explain what we see…” Aaron conceded.
“So a guiding influence, some subtle organization might very well be the cause.” Amon chided.
“I suppose it is possible.”
“Either way it is exciting!” Bella interjected. “What if these structures are the keyboard of the soul? You could find the mechanism and control it! Measure the influence. Categorize it!”
“And whatever can be measured can be manipulated.” Lucy added.
“Sometimes I think of what it must be like to be blind.” Bella said.
Amon cocked his head not understanding the connection. “How do you mean?”
“Well, we can all see. It must seem like magic to people born blind. We talk about color, and clouds, and stars and can see them, silently, from a distance. It must be a wonder to them how we are capable of those feats.”
A couple of nude people screamed as they held hands and jumped into the pool. Aaron watched as they swam to the sea serpent’s maw and slid down its throat.
“It’s a water slide. Down to the lower grotto. It’s a lot of fun.” Ozzie said continuing with his writing.
Amon replied “What is your point?”
Bella answered “What if the soul is the same way. What if we just don’t have the eyes to see it. We hear of it second hand but we can never experience it directly. Like a blind person can feel the difference between a white shirt and a black shirt based on how much heat they absorb on a summer day, perhaps Aaron is one of the first to see the other world by these subtle secondary effects?”
Ozzie stopped writing. A satisfied grin spread on his face. “I don’t know what that has to do with intelligent robots but I wrote a poem about them.” Lucy rolled her eyes and Bella and Amon groaned at the same time.
“Don’t worry. I’m not drunk enough to recite it here. But it has to do with man’s creation surpassing him will happen as soon as God’s creation achieves divinity.”
“So you are saying that the intelligent robots will be too busy whoring and warring to cause us much concern, then.” Amon asked.
“Something like that.” Ozzie smiled.
Malcom held out his hand “I’d like to read it.”
Ozzie smiled with pride “Sure!”
Malcolm tossed the moleskin into the fire.
“What in the fuck are you doing!” Ozzie screamed, jumping up and diving toward the fire.
Malcolm held out his large hand and held Ozzie back as the cover curled on itself on the top fo the flames “Three things at once. First, I am running out of fuel to heat the saunas. Second, I am saving the world from your soupy drivel. And finally, I require a sacrifice for this.” He held up a bottle of green liquid. “Do you want to partake or let it burn?”
Ozzie relaxed “They were all first drafts, anyway. “ Aaron could see his eyes welling with tears and reflecting the roaring fire.
Malcolm pushed the cheese plate to one side and dumped the remaining wine from the glasses on the table. Lucy was gulped what was left of her glass and set it down as well. As she did, she nodded to Aaron to do the same. He gulped the last drops and set it down.
In turn Malcolm poured a small amount of green liquid in each glass. He then set an ornate metal instrument, decorated it appeared with voids cut in the shape of flames over each glass. He carefully pulled one sugar cube from the bowl with delicate tongs and placed it with meditative grace on each glass. He slowly poured water from a ceramic pitcher over each cube as it melted into the glass. The liquid faded from green to smoky pearl colored. Everyone silently watched Maclom’s gentle and almost formal movements until all of the glasses swirled with opalescent green milky brew.
Everyone reached in for their glass.
“What is it?” Aaron asked over the sound of the crackling fire, the slow splashing of the dark eyed woman in the pool and the distant thump, thump of the party below channeled through the serpent’s mouth.
“This, our new friend, is the finest Bohemian absinthe.” Malcom started. “I brought it here myself. If you’ve never had it, prepare for a revelation.”
Lucy added “It will relax you and heighten your senses. Don’t worry. It has been consumed by many of the greatest minds throughout history. Most in this circle do not enjoy other drugs, but this is not much more than strong alcohol.”
Aaron sniffed and was hit by the smell of black liquorce and strong alchohol.
“The sugar helps.” Elsie said “but it still takes some getting used to. Take it slow.”
“To the mind and soul!” Amon said raising his glass.
Aaron hesitated and took a sip. It tasted terrible. Ozzie looked at him with amusement over his glass. If he was going to drink this horrid stuff, it would have to be in gulps. So he took one.
