Vestigial Surreality: 44: Showdown

episode FORTY-FOUR

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Showdown.

The vast room Jack entered was a theatre, the old-fashioned kind with a vast sweep of bloody-red velvet curtains at the front, thirty feet high, that stretched an easy seventy-five feet from side to side. The stage had the old-fashioned footlights that looked like shells, shielding the audience from the bright glare, focusing the limelight upon the actors. At the moment, there seemed to be only two actors on the stage, Punchinello, dressed like a mad scientist in a long white lab coat hanging heavy with bulging pockets, a series of mechanical magnifying devices extended from a ring on his head with various lenses, as well as absurd magnifying lenses over his bulging eyes. The other actor was Anne, strapped down upon a slab, with Punchinello hovering over her, an array of large blades that flashed in the footlights, arrayed about her. Jack’s heart leapt in his chest, but he did not move, not yet. He glanced about the vast theatre—it must seat at least a thousand people, perhaps more, the red velvet theatre seats trailing into the darkened theatre. Only the stage was lit.

Jack glanced back, viewing the sloping theatre, the ceiling must be forty feet high over the stage, and it swept back larger toward the back, where he could just make out box seating up high along the walls, and a huge balcony in the far back. He moved his eyes forward and back, taking everything in. He adjusted the lighting in his view, peering about, ensuring that there were no lurkers in the seats. He checked with heat vision. He checked with motion detectors, and apparently, from all appearances, it was just these three, Anne, Punchinello, and Jack, alone in the vast skull-shaped theatre.

That’s what was bothering him. It was like they were in the interior of a giant skull, these three little worms, crawling in Punchinello’s mammoth head. Jack scanned and observed that the theatre was meshed in copper, and that huge magnets were set all along the scaffolding, and that even larger magnets were spread everywhere beneath the floors, and in the walls. He thought he could feel the force of the magnetic waves. Electricity coiled and strung all about everywhere, living, humming electricity.

What was that thing called? A Faraday cage—Jack did a quick information search. Yes, the theatre was a vast Faraday cage, it all had to be the design of Nikola Tesla, or possibly Victor Frankenstein. Signals could not reach inside this place. Jack was here, inside Punchinello’s head, and nobody would help him—if he failed, nobody outside this shielded area would ever know his fate, or what happened to him.

He and Anne would be gone. Or worse, they would be changed, and reconfigured, as many of the people were modified that Jack had observed from his cage. Many of the people seemed to be dead, zombies, while others were complete automatons, and others were the mixture of the two, the dead and the mechanical. But Tesa and Frankenstein seemed to be unchanged, just men, working of their own will and volition for Punchinello.

Jack had seen both men coming and going over the last few days. Once or twice it appeared that Tesla would approach him, huddled in his cage, but the man always reconsidered, and passed on without speaking. There was something about the genius inventor’s eyes, as if he were attempting to communicate with Jack, with those quick, covert glances.

Jack thought about all of this, and lifted himself up. He hovered, weightless, ten feet above the ground, now at the same level as Punchinello and Anne upon the raised stage. He felt odd, unprepared, this was all on-the-job training for him, after all, and he hardly knew what he was doing, or what he was capable of accomplishing with these new strange shadow tools. But that creature upon the stage was about to slice into his Anne, and Jack had to stop the monster.

This is all a simulation, Jack told himself. This crazy dark world mixed with impossible things, living and breathing literary creations alongside their creators; warped developers, coders, programmers, had begun all of this madness, and now it had gone off all half-cocked and crazy, evolving in its own mad play. And the inmates were now in charge of the asylum. Monsters lurked everywhere, and this was now Punchinello’s world.

Jack gripped his shillelagh, for comfort, but he was also constantly modifying the weapon, adding and enhancing. He took a hint from Punchinello, and introduced powerful magnets at both ends of his blackthorn walking stick. He too could work a little Faraday magic.

“It is a woman's nature to be constant—to love one and one only, blindly, tenderly, and for ever—bless them, dear creatures!” Anne said from the stage, and Jack’s heart leapt and clenched inside his breast.

“Yes, yes,” Punchinello replied, sourly, “that is very sweet, and utterly tragic. Now please, Miss Brontë...shut up. I might decide to begin with your head, discover its secrets, while severing your tiresome vocal chords.”

“Might I see him, please, just one more time, prior to your surgery?” Anne whispered, but Jack could hear her distinctly. It was partly due to the enhanced acoustics of this place, but also Jack kept twiddling with the volume controls, magnifying his own hearing, while diminishing any sound that his passage might produce.

“It is not my surgery, dear puppet, but yours,” Punchinello corrected. Then he sighed and sat upright, moving aside the lenses from his eyes. “I have a little something that the teeth doctors have figured out, it is called cocaine, and apparently it reduces pain, and I will introduce this miracle elixir to you at each point of...separation, although I am not certain you actually require the stuff. As we have deduced in our days of delight together, you do feel pain, Miss Brontë, and you are close enough to the humans that I might be able to alleviate some of the pain that you will most certainly experience. I will do this for you, dear lady, for your sake, and silence, as I do quite enjoy pain—both my own, but especially that of others. In time, I think you might begin to see things my way, dear puppet, as most people generally do.”

“I do not care about the pain,” Anne said. “It seems my life and my hope must cease together. But I want to see my Jack, one last time. Please.”

Jack moved forward. He felt he was approaching death, death incarnate, there upon the stage. He hovered like a cloud, decreasing his shadows as he neared, and he experimented by drawing light toward himself, and reflecting it at angles away from the stage. He thought now of himself as a mirror, less shadow. He must now hide in the light. And he could not help but feel that this was all a little play, for his benefit, that Punchinello was aware of everything, and was tracking him, even now.

Punchinello sighed a loud theatrical sigh.

“The things I do for women,” he said, stripping away the rectangle of face from his head. He held this out, and shook wet drips from it. He seemed to be cleaning lint from the grim visage, or picking its nose. The eyes glittered in the footlights. Jack paused, hovering. It truly was a sight of horror, that strip of face held up above its own head.

“What?” the mouth said on Punchinello’s head, as the eyes in the rectangle of flesh grew sharp. Punchinello’s body turned on its high stool, and his hands reaffixed the rectangle of face back into its head. “Did you see something?”

Anne lifted her head from the surgical slab, and she peered into the darkened theatre.

Jack almost felt her eyes fix upon him. He adjusted both his opacity and translucency, hoping he achieved the proper mixture. Anne’s eyes continued, searching. Punchinello stood and strode to the footlights at the outer ring of the stage. He peered into the theatre.

Jack kept himself still, bobbing slightly in the air. He held his breath, his hands squeezing his shillelagh. Should he just attack, now? He felt sweat trickle down his neck, and he adjusted the heating level, and felt a wave of cool air blow over him. And what angle of attack could he launch against such a creature?

Punchinello turned back to Anne. He produced another theatrical sigh.

“Anything else? A last meal, perhaps? How about a cigarette? A blindfold?”

“Please. Let me see Jack.”

“Fine. But do not say I never did anything for you,” Punchinello said, wearily. “You are such a gold-digger, Miss Brontë, you use men for every little thing. It is quite heartless of you.”

Jack felt a spark of fear. Was Punchinello planning to bring him in here? Dragged in chains, like Charlton Heston to grovel before Yul Brynner? Maybe if the monster left the room, it might provide Jack with his chance to liberate Anne!

