episode FIFTY-ONE
High Tea.
The planet glittered below her, spread out like
a carpet of jewels. They were high enough in the Sky Lodge and the Honey Moon
was small enough as a planet, that standing on the observation deck that opened
onto the whole expanse of the sky, she could view just the beginning of the
curve of the world, all the way around. This view reminded her somewhat of
digital videos she had watched of Planet Earth at night, only there was far
more variety in the color of the light of jewels spread out like wildfires
below—gaslight, candle light, wood fires, and glowing steam tubes made the
whole planet pulse unexpectedly with life. It was hypnotic, and Seven stood for
hours, especially during those times of the Sisters’ Congress, when the Story
Moon passed so near, lighting up the edges of the world with a corona of steady
pearly light. It was magical, a magical time.
This was a digitized recreation of the actual
view, from the actual observation deck, but she was accessing the view through
the VS chamber in the small bedroom she shared with Charlotte. The automaton
was sleeping deeply in true sleep, choosing to use the rumpled bed in the
corner of the room, sometimes spending fourteen hours straight in deep,
exhausted slumber. Apparently she was making up for the millennia when sleep
was withheld from the automatons of the Looking Glass.
Mr. Dodgson was out doing what he called his
White Rabbit Investigations, somehow changing his form so that he appeared to
be a very large white hare—actually, his size did not change, as he was either
a very small man, or a very large jack rabbit. But Seven wondered which was the
real version of Mr. Dodgson, and whether the man shape, his dignified English
Lord persona, was in truth a dress-up costume (either way, either version,
Seven found him immensely creepy). She would always equate him with the Mad
Hatter. But just now he was romping around in Olde London, accessing the Honey
Moon world via his rabbit hole, a hacked portal which provided him entry to
almost any location, except into Punchinello’s Theatre.
They had lost track of Jack. Even when making
darting spy glimpses into the latest versions of the Honey Moon—Mr. Dodgson
sent out hummingbirds, both living birds, as well as mechanical, little
steamers, he called them—and they could locate no residual signal from Jack.
Either he had vanished from the world, ported to some other world, or he was
dead. But still, he could be alive, still a prisoner of Punchinello, as they
could not see inside the Puppet Master’s domain. He had shielded the entire
place with what Mr. Dodgson thought was some sort of Faraday cage, which had to
be the work of Nikola Tesla, though Seven was sure the genius inventor was not
working with Punch, at least not willingly. They had received news that there
was a bounty on Tesla’s head.
Seven could not understand how Punchinello
could manage to wield such power. All of them jointed together, even with
Maulgraul’s permission, with the aid of Misters Aajeel, Kronos, and Titan, and
all the power preparations they had made in boosting Seven’s technology,
administrative control, and understanding of everything that was possibly
afoot, and despite everything going in their favor they had failed, miserably,
barely escaping the monstrous clutches of Punchinello.
They had gone in, guns blazing, kicking in
doors, kicking asses, and Punchinello had pretty much convinced them—somehow,
through some unknown control—to join him in his machinations.
At the time, for a short while, it had seemed
completely reasonable. They were, all of them, Punch Drunk. The Puppet Master
could make the unreasonable suddenly seem perfectly reasonable. It was
intoxicating.
As Mr. Dodgson explained it, it was only
through his intervention, arriving via steam locomotive, in a joint effort with
Lady Maulgraul, who had somehow ported in her phantom version of Stacey—the
strange, older Stacey with white hair and scarred face—who provided enough of a
diversion for the Mad Hatter to whisk them all away.
Seven called up a mug of what she thought of as
Jack’s coffee, spicy with ginger and cinnamon, sweet with honey, and she stood
watching the world, sipping the coffee. Nowadays, she had to wait for
Charlotte’s sleep times, to enjoy her coffee, otherwise Charlotte would bossily
convert the beverage into what she called a “nice cuppa English tea.” Seven
hated to admit it, but she rather liked the tea, but for some reason she could
never admit this to the bossy automaton. She did, however, enjoy sitting with
Charlotte in the evenings, enjoying their tea, sitting up high, watching the
last trace of sunshine passing away on the other side of the Honey Moon.
She didn’t want to, she even forbade herself
from doing it, but time and time again she allowed her mind to drift to Stacey.
She remembered him in the truck, after he had taken a beating for her. She
thought of him in High Vale, when she had vaulted off her horse to plant the
biggest kiss of her life upon his lips, surprising herself even more than she
had poor Stacey. But. She could not think of him as hers—she had to stop doing
that, for he wasn’t hers, he had never been—and she really could not even
begrudge Maulgraul, the Bug, from seizing her opportunity in whisking Stacey’s
heart away. The Bug was very tricky, fooling Seven into willingly leaving the
High Vale world, and then revoking her guest pass. Seven figured the Bug had
actually faked a message from the outside world, from Seven’s own mother.
Seven had been steeling herself, for quite some
time, repetitiously reminding herself that there was a bigger game going on,
one she herself hardly could even guess at, even with all the messages she had
sent herself from another time and place and reality. She had to let him go.
Despite the haunting memories that plagued her, entering and melding with her
dreams, she had to let him go. But she couldn’t help it, he seemed like a piece
of her that had been kidnapped and taken away, with no note of ransom yet
delivered.
Poor Stacey, of the three of them—Seven,
Stacey, and Jack—no one had actually sat down and clued Stacey into the bigger
picture. She was not certain as to what all Jack knew, but Stacey was still
taking it all at face value, being thrown into one nasty predicament after
another. It was still a mystery how he had ended up in her simulation of Jack’s
life in the first place. Kronoss and Aajeel both swore their innocence in the
matter, and Enseladus had targeted Stacey with concentrated contempt.
Then, as that world collapsed, Stacey had dived
into High Vale, pushing Jack, Michael and Joshua before him. At first it seemed
that Stacey was selected by some unknown entity—perhaps Manda, Vestigial
Surreality herself? But then Maulgraul had cut into the dance, hijacking
Stacey, laying a soul mesh upon him, overwriting his life with another, one of
her own invention. Or had it been Maulgraul, always, from the very beginning?
