Around the study hall of David Gold University, the usual crowd were tending to their studies. Some strode along the bookshelves, picking up tomes of their liking. Others bent over their papers at the many oaken tables clustered together in the middle of the hall itself. Here and there, students were distracted by various happenings on their laptops, abandoning their papers for the time being. Near the right-hand side, Silvana Newcomb grazed over the titles of volumes pertaining to Euclidian Husbandry. Near her were her friends Jefferson India Lane and Vibonee Roe, who spoke about what a tiresome old hack their law professor was. Fields Felicity kneeled to tie her shoes, but it was a feint to hide from a boy who just walked into the hall. By the café Algebra Crepe-Batter and Flammable Plants discussed their plans for the weekend, and traded calculus secrets. Far off in the corner of the south-east end two medical students flirted, Lilly Waterfall-Climber and Noah Invoice. Long ago, her grandfather had climbed a waterfall as if it were a ladder and became a lantern. Still others were scattered about, tending to their own various tasks. But what they didn’t realize, was the north-west end of the study hall, where an unexpected visitor was tending to a more urgent investigation. Unnoticed by the locals, the
empress Echo slid her fingers around the smooth insides of a student’s cranial chamber, lifted the organ of the mind, the brain itself, and threw it over her shoulder at the mounting pile of brains behind her. It landed on the top but slowly rolled down to the bottom, as the gelatinous hill undulated with its slow rolling descent. “Looks like this one’s empty also” Echo said to herself.
The university students were completely unaware, as she had emit a spell of concealment into the light of echoes, so that they would not notice her or any of her doings but go about their normal routine. Echo walked to another of the oak tables, lifted off the top of the scalp of another student and felt her hands over the brain, taking in its memories and knowledge, but finding nothing, then walked away as the covering restored itself. “This is impossible” the investigator protested as she made a lap around the study hall, “There are but glimpses of them and mundane conversation. It’s as though no one knows who they are or where they came from”. Although the patroness had searched for years for the remotest rumor of the past of her parents, the enlightened ones Melina Dreamer and Linden Dream, the search had come to naught. Even though time acted differently around the university that housed the chamber in portion Valco, there was not one trace of their history. There were some that seemed to go about their studies as if the phenomenon had never occurred, and different times blended into one around here. Even at the coffee shop, there was no-one of significant note, but mere faces in the crowd that may have been there yesterday or the day before. Not wanting to stay in a room where no answers had been found, Echo strode out of the room, and walked through the corridors to the principal’s office.
As she opened the door, Put-Another-Quarter-In-The-Machine Anderson was sitting at his desk, going over the semester’s budget proposal. Even with her appearance concealed to a humble melody, the patron’s features were almost immediately distinguishable. Anderson: “Grand Empress! What gives me the honor of your visit today?”. Echo: “It’s good to see you Anderson, you don’t have to be formal with me today”. Anderson: “I see, is there something about the university that doesn’t suit your ideals?”. Echo: “The university is doing admirable, its welfare from its patrons is everlasting”. Anderson scratched his beard, not knowing what the empress intended to discuss, and why she was being so un-straightforward, as the opposite was the prime feature of her personality, “What brings you to our neck of the woods then?” Echo: “I’m just having a difficult time lately. I’ve been trying to investigate the origins of my parents, the enlightened ones, who attended this very university before the phenomenon, but it’s almost as if they had no past at all, and their history is like a ghost that never existed. My parents may have done everything to erase their past after their return, and they won’t admit to anything although I’ve asked and asked”. Anderson: “Parents can be like that empress”. Echo: “More than you realize, Anderson. And I don’t really understand my relationship with my father. To make things worse, there isn’t a shred of record about their studies or how they received their grant to build the chamber in the first place. I really don’t know what’s going on”. Anderson: “My recollection of my life before the event does have me signing the grant for the chamber, but it was a routine meeting to say the least ''. Echo: “Do you remember anything else about them or the chamber itself?”. Anderson: “It was a normal time; the two researchers Linden Dream and Melina Dreamer did not stand out as anything other than ordinary. That is all I can remember''. Echo:
“Think again, Anderson, there has to be something. They are the enlightened ones after all”.
