Vestigial Surreality: 42: Fever Visitations

episode FORTY-TWO

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Fever Visitations.

From somewhere far away flowed the music of a scream, long and distended, echoing, at first sounding like the howling of a dog, but then the wail opened up, and could only be produced by a mouth fully open, fully wide, with the tongue withdrawn in pain—definitely human, and while first the scream of a man or a woman sounds the same, this, toward the end, became the certain scream of horror and pain, produced by a man. The scream descended, the tone sinking lower and lower, into the bass range. And then it was over, the scream cut off. The squatting man cocked his head, listening. He expected the scream to pick up again, because it seemed as if the scream had been going on forever. This place, this dark place, seemed somehow empty without that terrible scream.

“Really nice place you have here, Jack,” Stacey said to the shape huddled in the corner of the cage. He did not know how he had come here, or where they were, but he understood, almost immediately, that he and Jack were together. This must be a dream, he thought. But then again, he knew this was not a dream, not exactly, because he had been here, and often. This was a real place, not something just happening in his mind.

“Is that you, Stacey?” the huddled shape in the corner whispered.

“It’s me, Jack. Are you okay?” Stacey said, peering, desiring to go to him, the boy he thought of as his son. His limbs would not move. He was stuck in this squatting position, but at least it was not an uncomfortable position, because he could not really feel anything, not temperature, not fatigue, not fear—it was the Dream Place, again, and as only once before, it was the Deep of the Dream Place. This was not just a dream or a nightmare. This was a very real place, and while you might not travel to it in any conventional sense, you were actually here, while your sleeping body was where it physically slept.

“I don’t know, I can’t feel anything,” Jack replied after several moments.

Stacey could tell that the young man was drifting in and out consciousness, talking in his sleep. It was not that, sleep talking, not exactly, but it seemed a piece of Jack’s mind was drifting, and speaking, detached from reality, or at least from the reality of this dark place. If he could only go to him, put his arms about the kid—this was not fair, why was he stuck, unable to move?

“Have you been to the puppet show?” Jack said, smiling, Stacey could feel the smile in the dark—that was nice, he could actually feel the emanations of the smile. A smile was seemingly something more than just the flexing of certain muscles around the mouth. Some kind of power generated and flowed, an energy, as alive and as real as electricity.

Stacey smiled, thinking of Jack. Was there ever a time the kid wasn’t smiling? And he almost laughed, thinking of Jack’s smile, and suddenly he felt that he could move. He flexed his hands. He was wearing his fingerless snake gloves, and he had his shillelagh in his left hand—Stacey remembered something about that, a dark monk gifting him with dream versions of his High Vale gear. Or was that just a dream? It didn’t matter, because suddenly he could move, and he crept toward the dim shape of Jack, huddled in the corner.

“Puppet show?” Stacey said, trying to draw Jack out in his sleep talking, as everyone always does when someone starts spouting off in their sleep, finding it intensely amusing. Come on, what was so funny about it, talking in your sleep? But Stacey wished to keep Jack in that smiling state, which somehow enabled Stacey to move in the dark.

This was a very dark place. Now, Stacey felt the fear swirling about, slowly, like fog, suffusing the atmosphere.

“Stupid Punch,” Jack mumbled, “his head was on the ground, and his eyes were rolling up, terrified, you should have seen it, and Judy was going to sit on his head like it was a stool. It was very gross. Judy lifted up her skirt, like a lady, and that head gaped, terrified—you should have heard the people! They laughed, and laughed. I don’t think I was laughing, not then, but now, thinking about it, it’s funny!”

Stacey reached out, half afraid to touch Jack—what if the figure collapsed into an empty pile of clothes? But then he did, he reached out and tentatively prodded what felt like a shoulder, and then he relaxed a bit and moved his hand up and around and felt the back of Jack’s neck, such a young neck, alive and strong, and he felt warmth flood up from that hand, and only then did he realize how cold it was in this place.

“Weird, I can feel something on my neck, it’s like something is touching me. I know I’m only dreaming, but it feels like the hand of my son,” Jack said, murmuring, voice strange and drifting. “It will probably turn out to be a spider, one of the big ones, all hairy.”

“It’s me, Jack, it’s Stacey,” Stacey said, moving in close. It felt like he was moving under dark waters, slow, clouded, drifting, but the closer he came to Jack, getting his arm around behind his neck, cuddling his body in close to the boy’s body, the more he felt a flood of comfort, a wash of peace, and there was real warmth made between them. Stacey cuddled in, clasping Jack in his arms, and Jack turned in his sleep, cuddling in close, burying his face in Stacey’s chest.

“Are we dead?” Jack breathed.

Those words—are we dead—the room grew increasingly frigid, Stacey was certain ice particles drifted in the air. A dread force of coldness pressed into them, bearing down, and only their clutching heat kept them attached, they were the small campfire in the blizzard.