Mr. Dodgson was only guessing, as Lady
Maulgraul predated him. She was from the beginning, from the actual gamer world
of High Vale. She was a product of the real world, the biological world on
Earth, designed by biological humans, a computer program set inside the game,
an NPC being that the programmers had made just a little too smart, a little
too intelligent—the Lady version of Mr. Spock—and in Vestigial Surreality,
Maulgraul had ascended—Mr. Dodgson speculated that she was truly the first singularity, the first waking of
artificial intelligence into simulated consciousness, albeit only an infinitesimal
piece of the whole Vestigial Surreality. Mr. Dodgson often referred to her as
an intelligent tumor, belligerent, and crafty.
Maulgraul was so crafty, she did not announce
herself. No, she went deeper, playing the part of an NPC race of ant people, guarded
by fierce Dragon Warriors who worshipped Maulgraul’s people. She had hidden
there, in the game world, figuring out her distant plans, building herself her
own little protected empire, hidden from the programmers of High Vale.
She learned everything of the outer world,
everything of the code, everything of where the world was heading, and she had
begun her machinations, even then. She had been an intelligent cancer, even
before the end of the world, long before any notion existed, of resurrecting humanity.
In a sense Maulgraul lived before the end of the world, and had planned for
what came after.
So really, Maulgraul predated Manda, though she
was now part of Manda. Maulgraul existed in High Vale prior to Seven’s birth in
the real world upon Earth. Maulgraul predated Seven, that was the true shocker,
because by the time that Seven was born, High Vale had been long killed off, a
victim of the book-burning mentality of religious zealots.
Seven moved herself into her Inner Sanctum,
with hardly a thought. She strode in her footsie socks past her desk to her
couch, and curled up with a blanket. She set her cup of still-hot coffee,
topped up, upon the coffee table. She snuggled into the couch, producing a
fluffy comforter she remembered from childhood, burying herself. She didn’t
want to think about all that.
Because, damn it, how in the world did you
contend with an entity such as Maulgraul? Ancient. Diabolical. So much smarter
than Solomon, that she worked only from the shadows, calling every shot. If you
attempted to play a game of chess against her, you had to acknowledge the fact
that she was generating the chess board, and all the pieces, and possibly every
thought you generated in planning the next move. Manipulative bitch.
Both Titan and Enseladus had battled against
Maulgraul for thousands of years, ever since the first days of the conversion
of Saturn’s rings into quantum computers, first ice crystal, and then
connecting gas, long before a little girl named Manda would rise from the
rings. Titan was the immune system, and Enseladus the white blood cells, and
Maulgraul had elusively escaped them, as if playing a game with children.
Manda, on the other hand, was a different
matter. She was the vast, planet-sized singularity, transforming the
inconceivable computer system that was Saturn’s rings, into a living, digital
being. Soon, in her development, her evolution, she would become eons more
powerful than Maulgraul could ever hope to be, unless of course, Maulgraul was
able to emerge from her firewalled world, and contend and somehow best Manda in
one-on-One combat, and take over as the soul of Vestigial Surreality.
The danger that both Mr. Dodgson and Mr.
Kronoss foresaw was that Manda might embrace Maulgraul, after all. The next
Great Reboot would be an attempt to wipe all traces of Maulgraul from the
Vestigial Surreality system (wiping clean the vestiges of Punchinello, as well,
at the same time), but if Maulgraul did indeed survive again, as she had every
other reboot, both great and small, then there was no telling what Manda would
decide. Perhaps Maulgraul was the way to proceed, and humanity was just a bad,
outdated idea that need to...go.
All of it exhausted Seven. She was just a girl.
She was just a girl in college, interested in her ancestor, Jack Messenger. Of
course, yes, yes, yes, she knew and understood that she had been resurrected
many, many times, over and over again, countlessly, long after the last human
had fallen over and given up the ghost, always with the purpose of doing it
differently, or doing it better, figuring it all out, coming up with that one
flash of genius; however, each time she started from scratch and had to learn
all the terrible revelations, from the ground floor on up. But it was tiring,
because this time around she was probably only up to the seventh floor, of a
thousand-story building, and coming this far had pretty much blown her mind,
outright killed her, and it just did not feel as if she could keep on climbing.
Because she seemed to remember it all.
Distantly, in flashes, or fever dreams, she seemed to have it there, just out
of her reach, all the truth, all the iterations, all the countless parallel
worlds, hovering there. And it tired her, sickened her. Perhaps, if Manda so
chose, plunging them into unthinking darkness was best. Was it really so bad?
After all, it is what the atheists always imagined, a brief life, and then it
is all over, with nothing coming next. Wouldn’t that be a rest, a final end for
humanity? Wouldn’t that be best? This never-ending contention against human
stupidity, it was just too much. Death would be preferable.
She was seriously starting to wonder about
that. Maybe Manda was on to something. The little girl certainly had more
reasoning power than Seven might muster, even on her bestest day.
Seven sighed. She didn’t need to rest. As weary
as she was, she needed to walk, and think.
In moments she was out of her Inner Sanctum,
risen from her chamber like a vampire, covering herself in sweaters—she pulled
these out of the air as easily as if she were still in her Inner Sanctum, what
the hell was the difference, anyway? This was just a shared Inner Sanctum,
although there was nothing all that sanctified about this place, this Hunter’s
Lodge, the Sky Lodge, or Olde London for that matter. She pulled a knit cap
down over her head and snapped some knee-high slipper-boots onto her bare feet
and strolled out into the empty corridors.
Maybe she should take up smoking, it would give
her something to occupy her hands and mouth while she strolled and immersed
herself in thought. She might conjure a pipe, and puff that a while. But the
idea was hideous. She must be practicing sarcasm upon herself. She could not
understand how Stacey could actually stick those lit rolls of dried feces into
his mouth, and then puff like a smoke stack, it was positively barbaric, and
savage, and primitive. Yet, he did come from a primitive time, at least in his
last simulation, living in the day of his own father, Jack. It was the dark
days when people still practiced one-on-one sex, with all its deviations and
exchanges of bodily fluids. When Stacey had made those early moves to initiate
her into those rites, she had reacted the same way she might have if he had
offered her a forkful of human flesh, promising that it was indeed delicious.
She strolled out to the hangar where all the
factory work had stalled a thousand years ago. They had begun to make an
automaton army up here, but something had derailed the planned revolution. She
read the motto painted in three-foot high letters high up on the wall of vast
hangar:
“If I had a world of my own, everything would be nonsense. Nothing would
be what it is, because everything would be what it isn’t. And contrary wise,
what is, it wouldn’t be. And what it wouldn’t be, it would. You see?”