Anderson: “The world had only a whisper of magic back then, empress”. Echo: “I have been looking through the university for clues all day. It’s emotionally exhausting. I’ve extracted every student’s brain and searched through their memories but couldn’t find anything. There are piles of brains in most of the rooms. Don’t worry, I will put all of them back, and no one will be hurt or remember anything in the least. To make things worse the universe is going to change for
about the five hundredth time, but we’ve been through so many of those calamities that it’s starting to get boring. And the Alliance is at war with us to stop it, and the patrons will probably be forced to fight their Reflectants, and I can’t blame them. I just wish I knew what was actually going on”. Anderson: “So, you’re not a wiseguy. Good to know”. Echo: “Very funny … if you knew the things that Falzar told me the other day. Did you know that there are five alien races that we didn’t even know about? There is even an alien race that is made of brown sugar. I don’t say this regularly, but brown sugar is making a comeback. And did you know about the white picket fences in the park outside the university? There are creatures sleeping just underground that leave the fingers of their hands above ground to absorb sunlight. These things have been listening to us argue since the American Revolution, and they have ten fence posts for fingers.
There’s one named Glug, and another named Blibber”. Anderson: “It sounds like you need a drink” he said, and turned around to his cabinet, and took out a glass whisky bottle. Echo: “No thank you, not in the mood”. Anderson: “Ah … not a drinker. There’s your problem”. Echo:
“I’m just under a lot of stress and pressure. Why can’t we all just see reality as it really is?”.
Anderson: “Then it wouldn’t be a mystery, I presume”. Echo: “You know what … I think I will have a glass, but just this one time” she said, and he poured her a glass of whisky, which was downed slowly. Anderson: “Feel better?”. Echo: “Taste goods … is it okay if I inspect your brain, don’t worry about it at all, I’ll be very gentle and put it back afterwards and you won’t feel a thing and I’ll erase your memory”. Anderson: “Go right ahead, although you don’t really have to do that last part, I trust your judgement”. Echo: “Anderson, either you or the whisky have really helped me out today. Thank you”. The dream-girl snapped her fingers to push him into insensitivity, and gently took off the top of his head. At first, she pushed her fingers into the substance itself, as if it was a bowl of oatmeal. After wiggling her fingers about for some time, she kneaded the brain-stuff until it was very small and threw it into her mouth. Echo sat back down on the chair and blew bubbles with the brain like chewing gum, letting the memories slowly sink into her consciousness. “What a disappointment” she sighed, and spat out the little piece of chewing gum, throwing it back into the hollow skull-case of the principal, where it expanded again into the proper organ. As she closed the door behind her the man’s head regenerated and he went back to work. Echo continued down the corridor back to the study hall, when her vision was abruptly halted. “Did I forget that one?” she thought as she saw Reclusive Watercolors, or Lusi as she was known in a furry blue sweater. Time began to slow as the girl opened a greeting card. Echo peered at the student, and as she did time almost ceased until it lumbered along like thick magma at the bottom of a volcano. Lusi smiled at first as she opened the greeting card, but then started to giggle. The patron watched as her fingers curled slowly around the side in amusement. Echo returned time to normal and revealed herself to the girl.
Astonished, she ran off down the corridor, leaving the card laying open on the side table. Picking it up the investigator read the inside, “It must be quiet in there” and below was the signature “-
Dramatic”. “Thank you, Mr. Dramatic. I am being very dramatic, or rather Mrs. Dramatic” Echo thought to herself, and threw the card back on the table, cursed the futility of the hunt and made her way back to the dream-castle of Valco where the patrons were discussing tactics. It was after all, a certainty that her stress had manifested the card as a message to herself.
CHAPTER 36 - MELINA’S OCEAN
“What does that one do?” thought Echo passively as she pressed the bright red square.
Releasing a flash, it lowered itself to the level of the other console keys in one unerring motion.
Yet this time the ship only fired one of those tiny thrusters, burning with the glitz and glamor of flame. The empress was not one sufficiently adept at minding her own business. Her mother was off exploring some planet below for forever it seemed. It had been hours and hours, recognizable only by the steady arrival of shooting stars, one after the other. And they were the boring kind.
The thin ones that are super far away. “It’s too long!” Echo bellowed. In a tantrum of dexterous finger work she pushed a bunch of buttons. A minute ensued of childlike glee, expectant of a missile or a laser or something to fire off the front of the ship into the vastness of the amoral, insensible space … but nothing. Echo swiveled in the chair and laid her head sideways, trying to find some purpose in the bright colors of the keys. It was going to be a long day. Melina Dreamer alighted on the damp soil below. She looked around, surveying the cardinal directions.
Ahead was a trembling ocean, bounding with anima. Behind was the grasslands, made clear by patches of sunlight brought through the divisions of cloud like sand pouring through fingers. A warm loop-de-loop of wind brought scents from flora that donned new aromas. Melina stretched her muscles for a moment. Phenomenological energy heated her golden armor. With intrepid force she lunged into the ocean and sank down into it, searching for what was promised that day.
A pearl necklace to be exact. Traders had reported clams on this planet. After that, it would be claimed in a bloodless coup for the glory of the SOTA. Having an energy of such degree, Melina only flew through the water. Lesser luminaries would take to swimming in such a circumstance.
