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: 43: Shadow Tools

Part 3: Dark Resistless Stream
episode FORTY-THREE

01 02 03 04 05 06 07
08 09 10 11 12 13 14
15 16 17 18 19 20 21
22 23 24 25 26 27 28
29 30 31 32 33 34 35
36 37 38 39 40 41 42

43 44 45 46 47 48 49
50 51 52 53 54 55 56

Shadow Tools.

He huddled in the iron cage, returning there and closing himself in when all the bizarre stuff began with Punchinello’s head flying off and Cyrano reaching out to catch it as if they were playing some weird game, headball or something. It was absurd, because he had been dreaming of Stacey when the weirdness began, Punchinello and Cyrano appearing at the bars of the cage in the middle of the night, and then things really went haywire. Hadn’t there been screaming, from far away, that went on and on and on? There had been a few moments, when it seemed he was out of the cage, that the Puppet Master was letting him go, but then it had all turned out to have been a taunt, for Punchinello had laughed at him, and the doors at the top of the stairs had slammed shut. They would let him go, but not with his Anne. They wanted her, and not him, but he would rather remain here if they had her. There would be no freedom without Anne. He would not leave her.

At some point in the nightmare—he could not be certain how much of this was dream, or if any of it was real—bells rang, pealing, Jack heard bells from everywhere, Quasimodo was going nuts up in the belfry. But now, huddled in the corner of the cage, he could not be certain, but it all seemed fever dreams. He shivered. It was so cold. Interspersed with all the nightmare elements, he and Stacey had talked, like they used to, just rambling, comparing notes. For a moment Jack remembered sitting on the beach, sunning, with a cold beer in his hand, and seagulls screaming above. Had that been the screaming? Seagulls? And what was all that beach stuff about, it didn’t jibe with anything else, it was just kind of...out there.

It made no sense, not any of it. He was sick. He had a fever. And his mind washed through with the tides of illness and madness. Washing in Stacey, washing out Punchinello. In the bubbles of the surf were little people, Cyrano flashing his sword, Anne in her karate stance, Stacey twirling his shillelagh, Michael, the little meerkat man shooting out sparkles of light, Seven on her horse. Jack huddled into the tightest ball he could make of his body. When he exhaled it looked like fog emanating from his body. Fog on the beach, the surf rolling in, poppling, fizzing on the sand, and the cries of seagulls, and fog. Where was the foghorn? Oh, there it was, almost on cue.

Outside the cage there had been some form of struggle, and for a moment Jack could have sworn that the businessman was there, standing just a few feet away. Was he glowing? His umbrella outlined in blue, the businessman stood facing the headless body as it staggered forward like Frankenstein’s monster. Cyrano standing, holding aloft Punchinello’s head, looking like a grotesque Statue of Liberty.

Jack inhaled, something washing over him, and for a few moments he felt warm, and it seemed he was actually riding in High Vale, on that small, beautiful horse, with Seven galloping near. He could feel the warm wind in his face, and the smell of sweaty horse, and Seven was passing him, Seven bent low over the flashing horse, hooves thundering, it was all exhilarating, and for just a few short moments he almost seemed free of his cage. He felt freedom wash throughout his soul. Liberty, ah liberty.

Jack had laughed with Seven, at first frustrated, but then amused when she assured him that she had accessed a feature in her Gold Guest Pass, expert horsemanship, and Jack, as a refugee between worlds, had no such powers. And Jack was not an expert horseman.

It was quiet now, outside the cage, Punchinello and Cyrano had departed, yelling, the swordsman doing his rhymes. But it was about that time of night when the puppets would stir and begin their strange nocturnal perambulation. Jack could hear them now, but he did not wish to look. He didn’t like to admit it to himself, but seeing the puppets out and about, well, it really freaked him out, and he really could use a little less of that dark stimulation.

The featureless automatons—they looked like artist’s poseable manikins—strolled as couples, linked arm in arm, and there were all sizes of these, some wearing the uniforms of maids, butlers, others wore aprons, but most were nude, naked wood, but they strolled about in the dark, whispering. Several times during these short hours, the puppets gathered about the iron cage and stared in at Jack. He felt like an animal at the zoo. Once or twice during the last few nights, Jack thought he caught sight of Pinocchio, or different stages of the puppet boy, various versions, some more boy, some more puppet, some looking rudimentary, a pine log with faint suggestions of a face. But none of the puppets attempted to communicate with him.