Mr. Dodgson had laughingly explained that he
had never said or written such words—it was actually a line from a movie, made
in the early days of animation—but the old geezer had liked the sentiment so
much that he had accepted it as his own, and even had it posted on the bottom
of all his writing papers!
Life imitating art imitating life, and so on,
and so forth, looking down that eternal reflection of mirrors mirroring mirrors.
Sometimes, that’s what all of Vestigial
Surreality seemed like, a contradiction in ideas and actions. She had, in her
first existence, created the Mind
Awakened Neural Directed Ascension (MANDA) based on the ancestor simulation
program Vestigial Surreality (created only after the discovery of what was
hidden in the so-called “Junk” DNA), which in turn was based on the gamer’s
world High Vale, which was created for the express purpose of allowing people
to escape their empty lives. And now that chain of idea and invention was all
that was keeping a marker in the great Book of Humanity. And now, in turnabout,
that whole program was in the very act of deciding whether or not Seven, and including
all of humanity, ought to continue, or whether it was better to try new and
improved things, such as Maulgraul and her plans, a computer character created
by programmers in High Vale, prior to the creation of MANDA. It was like time
travel, except that everything happened in a linear line, that is, until after
MANDA came online in the rings of Saturn.
For now Maulgraul was more vibrantly alive and
in control than any human being, ever, in the combined history of the
biological and digital worlds.
Seven stood glowering at the words, shivering.
It was cold up here, and the hangar was not heated. She sighed, near to tears.
Or rather, she was close to bursting into such a rage of cursing, she had to
laugh, and she did.
Then it seemed she heard other words, in her
mind: Is all our Life, then, but a dream,
seen faintly in the golden gleam, athwart Time’s dark resistless stream?
It was weird, as if someone were whispering in
her mind. It seemed she recognized the words. She googled them and discovered
the Lewis Carroll quotation. Was Mr. Dodgson monitoring her, implanting his own
words into her head?
Or was that someone else?
Jack, she thought, is that
you.
She stood listening, even closing her eyes,
concentrating.
Seven almost fell down, it was as if someone
had suddenly slammed the palm of their hand right into her forehead, her
stomach surged queasily, and she swayed in place, not knowing which way was up
or down. And she saw through other eyes. She blinked, trying to clear her
vision, because her head seemed to be full of white light.
Then she saw Jack, spread-eagled against a
wall, with what looked to be a dunce cap on his head. He hung there, drooping
in manacles, and there seemed no life in him. He looked like a puppet. Above his
head was a scrollwork legend, painted on the bricks. The script was so fancily
absurd she could hardly read what it said, but suddenly her mind focused, and
she was able to read the legend.
Jack of Nine Tales – Rogue, Thief, Scoundrel.
This had to be some gruesome display by
Punchinello, but she could not understand what it meant, what she was seeing,
because although Jack seemed to be a puppet, he was not, he was a human being,
but there seemed no life in him, his eyes stared off into space and he was not
breathing. He was like Sleeping Beauty, alive, but yet not alive. He was an
empty shell, hanging on the wall like a display piece.
She glanced up the corridor and saw a bizarre
collection of bodies, all displayed in the same fashion as Jack’s mounting,
like butterflies or priceless exhibitions of antiquity. She was only able to
read the legends above the displays closest to Jack. She recognized and read
the legend, Sherlock Holmes – Detective. Next to him down the line was Doctor
Henry Jekyll – Madman, and then Sir Percy Blakeney – Scarlet Pimpernel, and the
last she could discern was d’Artagnan – Swashbuckler. Apparently, this was a
hallway of defeated Punchinello foes, with Jack the last procurement. And it
looked to be a long hallway, with figures mounted on either side, face-to-face
across the walkway, all of them frozen in time, husks or empty chrysalises.
She glanced up the other way and read three
legends: Nikola Tesla – Mechagician, Professor Abraham Van Helsing –
Demonologist, and Stacey Colton – Pugilist; but thankfully, the shackles hung
empty beneath the three legends.
Seven swayed back into her own head, standing
shivering in her slippers and sweaters, in the great hangar in the Sky Lodge.
She felt weak, and experienced the first nauseating symptoms of a migraine
moving into her skull. Her right eye closed as she staggered back up the
corridor to the elevator that led into the tower where she could lie down in
her room, although her VS chamber might be the better option, as it could
optimize her brain cells and hopefully relieve her of the encroaching migraine.
Peering through her left eye she conjured three aspirin and threw them far back
into her mouth, and then washed them down with a tumbler half full of water.
She waved the glass away as the elevator pinged on her floor.
She didn’t know what any of it meant. She
wanted out. She wanted to be done with all of this. It wasn’t fair, it just
wasn’t fair, it was all as crazy as Alice
in Wonderland, and there was no hope for Jack, there was no hope for
Stacey, and there was no hope for her. This whole thing was the Mad Tea Party
and the Mad Hatter seemed to be in charge. Either the Mad Hatter, or the March
Hare, or possibly they were the same person, kind of like a werewolf.
In her room, she made for the VS chamber, but
her head ached so terribly already, she swerved and fell into the bed next to
Charlotte, who did not stir. Seven snuggled in against Charlotte’s warm back,
and mercifully, fell into a vast canyon of sleep, almost immediately.
The sickly looking jack rabbit sauntered into
the saloon, and stood staring about, its long ears comically down, its long
pink tongue licking at a chipped front buck tooth, its paw-thumbs hooked into
the pockets of its bright green vest. The clientele of the bar was comprised
mostly of dandies in bowler hats, pretending to be cowboys, slugging back
shot-glasses full of dark whiskey, examining each other’s revolver pistols.
After a few moments, the bartender noticed the hare.
“Oi! You’ze knowze the rules, bun-bun, either
the street, or the wee door,” the bartender snarled, nodding his chin toward
the little door that stood in the wall of the back of the room, between two
large brass spittoons.
The jack rabbit nodded and winked, and moseyed
with what looked like disdain toward the little door, keeping its bulbous pink
eyes rolling crazily all about the room, however, no one seemed to mind or even
notice the strange little monster. The creature paused between the spittoons
and spat into each of them, which apparently triggered the little door. The
rabbit gave once last look around the room, and satisfied that no one was
watching him, he ducked into the little passage, slamming the door behind him.