“No, we are not dead,” Stacey said, his mind feeling clearer. It was always like thinking through mud, in this place, in this dark, deep place, the Dream Place. He blinked about, eyes rolling, trying to see. He thought he saw shapes emerging in the dark, but could not discern if they were in his mind, or were really there, taking on definition, becoming clear. He thought he saw an old-fashioned rocking horse, the big kind, on springs. And some kind of doll stood in the corner, was it a clown? A toy soldier? Stacey experimented, closing his eyes, and he could still just barely see those shapes, so they must be only in his imagination. They were there, the clown doll, creepy, and the toy soldier, standing on one leg, and the ragged little teddy bear with one eye.

“Alive,” Jack said, murmuring, barely awake. “That’s good. Because I have to stop Punch. Took Anne, Stacey, he took Anne. Stole her away from me. Anne is gone. Stacey is gone.”

“Anne?” Stacey said. Did he know an Anne? It sounded familiar.

Jack smiled again, big, Stacey felt it like a pine cone alighting, a small, intense fire flaring between them.

“Is Anne your girlfriend?” Stacey asked, desiring to keep Jack smiling, as the pleasant mood seemed to push back the coldness, and the darkness too, because as he spoke about Anne, those dark, somehow threatening shapes in the darkness retreated—or at least it seemed like the toy soldier was less real, the rocking horse on springs, the teddy bear, the broken ballerina, the bouncy ball that looked like a human head.

“Yes, Anne is my love, my Beloved, but we had so little time together, she waited for me for so long, and then Punch took her. I think Punch took everything. He took Stacey, and Michael, and Joshua, and Six, Varra—I think he took Seven, I thought I felt her move past this cage. Is Seven out there, I was sure I heard her voice, like an echo. Did you hear that?”

“Jack, Jack, I’m here, it’s Stacey, Papa’s here,” Stacey said, his eyes blossoming with moisture. He squeezed Jack in his arms.

“You’re not here, not really,” Jack said.

“Can you feel me? These are my arms. I’m hugging you, Jack,” Stacey said, tears trickling down his cheeks.

“Yes, I’m dreaming, you are here, I wish you were here, Stacey, I don’t know where everyone is. I wanted an adventure, and I ended up completely leaving High Vale. I didn’t mean to. Kronoss, and Old Ben. Manda, too. And then Anne. I guess I’m happy, otherwise I wouldn’t have found Anne, or she found me. We found each other, finally, for the first time, all over again, you know about the cycles? The Grand Cycles, the scrolls, have they told you about them, the repeating. Anne. Oh, clenching, I never knew about that, I never even thought about it, you know. Should I feel guilty about that? There’s no one to talk to. I guess it’s kind of embarrassing, although that’s how she pulled me in, she said it would take too long if we left it up to me, and boy is that true.”

As Jack babbled, this place seemed less dark, and Stacey could not catch sight of any of those insidious toys—now that they were not here, Stacey realized just how threatening they had been, the toys, the angry, creepy toys, creeping forward, every time you looked away they got a little closer. He saw uprights, some kind of pillars, or poles, and slowly he discerned that they were in a large cage, with bars, thick bars. It looked like an old-fashioned iron cage, something big enough to hold several people.

Stacey startled, as he perceived the shape lying near them. Someone was huddled into a fetal ball, someone that looked beaten, battered, sleeping a deep and desperate sleep.

“You would have been proud of me, Stacey. I did learn, those things you showed me, the bam, and the boom. Left hand, bam, and then right hand, boom. You should have seen me, Stacey, bam bam BOOM. I knocked down that thug. I was blocking punches and everything. You should have seen me, Stacey, I was protecting my woman, and it felt good. Those knuckles helped, of course, Anne showed me. They were like bionic, or something. But I could box, just like you showed me. I wish Stacey had been there.”

“I’m here with you, Jack,” Stacey said, soothing, squeezing the kid, but his eyes kept straying back to that battered figure, sleeping on the floor.

“I know, I know, what a rip-off, you’re here, right, like in my heart, you know, how they always say. He’s dead, but he will always live in my heart. A memory, like that’s real or something. I gotta say, that really pisses me off! That’s just so cheap, it’s what everyone says, and it’s just not fair. I just met my son, and I found the girl of my dreams, and now I’m in a cage, and Punchinello is going to turn me into a freaking puppet.”

Stacey laughed. It was just so funny, to witness Jack grow angry in his sleep. It was like a drunk, making a speech!

“You laughing at me?” Jack said, and for a moment, it seemed to him that he had come awake, he was lying here, on the cold floor, dreaming about his son, Stacey. He was sure that Stacey was dead, somewhere in High Vale, probably killed by those leopard shadows, the gray shapes, with the dark shadowy spots. Was that real, or something he had dreamed? A window, opening up, and seeing Stacey running through the trees? That had happened, in that outdoor restaurant, right? Old Ben was there, and Manda, and they had encouraged him. Wasn’t there something else? Hadn’t Old Ben touched him, or was that a different dream? Hadn’t Old Ben reached across the shoulder and touched him on the elbow, making a little spark there? He seemed to remember a shock, or a pinch, and then his arm had tingled.