But Punchinello had other ideas. He crooked his finger and two of the featureless automatons entered the stage from the rear, pushing what looked like a television set, rolling it forward on a cart.

“This is a little wonder from our dubious genius Mr. Tesla, a little something project he is still working on, just a trifle. But I kind of like it. I convinced him to provide us this little prototype, the poor man is always lacking funds,” Punchinello said, proudly, grandly sweeping his hand toward the device.

Jack peered. It was definitely not a television set, but some alternate-reality version, all glistening pipes and tubes circling what appeared to be a rectangle of common glass, or two sheets of glass, spaced apart, with glass at the top and sides. Steam began to fill the area between the sheets of glass.

“They say it is all done with smoke and mirrors,” Punchinello said, smiling broadly. “But I think the magic is in the steam. I believe all magic is of the illusory type.”

A small pipe rising above the glass suddenly burped a puff of steam, which first looked like a miniature mushroom cloud, but then spread into a great ring that rose into the scaffolding above the stage. The steam in the glass box roiled.

“Jack cannot be in that thing,” Anne said, glowering at Punchinello.

“An interesting idea, that,” Punchinello said. “There might actually be a market for animated bodies in glass boxes. I will have to think about it. If there are royalties, however, I doubt I will be sharing.” He shrugged, grinning. “I am only saying.”

Anne gasped. For in the steam, shapes were clarifying. A series of sparks ran across the glass, then arcing electricity, little hands and fingers of light and fire. A side view of the iron cage appeared, gradually, with a huddled shape in the corner of the iron box. Electricity danced in short arcs, flickering, burning the air.

“What have you done to him?” Anne demanded, straining against the shackles that held her down.

“Done to him? Dear lady, absolutely nothing, I assure you he is quite comfortable, and quite well fed, and warm. The truth is, I even opened the doors for him, a clear passage to the world above, and the dear man chose to remain here, with us. Isn’t that adorable?” Punchinello said, warmly, smiling. He looked benevolent, and kind. The filthy liar. “You certainly know how to pick’em, Miss Brontë.”

“Oh Jack, Jack, I am so sorry,” Anne breathed.

“But notice, dear Miss Brontë, he is not strapped down to a surgical table. I have no interest in the boy. He is a mere human, sad thing. His friends, however, I would like to have them for...dinner, yes I would. I could just eat them up, dear things.”

Jack reached out and sat the figure up in the iron box. To Jack’s eyes, it looked just like a live-feed video of himself hunched over in a cage. Jack had his image look around. Though bizarre in invention, the device was producing an image that was becoming more realistic than any television screen or monitor. In fact, it was beginning to look more and more as if they were looking through time and space—could this be another form of portal? Was there anything that Tesla couldn’t create?

“That is odd, yes, very odd indeed,” Punchinello said, staring at the steaming screen.

“Jack, I am fine, please, leave, Jack, please save yourself,” Anne shouted, to the image in the steaming screen.

“He cannot hear you,” Punchinello said, “but oddly enough, he seems to sense your presence, which is of course...impossible.”

The image in the steaming screen looked out of the iron box, and angrily, it shot forward its uplifted fist, with middle finger extended.

“Strange. He is looking at someone, and yet I can see as well that there is no other living creature in the room with him, but he is giving the...illusion...of looking at us...” Punchinello said, trailing off, deep in thought.

Jack knew that things had progressed about as far as they could, and that now he must take action. He still had absolutely no idea of what he could or should do next, but it was certainly time.

“An illusion,” muttered Punchinello. “Yes, yes, I see. Smoke and mirrors and steam.”

The Puppet Master abruptly turned and looked into the darkened theatre.

Jack floated himself to Anne, increasing his speed, not worrying so much about stealth any longer. But he did not drop his covering reflections. As he neared her he popped away all the restraints holding her down—it was as easy as flicking kernels of popcorn away.

Punchinello produced a small pair of opera glasses and scanned the theatre.

Jack was at Anne’s side, touching down, and she was glancing up, blinking, seeing something but not at all certain as to what she was seeing. It was as if she were seeing a distorted version of reality, in one lump, like witnessing a heat wave creating a mirage on a hot day. She saw something, but it looked unnatural, like nothing she had ever seen in her long years.

“So, the boy is not as simple as I thought, but then why did he spend so much time in the cage, it defies reason,” Punchinello growled, scanning, looking up along the scaffolding, searching the theatre, looking everywhere but where Jack now stood.

Jack placed his hands beneath Anne’s shoulders, lifting her into a sitting position.

“Jack?” Anne breathed.

“Shhhh,” he whispered against her ear. Oh, but it felt glorious to have his hands upon her, to have her here with him, alive, and well. Her eyes were searching about, trying to see him, and he thought and drew her into his protective shell, equipping her with all the perceptions and shadow tools he was currently using. She gasped, seeing him, feeling him. Suddenly, he was truly quite...there, as if by magic.

Punchinello turned, and blinked, staring at the empty surgical slab with its burst shackles. He looked all about, peering beneath the slab, and then he lifted the opera glasses to his rectangle of face and stared at them, gawking.

“I see you,” he said. “But what in the world have you...done, dear boy?”

Jack moved his mind, slightly, and he turned the opera glasses into a cream pie, and this he slammed into Punchinello’s face, the cream exploding all about the Puppet Master’s head and body. Punchinello spluttered, scooping the cream out of his eyes with his index fingers.

“Damn it, but no, this is—my world!” Punchinello shouted. “You shall not show me such disrespect.”

Jack thought and Punchinello’s pants feel down about his ankles, and there were the expected red silk boxer shorts, complete with shiny white satin Valentine hearts.

Punchinello sputtered. He lifted his hands and made fists, and squeezed.

Jack suddenly felt a huge pressure about him, as if a giant hand was clamping down upon his very being. He felt Anne squished into his back and for a moment he almost panicked. But then he shrugged out of the vice and flipped it over, bringing it down like a monstrous sledge hammer upon Punchinello. The Puppet Master crumpled, and flattened, even as he reached down for his fallen pants, and Jack smoothed him out, like in a Bugs Bunny cartoon, literally smearing the Puppet Master into a two-dimensional image upon the stage boards, flat, steamrolled. Punchinello’s eyes glared up at him, balefully.

Jack stripped the rectangle out of Punchinello’s face, lifted it in the air and stretched it into a broad sheet of paper, and this he deftly folded into a paper airplane, which he sailed toward the back of the theatre. What a perfect flight! It was almost like magic.

“How are you doing this?” Anne breathed against the back of his neck. “You have his magic, Jack, I cannot believe it.”

“It’s not magic,” Jack said, “and what I’m doing is different from what he does. He said it himself—his is all smoke and mirrors, and steam—none of it is real. I, however, am twisting reality.”

The flattened body on the theatre floor sat up, forming into a three-dimensional being again, making a terrible sucking sound as it lifted away from the boards. Jack fought against it, trying to force it back down, but its power was terrible, and it shoved him rudely back. Jack and Anne nearly stumbled over each other as the body missing its face climbed to its feet. They could see the glistening mess inside the skull, with one fat worm thing protruding from the hole, sampling the air, wriggling and writhing.

Jack snatched at the worm, plucking it from the gaping skull, and popped it between mental fingers. It exploded in a shower of purple goo. Punchinello’s body reacted, staggering backward, upending the tray full of knives and scalpels and other sharp things. It stumbled forward, crazily, like a zombie, and thrashed over the surgical slab.