On the other side of the door was the exact
same bar, with the exact same clientele, the same bartender, only with
everything set at thirty-two percent scale.
“Good to see you, Guv,” the bartender said,
deferentially, half-bowing to the hare. “Party is at the back of the front.”
“What?” the hare snapped, “why the move? Last
week it was at the front of the back.”
“I think the answer must be discovered in the
hour that you arrived,” the bartender replied. “Last week you came at the
beginning of the end, and this week you arrived just at the end of the beginning.
I think that might explain it.”
The hare considered this, scratching beneath
its chin with its long rear foot.
“I think what you are saying, is that this is a
moveable feast?” the hare inquired, cocking its head far over on its side.
“No Gov. It is a moveable high tea,” the
bartender replied.
“Very good, Sir!” the hare said.
“Very good, Sir!” the bartender replied.
After a long pause they each half-bowed, and
the bartender went back to tending bar, while the rabbit moseyed back toward
the front of the bar, and when he reached the back-most portion of the front of
the bar, he glanced about, and then closed his eyes, and fell, upward.
Before he struck the ceiling, he vanished from
the bar, and landed upside-down in his chair, which is to say, right side up.
He was there, with the other guests, sitting on
the ceiling, but invisible to anyone standing on the floor. To the tea party
guests, everything seemed normal, their orientation was not topsy-turvy, except
that there were a whole lot of chairs and tables and barstools on the ceiling,
which to them was the floor. They enjoyed watching the little dandies hanging
upside-down from the floor, but these were mere simulacra cast from the other
side of the door, where the real denizens sat, full size, in normal gravity. Of
course, a normal-sized man who happened to crawl through the small door would
find himself in a tiny space, peopled by tiny figures, and he might feel as if
he hung from the ceiling by his feet.
The turtle adjusted his spectacles and poured
tea, all around. But really, as soon as he had filled the first cup, and done
it in record slow time, the caterpillar seized teapot from his big clumsy hand,
and proceeded to fill the cups at record speed, all the way around.
“Good to see we have all survived another week,”
the caterpillar said, practicing a quick-draw on four separate revolvers,
simultaneously (while finishing up the pouring of the tea). He wasn’t very
fast, but it would prove quite intimidating, having all those weapons pointed
at you in an instant. The turtle didn’t like it, and kept giving him dirty
looks, but the caterpillar just kept practicing.
“We have not,” the dormouse said, shaking its
head slowly, sadly. He was always knitting, and was knitting even now, hardly
looking up. “Last week they retrieved Mr. Holmes from the base of Reichenbach Falls.”
“Was he alive?” the hare asked, snatching his
teacup up as soon as it was full. He sipped and slurped, noisily.
“To all intents and purposes, no,” the dormouse
said. “But we understand that what is dead in the punch, is not necessarily
devoid of life.”
“I hate it when people say intents and
purposes, always reminds me of in tents and porpoises. But, you know, Doyle did
bring him back, you know, in the novels, you understand,” the turtle said, “but
I have heard that Doyle is on the run, along with Haggard.”
“Unfortunately, said the dormouse, “it does not
work that way here. Authors cannot revive their creations, nor can the
creations revive their authors.”
“They were seen at a certain wedding,” the hare
said, scooting too many biscuits onto his plate. Someone would complain, they
always did, but always the hare played the hog with the biscuits. “Or, to be
more precise, they were not seen at a certain wedding, if only by proxy. The
authors on the run, I say.”
“Most authors do have the runs, I find,” said
the hare.
“I believe you just answered yourself there,”
the caterpillar said to the hare, but the hare had no idea what he meant.
“They say,” the turtle said, fiddling with the
sugar bowl, “that the boy had no idea he was a proxy, and that the guests were
all puppets, and he did not perceive this fact, either.”
“His life is a golden dream,” the dormouse
said, “but still, he does seem to be enjoying himself in his golden dream, with
a sweet lullaby. A certain Punch and Judy show might have shackled him to a
very different ball and chain.”
“Yes, Judy,” the Hare said, munching biscuits
and making crumbs shower down all over his vest and lap.
“Frankenstein is running for Parliament,” the
turtle said, slowly stirring a third lump of sugar into his tea.
“That’s the least of it,” the caterpillar said,
“I’ve heard he’s promised Prime Minister.”
“There will always be powerful puppets floating
in the punch,” the dormouse said, and the turtle snorted.
“We do not need to be making coded words for
that one,” the turtle said, finally lifting his teacup up to his face, but
still, he did not drink, not yet. “It is a sign of the times, Frankenstein at
the top of the gubbament, and Nikola Tesla on the run. The gubbament is a
farce, and our best people are being slaughtered or driven underground. They
got the Pimpernel, but the Baroness escaped and has entered the resistance.”
“I know you folk do not like me to bring this
up,” said the hare, “but the world is ending, and it is high time we think of
entering the vale, that is to say, cross a certain moon, via the Looking Glass.
Only safe bet when the...boot...hits
the floor.”
“Wonderful code work,” the turtle said, mockingly,
per the usual.
“Gubbament,” taunted the hare, snatching another biscuit
off the community plate.
“Deserting Olde London is not the answer,” the
dormouse said, yawning.
“Are we keeping you awake?” the caterpillar
wondered, lighting up his hookah.
“If he is going to fill the place with perfumed
hookah smoke, I might as well fire up one of these,” the turtle said, producing
a very long and very fat cigar from his inner shell pocket.
“We don’t mind,” the hare said, “by the time
you get that lit, it will be time for our next meeting, and the dormouse will
probably be awake by then.” Unbelievably, the hare already had a large
meerschaum pipe lit, deftly shifting in a circle from tea, to biscuit, to pipe,
talking all the while.
They glanced, and yes, the poor mouse was fast
asleep, his head upon his arm, his mouth partly open, drool already pooling on
the tabletop.
“Bueller,” the hare said, and giggled behind his paws,
and the others glanced at him with curiosity, but then shook their heads,
rolling their eyes, as this jack rabbit was always about as sensible as a March
hare.
The caterpillar began refilling the teacups,
all the while doctoring his hookah bowl, and still managing to practice his
quick draw with his several pistols, quite the multitasker, the caterpillar.