What had he been dreaming? That Stacey had visited him. Wasn’t that Stacey that he had just been talking to? Wasn’t that Stacey, hugging him, keeping him warm? That would be nice, to dream about Stacey, he missed him so much. But no, he was still here, in this cage. Alone, cold, and bloody. Jack groaned, and huddled closer into a ball, and slept.

Stacey drifted, lost for a few moments, the air growing cold, and it felt like he was twisting and turning up into the air, all gravity gone, and for a few terrible moments he forgot Jack, he forgot the cage, and he shivered, terribly cold. Someone moved near him. Jack?

“You are fine, Stacey, it is just a fever,” a woman said, close to his ear—who was that? Seven? No, Mom? Mom! He was sick, home from school, and Mom was close, reading him a story.

“He is in the other world right now, and we might lose him, if he cannot find his way back,” a little voice chittered, and Stacey thought he remembered that little voice, it was a cartoon, or no, what was it, a little animal man, was it Michael? That couldn’t be real, not if he was a little boy, in bed, not going to school today because of pneumonia, or did Mom call it ammonia? Yes, she always got those two words wrong, and she thought her kid had ammonia. She even said it to people, and Stacey was always so embarrassed.

“Give him more light,” the female voice said—was it Mom, or Seven? No, Emily? Was he dreaming about Wuthering Heights? That would be weird. Cathy! Cathy! He was running through the snow, searching for Cathy. She was just at the window. Her ghost. Or was that Seven, the Ghost Lady? She opened a window in the back of Joshua’s truck, and it looked like she was doing sign language, her hands moving about on an invisible tablet.

“I cannot produce more light, not until morning when I can absorb the sunlight, I fed him all the light.”

“He is not the Pugilist,” a new voice said, a sneering voice. “Let him die. He is just a pretender.”

“Would you get out of here, Whitey? We do not need your stupidity,” the female voice said. It was Emily. Yes, Emily.

“I agree with Whitey—I am sorry, I mean I agree with the White Pugilist, this is the pretender. Whether he survives or not is not important. Because if he lives, we will have to kill him, as there is not room enough for three of us.”

“One of us, Black Pugilist, one of us, for after we kill him, I must kill you. There can be only one.”

“Knock it off,” chittered the angry little voice of the meerkat man, Michael. “Go back by the fire, both of you. Leave us be.”

“You obey little man!” a new gruff voice exploded, a voice that sounded too high up, too deep, it was the giant, the crooden warrior.

“We will comply,” two identical voices said as one. Then they said, together: “Stop copying me! Stop that! No, you stop that.” The voices, twins, continued, but drifted away, still arguing.

It was like a comedy routine. Stacey did not understand what any of it meant. Emily Brontë, and Cathy in the snow somewhere, and Michael chittering angrily, and the giant he had clobbered in the forehead, and two of his own voices arguing—this must be a wicked fever dream. He always experienced these when he was sick with a hot fever. But where were the bells? Usually he heard bells. Ah, here they came, bells everywhere, damn it, he hated those bells, but at least they were familiar, unlike all the rest of the nightmare.

Jack turned on the cold floor. He was only half awake. He was still dreaming. He could see a campfire, and a beautiful woman wrapped about someone huddled in blankets—for a second he thought it was Anne, and he almost cried out to her, but then he saw that it was not his Anne, but only a young woman—another automaton like Anne—but she certainly resembled Anne, but with long hair, and she was thinner, longer, or taller. There was Michael, dear little Michael in his meerkat body, gripping his little animal fists. And there was another man, for a startling moment he thought it was one of the Men from Mars, except this guy had a big honking nose, and the beginnings of a beard. And the giant was there, only he looked different, he looked somehow...kindly. He was crouching low, looking over Michael’s shoulder.

Jack opened his eyes. The campfire and the strange group, all of it, was gone. He was alone, here in the iron cage, his body scabbed and seeping blood. He moaned. He wished he could remain in the dreams, for at least they were not here. He tightened, someone else was close, right now, here, someone else was really here, he felt the arms about him. Weird, he was lying on the floor, huddled into a ball, and yet he was sitting against someone, their arms about him. He was split in two. And he felt both realities at the same time.

“Who is it?” Jack murmured.

“Me,” a voice said, a deep voice—he recognized it, that voice. Stacey!

“Stacey!” he said.

“Jack,” the voice returned.

“I was just dreaming about you. You were with Michael, and someone that looked like Anne. And there was a little man, like one of the Men from Mars, only not. And the giant was there.”

“The girl. That’s Emily, her sister.”

“Awesome. Emily and Anne. I wonder if Charlotte figures in somewhere too?”

“We are back again, in the Dream Place,” Stacey said.

“I feel you,” Jack said.

“Yes, we are here, together,” Stacey said. “We slipped out, I saw the people around the campfire.”

“I saw them, too.”

“But we’re back, Jack. We’re back.”

“I don’t understand,” Jack murmured, keeping his voice low. He did not want to wake himself. That would be terrible. To be alone, again, in the iron cage, huddled on the cold floor.

