Wildcard (41 page)

“Maybe, probably, but the real answer is
with you. My puzzle will be astronomically difficult. I’d probably
have to learn some kind of Manufactured Entity math just to
understand it. I’m stuck here until you leave there, Karl.”

“What if I just left Trident and walked
away?”

“That sounds pretty horrifying for me. Are
you that cruel? I could be trapped in this place for a very long
time, trying to solve an impossible math trick. I’ve attained some
immortality, or at least longevity, through having younger bodies.
Wildcard may be giving you the choice to put me in hell.”

“Or he could be creating a human version of
himself.”

“Maybe. I’m a pretty stable guy, bred to be
so, but I don’t think that whatever would come out of here would be
a good thing. Not benevolent, like Wildcard. I think it would be
evil.”

“All right. Thanks for solving the moral
dilemma. I’ll try to get out of here and take you with me.”

“Thank god.”

“Great,” said the Jester. “Let’s play.

Shining bright with a borrowed light,
appears by day,

but mostly at night

sometimes a plate, sometimes a smile

sometimes orange for a while.”

“Easy,” Karl said, “the moon.”

“Right. Next riddle: I clear away the
morning mist, if I stop moving I cease to exist.”

After a moment, the Sergeant said,
“Wind.”

“You aren’t supposed to play,” Karl said.
“Only me.”

“No, Karl, that’s not what he said. Don’t
lock yourself into assumptions. It’s a fatal mistake in engagement.
He said that only you can ‘choose’ to play. You chose to play. I
think we all can play now that you’ve made the choice.”

“You assumed that you couldn’t get out of
the Portal you’re in.”

“No, I didn’t. I’m looking intently for a
way out, and have been since I first arrived. I can just tell that
I won’t find anything that’s possible. I’ll keep looking,
however.”

“Can you contact anyone else?”

“No, only you and Trident, no visuals.”

“Who’s the last person you saw?”

“Just a bunch of shills.”

“Shills?”

“Yeah, flat Manufactureds, icons. Like the
Gatekeeper, here. Not much to him, really. Just a blockage and a
bag of tricks.” The Gatekeeper mocked offense.

“You don’t think they’re real?”

“What does real even mean? Are we real, in
here? But, no, not the icons. The M-Es and the Mans, like Seeker,
yes. Icons, no. They aren’t self-aware. They don’t know they exist.
They’re expendable.”

“Well, I don’t care if you play.”

The Gatekeeper had been looking blankly at
Karl, waiting for some response. He accepted Karl’s allowance that
the Sergeant play.

“Correct response. Next riddle: my waves are
not of water made, my sound travels at the speed of light.”

“Radio,” said Trident, just as the
Gatekeeper said light.

“Hooray.” The Gatekeeper lit off a Roman
Candle. Karl began to step across, into the world, ready to see the
old man again. The Gatekeeper turned into a beautiful redhead,
wearing a tight silk dress. She lifted a leg, knee bent upward in a
classic movie sexy way. She put her index finger lightly on Karl’s
chest, leaned in and whispered, “I’m sorry, sir, but you can’t go
in.” She kissed him on the ear. “No repeats. Only he is allowed
in.” She pointed at a grown man. The first Sergeant strode
purposefully past, Trident on his wrist. He didn’t look at
Karl.

“You’re Wildcard.” They were at Hazel’s
house, a few days after Marta arrived. She was drinking tea at the
kitchen table, a simple, solid oak affair while Hazel cooked.

“No, dear. I’m not.”

“Is this Wildcard’s world?”

“Yes, ‘tis. This is the center. This is his
heart.”

“If this is Wildcard’s world, then what are
you doing here?”

“What are you doing here?” She was all
cookies and warm milk.

“I don’t know.”

“Your friend Karl passed through.”

“What?” Marta clutched at the table.

“Sorry, perhaps this is a bit much for now.
We’ll talk of it later. You want to know more about this
place.”

“How did I get here?”

“I’ve no idea.”

“Can I come back when I want?”

“You may only come once. But you may stay as
long as you wish.”

“I definitely want to stay.”

Hazel reached into a cabinet and took out
some flour. “There’s a clear answer.” She was making bread to go
with a broccoli soup. The bread was always served hot. Hazel made a
lot of comfort food for Marta.

