The Solution (3 page)

Elizabeth distantly considered lying, but she
saw no point. But she didn’t want to particularly say anything about it either.

“Never mind. I’ll see soon enough.”

She closed her eyes and time passed. An hour after she went under Mr. Spires saw nothing unusual, at first. He sat, staring at the screen. Not budging. There was only a black void where her dream was supposed to be. This was so until the black on the screen (he realized when it rippled like water), became a sort of living abyss. There was movement. She was indeed dreaming. Naked, an image of Elizabeth appeared in the distance of the abyss and began walking toward the screen, as if she were aware Mr. Spires spied on her. Her green eyes radiated like phantoms.

“Well aren’t you a peach,” Mr. Spires said.

I
f the Consulate was startled or excited, he didn’t show it. He immediately got out of the chair and stood over Elizabeth’s sleeping body. He opened the briefcase and pulled out a device shaped like a small, metallic wand. It was a device that Mr. Spires used rarely but had wished to use more often. He read the results on a small purplish hologram on the side of it, and if anyone had blinked they would’ve missed the flash of delight in his eyes.

He twisted
the end of the wand, switching it on, and the sound of power whirred. He reached the wand over her chest, looking at her face to see what sort of response he’d get. She gritted her teeth. After a few seconds Elizabeth began shaking in her sleep, as if something were being drawn out from her that didn’t want to leave. The hair on the nape of Mr. Spire’s neck stood and coldness swept over his body as the dark around him cracked zigzagging lines of light, as if a mirror had broken. Mr. Spires backed away as he watched something like a figure, starting from a concentrated point of energy, slowly trace itself just above Elizabeth. It expanded, undulating and breathing until it formed into a cyan ghost of Elizabeth and her glowing green eyes. Mr. Spires knew he didn’t have much time.

“Who are you?” Mr. Spires said.
“We’ve been looking for you a long time.”

“No!” Elizabeth’s image turned to static and dissipated before Mr. Spires could ask another question.

“A peach indeed,” he said, “I’ve found you.”

He looked
over at Elizabeth. She was sleeping peaceably again. He placed the wand back into the briefcase, then grabbed and plunged a needle into her arm and drew some blood, letting the red stuff pump into a vile. 

M
r. Spires said, “Hidden things
do
make monsters, but you’re much more than that, aren’t you? You’re practically glowing in
it
more than most anyone in your condition.”

After enough blood was
collected Mr. Spires wiped her arm with an alcohol pad and covered the insertion point with a cotton ball and bandage. He sat back down, reopened the program, and watched Elizabeth dream of the Lightning Fields and her family, knowing in the morning she’d be riding with him to the City.   

Chapter Three

Randal Markins, Lupercalia, Ultimate Reality

The City.

Trails of hot pink and neon green sketched the night. Pleasured faces swamped the streets with drunken smiles and leers induced by quality drugs. Each harlot projected a pornographic holoflick which hovered behind them like lascivious spirits, displaying what pleasures he or she could bestow upon potential customers;
it’s simply advertisement,
baby
. A few musicians played instruments from violins to holokeys and let fly three-dimensional notes which surrounded listeners with a euphoric, personalized virtual reality—some of the listeners fell into distant imaginings where they rode unicorns, others were on a tropical beach. But all this was accompanied by the scent of star-crossed couples fornicating in alleys where halogen lights dimly illuminated them. Tonight was a celebration in remembrance of Lupercalia, a festival the ancient Romans eventually made into Valentine's Day. A block of the City had been closed off for the event.

Among the festivities lumbered Randal Markins, appearing quite opposite of the celebration’s grandeur. He wore flannel pajamas and a white T-shirt, wrapping his arms around his chest to keep warm. No one really noticed, and if they did no one re
ally cared.

