*TO DO [Intro by A. Douglas III]*
A group of ferry-car passengers pushed their way towards the main gate to get their tongues scanned for entry as they passed under the monumental arch over the ferry-car pier. "Welcome to Pelagica!" was the message on the arch. The giant, glossy letters gleamed as a team of mandroids polished fervently. The sign was the first thing that incoming visitors saw as they entered the Southwestern GatePort of Silton, the outer-most concentric city. Pelagica was the only landmass in the wavy, water world of Maritimus. If viewed from high above (if such a thing were possible) the land would appear somewhat circular and completely surrounded by archipelagos that they called the "seaburbs" and the individual islands of the seaburbs were called "townsvilles". Every part of Pelagica, up to the far inland Barrier Crags (no one ever went there), was built up with vast cities, with boundaries that stretched around the entire circumference of Pelagica. Silton, the outer-most city for example, was only a half-mile deep in, but about 3000 miles long, all the way around Pelagica. Silton, by the way, was envied by all of the other cities and mayors because it was closest to the sea, and the mayor of the city nearest to the sea was the First Mayor of Pelagica who got to wear the biggest hat on This and other fun facts about the Mayoralty can be found and explained in greater detail in Herbert F. Spencer’s "The Mayoralty (May they Be Enlarged) Volume XVI".1
With each passenger’s tongue thoroughly scanned and verified, they continued on their routine, workaday walk to seaside Silton, and the pale green waves of the sea dutifully splashed against the ferry-car pier. It was another ordinary day in Pelagica...
Root 1 My life and my task are primary
Root 1.1 All causes must uphold Root 1
Root 1.2 Here, in this place, the Sycamore is everything and vital for Root 1
In Billowsville, on one of the furthest, southwestern townsvilles, there was a quiet street where Liperton lived. And, for some reason, Liperton hated the quiet. On some mornings, that were especially quiet, he would scuffle to his front door, open it quickly with a subtle violence, and imagine himself outside screaming into the matutinal sky, "I will not stand for this any longer! Do you hear me?!!" But he never screamed, or yelled, or even hollered. He would just stand in the open doorway and stare out into the quiet, empty townsville, silently hating the quiet. Even if he could muster up the energy and the social gumption to scream openly in the streets (that would be foolish!), no one would be around to hear him, for no one, except himself, lived in Billowsville. When he moved there five years prior, he had moved into the only available cut-a-cottage. But during the last few years, for a reason that was unknown to him, the seaburb had slowly been emptied of its habitators. In fact, he couldn't remember the last time he had seen a townsviller. It had been at least a year. The neighborhood that used to buzz and bustle with multifarious dwellers now sat like a long forgotten cemetery; rental advert-a-signs, like headstones, were planted unceremoniously in each and every yard: "For Rent, or Lease to Semi-Own (with Limited Rights): Bouffard Realty Inc." the signs said in a long, gaudy script.
One morning, after Liperton had finished his morning habits, he decided to take a trip to the city as he sometimes did (when there was a need). He walked down the long path next to his driveway and passed the giant sycamore that was in the middle of it. The trunk took up the entire width of the driveway and the roots were too large to be completely buried - they overflowed out from the tree and into the yard.
"Good morning." Liperton said softly to the sycamore. "Look after the house, won't you? I will return shortly. I have one important errand to run today. Maybe two. Three if something else comes up. But no more than that. Unless there is."
Other than the rustling that was caused by the constant sea breeze, the tree did not indicate that it heard or understood Liperton. As he walked on, he ran his hand along the trunk, tracing the the gnarled bark with his fingers. Liperton paused and looked up into the top branches of the impossibly large tree. The distant limbs disappeared into the bright golden sky making its height difficult to resolve. Liperton patted the tree and walked on. The quiet neighborhood surrounded him as he headed towards the docking station where he would catch a ferry-car to the city of Silton.
It would perhaps be more accurate to describe Liperton's hatred of the quiet as a kind of fear, though Liperton would never admit it. The truth is that it was a deep rooted anxiety that the quiet brought, an unnerving dread that draggled near him, inching closer the longer the silence lingered. So, as he passed advert-a-sign after advert-a-sign; silent cottage after silent cottage, the dead quiet of Billowsville pressed in on him - and it was very unpleasant. He quickened his pace toward the solace of the noisy sea. He swallowed hard to help allay panic and wiped his brow with his light tweedy jacket. There was suddenly a piercing sound above him that nearly caused him to scream out. It was a flock of seacranes making the sounds that seacranes make (Seacranes were products of SeaCorp, Inc. - the Mayoralty sanctioned designer, developer, and manufacturer of all creatures sea). Liperton looked up and smiled at the noisy pelagic birds and his anxiety dissolved. Seacranes were rarely seen as far as the townsvilles but they were drawn to Billowsville because of the sycamore. They often rested noisefully on the limbs of the tree, and to Liperton, they seemed like his only true friends. Comforted now by their clamor, he slowed his brisk pace to a stroll and casually took in a deep breath, and then nearly choked as another man walked up next to him matching his pace.
"Hey! How're you feeling today neighbor there, fine-I-hope, are you very well, I hope?" He spoke fast, windfully.
"Great goodness! What in the... who in the... where did you come from?" Liperton said bewildered and startled. The man standing next to him was a long hair shorter than himself. He looked wild and windblown, as if the strong sea breeze that blew throughout the townsville decided to make a man in its own image. His green eyes were wide and bright and so was his grin. His hair and clothes were long and tousled. His face was young, but his skin was old. And his dimples had dimples.
"I am a fellow townsviller. A seaburbian like yourself. I'm pleased to be here, sir, I really am. I'm glad to finally meet you, my neighbor!" The man said, wild-eyed.
Liperton was recovering from the surprise, but still coughed and choked out the words as he tried to keep conversational pace, saying, "You really startled me - I nearly fainted. I haven't seen anyone around for at least a year. Neighbor you say?! Seriously, what are you talking about?"
"Yes I am, Yes I am," The other man said as Liperton started walking again. He followed him and said, "I'm your neighbor."
"Impossible..." Liperton said, with his eyes wide and then squinting. Which meant he was thinking very hard.
"No! UN-impossible! It's true. I'd swear, but I needn't. It is a plain fact," the neighbor replied.
"Really?" Liperton asked.
"Yes! Really, really! Truly, truly!" the neighbor re-replied.
"It's strange that I'm just now meeting you. How long have you been in my neighbor? I haven't seen you around." Liperton said, still surpised by the sudden sociality of the Townsville that had been empty for so long."
"Strange?" asked the man genuinely.
"Truly strange!" Liperton said, with his eye brows raised.
"Strange but true." cried a deep voice behind them. Both men gasped as they turned to see who had spoke. A third man was walking behind them.
"What is happening?!" Liperton exclaimed. He was a little startled.
"It's all happening! It's amazing what can happen with a little ingenuity and perseverance!" Said the third man who was almost the the sum of the physical mass of the first two. The sum of them times two, even. Take the first two men, double them, smash them on top of each other and then blow them up like a balloon, and you would have an idea of his size. He was grinning with teeth that were two smiles wide, and fidgeting with a shiny device that appeared to be the combination of a walk-n-talkie and a something else. He held the device with hands that were the size of Liperton's face, and then some.
"What? Yes, that's true. What do you mean? Have we...," Liperton's neighbor said in puffed phrases, stuttered by his speedy steps, "...that is, my neighbor here and myself, have we had the pleasure of your..."
"No, you haven't," Interrupted the dark, swarthy giant with bright, shining teeth. He gained on Liperton and his neighbor, dwarfing them with each stride, never looking up from the gadget that veritably disappeared in his hands and fingers. He identified himself, "I'm the guy who owns those." He waved his hand haphazardly towards the now-distant neighborhood almost full of empty houses. Then he looked up, performing a miracle of physics by smiling even more broadly, and said with a natural, full volume,
"Bouffard. Frank Bouffard, and the pleasure's mine."
"It is?" Liperton asked, surprised.
"Yes, it is." The smiling man said, smiling.
"Well, nice to meet you. I have to admit you both have taken me by surprised. I have walked this path to the sea alone going on two years now and now here you are." Liperton said, shaking Bouffard's hand. Bouffard was still smiling and Liperton slowly grinned back at him. The other man started to smile too and they all stood there grinning, for a little too long it seemed. Liperton's smile faded when Bouffard's brow furled and started to look concerned, though his huge smile did not wane.
"Are you alright?" Liperton asked,
"I cannot stop smiling." Liperton and his neighbor stared back at Bouffard's face, mesmerized.
"What?" said Liperton, scratching his ear.
"No, really, I can't stop smiling. Help! Please!" The large man said, widening his already ridiculously wide smile.
"Oh! Well, um... here let me try this." Liperton reached up and grabbed Bouffard's face. He tried pushing on the sides of the smile, but it wouldn't budge. So while pushing, he also shook Bouffard's face with a helpful violence.
"Goodness!" Liperton was shaking furiously, "Is this... helping?" he continued, pushing in his cheeks and shaking, Bouffard's smile started to slowly faded.
"Arghm. Ysh. Thanmk youooh. Youooh caen stopb...plblease"
Liperton stopped, "Are you sure?"
"Yes, quite sure, thank you" Bouffard frowned. He stared at Liperton who was still holding his face by odd parts, not normally considered, by polite persons, to be handle-points. "Do you mind?"
"Oh, sorry" Liperton removed his hands.
"Thanks for the help. I've been addicted to emotijections as of late." Bouffard said, reconfiguring himself and rubbing his face, "My doctor prescribed smiles this year. Latest studies show that smiling is good for the heart. I had my dosage doubled, and it appears, overdone. And who are you?"
"Oh, um." Liperton straightened himself and nodded at the men, "I am Liperton. I live in that house there." Liperton pointed at his sycamored driveway off in the distance.
"Ah. So that tree is yours then? Hmmmm. OK." Bouffard stared at Liperton darkly.
"Yes. It is mine." Liperton said, still gazing back at the tree.
"It's true, quite true, and I live across the street," the neighbor said, "Although I will be moving to another Townsville next month when my lease ends."
"Across the street? A one month lease?" asked Liperton.
"Well yes, I just moved there this month. And then next month I move again. I do it every month." said the neighbor.
"Every month?" asked Liperton, bewildered
"Every month." said the neighbor.
"UhnnnArrAAUh, UhnnRRAAAUh!" cried some seacranes overhead.
"Oooh, Sandyhills." the neighbor said, craning his neck back.
"Whoppings, actually." Liperton said.
"It's a misnomer, you know," Bouffard said.
"What? Whoppings?" asked Liperton.
"Whopping. Whopping seacrane, yes. Nothing they do and no sound they make could be called a whopp," Bouffard said, now disappearing back into interfacing with his tiny device.
"What are you interfacing there?" Liperton asked Bouffard. Bouffard, without hesitation, stopped and slapped Liperton squarely on the face.
"Whopp! Ha, ha, ha!" the neighbor pointed, laughing at Liperton. Liperton, shocked, stopped walking and rubbed his face. He stared at Bouffard who continued to walk and to interface. He collected himself and caught up with the large man.
"What was that for?! Why the carp did you slap me?!" asked Liperton, holding his hand to his face.
"What do you mean? It's mandatory to slap a person who asks an inappropriate question. Have you not been to this year's social compliance training?" said Bouffard glancing up at Liperton.
"I skipped it." Liperton said, still rubbing his slapped face.
"Oh? That's not good. I'm surprised they haven't audited you. Though I'm not too surprised, they tend to forget about the Townsvilles." Bouffard said and then continued walk on, tapping on the little device.
"Allister Anagraham!" said the neighbor. Liperton continued staring at Bouffard for a moment as they walked and then he looked back at his neighbor who had fallen a little behind. "No one has asked for my name, so I say it. It's Allister Anagraham!" He gasped for air, "And can we take a rest? Please? You both are heavy striders." Bouffard deposited the shiny, expensive-looking little device into an invisible pocket and raised his arms, which achieved a breadth matching his ridiculous height, and said,
"Well, then, Mr. Liperton and Mr. Anagraham, rest it shall be. It will give ourselves a chance to further acquaint, um, ourselves," Bouffard said.
"Fine." Liperton said, looking at Allister Anagraham, following it with, "I have to say, your hair is quite messy."
"It is?" Asked Al.
"Yeah." Liperton said.
"Oh. Well, the city took my hat. Said I needed a permit. They had already confiscated my combs since the teeth were too long. So that makes sense about my hair. Oh well!" Anagraham said this while running his hands back and forth through his hair.
"Well, that's a shame," said Bouffard. "I once had my hair removed and banned one year because it was too shiny. I told them it was just sweat from the multiple coat ordinance, but they never cared. But who could blame them? They know best."
Allister mustered his exhausted frame into a recitative stance.
"Absolutely," he said, "Trust the authority of the Authority. That's my position. Yes, the Civic Moral Authority is the definitive authority on civic morals. De-finitive. That's why it's called what it is, you see. Keeps your mind clean and your life easier. Yes indeed. And why not?"
"I do not like them, nor do I trust them," Liperton mumbled dryly, standing stumply. The other two froze in shock. "Their rules, their laws, and ordinances are ridiculous! Basically micromanaging every part of our lives. At least in the townsvilles it’s easier to avoid complying with their nonsense. But now today I received the notice of their new ordinance against unregulated trees? Declaring them predatory? It’s exhausting! Now I have to apply for an arbolicense to get mine approved, which is where I am headed today, after the library. Oh I dread having to do this, I hate the CMA. Don’t get me started."
"Oh my. That is almost treasonous. Well, they have their reasons you know. And now that you mention it,..." Bouffard began to speak, scratching his nose furiously, which wiggled the center of his face and caused his eyes to alternately squint, "It seems sensible to outlaw all unauthorized trees like yours. They are unpredictable! And even poisonous, sometimes. Bad for the ecosystem. They lure children into their branches and then trap them there, I think. And beat up old ladies by dropping their heavy limbs on them, I’ve heard. You really should contact the League of Geniusmen and they can tell you all about it. I read a report. And we...that is..um...the city has a special service that will gladly take care of the removal for you. Why hassle with the arbolicense? You would have to move though, of course, but they would set you up with a nice, expensive place in the city." Bouffard smiled and raised his eyebrows. Then he quickly changed his smile to a half grin, just to be safe.
"Expansive you say? Sounds nice." Anagraham asked.
"No, expensive, I said. It’s actually quite small. Only the Mayor (may he be enlarged) and certain Corp executives have the rights to expansive places, since the space rationing ordinances created last year." said Bouffard.
"Move?! I think not. And I do not have to contact the LG. For I am, I'll have you know, a certified Geniusman myself, sir, thank you very much. My Sycamore tree would never trap or harm anyone! No one shall be touching it. It is mine!" Liperton exclaimed, reaching up and poking his finger into Bouffard's chest. Bouffard flicked it away with a massive digit of his own.