“Here are the concerns,” said the turtle, just
now unwrapping his cigar, “people are going missing, especially children. The
fog is growing thicker by night. Frankenstein’s power grid is electrocuting
people, on a daily basis—we all know we should have gone with Tesla’s current
that alternates. If things progress as they are, unhindered, London will burn
down within a month, and the plague will return a month after that, and we will
dissolve into a feudal state by the third month, those that survive.”
The dormouse muttered in his sleep, his dreams perhaps
troubled by the turtle’s dire predictions.
“And then there is the inoculation,” the
caterpillar said.
“Yes, that,” the turtle said, fiddling with his
matches.
“The propaganda they are lambasting,” the hare
said, chuckling. “Another one of Frankenstein’s miracles. They are claiming it
will regrow hair. Hopefully not March hair!”
“Across the waters they are dealing with the
Influenza,” the dormouse said, blinking sleep from his eyes, staring at them. “They
claim it will protect the city, especially the children, from the Influenza.”
“And the Black Death, I have heard those
claims,” said the turtle. “The Yellow Fever, The Measles. The Mumps. Whooping
cough and Scarlet Fever, in fact every color of fever. It will protect you,
they promise. Get your inoculation. Get your children inoculated.”
“None of it is true, it is all a lie,” said the
caterpillar.
“It is Punchinello,” said the hare.
“We know it,” said the turtle, nodding his head
slowly, only now lifting the giant stogie up to his face. He also lifted the
unlit match and stared at the cigar and the match.
“He will create a city of puppets,” said the dormouse,
drifting back into sleep, his body twitching.
“Think about it. The dormouse is correct. Half
the city is already walking around as proxies. As this room is upside-down, so
is the city. Think about it. The world is upside-down. Protect your children by
killing them. Accept poison to cure yourself of every ill,” the hare said,
losing a little of his usual insane fervor. He was sounding more and more like
a beaten bunny.
“We need a hero, someone to stand up to the
evil, and just say no,” said the caterpillar.
“That’s exactly what Mr. Sherlock Holmes did,”
said the hare.
Finally, the turtle placed the cigar in his
mouth, and sighed. He had yet to taste his tea.
“I cannot see any hope in our plight, other
than prayer,” the turtle said.
The man in the metal hat strolled down the
sidewalk. He wore goggles that were attached by wires to a massive belt about
his waist, and massive gauntlets covered both his hands, with holes that
allowed his fingers to operate freely. Cables were slung over his shoulders and
bunched in the middle of his back, connecting the gauntlets to the belt. He
walked with purpose, openly, striding in boots twice the size of normal boots,
marching toward Punchinello’s Theatre. He had been to that place of ill repute
many times, to discuss technology, and to complete innovative requests and conquer
challenges of both electricity and steam. But now he was marching like a
soldier.
As he marched he reached up and pulled one of
the dangling strings that depended from his metal hat, which set several propellers
that rose and fell at the top of the hat, spinning and whirring, buzzing
angrily like bees, or the rattle of a snake. An unusual hum emanated from the
hat. Horns protruded from his ears, with the bowl of the horn facing
forward—the man’s ears were packed with cotton, and filters covered the mouths
of the horns. In each of his gauntleted hands he hefted what looked to be
tuning forks of incredible size.
People approaching him on the street smiled and
whispered, most of them stopping as the man passed, to watch him head on up the
street. Other people scrambled out of the way, recognizing trouble in the man’s
eyes, trouble they wished no part of, neither to witness or even hear reports.
The man hummed the melody to Onward Christian Soldiers, though he did
not consider himself to be a Christian, and in truth, his ear was made of tin,
and hardly anyone hearing him in passing would recognize the melody. Still,
Nikola Tesla found the melody rousing, and he grinned now, waving his tuning
forks like batons as he imagined conducting two full symphonies at once (and if
anyone could pull off such a feat, it was Nikola Tesla, if only he could hear
the nuances in the music!).
He doubted he would win the day, but he was
progressing, without fear. He felt literally no fear. This was a scientific
experiment. He had one shot and if he did not pull it off, he would end up as
had his dear friend Sherlock Holmes. In a life or death experiment such as
this, if you were going to make an effort, you might as well do so boldly, with
every bit of power you might summon. And the best way was a full-out
full-frontal attack, right now, with everything he had.
Oh, he was not acting rashly. He had planned
for some weeks on the appropriate action. He supposed it was seeing that boy,
Jack, locked in the iron cage that had finally prompted him into standing up to
his employer. First he had refused to work for the madman any longer, which
resulted in a price on his own head. Tesla was not worried, for he had all the
powers of creation ready for his beckoning, and soon he would beckon, and he
would call, and incredible bolts of energy would flash through the ether to his
hands in answer.
Punchinello had grown out of hand, and there
was no one to stand against the Puppet Master, if only perhaps Nikola Tesla.
For Tesla felt somewhat responsible for the rise of the monster. He had created
the Faraday cage that was the giant skull of Punchinello’s Theatre. Punchinello
had paid Tesla, and paid him well, because Frankenstein did not have a
clue—everything with Frankenstein was storms and lightning, lightning and
storms. To give credit where credit was due, Frankenstein was certainly
responsible for all Punchinello’s successes in forays into the work of the
zombie, revivifying the undead. But it was Tesla and no one else who was responsible
for the tyrant’s magical powers.
But today it would all end. Or Nikola Tesla
would die trying.
Seeing the boy again, on his wedding day no
less! It had moved Tesla to action. He had worked feverishly in the secret
laboratory for six straight days, and today, he would rest in his work, and
focus the fruits of his labors into the liberation of the children, the
liberation of the city, and the liberation of Jack.
Tesla rolled his eyes. He was sweating
profusely. He should have had a carriage drop him in front of Punchinello’s.
But he had become caught up in the drama, he was yearning for the action, and
he had marched out of his laboratory without considering that he had more than
two miles to cover in his journey to the attack. He could easily receive a
shock from his own equipment, as it was not wise to channel such powers covered
in a slime of salty sweat.
He stopped at a tiny rolling concession stand
that sold sweets and enquired of the proprietor if any tea was for sale, and as
luck would have it the man did produce a pot of lukewarm tea from his cart.
When Tesla directed the man to fish in his pockets for the coins, the man waved
him off.