“I am in High Vale, with Emily,” Stacey said. “I think I’m dying. My wife, Maully, tried to kill me, if you can believe it. I was going to be with her, and she smashed me in the head with a door.”

“That makes no sense, whatsoever,” Jack said, grinning.

“I know, right?” Stacey said, and Jack could feel his smile. It was warm in the dark.

“Oh Stacey, I’ve missed you,” Jack said. “I went on an adventure, and now I’m in a different world.”

“I’ve missed you, too,” Stacey said, and Jack could feel him hugging him about the chest.

“Stacey, this might come as a surprise to you, but I found out, Old Ben told me, you are actually my son,” Jack said, not even thinking about the shock he was delivering.

“I think you’re confused,” Stacey said. “You are my son. I think that’s what you mean. It’s dream logic, everything gets tumbled about.”

“No, they explained it to me. You are from a long time in the future. You died when you were a little boy, and I was a very old man, I had you through some kind of test tube or something, and someone, they don’t know who, put you in Seven’s simulation of my childhood.”

“Talk about not making sense,” Stacey said.

“I know, right? It’s crazy. I thought you were my father, but someone, it’s okay, I don’t care which way it is, whatever is real, just so we can be together.”

“I’ll find you, don’t worry about that, wherever you are, I’ll find you,” Stacey swore.

“Anne and I were going to come and find you, but then Punchinello caught us.”

“What the hell is that?”

“He’s a puppet show guy. He’s the puppet master. Very nasty guy.”

“I’ll get better, on High Vale, and I’ll come for you. Where are you, exactly?”

“It’s the Honey Moon, the big one we see in High Vale. The big moon, the blue one. It’s called the Honey Moon, and it is a whole world full of Steampunk, very weird, they’ve merged a whole bunch of book characters with steam technology. Bizarre. Punchinello is working with Frankenstein, if you can believe it—”

“—you mean Frankenstein, like from the book? Mary Shelley? The doctor, or the monster?”

“The doctor, Victor Frankenstein, he’s at war with Tesla.”

“Tesla, the electric car? You mean Elon Musk?”

Jack burst into laughter, but then remembered to suppress his voice. He didn’t want to wake that blob on the floor.

“No, the actual guy, I mean, you know, some kind of simulated version of him, Nikola Tesla. Tesla and Frankenstein are fighting each other, with technology. Frankenstein kept stealing all Tesla’s inventions, and now he has the monopoly on both steam and electric energy. But Tesla is the smarter guy, and he has Sherlock Holmes on his side, with Mycroft.”

“Oh come on! Good night, even in a dream, it needs to make better sense than that!”

“I know! I know! It gets weirder and weirder. I’ve seen Professor Moriarty. They’ve got a mix of everybody here, I mean everyone from the Victorian time, except they don’t seem to be keeping track too well. But they’ve got Conan Doyle working with Sherlock Holmes, and Mary Shelley trying to stop Frankenstein. Barry is on the side with Doyle, and Henry Haggard! I love that guy, I’m glad he’s not with Punchinello. Punch has Dracula, or it might be a puppet, but I’ve seen him, and let me tell you, much creepier than in any of the movies. I don’t know what all, but people have been going past my cage for a couple of days, and I hear them talking about so and so, and this guy, and that guy. It’s crazy. Half the time I don’t know if I’m dreaming or not. There’s this witch that comes through and reaches in with her bony fingers and feels my arms, and I haven’t figured out if she’s real, or just something I dreamed when I was a little boy after my Mom read me Hansel and Gretel. You should see her, a real freak show.”

“Do you know how I can get from High Vale to the Honey Moon?”

“They have a way,” Jack said, “at least I think, you have to go from High Vale to the Story Moon, that’s the small one, the green moon. They have a base there called the Looking Glass. You have to get there, and find Mr. Dodgson, he is kind of the head, or administrative boss, or at least the creative guy overlooking High Vale. He’s very proud of his scorpions, let me tell you. But to get from the Looking Glass to Olde London, you have to jump, and then fall, and you end up flying on these crazy wings through the fog, down into the city. It’s awesome. I want to do that again.”

“I guess I’ll have to figure out everything you’ve just said, later, when I’m awake, hopefully it will make better sense,” Stacey said, sighing.

“I know, right? I have no idea what I’m talking about. But they have Anne somewhere, Punchinello is fascinated with her, because she’s an automaton, and he figures he should be able to figure out what makes her tick, because he’s the Puppet Master, and I’m very worried about her. He already hinted that he is going to take her apart, cut her into pieces.”

“Whoa, do you feel that?” Stacey said in wonder.

Jack inhaled, feeling a fresh, warm breeze, it reminded him of Spring, and it flooded his eyes with tears. Both of them felt warm, and lighter—things did not seem so dark. Minty, like peppermint, and spicy, like ginger. Oh, it made him want to have a coffee.

“Seven,” Jack and Stacey said as one. Then they were quiet, just luxuriating in the few, good moments of peace.

“What was that?” Stacey said, when the wonderful moments of respite were passed, too quickly.