In the sauna behind him a lock clicked and a naked man with a full erection stumbled out steam bellowing from the box and looked at the fire.
“Who the fuck has been heating the sauna!?”
Aaron noticed a box with pipes coming out of it above the fire in the fireplace.
“Are you fucking her in there, Oliver!” Amon yelled as he stepped on the cheese plate and jumped between Elsie and Aaron.
The man from the sauna threw a punch that landed across Amon’s face. Amon’s momentum carried him forward and his face twisted with rage, unfazed.
Aaron was pushed back to the railing.
“Vera!” Malcom called as he moved toward the sauna door.
A topless woman with long brown hair stumbled to the door. Her eyed were half closed and she appeared to have trouble standing as she leaned against the wall.
Aaron instinctively rushed to her and propped her up. “Oliver?” She slurred.
“No, I’m Aaron. Come here.” Aaron tried to get her to the group around the brawling Amon and Oliver.
Malcom tried to grab Oliver from behind. Amon pulled back from his assault. Oliver turned to Aaron. “Let go of her you fucking prick!” And Oliver rushed him.
Oliver’s shoulder landed just below his ribcage knocking the breath out of his thin frame. Before he could recover he realized he was tumbling through the air toward the edge of the pool.
Chapter 5 : Belly of the Beast
For a moment, everything was black and silent. The world swirled and coalesced in dynamic strips of grey like smoke rolling over itself, forming coherent shapes. Aaron was impossibly distant from his physical self and simultaneously close. He could see the black, limp body spread like a streak near the edge of the body of liquid, spread and limp. It was as if he was seeing the scene from a hundred angles and distances at once. He felt nauseous from the vertigo.
The body of liquid…it was no longer a pool. It was murky and frothy like river in a flood. The walls were veiny and translucent with large open sores belching flame. Within the twisting, churning pool moved long, scaly creature. The scales glinted in the flame’s light and, at first, the beast appeared to move slowly. Aaron realized that the pool was many times larger than he remembered from just moments ago. Despite the easy appearing glide, Aaron realized that the serpent was incredibly large and, with every turn of its undulating body, was covering at least thirty yards. Occasionally he would see a great maw cutting through the acrid liquid. His body rotated slowly in a quiet eddy at the edge.
“You goddamned fool!!” Aaron snapped his compound sight toward the booming voice that sounded like a crowd of a thousand shouting at once. A creature stood there that seemed carved from obsidian as tall as three large men. Its entire body was covered in boils the size of tennis balls, constantly bursting and reforming, with three pairs of large curved horns jutting from the both sides of his head.
The large devil grabbed a much smaller dark red winged creature, a demon that resembled the man that pushed Aaron from the balcony by the head. The demon clawed at the fingers the width of its entire hand as it was lifted off of the ground. The horned beast grunted as his whole body tensed. Aaron heard a sudden pop, then cracks and crunch as the lesser demon stopped moving.
The giant horned devil threw the carcass to a pile mouths and eyes, compounded into a grotesque whole by flaps of skin and fat. It moved like a amoeba as it devoured the limbs, wings and what was left of the head.
Another large winged creature, this one with two huge, curved erect penises protruding from an otherwise womanly body with large, upturned perky breasts and creamy, caramel skin ordered the second demon, a pallid creature with greenish yellow skin and patchy long hair, four rows of breasts and tired, half closed eyes down to the edge of the pool to scooped up the body from the putrid pool of gastric juices it floated in. If it felt any urgency having seen its companion crushed and fed to an unthinkable beast, it did not show it. It made its way slowly to the edge of the pool and cradled the limp, wet mass as it flew back to the others.
“Is he dead?” Asked the aroused devil.
A large, angular featured man-like being that seemed covered in white flame answered without touching the body: “No. This one was never alive.”
“A as long as his Master requires his service, he cannot leave.” The multi-tonal sound echoed from a shadow-like vaguely humanoid void that seemed to be outlined in indescribable colors like reality was being squeezed out before tumbling into inescapable oblivion.
The last creature on the platform, with brass skin and the head of a bull remarked “I’ve never seen a soul-struct like this. Was the human form a glimmer?”