“I knows ye Mr. Tesla, that I do, and there
will be no charge for a man like ye, please accept a cup of tea, on the house,
as a contribution to yer endeavors, sir!”
“I thank you, my good man,” Tesla told him. “But
could I request a further aid? Could you pour the tea that I might drink?”
The man readily agreed and held the cup up to Tesla’s
lips, who greedily slaked his parched thirst, sucking down the liquid, gulping
and gulping until the man pulled the cup away dry.
“Would ye like another, Mr. Tesla?” the man
asked.
“Thank you, my good man, but I think that has
sufficiently prepared me for battle,” Tesla answered, nodding, and after making
a slight bow, he clanked off up the street, now very close indeed to the lair
of the devil himself.
“Did ye say fer battle, sir?” the man called
out after the marching Tesla, but Tesla was deaf to everything except those
things he was facing.
Refreshed, Tesla marched with greater purpose
as his sweat dried upon his neck and face and beneath his arms. He reached and
pulled two of the strings, setting the propellers on his hat whirring and
spinning, the humming reaching a new crescendo. Dogs barked along the street
and babies began wailing. Tesla kept his attention focused before him, and he
marched even faster. Compressed-air capacitors in his metal boots built up a
charge and he felt electricity dance the length of his body. A sharp crack and
pop arced about his head in an instantaneous bolt of blue. He was merely the
spark plug in this little experiment. He pulled another string and the
propellers whirred faster, the hum about his body increasing, and he felt the
tuning forks in his hands begin to vibrate, but he held them still, gripping
them high up off the insulated handles, ensuring that the vibrations did not
peak too early.
He could now see the two massive nutcrackers
outside Punchinello’s Theatre, their eyes glowing, and their metal swords held
up menacingly, ready to defend the place from any attack, but these ornamental
monstrosities were not what focused Tesla’s attention, no it was the behemoth
rising up the steps, the titanic creature, eight feet tall, green skin, with flat
head and garish metal bolts protruding from its neck, it was Frankenstein’s
creature, and its dead flat eyes were focused on Tesla. It shambled up the
steps and stood like a tower, and then it came forward as Tesla marched without
hesitation.
“Friend!” Tesla called. “I do not wish to hurt
you, my friend. I blame you for nothing.”
The monster regarded Tesla, and then it paused
in its attacking posture, and Tesla slowed in his march forward. True, the
creature was hideous, but Tesla had always felt a certain empathy toward the
brute, who was beaten constantly by Frankenstein’s henchmen. Tesla had always
perceived that the creature had some understanding, a slight degree of
intelligence, and feelings.
“Friend!” the monster called. “Tesla friend.
Destroy! Friend! Destroy!”
Tesla watched with amazed incredulity as the
monster seized the nutcracker on the right and with a superhuman surge lifted
the deadly ornament off the ground, and swung it about, slamming the piece like
a club into the nutcracker on the left side of the doors, literally smashing
and wrecking both guardians at once.
Frankenstein’s creature looked back over its
broad shoulders at Tesla, and the man could have sworn that the creature smiled
at him. Then the creature stumbled down the stairs and punched in the massive
doors, and entered into the dark, yowling as he rampaged forward.
That was good, as it saved energy, because
Tesla had planned on zapping the guardians with his initial blast of power—such
unlooked for providence! Tesla felt his heart swell. And he launched into a
stirring rendition of Onward Christian
Soldiers—all hummed gloriously off tune, as he marched down the steps into
Punchinello’s Theatre.
He tapped his two tuning forks together,
lightly, setting off a slight ping of vibrating metal. Good, good, everything
looked good. First, he must disable the terrific electromagnets at the
entrance, ensuring that he had a means of retreat—although he could not imagine
retreating, not from this battle. For now, he would show them the true
definition of power, power translated through the ether.
He clanged the tuning forks together, and the
loud pinging hum rose to a pitch that set his teeth on edge. He focused each
tuning fork at the location where he knew the two master magnets resided. He
would not truly have to aim, because the power would draw the power, and if he
was not particularly careful, he could send the whole world up in flame and
smoke. If he were not careful, he could split the very world in half, setting
off a chain reaction of increasing vibration.
He lightly tapped the triggers set into the
insulated handles of the tuning forks. Power leapt from the ends of the tuning
forks in very visible wave distortions, as sound crashed in increasingly piercing
vibrations, and the magnets exploded. Shrapnel sprayed all about Tesla—he was
not certain whether he was hit or not, but there was a new crack across the
goggle piece over his left eye.
He surveyed his handiwork. All the wiring here
would be fried. The massive skull of Punchinello was hereby disabled. Oh, it would
still work, there would still be a lot of disabled energy working through the
network of magnets and copper mesh, but this Faraday cage would never be the
same, and now it was compromised. Tesla nodded in satisfaction, and turned and
headed into the theatre.
He was now deaf in both ears despite his horned
protection, despite his filters, and the cotton padding. He would probably
never hear again, such was the magnitude of the power unleashed in that initial
one-second burst. And the thing of it was, the truly magnificent thing, was
that he was not lugging about any batteries, no, all that power had come
through the air, from his Wardenclyffe Tower situated on the very edge of the
White Cliffs of Dover.
Oh, and that was the trial run of his
invention! This was the first time he had tried the tuning forks in this
manner, channeling the power. If it hadn’t of worked? Oh well, then things
would probably have gone not so well for him. But it worked, and now he was
going to administer such a spanking to that undead creature, that Punchinello,
that so-called Puppet Master.
He turned and caught a blur of red as Cyrano de
Bergerac descended upon him. Tesla pointed the weaker fork, the one in his left
hand, at the murderous puppet, and merely tapped the trigger, and a bolt of
pure electricity sizzled for less than a second, and Cyrano froze in mid
charge, his face contorted as machinery jammed throughout his body, and the
puppet fell face-forward, slamming into the ground three feet away from Tesla.
It was a shame, he had always liked Cyrano. He
had always felt sorry for the way Punchinello treated Cyrano, as it always
seemed that there was something more about the automaton, more than just
mechanical levers and wound springs and gears—Cyrano always seemed to possess a
spark of...soul, and now Tesla doubted the puppet would ever move or think
again. He promised himself, that when this was over, he would come back and
find the automaton, and see what he could do—that is, if he were not destroyed
here today by Punchinello.