“I don’t know. I feel a little better, there’s not so much pressure. It’s not so...heavy, is it?”

“Right. Yes. I feel better. Lighter.”

Jack could think a little clearer. It was almost like being awake. He remembered.

“Hey, how did you do that? When Anne and I were fighting the Men from Mars, you...popped in, and saved us!”

Stacey didn’t know what he was talking about, and told him so.

“It was you, Stacey, I know it was you. Except you looked different. You had an eyepatch. Dummy, still not protecting your left eye!”

Stacey reached and felt his eyes. They were both present and accounted for. But something Jack said, it rang a bell. He half-remembered.

“I think when Maully’s doors hit me in the face, it destroyed my eye. You’re right, I lost my left eye, although it feels fine here. But I think in High Vale, where I’m having a fever dream, my left eye is gone. I might be dying.”

“Well, don’t do that, idiot. Don’t leave me. We need to be together. Don’t leave me, Stacey.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll be okay. I’ve had worse. Apparently, I’ve died, several times—you’d think by now I might get it right, but then again, about some things, I’m a very slow learner.”

There was something about that, fighting the Men from Mars—Stacey felt a twinge of half-baked déjà vu—what was it? It seemed he could remember it, or something close, fighting in a dark alley, knocking down the Martians, and turning back, seeing Jack, and a girl—was he imagining it? Or did he feel it, in his bones? Had Jack just planted the idea, and now he could imagine it? Something. A rapier spinning, poetry, crossing swords, moving through a theatre.

“Cyrano,” he said.

“What?” Jack queried.

“I don’t know, just...something, Cyrano,” Stacey said. As I end the refrain, thrust home. Bring me giants. At the end of my refrain...thrust home. Thrust home.

“He’s here! At least a puppet version of him. He’s a heavy. Punchinello made him. Although, there’s...something, deep in his eyes. I don’t think he’s a bad guy. He looks at me sometimes, and seems so sad. They have to wind him up to make him do anything. Yes, they actually put a big honking key in Cyrano’s back and wind it several times.”

“I don’t know,” Stacey said. “It’s like déjà vu—as if I lived it before.”

Something else. The caw of seagulls above him, a bottle of pale beer in his hand, the sound of the surf—and she is there. She is there. Who is...she? He cannot make her out, she’s nothing more than a blur, but they are together, finally, Drinking beer at the seaside, lying upon the beach. Seagulls. Déjà vu. Did it mean anything? No, come on, it was ridiculous, but it was an overwhelming feeling, eerie, haunting. His heart hurt, there was feeling, he could almost reach out and touch her. But who was she?

“He has powers,” Jack said in a low voice. “I know, I mean I realize, obviously, it is technology of some sort. He is able to manipulate things, the way that Kronoss does, the way that Old Ben can do. Yes, it’s technology, but I gotta tell ya, Stacey, it feels like magic. It really does. It seems like magic.”

“I hate magic,” Stacey sighed. “It just doesn’t make any sense.”

Then Jack worried at a thought, he remembered Old Ben touching him upon the arm. A tingle. He felt his shoulder, but could feel nothing beyond a vague sense of touch, and realized again that they were in another place—Stacey called it the Dream Place. He glanced over at the sleeping body, and could realize, at least hypothetically, that the body on the floor was him, it was Jack, it is me—but it did not seem real. It was an idea. And he did not wish to prove the idea, because he did not desire for that grim shape on the floor to be him, his self, his being, his very soul, right there, apart from himself, and here he was, in his father’s arms, his consciousness, separated from his soul, his body, because he knew that breath and body made soul, that was the mechanics of the thing. And his consciousness was something...different. Perhaps it was something always separate from his body and breath, his soul, perhaps it was the soul that created the consciousness, like a figurative light bulb above the head. But wait, Stacey was not his father. He blinked. Right? Hadn’t they explained it to him, that he was the father, and Stacey was his son? But it didn’t feel like that, no it felt like his father held him. His father comforted him.

“Is he—this Punchinello character, the Puppet Master—is he like Kronoss and Old Ben?”

“Like them? I don’t know. I mean, I don’t think so.”

“But he’s not like us.”

“No. He’s more like the devil. As I understand things, Kronoss and Aajeel—that’s Old Ben—they are creations, made to protect us. They are shepherds. Whereas I think that Punchinello is a creation, I mean a character created by people, that somehow figured everything out. He’s a character that has become more real than the people that created him. And he’s kind of pissed off about all that. Kind of like atheists, they are so pissed off at God for not existing.”

They sat in silence, pondering, enjoying the warmth of their connection.

“I had a dream, before Punchinello, I think it was before Punch, but you were there, and Seven. We were, I don’t know, like little puffy dolls,” Jack said, dreamily.

“Yes, and God was there—or not God, not exactly, but the little girl, we were her dolls,” Stacey said, joining the recollection, for he remembered that. He had been jostling in the back of a wagon, with animal smells, and a girl, was it Emily? Or Maully? Or was it Seven?

“She said that you were her favorite,” Jack whispered.