Oh no, the dreams are starting again, his fever dreams, nightmares, the gears, so many gears, gears as thick as ship parts, taller than a house, turning ever so slowly, right along the tiny, spiraling gears, the metal teeth, movement, ever in flux, flowing, turning, clanking, oh no, he is inside the vast machine again, he always dreams this. For some reason he thinks of Old Ben. What was it, Old Ben and the Machine, and yes, when he is here, Jack always senses Seven very close, in the machine, a part of the machine, just like him.

“You have forgotten, dear Jack,” Old Ben says. “Remember, in the cafe? Just before the Looking Glass?”

“Silly Jack! Don’t you remember? I told you, you don’t actually have to touch your shoulder, it’s not like a switch, silly boy!”

Manda? Was that Manda’s voice?

The gears, the machine, the levers, Jack a part of the machine, and Seven always nearby, frantically pulling levers, working the gears and switches.

“Ones and zeroes,” Jack murmurs, waking himself, and no, no, why couldn’t he remain asleep, it was so greatly to be desired over this, waking to his world of shivering.

“What did Old Ben say?” Jack murmurs, relaxing, feeling some of that imagined warmth from earlier, when he was talking to Stacey, and then again, when he dreamed of riding horses with Seven. He had a few moments of peace, and almost warmth.

“You have forgotten,” Old Ben had said, or had Jack only dreamed that?

“I get distracted,” Jack murmurs, waking himself again, and the shivering starts.

His shoulder, he feels it tingling, even now. What had he forgotten? Certainly not the gears, he always dreams about them. But the tingle in his shoulder, that tingle in his shoulder—what had Old Ben told him?

“Administrative control,” Old Ben had said.

Jack sucked in a shuddering breath. Administrative control. Old Ben had showed him, in the cafe, just prior to their visit to the Looking Glass. He remembers. It was as if a door had been closed inside his memory, and now, suddenly, it was opening up inside his mind. He grabbed his left shoulder with his right hand, and squeezed. The tingling increased.

“I am such an idiot,” Jack whispers, grinning.

“Take little steps,” Old Ben had said.

“Just little steps,” Manda said, and Jack can almost hear her voice, now, outside of his head. Manda. His little girl. Manda told him to take little steps. She said you only need to think, to use your mind—no hand gestures are necessary.

Jack turned up the heat, just in a little bubble around himself—he didn’t wish to set off any alarms, firing up some huge furnace, no, just a little heat was required. Easy as that, twiddling the knob on a thermostat. He sighed. Yes, thank God, it was warm. He was warm. It was as easy as picturing a little knob, which his imaginary fingers turned. And he pictured a little bubble about his body, just extending a few inches, like a halo. Yes, a halo of warmth. That was good. Keep it like that, just rest here a few moments, the shivering subsiding, yes, just like that.

Some of the puppets were gathering outside the cage, peering in. Jack mentally shot out a curtain, which he drew about the iron bars. The puppets would see a huddled shape, lying on the far side of the cage. As Jack watched, from his seated position, the puppets dispersed, many wandering back to their places, where they went inanimate, turning from the ghostly apparitions of lovers and friends into nameless automatons.

Jack reached and plucked a glass of water out of the air. He guzzled it, hardly considering the wonder of what he had just accomplished. He produced more water, but halfway through guzzling the liquid, he turned it into orange juice. He could sure use the vitamins, and all that wonderful sugar. And then he turned it into a mug of coffee, which he sipped, enjoying the warmth more than anything else. He drank it black, foregoing his usual doctoring of ginger and honey and cinnamon.

He had just met two of his needs. Punchinello had provided no water, and no warmth, and Jack, from his administrative control, produced those things, now. It was all part of the simulation, damn it, and it had all been there, while he huddled, filthy in this cage, starving, relieving himself in a bucket.

He plucked a bean and cheese burrito from the air and sank his teeth into the flesh of the tortilla. Oh, lovely. Yes, he thought, chewing slowly. Doing a quick check, he could actually ensure that none of the ingredients were GMO! All healthy vegetarian fare.

He plucked three small white pills from the air. Aspirin. He supposed he was old enough for aspirin. He had turned eighteen years of age, and he distantly remembered that he was supposed to be nineteen to take aspirin, Reye’s Syndrome, and all that, but he was not taking any acetaminophen, Punchinello and fever couldn’t be any worse than that. He downed the aspirin and then, experimenting, he sped up the time in his belly, dispersing the aspirin throughout his body. Sheesh, the things a guy could do, if he only thought about doing them.