Not a drop touched her skin. It was hydrophobic. Soon enough tidal forces revealed the bounty of the deep. Strange butterflies with gills followed a path to their feeding ground. A turquoise rhino bobbed by, verdant like a one-man olive orchard. Underwater, jet streams followed and metallic dolphins clinked off of each other at intervals. After a good five minutes Melina found herself in the domain of the fish. They were big and ugly. They seemed to be like people. One was wearing a trench-coat. Another smoked a cigar. A mechanic with a greasy uniform hobbled off into the distance. It was starting to get shady. Melina could hear another big-mouth fish talking to his buddy about a pool game in the ocean. Before a trace of suspiciousness could instill itself in her mind, her mouth blurted out, “Do you know the way to the clams?”, and she knew she had screwed up. “Ah, look what we got here, little lady,” the cigar smoking fish said. The whole gang soon came out of the watery woodwork, forming a circle around her. There was Big Joe Fish from Fat Turtle Street. The one with the bust lip and the broken promises. There was Can’t Get No Fins Fish who was just there to start something if the situation presented itself. The one with the trench coat still had the tag on it and it was half price but with the rest of the information scratched off in pencil. “Easy boys, I’m just trying to get myself a pearl,” Melina offered. “Say, for a dame with golden clothes, you’re pretty damn ugly” the cigar smoking one blurted out. Shots fired. “I’ve been told otherwise by many people” the woman returned, amending their words. “Oh really,” another one tended, “I bet you're so ugly, you can’t walk down the street without someone throwing trash at you like you-se some kind of trash can” the trench coat one said in a very fishy accent. Melina’s cheeks felt hot. The nerve in her temple began to do a little vaudeville number that was unseen by the others because it was under the skin. “I don’t know, Greg, she’s got a pretty good tush for a gal who’s not a fish,” the one behind her said. “On my world, I am a queen!” she shouted. Earth flashed through her mind. High up in the Aether, and its mountain of unblemished golden thrones that know not a day without substance. Realms blossomed at her feet. Dreams within clouds within dreams. Sublime Landscapes. Sky castles. The metropolis. The omnipotence of stars. Melina was not in sync to the profanity of the commons. And the only gambling she did was with armies. The cigar smoking one spat out his cigar, “Oh I get it. Here we got her boys. The queen of ugly planet!”.
The tremor sent arrows straight to her heart. Not once had such humiliation ever befallen a graceful conqueror. A primal urge for obliteration flared in the iris of her eyes. Melina lifted a fist at him. “This dame is tough!” the trench coat wearing fish stated. He had been to school. He knew his stuff. Long Division. Geometry and all that. But this was serious. He went in close, right up the woman’s face for good measure. “Sock em!” came a bunch of fish voices from the crowd. “Nah, I wouldn’t want to hit you in the face. It would just make you more ugly” he tended, his maw wide with a grin. Melina couldn’t stand it anymore. Too many cheap shots. She clamored away into the downward streams to lick her wounds. All of them circled around like that, taunting. The shame. “Those arrogant bastards!” Melina fumed while clusters of bubbles formed, transcended in smoothness by their counterpart. The pot of her soul boiled. The heat made its way from her chest to her temples and was sacrificed. “Not even Echo is that unruly!”
she admitted reluctantly. The empress would one day don the golden armor, when her mirror blade had downed enough counterfeit tyrants. But not today. Melina’s dark hair unfurled and found some small joy in the divergence of the waters. The weight of the insult faded. For a ruler so unscarred it was a nuisance. For a philosopher so restive, save for the amorousness of society
… she lost the train of thought. But no matter. “I will teach them a lesson, but how?” she pondered. A turtle in a shell of peanut brittle drifted past, its heart intent on vast numbers of pecan-fish, “What do fish love the most?”. Melina craned her neck upwards and peered beyond the ceiling of the ocean up into the still sunlit sky. It was late afternoon but the innocuous blimp of the moon was right there, floating in the way magical things do. “Aha! They love the ocean!”
the woman realized. A most devious smile alighted on that dame’s face. Good thing she had muscles. Like a quick sprite the woman lunged to the ocean floor, and stood a moment, observing the water and the earth. The way they touched. The partition only known to those who can witness the scale of things. “Here we go,” Melina beamed. The blue sheath of the world. The well betwixt continents. A trillion gallons and so forth. It didn’t matter. Melina pulled up her sleeves and kneeled down, lifting the entire ocean up and flying up into the air. It was made solid by the gargantuan magic of the dreamer. The power of the wielder was beyond immaculate. The planet had no idea. As it rose above them, its mountains were helpless to bring back the body.