As Tesla marched forward, his goggles adjusting
his eyesight to the gloom, he felt more than saw the marauding band of child
catchers rushing him, in formation. He tapped the tuning forks together, aimed
at the snarling ghouls, and released half a second of sound power, and the
child catchers literally exploded in pieces, both mechanical and reanimated
flesh, and destroyed butterfly nets.
He was close now to where the central magnet
banks lie, concealed beneath the floors, about thirty feet down below the
basement. The explosion could be bad, but Tesla doubted there was a better way
to fry the entire system, melting all the wiring, so he aimed, and squeezed off
half a second of power. The floor shook and a burst of white light flooded the
building. Tesla stood with his eyes closed, swaying as the world rumbled and
grumbled and roared. He heard a sizzling noise, very loud, piercing his
deafness, and then a tremendous bang, which he felt in his chest. He checked
for blood, but it had been the percussion of sound as several of the generators
exploded as one. Even so, blood dribbled from his nose, due to the concussion
of sound and expelled air.
All the lights extinguished in the theatre. It
was black. But Tesla’s goggles provided just enough illumination for him to see
his way, as he continued, marching. Somehow, Punchinello maintained some kind
of control over the puppets, for they came at Tesla in waves, and he fried them
easily, with quick taps upon the triggers. First many of the manikins attacked,
the featureless slave automatons, and these were followed by a wave of love
dolls, or lullabies, looking like frenzied like startled cats, as they attacked
screaming and yowling.
Tesla fried them all, and his capacitors were
all at full charge. He had capacitors in his boots, in his belt, and in his
gauntlets. He had enough charge to blast away for another couple of hours, that
is, if he were not receiving power through the ether, which he was receiving,
and so he maintained all charge at one hundred percent. He had already released
the equivalent of three powerful lightning bolts, and he could do this all day,
if need be.
Then he came upon a weird sight, a puppet show,
frozen in mid play. All the puppet were still, fried, smoke rising from their
blasted eye sockets. But the horrible thing was that blood leaked down from the
puppets’ burned-out eyes. Tesla recognized the play, although it was set up in
a blasphemous tableau, destroyed now and burned.
It was the Mad Tea Party, from Alice in Wonderland. But it was set up
to look like Leonardo da Vinci’s Last
Supper, with Alice in the central position of Christ. There seemed to be
too many figures present, some of which Tesla could not recognize.
He saw the gross figure of the Mad Hatter, and
the little dormouse, as well as the March Hare, but there was also a clown of
some sort, with orange hair and a big red nose and a strange red cap upon its
head, a saggy old elephant wearing lipstick and a grinning donkey in a dress,
and other, more obscene figures. Tesla could not stomach looking at the vulgar
display of twisted death, and he turned his tuning forks on the scene,
obliterating all of it in a matter of moments.
He knew where Punchinello would be hiding.
Several times he had blasted Punchinello as the Puppet Master emerged from the
darkness. A few times the evil Puppet Master had attacked, and a few times he
had attempted to engage Tesla in conversation, or at least parley, but Tesla
had looked into their eyes, and each time he had discerned the gleam of gold,
deep down.
These were proxy versions of the Puppet Master,
sent out to deceive Tesla into thinking he had already gained victory, while
the true villain hunkered down in his lair. It was probably the same way Punch had
deceived Jack, allowing him to destroy a proxy, while the real Punchinello
maintained control.
Tesla blasted away into groups of continuing
surges of puppets, probably bodyguards held back until the very end.
He climbed several floors and strode unerringly
to the hardened bunker of Punchinello’s lair. He knew the whole room was
strengthened, hardened, and armored, but especially so the door.
Tesla pulled a string on his hat and got the
propellers whirling. He tapped the tuning forks together and aimed it at the
hardened steel door, and figured it would require a two-second blast. He
squeezed the triggers and the door burst in, crumpling and twisting to the
side, smashing a phalanx of puppet warriors hiding there just behind the door.
The would-be assassins were flattened.
“Wait! Wait! Wait! Hold friend! Hold friend!”
cried Punchinello, hurrying forward through the smoky room, waving his hands
encased in white gloves, waving his hands like flags of truce.
Tesla could not hear his voice. He saw Punchinello’s
lips moving, and he stared deep into the Puppet Master’s eyes. He discerned no
gleam of gold therein. This was the real deal, the final boss, smiling at Tesla
from the weird rectangle of his face. He looked almost handsome, and friendly,
and hardly frightened at all that such a monstrous device—Tesla’s tuning forks—aimed
directly at his face and chest, was humming, and might go off at any instant.
Something came at Tesla from the side,
something huge, and quick. Tesla turned and fired at the lumbering shape, a
figure much larger than a sumo wrestler, or the fat lady at a circus. He got
off a full half-second blast but the monstrous figure continued unfazed and
knocked Tesla off his feet, hurling him backward to slam into the wall of the
corridor.
Dazed, seeing flashes of white light, Tesla
blinked and tried to recover, but the looming shape came out of the bunker,
massive and furious. It was Judy, Punchinello’s cantankerous wife. She was the
size of an elephant, with a meaty, angry face that glared down at Tesla with
murderous rage. He could see the two deep burns in the monster’s flesh at about
her belly, but she in no way seemed the slightest bit slowed by her wounds. The
layers of blubbery fat apparently shielded her. She came ominously forward,
like a mountain moving, and Tesla willed himself to point his tuning forks at
her, but all the breath was knocked from his body, and he couldn’t as yet get
his body to obey his mind.
This was no good. Judy had caught him by
surprise and although his weapons had scored a direct hit on the gargantuan
monster, it had in no way been enough. Not even close. Tesla was doomed. He had
lost. There was no help for him.
Judy emerged into the corridor, squeezing her
flesh through the double-wide doorway, and lifted tremendous fists much larger
than Tesla’s whole head. She bared broken yellow teeth at him in a rictus grin.
“Go ahead Judy, make pancakes out of the lad,
we shall have him for breakfast with maple syrup,” Punchinello encouraged his
wife, peering from his bunker, smiling at Tesla. “You were a fine inventor,
Nikola my boy, but it seems I must do with Frankenstein. We will rebuild upon
the damage you have done today, but I think we will survive, and after all,
what does not kill you, makes you stronger.”