Jack felt alive with power. All of this was image, and all of the image was data, and it seemed he could reach right into the numbers, seizing handfuls of ones and zeroes, and he could meld it, make it, reform it, turn it and push it, and what Punchinello did was something else entirely, in fact Jack doubted that Punchinello understood—reality—no, instead, he had come up with some other means, all of it false, and could make anyone believe what the Puppet Master wished them to believe, and by believing the lie, anyone was under Punchinello’s power.

Jack was sick and tired of lies. He was sick and tired of being powerless. He was sick and tired of being shuttled between realities. He sent Anne a quick note, like texting, only it was more of a download, a package of things he now knew and partially understood, and she went rigid as her mind expanded, numbers spilling into her being. And she knew what he knew, although she probably understood less than he did, but she also knew things Jack could never know, because she had lived many of these things before, in other versions of reality. She had survived reboots and grand scrolls.

“Jack,” she said, half-sputtering while inhaling. “Oh Jack, you are just—so cool.”

“Stick with me,” he said, so overjoyed at having her close behind him. There was nobody better for having his back.

“Forever Jack, I am yours, forever,” she said, hugging him from behind, her cheek against his.

He actually meant, stick close to me, right now, strength in numbers—but her words so filled him with joy he felt like literally exploding, just shooting out in a shower of stars, flaming meteorites, and he had to be careful, because, conceivably, he might just do exactly as he thought—blow apart, become a fireworks display, go out in a very happy cloud of smoke and drifting ash. He had to be careful, especially while thinking. He would have to find a way to detach himself from this power, soon, when they were safe, because he could easily become his own worst monster, but right now, he was fully immersed, fully empowered, and he lifted Punchinello’s body off the ground and held it immobile in his mental grasp.

Punchinello, in his hold, became a fiery angel of light, beautiful, and awesome to behold. Wings a full thirty-two feet in breadth spread regally about the being. It lifted a fiery sword in its hand.

“You have passed my test,” the fiery angel said, in a booming, beautiful voice. “You are worthy, Jack Messenger. I sent for you, and you came. I tested you, and you are judged, and now you shall take your rightful place at my side. I shall make you—a god.”

Jack felt the sinuous temptation. It was like warm butter dripping down the inside of his soul. What Punchinello the angel offered, well, it shouldn’t be, but Jack actually found it tempting. Not only could the monster offer something utterly unrealistic, and make it attractive, but he could also fill you with an overwhelming desire for something you had never felt before, greed, lust, ambition, the yearning for more and more power. And it seemed real. That was Punchinello’s power, he could make you think you wanted something, even if it was the opposite of what you actually desired.

“Just knock it off,” Jack said, and stripped away the illusion. He held a puppet off the ground, just a thing partially alive, partially dead, partially mechanical, and mostly held together by various illusions, a grotesque piecemeal affair hobbled together by chicken wire and spit, old bubble gum, wax, and a child’s kite string.

The body dropped from the air. It landed upon its feet and stood there, very still, an automaton, with that missing piece of its face, exposing that gory view into its glistening skull. Then the paper airplane came sailing back upon an invisible current that had nothing to do with air. It stabbed through Punchinello’s head, and remained there, half the large sheet of paper airplane protruding equidistantly through each side of the Puppet Master’s head. The distorted face made of paper looked at Jack, with kindly eyes, and the mouth beneath the surreal face smiled.

“Good job, Jack, I am delighted with your progress,” the paper airplane face said, winking at Jack. “You have done better than anyone could have hoped. They chose well, in sending you to face me. But they never realized that it was I that gave them such an idea. I brought you here, my son. Yes, Jack, I am your father.”

“Here he goes again,” Jack said to Anne, “just don’t trust anything he says. Everything he says is a lie.”

“Oh but no, that is not true,” Punchinello said, “a man who only lies, why, he cannot fool anyone. He cannot convince anyone. He will have no power. My formula for success is two percent lie, ninety-seven percent truth. I retain that one percent, just for wiggle room.”

Jack zipped the mouth shut, the metal-upon-metal mesh of the zipper closing very loud.

Punchinello casually reached and unzipped his mouth.

“I like how you use humor, in everything you do,” Punchinello said, “and as you see, that is a truth that I just told. You do amuse me, Jack. Let us amuse the world together. We shall offer the world Cocaine and a smile!”

“I think your humor is crude, and only the basest people think it is funny,” Jack said, holding his shillelagh out before him like a shield, his elbows flexed, his fingers tightly gripping the wood for confidence. “Still, I have to admit, it was pretty hilarious when Judy was going to sit on your head.” Yes, it was crude, but didn’t people react to the lowest form of slapstick—a man trips and breaks his nose, bloody spurting everywhere—come on already, didn’t anyone and everyone think that was funny? Jack giggled, and his giggle very quickly became a belly laugh.

“Yes, you begin to see, I bring laughter to the world. That is a good thing, isn’t it?” Punchinello said, nodding wisely, smiling beneficently, lifting his hands in blessing. “You cannot fault me for cheering up the world, can you Jack?”

Absolutely not, Jack thought. Sure, he was a monster, but he certainly was a hilarious monster, and that really was a good thing, wasn’t it?

“Jack, don’t,” Anne said, gripping him tightly, talking right into his ear.

“Come on Anne, do not be such a sour puss,” Punchinello cried, and suddenly he was dressed in country barb, a bright red bandana around his neck, a garish yellow straw hat cocked on his head—incongruously his face was still that of a paper airplane sticking out of his head. He stomped his cowboy boots and a band of puppets rose up strumming banjos, sawing away on fiddles—the puppets were all wearing blue overalls, stomping their wooden feet, but they were all the generic artist manikins, but they energetically produced the song Something Stupid, with a folk flair, romantic, countrified—square dance music! A hoe down at the showdown, what fun!

Punchinello danced in place, it was a do-si-do, the basic square dance step where you hop in place, touching heel to toe, back and forth, it was hilarious, and joyous, clapping your hands and then crossing your arms over your chest, It was fun! Punch was the funnest guy! He was like a barrel crammed with dead and dying monkeys, it was wonderful.

Anne and Jack couldn’t help themselves, it was just too joyous, they began do-si-doing in place, and then joined by several puppets they started a whirling, hopping-bopping ring in their square dance. And wasn’t that funny? Square dancing, in a ring? Get it? Come on that was the best ever! A circle was a square how appropriate. A circle was a square, like a Bilbo Baggins riddle in the dark. Jack and Anne laughed and laughed. And Punch laughed, clapping his hands, watching the spectacle of it all. Jack actually cast his shillelagh to the side, because what did weapons have to do with dancing? This was family! This was fun! Good old-fashioned square-dancing in a circle of fun! Oh boy! Oh those dead monkeys! Oh boy!

Jack and Anne smiled at each other, wasn’t this wonderful?

Then the music shifted, to a kind of Latin salsa, or was it tango, what was this? Sway, yes, it was good, and Punchinello was on the floor with them, dressed in a flashy bullfighter’s ensemble, tight black pants and towering heels on his feet, that cool cropped jacket, and the winding of red ribbon, and hey, Punch could really dance. He spun Anne like a top, and then seized Jack, and dipped him, it was all incredible. What were they thinking, Punch, a bad guy? Come on, he was a ball of laughs! This guy knew how to have a good time, the very best time!