“I remember,” Stacey said, thinking, remembering. “Is she real? She seemed familiar, like déjà vu, again and again, and again, like looking into two mirrors and seeing into infinity, that’s what she is like, the little girl. She goes on and on, and yet I keep seeing her, or the opposite of her, and I don’t know what I’m talking about.”

“Manda,” Jack said. “We are her. Or we are a part of her. Or, I don’t know, really, I think we live inside of her, that she is the program, that she is...everything, all of reality. I forget what Old Ben called it, or her, Virtual Reality, no, Virtual Surreality. No, wait, it was something...Vestigial Surreality. Oh, I remember, in the Sentinel—Mind Awakened Neural Directed Ascension. Manda. I can’t believe that I remembered that, I can almost see it glowing in the stone of the tower. That’s when I really met the little girl, Manda, that day.”

“She called us together into a place like this, only full of light—it was like white, all white, a formless fog, somehow she called us into representational things, dolls, and she held us!” Stacey said, remembering the dream that was much more than a dream.

“Yeah, it was like being called into God’s bedroom, if God was a little girl. I remember that too, it was nice, safe, and warm, and we were back together again, you, and me, and Sandy!”

“Sandy,” Stacey said, savoring the word. “Yes, that is Seven. She was there.”

“And weird as it sounds, Manda is like a little-girl version of Seven,” Jack said.

“He is coming, prepare yourself, Colton,” someone said from just outside the cage.

Stacey jerked, clutching Jack and moving him out of the way, pushing the kid back behind himself. Jack looked about lazily.

“What is it, Stacey? Why did you let go? It’s cold,” Jack murmured, feeling incredibly drowsy.

“Kronoss,” Stacey breathed, getting to his feet, leaning heavily upon his shillelagh, the heaviness pressing down upon him again.

“We do not have time, for the dark one approaches. Do not let him catch you here, Colton. It will all be over for you, do you understand? Do not try to fight him. You cannot fight him. I cannot fight him, not even with a full contingent of businessmen. Wake up, Colton, now, wake up!”

Stacey could see the dark monk outlined in blue moonlight, a ghostly apparition just outside of the iron bars, pointing his staff in at him.

“Who is coming?” Stacey said.

“What is it, Stacey?” Jack murmured.

“What is going on in here!” a gruff voice demanded.

Kronoss was gone, as if he had never been there.

Jack snapped—he flung into himself and pushed himself into a crouch, blinking. He was alone in the cage, staring at a dark shape just outside of the bars. What was he dreaming about, was that Stacey? They had been talking about Manda, and it had been warm, and nice, and now suddenly the cold invaded, and he was sure he was dying. He missed Stacey. His eyes welled with tears. If it had only been real. But dreams were like that, they faded away and you were left with nothing. Still, you had to love those fleeting dreams.

Punchinello stood just outside of the bars of the cage, with Cyrano behind him, looking in.

“Cuh-cuh-cold,” Jack chattered.

“My little biological,” Punchinello crooned in his deep, mellow voice. He sounded like a saint. No, he sounded like a movie star. No, he sounded like a jazz DJ, crooning out his message of love and death. “You must be kept cold, so that you are fresh, fresh as a daisy, right as rain, clean as dew upon the grass.”

“Let me give the child some fire,” Cyrano said, his sad eyes watching Jack shiver upon the floor in his half-crouch. “A little warmth should not excite your ire.”

“Terrible rhyme! You are slipping, Nose, oh but you are slipping,” Punchinello said, smiling his pleasant smile. He truly did not look like a bad guy. He was quite handsome, save for that bizarre window of face that did not quite match the rest of his head.

“Where is Anne?” Jack queried, getting himself onto his feet, but remaining in his huddled posture. He knew if he stood up he would bang his head on the bars at the top of the cage, as he had experienced that particular thrill several times in the last couple of days.

“Do not worry about the puppet,” Punchinello said. “But tell me. Who created her?”

“I don’t know,” Jack repeated, as he had been pummeled with this question endlessly. How did she work? What was her power source? What was her purpose?

Thankfully, Jack did not know any of the answers, so he could not betray her. They had so little time together. He never had the chance to learn her secrets, thank goodness.

“Tell me something true about her, and I shall allow our friend Cyrano here to give you a...blankie, wouldn’t that be nice? A nice, warm, fuzzy blankie.”

Jack smiled. “She’s great at karate. I’ve never seen anyone move like that. I saw her kick your face off, that was pretty cool.”

“Yes,” Punchinello said, not put out at all by Jack’s very powerless taunt. “I too witnessed her skills in the martial arts. Very impressive. But you just told me something I already knew. As you say, she practiced those arts upon my face. I was impressed, as I was at your own fisticuffs, young Jack, my biological. Apparently, you had a significant teacher. Tell me about your teacher.”

“Well,” Jack said, concentrating, keeping his teeth from chattering in the cold. “I wasn’t a very good student. But he was a pretty good boxer.”

