DISCLAIMER: This title contains coarse language and mature content. It is not suitable for readers 18 years of age or younger.
PART I
THE MOMENT OF SPONTANEOUS MADNESS
Chapter 1
The Moment of Spontaneous Madness
Manchester, England - Heading Northeast on the M56
Wednesday, August 31, 2005, 9:41 a.m.
Jason Medley clung to the seat belt for dear life. Strapped into the left side passenger seat, he went nauseous and started to black out, certain that the oncoming cars in the next lane-WHAM, WHAM, WHAM-were going to crash through the windshield and decapitate him. After only twelve minutes, he hated England already.
Jean chuckled as they puttered along the M56, the major motorway to Manchester. It had many curves. "Relax, mate. Relax. You Yanks are so squeamish at first. You'll get used to it."
But Jason didn't want to relax. He didn't want to get used to it. And he certainly didn't give a horse's hairy nut about tea, cricket or if the Queen watched "footie." What he did want was to be back on Long Island, waiting tables at Funzie's, giving him enough time to search the online job postings again for a sign. A clue. A pigeon flying upside down and projectile crapping upward. Anything. A signal alerting him that there was indeed hope of a high school English teaching job for him with the New York City Board of Education, where he could then be persecuted for not properly educating his students. Hey. A guy could dream.
He also wanted to travel back in time to that regrettable moment of spontaneous madness, when he quit the restaurant on impulse, and then purchased the nonrefundable plane ticket that was now stuffed in his money belt.
But most of all, he wanted to take his bare hands and strangle Hank for convincing him to take this god-forsaken backpacking trip in the first place. Jason did not explore. He did not go on adventures. They really weren't his thang. The world was unknown to him for a reason.
"So, em ... Jason." Jean was an attractive older woman, draped in a blue, acid-washed sundress and over-sized bracelets. Her long, gray hair was bunched in a rubber band. "Hank tells me you've been planning this trip for ages. He says you're quite the traveler."
"He said what? No, I ..." An approaching four-door car spurred a near upchuck in him. The exit for Manchester arched toward the right. "He stuck a French fry in my face! He yelled at me to see the world before ... urrch, oh, god ... he told me I was hiding fro-"
"You took advice from him? Oh ... Jason. Tell me you didn't."
"Well ... I don't know. Maybe ...? Kinda ...?"
"Em ... let me guess." Jean gestured with her free hand. "He said the world was chock full of possibility? That the more you embraced life, the more life would embrace you?"
Jason wiped the drool from his chin. "Actually ... he did say that. Almost exactly."
Jean let out a controlled but exasperated sigh. "Don't be offended, because you seem like a nice bloke ... but are you daft? He's divorced five times! He's a bloody ponce! He fills your head with hope and then leaves you to figure it out!"
"I know!"
"Then why'd you listen to him?"
"I don't know! Why did you? You married him." Jean was ex-wife number four. Jason forgot not to bring that up. Hank said they were still friends, but had some issues they never quite worked out. "So ...," Jason said finally, changing the subject. "What are we up to today?"
"Oh ... uh ... sorry, luv. Hank said you were keen to fly into Manchester and then make a go of it on your own. He said London first and then the world was your oyster."
It took a few seconds for the message to compute. Me no like these words. Words bad. "Wait. What? Where are you going?"
"Em, right. We're off out to Scotland. Edinburgh, really, for the poetry festival. Be gone through the weekend." With her Mancunian accent, she pronounced it wheek-end. "We'll drop you at Piccadilly Station. Where's your first stop from London?"
From the moment Jason bought his plane ticket and Eurail train pass he had mentally and emotionally anchored himself, if not to Jean then at least to the idea of Jean, so that when he first set foot on European soil, he would have someone to cling to, that he wouldn't be alone. And he believed those things because Hank told him so. Settle in Manchester, Kid. Jean will take care of everything. Jason ran off to Europe so quickly that he never considered how that might look-or what he was supposed to do-when he actually got there.
But he was now confronted with the reality that he was on his own, in a foreign country, with no place to eat, sleep or bathe, and no concrete ideas about how to make his situation better. Jason had the sudden urge to slip on his footy pajamas and watch Finding Nemo.
"I ... uh ... I'll just ... head off ... to ... uh ..."
"Rome is quite lovely."
"Yes! Rome. That's perfect!"
And to him, it was perfect. Jason felt a surge from testicles to torso. He was instantly re-energized, inspired. Although he spent more than five years at Buffalo State College, not once did he venture even so far as Toronto, a world-class city just two hours away. But now he was going to Rome. He liked the sound of it. In his mind he kept repeating ... Rome ... Rome ... Rome ... until a smile stretched across his face. And when Jean asked him what he was on about, Jason just looked toward the oncoming cars, almost daring them to come closer.
Okay, he said to himself. It's go time.
So when they sped past the sign for Manchester, Jason knew one thing for sure: With his new plan in place, he had it all under control. What could possibly go wrong?
***
They drove through downtown Manchester, along Oxford Road up to Piccadilly Railway Station. Thanks to the August humidity, Jason's clothes stuck to him already.
"You'll be in London in a tick," Jean said. "Rome will be a piece of piss."
Jason wasn't sure what she meant by that, but thanked her anyway. He slung his rucksack over his shoulder. It was heavy. He held his knapsack by the strap. "Have fun in Edinborough."
"Cheers, thanks." Jean shook her head, chuckling at his mispronunciation. "Off you go."
As quickly as she came into his life, Jason was flying solo again. He ambled through the double doors, taking in the flow of morning commuters, each one looking more miserable than the last. Up until a week earlier he had essentially been one of them, dejected over his station in life. At twenty-four, he was $26,902.13 in hock to the State of New York Student Service Loan Center, $4,113.74 to VISA, and $9.12 to Roger's Rental Shack (although he held that charge in dispute, arguing that he did, in fact, return Busty Babes in Toyland VIII on time).
Jason was also living with his parents and their five cats, while his friends Reuben, Todd and Faye all had jobs in Manhattan. And Jill, his older sister by five years, owned a two-bedroom condo in Hoboken, New Jersey, with a great view of the Hudson River and the New York City skyline. That pharmaceutical rep money kept her in the good life.
Not to mention that Jason's waitress crush Lorna deflected his advances, instead getting jiggy with the bartender, and making sure to give Jason daily updates, seeing as how they were such good pals and all. The bitch.
But those worries were lost to him. Jason smiled now, thinking about his final Funzie's lunch shift, when that silver-haired maniac really laid it on thick.
Hank was the oldest and considered the weirdest waiter on staff. Restaurant gossip had him as the CEO of a major corporation until its stock tanked after the Black Monday crash of 1987, with another tale circulating that he spent the latter half of the '90s in an Arizona psych ward. The dishwashers in particular appreciated his seemingly unlimited access to hallucinogenic mushrooms, while most everyone else dismissed him as a burnout loser.
"Get the fuck outta here, Kid. Quit. Just hop on the first plane to Guam or Lisbon or Tai-fucking-pei for all I care. You spend too much time up here," he said, pointing to his head with that blue cheese-covered French fry, "and not enough time out there. Besides, you have any idea how big this world really is? Big enough so that you can curl up to one woman a week, each one from a different country and it'll take five years before you need to start all over again. Shit. If I was twenty years younger I'd be getting a blow job right now from a Belgian maid, then move on to a German travel agent. I probably wouldn't be so particular after that."