A barrel full of dead and dying monkeys, what the hell kind of thought was that?

Jack laughed but his eyebrows jerked, thinking about those dead monkeys. Then Punch was doing some funky dance steps, jerking his body, doing the dirty dog, pumping his pelvis and grinning like an idiot, and that was hilarious, so Jack started doing the dance too, and it was hilarious, like in a Beyoncé video, jerk-hump, jerk-pump, whacka-whacka-whacka, and Anne caught on and began to suggestively pump her hips, moving toward Jack, that look in her eyes, and Jack knew he was blushing, and still dancing, he moved around behind her, and what was this called? Grinding? And what was Anne doing, the twerk? Something like that, and Punch was laughing, clapping his hands.

Until Stacey appeared in their midst—the party pooper—knocking Jack and Anne apart, swinging his shillelagh up, knocking off Punchinello’s poor, laughing head. The head sailed up twenty feet in the air, and when it came down Stacey caught the thing, even as he planted his boot in Punchinello’s chest, pushing, sending the decapitated body tumbling over.

The music was gone, just like that. As were the manikins, and they were on the stage amidst the toppled surgical instruments and the surgical slab on its side.

Jack bent, his hands on his knees, gasping for air, and Anne hunched over him, checking to make sure he was not hurt. Jack felt drained of all his blood, or like someone had delivered the most terrific blow to his kidneys. He could not catch his wind.

“Really nice dance class, Jack,” Stacey said, holding the snarling Punchinello’s head between his hands. He had his shillelagh wedged between the teeth of the severed head.

“Stacey? Is it really you?” Jack gasped, hardly able to get his breath back. He didn’t know what was wrong with him, but he felt utterly drained.

“It’s me, in the flesh,” Stacey said, giving Jack that big smile that looked like a pirate leer. “Well, sort of in the flesh. I’m projected here, and I can never stay long. Thankfully, I didn’t have to knock too many heads, other than this one here. Saves time, that.”

Stacey tossed the head to Jack. Then he bent and manfully lifted the surgical slab, righting it. He motioned to Jack, who set Punchinello’s head on the slab.

“Why don’t we open this sucker up?” Stacey said.

“How long do you have?” Jack asked, producing a huge shiny butcher knife from the floor.

“Usually only two minutes—of projection time, which equates to about two years of aging—and I figure we’ve used half of the two minutes already, so we have to hurry,” Stacey said.

“This isn’t very sterile, I just got it off the floor,” Jack said, proffering the cleaver to Stacey.

“I don’t think our friend Mr. Punch should mind that too much,” Stacey said, snatching the steel knife from Jack.

“Hurry, he has magic, and we can hardly do anything about it,” Anne said, her arm about Jack.

“Hello Anne, your sister Emily says hello, and that we will all be together soon,” Stacey said, winking at the automaton. This was the much older Stacey missing his left eye, with the deep furrows gouged in his left cheek, and the long white hair streaming down his back.

“So Emily finally caught you?” Anne said, eyes sparkling.

“In a manner of speaking. She actually carried me a lot, and nursed me whenever she had the chance,” Stacey said.

“Stacey!” Jack said, blushing.

“I meant, you know, nursing me back to health, like with care, and attention, silly Jack,” Stacey said, aiming the cleaver at Punch’s head, taking several slow, practice swings.

“Please do not do this. I was hoping that you would appear, I have been waiting for you,” the head babbled, very fast.

Jack was already feeling the effects of that voice. He mentally zipped the lips, and the zipper again appeared and closed the mouth. Without hands, the Puppet Master could not unzip his lips, but he strained against the closure, eyes bulging in the paper airplane face. Jack couldn’t help thinking of that first night, when Punch’s head was on the ground, and Judy lifted her skirts to sit upon it, daintily like Little Miss Muffet upon her tuffet, and he stifled a burble of laughter.

Stacey paused, holding the moment, the big cleaver up, and then he brought it down with terrible force, splitting the skull in the very middle. The mess lay there a moment wriggling with those terrible, slimy worms, and then Stacey cleared some of the mess away with the edge of the cleaver, until he had uncovered a glinting box in the very center of the mass.

“What in the world?” Jack said, peering, unable to look away, but feeling he might vomit, and he mentally soothed his stomach, bringing down a curtain of calm upon his body. Whew, that was better, and a very close moment or two.

“Don’t touch any of the brain goo, or the worms,” Stacey said, wedging the cleaver down into the mess and prying up the glinting metal box. It looked like gold. He looked about for a moment, until he saw the writhing body upon the floor. He leapt toward it, snatched a purple scarf from about the neck, and brought this back, placing the cloth over the box, and then he pulled the box out of the shattered skull and brains, and it made a terrible noise as wires pulled free of the flesh and goo. Ripping, fleshy, and wet. Stacey yanked the box free and slammed it down upon the slab. “Keep this with you, and whatever you do, don’t let him free. I think you should—”

But Stacey winked out of existence, his words hanging in space.

“Stacey!” Jack cried.

“He is gone, Jack, and we have to get out of here,” Anne said, looking about, expecting an attack of puppets. She had seen some terrible things in her days here, and she might never recover from some of the things that were done to her in her captivity, but her first and foremost desire was to keep Jack safe.

The body on the floor had stopped writhing and the shattered skull on the table was only that, even all traces of the surreal paper airplane were gone. It was just a ruined head, dead, with no trace of the hatred or wicked delight usually emanating. Without the box, it was over. And they perceived the terrible smell of rotting flesh, for the first time. It was overwhelming.

“I do not think I actually can vomit,” Anne said, “but I certainly feel like it.”

“What should we do with this thing?” Jack said, lifting up the box from where it had fallen when Stacey vanished.

“Use your magic, make a box,” Anne said.

Jack didn’t like for her to even think it was magic that he was doing, not even for a second. But he would have to explain, later. He produced a metal Faraday cage, almost the size of the golden box, and he slid the box inside and shut the door, and spun the little locking dials, setting the password. This new container he slipped into an inner coat pocket. Strange, when he slipped the box into the new box, it seemed that he had perceived tiny doors, and tiny windows, like a miniature...house. He mentally sealed his Faraday box. Nothing was coming out of there.

“That is too cool,” Anne said in wonder.

“Okay, Anne, let’s go,” he said, putting out an arm, which she immediately snatched in both her arms, hugging his biceps tight. She placed her head upon his shoulder. She could barely walk.

They went to the little set of steps leading down from the stage and Jack led her out of the theatre, calling up all his shadows and shells, enhancing their vision and sensors, decreasing their weight to aid in their passage. He experimented, putting some spring into their step. But they needed rest.

“Everything is going to be okay, now that we are together,” Jack said, moving them out between the silent rows of puppets. He half expected the creatures to leap at him. Passing Cyrano was a very bad few moments, but the puppet seemed lifeless.

“Oh, I am very weary, though tears no longer flow; my eyes are tired of weeping, my heart is sick of woe,” Anne whispered. “But I am so happy that Emily finally found her Heathcliff.”

“I love you,” Jack whispered.

“I love you,” she returned, shivering against him.

He led the way to the staircase leading up, and when he turned the handle, the door opened, and they crept between the two massive nutcracker soldiers that stood out front. The eyes did not follow them. None of the puppetry displayed any signs of life. Jack walked leaning upon his shillelagh, actually requiring the stick as a crutch, and Anne leaned against him. They were exhausted, expended, and felt sucked of almost all their life force.