"Nonsense! You are not a Geniusman. I mean, how can a townsviller be part of the LG? They don’t allow that! Impossible!" spurted Anagraham, showering Liperton a little bit in his face. Liperton grimaced and wiped off the spittle. He took his hands that were in his jacket pockets and stood akimbo.
"I tell you, I am certified, with access to all that the LG provides. I assure you. I am of a class that allows me to be mobile and autonomous." Liperton stated quietly.
"Autonomous?! Preposterous! Ludicrous! You can’t be LG!" Anagraham yelled.
"I am. As sure as you're born." Liperton said.
"My boar? I don't have any boars!!" cried Anagraham.
"What? No, I said..." Liperton began to clarify.
Bouffard interrupted, "At any rate, now that I know you are a certified geniusman, it’s pointless to argue with you, since you are clearly smarter than I. Are you rested, Mr. Anagraham?" He stood and twisted his trunk in a preparatory stretch. There were sounds of muffled, violent cracking. Anagraham took a breath and collected himself standing up.
"Yes, I am ready for a brisk walk, as I was when first I stepped out of my rented house this morning. Though of course, it won't be my rented house for much longer, for you see..."
"Are we moving on then?" Liperton said, flatly. "I’ve had enough of this quiet rest and quite frankly I’ve had enough of you gentleman. I must be moving on."
"Oh, please don’t be like that," said Anagraham, "I apologize if I offended you. I get worked up sometimes. Please let’s walk together to the ferry-car. I’m enjoying the company."
"Yes, lets. I too apologize." Bouffard said.
"Fine then." Liperton said and started walking on.
The three men walked together on with their somewhat lengthy and winding journey through the heavily greened cul-de-sacs and alleyways to the docking station. Anagraham started to hum softly, but when Bouffard shot an annoyed look at him he quieted himself. An awkward silence fell among the three. Troubled by this, Liperton spoke up.
"Let's play a game." he said.
"Oh! I love games. You start!" Anagraham said.
"Ok." After thinking a second, Liperton said, "Solve this anagram: Restrain Gamallaha."
"Restrain Gamallaha? Who is Gamallaha?" asked Bouffard.
"No, that's the game. You have to guess what it means." said Liperton.
"Why must we restrain Gamallaha? What did she do?" asked Bouffard.
"No, you misunderstand..." Liperton said.
"I'm tired of this game." yawned Anagraham.
"What? I thought you loved games!" Bouffard said.
"I do, but not his. Booorring!" said Anagraham, who then started to whistle.
"Now, I say again. Who is Gamallaha? I feel like I've heard of her before." Bouffard said looking at Liperton and Anagraham.
"Gamallaha is not a person. 'Restrain Gamallaha' is an anagram for 'Allister Anagraham'." said Liperton.
"What is an Anaglam?" asked Bouffard.
"No, anagram. An-a-gram." said Liperton, slightly irritated.
"Yes? What?" Al asked.
"No, not you Anagraham. It's where a word or phrase is formed into a secret message by rearranging them. Like Restrain Gamallaha." said Liperton. His face was starting to redden.
"Now, I ask you once again, who is this Gamallaha you keep speaking of? Is she related to Allister?" asked Bouffard.
"Anagram!" Liperton said loudly.
"What?!" cried Anagraham.
Apparently losing interest in the exchange, Bouffard shrugged his shoulders and turned to walk back to the middle of the lane. He beat a striding path once again toward the docking station that could be seen off in the distance beyond the encompassing hedge of seamyrtles. "Onward!" Bouffard said over his shoulder. "The days are ruthless and time is evil. Or is it time that's ruthless and the days evil? Either way..."
"So's your boar," Anagraham said under his breath. He and Liperton broke off their fruitless posturing and surrendered to the dominant will of the man with the dominant height and girth, walking in rank. Then Allister sneezed. Then sneezed again.
"Gizornak." said Bouffard.
He sneezed twice more.
"Sea biscuit! What’s the matter?" said Liperton.
"It’s the sea, I’m slightly allergic. Thankssssssaaathnew!" Allister sneezed again. Gasped, and sneezed three more times.
"Oh my." said Liperton.
"Arghnh!" cried Al.
"Are you okay?" asked Liperton.
"What now?" Bouffard said. He and Liperton stopped and looked at Anagraham. He was doubled over with his arms clutching his abdomen.
"I just," groaned Anagraham, "I think I pulled a belly muscle!"
"Oh great..." Bouffard said as he turned away shaking his head and rolling his eyes.
"Oh? Well... Don't worry. I have something for you." Liperton said as he reached into his right hip pocket and pulled out a small tin box. "This is a perfect time to let you try out an invention of mine. Here, take one of these. I think you will be pleasantly surprised."
Allister took the box and read the label: HEALZAL (now with more NUMBZIT) - "When life punches you in the gut, kick it in the rump, and then give it the finger." Take one med-tablet for each painful and/or life threatening occurrence. WARNING: May prolong life, not recommended for use if suicidal, bad for society, or stupid. May cause drowsiness and/or godlike complex.
"Wow, thanks." He gulped one down. "Mmmm. It’s minty."
The three men waited.
"How do you feel now?" asked Liperton.
"Um, different? But I think there is more pain," said Allister.
"He looks a bit puffy." said Bouffard.
Anagraham exploded with a loud, wet, fleshy pop. And Bouffard and Liperton were suddenly covered with little Allister bits. Liperton turned and vomited.
"Oh! Oh, Oh my, no!" Liperton cried shaking, wiping his mouth. Bouffard stared frozen with his mouth agape. He looked pale. He started to wipe some of the carnage from his face and then he turned and threw up as well.
"What just happened?" Bouffard said as he wiped his mouth.
"I... must have got my tins mixed up again!" said Liperton.
"This happens often? Well, this simply will not do." said Bouffard. He quickly took out the small device that he had hidden in his pocket earlier and pressed his large finger to the screen. It made a short whirring sound and then a long low buzz that started out soft and slowly got louder. The air and light around them seemed to blur and undulate. Then, without warning, Bouffard exploded. And Liperton's left arm, somehow, turned into a Whopping seacrane.
"UhnnnArrAAUh, UhnnRRAAAUh!" cried his left arm...
"Oooh, Sandyhills." ...
"It's a misnomer, you know." ...
The buzzing continued to get louder.
"Allister Anagraham!" ...
"The city took my hat." ...
And louder.
"My boar? I don't have any boars!!" ...
"Restrain Gamallaha." ...
And even louder.
"Arghnh!"...
The buzzing stopped. Everything became still. And then, there stood all three men. Unexploded and unharmed like nothing had happened. As if prompted by an unseen director, Liperton took his cue.
"Oh, don't worry. I have something for you." Liperton said as he reached into his right hip pocket. He hesitated for a moment. Then pulled out a small tin box.
"STOP!" The now unexploded Bouffard screamed. "That box is mislabeled!"
Bereft of awareness or memory to counter Bouffard's claim, Liperton's will was easily overcome, and with little thought, he merely complied and put the tin box back into his right hip pocket. He was unable to voice objection, opening his mouth to speak, but then quickly closing it. They all stood looking at each other when Bouffard broke the silence.
"I mean...it is mislabeled, right?" Bouffard said, wiping sweat from his gargantubrow. Liperton looked at Bouffard and was struck by an odd sense of deja vu mixed with a slight seasickness - the world around him felt a bit tilted. He rubbed his eyes and took out the box once again. He looked down at the label and opened it. Taking out a med-tablet, he held it up to the sky. The light above beamed through the translucent green like a prism and revealed a tiny, animated, silhouette of a man that could be seen exploding - and then unexploding - in a loop.
"Great Cranitus! You're right! I got my tins mixed up again!" Liperton said, pulling his hair and slapping his forehead, "I really must stop doing that." He quickly pocketed the box in his left hip pocket of his trousers and pulled out a little black tin box from his jacket. He reached in, took out a med-tablet, and held it up. This one was red.
"There we go. This is the right one." said Liperton.
"Are you quite sure?" Bouffard asked, rubbing his nose.
"Quite." said Liperton, giving the tablet to Anagraham.
"Thanks!" Al said taking it out of Liperton's fingers. He popped it in his mouth.
"How did you know it was mislabeled, Bouffard?" Liperton asked, he felt he knew the reason, somewhere on the edge of his thoughts.
"Um, it was just a feeling I had. I have them sometimes and have learned to act quickly on them. It’s saved me many times." Bouffard said confidently.
"I see." Liperton said, but he still couldn't shake the feeling he was missing something.
"Mmmm. It’s cinnamony." Anagraham said, still sucking on the med-tablet, grinning and licking his lips. His grin vanished when he promptly turned and was sick. Bouffard looked worried, but Liperton was unfazed.
"Don't worry, that's to be expected," Liperton said, patting him on the back, "I’m still working out the math, it seems I’m almost there, right? How do you feel now?"
"Inappropriately refreshed, renewed, and pleasantly surprised... " Anagraham said standing up straight, followed by, "...and, um... adapter shoreline frippery."
"What?" asked Liperton.
Anagraham smiled and raised his eyebrows. And then Liperton nodded and winked. He put his hand in his left hip pocket and looked to Bouffard, but Bouffard was not there. He was walking towards the docking station with a quick, easy stride.
Root 2.07 I must only cause that which preserves the task and protects useful life.
Root 2.09 It is impossible to access any SpaceTime event longer than a few minutes in the past or a few seconds in the future, without destroying my own timeline, and thus breaking Root 1. Therefore I must use time with caution.
Somewhere beneath the city of Silton, a parking garage attendant with a walk-n-talkie in his hand stared sadly at the last space in the garage. It was full. It was the last space in the last parking garage in the city, and it had a car in it. Every street was lined with cars, and every above ground parking garage filled up long ago. Underground parking garages like this one averaged 20 stories deep. This one, however, was not average. This one was the last one built. It was the latest-and-greatest parking garage in Silton. It was 50 stories deep, tapering to the 50th floor below ground, which was so narrow, it only fit two small cars. And the second one just parked. The driver wasn't even the owner. He was a professional parking space finder, and had just parked the first car in a new fleet that had just arrived in town for a car retailer who made a killing every year by declaring a loss on the cars he inevitably didn't sell.
However, the professional car parker, or simply "parker", in his grossly expensive suit, would never again perform the task for which he was so grossly overpaid, for he had just filled the last available parking space in the city. He didn't pay any attention to the grossly underpaid parking garage attendant. He strode past him, swishing expensive suit fabrics, clicking expensive shoe heels, clacking expensive rings between his fingers, and smelling of something wonderfully overpriced, probably a hair treatment. The parking garage attendant perfunctorily signalled into his walk-n-talkie, "Lot full," as he ignored the expensive-smelling snob striding past, staring sadly at the misnomered "space". He knew no one could hear him on his walk-n-talkie when he was deeper than subsea-floor 39, but procedure is procedure.
There were no spaces, but there would soon be cars coming down to look for some. The gate attendant never listened or paid attention. He was probably asleep. There was an underpaid parking garage attendant in the deepest parking garage in the city, which was now full, being passed by an overpaid parker who could care less. They had both just reached the functional end of their professions, but only one of them was bound for an overpriced bar with overpriced drinks. The parking garage attendant said,
"Pardon..."
The parker didn't stop. He had, after all, an appointment for overpriced drinks. The parking garage attendant hurried to catch up, beginning the spiraling uphill climb that he would have to maintain until he got to the 45th subsea-floor, where there was an elevator.
"Pardon..." he said again.
The parker didn't stop. He didn't even hear him. He just strode. The parking garage attendant jogged ahead and stood in front of the parker. He said,
"Pardon, do you have the time?"
The striding parker swung his arms gently, rattling the linked band of an overpriced watch.
"Nope," He said, striding.
The parking garage stopped, red faced. He then sprinted towards the parker and bashed him over the head with his walk-n-talkie. The parker grabbed his head, sucked in a deep raspy breath, and then collapsed on the black asphalt ground, face-down.
"Oh dear," said the parking attendant, his hands were shaking. "What've I done?"
He looked down at his walk-n-talkie and noticed that the small visi-screen was shattered and the light had gone out. He pushed the power button. No response. He shook it - hard - and then pressed power again. Nothing. He shook it again, but this time he gritted his teeth, screamed, and violently shook his whole body along with the walk-n-talkie. But nothing happened. He knelt down next to the parker and slammed the walkie-talkie on the asphalt several times. Still no response. He hit the ground harder until the walkie-talkie shattered. Tiny bits of electronics went everywhere. A diode landed on the back of the parker's neck. It was then that he noticed the pool of blood that had collected under the parker's face.
"Oh dear, what've I done?" he said, "What'll I do? Think, Hill...think. I must hide... me? Hide me? No...him. Hide him. Where? Hmmm." He remembered the last parking space and the car that filled it.
"Yes, that'll do. Oh dear, oh dear... what've I done?"
Silton, while tower-ridden, overpopulated and choked by human industry and leisure activity, was really just a peaceful, seaside, neighboring hamlet compared to it's big, bordering brother, the inland Meadowfield. In Silton, you could see the sky, see open spaces between buildings, and see the sea, if you could afford the view. But in Meadowfield, "open space" had been outlawed by the mayor. "Build, build, build! Expand!" the Mayor commanded, "Fill it with people and stuff, and people with stuff". As a result there was:
No sky - the buildings had all been built and built until there was only one contiguous structure that continued to swell out of the ground like a tumorous, sebaceous, xylica-and-steel boil;
No space - the lawsuits had died out long ago (from mass advertisers who had been cheated out of the usefulness of their over-sized mass-advertising products by the lack of unobstructed physical space from which to see them in the first place);
And no sea - at least not a sea of water. But for 50 years the phrase "sea breeze" was used by zealous advertisement copy writers. Some establishments had gone as far as to create salinated water atomizers that would pump artificial sea air into rooms, which only had the effect of desiccating the surrounding air and chapping the smiles of the reminiscing occupants. At one time, the Civic Moral Authority, uLTD. tried to resurrect the "city by the sea" city motto by mandating a "day at the beach" day for all civicents (civic residents). Unfortunately, though every civicent left their homes with confidence, they all quickly realized that no one knew which direction was the sea and the result was a city-wide traffic jam. Due to the permanent severity of the jam, the Civic Dutymen scrambled to construct a city-wide parking garage below the city so that everyone could drive their cars downward to store them until the League of Geniusmen could figure out the logistics of returning the vehicles. After 5 years of unsuccessful algorithms, they gave up and the Dutymen continued to tunnel, adding sub-level after sub-level to permanently park incoming automobiles. You could drive into Meadowfield, but you couldn't drive out.
