Petty Officer Parfait Plurality and Lance Corporal Synchronized Strudel ran down the corridor to help the poor girl who had fallen. Lusi gasped as they pulled her up to her feet, and the officer placed her hand upon the girl’s back so that she would not faint a second time. “Lusi, are you all right?” she enquired. A second or so after finally catching her breath, Lusi looked to the officer. “Make the correction!” she pleaded. Plurality looked over to the corporal and nodded. He examined the corridor, finding that some bumbling fool … most likely a lecturer …
had placed a chair on one side of the hallway by itself, rather than across from another. The difference of course had caused Lusi to fall into a panic attack as soon as she ascended the stairs.
The lance corporal strode over and hid the chair within one of the hallway classrooms and returned to the girl, who had by this time regained her composure. “That gave me quite a start, what would I do without you two?” she smiled and picked up her backpack, continuing down the corridor to the afternoon period’s lecture hall. “He won’t notice if I am a minute late” she thought to herself, veering to the right before bolting into professor Graham Ramshackle’s English class. Seldom did she consciously admit to herself the truth, that Ramshackle himself was not only the principal of the school, but her specialist as well. Indeed, Lusi and the others were all patients of the Asymmetrical Institute, a facility for Asymmetrites, those who shun the outside world and cannot function in a land of differing symmetry. To be more specific, the Children’s Asymmetrical Institute, itself a satellite facility of the main Institute is located in the peaceful woodlands of portion Veles. It was built for minors up to the age of eighteen. After they become adults, they are transferred to the main Institute in Salamantra District of portion Veles.
Graham Ramshackle is the warden of both facilities, but keeps an almost constant presence at the Children’s Institute where the possibility of treating the condition is most promising, relegating the responsibility of the main institute to his protégé Cressida Diligent. He raised an eyebrow as Lusi flew into the classroom. Mentally he counted the seconds it took for her from exposure to the asymmetry to recovery, and realized her event-time for a minor event was down by twenty seconds. Both Petty Officer Parfait Plurality and Lance Corporal Synchronized Strudel had originally been the imaginary friends, able to make corrections throughout the room when she was distant or unable to reach such locations. They were her guardians, soldiers against the army of phantoms that haunted her. Since last summer the warden had given doctors Insignia Triennium and Piers Gnomon the task of impersonating both characters, which they could easily affect with a spell. It had really had clinical value, although deceitful, and had opened up a new window into her world. “You know what I think about tardiness, don’t you, Lusi?” the professor chastised as she fit into her seat. “I timed it that way, professor. If I had come in at the exact moment, it wouldn't be chaotic” she explained, smiling behind strands of almondy-albino hair.
Chaotic was the term Lusi used for situations that were asymmetric. “Very well. I hope you are ready for the pop quiz then” he countered. “What, wha, www …” Lusi stammered, and the pencil she had just placed onto her ear tipped off and fell onto the floor, making a click-clack sound. Realizing that Lusi had not studied one drop, the class snickered and looked at her all at once. “Here is a solution, Lusi. If you pass today’s pop quiz, I will take the whole class to Wayward Café afterwards, that is if you get higher than eighty percent”, he promised while dusting off his sleeves. “You’ve got yourself a deal, professor” she winked and rifled through her stack of notebooks for about a minute as he handed out the papers. “Hmmm, what is the meaning of the adjective precocious?” she mused and finally guessed on that one after eliminating “to be brave” and “being unlucky”. The pencil on the floor had a spell that could mimic the movements of another student, but she didn’t want to risk it for Wayward Café. “That’s enough students.