They strode into a world full of sunshine, not even the fog was present. It looked like early morning, and it felt like Spring.

“Springtime time in Hawaii,” Jack said, smiling, remembering when all of this had begun in the park. Hawaii would always exist, somewhere, waiting.

“That sounds wonderful,” Anne replied, still shivering. “Some place warm, very warm.”

“You are my warmth,” Jack said, and she squeezed his arm, and they stumbled forward, into the Olde London of the Honey Moon.

Next Episode.

Vestigial Surreality: 41: Mad Hatter

episode FORTY-ONE

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Mad Hatter.

The soaring train travelled through several tunnels, ridiculous, absurd tunnels, many of them appearing more like giant hamster tubes than anything a steam locomotive should be speeding through, bellowing out massive plumes of the thickest steam-smoke, which smelled like a cross between pipe smoke—some cherry blend, with Cavendish—and slightly burned cotton candy. Seven folded in on herself. What they had just survived, it was a disaster. They thought they were coming here armed for bear, and the truth was they probably were, but they had bumped into a dragon instead of a bear. What a calamity, what a farce.

“This is not a pipe!” Mr. Dodgson bellowed, exuberantly, yanking the cord that blasted the shrieking whistle. “This is not a train! These are not tunnels!”

The puppet boy Pinocchio laughed and laughed, and Seven wondered what he was, exactly, a little boy made to look like a puppet, or a puppet somewhere in the middle of turning into a little boy? In this wacky world, the Honey Moon, there was just no way to say.

Punchinello had some kind of powerful interface with the entire simulation. He did not just have administrative control, but had somehow begun reprogramming reality as he saw fit. And apparently, he could do it on the fly, with panache; he probably was taking lessons from Cyrano. He was worlds beyond more powerful than any kind of control Seven had achieved, even with all her enhancements, including her hologram, walking, talking, database-minded Seventy-One, and their various assembled teams to back up their endeavor, their breaching of the Honey Moon, and ultimately High Vale. They were discovered. They were known. And now they were marked.

In one sense, they had achieved much, as they were here, deeply ensconced in Olde London Steampunk, many iterations further than they had hoped to make it on their first attempt, but in their clash with Punchinello they must have set off every conceivable alarm throughout the Honey Moon, all the way up to Lady Maulgraul’s current running version—the insect woman must know they were here, and she had proved mighty capable in messing with lives, altering reality, especially where Seven was concerned.

The shepherd, Titan, sat staring in a daze—he was still out of it, still trying to figure out what had happened back in Punchinello’s theatre. Somehow the Puppet Master had charmed, enchanted, and even hypnotized Titan, which meant that Punchinello had powers far beyond what any of them had imagined, and not even Titan, Kronoss, Aajeel, or even little Manda were safe.

“This is lovely!” shouted Mr. Dodgson. “I haven’t been out of the Looking Glass in many, many years. But I figured I ought to get out and do a little field work, see what the natives have been up to, and how they have messed things up! This is not my world, not really—oh, I have done plenty of contract work on the Honey Moon, plenty. But really, they have a whole creative team, working from the center of the world. Idiots, most of them, mixing literature with penny dreadful.”

“Where are we going!” Seven shouted, collecting a mouthful of the reeking steam-smoke.

“Somewhere safe, well, as safe as possible in this particular world. It would be safest if I took you to the Looking Glass, but then Lady Maulgraul would have complete jurisdiction over you, so we are going to hang back, and burrow in several iterations on the Honey Moon, and meet up with Mr. Aajeel.”

At some point in their harrowing journey, Manda had winked out of existence—Seven was really too exhausted to care, or wonder—but then ten minutes later she winked back in as if she was never gone.

“I am starting to come back online,” Charlotte said into Seven’s ear, as quietly as possible over the loud rush of the locomotive. “I finally am in communication with Seventy-One.”

“We were sucker-punched,” Seven said. “We never saw it coming. We were like lambs led to the slaughter.”

“Was that Stacey?” Charlotte queried, “the savior who appeared and diverted the puppet Cyrano?”

“That was him, I’m sure of it,” Seven said, “only he looked older, and massively scarred, missing an eye—some much older version of him sent here at exactly the right moment.”

“I did not see what happened, but it seemed that Cyrano was more than a match, I hope Stacey survived,” Charlotte said.

“Stacey vanished before we departed—apparently his purpose was to lead Cyrano away from us. Somehow he appeared right in the nick of time.”

“Maulgraul sent him,” Manda said in a listless voice, “she has been doing that for Jack, sending in Stacey as a last resort.

“This is fun! Fun, fun, fun!” shouted Pinocchio, and to tell the truth, it was more than evident that everyone was getting a little irritated by the puppet’s never-ending glee. Still, what could you do? He was a little boy, and who could say what kind of terrible life he had experienced prior to this current version of reality? Seven was glad—relieved—that Manda had brought him, rescuing the child, although she worried and thought with dread about the thousands of children they had been shown, the children milling in the vast cage—were they real? As real as Frankenstein and Tesla? Or were they some kind of puppet show trick of mirrors and smoke?

Seven glanced back and peered at the rushing tunnels—the constructs seemed to collapse and vanish moments after the train passed. Apparently this was some kind of code manipulation, and the mad conductor piloting the train was doing the manipulation. Creating and then only moments later uncreating passages through the world. Such a force of coding was far beyond anything Seven could hope to achieve. Yes, they had downloaded all manner of coding tools and compiling programs, all thought-activated and manipulated, but forcing Punchinello into a toy-soldier march was about the limits or her current abilities. She must get much more powerful, if she hoped to ever compete with such monsters as Lady Maulgraul, Puppet Master Punchinello, and this Mr. Dodgson at the front of the train.

Seven looked away from the vanishing tunnels behind them, and despite her unsettled stomach, she looked to and studied Manda. The little girl was holding hands with Pinocchio, and seemed depressed, and sad, and somewhat disconnected. She looked up and met Seven’s eyes.

“He almost got us,” Manda said, “all of us. I did not think such an early version of the Puppet Master would have such power.”

She thought of something terrible. Hopefully, it was only her imagination. But she could see Punchinello pushing himself into a squatting position, his head stripped of his face—somehow Manda had gouged out the Puppet Master’s face in a sliver of flesh, in a neat rectangle that included his eyes and nose, and most of his upper lip. She had an image of his head, that hole, and she could see a skull beneath the flesh, and winding tubes, wires, and what looked like crawling worms, fat leeches. And the Puppet Master was searching for them, with all his senses, with all his powers, his head cocked to the side, tracking their passage, as they moved through their opening and collapsing tunnels.

He could find them.

“Do not do that,” Manda said, speaking with some force.

“What?” Seven blurted, feeling guilty, but uncertain as to the real reason for the little girl’s admonition.

“Do not picture him in your mind and imagine what he is doing. Think of anything else, concentrate on Jack—send him happy thoughts.”

“Happy thoughts? Really?”

“Yes,” Manda said, “Jack needs happy thoughts. Lots and lots of happy thoughts.”

“Weeeeeeeee!” Pinocchio shrieked, bouncing on his seat.