“I’m trapped in another person’s horrible
dream there.”

“You can heal here. You may live and die
here. It’s up to you.” Hazel reached across the table, put a hand
on Marta’s cheek, then brushed off the flour her fingers left
behind. “You’re deeply wounded. This place will heal you. I
promise.”

“You don’t have to promise, I can feel it.
Perhaps, at some point, I’ll be strong enough to leave and face
that again.”

Hazel touched her hand, gave it a squeeze,
then stroked it.

“What’s your husband’s name?”

“He has no name. I just call him the old
man. I love him so much, but I never miss him. Sometimes he goes
away for weeks, wandering in the mountains. Hiking with CJ. CJ’s
our dog. You’ll like him, he’s beautiful. And wondrous intelligent.
We’re quite old, you know. He’s much older than me. He’s ancient.
Wildcard’s first human creation.”

“Is it always like this here? The weather, I
mean.”

“No, we have some weather, though quite
mild, I suppose. Occasionally, travelers pass through. But it’s
rather a long time between them.” Hazel looked up from the dough
she was rolling and pointed at her. “You are only the second human
who has come here. Most of our visitors are creations of Wildcard
who have suffered. So much suffering out there. After some beings
have died, they come here, passing as strange spirits; sometimes
reborn as animals. I couldn’t prove that, but I know. I feel it.
They’re brought here to heal, I think. I have never seen one as
wounded as you, though. I think , when you’re ready, you must tell
me the story.”

Marta sipped her tea, elbows resting on the
table, holding the cup in both hands. “That may be a while.”

“I hope so. It should be. I think human
spirits may pass through here, someday, after death. Wildcard seems
to wish it so, at any rate. There shan’t be so many.”

“You think Wildcard will take the
dying?”

“Don’t know if he can. You should ask the
old man. He’s closer to Wildcard than I am. I have to communicate
in words. He seems to intuit things. Wildcard wanted me to be
separate.” Hazel looked into the corner. “I shall die one day, I
think.”

“Who else has come here? Human, I mean.”

“Just your friend Karl.”

“LuvRay?”

“No. He’s not been. I don’t know if he shall
ever come, though Wildcard wants him to meet us.”

The old man walked in with CJ. Hazel
introduced them.

“Great,” he said, “visitors.”

Hazel was right, Marta loved the dog. And
how could anyone not love the old man?

Marta stayed with them for many weeks. She
cried a lot, by herself or telling the story to Hazel. She would
talk for a while about it, then melt. Hazel would hold her and let
her cry. She took long walks with CJ. She never had to worry where
she walked; he always found the way home. All she had to do was say
“CJ, take me home.” No matter how far they had walked, they would
arrive back in a few minutes. She helped Hazel work in the
garden.

Once Hazel told her that she was there to
teach Wildcard something.

“What?”

Hazel stopped digging, looked up at an angle
from under her floppy, pale blue gardening hat. “Not sure, but it
has to do with pain and its proper mending. And with loss.”

She put a tomato plant in the hole, patted
dirt around it. “That’s enough gardening for today. Let’s make iced
tea. The old man loves iced tea.”

Marta had cried twice that day, Hazel
holding her once, alone once. “Will I ever be able to trust people
again?”

“It’s too bad how people can’t see
themselves,” Hazel said. “You never stopped trusting.”

“Will I ever be free again?”

Hazel opened the tiny curtains in front of
the kitchen windows. The old man came out of the woods, walking
hurriedly, breathing hard. CJ was with him. The two women walked
outside and waited for him.

“He looks excited,” Hazel said.

“Guess what?” The old man shouted as he
huffed toward them. “I found a house.”

“No artefacts in the heart, Sergeant.”

His right arm flew up, snatching off Trident
and pitching it over his shoulder to land between the Gatekeeper’s
feet. The Sergeant crossed the tiny bridge without looking
back.

The land provided no clues. Without other
ideas, he walked. After a day, he had found nothing but endless
meadows, rolling hills, and animals.

He tried to speak to some of the animals,
but they didn’t respond. He watched a brown bear, then moved
towards it. It ambled away. There was some food there and he was
hungry. The Center seemed to have a very Earth physics and he
probably needed to eat.