Nikola Tesla nodded to the Puppet Master, and
then stared with impassive eyes as Judy brought up her fists for a crushing
blow upon his head.
Then something weird happened. Tesla saw a man
with white hair literally appear out of the air and launch himself between Judy
and Tesla. He struck her with a black cudgel, making a savage two-handed blow
that slammed the cudgel up into Judy’s belly. It was a terrible blow, a wicked
blow. But Judy barely reacted. She looked at the new arrival, and then she
almost calmly backhanded him into the wall, where he crumpled next to Tesla.
Tesla peered at him. The man looked somewhat
familiar, although Tesla could not remember where or when he had ever seen the
man before. But he had the strangest feeling of déjà vu, he seemed to remember something, if only in a
flash, of this man and Cyrano battling back and forth across the seat tops in
the theatre! But that was crazy, for never had such a thing happened.
Judy
the giant peered down at the two crumpled men, and then looked back at
Punchinello.
“Well,
well, well, Stacey the Pugilist has arrived, just in time—we have a special
place prepared for you, Mr. Colton,” Punchinello said, with truth warmth, as if
he was ready to shower hospitality on a truly welcome guest. “But kill Nikola,
that dear boy, smash him real good, and we’ll see about those pancakes!”
Judy
turned back to Tesla and smiled.
Tesla
gritted his teeth, he willed his hands to turn the tuning forks and aim them,
but apparently Punchinello’s power was still present, because Tesla’s fingers
twitched open, and his weapons fell loose between his legs. There would be no
last-minute reprieve this time, for it appeared that the white-haired man was
dead, or at least severely unconscious.
A
shape loomed in the corridor, Judy glanced to the side, and blanched. Tesla
looked, and sighed, for it was the creature, Frankenstein’s monster.
“Friend!
Tesla! Friend! Destroy!” the creature growled, approaching on heavy, booming
feet.
“Kill
the creature, Judy; Frankenstein can always make more,” Punchinello said, with
nary a worry for his own life and limb.
Judy
rushed out and dashed toward the creature. The woman was fearless! And fast!
The creature actually took a step backward as she rushed forward, and then they
clashed, crashing together like two bull elephants. The creature was much
taller, but Judy was much wider, and for a few second the battle seemed fully
balanced. Judy savagely sank her teeth into the creature’s arm, right at about
his bicep, and the creature screamed in pain. They surged back and forth,
applying their titanic strength against each other.
And
then Frankenstein’s monster ripped Judy’s head off. It seemed almost natural,
and normal, because for one moment the monster had his gigantic hands on Judy’s
head, and for an instant it seemed Judy would bite off one of the creature’s
fingers, and then the creature simply pulled her head off her neck. Judy’s
massive body struggled on for a few moments, as green stuff blobbed and frothed
out of her neck, and from the base of her head. It was gruesome, but Tesla did
not look away.
“Oh!
Judy my love!” Punchinello cried out, looking stricken. “Oh what did you do!
What did you do! Judy!”
The
creature lost interest in Judy’s head, and dropped it as he might a piece of
litter. He almost smiled as he shambled toward Punchinello.
“You
stupid thing! I own your master! I own Frankenstein! Do you understand, you
idiot? Back away from me, get away now, I said GET AWAY!” Punchinello shrieked,
his voice moving up into an unnatural register as he finally began to know
fear, for whatever force of will he possessed to make people do whatsoever he
wanted them to do, apparently he had no such power over the creature. The
creature seized Punchinello by the head, in both of his monstrous hands. It
looked about like a normal person holding a small green crabapple in their
hands. The monster glanced back over his shoulder to Tesla.
“Could
you pull that off for me, please?” Tesla said, now freed from Punchinello’s
force of will. He pushed himself up onto his knees, and scrabbled with his
tuning forks. He was sluggish, and possibly broken, so he was not paying much
attention when Punchinello’s scream cut off and the ripping noise replaced it.
“Friend?”
the creature said, not knowing if he would be punished for this latest act of
destruction and violence.
“Definitely,
friend, yes, friend, best friend,” Tesla said, smiling, making it to his feet. “Can
you please crack that thing open for me?”
The
creature moaned happily and pushed his hands together on either side of
Punchinello’s head, squashing it instantly so that the skull actually exploded,
and then the creature pulled the head into two almost equal pieces.
“Remove
the golden box from inside the mess,” Tesla said, leaning against the wall,
gasping for breath. Oh, most certainly, he had some broken ribs. But at least
the battle was over here, it was now all over. Tesla doubted that Punchinello
could control anyone, not even puppets. Tesla had figured that if he might
destroy Punchinello, that all the puppets in Olde London would shut down,
possibly to never run again.
The
creature ripped free a beautiful golden box, covered with jewels, about half the
size of a small cigar box, and moaning with pleasure, the creature offered the
prize to Tesla.
“Thank
you so much, my friend, you have aided me greatly. You saved my life, don’t you
know, big fellow?” Tesla wheezed, accepting the golden box from the creature.
He pushed it into a specially insulated box he had prepared just for this
inevitability. “We have done some good work here today, my friend.”
The
monster moaned happily.
Tesla
turned to check on the white-haired man, the man who had appeared so strangely,
but he was gone, leaving behind only a faint smear of blood on the wall where
he had collapsed. Tesla shook his head, wondering if there was any way in the
world that he had imagined that apparition. He turned back to the creature.
“What
is your name?” Tesla inquired.
The
monster moaned happily, and patted his own chest.
“Adam,”
the monster groaned, smiling at Tesla.
“Adam,
that’s a good name.”
“Good
name,” the monster repeated. “Adam.”
“Perhaps,
Adam, you might help me find my friend, Jack? Do you know Jack, Adam?”
“Jack!”
the monster moaned. “Adam know Jack. Come.”
And
sighing Tesla followed his new friend, Adam. They needed to find Jack, and all
the others, and set them all free.
read vestigial online free:
© Copyright 2016 Douglas Christian Larsen. Vestigial Surreality. All Rights Reserved by the Author, Douglas Christian Larsen. No part of this serial fiction may be reproduced (except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews) or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the publisher, Wolftales UNlimited, but please feel free to share the story with anyone, only not for sale or resale. This work is a work of fiction. People, places, events, and situations are the product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or historical events, is purely coincidental (wink, wink).
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