Seven rolled her eyes, turning back to face forward, taking Charlotte’s cold hand, and concentrated on sending Jack some...happy thoughts, but it was difficult, because Seven rarely thought happy thoughts, and was not too adept in producing them from thin air. Did these thoughts actually accomplish anything? Well, if Manda was saying she should do it, she would do it, because Manda should know what was possible in reality, since as she told Punchinello, all reality was happening inside of her.

Yet, in the back of her mind, the dread pooled. Her anxiety and dread were palpable, seething, like acid, splashing up inside her chest, oozing down like slime into her lower body. She felt Punchinello’s searching gaze, like the Eye of Sauron, seeking them. She forced herself to stop thinking of the Puppet Master, and concentrate on Jack. She remembered their horseback riding, racing up and down the Dulance Estates, in that golden world of High Vale. Those were some happy thoughts. She sent them to Jack. The exhilaration, the pounding hooves, the wind in their faces, the colors—the unbelievable colors of High Vale. Yes, those were some happy thoughts. And then, despite herself, she remembered leaping off her horse and running to the tall man, seizing him, practically lifting him off his feet, and kissing him, kissing Stacey, and nearly exploding with the pleasure of it. It was the first time in this reality that she had ever kissed another person. Mouth to mouth. A kiss. A greedy, intoxicating kiss. Wonderful. She did not send this thought to Jack, but instead clasped it and held it to her heart, greedily. This was her happy thought, only hers.

“Almost there!” Mr. Dodgson called in his loud and best train conductor’s voice. The chubby little hobbit certainly seemed to be enjoying himself, his face flushed and smiling, as he busied himself in the little train’s engine, shoveling coal, adjusting dials, pulling levers, turning cranks.

Seven realized that the little train itself was their escape portal—a portal in constant motion, like a fighter pilot eluding the killer plane on his tail—and Mr. Dodgson was manipulating the code via the train, and when she concentrated, and really looked at the flow of code, she could almost see the unbelievably advanced code compliers at work, instantly leaping to obey every little turn of mind, as Mr. Dodgson steered them through the Honey Moon, coding on the fly. It still felt like flying, or the wild undulations of the most unbelievably slick-fast roller coaster ever dreamed, winding, spinning, loop-de-looping, rising and falling, snapping like a whip, and if this went on much longer, she would be dry-retching into her lap. Beside her, Charlotte looked pale and haunted, faring no better than Seven. Only Mr. Dodgson and Pinocchio seemed to be enjoying the best of all times.

“Oops!” Mr. Dodgson called, good naturedly, and the train went into a roll, and Seven gasped as Charlotte seized her in a hug, and for a moment she was sure they were going to tumble out of the train car, as they spiraled side over side, and then fully righted, speeding on merrily.

“What was that all about?” Seven shouted, not really wanting to know.

“We almost ploughed through a city of Morlocks!” Mr. Dodgson cried in delight. “That would not have been a good thing! Not good at all. Out of the frying pan and into the fire, so to speak! Blood rituals, cannibalism, slavery, oh, such wonderfully dark stuff. But it is none of mine, none of mine.”

The train leveled off and shot forward, the tunnel about them opening and closing, just a streak of rock and dirt with little or no detail, and they were pressed back into their seats, streaking forward, the train whistle shrieking, and then they were rocketing out into open air, with sky, and stars, and a slim glimpse of the Story Moon, mostly eclipsed by the Honey Moon, they were now on the far side of the world, as far away from High Vale as possible in this stream of reality. Seven nearly screamed as they continued to rocket up, as bursts of steam jetted from the rockets on the caboose, flaring out behind the train, and they streaked up into the sky, the gravity forces pulling at their flesh, yanking them backward as they continued upward, toward twinkling stars.

“Weeeeeeee!” Pinocchio cried, sounding half terrified and entirely delighted.

Then Seven glimpsed an odd sight before them, it looked like the contrivance from that old movie, a half-completed satellite hanging out in space—the Death Star, from Star Wars, only this dump was not nearly as impressive as that work of extravagant imagination. No, this looked like a partially constructed ball of girders and scaffolding, with some completed inner structure, but mostly the thing was like a big cage built for paper-mache, only the builders had run out of soggy paper and glue.

“There it is!” Mr. Dodgson cried. “The Hunter’s Lodge, never completed, but thankfully, out here on the edge of the atmosphere, there is no rot, the place should be as good as new, and completely deserted, well, aside from the odd flying monkey or two, but their flocks have sadly diminished since the flying-monkey hunt replaced the fox hunt.”

Seven did not care where they went, she only knew that she needed to stretch out, and rest. She wanted sleep, and forgetfulness. Yes, sleep, real sleep. Supposedly they were going to a place with Vestigial Surreality chambers, but she did not wish to Voyage, not in her Inner Sanctum, or any false consciousness. She needed to truly conk out, sleep for at least ten hours, possibly more.

The train seemed to reach the peak of its trajectory, and Seven felt a terrible plunge in her belly as gravity seized at them, the steam rockets giving up the ghost, the train leveling out and began to fall, and she nearly shrieked, but suddenly, train track appeared out in the middle of the sky, and the wheels of the train lightly touched down upon the tracks, sending up a cascade of sparks.

“From the ground, we look like a falling star—children are probably wishing upon us, even now! Children, and prostitutes!” Mr. Dodgson cried.

The sparks shot out in a great rooster tail of light, and as Mr. Dodgson applied the brakes, sparks increased all along the length of the train, but it appeared they approached the Hunter’s Lodge too swiftly, and Seven braced herself for a collision as all that towering, hunkering metal rushed upon them—Charlotte tucked her head down and whimpered. Titan and Manda sat listlessly, staring.

Pinocchio cried: “WEEEEEEEEEE!”

Doors slid apart at their approach and they plunged inside the Hunter’s Lodge and the train slowed as all went black, metal upon metal screeching, emitting a new shower of sparks that erupted in a rainbow-flare of colors, lighting up the inside of the Hunter’s Lodge. It looked like a deserted factory in here, lit only by the shower of sparks, and Seven, huddling in her seat clasping Charlotte, felt she had never seen a vast space so devoid of personality and life.

“Here we are, all safe and sound, with absolutely no chance of anyone reaching us from the Honey Moon, unless, of course, we invite them!” Mr. Dodgson laughed, leaping with spry athleticism from the train. “Please keep all limbs inside the train until all movement has ceased!”

Mr. Dodgson tripped and fell and went end over end in what looked like a stuntman’s sprawl, but the tumble turned into a cartwheeling acrobatic wonder, as the sparks diminished, and all went dark again.

“I have not been here in more than a thousand years,” Mr. Dodgson said, and they heard him slap his hands together and rub them vigorously. “Lights!”

The vast hangar-like space slowly illuminated from all about.

“Thank you Mr. Tesla,” Mr. Dodgson said, standing and beckoning to them.

Lights continued to blossom and Seven finally saw rows and rows of miniature Tesla coils all about the ceiling and floor.

“Shall I take you on the full tour, what say?” Mr. Dodgson cried exuberantly, slapping his hands together and grinning at them as they climbed wearily from the train.

“Rest, sleep,” murmured Seven, bracing Charlotte, or perhaps Charlotte was bracing her, but they stumbled together past Mr. Dodgson.

“Oh yes, quite right, biologicals, and rest, let me show you to your accommodations,” he said, bursting with gusto, albeit a tad discouraged that the party was not up for his tour.

Titan lumbered behind the group, quiet, his head down.