The words ‘human form’ stuck in Aaron’s mind. He looked at the creature laid at the feet of the host of Devils. It was a unnaturally large, black cat. It was him.
“No.” Said the luminous devil. “We could easily see through a simple glimmer.” Lucy looked meaningfully at the black, boil covered Amon.
“An egregore?” Amon asked Lucy
“It is possible.” Lucy replied.
“What is an egregore?” The large bull headed form of Malcolm demanded more than asked.
“A Sum. A Legion. It could appear human because it *is* human. Partly, that is.” The shadow creature mewed. It picked up a black tablet and began scraping it with its long claw.
“What are you doing?” The mound of mouths and eyes asked.
“What I must do. What I am compelled to do. ” The shadow moved like Bella.
“There is nothing special about a group-soul. They spark in and out of existence all of the time. Every time there is mass hysteria. Or a political movement. Or even a joke. How did this one gain audience with the seven Kings of Hell?” Malcom the Bull grunted.
“It seems the Sorcerer has learned a new trick. This amalgam was constructed and bound within a body as much as we are bound by the Spider’s sigil.” Lucy said solemnly.
“Nonsense! Even the most powerful necromancers must have our help to bind souls to bodies and we have been stuck here with the Spider for the last 200 years!” Amon yelled.
“And yet, here he is.” The luminous being remarked. “Additionally, necromancers put less than a whole soul into a body – usually just enough to make it functional. This has multitudes. And it seems sane. Interesting considering some of our failed experiments.” While it spoke it followed a thin, almost imperceptible silver gossamer thread from the cat body toward the shadow Devil scraping the tablet.”
“Still, a construct; a servant like a familiar or a golem. A product of human meddling.” Amon scoffed.
“You underestimate their will. You heard it speak. This being, construct or not, is about to reveal the Soul to humanity. The Failure of Faith will commence, but not in the way many thought. Everyone will *know* there is soul. Faith is about to become obsolete.” Bella pointed out.
“So they will see as we see? Know what we know? Fight as we fight?” Amon asked.
Malcom spoke “Eventually.”
Lucy added “The humans using Soul Sight is just the beginning. This will change everything. It will be at least as significant as when Amon showed the humans that there was a soul. For the first time since then, a new player will enter the fray. We have been in stalemate with Him for so long. It will be broken, one way or another.”
“I rather enjoy my place in the Order. We must destroy it.” Lucy said after following one silver thread to the furiously scribbling shade Devil. Lucy quickly moved its large black claw upward and severed the thread.
Chapter 6 : The Garden of Earthly Delights
The flash of pain blinded Aaron for a moment. The omni-angle he had just gotten used to collapsed into one perspective. He found himself on his feet snarling with a sound that sounded alien and frightening.
The acrid smell of gastric juice mixed with sulfur coated the sensitive insides of his feline snout. It felt as if his sinuses were coated with burning plastic. His body felt alien. The beings before him, each emanating power as if the world itself was bending around them, laughed as easily as they did when they seemed human a few short minutes ago.
Amon, the blistered black devil, reached for Aaron. Aaron coiled his back legs and barred his teeth. Amon didn’t slow. Aaron sprung and caught Amon’s clawed hand with is paw. It took moments but his paw burned and putrefied where it touched the oozing boils. He limped to the edge of the triangle platform.
“Do not fear oblivion soul-chimera. You were never really alive to begin with.” Amon laughed, moving to grab Aaron once again.
Aaron leaped back toward the pool. He regretted it as soon as he saw the bile and frothing acid rush toward him. Then a dark maw erupted from the tempest. Aaron twisted in the air but it was too late. He was swallowed.
Inside the beast was close, and dark and hot. He clawed and bit at the flesh encasing him. His breathing became labored. He panicked and thrashed against the unbearable heaviness inside the serpent’s throat. Then he stopped breathing and lay squeezed. But death didn’t come. After several minutes denying the habit of breathing he realized it was unnecessary. He could feel the contractions as the creature moved.