With Belgian maids on the brain, Jason stood in line, humming to a Muzak version of the Bee-Gees. "... More than a wo-man ... more than a woman to me-eee ..." When his turn came, Jason slid his Eurail pass to the ticket clerk. He smiled wide. "London, please."
The clerk flipped through the booklet. He slid it back. "Ticket's no good, mate. Next."
"What?" Jason gaggled, shaking his head in mild horror. "What do you mean it's-?"
"Read the sodden ticket, mate. It's not valid."
Jason let out a whelp. Sure, he could have read his ticket before he left New York. And, okay, yes, he could have noticed ... possibly ... perhaps, that included with the booklet was a fold-out map detailing each of the seventeen European countries in which the ticket was valid-England clearly not among them.
But that would have meant thinking ahead, allowing for the outlandish possibility that a team of guides with maps, snacks and hotel accommodations might not be waiting for him on every street corner, of every city, in every country, to make sure he was supported, regardless of circumstance. He needed somebody to blame. Jean ... how could you do this to me?
Jason looked through the glass doors toward the parking lot, hoping a whimpering puppy kind of hope that Jean had done her duty, one that should have been obvious, even though he just thought of it: Remain behind, just in case. Come back. ... Please? His plan, such that it was, no longer seemed like a plan at all. Jason's newfound confidence was gone.
What do I do now?
"Oi! Keep it moving, mate."
"Wait. But I-"
Growing tired of their exchange, the clerk dismissed Jason in his best mock American. "Dude," he said. "Have a nice day."
Chapter 2
The Search for Beet Root
Germany - 30 Miles Southwest of Berlin
Wednesday, August 17, 2005, 1:54 p.m.
Theo Barnes hadn't slept in the same bed more than four consecutive nights since he left home. After nearly six months, he was still looking for proof, for an answer. At the rate he was going, Theo figured he could squeeze out another month, maybe two, but he wasn't heading home until the last dollar was gone. He would sort the rest out later.
Theo was stretched out on the padded bench extending the length of the compartment. He leaned his head beneath the window. Locks of his brown hair, lightened from long exposure to the European sun, fluttered as the German countryside whisked by the speeding train.
The distorted landscape was a familiar blur, a streaking of trees, mountains, houses, cars and phone lines, as if the fabric of the world stretched out like putty, as if existence was elastic, malleable ... constantly reshaping itself, reforming ... cosmic molecules able to reassemble themselves in an infinite number of possible incarnations.
Maybe we see what we think we see, Theo thought. Maybe we're the ones in flux.
Ever since that day in the mountain's still waters, underground, wonderful little creatures his only source of illumination, Theo had been sleeping more deeply, more intensely. His dreams had been vivid, almost tactile experiences. They left him with an incisive imprint, as if he had been branded. Awakened. Changed.
He drifted off again, his arms hooked through the loops of his battered green rucksack. Theo thought of his dad, Oscar, wondering if he would have lived a different life, chosen another path, if he had been afforded the same opportunities thirty years ago that Theo had now. If Theo would even be Theo. If anyone would be who they are.
Theo had been saving his New Zealand dollars for two years, and at twenty-three he was eager to explore the great nations, to leap from his little country at the bottom of the world and see what the fuss in other time zones was all about.
Not to mention what was concealed in his knapsack. As a precaution he had taken several pictures of the jar he found, one that gave him intense, space-soaring hallucinations, driving him to the brink of madness. He wasn't about to hand the actual item to just anyone.
But as he zipped along from one European city to the next, his life before he departed on Kiwi Air seemed to him an amalgam of one long day.
***
Theo thought back to that late February morning, when he bobbed along the kitchen floor, naked but for his gray cargo shorts. He instinctively kept his bare heels from touching the floor, as if making contact with it would somehow cement him in place, trapping him forever.
Sunshine streaked across the ranch-style house, common to the suburbs of Auckland. With New Zealand in the southern hemisphere, the summer was almost over as February came to a close.
"So whudduya say there, Dad? Gonna fire up the old birdie today? The helicopter is starting to look good. Choice day for it."
Theo didn't normally talk much, and it wasn't because he had nothing to say. But he often felt that being asked to mine his thoughts-to make sense of all the questions he had from all the noise in life-was just more effort than it was worth. He preferred the quiet of his greenhouse, which he built by himself. He wasn't just collecting plants, he was cultivating a garden. And that takes time. And patience. Not a lot of talk. He left that to his brother, Roger.
But Theo would be leaving soon, so he offered his father some breakfast small talk. Burly and almost bald, Oscar Barnes was hunched over the kitchen table, reading The New Zealand Herald. Just a few strands of white hair clung to his dome. "Oh, yeh, what's that?"
Theo disappeared behind the refrigerator door as he held it ajar, placing a physical barrier between father and son. It was an intuitive gesture honoring their unspoken agreement that their level of interaction would emphasize hobbies, not chores; adventures, not responsibilities.
The Barnes men shared a genial acknowledgment that, sure, it would be just peachy if we could connect on a deeper level, where we have the father-son chitchats and maybe even give a good hug in there now and then and all that other cute koala crap. But, yeah right, mate. Yeah right. The day we start sharing our feelings is the day the dolphins start talking back. If you don't bust my balls, I won't bust yours.
"So whens you off to Waitomo then, Theo? Gotta get back in those caves, yeh?"
"Beet root, beet root," Theo muttered from his side of the door, searching for his favorite condiment. "Ah, there you are. Oh, dunno. Few days. Not sure yet." He stood up just then and looked toward the dining room window. His father's bare legs were crossed beneath the table. "You still got that big red ax, Dad? I get the weirdest feeling I'm gonna need it."
Chapter 3
Floating Solo in the Rappelling Cave
Otorohanga, New Zealand - Approaching the WaitomoCaves
Tuesday, February 22, 2005, 11:09 a.m.
Humming along to Ben Harper's Please Bleed, Theo motored his black '96 Toyota Hilux Surf 4x4, pulverized from years of off-roading. Beneath the cloudy sky, he headed southbound along State Highway 1 until Hamilton, and then State Highway 3, the major motorways ranging the westernmost third of New Zealand's NorthIsland.
Theo admired the herds of cows grazing on the dairy farms, New Zealand predominantly an agricultural nation. He spotted one plant after another along the fields, thinking they would make fine additions to his greenhouse.
But he needed to improve his knowledge about Frangipani. There was a demand for the tropical plant, rare in New Zealand, one that can grow up to forty feet high and half as wide. To Theo there was nothing quite like its fragrance, gleaming with jasmine, citrus and gardenia.
Yet Theo had more pressing concerns. He wasn't officially due back in Otorohanga for another four days, but he was eager to romp around in the Waitomo Caves, about 175 kilometers south of Auckland.
This was his last chance before the new tourist season started to explore the underground passages alone-a major no-no according to the employment agreement he signed with KiwiFun Adventure. You followed the buddy system, or you didn't go down there at all. Safety first.
Theo parked his truck on the dirt road beneath the hillside. There he changed into his wetsuit and slung a little pack on his back. He tied the laces of his rubber, watertight boots and fastened his hardhat. The miner's light was in front.
After tightening the rappelling harness around his waist, he hiked up to a wood platform bolted into the hillside. It overlooked a hole boring through the rock. With a clack, Theo attached his safety line to a metal hook drilled into the platform. He turned so that his back faced the cave entrance. And with a hard push of both feet against the rock side, Theo began his descent.