“A pugilist,” Punchinello said, thoughtfully. “I have heard rumor of a pugilist, making the rounds in our little world next door. I wonder. Yes, I wonder, you see, I do not believe in coincidence. Just a short while ago we had a visit from a strange fellow, white hair, white eye patch, odd weapon—I believe it is called an Irish fighting stick?”

“Doesn’t sound like a boxer to me,” Jack said, shivering violently.

“Perhaps not, Jack, perhaps not,” Punchinello said, staring at the prisoner. Then he glanced sourly at Cyrano. “And this one, Nose, allowed the strange visitor to escape, from my theatre of all places, and apparently without any aeration. Nope. Not a single...bloody...poke.”

“As a fighter he was very quick, an artist with that knobby stick,” Cyrano said, an eyebrow cocking, as he glanced with disdain at his master. “Certain others were bested by a child, and two girls feminine and mild.”

“Fool! That was no child. She was our enemy—the enemy. She is the villain in this little piece,” Punchinello growled, looking as if he might cuff the puppet swordsman. “I had her, here, beyond all expectation, and you allowed her to escape. I blame you, Nose.”

Cyrano abruptly turned and glanced about the room, his gauntleted hand upon the hilt of his rapier. His keen eyes peered as he swept the room, turning in smooth circles.

“Yes,” Punchinello said, “I sense our visitor, as well,” Punchinello crooned, withdrawing a tiny pair of opera glasses from an interior pocket of his cloak. He placed the lenses to his eyes and glanced about. “Come out, come out, wherever you are! Olly olly oxen free!”

Jack, shivering, moved to the edge of the cage and climbed the bars. His fingers felt as if they might stick to the cold iron. He suppressed the very real and sudden urge to stick out his tongue and lick the bars—come on, he had heard stories, and you just never knew if they were true or not! But he refrained. With all his other problems, getting his tongue stuck to iron would make him look absolutely ridiculous.

Stacey stood, quietly, watching them. They had not sensed his presence, not until he had strolled through the bars of the cage. He was not quite in the world in which they existed, but yet he was here, and they could not see him. But they sensed his movement, Cyrano first, and then the Puppet Master.

He had been warned. Kronoss himself had briefly appeared and warned him out of this place, but he just could not bring himself to leave his Jack with these monsters, freezing to death in an iron cage. His fury was expanding in his chest. If a forest of little trees lived inside his breast, they would all be alight, burning bright. His teeth were on edge. He glowered at Punchinello.

“Ooh, yes, I sense his anger, and by my readings, this is the man, yes it is he, the Pugilist, come back for seconds,” Punchinello said, stepping away from the cage, and then he paused to rudely shove Cyrano in the small of the back, launching the puppet out a good five feet. “Yes, there is a connection. Dear, sweet Jack, our brave little biological, he has some form of connection to our High Vale Pugilist. What do you think, Nose?”

Cyrano lithely stuck the landing, coming down on his toes first, and then spinning about, drawing his rapier in one smooth and loud rasp of metal from metal. He darted about the room, knocking aside hanging puppets, searching in corners, moving aside large toys, opening chests. Suddenly the room was not quite so dark, as little Tesla coils appeared all about the periphery of the chamber. Correction, as here, in this time and place, the correct and proper name for the lights was Frankenstein coils. The lights sparked and flashed various colors, briefly, as they ignited, and then they hummed into a smooth flowing and steady light source.

“No, no, my dear Nose, I do not believe our visitor is here in any guise that you shall be able to discover,” Punchinello said, looking about the room with his opera glasses. His gaze swept right over Stacey, and for a terrible moment, Stacey thought it was all up, because it seemed that Punchinello looked directly at him, and saw him, but he continued without pause, glancing about the room. “At least not beyond your nose.”

Stacey grinned. Oh, he already knew this guy. Punchinello had seen him. Now he was acting. Stacey moved back into the iron cage, passing as easily through the bars as if through fog. Yes, he did feel something, but it was only a whisper of physicality. He wished he could reach out and comfort Jack, but the kid could not see him, they were now on different planes, and Jack was watching Cyrano and Punchinello as they searched through the chamber.

Punchinello suddenly leapt, his arms sweeping together, pouncing directly on the place where Stacey had stood, only one second before.

“Come out, little bird, olley olley oxen free!” called Punchinello in a child’s singsong voice, eerily looking about, scanning for Stacey.

Stacey crouched down, just behind Jack, who leaned against the bars, watching the searchers. He readied himself, his muscles coiling and tightening. He exhaled, his eyes boring into the back of Punchinello’s head, seeing him through Jack.

Punchinello whirled, peering through the opera glasses, looking directly at Jack, and his mouth fell open as he stared.

“What in the blazes am I looking at?” Punchinello breathed, staring. He could see Jack, but there was something more than Jack, something unlike anything he had ever seen before. It was like seeing two souls merged. A greater soul. Or that other myth, soul mates.