Randal was pale, tired, and wasn’t sure exactly what wa
s happening to him—as a matter of fact he had no clue at all what happened to him. He was having a normal day. Everything normal. Normality was his thing. After work he had come home to his one-bedroom, near bare and claustrophobic apartment. He had one green houseplant beside his threadbare couch. He ate pasta for dinner, drank sweet tea (then one gin and tonic), and while lying down on his twin bed in his too small room he watched a report on a tsunami in the Pacific, then he for a few moments he read a Solution book written by Dr. Reverence called
How to Find the Center of Self
, then, listening to the drone of the air conditioning and the distant sounds of the festival, he fell asleep soundly, and he snored. Randal dreamed of a green-eyed and auburn haired girl calling from deep in the dark, but he could not understand what she was saying. Her image was one of the most vivid he had ever seen, and the feeling of her—her presence—, even though only in a dream, intrigued and consumed him. And if he dreamed of anything else afterwards it was of nothingness.

For all Randal knew he would sleep for millennia, and he’d never
care if he had to work again. Then, suddenly he had woken by pulsating, bashing noises—penetrative static blasted in his head, popping and cracking as if someone were attempting to invade and tune into his mind and scramble his brain.

He had no choice but to grit his teeth as acute pressure began building b
etween his temples until it reached a crescendo. Yelling, Randal rolled off the bed and fell flat on his back knocking the wind out of himself for a moment. When he got it back and took a breath he put his hands over ears in hopes of drowning out the hellish noise, yet the distortions kept increasing in volume until they eventually formed into a single, concentrated male voice.

The voice said, “You’re under control.” 

“What!”

Then it was like
channels repeatedly changed in his mind until a female voice came in, though her sentences were choppy and broken, “Operator, we’re experiencing interference . . . Is that necessary . . . not sure I can . . .”

The o
perator, a wiry male voice, responded brusquely, “Follow orders.”

A battle of voices began.

“We’ve lost him.”

“I’m dispatching Tetrax.”

“Leave there. Leave there now, Randal. Go.”  

Whether for fear or an attempt to maintain
a sense of sanity, Randal pushed himself up from the floor, his head continuing to pound with the transmissions, having no idea why they were there or what in particular they could really be. He ran out of his apartment, down the stairwell four stories and eventually onto the streets and into the festival. 

Now
Randal made a clumsy beeline toward an alleyway through the floods of people, thinking he had just opened his eyes underwater because everyone seemed to smudge into light-stained inkblots. His thoughts continued clashing like steel beams and he imagined his body smashing between them. He attempted to clear his head and put back together the mangled image of himself, but his mind was constantly twisting and reality itself seemed to morph into something phantasmagoric and terrible.

As he lumbered onward Dr. Reverence’s voice floated down from above, cutting t
hrough the cacophony in his mind and the roars of Lupercalia. She was beyond loud; she ruled all sound. Randal looked up to where the psychotherapist displayed on a holographic billboard, commencing the usual Solution cautionary speech:

“Welcome, you will find all your necessities are in order.
This is Lupercalia. Remember, no
cash
. If you see anyone using this illegal means of exchange, it’s your civic duty to report them to your local Solution operatives. Live your dreams well with us, for all our resources are yours.” 

Dr. Reverence’s voice soothed him momentarily, but it wasn’t enough.
Randal made it to the alleyway, walking into the blackness and disappearing within it, the rumble of the festival dampening behind him. Woozy, Randal sat down and leaned against the alley wall. He stared into the blackness, hoping maybe either silence or sheer oblivion would come but instead he heard more voices inside his skull repeating his name. They would
not stop.

“They’re coming for you.”

Concentrating on the acidic burn in his throat and the yearning in his veins for something, though he couldn’t tell what, Randal began passing out. It seemed to be the better option.

The universe unravels to reveal its abomination.
Those words echoed in Randal’s head as he went under. Two minutes went by but it could have been an eternity for all Randal knew. “Wake up, man! You’re going through it! You’re almost done. You’ve been streaming the All.”

Randal heard the voi
ce distantly, and understood it, and he wondered what the All could be. It sounded like Randal surfaced from underwater, coming closer to shore until he woke, groggy, head pounding, still lying in the black alleyway and Lupercalia booming a ways out with an ambient cadence. Life had become a vicious anomaly. Randal had asked for none of it. He already didn’t want it. Where was his normality? Where was his couch? His sweet tea? His TV? His nerves grew worse, his fear and confusion intoxicating.