As his hands slid down the nylon rope, he felt a great surge of apprehension. The thought indeed crossed his mind that a bad fall would leave him injured, if not dead, and without any realistic chance for medical attention. But he quickly dismissed such conjecture as crazy talk.
Slowly, Theo spun three hundred and sixty degrees clockwise, hearing the rope twist and tighten, and then unspool in the opposite direction. He had undergone six months of training, led or accompanied one hundred and thirteen guided tours, and made at least a dozen solo journeys through the caves, all without ever suffering so much as a twisted ankle.
Theo thought about the first time he went down there alone. He had imagined himself as a James Bond-in-training, set to infiltrate the secret mountain hideout of the bastards plotting to overthrow New Zealand. But not on his watch. Barnes. Theo Barnes. License to thrill.
The light from Theo's headgear cast dim shadows on the rocky walls beneath the Earth's surface. The hillside's underbelly was rust colored and damp; there was a coldness he never got used to. The fear wouldn't last long, but he couldn't help wonder if ghosts were down there.
Theo stared off into the black expanse beneath him, which, from his vantage point, was a bottomless pit. He then glanced up, focusing on the sunlight peaking in from the cave entrance. It was now a tiny point two hundred feet above, making him feel very small indeed. He finally touched down on a reinforced wood platform, and removed his rappelling gear.
Theo then grabbed an inflated rubber tube from a nearby alcove. He tossed the tube into the murky water three feet below, and dropped into the cold stream, submerged up to his nipples. He shuddered. He wriggled his toes. He took a look around. Nope. No ghosts.
Theo climbed onto the tube, and dropped his bum in the center hole. His hands and feet drooped over the edges. The air was cold and dank. Yet smiling and with eyes closed, he drifted comfortably in the chilled waters. "Yeh," he said. "This is the life."
The cave walls narrowed as the ceiling slanted downward so that it was less than five feet above him. He was now more than a thousand feet diagonally from the cave entrance and three hundred and fifty feet below the surface.
Theo drifted along the calming waters and into the recess of his thoughts until he found that gentle rocking he longed for, letting his awareness fade into a dream state, so that he was neither awake nor asleep-alert yet oblivious.
Weightless and peaceful, he floated quietly along the dark tunnels. The pull of the Earth's gravity comforted him, extending a connection to the spirit of all living things. It was a feeling, Theo imagined, that must have been like those nine glorious months in the womb.
And while drifting through the cave, Theo smiled again. Aware without having to look, he knew that in his subterranean world, clinging to the walls, there was life as perfect as he had ever known. He was not alone.
Chapter 4
The Five-Minute Rule
Manchester, England - Piccadilly Rail Station
Wednesday, August 31, 2005, 11:09 a.m.
Jason's impulse was to wet his pants in protest and then cry a little, but he figured there had to be a better way. Still, he flitted back and forth on his heels, peeking around strangers in the hope there would be a sign flashing: Jason Medley. Relax. We're Here To Solve Your Problems.
"Oh, shit. What am I gonna do? I don't even know where"
"Where you off to, son?" Jason had his spaz attack interrupted by an older gentleman in a gray suit and tie, standing in line behind him.
"Rome. I mean, London. I mean-"
"Easy, mate. Easy. Next train to London leaves in ...," Gray suit checked his watch, "... in five minutes. You can buy a ticket right here. If you hurry, you'll just make it."
Jason wanted to throw his arms around Gray suit. "Thanks so much. Thank you." He turned to the ticket clerk. "London, please. One way."
The clerk growled. "Forty-eight quid."
"Forty-eight? What's that for me? Like twenty bucks?" And what the fuck is a quid?
"'Ats about ninety dollars," Gray suit said.
"Ninety? That's like three days travel money! I can't afford-"
"Better hurry, son. Train's leaving the station."
Jason relinquished his VISA card, flooded by visions of having to sleep under a bridge in order to recoup some of the extra money he was forking over. Unable to stand still, he glanced at his purple T-shirt. It had a pink dinosaur decal and the lettering Death to Smoochy. He rubbed his hands together nervously.
"Sign," the clerk instructed.
"Where? I don't see-"
"On the sodden line, mate. The bottom."
Jason scribbled his name, shoved the ticket into his front jeans pocket, and then reached for his crotch. Moneybelt check. Because you never know. Hank told him to guard that money belt with his life. Since the pouch contained his passport, credit card, cash, traveler's checks, Eurail pass and return plane ticket, it seemed like sound advice, even coming from Hank.
Jason hauled ass, bags in tow. "London, London ..." He studied the electronic message boards posted around the station. "London! Track six!" He bolted down the corridor past Track 3. Track 4. Track 5. "Six must be ..." Jason scanned the entranceways. "There!" He ran down a short flight of stairs and spotted his train, which hissed, huffed and then lurched forward.
Shhhhhh!
Perhaps it would have been prudent had he waited for the next train, which, had Jason bothered to investigate, was due to leave the station less than an hour later. He didn't have to get to Rome that day, that week ... or ever. It's not like he would have been forced to toss a salad if he changed plans. But he was tired of waiting, tired of maybe and tired of tomorrow. The weight on his back was like the weight on his life-humping around what he was told he needed without ever questioning why. Now that he had Rome in his sights, it wasn't just any destination, it was the only destination.
He isolated his possibilities: he could be the same old Jason, or the Jason he wanted to be. He remembered the exact two words he uttered when Hank first told him to take the trip: I can't. And when Hank asked him why not, Jason's impulse was to retort-short and powerful like a boxer's jab-ending the discussion, not just then, but forever. But he didn't.
Why not? It was the question fundamental to his stunted evolution. Why not forget Lorna and flirt with the other waitresses? Why not get my own apartment rather than bitch about living at home? Why not network with established teachers? Why not why not why not?
"I don't know," he told Hank, and with that admission, it dawned on Jason that he really didn't know. That nothing except a knee-jerk reaction to say no had kept him from saying yes. That a prolonged habit of denying his desire was a sabotage of his own design. He was a card-carrying NO person being challenged with YES.
Believing there must be a way to bridge the divide between his two inner selves-poised and confident Jason; rattled and intimidated Jason-he looked at the train before him and knew that he had a choice to make. He could give in or go for it. Time was up.
Shhhhhh!
Dashing frantically, Jason threw his arms out, and leapt-short in distance but enormous in stature. His hand grasped a metal bar, and when he landed safely, the steady, confident pull of the train smoothed him away.
"Well, God damn." His hand shook a little, but he didn't mind. He just stood there feeling connected to the train's vibrations and the breeze on his face, until finally, signifying that he was really on his way, the Manchester platform shrank from sight. Jason finally said yes. And it felt damn good.
***
The English countryside whisked by. Jason leaned his head against the window, staring at the hills and fields. At cows and horses. At shuttered houses and cobblestone walkways. Having shifted modes of transportation yet again, he longed to be on foot, to escape the confinement of planes and cars and trains. He had a desire to explore, to touch and smell and feel the outdoors, to be a part of something.
But London was two hours away, and from there he still had a long ways to go. Jason finally nodded off-it was a hard sleep-and though he was out for most of the trip, it seemed to last only minutes. He woke hungry, thirsty and in need of a shower. He had skank breath.
With London fast approaching, Jason did an inventory check, amazed at how much he'd been able to cram into his bags. As his guidebook instructed, he secured a knapsack for day-to-day sightseeing, and a rucksack for his main gear. Stuffed inside were: jeans (1 pair); shorts (2 pairs); sneakers (1 pair); boxers (10 pairs); socks (6 pairs); T-shirts (4); sweatshirt (1); towel; washcloth; rain slicker; umbrella; laundry bag; shaving kit; flashlight; batteries; Swiss army knife; camera; MP-3 player; European adapter; playing cards; and a photocopy of the front page of his passport.