He felt a wave of contractions and there was light. Aaron’s fur was matted with goo but he was able to open one eye. Above him was the translucent stomach. He could see the glow of Lucy, still on the platform. He was on his own platform. The walls still looked organic but was uniformly structured. He could recognize the arch shape of the house in the large openings at this lower level.
He limped through the arch. It led to a balcony. He could recognize people now. They were dancing, most of them. Some sprawled in booths doing various drugs. All had strange shadows attached to them. The one nearest to the balcony looked like a flea the size of a basketball. An attractive, nude demoness held a strand connected to the flea while running her fingers across the man’s lips.
Next to them were a human woman between a male demon and a female demon. They were stroking her hair and each had shade eels attached to her thigh and back.
Aaron, looking more closely, saw that the entire dance floor was covered in similar scenes.
There were screens of strechec connective tissue between this room and the next. If the shades and shadows cast against them were any indication there were at least two other rooms just like this one to Aaron’s left and directly ahead. The rooms contracted and released in steady rhythm to a beat more felt than heard.
“Horrid, isn’t it?”
Aaron’s back arched instantly and, by the time he had turned around, he found himself on his hind legs with is front claws fully extended and reared back to strike.
It was the doe eyed girl from the pool. She seemed to glow softly, seemingly untouched by the rancid environment. Aaron felt his claws retract and his front paws touched the ground. He tried to speak but only managed a crackling roar.
“Don’t worry, we’ll get you cleaned up. You don’t belong here, not yet anyway. I am here to help you get home safe. Follow me.”
Chapter 7 : Mother’s Milk
She led him down hallways and up stairs. The further from the basement they moved, the more house-like the environment seemed. He, however, was still fully feline.
“This is my room.” She said, leading him into a large but modest room relative to the rest of the house. He estimated that they were on the fourth floor. All of the walls and furniture were normal. No more meat or blood. The walls still flickered with gaslight.
“I hope you don’t mind if I ask you to stay off the furniture.” The girl smiled warmly.
Aaron nodded.
She gestured toward a door to a large tub.
He padded over in and got in.
“Wait here. I don’t think water and soap is going to get rid of all of that sick smell from your coat.”
Aaron looked at his forelimb. It was still covered in slime. His paw was still burned though it didn’t sting as badly.
Aaron waited, surprisingly comfortable curled in the large tub. He realized he was breathing again.
The girl returned with two large metal pitchers.
“You may not like this, but it is for the best. We will rinse you with water afterward.”
She poured milk slowly from the jugs onto his fur. She scrubbed I through to his skin. He lost himself in the pleasure of her touch.
Once each part of his body was rinsed with milk, she tended his paw. She poured milk on it. The pain caused his vision to shimmer and tunnel.
“It’s ok. Just a burn.”
Before he passed out, he heard the water from the faucet pour into the tub.
------
Aaron awoke under an old but elegant canopy in a bed that smelled like lavender and felt like a cloud. He looked at his paw. It was bandaged and a pink arm stuck out from the wrap. It looked odd to him for a moment. He pulled his other hand from underneath the blanket. It was a hand. He was human.
He looked over and saw his clothes folded over a chair near the window. He could see faint light outside. Morning, he thought.
On the other side of the oversized bed was a mound of soft black hair. He heard a deep inhalation and the girl from the night before turned to him and smiled.
“How are you feeling?”
“Ok, I guess…uh” Aaron felt his cheeks redden, not recalling her name.
“Sophia. Sopia Arahna. Don’t feel bad. I don’t think we ever got as far as names.” She began to stroke his hair.
Aaron became aware that he was perfectly nude underneath he down blanket and smooth sheet.
“I’m Aaron Gull.”
Sophia moved her body closer. “It is nice to meet you Aaron Gull.” Her hand fell from his hair to his shoulder as she leaned in to kiss him.
Aaron leaned back. “Hold on, did we…do anything last night? Did I ….?”
Sophia laughed “You don’t remember last night?”
“The last thing I remember was the bath.”
“Well, you were a perfect gentleman.” She shrugged. “A largely unconscious gentleman after that but certainly on your very best behavior. And, no, nothing happened. But that does not mean it can’t happen now.”