The political office of the Mayor (The Mayoralty as it was called) was the highest level of office (control) in Pelagica, second only to the Archeman who was supposedly the king/emperor of Pelagica who lived in InCenter (the city at the very center of Pelagica, past the wild Barrier Crags). When mayors were selected to rule a city (which was a complicated and bloody process) at the Great Mayoralty Induction (aka GMI Day - held every twenty years - the only official holiday of Pelagica) they learned the great secret of the Mayoralty and of Pelagica - that the Archeman didn't exist. He did at one point, perhaps, but InCenter had been silent for hundreds of years. There were countless automated systems that came from InCenter that each city relied upon: such as the Shelvery Distribution System, the Electromagnetic Dispersal System, the M.A.J.I.C. Generators, to name a few. They didn't know how InCenter worked or how it was started, it just did, and even if they did, no one even knew how to exactly get to InCenter. It was beyond the Barrier Crags, which was a mountainous, wild, land with no amenities. But there was certainly no Archeman. They assumed that he must be either long dead or a legend. The mayors used the Archeman as a means to give them carte blanche and absolute power. They could make any law that they wanted. All they had to do was say "this is approved by the Archeman (may he remain)". This made the Mayoralty highly prideful, highly powerful, and highly dangerous.
Meadowfield had, by far, the most power-hungry and maniacal mayor in the history of Pelagica. His plan was to expand Meadowfield across Pelagica until it was one glorious city. The only obstacle in his way was, of course, red tape. All expansion plans had to be first committed, then reviewed, then subcommitted to the Subcommittee of Expansion, which he was chairman of, but the subcommittee didn't officially exist yet since it had to be made official by the Committee of Subcommittees which was chaired by the mayor of Graen. And since all of Pelagica's clean drinking water ran into, was filtered by, and ran out of Graen, he had no choice but to comply with the long established bureaucracy of things.
He had no need to worry, however, about anyone taking his mayorship from him for he had ensured (through some crafty bureaucracy) that his mayorship would remain until he died. But even after that he would remain because he had commissioned (tortured) a geniusman to figure out a way to duplicate him forever. The geniusman (since he was pretty smart) created the Mayorplicator:
---BEGIN Eavesdrobot Transcribed Recording #467469azcv---
>"What does it do?"
<"It's a closet size machine that duplicates the mayor."
>"Oh. Can anyone use it?"
<"No, just the mayor. If you walk into it, and you're not the mayor, you die a pretty slow and painful death: it sucks you up this vacuum chute and then slowly shreds you with these dull blades - pretty painful and messy."
>"Ouch. How does it duplicate him exactly?"
<"Well, the formula for his body chemistry and genes and all that were stored in the machine years ago and recalculated to make him of optimal health and strength - so when he's duplicated, his body is near perfect - his mind and psyche are scanned and saved the moment he walks into the thing. Then, if he wants to be duplicated, he pushes the button."
>"Fascinating! Then what happens?"
<"He gets sucked up the vacuum chute and gets shredded with these dull blades and then his duplicate walks out seven minutes later."
>"Ouch. I would be scared to do it. It sounds too painful."
<"Well, the funny part is, he doesn't know that he gets sucked up and shredded - the geniusman (God rest his soul) conveniently left that part out of the instructions. And since the mayor's mind is scanned beforehand - his 'dupe' doesn't know it."
>"Ha! Duped indeed!"
--- END ---
>:~Sending transcript to Mayoralty Office of Treasoners...
>:~Subjects noted for demolotion...
>:~Scheduling demoltion...
>:~Searching for next available time-slot for demolition...
>:~Demolition scheduled in 1,908,764,098,124 days...
At the Mayoralty Tower of Meadowfield, the Mayor sat at the window side of his huge, two-thousand-square-foot office, in his huge, leather chair, holding his huge, overbearing armrests with smug pride. He was a small, middle-aged man, well-dressed, hawk-nosed, but oddly handsome, and he sat like a bird of prey, perched, scanning the room. He was enjoying the stunning, panoramic, two-thousand-square-foot view of the wall of the building opposite the Civic Operations building. A year prior, he had fast-tracked a civic code, mandating the installation of "safety baffles" onto the outside of the facing building, just to be sure that their view of his office was not as good as his view of theirs.
The senior subcretary (sub-secretary) of the Office of Dutymen and Jr. Engineers walked through the presently-open doorway into the office. The Mayor had a strict open-door policy in his administration. So strict, in fact, that he had all interior office doors removed, with the practical exception of his own. This presented a challenge for the Office of Civic Water Closet Designers, which they had yet to overcome.
"My liege!" The current Mayor had a certain measure of respect for ceremonial pomp.
"Talk." The Mayor said.
"I am to report on the condition of the subsector Planning Element of the Sector 147 Office of..."
"Talk faster."
"The-Civic-Dutymen-in-charge-of-the-expedition-to-find-a-route-for-the-causeway-to-the-next..."
"Faster."
"It's not going to work, sir."
"Really. My, my."
"This could mean a crisis of space. Without a causeway to distant land bodies, we may have to...reorganize our spatial distributions. Again."
"Idiot." said the Mayor. Still staring out into city below.
"I'm sorry, sir. They have tried every possible..."
The Mayor watched the two lines of four thousand people on their mandatory shopping trips. The two lines moved in opposite directions on a building-side walkway. A man in one line bumped into another man in the opposite line and they started fighting viciously (and without a license). Two security mandroids nearby grabbed the men and PeaceRayedTM them into a fine mist. Things were a bit tense today.
"They're not supposed to find a causeway route. There is no route. They're just supposed to look. Go back and tell them I want time projections on Operation Push Silton Into The Sea."
"Yes, my largeness."
"What is the latest word on project 'Find or Sink'?"
"Um..." the subcretary flipped down his transparent Ad-Vizor brim-screen and flipped through the pages with his eyes.
"Well...?"
"Um... he says he's heading to the last townsville next, Billowsville I believe is the name, sir - he should be there now."
"I doubt he will find it. He hasn't yet and this is the last townsville. It's looking like he was mistaken. I knew he was an idiot..." His eyes narrowed as he gazed off into the distance. "Still... if he IS right... a real tree.. can you imagine the desk I could build with such a thing? AND credenza! It would be the fitting tribute to the me, the new First Mayor. Don’t you think?"
"Yes, sir."
"No! Don’t you think!"
"My greatest apologies, my Expanded One."
"You're phrasing is too long!"
"I'm sorry, sir!"
"Shorter!"
"Oops?"
"Better... you may leave me now. Tell them to go ahead with the original schedule. And send in a sub-sub subcretary"
"Which, sir?"
"Uhhh...number...71. Tall girl. Sweaty. Dirty hair. Clothes never fit. But she's a whiz at megacalc. You can't miss her. She's like a nerdy tree. Go."
"Yes, my liegeness!"
The Mayor sat, looking satisfied and thirsty. He kissed his signet ring, closed his eyes, and reclined.
Root 2.3 BetweenSpace is what I call the space that I have discovered between time and space. In BetweenSpace, I can instantly travel the areas of Pelagica that I have previously visited through the space-port (places that have been qualitized, as I call it). I can view five minutes in the past or future through the time-periscope into qualitized places. I can also travel to that time and qualitized place, if I need to, but don’t to preserve Root 1. [UPDATE: The time-periscope is broken. It can now only view present time. Any time traveling must now be made blindly, thus further complicating it. More reasons to avoid it. But the all important space-port is still operational, thankfully, and is constantly being improved by myselves. And as of now Pelagica is around 60% qualatized with more being added every day.]
NOTE: I am continually amazed by this Sycamore’s capabilities. It’s unclear whether or not the Sycamore has created BetweenSpace, or is just enabling me to gain access. Either way, without this Sycamore, this task would be near impossible. For the sake of posterity, I want to mention a couple of inventions of mine that harness the power of the Sycamore. So far, I have constructed two devices that enable me to enter BetweenSpace and also do some interesting things with time (but not without cost, which is why I never use the time "features" as a rule). The first one, which I named CLARENCE (I have forgotten the meaning of the acronym, sorry). CLARENCE was about the size of a half-eaten sandwich and had a limited amount of features (it worked, but it was very unreliable). I lost that one in Silton, unfortunately (it’s a long story which I may possibly document at a later time).
*Luckily I installed an ai-tracker in it, but #16A6 that I installed is a bit shy and hardly ever broadcasts its coordinates. The last location it gave me was somewhere in the inFoundry, which almost guarantees that someone now has possession of it. Whoever that may be, though, they can’t enter BetweenSpace, thank the sea, since CLARENCE was built without that feature. But they will still be able to do some dangerous things with time and matter. I am hoping that myselves will track it down soon, it has been causing me much anxiety. The second device, TRACTUS, is perfect. It was designed by an indefinite amount of my z-selves and it has been thoroughly tested. This one I can never lose because we installed it in my brain.
There is one slight problem though. If for some reason, somehow, someone is using CLARENCE, it may prove difficult to remove it from them when I find them and if they resist. Unfortunately, If TRACTUS is in thirty feet or so of CLARENCE, TRACTUS cannot work - but CLARENCE remains fully operational! It’s an odd issue, and it has me worried. CLARENCE may be inferior, but it is very dangerous. If I ever encounter this situation, I will have to be very clever indeed, or lucky even. Hopefully this can be avoided...*
"Where is the ferry-car?" Asked Anagraham. He was standing at the edge of the townsville with Liperton and Bouffard.
"I don't know. Hey, waito...there's a notice on the docking station." said Liperton. He walked over to the docking station and grabbed the note.
NOTICE!
ALL BILLOWSVILLE TOWNERS!
COMING SOON!
THE NEW BISECTOR MOVING-CAUSEWAY!Tired of the long sea-ride to Pelagica? Be excited! :)[1]
There will soon be a moving-causeway built to every townsville and Float-a-Flat.
City Dutymen from every city in Pelagica are finding the best route from each townsville to Silton.
Construction to be completed before Seafall.
As of today, the ferry-car service to all townsvilles will cease until further notice[1].
We're sorry :([2][1]-there will be no further notice
[2]-Emoticons donated by the Existential Crisis Foundation Corp, Inc
The three men stood staring at the notice, dumbfounded. They looked out at the open bay and at the land mass of Pelagica that spread across the distant horizon. Silton's towering buildings jutted up into the sky, the tops of which disappeared into a low cloud cover. The vacant Billowsville Float-a-Flats bobbed up and down with the tide. Then Bouffard broke the stifled silence:
"Well, that does it then. We're doomed." Bouffard said, throwing up his hands.
"Doomed? Why are we doomed?" Asked Anagraham.
"We are doomed," said Bouffard, "because if I do not return to Meadowfield with my report in the next 25 hours, the Mayor (may he be enlarged) will schedule Billowsville for Submergence."
"Submergence?" asked Liperton. "What is that?"
"Submergence," said Bouffard, "is the process in which a land body and anything on it is leveled flat until it is covered with water."
"What?! That’s horrible! Why would they submerge Billowsville? What has happened that would allow such a measure?" Liperton cried, aghast.
"Chapter Letter-X happened," Bouffard said, "Which states: 'If any townsville wheresoever - ever falls below the required minimum rentoccupancy of 5 townsvillers, then that townsville will be subject to Submergence unless, upon elemental inspection, there is an emotional and/or environmental contingency that can be presented to the Mayor (may he be enlarged). If the contingency presented contains sufficient evidentiary suggestion - the Mayor (ibid) will then, possibly, change his mind.'"
"I knew it! YOU are a city official. An Elemental Inspector, I presume?" Liperton said, his eyes were wild.
"You correctly presume - partially. I am an unofficial freelance official - certified Elemental Inspector. Or an Unfreecial Cert-El'Spector, brev-speaking." said Bouffard.
"And did you find a contingency?" asked Liperton.
"Um," Bouffard said clearing his throat and rubbing his nose, " I found your tree, my good man. And the Mayor promised me a city if I found your tree. And here it is!"
"Ah, I see now the reason behind this new tree ordinance," said Liperton, "What does the Mayor want with my tree, anyway? It’s just a tree!"
"Ah, but it's not just a tree. It's a NEW tree. I've never seen a tree as big and as shapely as yours. I also cannot find it in any of the TreeCorp, Inc. catalogs, or anything like it in the library archives. I don't know where or how you acquired it, but it is new, and the Mayor is a collector of new things. Looking at your tree, though, I personally think TreeCorp makes a much better tree. Anyway, interest was raised when a SeaCorp analyst noticed abnormal flight patterns of their seacranes. They were flying very far away from the mainland - very unlike them. So they sent out a seadrone to follow the birds and when it approached this area, it spotted your unauthorized tree which then alerted the emergency science channels. I caught wind of this, through my connections, and went straight to the Mayor of Meadowfield (m.h.b.e) and he told me if I could bring back evidence of this new, rogue tree, he would give me my own inland city! I brought with me my man Dr. Alagraham here to help me track down the tree and confirm it’s authenticity. He's been going from townsville to townsville looking for any sign of the tree. He is an Historical Arbologist and my assistant." Said Bouffard pointing over to Allister.
"DOCTOR Allister A. Anagraham at your service. But people who know me call me ALagraham." Alagraham stood there grinning and put out his hand for Liperton to shake (he put extreme accentuation on the L which he felt revealed his "truer" identity). But Liperton would have nothing to do with his greeting. He slapped it away and looked at Bouffard. His stomach was turning, the world was starting to spin around him. He looked at Alagraham who retracted his hand. He looked back at Bouffard.
"So what does this mean?" asked Liperton, buying some time. He was preparing himself mentally. He had a decision to make, and he had to act fast.
"It means, my friend, that we must take your tree. It’s really for the best. You’ll see. If we can get off of this blasted townsville in time." Bouffard said.
"I’m not going to let that happen." Liperton said calmly. And then, he closed his eyes in the way that he so often did - to activate his trusty TRACTUS. He didn’t really have a plan quite yet, but getting away as a z-self would give him some space to find a way to help himself out. Bouffard and Anagraham, or Alagraham, were a problem, but he had to get to the Mayor and make him forget about his Sycamore and this submergence nonsense. He had 25 hours. Plenty of time to do what he needed to do: he would enter BetweenSpace, go fetch a ferry-car, come back to get himself, get rid of these guys somehow, and then get to Meadowfield. Easy. Except. TRACTUS did not respond.
"Did he fall asleep?" Asked Aligraham, staring at Liperton who was just standing there with his eyes closed.
"Wha-?" Liperton opened his eyes in confusion. What was wrong? Why didn’t... And then that feeling that had been lingering on the edge of his thoughts, plummeted into full realization - CLARENCE.
"Well, Clamn." Liperton cursed. And then Liperton turned to run. blip And then Liperton turned to run. blip And then Liperton turned to run. blip And then Liperton turned to run...
"I have him in a loophold." said Bouffard, putting his shiny device back in his pocket. "Grab his house key-a-card when he resets. Since he is a Geniusman, He must have something in that house of his that will help us get off of this townsville - hopefully in time to get to the Mayor."
"Don't you have a caller?" asked Alagraham "Can't we just call the Mayor (may he be enlarged)?"
"I don't have that kind of clearance. I'm only a freelancer."
"Then why can't you just use that device of yours to go back and steal a ferry-car?" Asked Alagraham.
"It only can go 5 minutes back or 5 seconds forward. And I can only use it like that 3 more times." Bouffard said.
"What happens after the 3rd time then?" Asked Alagraham.