Jack thought away his filthy clothes. That jerk, Punch, had confiscated his jacket, and his boots, and his nifty fighting knuckles. But Jack replaced them, everything, by thinking, first giving himself a quick mental shower (cleaning out his ears, brushing his teeth, gargling), and then snap-donning thermal wear, jeans, thick socks, combat boots, a flannel lumberjack shirt that felt wonderful and warm. Good. He had met his needs, except for his greatest need, Anne, and he doubted that even with practice with this interactive interface would he be able to pull her from thin air. He flexed his hands, enjoying the promise of the fighting knuckles.

He called up an on-the-fly GPS, keeping it as a translucent window about three feet in front of his face. Then he pulled an aura of shadows over his head and sent it down to his feet, mixing it with his aura of heat, and he must be feeling better, because he had to turn the heat down. Little steps. He set up a row of indicators. First a motion detector, then a heat detector, then an AI trap detector, and a few other useful warning lights to keep him from being a complete idiot.

He rose, crouching, remembering not to bash his head on the iron. He went to the cage door and twisted it out, slowly, quietly, turning the iron and squishing it between his fingers like a sponge. He pried open the door, then plucked the iron hinges away from the cage, folding up the door as he would do a piece of paper, until it was no more than a heavy blob of black saltwater taffy, which he discarded, setting quietly inside the cage, upon the cold floor.

Then, the thought keyed off, he called up a piece of black saltwater taffy, unwrapped it, and then really enjoyed consuming it. Mmmm, licorice, very nice, indeed. Enough goofing off.

Jack could not allow himself to become punch drunk on his new abilities, because he understood that Punchinello had these abilities, as well, only far more powerful tools, and he was far more practiced at using them. Somehow the Puppet Master had discovered a means to access the shadow tools of reality, and perhaps understood the nature of this simulation, probably not the same way in which Jack understood things, but the Puppet Master had practiced and experimented with these tools, and probably knew them better than Jack. While Jack massaged and altered data, Punchinello practiced magic, that was the difference in their perspective. It was the same reality, the same simulation, but a different viewpoint in interacting with that reality, and certainly a different method.

He glanced in the cage and saw himself lying huddled in the corner. Jack adjusted the curtain over the empty place where the door had been, he tucked and tweaked with his thoughts, until it again appeared to be an iron cage, undamaged, with a great locked door on its hinges, a complete iron cage, with requisite prisoner huddled and shivering. It was surreal, looking at the image of himself, which gave him an idea.

Jack opened a small window and attempted to contact Old Ben. He only got static. He tried Manda, and Seven. But something interfered with any kind of signal. He created a message, speaking, but only in the window—very uncanny, the height of surreality, he stood here in his physical body, looking into a window only he could see, and observed his own head and face, shot selfie-style, saying the things he only thought. He addressed the message to Old Ben, Manda, and Seven. He closed the window. The message would travel out as soon as a signal was available.

He paused a moment, and called up the selfie-view of himself. Hmmm, could he actually...might he, just sort of...? He added a bit of heft to his moustache. Hey, not bad. He darkened the color a bit, and then added a little tweaky below his lower lip. Should he go for the whole goatee? Nah, he kind of liked this Errol Flynn look. He saved it. Nice.

He had to go get Anne, now, or die trying. And he realized that Punchinello, Puppet Master, could be tracking him at this very moment, that the monster very well might know exactly where he was, what he was doing, and how he was doing it, and could conceivably pull the plug on Jack’s new abilities, whenever he chose to do so. Jack understood that all of this might be a part of Punchinello’s Theatre, and Jack was just another puppet in said theatre. He didn’t want to think about that distinct possibility.

What he needed, he thought, was happy thoughts. Just a few. Just to get him through this next part. Somehow, he understood that this next part would be bad, very bad, tremendously bad.

He remembered in the Looking Glass, standing at the end of the Hall of Heads, and that small figure charging toward him, that delighted scream she had uttered, as she came running up the hall toward him like an Olympic sprinter, and then she threw herself into his arms, and they had tumbled backward, and he remembered Anne’s face, with the soot marks all about her face, and the white skin about her eyes where she had worn goggles, and how crazily her hair stood up, and how her eyes had sparkled as she smiled into him.