Aaron wasn’t sure if this was how it was supposed to happen. He’d never ‘hooked up’ like so many other people seemed to. But Sophia was gentle with a body as soft and supple as her doe eyes. His body seemed to know what to do. Once her lips touched his, he was lost to her attention.
Several hours later, a soft knock at the door interrupted his reverie as he stroked Sophia’s hair as she napped with her head and hand on his chest. The events of last night seemed as distant as a dream.
The door opened slowly and Saron, with his eyes bright red, hair hanging in greasy strings, and dark circles underneath his eyes, popped his head in.
“Oh!” he exclaimed in a half whisper. “I was told I’d find you up here. Do you have my keys?”
Aaron slipped from underneath Sophia off of the side of the bed and padded toward his clothes. Soren’s keys were on top of his folded, clean shirt and his phone. His phone! Shit. He picked it up and hit the power button. To his surprise the screen lit up. The background was different, however. It was a picture of the blonde hippy from last night, Bella, pointing toward a file icon.
“Bella found your phone. You’d left it on the deck when you fell into the pool, she said.” Sophia said from the bed.
“Thank her for me.” Aaron said picking his pants off of the edge of the chair and slipping them on.
“Are you leaving?” Sophia asked.
“My ride is here. I wasn’t going to leave without saying goodbye.”
Soren waved and raised his eyebrows and nodded at Aaron.
Aaron shook his head. “Sophia, this is Soren. It was his invitation that got me in last night.”
Soren strode up to the bed and held out his hand to shake Sophia’s “I had to shang-hi this boffin from the maths side of campus to figure out that last puzzle.”
Sophia shook his hand. “Did you?”
Sophia held the comforter up to her chest and slid to the edge of the bed. “Aaron, I wish you would stay with me.”
“I wish…” Aaron stopped himself before he finished the sentence remembering that strange travelers story from the night before. “I can’t.” he finished. “I have to get back and he’s my ride.”
Sophia didn’t say a word, but she pressed her lips together and looked away. Aaron could feel her disappointment and shame.
“Soren, could you give me a minute, here?” he pleaded.
“Sure. I’ll be right outside.”
“Sophia, I really do have to go. If I could stay I would but I probably shouldn’t have even come to the party last night. I have a deadline I have to meet on a project. I want to see you again. I have to see you again.”
“Yes. Good. Give me your phone.”
He handed her phone over and she put in her contact information.
“I am only here temporarily. I have to leave for a while but I will be back. I will call you when we can see each other again.” She stood up and handed him the phone. “I hope you don’t think I do this kind of thing all of the time. But I know my time here is short and I really like you. There is something about you that is…special.”
“I feel the same way. I couldn’t take my eyes off of you last night.”
“I noticed.”
Soren knocked and opened the door.
“C’mon. Give me the keys or let’s get going.”
Aaron turned to Sophia. “Bye.” And they kissed.
“Bye.” Sophia mewed.
Chapter 8 : His Own Devices
Through winter Aaron thought about the last image he had of Sophia, standing backlit by her large bedroom window, draped in her white blanket. She never called. And he couldn’t reach her on the number she put in the phone. He assumed she left, but he did expect to hear from her.
‘Maybe this is what people do…they feed each other platitudes to smooth over awkward situations.’
And that was it. He thought of her less and less.
He thought of Bella more and more. She had left him contact information for her brother, Aster, a materials researcher, in his phone and links to unusually pertinent papers he’d authored.
Two weeks after the half-light heaven party, Aaron approached Aster. He discussed some of his work on Dr. Wu’s team and the seemingly emergent patterns in neural microstructures; patterns that seemed to be the fundamental building blocks in neural activity and maybe thought itself. He hoped that some of Aster’s work in meta-materials could help form artificial tubules that mimicked these structures that they could manipulate and control. They collaborated and, within weeks, started to build accurate mathematical models of what they were calling the ‘influence’.
Now they were onto the next stage. Aster was fabricating a lens that would gather the tell-tale ripples from the ‘influence’ and feed it into a computer running Aaron’s model.
‘Bella, how did you know?’ Aaron often wondered. It tickled Aaron that going to a party had ended up as one of his best career moves.