Also tucked away were his address book, pens and one box of condoms (Hank suggested six). Although, Jason left his cell phone behind, reasoning that he didn't have an international plan anyway, and calling cards were just as easy, and one less thing to lose.
Jason stepped off the train, in awe. Unlike the claustrophobic hellhole that is New York's Penn Station, London's version was clean and open and encased in glass. He could see the sky. Announcements came over the loudspeaker. Commuters were full on.
Wow, he thought. I made it.
Rome, however, was another matter entirely. With his timetable open, Jason approached a conductor. "Excuse me. I'm going to Rome, and I see there's a connecting boat to France. How do I get there?"
The conductor nodded toward a glass doorway. "Bus to Folkestone."
"Where's that? Where do I go?"
"Over there, mate. You have about five minutes 'til it's off."
Jason checked his watch, which he kept fastened to a front belt loop. "And the bus after that?" He cringed, hoping his demeanor might somehow influence the answer in his favor. An hour an hour an hour an hour an hour ...
The conductor adjusted his silver belt buckle. "Tomorrow."
Jason nodded patiently, thought for a minute, and then scratched the scar on the underside of his elbow. "Yep," he said. "That sounds about right." And with the acceptance that a meal and a piss would simply have to wait, he begrudgingly sprinted through the open-air corridor, hoping to make his next connection in time.
Chapter 5
The Big Bang Theory
The Northern Sphere of Eternity - CBMTrainingCenter
Milky Way's Public Unveiling: T-Minus 37 Days (Eternity Standard Time)
Donald may have kept his cool, as he was an optimist by nature, but there was no getting around that he and his wife were in deep, murky puddles of cosmic excrement.
With the Universe in a constant state of upgrade and repair, he knew that any damage resulting from the missing jar wouldn't affect Eternitarians on a day-to-day level-they didn't live in the Universe; they only worked on it. But the poor bastard responsible for such a mess? Yikes. Not good.
As Eternitarians, Donald and Danielle existed on a plane outside the constraints of the metaphysical Universe, in a sphere of possibility not reachable by scientific methods. There is no such planet called Eternity. There is no galaxy. There is no solar system.
Eternity is a realm made real only by being in it. But to those outside Eternity it appears as nothing more than a glimmer, a possibility, a dream ... a sense in those unknown parts of the mind and soul that there just might be something out there beyond us-a feeling with no label. It is not magic; it is more than hope. Eternity is that call to reach beyond ourselves, to become more than we are or think we can be.
And yet Eternitarians don't concern themselves with the plight of non-Eternitarians. If they sat around worrying about all the creatures of the metaphysical Universe, they'd never get anything done. Eternitarians have their own problems. Most have occupations fulfilling the needs of their everyday lives-bankers, teachers, cab drivers and the like-but they almost all support Eternity's leading industry: Universe Design, Maintenance and Expansion, or UDME.
The Big MOU had never divulged the reasons behind such extensive development of the Universe outside Eternity, as the hours are long and the payoff debatable. But planets, galaxies, solar systems, stars and other cosmic debris don't simply appear. There was no Big Bang. There was no poof!
They are commissioned, designed, approved and constructed-some more successfully than others. The planning stages often drag on and on, but once a project gets green-lit, immediate progress is expected.
Donald and Danielle, like all project development teams authorized to work on specific parts of the Universe, were assigned a specific jar of CBM. Each jar is engraved, the symbols denoting the particular elemental base of CBM contained within. No two batches are exactly alike. One project, one batch of CBM.
Donald thought back to that first day on the job, when Lawrence, the CBM warehouse manager, gave him a personal walk-through of the facility.
"We certainly have some space in here," Lawrence said, "but the system is really quite sophisticated. Don't worry. I'm sure ... ahem-ahem ... you won't screw up." He looked Donald over. "Your qualifications are ... well ... I'm sure you'll find your way."
Inventory, Lawrence explained, is tracked through a standardized bar coding system, with each jar stored in its designated slot on the shelving unit, one that extends the equivalent of 4,113 Earth miles in length and 74 Earth miles high, about average for a warehouse in Eternity.
"The Universe is a considerably large canvas," Lawrence said, "and The Big MOU likes to experiment. But then, you already know that."
Donald was not the paranoid type, but it was difficult not to notice that Lawrence was giving him the stink-eye something ferocious.
Lawrence further explained that outside the CBM warehouse, the jars were indestructible. Moreover, they did not respond to light, pressure, temperature, gravity or any of the other 96 basic forces known in the metaphysical Universe outside the realm of Eternity.
"And there is no way to open these," he explained, yanking on the lid, "except with this." Lawrence handed Donald a specially coded high-frequency harmonic key, shaped like a stick of gum still in the wrapping. Blowing into the harmonic key produced an ascending, and then descending, series of notes, sounding like clicks from a calypso bell, only squeakier.
"Each jar gets its own harmonic key," Lawrence said. "You wear it around your neck at all times. Don't take it off. At the beginning of your shift you pick up the jar," he said as if Donald had been dropped on his head and needed instructions repeated to him slowly, "and the key," which Lawrence also held up, "and return both at the end of your shift. Pick them up, bring them back. Think you can handle that?"
Of course, Donald had said, no problem at all. Pick them up, bring them back. Don't take it off. The instructions seem simple enough. Donald smiled when he spoke.
Lawrence rolled his eyes. "Yes, well ... my ex-wife said the same thing when she signed the divorce papers. She suspected I was gay when we got married. It's just like her to believe she can have everything her way if she just wills it so. But then, I let her try, so I guess that's my bad. She can be quite persuasive. But me with boobies? Mmm ... not so much." Lawrence shook his head. "Sometimes," he said, moving closer, "we do really foolish things and then try to hide from them, even though they stare us right ... in ... the face."
Donald stopped smiling.
Initially, Donald and Danielle hoped their missing jar of CBM-the Universe's DNA-would just turn up, or else the problem would go away on its own. But when neither miracle fell in their laps, Donald knew they had to make a decision, and they had to make it fast.
Inventory inspectors were due for their regular CBM warehouse audit, and if they were to find even one jar missing, it would be bad news for everyone. Donald didn't even want to think about what would happen if, somehow, some way, that jar actually cracked open on Earth. It would be a real mess. "Yep," he muttered to himself. "We are most definitely fucked."
Chapter 6
Cold Drinks on a Hot, Hot Day
Yuma, Arizona - The Desert Back Roads
Wednesday, August 17, 2005, 1:54 p.m.
Underneath a hazy sky, Emma sipped lemonade, made the way it was intended: cold, satisfying and utterly disgusting.
Lex, a brown Labrador, lay in the pool of Emma's ever expanding shade, lazily tossing his tail about this way and that, and wondering how much longer he would have to remain a dog.
"Hey, boy." Emma wiped the tart residue from her lip. "What would you say to a couple of steaks and a couple of cold Buds?"
Paws beneath his chin, Lex answered in his usual aloof manner. "Woof ... fucking ... woof."
And with equal aloofness, Emma shaded her eyes from the blistering Arizona sun, then took another sip. "Yeah," she said. "Me too."
Relentless and punishing, the raging fireball above had just winked at her, Emma was sure, a reminder that her present situation was not of her choosing and not hers to choose. But if she wanted to change her destiny, go right ahead. Give it your best shot.