That was a tremendously happy thought. And Jack shivered, although he no longer felt cold.

He wouldn’t allow himself to remember how she had—clenched him—up to speed, so to speak, overcoming his shyness as he attempted to meet her and greet her and fall in love with her again, as they had done so many times before. No, that memory was a little too sharp, and he needed to concentrate without a brain stuck full of pins.

Eyes full of tears, Jack followed the blip on his translucent GPS.

Perhaps “global positioning system” was not the best term, not here, not when considering how he received his data, for he was not receiving triangulated signals from various satellites.

No, what he was actually doing, although his brain was not powerful enough to fully understand all the ramifications in the actions of his thought, was communicating with Manda’s body. He was receiving information from the data that made up the molecules of her digital biology. Jack was communicating with, and manipulating, the very essence of Manda. Perhaps MPS was the better acronym, for Manda Positioning System. Perhaps Manda might even track his passage, like a beacon bobbing through the tides of her bloodstream. She might be smiling, right now, thinking of Jack, pinpointing his location, right there, in her elbow!

He set the blinking light as Anne’s location. It appeared he was in a great maze of corridors and chambers, levels, with helter-skelter staircases spiraling up and down, and crazy angled passages that seemed more like tubes than hallways. He walked, keeping himself cloaked in shadow. If anyone saw him, he should appear as no more than that odd shade you perceived flicking through your peripheral vision, and when you looked, he should be gone, the phantom that your mind dismissed. Such things did not happen, did they, in reality?

His body felt weak, but he corrected for that by lightening himself, so that his feet barely touched the ground. He practically floated, and his boots made no sound. Just to be safe, Jack pulled down a curtain about himself, to muffle sounds. If he sneezed, even five feet away from someone with very good ears, they would hear nothing more than the crinkling of a piece of tissue paper.

Maybe this is the way ninjas do it, Jack thought, they just access reality and make themselves quiet and light and shadowed. Because it did seem very much like magic.

He paused, and pulled a shillelagh out of the air, ensuring that it was a real blackthorn. It comforted him, to hold the stick, not because he had any chance of using it the way that Stacey did, or that this stick was in any way a “magic” artefact, but hey, wait, he could pull a few tricks like that, couldn’t he? He enhanced the shillelagh, making in unbreakable (although it was practically indestructible, to begin with), and he made it much lighter than any heavy piece of wood had the right to be, and gave it swinging power, blocking power. He did a quick scan and retrieved the information he required, and opened his mind, accepting several years’ worth of training in about three seconds. Stick fighting. That course was a little generic. So he absorbed some karate training with wooden weapons. Police training with batons and billy clubs.

Jack inhaled. He felt good. He did a few practice twirls with his new and enhanced weapon. It felt good in his hand, but he couldn’t seem to be able do what Stacey did. He searched a bit and then accepted a short download on baton twirling (as in cheerleading and parades). He smiled. Hey, that was some good stuff. Fun, although it was hardly martial in implementation. But he found he was able to merge the various trainings with the karate defensive measures.

He found a lot of old black and white woodcuts about defending yourself with a blackthorn, and more about hazelwood, and he downloaded and incorporated it all. This was his first absorbing information—Seven had explained it to him, when she demonstrated reading large books in a short period of time, and being able to call up the information in no time, with better than photographic memory. His brain busily clumped information into short, pertinent bites, and the system worked on moving less important information into the background, still there, but accessible only when required and called upon. Good stuff, Maynard, yes indeedy do.

He felt a little whoozy, cramming all that information into his head in about one minute, and perhaps it would have been a better idea if he would have accomplished this all back at the iron cage, as opposed to his early-morning stroll through an enemy headquarters. But he was an on-the-fly kind of guy. He rarely planned things out as he should, and kind of made it up as he went along. For instance, he just thought how useful it would be if the shillelagh returned to his hand like a boomerang, if he threw it, or if the weapon was knocked from his hand. And he remembered picking up Stacey’s shillelagh and getting the shock of his life—nice touch, that. Jack incorporated the security measures into his own shillelagh.