The party. Aaron saw so many strange things that night. He couldn’t explain any of it. He never told anyone about the visions that haunted his dreams even still. ‘One thing is for sure. I’ll never try absinthe again.’ He told himself first in bed that morning with Sophia and repeated it like a mental mantra after every night terror. From the one where his body was split into a thousand worms, but he kept his full consciousness to each one, to the relatively tame ones where a horned devil enslaved his soul with a mere touch.
Mercifully, they were becoming fewer and less detailed with time. His last was nearly two weeks ago. He fell asleep at his computer more often than not lately, working on his program. Aaron couldn’t remember dreaming at all, lately.
A day before the start of spring he was taking a break, examining a web site he’d been frequenting since the day of the party. A page, translated from Portuguese, showing an impressive house next to a similar picture with a large black crater in footprint the rough shape of the house.
The front door opened behind Aaron. He heard Mattias and his girlfriend Tara sharing a laugh as they came in.
“Hey, watcha doing?” Mattias asked.
“Taking a break.” Aaron turned to see that Matthias held a pile of mail and a package. “Ohh! Is that for me?”
“Yeah.” Mattias threw the package to Aaron.
Aaron froze in fear for a fraction of a second that seemed like minutes. “My lens!” he cried. “In slow motion his hands clasped both sides of the box and slowed its arc to a gentle stop.
Aaron held the box still for a full second arms outstreached and frozen. Then he remembered to breathe. “Matt. This is a custom fabricated, nanocrystalline metamaterial. It took a month to create and there is only one like it in the world. Please, please never throw a package addressed to me like that again.”
“Ok, man. I’m sorry. I didn’t realize.”
“It’s ok.” Aaron carefully pulled out what appeared to be a fist sized crystal ball with a wire sticking out of one side. “It’s ok.” He repeated, looking at the crystal. From every side.
“Is that a crystal ball?” Tara asked.
“In a manner of speaking. It doesn’t see the future, though. At least, I don’t think it will. Want me to hook it up and find out?” Aaron smiled as big as he had in a year.
“Sure!” Tara said.
“What does it do, really?” Mattias asked.
“It gathers the wake of the subtle emissions I’ve been tracking down. I saw the effects on neural structures but only like the phosphorus screen in Rutherford’s gold foil and electron beam experiement. With this, fed through my program, I expect to piece together the source of the subtle influencers.”
“I think I understood about half of those words.” Mattias said
“It’s going to build a picture like a camera of whatever is guiding quantum fluctuations.” Aaron had it plugged into his tablet so he could point it at different objects. His program streamed the data collected and focused to the middle of the crystal to an older supercomputer on campus that he was allowed to book.
“Cool.”
Aaron pointed it at Mattias and Tera. They both put on a cheesy smile.
Aaron set it down.
“That’s it?” Mattias asked.
“Yup. Now, it’s collecting a lot of data so it will take a few minutes to process.” Aaron said.
“Here. You have another piece of mail.” Mattias said as he handed Aaron a postcard.
Aaron felt a chill. On the front was the painting ‘Birth of Venus’ with Venus emerging from a giant shell. Across the top were the words ‘Half-Light Heaven’ and at the bottom was the date: tomorrow.
He turned it over. There were a series of strange sigils and blanks. A code. A puzzle. A new party, just in time for the equinox. And this time, a direct invitation.
Aaron shook his head in confusion. ‘How did they know my address’ he wondered. Despite his befuddlement, he couldn’t deny the smile on his face. He might get to see Sophia after all. And this time, no absinthe.
His tablet flashed a message; TRACE REBUILD COMPLETE and a button beneath was clickable ‘Download Scene’. He clicked it and looked at the sigils on the back of the card. ‘I don’t have long to figure this out.’.
The color of his tablet changed and drew his attention.
Mattias had a faint shimmering glow around his body but he also had a dark cloud near his head. It looked like a bug made of smoke was resting on his shoulder with a proboscis in his neck. Beside him, standing where Tera stood, completely surrounding and obscuring her human form, was a large demon with smoking black wings holding a leash wrapped around Mattias’s bug.