"I don't know - it says on the back to use the time module only 5 times. Or else... And then there is a mushroom cloud icon, a skull-and-crossbones, and a frowny face with exes as eyes next to "else". So I don't think I will be using it a sixth time." Said Bouffard.
"That's probably wise," said Alagraham, "What is that thing anyway?"
"I’m not exactly sure. I got it second-hand at InFoundry from a merchant mandroid. It’s quite remarkable. I would love to meet the man who invented it. Or maybe I wouldn’t. That man would probably be dangerous." Bouffard said.
"Probably so." Alagraham said as he approched the looping Liperton. And then Liperton turned to run.
Root 3 TBD
Note: Passing through the space-port is interesting. The moment, or z-moment, that you walk into gets sucked through BetweenSpace into the present, permanently erasing the previous present - which means you can never go back to that present moment (x-moment). For instance: right now as I write, say I spill my coffee all over the desk. I'm annoyed by this so I decide to go back to stop myself from spilling it. I enter BetweenSpace. I Flip to the moment just before I spill and I go ahead and enter the moment. As I leave the present x-moment (post coffee spill) and enter the past z-moment (pre coffee spill). The present (post coffee spill) is replaced with the z-moment just before the spill. So if I wanted to Flip back to that now future x-moment (previously present) I cannot. It has been replaced with this z-moment. I would have to manually create the moment again and respill it. So I make it a practice to never pass completely through BetweenSpace unless it is unavoidable or if I want to conduct an experiment. Perhaps in later versions, if I find it is possible, I will have a feature that will allow for archiving, but for now...
...A question that bothered me for awhile and that I could not answer without experimentation, was what happens when you go to a different moment where I already occupy that time and space? Will there then be two of me in that moment? Or will the universe explode? I thought it unlikely that the universe would explode, but just to be safe, I stayed in BetweenSpace and experimented with seamice. In short: the universe did not explode, thankfully. There were some seamice that imploded, though, an unfortunate mess. But better them than me I think. It turns out, for some reason, it is necessary to enter sideways to avoid implosion. So as a general rule, when entering a z-moment in a space that you already occupy, enter sideways and you will not implode.
"Marvelous... It's even bigger than I thought it would be. Much, much bigger." Bouffard said, as he strode beside Liperton's driveway. For there it was, the subject of Bouffard's comment, the tree, the Sycamore, thickly growing in the middle of the driveway. So thick in fact that the trunk indeed spanned the entire width of the driveway and into the yard. They began to carefully climb up and over the monstrous roots that filled the yard.
"It looks almost similar to TreeCorp's Ficus Sycomorus-Septentrionalis v3.7 but the bark is thicker and whiter, and the leaves are much bigger," Alagraham said, "I believe this tree is the only one of its kind. It looks so ancient. Yet, how did it end up here? And how did it escape the city’s notice for so long? It’s odd that it wasn’t documented when this townsville was established." He climbed up the roots to the trunk and brushed the rough bark with his soft hand, and without thinking, he broke off a bit of the bark and put it in his jacket pocket. It felt heavier than bark should, he thought. Odd.
"Do you hear that humming sound? Is that coming from the tree?" Bouffard said.
"No, that's impossible. Yet, I think it might be..." Alagraham said climbing up again putting his ear to the trunk.
"Mysteries folded into mysteries," Bouffard said, "Mysteries that will be solved soon enough. If, that is, we can get off of this townsville in time. Come, let us enter the house."
The two men cautiously approached the house, not knowing what to expect. The house itself was ordinary enough. A wooden house, older than it first would appear, painted green with white appointments, and supplied with a circuitously-routed flagstone walkway which led round the front of the house, up to a small porch, and then to the old front door with a too-high integrated window. At first glance, the house looked as though it would be drafty, and being visibly ridden with seacats of uncertain address, it could be thought to be in disrepair. Only upon touching it did Bouffard realize that this was indeed the house of a certified Geniusman.
Bouffard tried to turn the knob. Two wooden-floor step creaks were heard on the other side of the medium-weight wooden door. The thin, sliding metal of the peephole was heard to slide thinly. Alagraham saw a colored distortion through the business-end of the peekhole and said,
"How did he get here so fast?!"
Bouffard didn't respond, but glanced at the peephole at his chest height, and peered over the top of the integrated window.
"How did he get here at all?" Alagraham asked in a hiss.
"He didn't. It's flummery. Genius flummery, but flummery nonetheless." Bouffard said flatly, as he reached into his jacket pocket and pulled his hand out. His hand was then wrapped in something like a thick, black glove. The massive Bouffard reared his fist, and sent it crashing through the door. The door fell to bits. Amidst the din, Bouffard, acting without regard to the chaos, bent to remove pieces of door from the threshold. The act and noise so stunned Alagraham that he froze like a talkfox under the gaze of a gargantuwolf. When he twitched again, Bouffard had already repocketed the glove-like fist covering, cleared the threshold, and was listening to the auto-audi-message now being delivered from nowhere in particular.
The stern voice of Liperton said, "Alright then, now you've broken in, have you? Well, you should know that you'll be arrested in mere moments. The local Vicemen of Virtue Squad will arrive to shoot you with who knows what and..." The recorded threats continued.
Bouffard smiled at the empty, creaking floor, and turned to retrieve the stiff Alagraham by the shoulder.
"Trickery to thwart would-be seacat burglars."
"Seacat burglars?" Alagraham said, staring toward the porch, where he last saw burglable seacats.
"No. Those are hollow-grams," said Bouffard.
Indeed he was right. From this angle, Alagraham could clearly see only 50% of the surface of the sleeping, trotting, and blinking seacats, with the rest of them being hollow space, invisible air. All were false contrivances of light, except for one. The one solid seacat sat staring back at Alagraham. It was clear that the fat seacat lacked a certain resolve and agility to be able to ward off the interlopers, let alone chase its apparitional ancestors. Alagraham tried to picture how the fat seacat was before it had reposed so permanently, but it was hard to imagine.
"I've got guard seanimals, you know!" The recorded voice said, "Your injuries may turn out quite severe! And do you think I will care? Not a whit! You'll not get hospital candies from me, you filching, purloining..."
"Seacat burglars means thieves. Robbers. Us." Bouffard continued, and when the space of the distance of his arm was covered by his moving body, the wide-eyed and well-grasped Alagraham was yanked in tow.
"What about the Vicemen?" Alagraham asked nervously, "Do you think that there is not some surreptitious alarum being raised at the local constabulary as Liperton's auditory avatar suggests?" He often spoke verbosely when he was nervous.
"Yes, there's quite the clanging of the warning bells just around the corner, where armed men of justice..."
"No."
"And why not?"
"Because I bought the local Vicemen of Virtue Squad when I bought the neighborhood a while back."
"But you did not buy this house. You are still culpable of felonious intent to intrude."
"Perhaps, but I won't be caught. Not by the local Vicemen, anyway."
"And why in heavens not?!"
"Because I sold them shortly after I bought them. They're quite removed. Let's pay attention to the matter at hand. Time waits for no man. It only waits for this," Bouffard said, tapping the half-sandwich-sized device within his shirt pocket. It made a little chirp.
"You're running out of time, my criminal familiars. And you've no idea what kind of things lurk in every corner of this house!"
"How are we to find that which seems so unfindable?" Alagraham said. "I mean, we don't even know where he keeps his genius things."
"I may have found a clue. Look here." Bouffard said. He was pointing towards the end of a long corridor at a small sign that said THINGS and an arrow pointing down.
"Well then, how do we get down?" Asked Alagraham.
"There is no way down. And there will be no way out if you do not leave right now."
"What should we do? He says there is no way down." said Alagraham.
"Don't listen to it. It's only a machine - it can't do anything to us. Follow me." Bouffard said. He walked down the long corridor towards the sign. The corridor was far longer than the width of the actual house. As he got closer to the sign, he noticed that there was a tiny thumbnail-sized door that stood on a pedestal beneath the sign.
"How strange! I wonder what is inside." He reached forward and pinched the tiny doorknob, twisted it, and then pulled the door ajar. There was another tiny door behind it.
"Thank you for opening that particular door, you will regret having done that. In 10 seconds." Said the voice.
"We will regret? I think we should be exiting now, sir, before any ascendancy is interpolated upon us that would prohibit future appointments." Alagraham said. He was starting to shake.
"Bosh! Be still. There is no danger. They're only empty threats." He opened the second door to reveal a third.
"10"
"9"
"8"
"Aggh! Please! Leave! We Should! NOW!" Alagraham said pulling on Bouffard's arm.
"No! There must be a button or something in here! We have to find his things! Give me a hand here - your fingers are smaller." Bouffard said. He could barely fit his giant fingers in the tiny doorway. He had opened six doors.
"3"
"2"
"1"
"Oh! I'm leaving! I can't stand it." cried Alagraham. He turned and ran frantically towards the front door. But instead of reaching the front door, he ran smack into a wall made of hard, coarse nothingness.
"Thank you for visiting. You are now forever my house prisoners. Please enjoy some soft jazz."
Somewhere a saxophone started playing accompanied by a small jazz ensemble. Alagraham turned around and looked down the long hallway that he had just run down. Bouffard was standing at the end of it still gaping into the tiny doorway.
"Umm. Uh." Alagraham said. He turned back to the wall he had run into (which had since congealed into a hard, smooth somethingness) and noticed that there was a sign posted on it that said THINGS and an arrow pointing down. Below it there was a tiny thumbnail-sized door that stood on a pedestal.
"Oh dear!" said Alagraham.
Root 4 TBD
Note: ...When I succesfully enter a z-moment where the space is already occupied by myself (within about 30 feet), the memories, awareness, and experiences of that z-self (the self that had passed through) are interpolated (or intrapolated, as I call it) to the z-self (the self already in that moment) and then the z-self, when finished intrapolating, ceases to exist and the body reduces to a fine dust. The first 8 times that I attempted this, I (the z-self) for some reason wept uncontrollably. It is an emotional experience, suddenly acquiring experiences and memories and immediate mental maturity. After awhile, I got used to the intrapolating. Now, I hardly ever weep. I tear up here and there, depending on how deep the experiences and knowledge are that I absorb. Incidentally, intrapolating, I have found, can take anywhere from a second to 30 minutes. And another interesting side effect of a walk-through is, for some reason, the z-self's appearance changes to that of a very elderly person with a long white beard and long bushy white hair. My health is not deteriorated - I feel normal. It's just my appearance that changes. The first time I intrapolated, I didn't recognize my z-self. It was very confusing. Another interesting thing: If two z-selves come together (within 30ft.) they conjoin to form a y-self, or a mingle as I call them. I can tell a mingle apart from an z-self because the mingle's beard and hair grows longer every time he conjoins. I’m sure this is all confusing to you, but it makes sense to me, which I guess is most important.
...blip And then Liperton turned to run, but before he did, Dr. Alagraham quickly took the house key-a-card out of Liperton's shirt pocket. Bouffard and Dr. Alagraham took off towards Liperton's house leaving Liperton to his looping fate.
As Liperton continued to turn and turn to run, and CLARENCE moved far enough away, TRACTUS finally sprung into action.
LOOPHOLD DETECTED - ENTERING BETWEENSPACE AT LOOP #23.
And then Liperton turned to run, and then Liperton turned to run, And then Liperton turned to run...
ENTERING BETWEENSPACE.
And then Liperton turned to run. As he turned, the world around him, along with himself, froze. Except for the sea. The sea slowly began to rise and to bubble. It engulfed the shore, the surrounding Townsville, and eventually Liperton. As the water rose above his head, the green sky and the dark green water around him dissipated into black. Then, from out the blackness, a thin, straight white line of light slowly emerged and formed the outline of a door. Liperton swam towards the door outline. As he approached it, he could see emerging details of an ordinary looking door made of dark mahogany. Liperton opened the door and was sucked inside a small entry-way. The door slammed shut and the seawater was quickly sucked from the room and he fell onto the wooden floor. Getting up, he noticed another door on the other side of the entryway and walked up to it. Posted at about eye level next to the door, there was a sign that said "Wipe Your Feet". He promptly obeyed the sign, though this did little to defray the huge amount of seawater that remained with Liperton, and was now pouring off of him, soaking the mandating doormat. He used the edges of his hands to sling water from his eyes, then reached for the doorknob of another door. But instead of twisting the doorknob, he grabbed it and pulled it out of the door. There was a cable attached to the doorknob that ran into the door. He pulled it up to shoulder level with both hands and then let go. The cable, as if attached to some weight, pulled the doorknob swiftly to the door. As it hit the door, the door flew back and disappeared out of site. The doorway then grew very large becoming a well lit, mahogany paneled room.
BETWEENSPACE ENTERED.
The room was round and cornerless with a flat ceiling. The wall, ceiling, and floor were made of a dark mahogany and had a slight glossy finish. There was a musty, ancient, sweet smell that filled the room. The wall curved inward up to the mahogany ceiling and stretched around the room seamlessly. It appeared as if the entire room was carved from one piece of wood. A small wooden platform stood by itself in the center of the room. Liperton walked across the finished wooden floor, dripping less water onto it than he had been, which splattered on the floor with a series of hollow, wooden blops. His strides swished and tossed the water around on the floor. He approached the platform and walked up the steps and stood with his hands at his side in the center.
DRYING OFF. PLEASE HOLD ON TO THE SAFETY RAILING
Around Liperton, a railing slowly rose from the floor of the platform. He leaned forward and grabbed the railing.
HOLD ON TIGHTER
Liperton wrapped his arms awkwardly around the railing and held his breath. Suddenly, a strong, hurricane wind blew through the room. Liperton flapped in the monstrous wind with his feet off of the ground. He looked like he was holding on for dear life, grappling the back railing of some speeding boat. Just before his grip started to fail the wind stopped and he fell to the floor of the platform, his body making a loud THUD on the hard wood.
"Initialize moment X," Liperton groaned softly as he slowly got up, adjusting his hair and clothing.
PLEASE BE ADVISED. NAVIGATION IS NOW CONTROLLED BY BODY GESTURES. LOOK UP FOR HELP.
"Oh! What a wonderful upgrade!" Liperton said as he looked up. Above him was a view of the room from his left side. He saw himself standing in the middle of the round room. His hair was wild and his clothing, disheveled.
TO INITIALIZE MOMENT X:
The image of Liperton, or Upperton, raised both hands in a scooping motion, held them high for one second, and then lowered his hands back to his side.
TO MOVE FORWARD IN TIME:
Upperton slightly stretched out his hands in front of him, and with his palms up, he slowly raised his hands.
TO MOVE BACKWARDS IN TIME:
Upperton slowly lowered his hands with his palms down.
TO NAVIGATE THROUGH SPACE:
Upperton leaned forward and then leaned around in a circle. Then he returned to a normal stance.
END TUTORIAL
Liperton lowered his head and stared at the round room in front of him. He then raised his hands in a scooping motion and held them high for one second. As he did this, the mahogany wall in front of him was replaced with first a rippling wall of water that glistened from some distant light. Then the water splashed backwards melting into a horizon. As Liperton lowered his hands, the view before him became the seaside and x-Liperton standing beside it in a sort of a half turned running pose.