Pinocchio jumped and leaped about, tugging on Manda’s hand. The little girl sighed and allowed herself to be pulled along.

They entered a long hallway, which appeared to be that of a luxury apartment house, with very real looking plants, well-tended and green, and nary a trace of dust—this was space, after all. Seven figured they must have some kind of robot attendants keeping the place up.

“We have all the amenities, you can order room service from your bed, anything your little hearts are set on, tea, cocoa, whiskey, ice-cream sundaes, rare steak, pork rinds, coffee of every flavor and denomination, mosquito netting, lemonade, hard lemonade, french fries, as well as any magazine or book for light reading or study. I’ve readied a suite of rooms in our penthouse, so you can have all the privacy you desire, or you can meet in the common rooms where there is television, radio, music players, games, pinball, and exercise equipment. Plus more, oodles more I can assure you.”

The man just could not refrain from talking. For such a little fellow, he had a mouth worthy of an auctioneer on too much coffee and other narcotics.

“Will you be staying with us, Miss Manda—I must say, it is truly an honor to host such an exalted visitor such as yourself. You too, Miss Newbury. The both of you, and a shepherd, well, well, well—albeit the lowly muscle of the bunch—and at the same time, to have you all here. Miss Brontë, could to see you again my dear. Never could we hope for an assemblage such as this!”

Seven rolled her eyes, stifling a yawn. They tread down the long, wood-paneled hallway to a broad set of elevators. She did a brief count, there were ten separate elevators, and off to the side she spotted an escalator ascending to what appeared to be offices and a visitors center.

“You are certain we cannot be tracked here?” Seven inquired.

“Positive! This establishment exists apart from the Honey Moon, or the Story Moon, for that matter, and is completely invisible from the planet’s surface.” He inserted a key in the most magnificent of the elevator doors, all glimmering gold, and punched the button labeled Penthouse. “We timed it such that the Hunter’s Lodge never passes close to the Story Moon, and is always hidden behind the Honey Moon during the Sisters’ Congress. It is not visible to telescopes or even radar, if such a thing existed in this reality, which it does not.”

“I am strangely exhausted,” Titan said, flexing his hands, shaking his head.

“Oh, Punchinello has become extremely dangerous,” Mr. Dodgson said, glowering at them all from beneath his shaggy white eyebrows. “I did not relish entering his domain, I can assure you. If not for the cooperation of such extremely powerful and disparate entities, I am afraid none of us would have escaped that theatre, he has constructed it too well, and his abilities are both exceptional, and considerable.”

“Yes, I think I will stay, for a bit,” Manda said, answering an earlier question.

Mr. Dodgson blinked at her for a moment or two, his eyes rolling in his head, until he suddenly arrived at an explanation, and he smiled, and bowed extravagantly.

“Can I push a button?” Pinocchio queried, staring shyly at Mr. Dodgson. They were of about equal height, although the puppet was exceptionally thin, and Mr. Dodgson was not.

“Be my guest, my good man,” Mr. Dodgson said, bowing to the puppet, although the top button was already glowing.

Pinocchio immediately began pushing all the buttons, gleefully giggling as his pointy fingers punched up thirty-one buttons.

Everyone sighed, Seven shaking her head, Charlotte gritting her teeth, but Titan only grinned. Children would be children, even puppets. Manda stood, staring, no emotion showing.

“No worries, I have the override key!” Mr. Dodgson snorted, dangling the golden key, and poked Pinocchio in the belly. The puppet giggled and started beating at the doors with his white-gloved fists.

The doors of the elevator opened with a swishing sound that had to be borrowed from an old television series about space and spaceships, and the party entered. Mr. Dodgson fitted his old-fashioned skeleton key into the interior panel, twisted it three times, and then removed the key and returned it to his vest pocket. Thankfully, the elevator whisked upward, although there was not much sensation of movement, and they flashed past all the floors that Pinocchio had punched. Within moments they arrived on the thirty-second floor, and the party piled out of the elevator.

Mr. Dodgson directed them to their rooms, with Seven and Charlotte electing to share a room. Each room provided a VS Voyager chamber, as well as a traditional bed, with small, attached bathroom. And then Mr. Dodgson babbled on and on, extolling the virtues of the memory fiber mattress, the clean running water, the new technology of the VS chambers, and etc., and etc., until Seven gently closed the door in his face. She took a shower, and then donning her black sweats (provided by Mr. Dodgson), she climbed into the bed (she did not even consider using the VS chamber), and fell into sleep. She woke a few hours later, surprised to find Charlotte cuddled up close, sleeping, and gently snoring—she was confused for a few moments, as she understood that as an automaton, Charlotte required no sleep, but something had happened in that theatre, Punchinello’s strange world. Charlotte was very different, and shaken to her synthetic core. Seven fell back into a deep sleep, comforted by Charlotte’s close presence, and slept for more than twelve hours, and thankfully was devoid of dreams.

 Mr. Dodgson sat in his miniature chamber, a room he built and structured specifically to his own size and dimensions, and he had it protected and shielded, in all the most high-tech methods, generations beyond any technology that Punchinello could produce in his theatre—magnets! Copper latticework! Antennae and lightning rods! While it was true, the scientist Nikola Tesla worked via lateral thought, so many of his ideas, while running on very different tracks, often arrived at the same destination, despite the vast differences in time and technology, and so Punchinello did possess quite a stronghold, as the inventor provided the Master Puppeteer inventions, made to order, and aimed in a specific direction. Victor Frankenstein made his own contribution along the way, although more in the direction of animating the dead, for the purpose of the creation of a new kind of puppets.

Sipping his tea, Mr. Dodgson flirted in his own head with bringing a template automaton of Nikola Tesla, here, to the Hunter’s Lodge. Let this be the inventor’s own private laboratory, playground, and sandbox. What might the man produce? He could even bring a template version of Victor Frankenstein and Thomas Edison, to work as Tesla’s assistants. It was an idea, and he could keep it all strictly off the books. Let it be a game, just to see what advanced technology Tesla might devise.

But for now, from this shielded alcove, it was time to talk, perhaps dicker, and possibly even shake hands with the devil. Oh, not literally, but it was best to keep one’s options open, after all, he was involved in an almost good relationship with the Lady Maulgraul, and she was certainly a monster—not the devil, mind you. But the creature had power, true power. And Punchinello, he was the only counterbalance to that power.

In the long run, Mr. Dodgson would run with Manda, that was a certainty, as she had the best chances for long-term survival. She was the future, after all—that is, if she did not take stupid chances as she did today. Because it had been close. They were all lucky. It could have ended today. Punchinello might have taken control of Vestigial Surreality, and become its mad emperor.

They had impeded Monsignor Punchinello. They had actually hurt him. And they had all played their parts. Manda had done the most, attacking the Puppet Master, and Seven had played some part in figuratively tying his hands, while Lady Maulgraul had sent the Pugilist, to run interference with Punchinello’s most dangerous puppet. And Mr. Dodgson had provided the transportation in their escape. Remove any one of those elements, and everything would have played out differently.

But the truth was, today Manda could have lost all her personality, all her reasoning ability, if Punchinello had squeezed a little harder, and attacked more ruthlessly. The world could be a different place. She would have become a mindless system, a non-thinking program, still vast and powerful, but following set protocols, structured programming. As it was, with this victory, Manda was still able to call, if not all the shots, at least ninety percent of the shots. And Mr. Dodgson was aware that there was a powerful element working against Manda, actually throwing in with Punchinello to bring powers to bear upon Manda.