Pass up your tests. Moshe, put Lusi’s at the top '' he implored indifferently. For the next three minutes Lusi stared at the teacher’s bald spot as she waited in anticipation. She had, of course, failed the English test, but that was not the test that mattered that day. With a gentle sigh he placed his pencil on the desk and looked up at the class, “Well, I suppose we’re all going to have a late supper”. Papers flew into the air. Lusi put a notebook onto her head like a hat and danced around as Connie drummed on the desk. They all congregated in the courtyard where there was a giant ball of yarn. Threads loosened themselves like tentacles from the ball and wrapped themselves around all the members of the party. A strange enchanted electricity vibrated down the length of the threads. They were pulled in. Lusi could feel dimensions twist around her, and soon she was absorbed, as the others were into the inner dimension. There was, of course, another classroom inside so Ramshackle could continue to bore them during the journey. He showed them a projection of historical images, such as a picture of a big statue holding a torch, several people in ugly hats, and some woman at a typewriter, … as if that mattered. They were going to Wayward, after all. The ball of yarn completely rolled through the forested roads, chirping with electricity. When it reached its destination, it halted. As Lusi sat at her desk she could feel something curl around her arm. It was the thread, and soon they were all thrown out into the patio of the café. “What tomfoolery!” the matron, Elector Arabella Who Sings in the Vault of Damselflies lamented. “This time won’t be like the last, matron,” the warden assured her. The Elector pointed them to the gate in the fence, “I have your favorite waiting in the backyard. Each of you take a plate and stand in line please”. Near them, a cycloptic falcon tore strips off wood off of the fence. She led the children into the backyard, retrieved her slice and
directed them to the table where the plates were stacked up. Elector mumbled to herself as she noticed the girl Lusi, who was chosen by the others to stand impeccably centered as the line progressed. From her vantage point, she didn’t have a clear view of the glistening meal of the non-euclidian pizza. When Lusi got to the front Arabella leaned over the girl, “If you want me to give you a slice, you had better get in the right place”. Lusi twitched her eyes, realizing that she would have to, through force of will, step into the chaotic. A step to the right was sudden and the entire class gasped all at once. Her best friend, Connie Portfolio was having none of it, and stepped to the left to break the line, taking the burden of the other’s responsibility. Arabella turned to the glistening pizza, cut it and laid a portion onto the plate. Lusi looked gleefully at the pepperoni that were spinning like little carousels. An hour later, as the class messily indulged, the warden sauntered over to the matron, who was leaning against the brick wall of the café, her features darkened by the shadow of the overhanging roof. “Well, I would just lock them all up in there and throw away the key. That solves it, doesn’t it?”. The warden smiled and then pointed past a scene of children playing soccer with an acorn, to Lusi as she gobbled up her third helping,
“What do you think of that one, Arabella”. “That one? Even if you throw away the key, it wouldn’t do any good. That one’s getting out” she jested. Another perfect line had formed in front of the wavy, geometrically designed pizza. “Duty calls” Arabella sighed and pushed her back from the wall. That night, back at the Institute, Lusi ran down a circular staircase to the basement. There, a group of classmates were watching the classic film “When Your Shower Curtain Becomes The Sea”. Moshe and Connie sat in the front, eating a sundae together, so she went up and took the seat next to them. As they fell asleep during the opening act, Lusi snatched and finished it while watching the actress Gail Hummingbird move her fingers through her hair, and lather her shoulders as the inundation of the shower thrust itself upon her. Tropical music began to play, and a fresh mist obscured half of her body as she turned the faucet off and reached out for the robe. The actress tied a belt and examined the rippling curtain surrounding her on all sides. Ripples became waves, and the curtain became the sea. Soon, Gail was rowing through the sea on a canoe. As she reached the coastline of the first island of three islands that she would be visiting on her journey, Lusi stopped and looked behind her. The rest of the class was watching the film for the eleventh time. Standing up, she hustled to the back of the room and stood there, watching the entire class at once as they peered upon the screen. “Am I going to be here, as an old woman, watching this movie with the rest of them for the thousandth time?” she thought.
Then came a realization. Gail Hummingbird had used magic … although unintentionally to travel to a different world. That was the whole point of it, after all. What was the point in learning magic, if she was too afraid to see the rest of the world? Lusi retrieved the sundae bowl and threw it in the garbage, then went upstairs to bed. At the apex of the Institute in a chamber relegated to the warden’s private studies, Graham Ramshackle listened to the creaking of the floorboards as he paced over them. Slumbering below were all the students of the school.