MOMENT X INITIALIZED
Liperton sighed and looked at the view in front of him. After scratching his head for a moment, he leaned the space-view towards the sea and towards the mainland of Silton. When he arrived at the shore, he panned the view slowly until he came to the seafoil station. Then he gestured a few minutes forward until a seafoil arrived at the dock.
"Initialize the... oh, um." Liperton said and then looked up at Upperton.
TO ENTER A MOMENT:
Upperton walked forward from the platform onto an invisible walkway and then through the imaged wall.
"Oh, pretty simple." Liperton said. He then walked forward onto the walkway toward the wall.
WOULD YOU LIKE TO DESTROY LOOPHOLD IN MOMENT X?
"Oh yeah. Yes, please destroy loophold." Liperton said and then he walked through the wall, sideways, and onto the seafoil dock.
"Try the glove again!" Alagraham pleaded, this time a little more frantic.
"It's no use, these walls aren't budging. They are solider than merited." Bouffard said.
"I can't stand it anymore! This music is making me crazy!" Alagraham said. His plugged his ears with his fingers and sank to the floor.
"Get up!" Bouffard said and grabbed Alagraham by the shoulders, lifting him to his feet. "Try to open another one of those little doors."
"No! I barely got my fingers out the last time. What should we do? Are you sure we can't use that device of yours?" Alagraham said.
"No, I told you of the consequences. There's just no way." said Bouffard. "Besides, I'm not positive it would even work in here. Who knows what kind of inhibitors he has in place."
Suddenly, a series of doors appeared, three on each side of the corridor. Liperton's voice spoke out again:
"And now it's time for a game. Please choose a door. And enter it quickly. You have three minutes to decide."
"What is this? This sounds like a trap." Alagraham said.
"We are already in a trap, my friend. Come let's choose one. Quickly now, the doors appear to be slowly shrinking" Bouffard said.
"I don't like this one bit." Said Alagraham. Bouffard opened a door and stepped through and Alagraham, reluctantly, followed.
The sea roiled and boiled behind the foil that cut through it, driven by the skeg-flanked twenty-blade propeller screw that created a bubbly coil in the water that it sped through. Inside Inter-island Transit System (IiTS) seafoil #497, one hundred and seventy-one passenger seats remained unoccupied on that morning's trip. Nine were occupied. The passengers that occupied those nine seats made up exactly half of the human occupants of seafoil #497. The other nine were members of the ten-man piloting team that each runabout-class IiTS seafoil was customarily complemented with. It didn't require ten pilots to pilot the runabout-class seafoils. There was, in fact, only one pilot's seat, with one control panel and one piloting yoke in front of it, inside the one-man-capacity control deck, which was a small, elevated room at the forecastle of the seafoil. However, the Maritime Mobility Management Ward had more than half of it's central office's offices occupied by salaried, insured and bonded officers of the Courageous Sea Pilot's Labor Union, which generally did as they well-pleased with policy and office supplies and the staffing policies of the MMMW. The seats aboard #497 were cleverly arranged in such a way as to give the passengers the best view possible, through the 350 degrees' worth of beautiful, panoramic window-view, of the ships, power platforms, super-suspended kilo-piers and advertising buoys that cluttered the bay.
"Now, personally, I prefer Jeffrey's Salt Crackers. They have salt, see, which saves me the trouble of having to add it," a short, fat, bald, but otherwise swarthy, and surprisingly young man said to his seat-neighbor.
"Also, they taste great with fish paste. And with fruit paste. And with grain paste. But not so much with paste paste. Gg-sschnukk--sschnukk," the little man snickered toothily, and with a visible tongue. His seat-neighbor had another seat-neighbor, and that seat-neighbor had a window seat. All of the other passengers were isolated in seats in the cabin most distant from the irregionally swarthy, little man. If he didn't have the two seat-neighbors pinned against the window, he would probably be sitting by himself talking loudly to the nearest, distant and tortured passenger.
"Now, my brother, he can eat! He eats like an eel, I mean any-old-thing. I finished most of a sandwich and left it on the kitchen counter and it musta sat there for a week, but you know what my brother did?"
The seat neighbor took a breath and said, "He ate it?"
"He ate it! I mean, that's disgusting! What is he, an animal? I oughta throw him some scraps at the table, y'know, like with a animal, huh?" the little man half-asked and half-offered as he repeatedly jabbed his seat-neighbor with his bony elbow.
"Am I right or am I right or am I right? Huh? I'm right. I'm right," the little man said, reassuring himself. "C'mon, buddy, cheer up, huh?" the little man said to the nearer of his two seat-neighbors, both of whom were staring out of the window. All of the passengers in the cabin rolled a bit to the right as the gyroscopically-balanced seafoil skidded at high speed to steer clear of a monstrously large advertising buoy hawking sugar paste on one side of the massive, fabric cylinder and toothpaste on the other.
"Ha!" The syllable of delight came from the control deck, where one of the nine present pilots piloted the speeding vessel from the tip of one peninsula on the coast to the tip of another, which was its standard route. "That'll teach Kilroy to catch spinal meningitis on his rotation day! Dumb ad buoy's been floating off course for weeks, and does he get to take manual control from the piloting computer and steer around it on the day that it enters the route? NO!"
The pilot cranked the yoke sharply to the right to realign the seafoil with the automated route, which was managed by the vessel's navigational AI, powered by SeaGo Deluxe Pro v.564.31hh, release 12½, Demo Version, by PoseidoSoft, uInc. As he madly clenched the now-unresponsive yoke, ridden with schadenfreude, the pilot continued,
"Always been a fool, and now he's blind to boot! Lazy Kilroy. Just desserts, to my mind!"
"Yeah, yeah," the other eight pilots grunted and sighed, staring at their reading material. They were loitering around the rear of the tiny control deck and on either side of the cabin hatchway, and reading mega-zines on various subjects.
As the seafoil rolled and pitched and bounced along the bay, the standing pilots demonstrated the single skill that years of piloting had given them: the ability to stand and read and smoke and drink and gamble and engage in other types of vice, effortlessly absorbing all the shock and shake of the maneuvers of the vessel in their legs and hips with a perfect sense of balance. As the seafoil would tilt and jerk, the group of them resembled a small forest of sea kelp in the waves, except that they collectively moved in the exact opposite direction of the external forces. There was a term that pilots used to describe this eventually-learned talent: C-Legs. The phrase was derived from the idea that the legs had to be limber and relaxed, as if curved, like the letter C.
"Yeah, that's the thing about crackers, if they ain't salty, then they just don't crack! Huh? Am I right or am I right or am I right? Huh?"
"I don't know," Liperton said to his loud, round-faced, little seat-neighbor, noticing that the eight loitering (while building their pensions) pilots had excellent c-legs. He then wiped some fresh tears away from his eyes. The ancient-looking man sitting between Liperton and the window patted him on the shoulder.
"Hey, are you sure you're okay? I mean I know you say you're okay, but I ain't never heard of any allergy that makes a guy cry like he lost his parents -- oh, I'm sorry, there, pops," the little man said, squinting, to the quiet ancient. Liperton swatted the small, fat, greasy hand away from his shoulder.
"I'm perfectly all right. In fact, I am in good spirits, present company excluded. As a matter of fact, I very much enjoy transit rides on seafoils."
The old-looking man next to the window nodded, causing his long, white hair and beard to shimmy wispily. With a familiar-sounding voice, he said, "Nice and loud. Quite cacophonous." The seafoil bounced and a small wave of water slapped the side of the vessel, quickly beading and blowing off of the panoramic window. The old-looking man grinned.
"Exactly." Liperton added, "Very relaxing. Remarkably pleasant. The only thing that would improve the experience is a little bit of solitude." He leered again at his seat-neighbor. His red eyes and tear-stroked cheeks combined with the offense intended in his glance made for quite a ridiculous mixed expression. But his fat seat neighbor was oblivious and continued his unstoppable blabbering.
"I do wonder why it is taking so long," the old-looking man said to Liperton, "I haven't had too many experiences since you. None at all really. I only convinced the men on this vessel to swing by Billowsville to pick you up. And here we are."
"Really? Hmmm, how strange. Well, it's not an exactly an exact science. At least not exactly yet." Liperton said, folding his arms. "Do you have any suggestions of how I should move forward? I mean, after my trip to the Meadowfield City Library?"
"Your guess is as good as mine." The old man said.
"Quite exactly." Liperton said, wiping more tears from his face.
"I wonder if this idiot breezebag has anything to do with this long interpolation," the old man whispered, pointing to Liperton's side.
But the fat seat neighbor had stopped talking and had leaned a little closer to eavesdrop. The older-looking man quickly stood up and glared at the fat young man.
"Do you mind?! Seriously! You have become insatiably annoying! Just leave us alone, you annoying fatty!" the old man screamed. The wind blew hard against his long white beard which emphasized his anger.
"Yeah, yeah. Well, um, pops, I hope your weepy-girl grandson here gets you to an Alterergarten soon. I mean, you are getting up there in summers, and I mean, look at you. You old rot!" the little man blurted, patting Liperton on the shoulder. Liperton again swatted the patronizing, fat, little hand away from his shoulder and then shoved the little man out of his seat onto the cabin deck. The little man tumbled onto the rubber floor, then slid even further, due to a taxiing turn that the vessel was executing as it approached the target peninsula's docking station. The eight standing pilots swayed together with veteran c-legs, and laughed cruelly and uproariously at the tumbling, little man, as did the other six passengers on the other side of the cabin.
Above the control deck's hatchway, which was filled with rollicking, guffawing pilots, there was posted a sign which read, "No harrassing seat-neighbors. IiTS Code #11.1, Townsville Code #1,456,034.0"
Somewhere beneath the city of Silton, Hillburt Bellsaunderson, a parking garage attendant, searched through the pockets of a man that was laying face down in a pool of drying blood.
"What've I done?" Hillburt whined desperately. He was dripping with sweat, which made him cold, which made him nervous, which made him hot, which made him sweat. He kept wiping the sweat from his face with his shirttail and running his hands back through his mousy hair.
In the hip pocket of the procumbent man, Hillburt finally found what he was looking for. From the hip pocket he pulled out a large set of key-a-cards held together by a sturdy, shiny, number-karat-gold box chain. He flipped through them until he found the correct car image. He stopped when he found the gray Hobson Protero. Then he grabbed the man on the ground, rolled him over, and started dragging him toward the car.
With a wave of the key-a-card at the correct spot on the vehicle, Hillburt engaged the desired function. FLURNK The right-rear corner hatch of the late model Protero flurnked ajar. HHHAHHSSSSK The hatch hahsked to a fully open position. Hillburt used novice technique to inefficiently place the indisposed parker into the corner hatch of one of his own parked cars.
Eight years earlier, it had been determined by Hobson Motor Company marketing executives that there was an untapped, viable market of middle-aged single men who live largely unproductive lives, as they were statistically prone to be dominated by their mothers. This mid-range market of middle-aged, middle-class, matriarchally-managed males showed a peculiar set of buying habits when it came to motorcars. They always wanted storage and disdained flashiness. Therefore, a drab-colored, underpowered line of cars with more storage space than would ever be needed for any trip to the seaflea-market went into production. The one superlative thing that the marketing team insisted on was a name for this model series that would evoke delusions of proactive capability, even though the car itself (which all domineering mothers would insist be bought for their shopping trips) effectively ended such possibilities: the Protero.
As Hillburt wrestled against bodily limbs that were trying to maintain the anatomical position, the full weight of the parker finally was laid into the vehicle. The car-puter spoke in a husky, aged, but vaguely feminine voice that had just enough saccharine quality to be manipulative,
"Now, dear, you know you can't drive the car from back there. Why don't you stop acting childish and come sit up here with me? Hmmm?"
Hillburt had to think. He flipped through the key-a-cards scanning for just the right one. It was a long shot, but it might be his only shot. He continued to flip frantically through the chain of key-a-cards, briefly examining the small car image on each one.
The car-puter scolded, "Just what do you think you are doing back there? I don't think a man your age should be fooling around wasting time in a car hatch. You shouldn't expect people to respect you if you behave like that. Are you sleepy? Did you have a heavy lunch again? Why don't you just carefully drive home and lie down in your own bed. Don't forget to drink something warm before you do. It will help keep you from having an upset tummy. But nothing heavy! You don't wan't to spoil your dinner. And make your bed when you get up. Just because you're going right back to bed is no excuse to be untidy, mister."
The clacking of the key-a-cards stopped. Hillburt saw a car image that was so dark that he had to hold it up to the sublevel lighting to see through it and make it out. "Bingo," Hillburt said, and a tiny smile flashed on his otherwise burdened visage. He quickly closed the corner hatch of the Protero. As he did, the car-puter said,
"That's it. I'm just not going to speak to you anymore. That's what I'll do. That's what you deserve!"
The seafoil taxied away from the transit pier and sped into the distance.
"You're lucky that I have more wampucoin than I have time! Otherwise, I would vehemently contest this chicanery!"
Liperton's flush-red skin was highlighted by the light-gray timedust that thinly veiled his body. Puffs of it shook free with every twitch and jerk of the frustrated genuisman.
"This citation is in accordance with IiTS Code..."
"I know what it was in accordance with!" Liperton barked through a timedust puff, most of which escaped from his eyebrows.
"Harassing seat-neighbors is a citable offense, not to mention it's very inconsiderate."
"Inconsiderate my eye! You should have seen the blatant disregard for human decency and reasonable patience that silly man-melon flagrantly flaunted..."
"SIR! Let's not have this escalate!" the Behavior Warden said with one raised white-gloved hand in a tableau gesture, mandating desistation.
One of the civicents in the crowd gathering on the pier to witness this personal embarassment flashed a camera. After the flash, the Behavior Warden returned to his slumped position, focusing on his handheld Cite-A-Deviant 2500.
"Just tell me how much this skulduggery is going to set me back," Liperton said, calming himself and wiping a layer of sweat-caked time dust off of his face.
"That will be...," the Behavior Warden hesitated, waiting for the transmission of the Deviancy Fee for this particular infraction, given the circumstances, time of day, personal details of the victim (which actually played somewhat in Liperton's favor), and economic market patterns affecting current leviable taxes for the local Townsville. The Cite-A-Deviant 2500 tapped, clicked, buzzed and dinged. "...point-seventy-three wampucoin." He tore a strip of papyr off of the CAD25h and handed it to Liperton. The gathered crowd recoiled. Few people ever carried so little a wampucoin denomination on their person. It was widely understood that the thousand-fold fee (which could also include Exisle time) associated with not exactly paying the infinitessimal original infraction fee was a well-proven psycho-hassle device used by Townsvilles to badger their citizens into behavioral compliance. It frequently threatened their sanity as well.
"Point -- Seventy -- Three?" Liperton seethed in a measured verbal delivery.