Emma had contracted the sun, that sun. Her signature was on the order form. She had copies in her office. In triplicate. The original blueprint called for three smaller suns, and, if you could stomach it, four moons. Four. But what did she expect?
All those teenybitcher designers with their tight asses, silk thongs and overglossed lips, sticking their tits out like that meant something, groping to get their style in the papers. To make a name for themselves. A brand. Not one to shy away from stardom herself, Emma was all for making a mark, a lasting impression. But three suns? Back then? Please.
And this is the thanks I get for keeping the wannabes in check. For reminding investors what a real galactic designer is all about-that substance makes the style, not the other way around. For designing an atmosphere emphasizing class and possibility, a galaxy built to last. The Milky Way. You sell the sizzle, sure. But you have to give them the steak.
Emma curled her pudgy arm, raising the cool glass to her forehead. A rusted Winnebago sat motionless behind them like the barely functioning piece of crap that it was.
"The big bastard sure has a sense of humor all right." Emma shifted in her chair, giving herself a wedgie. With some not inconsiderable maneuvering, she dislodged the yellow, flowered housedress, which tugged at her throat. "Yuma, Arizona. The garden spot of Suck-Ass, U.S.A. I got bad knees, bad B.O. and my gums hurt. I used to be hot. Way hot."
"Your breath could use some work ..."
"Oh, go lick your balls."
Lex rolled his eyes.
"One hundred and seven degrees," Emma said. "One-oh-seven." She shook her head, and then set the empty glass on the white, plastic table. She reached for her walking stick. The former tree branch nearly snapped under the stupendous weight it was now supporting.
As usual, business at her roadside stop had been slow. There are only so many rattlesnake hides and coyote skulls you can sell in a week. A month. After almost two years in the desert-two long Earth years-Emma figured there wasn't much left to understand about being stuck in the middle of nowhere.
And while she could appreciate the cosmic irony of being banished to this very planet, she had no idea why it had been at this particular point in its history, when any other had been equally plausible. Emma concluded that there was either no rhyme or reason at all, or else a very specific reason indeed. She still hadn't figured out which.
"Let's get inside, see if we can get that fan working. We should be getting the call any time now. Angelique has a lead on that fucking jar. My jar. Our ticket out of this dump." Emma accidentally kicked the table on its side, knocking the glass before Lex, who let out a woomph. His chin never left his paws.
"And believe me," Emma said, "when I find the numb-nuts who's got it, he's going to discover long, slow and hard just what the end of the world is all about."
***
Sizzling ground chuck seared against the pan as the burner spouted a blue flame. Emma hung up the phone. "Angelique says a skinny, white bastard with a chirpy accent came in an hour ago. Looks like he's the one. He's got the jar."
Lex was curled on the Winnebago's plaid couch, snug against the wall. He nibbled the end of his tail. "Sweet. It's about time."
Emma grabbed the plastic spatula, and fueled by an urgent, erotic rage, leaned into it with all her might. Her small, pink nipples hardened at the thought of the crumbling chuck crying out in agony, begging for mercy while she punished it for winding up in such a precarious situation. For being a victim. For being weak.
Emma clamped her lips together. "Yes, indeed." Her rotund face trembled purple with insidious delight. Her eyes bulged. "Yes, in ... deed."
Boiling grease splattered on her housedress as Emma thought back to that day in Eternity, at the gates of Titan Hall, the media capital of the Southern Sphere. She was there to announce her landmark deal-three new galaxies of her design-but also to unveil her recently completed Milky Way galaxy. And her arrival as a star.
***
Titan Hall was a rectangular marble building marked by four fluted columns in front. Leading up to Titan Hall on both sides was a stupendous marble staircase, curved along its wide edges and narrowing to a stage at the top. Between the staircases was a lush, green lawn.
Centered in the lawn was TitanLake, a sparkling blue body of water, from which large bubbles emanated, releasing wisps of an opiate-based gas. There were many visitors. Twice each day, at dusk and dawn, a school of dolphins leapt from the lake in graceful arcs, splashing down in the lake, releasing a flurry of the pleasure-inducing bubbles.
Given the inherent nature of Eternity, the sky rotated through each nuanced tint of the spectrum once per day, the changes imperceptible by the second, but noticeable by the hour. At the time, it was aquamarine, just beginning its fade into yellow. The air carried a faint lemony base. And though the physical temperature hadn't changed, there was a feeling that the morning had grown warmer.
Standing on the platform overlooking TitanLake, the publishers of Top Galaxy Design, Cosmic Designer Digest and Galactic Fabric Review had all begged could Emma please please please grant them an exclusive interview following the press conference? Just five minutes alone with the blue-eyed, raven-haired beauty that single-handedly revolutionized the art of galaxy design, including the yet-to-be-seen Milky Way. The galaxy we're all dying to see. The reason we're here.
"Even after the Blue-Bubble Nebula and the twin moons of Dimitri Minor," the reporters asked that morning, "how did you land the Milky Way and a three-galaxy contract extension? It's unheard of."
The Blue-Bubble Nebula was inspired, for sure. The massive cloud of gases was shaped like an eye deep in the cosmos, with its black pupil, indigo iris and magenta flecks around the outer edges-a nod to the Andromeda galaxy, yet mesmerizing on its own merits.
But the Milky Way? Wait 'til they get a look at this baby.
"If you're dying to know," Emma began, "and I know that you are, I can tell you this: It helps when you're simply the best. Not that the so-called competition," she said, making quote marks with her fingers, "makes that distinction particularly meaningful."
Emma smirked and then fanned her eyes as a dozen comets tore across the heavens like a salute to her glory. The crowd responded to Emma's effrontery with a mixture of oohs, aahs and coy laughter. They clapped.
"Besides." She placed her hands on her hips and tossed a wink to the cameras. "I'm the hottest piece of ass in the business ... and everybody wants a slice. You can quote me on that."
***
But that was when Emma was still glamorous, svelte and fabulous. When she was the queen of galaxy design, when her place in history could not be denied. Before she made one lapse in judgment. Before she was banished to the back roads of Arizona, sentenced to a body-a flesh and blood prison-unworthy of her beauty, talent and pizzazz.
Lex yawned and let out another woomph. His floppy pink tongue dangled over the ridges of his teeth. "So the jar's in Amsterdam. Red Light District. Nice."
Emma cranked the rusted, iron handle above the sink-overrun with unwashed dishes- and opened a small, rectangular window. The beef-flavored smoke escaped.
"No. He's on his way to Venice. The sap." Emma ran a towel under the faucet, and then rubbed at the splatters on her frock. "Chirpy's one of those backpacking morons. Angelique is e-mailing us a picture. We'll have to drive into town. They have one of those cyber cafés. What's wrong with these nitwits? Why isn't the whole planet synced for free?" She shook her head. "They're fucking Neanderthals."
Still adjusting to a canine existence, Lex lifted his hind leg and scratched at his ear. "You believe her? I always get the feeling Angie's holding back. Like she's hiding behind that makeup in more ways than one."
"Yeah, I know." Emma drained the grease into an old Folgers can. She looked out to the desert. "Angelique's no gem, but she's a drag queen with a dream, and I'm the one doling out the wishes."
Chapter 7
My God, It's Full of Stars
Otorohanga, New Zealand - Deep Within the WaitomoCaves
Tuesday, February 22, 2005, 1:11 p.m.