Although they were just a handful of children, Ramshackle thought of them as an entire generation, and felt their fate. He knew what meager conditions awaited at the true Institute, and what ridicule society placed upon them, a branding that they would have to endure. In his mind, he traveled below the floor down through the levels, and witnessed them. By this time the games and films would be wrapping up, and they did not have the fortitude, like he did, to fight the summons of dreams. If he had to count all of them, there was Pippa Sparkling Aphelion, Duncan Baker’s Dozen, Progenitor Charles, Yummy Pretzel-Sandwich, Ethereal Exoplanet, Iona Classic Analog, Prune Magnificent, Jessamine Colored Pencils, Hannah Humidity-65-Percent, Ashley X-Coordinate, Molly Night Vision Goggles, Fiscal Year Lewis Anderson, Polly Genealogy,
Archie Instantaneous, Alaska Galaxy, Nekota Exponent, Tom Hot-Plate, Taffy Air-Conditioner, Retrieving A Can Opener From The Petulant Pink Sunset, Clover Surrender-Specialist, Aquinnah Import, Zabelle Forecast, Jocasta Climber Of The Modular Mountain, Delegate Giraud Proficient, Moshe Dyson-Sphere, Bronwyn Who Hears The Answering-Machine, Pelipa Easel, Blume Ethnolinguistic, Mink Secret-Sauce Marinade, Cassiopeia Wishing-Well, Zeki O’Connor, Elizabeth Tweezers, Martin Human-Migration, Viscount Felix the Sedate, Tarquin Geometry-Harvest, Mary Cookie-Cutter Hopkins, A Gelatin Hyperventilates, Antonio Diet, Radian of Curiosity, Viscount Lachlan Cross-Examination, Charlie Who Is Born Of The Hypnotic Eggnog, Connie Portfolio, I Own An Entire Oak Tree, Silk Timeline, Ian Evasive, Lysander Anniversary, Fergus Na, Hope Abbas, Picture Of Clockwise Motion Williams, Elliot Traces and of course Reclusive Watercolors who goes by Lusi. Silk Timeline is the daughter of Spider’s Silk Timeline, a notable figure in the community and a major source of their funding, as well as the parents of the two young Viscounts. Archie Instantaneous was in solitary, and only let out in specified periods. The son of another wealthy donor who had murdered his teacher, after complaining that he was too asymmetrical, and then went on a killing spree, the Red Instantaneous as they had named it in the press. And although he had proven beyond a shadow that violence did not correlate with the condition, it had meant little to them. Graham rolled up the carpet and placed it at the foot of the table. Opening his desk drawer, he retrieved a wooden box, ornate with unique beauty. Kneeling on the floor, he placed the box in front of him, and began to unbutton his shirt. It was folded, and placed directly behind him. Upon the bare chest, torso and arms of the man were signs and seals. Several circular ones were appropriately placed in specific locations. With both hands he threw back the lid of the Em-box and held his hands open. The leeches climbed up the wooden edge and out onto his hands. Slowly and silently, he placed each leech in its proper place within each circular seal. It had taken him several reincarnations to be where he is now, a lantern cultic master of Emzeser. “Patron who broke free from the ocean. Patron who is generous. Patron who is the germ of waterfalls. Let me flow through space and time, realms and realities” he chanted. The seals lighted up, and the leeches detached their mouths from his body, floating back into the box which closed its lid shut tight with a thud. In his mind Ramshackle could see the most pleasing image of Emzeser, and the form devolved into Emhan, and that form devolved into Em. He reached magical escape velocity. In an instant the lantern became a being, an entity of soul blood. The lantern shifted from the common reality of the Echo Realm, flowing into the Ocean of Zeser. Now he could hear, through the waters, the snoring of the Metacoma as it issued from the Sublime Landscape, vibrating the waters there. From the bedrock of that realm, he ventured out, following the different channels of the ocean. A most disturbing discovery, something only a lantern would notice, soon dawned upon him. In various locales, space itself had generated what could only be described as asymmetric fields of energy. He sensed the bruises stretching out towards the ends of the ocean. Something had to be done. Ramshackle returned to Zeser and called out to his patron, the Peasant, “Awaken, Father Freshwater. I must report to you”. A vast butterfly swan through the waters and transformed into the luminous peasant. “I cannot be subtle about this..