The Martians, they were a force, and they considered Manda as much a fluke in the code as was Stacey. The Martians wished to eliminate Manda, and if she were not more careful, they would probably succeed.

At the moment, at this point in history, Manda could probably find a means of eliminating Punchinello, like a cancer. But the thing about cancer was that it generally did not sit around gloating, counting its money, and enjoying its own image in the mirror—no, it went out and evangelized, it never slept in spreading its own version of the good news, creating followers wherever it went, establishing cells, digging deep in the conspiracy, and beyond a certain point, it became difficult to cut away the cancer without debilitating the entire body. At some point, Manda would discover that attacking Punchinello was in fact attacking herself. And Mr. Dodgson doubted, very much, that Manda understood these facts. In many ways, she really was a child. An innocent. She was the most spectacular man-made creation in the history of the world, a true consciousness above and far surpassing the humanity that set her creation in motion.

Truly, humanity had not created Manda, but they had set the snowball rolling, and she had gathered herself into herself until she had become a new thing, only after thousands of years, and today, all of that providence could have concluded. And then, if the plentitude of failsafes worked, it would have been a Grand Scroll, and if that did not work, then would come full Reboot.

Mr. Dodgson figured so much of this could be handled by someone who understood the art of negotiation, who understood that it took all kinds, that dark and light were required, and that diversity was better than homogeneity. He checked his safeguards, squared his waistcoat, and placed his most outlandish hat upon his head. Then he cued the mirror array.

“I did not expect word from you this soon, Betrayer,” Punchinello said, standing about the height of child’s doll, in other words about half the height of Mr. Dodgson.

“Come now, Punch, that was not betrayal. We have never chosen sides, you and I, but have accomplished the best that we can, with the tools at hand,” Mr. Dodgson said, smoothly, smiling at the image of Punchinello.

“If you had not complied with Lady M’s wishes, I would have succeeded in not only trapping the Mother, but also the Daughter,” Punchinello said, crossing his muscular arms over his powerful chest.

“My word, what happened to your face?” Mr. Dodgson said, his eyebrows drawing together up near his outlandish hat. “It looks like you cut yourself shaving, that is, if you decided to shave your eyes and nose!”

“It was the Daughter that did this to me, she left her mark upon me, for all time. I had almost forgotten where my mishap originated, but never mind, I will make the most of it. It shall be my most theatrical aspect.”

The face was patched together, the rectangle of flesh recovered and pasted into place. It was a good thing that Seven had thrown the macabre trophy out of the train car as early as she had done, otherwise Punchinello must result to stealing the idea of the Frenchman, the Phantom of the Opera, and masks did not suit such a handsome man. Oh, yes, now he would wear a mask, but only to produce the true shock when he removed the mask, exposing his new infirmity, and then, ah, the piece de resistance! He would remove the rectangle and expose what was beneath. That would rip the rubes, the suckers, the fools.

“Make your weaknesses your strength, my good man, indeed.”

“I have learned from my best puppet, Cyrano. In my weakness, I am strong.”

“Sounds like the Bible to me, dear man,” Mr. Dodgson said, wagging his eyebrows, and tutting.

“When I am finished with all the worlds, what is left shall be Biblical in proportions, indeed. I will teach all of you of apocalypse. I will be the one to usher in Armageddon.”

“Ah dear, bragging, why must you always result to bragging, Monsieur Punch?”

“Monsignor Punchinello!”

“Ah yes, the Italian. Hail Caesar and all that. Which reminds me, I have a little boy, Pine Tree? No, that’s not it, um, is it Pine Cone? No, I am sure that is not it, but I have a little boy here that used to be a puppet.”

“I have seen your photographs, Mad Hatter, I know what you are.”

“That is art. Nothing but art.”

“And I want my Pinocchio returned. That will remove a portion of your debt to me, not all of it, but a small portion. For you, dear Mad Hatter, that would be an excellent start. And trust me, you do not wish that little puppet loose in your...lodge.”

“No, I do not think so. He seemed very happy to leave your little puppet show.”

“We are all puppets, Mad Hatter, all of us. But I am the Puppet Master.”

“Bragging.”

“I will find you in your...Hunting Lodge, is it? Yes, I will find you, my dear,” Punchinello said, smiling a truly chilling smile.

Mr. Dodgson shuddered.

“So you’ve heard of it, have you, what did you call it? Hunting Lodge?” Mr. Dodgson said, smiling, sipping at his tea.

“I will not pretend to know all the details, even the location, But rest assured, Mad Hatter, I will find you. And then I will reach you. I have already tracked you through the Honey Moon, and many witnesses saw what they called a...rising star.”

“My word, Punch, are you trying to frighten me?”

“Remember, Mad Hatter, I enabled a saucer to lift away from the Honey Moon, cross the Story Moon, and carry quite a large cargo to that silly little fantasy land.”

“Oh? And how did that work out for you?”

“Do not be silly. That was not my project. The cargo was none of my business. But believe it, I enabled that saucer to cross into another world.”

“I doubt you had as much to do with it as our poor, emaciated scientist, Nikola Tesla?”

“The point is, I know who to contract with, and Nikola Tesla and others will help me reach up to your Hunting Lodge. Believe it.”

“You have bragged to me just now that you enabled a saucer to cross worlds, but then admitted that it was in fact the scientist Tesla. If you must brag, stick with the brag, otherwise you are just repulsively wishy washy.”

The little figure of Punchinello strode out of the mirrors and stood a mere few feet from the portly Mad Hatter. The little monster snatched the patch of face out of his skull and hurled it at the Mad Hatter, whose eyes bulged. This was not possible. He did not know how he did it, but Punch had somehow hijacked the mirror array. His image should have been constrained to the mirror, but here was the proof in the display, Punchinello had power. It was just an image, but Punch had made the image do something that it was not supposed to do. In short, although it was accomplished through some form of occult technology, technically speaking it was magic, at least until Mr. Dodgson learned how he did it.

Mr. Dodgson huffed and snapped his fingers. The little Punch figure vanished.

He fell back in his chair, exhausted. What had he been thinking? Playing with the devil like that, you should not be surprised if you came away smelling like brimstone. With burned fingers, to boot. And a pitchfork in the nether works.

He still believed that the Hunter’s Lodge was unassailable, and hidden, unreachable. But he would begin installing more safeguards, more security, and possibly bring over a few automatons from the Looking Glass, the ones especially trained in the martial arts.

“You have been naughty!” cried a child’s voice, and Mr. Dodgson whirled, spilling his tea, as his hands flew to his heart. It was the puppet, Pinocchio.

“How did you get in here, you naughty boy?” Mr. Dodgson cried.

“Oh, I am an enterprising young man, you crazy old hatter!” Pinocchio cried, and Mr. Dodgson noticed that Pinocchio’s nose had not changed in length. It was weird, but first he appeared more puppet than boy, and then suddenly he was more boy than puppet, but worse than these two contradictions, the child seemed entirely...evil.

Mr. Dodgson stood to his feet and seized the butter knife, which was entirely silly, at least as a weapon.

“Do not worry,” the little boy said, “I am your friend, and I will not harm you.”

Mr. Dodgson’s eyes widened, as he witnessed Pinocchio’s nose extending in length.

Next Episode.