Through all his system enhancements, Jack had maintained his slow, even walk. He was able to increase the lighting through his heads-up display, so that wherever he looked he could increase visibility, and even set a sensor so that any kind of sensory equipment would highlight, any kind of trap, or living being. Thus far, it was just puppets lining the walls, and all of these were now in their down setting, sleeping their dreamless sleep. Jack started, as he perceived Cyrano’s hulking presence against a wall, but the automaton seemed to be in down state, like the puppets. Still, Jack crept more stealthily past the scary swordsman, increasing his shadows.

Jack got no readings from Cyrano. It seemed when the automaton was down, it was down. He could probably snap his fingers beneath Cyrano’s great nose, and challenge him to a duel, and the puppet would not respond.

As Jack proceeded, and the blip on his MPS increased in strength, he hoped what was happening was that while Punchinello probably had a veritable army positioned in defense of his headquarters and lair, that hopefully the Puppet Master had neglected to establish the same rigorous defenses on the inside, protecting the inside from the inside. And Punchinello was more than aware that Jack was locked up in a massive iron cage, so hopefully Jack was proceeding invisibly, undetected, effective as a ninja.

Of course, the terrible thought remained, that the master of this world was even now watching him, chuckling.

Do not think of him. Do not picture him in your mind. Maintain that positive state, that pleasant state of happy thoughts. Do not give into despair. Do not be afraid. Relax, and go with it. Ignore the doubt. Think positive. Think positively.

Jack paused in his quiet floating through the halls. That last series of thoughts felt alien, or at least distantly remembered. Déjà vu flooded him. It was eerie. Haunting.

Okay, if he broke down the actual words, what a whole load of positivity crap, I mean come on, come on already! What’s next, daily affirmations? You are handsome and good, you try hard and do a good job, and people like you! That wasn’t Jack, never in a thousand years would he pummel himself with such feel-good nonsense.

But the message, yes, that was Jack, but come on, all that positivity crap, that was not the way Jack thought. That was not who Jack was, as he was a realist, and pretty much a skeptic. But it was true that he always tried to maintain a positive outlook, and apparently, that’s what his distant helper was trying to get through to him now. Because all of that must be coming from Old Ben, as did that first note in the book, at the Coffee Dump. Be positive.

Do not think about Pun—about the master of this place, he quickly corrected. He thought of Anne, and the happy way she looked at him, that expression of hopefulness. That needed to be his focus, right there.

“I’m coming, Anne,” he sent out as a message. “You are not alone. Jack is here. Jack is coming. I am near, Beloved.”

It worried him, more than a little, that his memory had been blocked until just the right moment. The thought just behind that was that Anne had led him directly to Punchinello’s Theatre in the Park, as soon as they heard the children pass them, that first night on the Honey Moon, Anne set them following the children, right into Punchinello’s hands. This was a set up.

Jack couldn’t reason it out, what was expected of him, and what Anne had to do with it, but he was having the creeping feeling that he had been programmed, like a sleeper agent, to be here, at just this moment, armed with these new, freakish powers, and heading into the dragon’s lair.

He heard something creak above him. He paused, listening. Then he heard some fairly discernible footsteps on the floor above. He heard someone strolling, or pacing, the footsteps heading this way, growing faint, and then coming back, slow and measured.

Jack blanked his mind, and flowed forward, he was shadow, a cloud moving into the next chamber. The blinking beacon was there, just there, he should be right on top of her, just about...now.

Mr. Dodgson ducked around his big wingchair, still absurdly clutching his butter knife, keeping just a few paces ahead of the puppet. The diabolical thing cackled in delight, Pinocchio’s little boy hands lifted up like claws, as it pursued the portly old gentleman around the chair. The puppet was evil, pure evil, if anything can be pure about evil, then the moneymakers should bottle up this boy and sell him as evil perfume. Then, utterly out of breath, after his third time around the chair, Mr. Dodgson bellowed laughter. Silly old man! What was he thinking, running from this puppet? He had all the shadow tools of the world at his disposal! He might stand up to giants, and here he was fleeing a puppet boy.

Mr. Dodgson collected himself, pausing to straighten his bowtie. He clapped his hands.

“Watch out, Pinocchio, don’t get caught in the spanking machine!” Mr. Dodgson called, cupping his hands about his mouth like a megaphone.

“What the...!” Pinocchio cried as mechanical pincers seized him, inverting him, and a series of paddles began to slap against his backside. Steam hissed from the mechanical contraption, which looked like a sparkling metal centipede, except where you might expect to find feet, there were only spanking paddles, revolving around and around.

“I did warn you,” Mr. Dodgson said, dusting off his hands.