There are wounds being erected throughout the SOTA and beyond.. I would recognize their structure anywhere. They are asymmetric fields, and they will soon encroach upon us”. “Thank you for awakening me, I will be your messenger” Father Freshwater answered, and Ramshackle drifted back through the glistening surface of the barrier to his chamber, and coalesced back into organic form. Thereafter, Father Freshwater went to Emzeser and reported to him, and Emzeser went to Echo and reported to her. Echo considered the asymmetric fields, and thought them
remnants of the base reality, fighting back against her mirror light. On the following morning, in her “independent class” with the professor in which he normally questioned her relentlessly on pointless subjects, she had a question for him, “can you teach me magic?”. Ramshackle said nothing, but stood up and brought her to the bookshelf. Where there appeared to be a gap between two books, he placed his hand and revealed an invisible book. “What is this, professor?”
she speculated, tracing her hand across the pages. “This is more than a normal book of spells, child, it was originally an illuminated manuscript, and later the script of the spell-book was integrated within it”. “What do you mean by illuminated manuscript?” Lusi queried. “It was a book, in the old times, that was made with elaborate images and decorated with precious metals.
Due to this, they carried magical potential” the warden expounded. “Does that mean there was magic before the beginning?” the student asked while coughing in response to the donation of dust. “Even in the age before the phenomenon, there are rumors of events that occurred as a result of different varieties of books. The illuminated manuscripts were the subject of several such rumors'' the warden replied, and carried the tome over to the desk. “What is that thing, professor?” Lusi asked, pointing to a certain page with the depiction of a medieval knight. “That, my child is a horse. People used to ride these big four-legged animals. They were used for riding, and to pull vehicles, and to go into battle on. That bond died shortly before what we call the modern age” he answered. “They look really cool, I wish we had one here” the girl remarked.
The professor smiled and stepped to the side of the desk to make space for the pupil, “Lusi, I want you to place your hand upon the book. Concentrate. Feel the image beneath your palm.
Then bring it out”. Lusi did as he asked. “How am I going to do this?” she thought at first.
Gradually she could feel, in exact detail, the different textures – metal, and parchment. The page began to glow. Like a caster, she directed her other hand to the mirror on the wall. It came off and folded, becoming a horse with a mirror hide. Ramshackle looked at his pupil’s work. It shattered a moment later into a hundred pieces, but that was enough for him to apprehend her skill. “Mrs. Watercolors, from this day forward you will be my pupil, and I will teach you the fundamentals' '. “Grand!,” Lusi thought, “now I’m the teacher’s pet”. A year later Lusi graduated from the Asymmetrical Institute, and was given her liberty. Her uncle, Nathanial Watercolors, brought her back to New York. As she stepped out of the parahalf car onto the grassy yard of her new dwelling, Lusi thought to herself, “My heart is clear now”. For the next three years she attended Proper Emphasis Academy, then graduated and in the two years afterward worked for Stratagem And Porous Opal Industries inventing new spells. Five years after stepping out of the car, Watercolors died in an unfortunate traffic accident. As per her request at her funeral, she was burned on a pyre of illuminated manuscripts. The flame danced and was polychromatic. The smoke meandered ceremoniously to the sky. At her arrival at the crest of the anechoic plateau, she realized, from a funny warmth between her palms, the presence of a lightbulb. Its light was softer than a normal lamp. It was enough to draw the attention of some familiar company.
Standing below a willow in a courtyard was Petty Officer Parfait Plurality and Lance Corporal Synchronized Strudel. They noticed it right away. Reclusive revived again, and strode over to meet her friends, across a floor of the wind-swept grass on that fine day.
CHAPTER 26 - ECHO’S VACATION
Dreamess (who is Echo after defeating Visioness and securing the Dust-Throne) and Sam drop down to the interstellar space below the plane of the SOTA to be alone together. Dreamess, turns to her husband Sam, who is known as Dazin and is realm-king of the echo realm beside
her. “There are aspects of our phenomenon which have become detached from their logic.