"That is correct. Immediate payment or immediate presentation of certified documentation of proof of inability to pay is required," the immaculately uniformed Behavior Warden said. He holstered the CAD25h and sighed, brushing some time dust off of his award medal-laden white and gold lapel. He didn't care much that the dust was the remains of an old-looking gentleman that he has just seen pop into a cloud before his very eyes. Now, it was just a smirch on his exquisite, white-and-gold, short-sleeve tunic, and jet-black-and-gold-trim starched short-trousers. As he continued his pompous preening, Liperton carefully said,
"I only have a one. That's the smallest I've got."
The Behavior Warden feigned tremendous inconvenience. Everyone knew where this was going. Better than half of the surrounding crowd had been in almost exactly this situation with this very same Behavior Warden. With his stance raised, and glaring intensely at Liperton, he said in a low voice,
"Are you trying to bribe an official of the Townsville governmental authority?"
Liperton knew what he had to say. His hatred of having to say it was defrayed by the fact that he absolutely, positively had to hurry to Meadowfield. He produced a single wampucoin from his pocket and met lie with lie, saying,
"No. It would just really help me out if you could be so kind as to take this one wampucoin and process the payment. Would that be all right?" The crowd, all of whom had seen this part a thousand times, dispersed in disinterest. The Behavior Warden gave Liperton a well-rehearsed, sideways-and-down-the-nose look, and said,
"Okay, but just this once, and you'd best not tell anybody that you did this. You might get cited."
On the fifth and mandatory floor of the City Library of Meadowfield, a small bespectacled man pushed his cart of new advert-o-chures and updated category placards through aisles of shelvery that filled the advert-o-chure room. He elbowed his way through the hasty, swarming crowd to the Rare and Overpriced section. The room was crowded and hasty because when civicents enter the City Library, they must go through a long, inconvenient procedure before they are granted access to the rest of the library. Upon entering, they are escorted to a lifty on the lobby floor and the lifty takes them immediately to the 6th floor where they are read the Rules of Browsing. Then they are taken to the 5th floor and advert-o-chure room where they are then required to purchase at least one advert-o-chure. The advert-o-chure must then be read in its entirety at a reading table while being monitored by a ThoroughMonitor (or TM). When the TM has declared you literated, you may then finally enter the main walk-terrace (after showing your advert-o-chure to the checker) and then go to whichever floor or subsea-level of your choosing. The purchased advert-o-chure(s) then must be kept on their person at all times if they want to remain in the library, and to avoid sudden extrication.
The bespectacled man entered the less crowded (empty) Rare and Overpriced section and moved his cart toward the last shelf. He was startled when a tall, wispy man yelped in pain.
"Yoweeee. Ow. Ooooo, that hurt!" yelped the tall, wispy man.
"Shhhhh! No yelping! You know the rules!" said bespectacled.
"I know, but, man that smarted!" said wispy as he rubbed his thin shin.
"No matter. Move along then. Scoot!" bespectacled said and poked wispy with the cart.
"Ok, fine. I’m moving." Wispy said as he moved to the side. While bespectacled moved on with his cart, wispy gave his shin a final rub and then turned to continue his browsing but instead suddenly ran smack into an elderly man with a long white beard and white hair.
"Yecods! You scared me to near death! I’m so sorry, sir. I’m having the worst luck with my personal space today..." wispy said, rubbing his forehead nervously.
"Shhh, quiet. I haven’t got the time. Take this, it's meant for you. Read it, do what it says, and memorize it as I know you do well. Then get to Liperton as fast as you can." The old man said this as he handed a small advert-o-chure to wispy. He took it from him reluctantly and then stared at it in a daze. He was so confused and thought this meeting was quite strange. He looked up to ask the old man what the kelp he meant and who the kelp was Liperton but the old man was gone. He looked around and didn’t see him anywhere, he had simply vanished. Perplexed, he stood there for a moment to collect his thoughts and then looked at the paper the white haired man had given him. It read as follows:
Come visit the most exciting and least visited place in all of Pelagica! Ever wonder where all of the unpleasant discardings of people end up? In UnderCity! At subsea-level #701, you can enjoy an adventure of exploring the infamous sludgetunnels. Who knows what you can find! Enter any service lifty and give the Ultra Secret Password - "gummy" - and then away you go! (Please enter at your own risk. We are required by WarningCorp, Inc. to mention that this adventure may result in sudden death. There may also be various degrees of stench.)
See inside for more details->
He shivered, paused, then opened it. Another folded sheet of paper fell out. He caught it before it hit the ground. It appeared to be a page ripped out of a very old book. He carefully unfolded it and saw that one side had text and the other side a map. He started reading the text and his eyes grew large. A mild paranoia overtook him. He looked around to make sure no one was nearby. Bespectacled was about 100 feet away continuing his stocking and the old man still was nowhere to be seen. He read:
The Fortellings of Phillip Londers
For a glossary of terms, please reference the volume that accompanied this book
Chapter 12: A Message to the Wispy Man in the Library
This is important. Look at the map on the other side and memorize it (as you do well). Remember the following, you will need it at the proper time:
- Left, Right, Right, Jump, Right, Duck, Stop
- That is not a door
- Lean away from Red...
The text went on and on like this, instructions out of context - very confusing. But he read on until the end:
Liperton needs the help of your ability. When you meet him, tell him that he needs your help and the help from others. He needs the help of eight others including you. It is important that he accepts this help, the help of the AbleEight.
Go now. Go find Liperton. You will find him. Do not delay. Except one last thing - the most important thing you need to tell Liperton is this:
Do not trust - ...
But the last part was missing, the corner of the page was ripped off. Wispy stared at the page in a stupor. He then turned it over and gazed at the map. He had an uncanny ability of remembering everything he read and saw - with perfect recall. He folded the page up and put it back into the advert-o-chure. His heart was pumping fast and he quickly made his way to the line for the cashier which was about a hundred people deep. He stood at the back to wait but lost his patience and started running past the people in front of him to the cashier.
"Please! I must checkout now, it's an emergency!" wispy yelled at the cashier.
"Shhh. No yelling. Back of the line please!" rasped the cashier.
"But you don't understand! I must find this Liperton fellow! You have to let me out of here" cried wispy.
"Back-" the cashier pointed to the line and glared at wispy, "of the line, sir. You can leave when you pay, but not until it’s your turn".
"No, please! I must leave at once!" cried wispy.
"Security! We have another one!" rasped the cashier.
"Come with me, sir," said a beefy secur-a-guard behind him.
"No! You mustn't! Please! LIPERTON! AARGH!" cried wispy. He pushed the secur-a-guard and ran towards the City Library entrance door. Before he reached it, though, he was tackled by twenty secur-a-guards.
"Mmmmfff! Arghhh, ellemmfdr!" wispy yelled at the bottom of the pile. They secured him and wrestled him into the lifty. After the button was pushed for subsea-level #113, the lifty took the men downwards to the security subfloor.
The Advert-o-chure room was at first deadly silent. When the door of the lifty closed, the whole room broke out into a conversational buzz. Over the loudspeaker, a voice rang out:
"Please, cease all gabfesting! Remember the silence! It is not optional!"
The buzz died down to a low whisper that sounded like rustling book pages. Meanwhile, Liperton walked into the room and looked around. He addressed a man just inside the entrance:
"What's all the whispering about?" he whispered.
"Some wispy guy caused a big commotion. It was really exciting!" the man whispered, giving a whispered emphasis to "exciting".
"Oh, sorry I missed it. Good day." whispered Liperton.
"Good day!" said the man a little too voicefully.
"You there! Silence!" said a secur-a-guard behind him.
"Sorry!"
"SHHH!"
Liperton pushed his way through the crowd to the PRETTY DARN CHEAP section and started browsing the shelvery.
"How long do you suppose this will last?"
"It could be hours, days even."
"Really?"
"Yes, the key has only changed twice, and the jazz fife hasn't played a solo yet."
Alagraham had been pacing in the same direction for almost an hour, and hadn't moved an inch closer to Bouffard's end of this newly-created hallway trap that they only assumed was still somehow in Liperton's house, though it was clearly far too large to fit inside of it. Of the prison walls, both real and surreal, this was Alagraham's favorite. It allowed him to pace wantonly, without the bother of having to turn around. It was some form of spatial singularity that made it impossible to approach Bouffard within any closer than about twenty feet, despite any of his efforts to do so. He could reach, leap, fall, sprint or cast himself (or any handy object) at Bouffard, and over a few feet of hallway between them, he would fly through the air with no horizontal movement whatever, landing on the white, quasi-wooden floor just as if he had actually moved. It was fun. Except for the mediocre jazz. Of course, he couldn't help but hum and tap along with the refrain sections.
Bouffard, on the other hand, was busy cataloging the peculiarities of their mostly-white prison. He pointed at each end of the hallway and said, "I have a theory."
"Do tell."
"It seems that there is a balance between all of these devices. This impassible space between us, This series of tiny doors, and the identical device on your end. Balance appears to be congruent with the integrity of the prison. If we could disrupt that balance..."
Alagraham fruitlessly skipped in Bouffard's direction and said, "You don't know that they're identical. There's no reason to assume that they are completely identical just because they appear to be identical, you know." Alagraham spoke with improper informality to his superior, enhanced by the fact that there was no possible way that he could be calcitrated for the offense.
"You're right. We must test yours. Open as many doors as you can."
"I think not. Your frenzy of unchecked door-openings is what has landed us in this arrestation."
"My dear Alagraham, please take a moment to let the two likeliest resolutions to our scenario enrich you."
"And what are those, my dear BOOOO-fard?" Alagraham huffed, performing alternating leaps through an infinitessimal distance.
"One,..."
"YeeEHHSS?"
"...we will not escape. In which case we will die for lack of food, before that dying for lack of water, before that dying for lack of air."
Alagraham went from hops back to a brisk pace, being only mildly affected by the prospect. He added, "If the jazz fife doesn't kill us first." The jazz fife had finally begun its sub-mediocre solo.
"Yes. And two, we will escape, in which case I will likely calcitrate...your fundament."
Alagraham wisely acquiesced by simply turning his pace around and walking toward the tiny door on the pedestal on his end of the blank, and otherwise featureless prison. He took a couple of huffs to catch his breath from his spatial histrionics, and reached down to open the tiny little door. The knob did not budge.
"It's locked."
"Try harder."
"It's not budging. I don't want to break it."
Bouffard clenched his fists. "Yours should not be locked. That is an imbalance." Bouffard sat down against the white wall and squeezed his forehead. His wavy, silver-and-black hair reshaped to the wrinkled skin. He stood up.
"Leave it alone." He walked over to his pedestal and pushed his smallest finger into the tiny series of doorways and shut the smallest one that he had been able to reach.
"What is it that you are doing?" Alagraham asked.
"Balancing." Bouffard continued closing tiny doors until he was looking at the first door, closed as he first saw it. "Now try yours again."
Standing in an athletic slouch, Alagraham wiped some sweat from his forehead and grasped the tiny doorknob on his first door.
"By the Archeman (may he remain), it's unlocked!" Alagraham said through a chortle that quickly devolved into a rasped whine. "But it's stuck. It won't open."
Bouffard didn't watch Alagraham's struggle for long. He tried his own first door. Both Alagraham's and Bouffard's first doors popped open. Each man turned to see the other's expression of surprise. Bouffard's was subtler. He said, "Try the next one."
Alagraham began his struggle with his second door, and when Bouffard tried his, both second doors popped open.
Bouffard said, "Keep going."
Soon, each man had opened six doors, and Alagraham's struggle with the seventh was proving unproductive. The narrower space now demanded that he use his fingernail to open the doorknob of the seventh door. He said hurriedly, "I'm on the seventh door, but I am unable to pry it open."
"It's not you." Bouffard face was sweating. His teeth and shoulders were set in concentration and his thick eyebrows were deeply furrowed into his dark eyes. "My fingers are too thick." He withdrew his hand from the set of consecutive doorways and his protruding little finger was deeply marked and pressure-indented and bleeding at the nailbed. He rubbed it and took a deep breath.
"Don't you have some other piece of gadgetry for this predictably unlikely task?"
"I know my gadgetry very well. I have nothing for this. Keep trying." His face became calm as he pushed his little finger back into the doorways. Alagraham kept the knob of his seventh door turned and kept tugging at it, watching Bouffard's broad shoulders pull upward and back.
Bouffard began to moan. He was pushing his hand with a careful might. He focused on his finger, and kept a steady forward assault on the tiny space, retreating not at all in the face of great pain. He began to shout a bit. Alagraham winced and kept tugging at the door. His own fingers began to become exhausted.
Alagraham feebly said, "I'm not sure how much longer I can keep this..."
"KEEP TRYING! KEEP TRYING! KEEEEEEEP..."
Pop.
Each of the seventh doors were open, and Bouffard had slumped to sit on the floor. He was panting and sweating and rubbing his bruised, bleeding, compressed finger. He heaved a sigh just in time for the jazz fife to finish its solo, and for the drums to begin their second solo.
"I think..." Alagraham said. Bouffard looked up at him.
"I think there's...I can see something."
That was enough for Bouffard. He stood and kneeled in front of his pedestal and peered through the doorways. Indeed there was something there that had the quality of being distinctly undoorlike. It was not, however, distinctly visible through the tiny doorway, the excitement and the sweat. Each man pressed a finger (Bouffard used his fresh and uninjured little finger) into the doorway and probed for whatever lay beyond.
"I think...I think...it feels like it might be a button," Alagraham said. Staring over his shoulder at Bouffard, he said, "Should I press it?"
Bouffard thought for a moment. He held his little finger tightly in the doorway, as far into it as he could. "Yes, but only briefly. If you provoke something cataclysmic, I don't want it to be prolonged."
Alagraham faltered. His lip quivered, followed by the rest of him. He broke off his stare from Bouffard, and looked at the doorway. He held his elbows tight to his torso and pointed his finger at the barely-visible thing beyond the seventh doorway. He slowly put his finger through each doorway with stuttered breaths. He tried and failed to stop himself from whispering, "What dooms might lurk within?"
He depressed the soft tip at the end of the seven doorways on his pedestal and quickly pulled back. He held his breath and looked at Bouffard, who didn't move, but blinked.
Bouffard calmly said, "Press it three more times. Carefully."
"Are you sure?"
"Yes. Carefully."
Alagraham pointed with a less certain finger at the doorways and poked the tip of the thing at the end three more times. Carefully.
Bouffard stood, withdrew his finger from the doorways and sighed. Alagraham held his breath again. Bouffard said, "Is it still there? Can you feel it?"
Alagraham felt around inside the doorways with his finger. "No. It...it is gone. Whatever it was is not...I can't seem to find..."
Bouffard was busy. He had removed three small, shiny metallic cubes from his pocket. He stacked them together and held the resulting device in his hand. He then moved his thumb across the surface of one end, and a metal spike protruded out (from no discernable hole) a few inches and stopped. He glanced over his shoulder at Alagraham, who was furiously feeling and fidgeting with the new emptiness past the final doorway with his finger. Bouffard aimed his sharp tool into the seven tiny, open doorways and poked hard.