“Randal.
Tetrax has been ordered to kill you!” the little voice inside his head yelled. “We’re coming to get you. We’re on our way.”

“Go away!” Randal screamed. “I didn’t do anything!
I want tea!” He wasn’t sure exactly why he’d thought of tea.

He propped himself up and set his back against the wal
l, attempting to gather his wits—an act he began to think was impossible. Randal tried breathing steadily, to calm down, and for short-lived time it did. Until a putrid stench, which seemed to float down from above, suddenly burned Randal’s nostrils. He looked upward to the side of the building, focusing his eyes in an attempt to see past the black and slivers of red and green neon light. He heard something moving, like footsteps on the alley wall. The second he noticed them the footsteps ceased, but as cold wind funneled through the alleyway carrying the sounds of the festival a thought came to Randal: death.

Suddenly from the blackness a charred
arm clutched Randal’s shoulder with such brute strength he was surprised his bones didn’t immediately snap. Frozen by fear (a near irreparable but tamable Dysfunction according to Dr. Reverence), Randal didn’t move or fight back. He wasn’t sure he knew how to. He still wanted tea. His job was soldering computer boards. He was not a fighter. He had never been in a fight, not even in grade school. No one ever cared enough. So he said nothing, did nothing. He stared upward. Randal could see the thing’s slender, inky shape. Its skin seemed to be woven with squirming things and black corrosion. Then, he could see it almost wholly. Worms acted as teeth and the creature’s entire visage was made of rows upon rows of infected and abscessed incisors. Randal saw gleams of moisture and yellow throughout its body, and he realized they were toothless, puckering mouths. 

T
he creature leapt from the wall and swiped across Randal’s chest with its nails. The two tumbled and it got on top of him, pinning him down. There was no remorse or hesitation. Tetrax bit into Randal’s shoulder with its teeth. Blood sprayed as it chomped, swallowing Randal’s slippery redness down its numerous mouths. Worms from its body attempted to weave around Randal’s hands, trying to pull him inside Tetrax’s torso and he felt as helpless as a trapped mouse under a cat’s paw.

Suddenly
a white, blinding light flashed and Randal felt the weight of the creature release. Flashes of heat flew inches over Randal’s head and Tetrax roared and was immediately muted.

A
nother wave of dizziness sucked him down and he went to sleep. There was nothing, the silence Randal had been waiting for, but it wouldn’t last long. 

When Randal came to,
he was looking through a dirty window and riding in the backseat of a car. He saw silvery and grey buildings zipping by. Randal grunted. He wanted to ask where he was but when he moved his mouth a pang in his neck silenced him. His eyes were already bruising and his face was a swollen mess, his shoulder throbbing.

He couldn’
t at first make out whether the driver was male or female.

“Hi
,” the driver said. It was a woman. Before Randal found the strength to respond, all sounds of normality faded and were replaced with maniacal chuckles and hums induced by pain and blood loss, causing catalepsy. Randal became aware of nothing pleasant as he fell back into a stinging sleep.

* * *

Elizabeth woke up at around six o’clock in the morning, eyes wide open. In front of her were the mirrored angel figurine on the bureau and her vacant reflection in the vanity, vacant because she held no facial expression. The lifeless angel seemed to stare back at her, and Elizabeth locked eyes on it for a moment. Mr. Spires sat in his chair and the computer screen glowed. Two new men stood beside Mr. Spires, looking at Elizabeth blankly. One was a short, stout man wearing a cashmere sweater, grey slacks and black, shiny dress shoes. The other was a bigger man in a suit called Mix. They were Solution operatives, she knew. Something was definitely up. Elizabeth was unaware that overnight Mr. Spires had run diagnostics, deduced formulae, and manifested an aspect of her subconscious which resulted in conclusions beyond Elizabeth’s knowledge. She looked at the operatives, then back to Mr. Spires.