Stacey launched himself, through Jack, through the iron bars, leaping while simultaneously swinging his shillelagh, and Punchinello screamed, dropping his opera glasses, as Stacey came down upon him, slamming the twirling stick into the Puppet Master’s head. The head flew through the air, like a baseball slugged squarely by a bat. Cyrano, like a cat, snapped out a gauntleted hand and caught the head, in that one hand, a shortstop catching a line drive. Those were some incredible reflexes. Cyrano, with nary a thought, had snagged the head right out of its drive.

“What just happened?” Punchinello spat, his eyes twirling in his decapitated head.

“Calm and refrain your cryin’ and floggin’,” Cyrano said, smiling beneath his nose. “Our visitor just knocked off your freaking noggin’.”

Punchinello’s body did not fall down, but instead leaped to snatch at Stacey, who was ready, sidestepping the headless body, and extending a leg so that the body blundered right over and tripped. And Stacey slammed the knob of his shillelagh down into the neck of the body, crushing it over and over again. He didn’t know what was in there, but he was striking it hard, indeed. A spine? Some kind of socket?

“I can’t believe it,” declared Punchinello, watching from Cyrano’s upraised hand, who held up the head like the headless horseman waving a jack-o’-lantern. “Hitting a fellow when he is down!”

Stacey stood on the body and twirled his shillelagh.

“Open the cage, now,” Stacey growled, glaring into the Puppet Master’s eyes.

The door of the iron cage swung outward on screeching hinges. Jack stumbled out of the cage and sprawled across the floor, hardly able to move.

“Get up Jack,” Stacey commanded, but it was obvious, Jack could not hear him. The kid was oblivious to Stacey’s presence. To him, it must seem that Punchinello was putting on some new personal theatre.

“Jack, dear biological thing, your...boxing teacher wishes you to rise. Please, dear boy, get to your clumsy feet,” Punchinello said, very helpfully.

Jack climbed unsteadily to his feet and stood blinking at Cyrano and the grim jack-o’-lantern head upon his outstretched hand. He glanced to the side where the headless body sprawled. What in the world was going on?

“Open the door at the top of the stairs,” Stacey commanded.

Somehow the head managed to nod from its perch.

The door at the top of the stairs swung open, and lantern light shone into the room, illuminating the staircase.

“Run, Jack!” Stacey thundered, but again, Jack could not hear him.

“He would like you to run,” Punchinello said, smiling beatifically.

Jack began a slow and painful stagger toward the stairs, which were not far away, but then he stopped and looked back. He stood to his full height and squared his shoulders.

“I want Anne,” he stated, in as firm a voice as he could manage. “I’m not leaving without Anne.”

“I knew it!” Punchinello shouted, and the door at the top of the stairs banged shut.

Stacey never knew what hit him, but suddenly the world upended and he crashed head-over-heels into the floor, and tumbled. He was not hurt. It was like in a dream, you could get slammed all over the place and not feel anything. But he shouldn’t have allowed himself to lose sight of the Puppet Master. He looked up from where he lay sprawled

Punchinello stood above him, the body still and headless, but there was the head juggling between the hands. Punchinello’s body was throwing its own head back and forth, up into the air from the left hand, arching high into the air, down into the right hand, and then in reverse, Punchinello smiling all the while, apparently really, really enjoying the ride. The eerie eyes never lost contact, staring into Stacey’s own eyes.

“Why not stay awhile, my friend? Visit with Punchinello? I think you will love my puppets, and I can assure you, they will love you, and love you long.”

Stacey tried to get up, but an incredible weight pushed down upon him. He struggled, straining, pushing up against the force, but the harder he forced himself up, gritting his teeth, the stronger the force became, pushing him back down. It felt as if an elephant were sitting upon his back.

“I am afraid I cannot allow you to do this,” a stern voice said, and Stacey looked and saw Kronoss, swinging not a staff, but an umbrella, of all things!

The umbrella slammed into Punchinello’s face, stripping away the rectangle of face, and Stacey immediately felt the force that held him down melt away. He scrambled to his feet and punched the knob of his shillelagh into the Puppet Master’s chest, driving him back.

“No! Go!” shouted Kronoss, and he did a flying tackle, catching Stacey across the chest.

Stacey opened his eyes and stared up, disoriented into a gray sky, with what appeared to be lacey clumps of pink cotton candy floating in it, adrift. Where was he. He ached everywhere, and felt he might vomit at any second, and there was the lower pressure, and he feared diarrhea wanted out just as badly as the vomit, but for the life of him, he couldn’t think of where he could be. He glanced to the side in distress, and saw a woman’s face, too close.

What in the world?

He looked the other way and almost shrieked in terror, for a critter loomed close, peering into his eyes. It looked like a raccoon, or a large marsupial, a koala bear, no, it was a very large meerkat, only it wasn’t a meerkat, it was Michael, and then he remembered. He was in High Vale.

“So good to see you, Stacey Wolf,” Michael chittered, “welcome back!”

What just happened? Was he dreaming of Jack? He remembered there was something about moons, and Lewis Carroll, scorpions, and a puppet show. Something. A monk was there, and Cyrano de Bergerac. And then Stacey erupted, in innards suddenly becoming his outtards.

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.