Whether their logic has been lost or absorbed or stolen, I do not know. It is a mystery if the ascension itself is responsible'' she says. Sam reaches out to his wife to hold her hand and asks,
“What do you mean? What aspect do you speak of?”. Dreamess sighs and replies, “I speak of the fabric of which the realm is woven. There is the chain of ascension, which links all of those from bards to mortals. That quilt appears to be whole for now. I mean to speak of the avatar chain, those two threads that form the foundation of the quilt and whose ends dangle from the body of the quilt. We should all simply be personalities of Dreamer and Dream, such that would collapse as the personalities of the echo seal bloodline generation did, but we have grown to be separate individuals. The avatar chain is now only a Link which connects us all. In this way, the logic of the avatar chain has become lost, stolen, or perhaps absorbed by the ascension itself. That is the mysterious truth that we should be all mere creations of the scilysts”. Sam thinks on the matter and returns with his conclusion, “Perhaps this is the legacy of the unraveling of black rainbow, who you re-absorbed. Do you sense the presence of such a leftover contagion?”. “I do not” she admits, “However, let us depart from this talk of work during our time alone together”. The two embrace and Sam, who is the map unravels and the folds of the cosmic map wrap around Dreamess. After some time drifting through the void Sam notices a far-off aberration. “What is that entity? '' he wonders and the couple travel closer to investigate. “It appears as a derelict Earth vessel, let us reduce our size and walk through its corridors, and see what answers it holds”
Dreamess says. The two patrons reduce and conceal themselves and pass through the steel barrier as if it were tissue paper. “Let us step lightly” Sam says, “this tomb is fragile”. As they walk through the corridors the skeletons of fallen sailors drift by. The face of one of the skulls points toward the wall, where there is emblazoned “Men-At-Arms” , the name of the vessel. The hatch of the command chamber opens and ushers them within, where there is a large monitor.
“Allow me” Sam says and waves his hand over the controls. A relic footage plays upon the screen. The hazy figure of an old man in a white robe appears, covered in cracks that cover his shoulders and face that crackle with green light and give off emissions of green mist. “This is Commissioner Thonis of Alpha-E calling out to Men-At-Arms. Captain Frankus … son … Can you hear me? Four months and five days. We have been waiting for your arrival and the salvation of the cure. In the wake of the epidemic the colony has almost completely collapsed.
Now, only a few remain. Even the aid of Earth may be a little too late. Son, if you are hearing this, if you can see this, the disease has taken me as well. Your mother and I have always loved you. When she passed, I thought the world had ended. Now those few that remain call out to the stars, please, do not abandon them”. A wave of horror and realization pass over Dreamess and Sam as they take in the message. “What a fate for the first colony of mother Earth” Dreamess replied, “Let us go there and see if it remains intact”. Sam absorbed the coordinates from the computer and the image of Alpha-E appeared on his body directly below the SOTA and its plane. Before the patrons stepped back into the darkness Dreamess hesitated and said, “Wait”.