“By about one second,” the little boy shrieked, struggling mightily in the four sets of pincers that held him in place. “Let me loose, you dirty old man!”

“Tut tut, Pinocchio, come now, tell me everything,” Mr. Dodgson said, standing majestically before the puppet, his short arms folded across his chest. “Did Punchinello send you as his spy, a saboteur? Tell me the truth, for you know that I will know if you are lying.”

“I can certainly tell that this machine was not created just now!” Pinocchio cried, and his nose remained the same six inches in length. “Watch my nose, geezer, because—ouch! Stop it already, let me talk! Owww!”

Mr. Dodgson allowed the spanking to continue, for at least another twenty seconds (and at two slaps per second, that allowed for a lot of administrated discipline).

“We had planned to market the Humane Spanker to Victorian parents, those with miserable children such as yourself, but I thought you might appreciate our efforts. Save yourself growing a pair of donkey ears, miserable urchin.”

Pinocchio collapsed in the pincers, his face sweaty and red. He swallowed and fluttered his eyes.

“Please, Mr. Dodgson, I promise to be a good boy,” Pinocchio pled.

“Indeed,” Mr. Dodgson said, lifting his chin. “So, spill it, or does the spanking resume?”

“No, yes, okay, I will tell you, yes, Punchinello wanted me to send him a signal, alert him to wherever you took the party, but he assumed you would take everyone off the Honey Moon, and so I cannot properly signal him, and all that I have told you is true,” the puppet spat, rambling two hundred words per fifteen seconds, his nose not changing.

“Mr. Titan, if could please join us,” Mr. Dodgson said, speaking to the air, snapping his fingers. After a few moments there came a gentle knock at the door. “Yes, yes, come in, I called you didn’t I?”

Titan entered, yawning and rubbing his eyes.

“Look closely at this boy,” Mr. Dodgson said.

Titan did, and then he strode directly forward, and seized with his thumb and index finger something from the boy’s back.

“Bugged,” Titan said, crushing the flea.

“I think that was an actual flea,” Mr. Dodgson said, sniffing.

Titan snatched again, and came up with something a little larger, but invisible.

“Ah yes, very good, very good,” Mr. Dodgson crooned. “Just as I thought.”

“I cannot discern what is inside the boy, you’d have to call the Little Girl on that one,” Titan said, crushing the invisible bug as easily as he had the flea.

“I can ascertain myself that he is now clean, but I think you had best escort this boy to wherever the Little Girl wishes to keep him, although as he says, it cannot be off the Honey Moon,” Mr. Dodgson said.

“Oh you got the bug, you can now safely take me off wherever you please,” Pinocchio said, but it was evident that his nose grew an easy three inches from that one lie. “Well, how do I know, I thought that was the only one.” Again, sadly, his nose extended.

“I’ll see what she wants to do with the lad,” Titan said, escorting Pinocchio, his hand loosely on the back of the puppet’s neck.

Mr. Dodgson watched them go. Things had just condensed, growing deeper, and more dangerous. It was a scattershot attack, and all the pieces were now out on the board, but whether or not the timing proved on their side, or against them, well, they would leave that up to Providence.

Titan had proved susceptible to Punchinello, as had Enseladus, Kronoss, and even Aajeel. Seven, too had proved an inept match. Only the Little Girl, thus far, had been able to stand up to Punchinello, and if it had not happened as yet, any moment it would be Jack on center stage, facing down the most dangerous being in the history of the world (not counting Lady Maulgraul, of course, or Manda, for that matter). But Punchinello was dark, certainly malignant, whereas Lady Maulgraul was neither bad nor good, but entirely self-serving; and while Manda might aim for the best, the ending result could prove the end of mankind, if that’s what Manda determined was best for Vestigial Surreality.

The only thing that ensured their safety, for this moment, on this world, in this location, was the fact that the Punchinello that Jack would shortly be facing was two versions ahead of this world, and much further ahead in time, so that if Jack might overcome, he would have the key to defeat Punchinello in any other previous version. But if on the other hand, Jack lost, then it would be up to Lady Maulgraul and Punchinello, to bring world against world, and that would probably only happen in the middle, which was the Story Moon, and Mr. Dodgson’s little domain of the Looking Glass.

“It’s up to you, Jack me boy,” Mr. Dodgson said, gripping his hands together. “It’s up to you.”

Next Episode.