They glowed.
Slinky, fingernail-sized creatures lived among the rocky surface. They illuminated the otherwise lightless underground passage in a fluorescent barrage, like billions of stars against a distant sky. Theo chuckled as a single glow-worm, clutched to the ceiling, threaded down a thin strand of web. "Devious little fuckers, aren't you?"
According to Theo's trainers, the glow-worms had lived down there for millions of years. The tiny creatures attract with their body light hordes of unsuspecting insects that become caught in dangling webs, winding up, literally, as worm food.
Theo paddled with his hands, maneuvering the windy passageway. The living, glowing flecks around him formed thousands of constellations along the ceiling and walls. One cluster of glow-worms connected into a fin. "Oh, big fish," he said, although to an ear unaccustomed to New Zealand dialects, fish sounded like fush.
Theo leaned back. Reclined, he noticed along the ceiling what looked like a long, green arrow. Curving left, it disappeared around the next bend. He leaned to follow it, but as his weight shifted, the tube shot out from underneath him and landed several feet away, leaving Theo facedown in the water. A mouthful channeled down his gullet.
Theo coughed and wheezed as the cold air and water tore at his chest. He splashed about, finally regaining his composure. He leaned against the moss-covered wall. "Fuckin' hell." His hard hat bobbed away from him. He felt one of his watertight boots coming loose.
Leaning over to adjust the strap, he slipped, once again ending up facedown in the water, coughing and hacking, only this time with greater impetus and fervor. He shouted various curse words between gasps. Propelled by his thrashing about, his hardhat and inner tube bobbed deeper into the cave. He waded after them, but after a few steps, set foot on an unstable surface, sending him on a third and final plunge.
In a fit of anger, Theo reached down to show the troublesome rubble just who was boss. Only when he stuck his hand below the surface and removed it, he did not come up with the rock. Instead he clung to a pear-shaped jar with a flat bottom, in wet if not pristine condition.
Theo finally caught up to his hardhat. He placed it back on his head, and then turned on the miner's light. He offered a look of befuddlement. "What the ...?"
The jar was unusually light for a container its size, no heavier than a potato. Even more peculiar was its surface-silver like a mirror, yet offering no reflection whatsoever. If he didn't know better, Theo would have sworn that somebody digitally removed all the objects-his face, hard hat, the cave walls-that should have been reflected back. Either that or he was a vampire. Left only was the perception of dimension, an empty space. He just couldn't figure it.
Fixed atop the jar was a circular lid. It would not come off. Along the flat underside of the jar was a series of grooves. They were symbols, Theo guessed, though none he recognized. He ran his fingers over them. He started to feel woozy and disoriented just then, as if he had been drugged without him knowing it, which in a way, is exactly what happened.
There was a blast of white light. There were streaks of screaming fluorescent color. There was the sensation of being sucked through a tornado. And then there were stars. Lots and lots of stars.
Theo felt himself drawn beyond the glass edge, sucked through the surface. He felt like he had been swallowed by the Universe itself, zooming across a galaxy of everything that existed everywhere and yet nothing at all. He soared with a bewildering warmth and familiarity, as if his spirit had been set free to roam the infinite landscape of forever.
He hurtled through the expanse, rocketing beyond the boundaries of time and space and dimension. Theo was enthralled, his senses simultaneously electric and soothing. His propulsion through the fabric of existence exceeded even his wildest sense of dream. Theo wasn't sure if he had tapped into a spirit world beyond life or death, consciousness or pharmacopoeia, when on the periphery of his awareness he heard a distant mumble. Again he felt woozy and disoriented.
"Wrrr-wrrr wrrah wrrooo?"
There was a blast of white light. There were streaks of screaming fluorescent color. There was the sensation of being sucked through a tornado. And then there were glow-worms. Lots and lots of glow-worms.
Theo was confused and weak in the knees, but returned to the darkness of the WaitomoCaves. He heard the noise again. "Theo, is that you? It's me, Lea. I got Hal with me, yeh?"
"Uh, yeh, yeh," Theo said. "Just me."
Lea floated on an inner tube. She also was in a wetsuit and hardhat. "Theo. You're gonna get busted, yeh? You keep coming down here alone. You parked your truck outside."
Lea was Theo's supervisor and sometimes girlfriend, a relationship that suited them both, except when Theo wanted to be unencumbered, which was often. Lea was surprisingly strong for having such a petite frame, and though Theo never told her so, he took a certain comfort in how her smaller curves seemed to fit into his more awkward frame just so.
Hal was a big ox of a friend. "What's you got there, mate? You're not taking any glowies back are you? Do a little smoke and watch 'em bug you out? Get it? Bug you out?"
Theo was oblivious to Hal's humor. "Huh? Oh, no. It's nothing." He directed his miner's light at the jar, at his mates, then back at the jar, which remained a mystery. Theo dropped it into his backpack. "Let's get a feed. I'm starving."
Chapter 8
Where's the Fire?
Waitomo, New Zealand - The Off-Road Motel
Tuesday, February 22, 2005, 6:07 p.m.
Naked and face up on the bed, Theo thrust his pelvis once, twice and then thrice. He felt woozy and disoriented. There was a blast of white light. There were streaks of screaming fluorescent color. There was the sensation of being sucked through a tornado. And then there was pleasure. Lots and lots of pleasure.
Lea screamed with violent exaltation, writhing atop Theo's midsection, leaning forward while grabbing the headboard. The setting New Zealand sun jutted in through the curtained window of his rented, second-floor room overlooking the parking lot. Soggy clothes were strewn about the floor.
"Oh, god." Lea extended upright and pulled at her pointed breasts. "I'm on fire!"
With each carnal hump, Theo felt himself rocketing across the white expanse. Eyes shut, he pawed at Lea's sweaty thighs, digging his fingertips into her flesh.
Theo didn't love Lea, but he cared about her, wished her a pleasant life, albeit one that would almost certainly unfold without him. But while penetrating her, Theo started to wonder if there wasn't more to his sex partner than he had ever given her credit for, revealing a passion he never realized. Yet somehow he knew that his unprecedented level of ecstasy-an intensity he was unsure his physical body could sustain-was not an extension either of himself or Lea, but the result of some external force.
He knew they were passengers only, on a spectacular ride for sure, but journeying down a path over which neither had any control. Careening along the blurred, streaking inroads deep into consciousness, Theo felt his body peel away.
Is this my spirit? Is this the pure me?
The color spectrum engulfed him, into infinity. Feeling resistance against what should have been his face, his spirit accelerated through the limitless immensity.
Theo reached around Lea's gyrating waist and grabbed her small, white ass, one cheek in each hand. He pulled her forward, and with one final undulation, arched his back. With the great release, Theo fell into the mattress. He felt as if he had experienced more than a physical climax, but an orgasm of the spirit-as if his very essence had ejaculated.
There was a blast of white light. There were streaks of screaming fluorescent color. There was the sensation of being sucked through a tornado. And then there was sweat. Lots and lots of sweat.
The exhausted lovers were naked. Lea was on top of Theo, her hair ragged and sweaty. Her sticky, white bum obscured Theo's spent noodle. The sheets were soaked and torn from the bed. The headboard was cracked. Lea sighed her hot, limp breath. "That was ... I'm just ..."
With the little energy he could muster, Theo nodded in agreement. It was then that the door to his rental unit came crashing down.