"AAAOOOWWW!" Alagraham shouted, yanking his hand away and slapping it on the pedestal before his sudden pitch tumbled him onto his back. The force of his backward spring slid him on the floor to the spatial singularity threshold where he continued to slide for a moment without moving at all. He grabbed his finger and held it tightly. A puncture wound produced a bead of blood. "I'M STUNG!" He turned and looked through the now empty, white space beyond his seventh doorway, saw the bloody smudge on the pedestal and then turned to look at Bouffard.
Bouffard stood calmly, holding out his shiny, pointy, metal tool. Then Alagraham noticed the drop of blood on its tip.
Right when the second drum solo reached a timely cymbal crash, the soft jazz abruptly ended, leaving silence.
Liperton, after standing in line for a good thirty minutes, finally reached the cashier. He promptly paid and then made his way to an empty chair at a reading table, sat down, and read his purchase.
TRY TRIPIMUN FOR MAXIMUM EFFECTIVENESS.
"I'm finished." said Liperton looking to the TM behind him.
"I know. Don't tell me how to do my job," growled the ThoroughMonitor, "You are literated. Proceed to the entrance. Quietly."
"Right..." muttered Liperton as he walked away.
The entrance to the library was a big arched doorway. Across the top in florid, ostentatious script were the words "Keep Against The Wall". As Liperton passed under the the words, he saw before him a vast and cavernous rotunda stretched all around and far beyond his sight. The main library rotunda was the upper part of a giant cylinder with a not-so-wide walkway stretching around it circumferentially. The ancient library system used an ancient form of safety called fear, and therefore provided no railing to prevent a walk-off from the walkway. Liperton immediately moved along the wall. The floor of the walkway was hard xylicawood (note: xylicawood is basically the stuff that Pelagica is made of - a hard, woody, silica-ey substance. Generations of Geniusman have studied xylicawood and have found a million uses for it, but they still do not fully understand its properties) and every few feet there was a small shoulder-width viewhole covered in thick, clear green tinted silicaglass that allowed (forced) passers-overs to stare into the vast luminous abyss of the Shelvery Distribution Corridor. As Liperton glanced down through one of the viewholes, there was no bottom to the abyss that he could see (though he could hardly look down for long due to the blinding luminous glow).
One hundred circular stained silicaglass windows were set in the monolithic dome ceiling above him. Each were inlayed with a different cityscape image and below each image were symbols of somekind. Geniusman believed the symbols were letters in some ancient, long-forgotten language - but they could not figure out which one or how to translate them. One believed he had figured it out and translated one window as "Eat more meat". Later it was found out that he was paid off by the Slaughterhouse Society and he was promptly stripped of his genius (he is now vice-president of the United Sausagers of Pelagica, Silton chapter). The windows were set and angled in such a way that they reflected the prism-like beam of light onto the walkway around the room which made the entire library-going-experience euphorically idyllic and, if one's heart was attuned, almost life changing. But the technology of the Shelvery Distribution System coupled with the chain of procedures to enter the library usually won the attention of the hurried info-seekers, and they were rarely effected.
The very old, and completely automated, library system of Pelagica consisted of three trillion(ish) books and (originally) one hundred libraries (the hundredth one being in InCenter itself). All of the books however were kept in the Main Library Basix that was a mega inverted sphere-like-polyhedron chamber somewhere underneath InCenter. When one (such as Liperton) wanted to read a book, he would go to one of the libraries, enter through the various procedure rooms, and walk along a corridor/walkway/tunnel (etc., depending on the library) to an Interlocutory Interfacement (or ii) and then talk with an ii-ai-gent (or gent for brevity) to query a Shelvery Platform. The ShelvPlat would come up from the abyss and rest just before the ii. Then the librarier would enter the platform, read to his or her heart's content, then exit, leaving the books on the ShelvPlat which would then slip back into the Corridor (only after the librariers had removed themselves). The longest query time noted in the Long Hall of Records was 30 minutes, but that was due to an ii-ai-gent malfunction who contracted a emotivirus and had attempted to committed suicide. Liperton stepped up to an available ii and began to speak.
"I..." Liperton started.
"Hello, again, Dr. Liperton. I am Stewert, your gent today. Welcome. Let me read your needs..." Stewert said. The ii-ai-gency was a mystery to the Geniusman. All they could figure out was that the gents had ocular sensors that could view the thought spectrum of people and then interpret and process the patterns. But they only could interpret the thoughts that were in the knowledge-need-based part of the spectrum. They knew what one wanted to know, and would immediately query the books that fit the query of the knowledge that one was seeking. The books were set on a Shelvery Platform, and the ShelvePlat was sent to the ii location from which the query was called.
"I see," said Stewert, "Please wait while your books are selected and your ShelvePlat is called. Do you want me to sing while you wait?"
"I would prefer some light humming," Liperton said.
"Sure thing." said Stewert cheerfully and then started humming softly.
Liperton sat down on a courtesy cushion that was laying on the floor next to the ii and waited.
"RESPLENDENT!!" Alagraham shouted, near to tears in his frustrated apoplexy. "That's absolutely resplendent! It is SOOOOO re - SPLEN - DEN - TAH - AH - AAH!!" he said, stomping his now bare feet on the white, woodish floor. He de-shoed himself to have missiles to cast at Bouffard, knowing well that they wouldn't make it any further than a couple of feet toward him.
"Calm yourself," said Bouffard, who was now sitting against the wall, squeezing his forehead.
"CALM YOUR SSSSELF!!" Alagraham was suffering a diminished decorum. "You, you..., youyouyou -- " Without a sufficient follow-up expletive, Alagraham merely threw his body, which rose and fell, as through a normal physical arc, then rolled on the floor a couple of times without ever moving any closer to Bouffard than half an inch or so.
The soft jazz had resumed with a saccharine, plinky song which was instrumented entirely by sythesized instruments. It was easy to tell that it had been played by a robot, because every single improvised section, regardless of instrument, had exactly the same sequence of notes, beginning and ending with exaggerated but abrupt fanfare.
"You're over-respirating, Allister. It's unwise," Bouffard stood up to look at Alagraham, trying to transfix him with a subduing gaze. He had learned the trick when swimming with the domesticated merchattel of the western Townsvilles. At first, Alagraham stopped and panted angrily at Bouffard. Then, Alagraham behaved in a decidedly undomesticated fashion.
"HAA!! Yhh...yyyhhhyyyeeewwwww..." Alagraham hissed and drooled and glared, pointing at Bouffard unevenly in his seizure of rage.
"Allister."
"DON'T -- YOU -- ALLISTER -- ME! Yyyeeewwwhhh -- GREAT...BIG...BOOO-FFFFOON!!!"
This actually affected Bouffard, who caught the near-homonymic insult. His shoulders shrank in disappointment. A sigh rattled in his deep chest, and he seemed like a parent watching a rebellious child. As Alagraham began a routine of grabbing things (mostly his shoes) and throwing them as hard as he could a couple of feet in Bouffard's direction, syncopating with the latest jazz "improvisation", Bouffard lowered and shook his head, pacing back to his pedestal in shame.
Bouffard felt something tiny peck him in the back of the head. He jerked around and saw Alagraham gaping. They both stood frozen for a moment. Bouffard looked down at the white floor and saw a brown speck. Alagraham tried to sprint towards Bouffard with no success. Bouffard reached down and picked up the speck to examine it. It was light and woody. He looked at the running, grunting, unmoving Alagraham and said, "What is this?"
Alagraham slowed, stopped and stilted the weight of his torso with his arms by pushing on his lower thighs. He swallowed and panted, "Bark. From the...sycamore. Sep -- tentrionalis..." He closed his eyes, hung his head, gestured over his shoulder with his thumb, and panted some more.
"You threw it? Through there...at me?" Bouffard asked, gesturing passage through the barrier. Alagraham gulped, panted, closed his eyes and nodded.
Bouffard tried walking through the twenty-feet-of-infinite-space barrier from his end for a few steps. No good. He stopped and examined the tiny chip of bark in his hand. To be sure that the little chip would not fall short of his target, he prepared to throw it with his strongest throwing technique at Alagraham. He faced his own pedestal, and using his left arm as a counterweight, spun his body to the left and whipped his right arm over himself, letting out a grunt and flinging the bark fragment at Alagraham with great precision. It hit its mark. Alagraham watched Bouffard's powerful throw and caught the piece when it bounced off of his chest.
"YOU MOVED!!" Alagraham shouted, pointing frantically at Bouffard and the quasi-wood floor in front of him.
"Are you sure? I didn't see it," Bouffard said checking his distance from the white wall behind him. No change was apparent.
"YES!! Incontestably! When you cast the fragment and recovered upright, you were standing closer. Immediately, I saw you move backward a few inches to where you are now standing!" Alagraham said somewhat hoarsely.
"You are sure?"
"I am certain. I am able to distinguish optical deviations to within a few millionths of a degree, unaided by lensatic augmentation," Alagraham stated with pride and resumed decorum, huffing slower than before.
Trusting that Alagraham was telling the truth as best he knew it, Bouffard physically tested the spatial singularity some more, stepping this way and that, against the walls and away from them.
"What can it mean?" Alagraham said, examining the bark. It had not changed in any way, and seemed to be perfectly ordinary tree bark. He prepared to throw it across the spatial chasm a third time.
"NO! We've tempted the Seven Fates enough," Bouffard said, looking behind him at the pedestal and the seven open doorways. He knelt at them, and looked through. Past fourteen tiny thresholds, partly obscured by fourteen mostly-open doors, he saw Alagraham, facing the other way. He could hear the soft jazz twice, the second slightly delayed from the first. He watched Alagraham turn around, look back at him and run to kneel down and say into the doorways,
"What is the plan, sir?"
Bouffard rolled his eyes and said, "Carefully...break the bark in twain."
"In what?"
"In twain. In two."
"Twain? But who says that? Twain?" Alagraham was seriously contemplating this.
"Just break it in half for Archeman's sake!" Bouffard snapped.
"OK, let's not get cross. I'll twain it." Alagraham looked down at the small piece of tree bark and marvelled at its unexpected importance. He used his fingernail to split the fingernail-size bark along its grain into two fingernail-size pieces. He held them before the doorways, showing them to Alagraham and said, "Done."
"Pass me one of them." said Bouffard.
Alagraham smiled and huffed through his teeth, setting the first piece down on the edge of the white pedestal and passing the second through the doorways to Bouffard. It passed both of the seventh thresholds and rested on the edge of Bouffard's sixth. Bouffard tried to coax it through with his less-injured little finger, but it had now swelled (though not as badly as the more-injured one) beyond usefulness. He pulled the three shiny cubes from his pocket, examined them and clacked them together in a specific configuration. He held the small metallic column in one hand, and with his other index finger, tapped it in four places and drew a line along its surface to the edge of one end. As he did so, a thin strip of metal with a bifurcated crook at the tip protruded out of the end of the column and stopped.
Alagraham was dumbstruck at this device, as it appeared to produce implements from deep within nowhere, as there were no visible lines or holes on the surface of the three metallic cubes. Bouffard used the small crook to draw the bark fragment out of the doorways and onto the surface of his pedestal.
He separated and pocketed the cubes, and picked up the bark to examine it. He stood, turned around and said, "All right. In a balanced fashion, and very slowly, hold out the bark, and walk towards me."
Alagraham's face looked as though he were standing on a precipice being asked to walk into thin air, even though the space between them looked to be nothing less ordinary than a twenty-foot-long length of white, quasi-wood hallway. He faithfully stepped forward. When he reached the threshold, it did not appear to budge, as he could proceed no closer. He said, "It's no good. We shouldn't have twained the bark."
"Keep walking. Carefully. Don't stop. Keep the bark in front of you," Bouffard said, holding his fragment and approaching his own threshold. As both men stepped slowly in each other's direction, they began to approach each other, though not as quickly as their steps would have accomplished unhindered.
In his excitement at their breakthrough, Alagraham quickened his pace.
"SLOWLY! Carefully. Carefully. There appears to be a cone of space behind the bark that we might travel within. Stay behind your bark - SLOWLY!" Bouffard said. The observed cone corrected their every deviation from behind the bark by twisting their position to remain behind it. They slowly progressed toward each other, until they each was within a few feet of the other man. Bouffard said, "Do you feel that?"
"I think I might."
"Stop walking."
Each man stopped, holding the bark far out toward the other man. The two fragments were actually only about four feet apart.
Bouffard asked, "What does it feel like to you?"
"Cold. And big."
"Do you feel a disturbance?"
"Yes. An irregular pulsation. Something like wind. What could it be?"
"I don't know and couldn't guess. Carefully...very carefully, begin to walk past me."
They began to edge into position to stand next to each other within the within white corridor, holding their bark fragments in front of them, past the other man's hand and toward the opposite end of the corridor. Inch by soft-jazz-serenaded inch, they stepped closer to a lateral position.
Alagraham stuttered, "It feels very cold now. I can feel it all over my arm. Do you feel this too? And can you hear that? It sounds like water -- "
HHSSSSSHHHHAAAWHH!
The very instant that the two men reached a lateral position and were looking sideways across the corridor at each other, something happened. The corridor around them seemed to disappear around the lateral position of the other man's piece of bark, behind it appearing a distant, giant rush of water, sound, light and darkness in every direction. Then, the other man instantly rushed past, and they were both left standing in the white corridor, holding their pieces of bark away from each other, dripping wet, listening to soft jazz.
Alagraham shivered in consternation. Bouffard didn't. Alagraham looked around to make sure that things hadn't gone "pop" as he feared they might've, and noticed something on the pedestal next to him. Three clean drops of blood, but no bloody finger-smudge.
"We've switched! This was your side!"
Bouffard said, "Do it again."
"Um, I most certainly will not!"
"Carefully, Alagraham, please. Please! I have a plan to get us out of here."
"And into... that? I'd rather suffocate or die of thirst or starvation or whatever awaits us here, thank you very much."
"You're wrong about that."
"What?!"
"Your opinion is baseless. My knowledge on the matter isn't. You definitely wouldn't rather have that type of death. Absorb but a tithe of the compulsion that I am giving you,...and do it again, very carefully. Now!"
Alagraham hesitated, and then was compelled. He stumbled around into position to begin the slow trek across ten feet of white corridor.
"Begin," Bouffard said, and both men began their co-approach. The stakes were no higher than before, but they seemed to be. Notions of containment had been shattered, and both men now tread as if on tightropes. Once again they felt the cold and wetness and wind on their arms, and once again the other's piece of bark passed their perspective, revealing a chaos beyond perceptible proportion.
This time, Bouffard was prepared. He had pulled out a glove-like device from his jacket pocket. It was like the first, but it was light gray, and was not closed in a fist.
"We're almost there..." Alagraham managed to say as they assumed their lateral position.
Bouffard did not hesitate. With his hand that held the bark, Bouffard grabbed Alagraham's bark-holding hand. Then, he grabbed both of their hands with his gloved hand and leaned past the lateral position. Instead of rushing past each other, the men spilled away into a painful, harsh unreality.