Hundreds of birds were caught unaware. A lucky one was far away, and saw the platform rise. It cawed but the song was unheard. Clouds drowned. Melina raised both arms to the fullest extent.
The revolutionary bounds of power surged through her. It was of great dimension but IT
COULD NOT RESIST. Melina flew higher and lifted the platform. She threw the ocean to the planet’s moon, gifting it. Below, the fish were much aggrieved. They all sat on the mud and the bottom and grumbled at the injustice. Such inexcusable behavior. That dame was hot and they knew it. But this was about attitude, and big things like car rims and credibility. Each of them grew short stubby legs with curly que hairs. They talked amongst themselves to find the biggest meanest one. When they found Linder he swam up into the air and found his enemy applauding herself along the shore. He grew his toe nails into long sharp toe nail spikes and charged. The golden muse reacted, summoning a sword and fending off the attack. In a few short gestures she slashed through the toe-nail spikes scattering them and sent the avenger back to his mud hole from whence he came. Melina put a hand over her eyes to survey the limits of the valley. Beyond the sand the stretches had a cluster of rocks with just the right thing to set one’s eyes on. Under her breath she gasped faintly, “Now for that pearl necklace”. It was set in between two jagged boulders. It took a season to get there, and once there she approached on foot for sheer pleasure.
It had that wavey kinda mouth that looked like it was confused or something. Its row of beady little eyes in navy blue would have been intriguing to an oceanologist. It sat there and did
nothing because it was just a stupid clam. Easily the lid unlatched to expose the bounty of pearls within. They were firm to the touch. A quality not uncommon on a Paris thoroughfare at half past noon. She commended the angelic colors. A few had a nice tint of ivory wreathed in smokey gray. Melina picked up an especially white one when the delicate exterior gave way to her fingers, cracking them naturally like an egg-shell. Of course, the realm inside had some pearl people ambling about an orange leafed tree. The woman knew in moments that the others could be nothing less than nascent realms. Appropriate action was simple enough. Melina took them to the other ocean on the moon that she had not named yet and returned forthwith to ascertain the character of the grasslands. Despite what she had done the land still burgeoned. The ruler tossed a single pearl up and down in her hand like a baseball while she dawdled. At length the grasses fanned out, finding the boundary of their province at the hills. “This could be a good homeland for a colony, '' Melina mused. The clouds that had survived had elementals who were archers that shot down arrows at the ground which made it fertile with new flowers. Four snow capped mountains hugged the horizon. To her left the trees threw their fruit from one to another until it was ripe. There were hornets living in red raspberries, covered in red pollen, singing rhapsodies to her as she passed. Handsome rabbits with green noses from too much grass. Yawns were given and she kneeled down amongst fresh shoots of perennials for a time. Once content, Melina continued. The shadow of a tree vanquished a swath of once young greenery, but soon it too was dispelled by sunlight. A cactus retracted its spines for a hornet who just wanted to rest its head against the soft pillow. Cucumbers grew in abundance in zigzags below her feet, already covered layered in olive oil which hardened into a candy coating. Lemon shrubs moseyed about, spritzing everything to make it more delectable. The entire place really didn’t seem that bad. Melina jumped back in surprise. All at once marble acropolis-like pillars burst from the ground in the distance, ascending to the heights of space. “What is going on!” she thought aloud, awakening from a mild temperament. At the base a vine began to grow and coil around one pillar. It circled, climbing the edifice. Peering closer the woman could see the vine contained within it a plant-human hybrid whose name was Unique Vine. The vine reached the top in space and changed back into human form. Quickly it became a patron and changed its name to Salloris Zegamon.
He had a green human body with a vine around himself. Happy to see the transformation, Melina called up to him from the ground. The pillar descended and they met. In his honor she named the planet Plentiful Vine of Healthy Fruit and told him that her people will colonize the world.
Salloris related that the planet would cease to be good now that it had no ocean. Suddenly the pearl started to grow huge and it birthed a powerful pearl giant. It towered above the woman, a bodybuilder with gleaming pearl muscles. Amped for a new fight, Melina did hand to hand combat with the giant. He was a virtuoso in his strength. Melina sensed that in a years’ time, he could topple mountains. She blocked his fists with hers until an opening appeared and she cracked the shell with a single blow. The giant fell over dead. His pearl blood streamed back into the ditch, creating a new ocean. Salloris thanked Melina and agreed to the location of the new colony. Melina was happy with the minor scuffle. As she returned the clouds parted and a personal spaceship landed on the ground. The ramp descended and Echo rushed out, demanding something with angry swaying arms, “Mom! Can we go back home now! I’ve been bored all day!”.