Food was easy to find. There were plenty of
berries, an obscure pineapple tree in that slight out of placeness
that seemed to characterize wildspace, even at the most serious,
perhaps especially then. The pineapple he picked was flat and
flavorless. Wildcard created a whole universe and still couldn’t
make food taste good. He walked on.

On a whim, he felt in his pocket, discovered
a compass there. “Good joke”, he said aloud. The compass had two
arrows, black and blue. He walked in the direction of the blue
arrow. He guessed the black arrow was pointing north, but couldn’t
be certain. If so, then he was headed roughly northeast.

Another full day he walked, through the
night, until the sun was at late morning. He came into a forest.
Beautiful aspen trees gave it a mystical twilit feel. The aspens
went on for a long time. Late afternoon, he walked up to a meadow.
He skirted it, looking at the compass. This was it. The blue arrow
pointed into the meadow as he moved through the forest on its edge.
He sat inside the trees and watched, eating nuts and berries. The
blue arrow continued dumbly pointing into the meadow. Nothing was
there. Nothing happened. After an hour, he stood and strode in.

The instant he stepped out
of the trees, he felt something
take
notice
. He tuned into combat mind,
distanced himself from the slower process of rationality and
analysis. Trained reflexes took over, colors brightened.
Grasshoppers leaped in slow motion. He saw insects, animals, grass
moving in the wind in an array, rather than isolated focus. Mind
distributed evenly into the senses. Sight became less prominent,
balanced out with sounds, which became crisp and sharp. Smell and
feel, both crippled in wildspace, enhanced. Feeling spread into his
zshi, where he could sense living things and their distance from
him. He could feel their power, their threat. One of many
techniques he had learned when studying with samurai. LuvRay had
taught him how to use smell. Really use smell, to sense the
difference between animal and man. Which direction they were
headed. How many, and how far away. LuvRay said he could smell
something downwind which was two hours steady walk. Smell didn’t
seem to work in wildspace so well, though. The zshi trick was
different, more powerful, more sensitive.

He looked at the compass. The blue arrow was
slowly spinning counterclockwise. He held it above his head, still
looking at the face. As it flipped upside down, the blue arrow
stopped, then began spinning slowly clockwise. He put the compass
back in his pocket, tuned in to the zshi, all of his attention, all
of his focus. Sight, sound, smell, taste, and touch dwindled and
went away. He brought his mind into single point focus onto what
passed for zshi in this place, the odd static charge. He closed his
eyes, spread his arms like Jesus, and rotated at the same speed as
he knew the blue arrow was now spinning. He remembered a spot in
Oregon where the polarity was out of whack from so much lodestone.
He had trained the zshi effect extensively there, moving past the
unbalanced, disorienting quality of the place, dancing with altered
perception until it no longer affected his martial equilibrium.

He lost track of time, rotating one way,
then the other. Finally, in the middle of the night, he felt it.
There. The edges of palms slowly drew together, opening upwards,
thumbs pointing out, holding the signal like a stream passing
through the hands. The hands separated slightly. And, eyes closed
because they must be, the legs followed the stream of subtle
perception. The stream couldn’t slip; it would not return. Until
dawn he was pulled, lost in the peace of following the stream. With
a first ray of the rising sun the eyes chose to open. A butterfly
landed on the head. Slowly, the hand moved up without scaring it.
He took three minutes to move there.

He came from the side, held, vibrated until
it stepped on. Two minutes back to look at it. The only danger here
would be to ignore it. On its wings were soft swirls of blue and
gold. It flew away and he followed. It landed on the stump of an
oak tree, just under a meter in diameter. A Swiss Army knife pinned
a curled piece of paper to the center of the stump.

He pulled out the knife, picked up the
paper, and examined it. Ivory, 36 bond, excellent paper. Burned
away at the edges, slightly darker there. It had a beautiful,
compelling look, an almost invisibe emboss of a symbol the Sergeant
recognized, the knot of eternity. A line that turned squarely back
and forth, wrapping under and over itself, the symbol tied back
into itself seamlessly. It meant no beginning and no end. Aside
from the faint emboss, the paper was blank. He rolled it again and
put it in his pocket.