Her power washed through the ship until she felt something. “Come this way” she said and the two entered an area that had previously been a laboratory. She reached into the structure of the lab table and pulled out a plastic case. “What is that?” Sam asked. “This disk drive is encoded”
she replied in echoes, “We will be unable to decipher it until we arrive at the colony”. Sam nods and the two trans-manifest through the hull back into the void. It is a fleeting moment before the swift patrons arrive upon the lively grassy plains of Alpha-E, and alight in the midst of the ruin of a great city. “We are too late my love” Sam laments. In the crowded center of the city there rests a tall building surrounded by a citadel. “Let us walk” she urges, and they do, walking
through the grave that once was a city. “Each blade of grass here rotates and twists around slowly as if it were a screw. The effect is wonderful and mesmerizing” Sam observes. The patroness points to the crumbled shells all around them, overrun as they were with lush green vegetation like the cracks that covered Thonis, “I perceive the heritage of the culture of Earth, but with hope and the breath of new life. This is the loss of Earth’s only child”. Eventually the two make their way to the central tower. The entire building had been converted to a hive of labs, each of which ran into the next. The charred green coal-like remains of men and women rested on each lab table. The patroness approached a pile of research papers and blew until her breath had removed all but one, which she took into her hand. “Do you not see it husband, look closely at this dust”. As he does she reveals the image on the page, a blue woman with strange ornamental ribbons from her shoulders, a cuticle from her forehead and a title at the top of the page – ‘Rikiral Female – Specimen 8891’. The Map takes the paper and holds it in his hand,
“The explorers arrived on Alpha-E to find the Rikiral. They married and interbred, but by that time it was too late. First contact had become the last as the contagion, an inter-species sexually transmitted disease wiped them out and turned them into green ash”. They trans-manifest and appear before a theater sized monitor in the heart of the control room. After ordering the computer to repair itself with a brief look, Dreamess placed the disk inside and the computer there decoded the message, sending up static that metamorphosed into an image upon the screen.
A security tape of the Men-At-Arms is shown and Frankus is in the command chamber surrounded by half of his lieutenants, the other half facing them. A group of crewmembers confront the captain and his lieutenants. They say Alpha-E is lost and want to return to Earth. To prove the worth of the mission, the captain is forced to make a speech. He fails, and the next scene is within the barricaded laboratory, where Frankus speaks to the camera. “Home Base, if you can hear me, then you will know the truth. They … have gotten the better of us. I have only just awoken from an attack. My lieutenants saved me, but they are too few now. The Men-At-Arms will not be the salvation of Alpha. My home and family are lost forever. There is only one choice now. If we cannot take her back in a final engagement, then it is over. Farewell”.
“According to Earth time, that was one hundred years ago” the patroness states. She extended out her arms and called out to every scrap of data hidden in the citadel to return to the epicenter, the monitor before them. Veiled in static, the image of two figures appears. The father and mother of Frankus, Thonis and his Rikiral mother when they were still young, sitting on the twisting grass of Alpha-E during a picnic. In the sky, the clouds of Alpha-E, which are like fat balloons lazily bump into one another and are sent in opposite directions. A warm smile appears on the face of the mother as she turns toward Thonis. She is wearing orange jewelry that hangs from her extensions and that appear through the distortion of the monitor as the color of sunset.
Thonis wears a white uniform of an officer and his beard is still black, with only a hint of gray.
Their knees rested on a checkered blanket, and there sat a woven picnic basket between them.
Static lingered around them, intertwining their images and then separating them once again. As the two laughed and spoke of some reminiscence the colors of the picture seemed to levitate and then settle again, and the two could neither discern the words between them. Thonis took the Rikiral woman’s hand into his and kissed it, and the two looked away from the patrons out toward the distance. “My love” Dreamess said, “Will you join me in a picnic?”. “Yes,” Sam nodded. Dreamess and Sam transform into light and enter the monitor, travel through time and possess the couple. They could sense that all was braided together, the past, the future, and the world of the video. Dreamess looked through the eyes of the Rikiral mother, and turned her head left to witness her husband Sam who had inhabited the handsome body of Thonis. The woman
opened the picnic basket, and somewhere in the far reaches of space and time a drifting escape pod opened, and the frozen, long dead body of the son emerged, rising into the starry landscape.
The skull of the son is cloaked by the light of stars and scatters into dust. “Now you are free,” the woman says. The couple dig into the picnic basket and take from it all manner of foods and treats, which they eat together. When they finished the meal, they joined their shoulders together, and relaxed as the wind blew across the grassy plain, which had melted into an endless viridescent horizontal plane. “This is a truly remarkable echelon, but now let us return,” she said.
The static enshrouded them and spun into a vortex. The two within the echelon materialized at the location of the picnic in the present day. The static dissipates, leaving only small traces on the surrounding environment. The two mortals part and the static bodies of the father and mother dissipate to reveal the spirits beneath. Their picnic finished, Dreamess and Sam return to the SOTA.