Hal panted, wielding a heavy, metal smashing tool. "Everybody okay? I heard somebody yell fire. I took the ax from your truck." He then offered an embarrassed grin, letting the head of the ax swing toward the floor. "Oh. Fire. I get it. I heard the screams ..."
Theo brushed Lea's hair from his face. "No worries, mate." He was nearly out of breath. "Now fuck off will ya? I gotta sleep."
Chapter 9
The Brigsby Effect
The Eastern Sphere of Eternity - Horizon Terrace
Milky Way's Public Unveiling: T-Minus 36 Days (Eternity Standard Time)
"Are you outta your mind, muthafucka?" Danielle pointed at Donald. "Fuck that shit. I ain't goin' nowhere."
After nineteen months on the waiting list, since before they were even married, Danielle was not about to leave their two-bedroom condo in Horizon Terrace now that she was settled in. No fucking way.
Horizon Terrace was considered the upscale apartment complex on the Eastern Sphere of Eternity, the only region offering unobstructed views of the Andromeda galaxy and the comets that spiraled through its center.
When they moved in, Danielle had plush carpeting installed throughout the apartment and ordered a glass coffee table to complement the tiger-striped sectional. But what she bragged to her friends about most was the six-foot grapefruit tree, complimentary to all new owners, blooming out on the balcony.
"Danielle. Honey." Donald offered a smile. Sunshine beamed through the sliding glass door on the 491st floor, just 717 floors below the penthouse. "I know it's not optimal, but-"
"Optimal? Optimal? What the fuck you mean, optimal?" Danielle threw her hands up as she paced along the leopard-spotted carpet. The multicolored beads in her hair clacked. "I can't, I can't. I just can't."
Donald and Danielle moved from Industrial Row, leaving behind their dark, cold, one-bedroom basement apartment with leaky faucets, cockroaches and view of a brick wall with the permanent urine stain.
They had been able to obtain and afford their new abode thanks only to Brigsby himself. The host of Breakfast with Brigsby-the top-rated daytime talk show-was an old friend of Donald, and a Horizon Terrace board member. Brigsby owed Donald a favor, and so he arranged for a friendly purchase price when a unit suddenly became available in the sold-out building. But Danielle didn't trust Brigsby. She had issues with Brigsby.
Four inches taller than his bride, Donald was a white pear of a man, oddly thick in the middle, but not fat, with strong arms that almost, but not quite, seemed too short for his body. He took small, cautious steps toward her. "Look, sweetie ... I know you love it here. So do I. There's no place I'd rather be than right here, in this apartment, with you." Danielle watched her husband brace for the outburst he likely assumed was coming. "See, the way I'm thinking about it is ... we're going to find the jar, we're going to bring it back, and then we're out of this racket. We're not cut out for this kind of work. You know that, I know that. Heck." Donald smiled. "I'm pretty sure they know that."
Donald and Danielle first met at the Galactic Particle Plant, or GPP, where Donald was the shipping supervisor and Danielle was an administrative assistant in his office. But in order to justify their residence at Horizon Terrace, Brigsby had a friend six times removed hire them as junior-level engineers, prestigious positions that came with a significant upgrade in pay and social status indeed.
They would never become Grade-1 galaxy designers-they knew that-but the chance to manufacture landscapes and some life forms, at least in theory, beat office and warehouse work any day of the week. Especially with the way things were going at GPP.
But the first major planet they were assigned to-Earth-was posing more trouble than they anticipated. Not only was the galaxy designer a real piece of work, but The Big MOU was particularly interested in the final product.
Danielle took in her husband. Bright solar light brimmed along his edges. His smooth, white pate glimmered like the eyes of a saint. I'm a lucky woman, she said to herself. I know that. She composed herself, collected her thoughts. Just so damn lucky. She heard every word he said, and knew just how to respond. "Eat shit, muthafucka! I'm stayin' home."
***
Several afternoons later, after Danielle locked herself in the bathroom threatening never to come out, Donald finally made some progress.
"Honey, really, let's think it through. The inspectors are coming next month, so we know they're going to find out. Okay, fine. But a month up here is like a billion years down there. We'll have all the time we need."
There was silence, save for some gentle tapping. Donald assumed Danielle was clinking her heart-shaped perfume bottle against the zebra-striped vanity top.
"Possibly," she said from her side of the door. "Possibly."
Donald nodded at the first sign of Danielle's weakening resolve. "Plus ... every moment in the Universe exists at all times, like a calendar that goes back and forth. You know that. We just have to choose which moment we want ... and then show up. And with the key as a locator ...," he reached for the silver harmonic tab that hung from his neck, "... it shouldn't be that hard to find. More or less."
Danielle rebutted. "But we go down there, we're on their time, too. Their turf, their rules. We get old like them, sick like them. Die like them. Hell! We have to be in their bodies n' shit. What if I get all fat eatin' their crap-ass food? Are you gonna just leave me down there?"
Donald often felt guilty about his inability to erase any misgivings Danielle had about her looks, as if it were actually within his power to do so. Channeling his love, he pressed his open palm against the closed bathroom door as if it were the contour of her cheek. "Listen, Honey. I know you're scared. But we've got some vacation time coming. So we'll just take it earlier than we thought. We'll go down to Earth, we'll find the jar, then we'll come right back. It'll be like we never left. Really."
And even though he was forty-three, and nine years Danielle's senior, Donald often felt that being older-on a cosmic scale-than most planets outside the realm of Eternity was inconsequential to how young and stupid he could feel when his wife was upset with him.
Danielle answered in her soft, baby-talk voice. "You sure?"
"Absolutely. We'll be back in no time."
"Really? A hugsy-wugsy promise?"
Donald nodded. "Yes, Baby. A hugsy-wugsy promise."
There was silence. Donald was struck by Danielle's sudden calm.
"And if we don't find the jar, The Big MOU won't turn me to no slug, right? That's what you said? No slugs?"
Donald dropped his shoulders, and sighed. He had another tough sell on his hands. "With the jar it's a return trip," he said assuredly, although he had no idea what would become of them even if they did manage to find it. But he was assuming the best. "No problem. We just activate the bar code and it'll send us right home."
Donald was repeating what he read in the employee handbook, but since there were no documented cases of successful returns, theory was all he had. He also knew that the problems they faced were compounded by the rules governing the Universe, and Earth specifically, which were different from the rules governing Eternity. Traveling on Earth was subject to the physical limitations of its inhabitants.
Standard public transportation-including but not limited to buses, trains, cabs, and sea and air ferries-was readily available within each of the Nine Spheres of Eternity. But the cities, complexes, oceans and mountain ranges did not all physically connect. Rather, the nine spheres eventually drifted into Infinity-an all-encompassing cloud with no discernable top or bottom, beginning or end.
To travel from one Sphere of Eternity to another, you had merely to enter the limitless ether of Infinity, and think yourself-to let your feelings dictate a path-to your destination. You could walk, or even drive your car along the highway into Infinity, in your mind's eye see where you wanted to end up, and without incident, simply arrive where you needed to be.
Eternity listened to you.
Traveling in this fashion-traversing the limitless ether of Infinity-was no more unusual to Eternitarians than it was for people on Earth to step into an elevator on one floor and get off on another. Eternitarians left the mechanics to The Big MOU.
Donald took a deep breath. He clenched his teeth. The next part would be tricky. "But if we leave the complex unauthorized and don't find the jar, we're stuck down there. On Earth. For good. That jar's our only ticket back. Says so right in the manual."
There was a long pause. "Okay," Danielle said finally. "I understand."
