Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World (33 page)

"Accurately speaking, it isn't
this
world. It's the world in your mind that's going to end."

"You've lost me," I said.

"It's your core consciousness. The vision displayed in your consciousness is the End of the World. Why you have the likes of that tucked away in there, I can't say. But for whatever reason, it's there. Meanwhile, this world in your mind here is coming to an end. Or't'put it another way, your mind will be living there, in the place called the End of the World."

"Everythin' that's in this world here and now is missin' from that world. There's no time, no life, no death. No values in any strict sense. No self. In that world of yours, people's selves are externalized into beasts."

"Beasts?"

"Unicorns," said the Professor. "You've got unicorns, herded in a town, surrounded by a wall."

"Does this have something to do with the unicorn skull you gave me?"

"That was a replica. I made it. Pretty realistic, eh? Modelled it after a visualized image of yours. It took quite some doin'. No particular significance to it. Just thought I'd make it up on a phrenological whim, ho ho. My little gift to you."

"Now just a minute, please," I said. "I'm willing to swallow that such a world exists in the depths of my consciousness. I'll buy that you edited it into a clearer form and input it into a third circuit in my head. Next, you've sent in call signs to direct my consciousness over there to do shuffling. Correct so far?"

"Correct."

"Then, what's this about the world ending? Once the shuffling is over, isn't the third circuit going to break and my consciousness automatically return to circuit one?"

"No. That's the problem," corrected the Professor. "If it went like that, things'd be easy, but it doesn't. The third circuit doesn't have an override function."

"You mean to tell me my third circuit's permanently engaged?"

"Well, yes, that's the size of it."

"But right now I'm thinking and acting according to my first circuit."

"That's because your second circuit's plugged up. If we diagram it, the arrangement looks like this," said the Professor. He sketched a diagram on a memo pad and handed it to me.

"This here's your normal state. Junction A connected to Input 1, Junction B to Input 2. Whereas now," continued the Professor, drawing another diagram on another sheet, "it's like this."

"Get the picture? Junction b's linked up with the third circuit, while Junction A is auto-switched't'your first circuit. This being the case, it's possible for you't'think and act in the first circuit mode. However, this is only temporary. We have't'switch Junction B back't'circuit two, but soon. The third circuit, strictly speaking, isn't something of your own. If we just let it go, the differential energy is goint'melt the junction box, with you permanently linked into circuit three, the electric discharge drawing Junction A over to Point 2 and fusin' it there in place. It was my intention't' measure the differential energy and return you back to normal before that happened."

"Intention!"

"Yes, my intention, but I'm afraid that hand's been played out for me. Like I said before, the fools destroyed my lab and stole my most important materials."

"You mean I'm going to be stuck inside this third circuit with no hope of return?"

"Well, uh, yes. You'll be livin' in the End of the World. I'm terribly, terribly sorry."

"Terribly sorry?" The words veered out abstractly. "Terribly sorry? Easy for you to say, but what the hell's going to become of me? This is no game! This is my life!"

"I never dreamed anythin' like this would happen. I never dreamed the Semiotecs and INKlings would form a pact. And now System Central's probably thinkin' we've got somethin' goin' on our own. That is, the Semiotecs, they've had their sights on you, too. They as good as informed the System of that. And as far as the System's concerned, we betrayed them, so even if it meant settin' back the whole of shuffling, they'd just as soon eliminate us. And that's exactly what the Semiotecs have in mind. They'd be delighted if our own Calcutecs did us in—that would mean the end of the System's edge on Phase Two Shuffling. Or they'd be happy if we went runnint'them—what could be better? Either way, they have nothint'lose."

"Great," I said, "just great." Then those two guys who came and wasted my apartment and slit my stomach had been Semiotecs after all. They'd put on that song and dance of a story to divert System attention. Which meant I'd fallen right into their trap. "So it's all a foregone conclusion. I'm screwed. Both sides are after me, and if I stand still my existence is annulled."

"No, not annulled. Your existence isn't over. You'll enter another world."

"Interesting distinction," I grumbled. "Listen. I may not be much, but I'm all I've got. Maybe you need a magnifying glass to find my face in my high school graduation photo. Maybe I haven't got any family or friends. Yes, yes, I know all that. But, strange as it might seem, I'm not entirely dissatisfied with this life. It could be because this split personality of mine has made a stand-up comedy routine of it all. I wouldn't know, would I? But whatever the reason, I feel pretty much at home with what I am. I don't want to go anywhere. I don't want any unicorns behind fences."

"Not fences," corrected the Professor. "A wall."

"Whatever you say. A wall, fences, I don't need any of it," I fumed. "Will you permit me to get a little mad?"

"Well, under the circumstances, I guess it can't be helped," said the Professor, scratching his ear.

"As far as I can see, the responsibility for all this is one hundred percent yours. You started it, you developed it, you dragged me into it. Wiring quack circuitry into people's heads, faking request forms to get me to do your phony shuffling job, making me cross the System, -putting the Semiotecs on my tail, luring me down into this hell hole, and now you're snuffing my world! This is worse than a horror movie! Who the fuck do you think you are? I don't care what you think. Get me back the way I was."

The Professor grunted.