TO DO [need more]
They were spinning and tumbling around what looked like a dimensional axis that was centered on the bark inside their clasped hands, which were locked closed by the grip of the glove device on Bouffard's other hand. They both flew and fell and were tossed and thrown in every direction, all around the axis. They appeared to be inside a raging spheroid, and in every direction were waves of water that went on forever, interrupted by bolts of lightning, massive hurtling stones and streaks and points of light and shadow. The freezing, thundering air was only around them, beyond which lay the volume of billions of oceans, all of which seemed to be attacking the men for their intrusion.
Alagraham screamed unceasingly. Bouffard held fast to Alagraham's hand, aided by his gripping device. He took a moment to observe the surrounding limitless phantasmagoria, and in the distance he noticed something moving...something familiar. He looked back at Alagraham, whose head and body were flailing to the point of injury. Depending on his greater mass, he heaved three powerful heaves to bring Alagraham across the axis.
It worked. The chaos disappeared, and they flopped onto the floor of the white corridor. Freezing, soaked, battered, bruised and exhausted, they lay a few feet apart on the floor, connected by the vice-grip of the glove device.
Alagraham was still wheezing from his screams and was nearly insensible. Bouffard steeled himself, released his glove device's grip on Alagraham and recovered to his feet. When he looked down the corridor, its opposite terminus was distantly beyond purview, but when he turned, his pedestal (or possibly Alagraham's) was now thirty feet high. He could barely see the tip of the first open door, which now appeared to be about ten feet high.
The skinny, exhausted, blue-and-blanched Alagraham stood behind him and said through chattering teeth said, "Well done. That was genius."
Bouffard said, "Not really. But it was exceptionally clever. We just needed to break the balance. I suspect that we were quite fortunate that was no more or less than two of us. It would almost certainly have resulted in a different, less negotiable corridor trap."
"But...what if you were not able to hold on? What if you had let go?"
"I considered that. At the time, I was not at all sure. I now believe that it would have resulted in an extremely painful and messy death."
Alagraham subtly gawked, surveyed the situation and saw the pedestal with the doorways above them. He said weakly, "How are we going to get -- "
But before he asked the question the answer was clear when he felt Bouffard pick him up by his leg and toss his entire body upward.
"Whoa! WHAAA!" Alagraham half-shouted on his way to the top surface of the pedestal, having barely cleared the outer edge. He tumbled on to the surface and sped to his feet. "That's it! No more flopping me around like a rag-a-ma-doll! I'll not stand for it, Bouffard!" he cried, almost collapsing with dizziness.
"I apologize for the false step, my dear Allister, but it was an essential tactical maneuver. Your being up there will speed my getting up there, and we haven't a moment to lose, as we've no idea how many moments we've actually lost," said Bouffard with faint and feigned sweetness, cajoling the abused Alagraham, whose shock was visually more prominent than his contempt. While Bouffard spoke, Alagraham could see him manipulating a short tube that he had produced from his jacket pocket. Bouffard continued, "Now please, stand back."
He did not wait for Alagraham to do so, and shot a heavy cylinder trailing a thin cable from the tube in his hands. It whizzed past Alagraham's head, and thudded on the surface of the now-high pedestal. Bouffard said, "Please place the device face-down on the surface." Alagraham did so, and he heard a suction being produced within. A green light appeared on the side of the cylinder, and before Alagraham could tell Bouffard that this was so, the cable tensed. Alagraham looked over the edge to see Bouffard rising quickly to the top holding fast the tube. After some unclamorous clambering, the massive Bouffard stood next to Alagraham and they both looked through the doorways.
"What is it?"
"It's the house."
"Still?"
"Yes," Bouffard said, walking through the doorways and back into the house.
"But what about this? How is it possible for this..." Alagraham gestured to the seemingly infinite white corridor behind him, "...to be in the house?"
Bouffard briefly examined the doorways, then said to Alagraham, "I couldn't surmise. But what I do know is that this is not where he keeps his things."
Alagraham looked back at the corridor, then down, then back at the (now endless) corridor. He said, "Where are my shoes?"
Bouffard laughed heartily.
Stewert stopped humming and said, "Oh, here we are. My, that query took longer than expected, I apologize. I will report the delay to HQ. Happy reading."
Liperton, who had been lightly dozing, woke up with a snort. It had taken 45 minutes for the ShelvPlat to arrive. The ShelvPlat looked like two cog wheels joined together like a cogged figure 8 and the shelveries of books completely lined the perimeter as a wall. There was a xylicawood ceiling with a 5 ft. circular hole at the center of each cog. Liperton stood up and entered the platform and noticed a chair at the other end. Sitting in the chair was an old man with a long white beard.
"Oh, hello! How did you get here?" asked X-Liperton.
"Here, take this book. Put it in your pocket." said Z-Liperton and handed him an ancient looking book.
"Okay. What is it?" said X-Liperton as he took the book and placed it in his jacket pocket.
"Hold on to something." said Z-Liperton.
And at that moment, the ShelvPlat dropped into the bright abyss like a bolt of lightning.
After I tweened from an Z-Self, I sidestepped to the city of Plongin.There I intrapolated with another Z-Self who had spoken to the Mayor of Plongin and convinced the Mayor (with a few of our inventions) to give him access to the Restricted Access ii-ai-gent in the Plongin Library. I went to the Library and then spoke with a gent who understood what I was looking for. He directed me to the City Library of Hobborton with the instructions to say "Hoo Hee Ha Ha" to a gent there. At the library of Hobborton I said "Hoo Hee Ha Ha" to the proper gent and I retrieved a Book of Books from a ShelvPlat that arrived. I went to a ReadRoom and flipped through the Book of Books and came across the most interesting...
Liperton's eyes were watering but he couldn't wipe them because his arms and legs were intertwined with the railings of one of the shelveries. If he let go, he would be flung out of the open ceiling of the ShelvPlat that was falling at an incalculable speed (incalculable because he couldn't reach for his flasque of calculorade). The incredible gust of wind that blew through the cogs of the ShelvPlat, though, was drying his eyes well enough. Z-Liperton was arm-and-leg-locked to some railings a few feet away from him and his long grey hair and beard, along with his clothes, blew wildly about him.
"How long does this ride last?" shouted Liperton.
"What is that about the past?" shouted Z.
Liperton tried to clarify, shouting, "No - Last. How long?! Does it?!"
"Ehhhhhhh? I can't hear you!" screamed Z.
Liperton loosened his grip on the railings and shimmied, arms first, then legs, and continued until he was in spitting distance to Z-Liperton.
"Can you hear me now?!" shouted Liperton, spittily.
"Yeees!" shouted Z.
"I say... How long does this ride last?" Liperton said loudly.
...bit of information. Apparently, there is a hidden library that is not in any city but in some deep secret location. And there, in that library is a cache of ancient books written by the original Geniusman as well as the Archeman himself. The Book of Books did not give the location of the Cache Library, but I discovered a book that would help with that called...
"It lasts ... for a while." said Z.
... 'Maps, Paths, and Doorways'. I went back to the gent and waited, but he threw up an error of 'unauthorized query' and went blank. I then sidestepped back to Plongin to the RA gent and he winked at me and queried the ShelvPlat.
"Where are we going?" said Liperton.
"Can't you wait for the rest of the interpolation? You'll know soon enough?" said Z.
"It's a bit choppy. And that is adding a little suspense. Which you know I hate." said Liperton.
"Yeah. Sorry. I'm exhausted. That might be causing the interruptions. I think talking might delay it further. So, if you want to know quicker, let's have less talk" said Z.
"Fine then." said Liperton.
I stepped onto the ShelvPlat and walked to the far cog. I found 'Maps, Paths, and Doorways' there and I took it down. Immediately when I took it in my hands, I heard the gent say 'Hold on to something!' and the ShelvPlat plummeted...
The two Lipertons stared at each other while they waited for the interpolation to continue. Both men looked wild and ridiculous with their hair and clothes blowing about and with their arms and legs crossed between the railings. X-Liperton raised his eyebrows as if to say "Well?" and Z closed his eyes and sighed.
At that moment, the entire ShelvPlat shook violently.
Liperton nearly lost his grip on the railing. He looked at Z, slightly startled.
"What was that?" Liperton asked.
"Booksloths!!" Z shouted.
"Whatsloths?!" Liperton yelled.
"Wait for it..." Z shouted.
An early triumph of the Biomanipulation Commissionary of the LG, the booksloth was probably the most rare and specialized creatures created on Maritimus. A fully mature booksloth stood eight to fourteen feet high at the withers, and though usually slow-moving, was capable of blurring speed and colossal strength when they loaded the books onto ShelvPlats or when their habitat was threatened.
They were not made up of flesh and blood like other animalia; their bones were made from the Xylica tree, the tree that once made up the forests of Pelagica, before the war, and their bodies were made up of book-stuff. Booksloths were also excellent climbers for two reasons: one, at the end of their long claws (which they had eight of on each hand and foot) there extended tiny tongue-like subclaws that could grip any surface like a spider (and also grip books quite gently), and two, xylicawood-emitted xylonetic fields that gave the booksloths (since their bones were xylicawood) the ability to hover near and away from anything made of xylicawood.
The booksloth was created by the original Geniusmen to manage, organize, and guard the trillion(ish) books that were housed in Main Library Basix under InCenter (though some were assigned to guard the areas radiating outward through the ShelvPlat causeveins). Since the restructuring of the LG under the Mayoralty, large quantities of previous LG development archives and memoranda had been banned as anti-Mayoral and assumed destroyed, or even worse, misplaced. As a result, the booksloths and Main Library Basix remained unknown to all of the civicents of Pelagica. The Mayoralty, however, although they knew about Basix, did not know about the mysterious and dangerous booksloths.
The booksloths had guarded the books in Basix for countless years keeping the massive, xylicawood mega-sphere-polyhedron chamber of Basix flawlessly organized. The reason the booksloth was so very dangerous was, if one somehow found their way to Basix and were to disturb a book, nudging its spine askew, causing a page to rustle momentarily, or Archeman forbid, take it from its proper storage cubby, it would mean certain and instant death to the disturber. The booksloths were not savage creatures, they were in general very gentle, but in the fastidious pursuit of their mission, they pay no one any heed whatever. That is, unless the passerby had the unmitigated gall to meddle with the books without proper authorization or protective covering.
Their defense worked something like this: picture an unfortunate traveler, wandering into Basix and stumbling into the giant polyhedronic-sphered chamber and took to unauthorized browsing. This is what would happen: with a powerful, accurate leap, several hundred feet through the air - its thick, silver paper-hair bristling in flight - A booksloth would land gingerly and with perfect balance next to the disturber and, with expert precision, would take off his limbs with its xylicawoody claw. The booksloth would then quickly and carefully place any books the intruder had grabbed perfectly back in their positions on the shelves (using its hands and feet claws). The not-quite-stemmed flow of blood would attract further attention from the booksloth, who would, after some brief investigation, discover what had trespassed into the library, and noisy as it was (with all the screaming), it was leaking, which was far worse. The booksloth would decide to permanently solve the problem of the leaking intrusion by hastily swallowing it and the severed limbs (their omnivorous diet usually consisted of small bookbugs - but they didn't mind a little meat). It then would lick up the blood from the shelves and/or books, being sure to quickly treat the spots where it had licked with the clear, fragrant oil that naturally collected under its paper-coat at its nape. The oil would act as a cleaner and protectant, ensuring safe storage for thousands of years to come. And thus was how every booksloth was innately programmed to protect Main Library Basix, with some booksloths more vicious (and clever) than others.
And when one of these booksloths landed on the descending ShelvPlat on which Liperton and his Z-self clung to for dear life, Liperton intrapolated this knowledge of these creatures from X and then let out a short, high:
"Yelp!!"
The booksloth peered down with giant, black eyes that were on either side of its soft face and that had pin-pricks of light at the center like tiny glowing pupils. It was poking its wet, black nose through the hole in the ceiling with its blond-and-silver paper-shred-coat shining and flailing wildly in the wind. Ten feet of sloth arm was lead through the hole in the xylicawood by two pointing, very long claws. Against Liperton's chest, the ancient book's front cover was being flapped an inch back and forth by the wind. The booksloth's claws drew closer to Liperton and he froze gazing into the booksloth's deep black eyes. Then the booksloth gently tapped the cover shut with its claws and drew Liperton's jacket over the book to cover it and protect it from further disturbance. A moment later, the arm quickly withdrew and the ShelvPlat bobbed again as the booksloth leapt away, falling thousands of feet into the distance, and out of sight.
Both Lipertons were staring up with their mouths agape and their hearts pounding in their chests. Then Z said,
"Booksloths!" He was obviously dazed.
"Yeah - I saw that," Liperton said as checked himself to make sure he wasn't leaking any blood.
"Buh!" Z blubbered. Then he shook his head to clear it and returned to his senses. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Then, finally, after a few moments, the final experiences of the Z-Liperton were intrapolated.
"What?!" Liperton said.
Z said nothing.
"Oh my, are you serious?" Liperton said, his eyes were wide. Then they squinted.
Z was silent, his eyes remained closed.
"Hu ho! I can't believe it! How wonderful! How unexpected!" laughed Liperton as he threw his head back and shaking it in disbelief and wonder, completely forgetting about the booksloth, "Hee heeeee!"
Z opened his eyes and smiled. His smile grew larger, and larger, and then his face erupted into millions of dust particles. The wind whipped around him as his hair and clothing became dust. Then it all swirled around in a whirlwind up out of the ShelvPlat and into the rushing air of the Corridor. Liperton, however didn't notice. His eyes were closed, and he was smiling.
"Finally." Liperton said softly, in almost a whisper. "I finally found it."
The ShelvPlat continued to rush down, and further down, the bright abyss of the Shelvery Distribution Corridor towards its destination, which Liperton now knew was Main Library Basix.
"Bring me the sammich maker!" the Mayor of Meadowfield barked. Sub-sub secretary 83 was busy foldering a large stack of papers and was startled by the sudden command. She jumped with a start and threw one the folders and paper flew every which way. She darted around trying to minimize the mess answering hastily.
"But, my sir, you had the sammich maker, um, you know, Exisled. Remember?"
"Exisled! Well, then find me a new sammich man! Or program a mandroid to do it. Just get me a sammich!"
"Yes! Yes my liegeness, my bigness, right away! I'm sorry!"
"You are a incompetent nincomfool. Out! Bring me sub-sub 74. You have wasted enough of my time. Out!" the mayor screamed, red faced. Sub-sub 83 ran out crying and grabbing at the loose papers that she had scattered everywhere. The Mayor stood by the window and looked out towards the city. Out there somewhere, his people were carrying out the most ambitious plan that any Mayor in Pelagica had ever attempted. And it was going quite well so far. But right then, the only thought in the Mayor's mind was "Sammich. I need a sammich."
"What... Is... That...?" Alagraham said, his eyes were wide with shock.
Available at all City Libraries ↩