Donald was confused by his wife's unexpected poise. "Are you sure?"
"Yes, Baby. I'm fine now."
Donald heard his wife open and then close the medicine cabinet. And if he knew Danielle as well as he thought, she faced the mirror, applied a powdered pad to her nose, staring blankly at her reflection. It was her early stage of denial. She didn't do well with bad news.
Anger ... Fear ... Silence ... Powder ... Donald then heard his wife gasp, snort, and with a thud, pass out. ... Collapse.
"Danny ... you okay in there?" Donald knocked repeatedly. "Sweetie?"
Using the good butter knife to jiggle the door open, he found Danielle sprawled out on the floor, her left foot in the bathtub. He leaned over to check on his wife. She was all right.
Donald sat on the closed toilet seat. He examined the bent knife, a wedding gift from his mother-in-law. He tried to force it back into its normal shape. "Damn. I'm never going to hear the end of this."
And while waiting for Danielle to wake up, Donald wondered if a life on Earth wouldn't be quite as bad as he imagined.
Chapter 10
Who the Fuck Is Alice?
Amsterdam, The Netherlands - The Ball and Tickle
Thursday, August 18, 2005, 2:29 a.m.
Angelique was draped in a black sequined gown with a slit up the right leg. Black pumps were like vices against her feet. Her wig had long black curls. She sat before a mounted mirror with globed lights around the edges. She stared at her reflection, and rubbed peach body lotion into her forearms. A mustached lip grazed the back of her neck.
"Always with the naughty-naughty," she said in Dutch. Angelique smiled at Andre, her bare-chested lover dressed in black leather, including chaps, vest, boots and beret. A silver hoop pierced his right nipple. "Be a gem and get me a seltzer? I need to strap on my garter before I go on." Angelique winked into the mirror. "Maybe you can unhook it for me later."
Andre opened the door of the back-room office and disappeared into the Ball and Tickle. Orange and green neon signs provided the brick tavern's only illumination, with messages such as Wet Lips, Tug My Nugget, and Ball and Tickle.
The crowd guzzled Belgian ales, puffed on German cigarettes, and riding the appropriate cues, shouted the chorus to their favorite polka pub song blasting through the overhead speakers: Who the Fuck is Alice?
Taking a short reprieve before her second set began, Angelique closed the door, encasing herself in silence. She billed her weekly performance as a one-woman cabaret, and though she recited more so than sang, rarely was there an empty seat in the house. "Where else," she began each show, infusing a French accent upon her sexiest, deep-throated Dutch, "can you have your tits and balls under one garment and be cheered for them at the same time?"
Despite her outward public persona, however, Angelique was discrete in private, when he went by George, his given name.
George owned a small, respectable art gallery across town, but he was best known among the locals as a facilitator, a liaison. He was people who knew people, if he were the type to speak of himself as such, which, when George, he was not. Blessed with a quiet confidence, facilitating acquaintances was easy enough. The true skill, George discovered, came in knowing when and where to introduce one party to another.
Selectivity was key. Some people were better off never meeting, a lesson he learned the hard way. Tailors, lawyers, artists. Line cooks, drug dealers, garbage collectors. Politicians. A pawnshop owner, a pharmacist. Bartenders, warehouse managers, prostitutes. Street cleaners, pastry clerks. George knew all kinds.
Yet they all had a common agenda: to satisfy their particular lusts and desires-the deep, dark longings revealed only under the most intimate of circumstances.
On Earth, George helped facilitate the process. What he got out of introductions, he said, was the betterment of others. What he actually got out of them was something else entirely. And since the people on this new planet looked and behaved much like those he knew from Eternity, he saw no reason to change. It was what he did best.
***
Before his banishment, George heard the rumors.
Eternitarians impudently denied even the slightest similarity between themselves and the Earth cretins, physical appearance being the only exception. The people trudging along the Earth were said to evolve painfully slow and possess only the most petty and selfish instincts. Worst of all, they seemed insistent not only to repeat their mistakes no matter how many generations were afforded the opportunity to make adjustments, but also to increase the depth and breadth of the blunders.
Conventional wisdom held that littering the metaphysical Universe with humans, or pseudo-Eternitarians, or pseudo-Es, or PEs-considered the origin of the word peon-would be a colossal waste of time. Along the cosmic scale, PEs were considered by Eternitarians to be a slug-like, unorganized bunch, and not expected to last.
And yet tales circulated that The Minder of the Universe, otherwise known as The Big MOU, had larger plans for PEs. Some had them eventually developing the technological means to travel the Universe in search of new inhabitable planets, seeing as they were on a clear course to overpopulate and devour their own.
Other versions had PEs developing telepathy, only to destroy themselves soon thereafter in a heated battle of I can read your mind faster than you can read mine, so nyeh.
But the most troubling incarnation was that PEs were not actually peons at all. Rather, this edition had The Big MOU ingraining PEs with the innate possibility of elevating themselves beyond even Eternitarians-if they lasted long enough to evolve, and were able to forgo material trappings for an existence far more spiritual.
Eternitarians dismissed any such talk-they were the ones populating Eternity, thank you very much-but when it came to The Big MOU, nobody really knew anything for sure.
And the single-sun galaxy projects would mean a plethora of new jobs and craters-full of available funds ripe for the pilfering, so those who had influence over such matters were only happy to oblige. If The Big MOU wanted to indulge his whimsy by experimenting with peons, indulge away. The more the merrier.
On Earth, George had been allowed to retain much of his previous form, a rarity among the banished. At no other time had it helped more to know people. When you were sent into exile, you were all but guaranteed a new form you would find to your utter dissatisfaction, each case of remodeling, of course, dependent upon the individual. The more extreme banishment came in the form of redistribution.
Reduced to your base elements, scattered throughout Eternity and then soaked into the cosmic fabric, reappearing somewhere, sometime-a part of everything, and yet the whole of nothing. Complete identity disintegration.
After converting Eternity measures to those governing Earth, George was only five feet, five inches, with the facial features of a forty-one-year-old Taiwanese man. He wore his straight black hair with a swoop in the front, highlighted with slight blonde streaks. He looked a decade younger than he was, although the hint of weariness behind his eyes suggested an undercoating of heavy mileage. Just how much mileage, however, was far beyond what anyone on Earth was likely to comprehend.
What most endeared George to people was that he was an attentive listener, although he was equally adept at leading a conversation in the direction he most wanted it to go. And yet for the countless secrets and burdens others shared with George, he wanted others to know as little about him as possible.
If George knew anything about secrets, it was that the more you talked about them, the more diluted they became, until that vital element of your personality dissolved into a distant memory. And George didn't want to let go of his secret. He would have been lost without it.
Yet when assuming the Angelique persona, she often told people that she was a caramel-colored goddess. When you're fabulous you should mm-mm shout it, tout it and flaunt about it. Tss! Angelique was a sharer, and the best thing Angelique had to share was ... Angelique.
George removed a laptop computer from the top drawer of the makeup counter. While assuming the George persona, an opportunity presented itself, just as he figured it would. He had a plan for getting back home, to Eternity. An image appeared in the upper right corner of the screen. Underneath the image was a name: Theo Barnes.
But feeling more comfortable as Angelique during these communications, she contacted Emma earlier that morning. Angelique started a new e-mail now, attached a digital photograph of Theo, and keyed in directions:
Em-
This is the one with the jar. Should arrive Venice two weeks. Send the girl. He's ripe for the plucking.
-Angie
p.s. Say hi to Lex. Love his big balls.