"I think he's right, Grandfather," interjected the chubby girl. "You sometimes get so wrapped up in what you're doing, you don't even think about the trouble you make for others. Remember that ankle-fin experiment? You've got to do something to help him."

"I thought I was doin' good, honest. Except circumstances kept turnin' worse and worse," the old man moaned. "Things're completely out of my hands. There's nothing I can do about it any more. There's nothin' you can do about it either."

"Just wonderful," I said.

"'Tis a small comfort, I know," the Professor said meekly, "but all's not lost. Once you're there in that world, you can reclaim everything from this world, everything you're goint'have't'give up."

"Give up?"

"That's right," said the Professor. "You'll be losin' everything from here, but it'll all be there."

Power Station

Then I tell the Librarian of my intention to go to the Power Station, she is visibly distraught.

"The Power Station is in the Woods," she objects, dousing red coals in the bucket of sand.

"At the entrance to the Woods," I tell her. "The Gatekeeper himself said there should be no problem."

"I do not understand the Gatekeeper. Perhaps the Power Station is not far, still the Woods are dangerous."

"I don't care. I will go. I must find a musical instrument."

Having removed all the coals, she empties ash from the stove into the bucket. She shakes her head.

"I will go with you," she says.

"Why? You dislike the woods. I do not wish to put you in danger."

"I will not let you go alone. The Woods are cruel; you still do not understand."

We set out under cloudy skies, walking due east along the River. The morning is a pleasant precursor of spring warmth. There is no breeze, the River sounds gentle. After a quarter of an hour, I take off my gloves and scarf. "Spring weather," I say.

"Perhaps. But this is only for a day. Winter will soon be upon us again," she says.

We leave the last houses along the south bank, and now only fields appear on the right side of the road. Meanwhile, the cobblestone road gives way to a dirt path. Furrows are crested with icy chips of snow. To our left the willows along the River drape branches into the flowing mirror. Tiny birds perch awkwardly on the bobbing limbs, shifting again and again before flying off. Her left hand is in my coat pocket, holding my hand. In my other hand I carry a valise containing our lunch and a few small gifts for the Caretaker.

So many things will be easier in spring, I think as I feel her warmth. If my mind holds out over the winter, and if my shadow survives, I will be closer to my former self.

We walk at an easy pace, hardly speaking, not for lack of things to say but because there is no need. We view the scenery: snowy contours hollowed into the land, birds with beaks full of red berries, plantings thick with winter vegetables, small crystal-clear pools in the river course, the distant snowcapped ridges. Each sight bursts upon us.

We encounter beasts scavenging for food in the withered grasses. Their pale gold tinged with white, strands of fur grown longer than in autumn, their coats thicker. Yet their hunger is plain; they are lean and pitiful. Their shoulder blades underscore the skin of their backs like the armature of old furniture, their spindly legs knock on swollen joints.

The corners of their mouths hang sallow and tired, their eyes lack life.

Beasts in groups of three or four stalk the fields, but few berries or clumps of grass are to be found. Branches of tall trees retain perhaps some edible nuts, but far out of reach; the beasts linger by the trees and gaze up sadly at the birds that peck at even this meager offering.

"What keeps the beasts from eating the crops in the field?" I ask.

"I myself do not know," she says. "That is the way of things. The beasts stay away from food that is for the Town. Although they do eat what we feed them, they will not eat anything else."

Several beasts crouch down on the riverbank, legs folded under them, to drink from a pool. We pass, but they do not look up. Their white horns reflect in the water like bones sunken to the river bottom.

As the Gatekeeper has instructed, a half hour along the River past the East Bridge brings one to a turning point, to the right, a narrow footpath one might ordinarily miss. The fields are now engulfed by tall weeds on either side of the path, a grassy belt that extends between the cultivated areas and the Eastern Woods.

The land rises slightly through this underbrush, the grass thinning to patches as the path angles to a rocky outcropping on its north face. None so steep, with steps cut into the rock. It is a soft sandstone and the edges of the steps are rounded with wear. After walking a few more minutes, we arrive at the summit, which is slightly lower than the Western Hill where I live. Thereon, the south face of the rock descends in a gentle grassy incline, and beyond that is the dark oceanic expanse of the Woods.

We pause on the rock and gaze around us. The Town from the east presents a vista far different from my accustomed perspective. The River is surprisingly straight, without a single sandbar, seeming more a manmade channel. On the far side of the River, one sees the great Northern Swamp, its easterly spread invaded by isolated patches of woodlands; on this, the southern side of the River, one sees the fields through which we walked.

There are no houses; even the Eastern Bridge looks deserted and forlorn. The Workers' Quarter and Clocktower are as insubstantial as mirages.

We are rested now and begin our descent toward the Woods. At the edge of the trees lies a shallow pond, its icy, murky bottom giving issue to the parched form of a giant skeletal stump. On it perch two white birds, fixedly observing our approach. The snow is hard and our boots leave no tracks. We proceed and find ourselves amidst massive oaks that tap the unfrozen depths of the earth to reach toward the cloud-dark sky.

As we enter the Woods, a strange sound meets our ears. Monotonous, influctuant in pitch, the murmur grows more distinct as the path leads in. Is winter breathing through the trees? Yet there is no sign of moving air. The Librarian cannot place the sound any more than can I; it is her first time in these Woods.