CHAPTER 8, One: After a Brief Sabbatical by the Author…
“…What’s taking him so long?” Erin asked.
Shaking my head slowly, I muttered, “goddamn writers. Think they can go on about their own business, and just leave us hanging. The coffee’s going cold, and I think my ass has fallen asleep from sitting in this chair so long. At least my face has healed up by now.”
“What are you talking about? I meant that Horab guy. Hey—what happened to your face?”
“Oh, right. I forgot, you can’t see the gaps in time. The author took a couple of weeks between chapters.”
Erin looked at me quizzically as a topless barrista came by to warm up our coffee. Lets hope she doesn’t ask if we want milk, I thought. “The more time I spend with you, the less I understand you.”
“Common occurrence. Anyway, just consider it another one of those ‘Quantum Fluxuations’.”
“Whatever you say. Hey, is that him?”
Horab cam back to the table, followed by a young woman, slim, with the face of a woodland elf. Or a pixie. Or some kind of fae creature that isn’t all fluffy and warm and full of smiles. She was wearing a small headset, and her eyes were jittering back and forth, like she was speed reading. “Zephyr,” she said, followed by, “15.”
I cleared my throat. “Hoshiko. Ho[i]shik[/i]o. Horab, is she still in a game?”
“Yeah. I told her yuo wanted to talk, but you know ohw she gets…”
Erin spoke up. “I know I’m probably going to regret this, but what the hell is she doing?”
I chuckled. “Here, stand up.” I motioned her over behind Hoshiko’s left shoulder. As Erin came around, I could tell she saw the hologram. It was a keyboard that seemed to jut out of her head, and beyond that, a cross-hatched gaming board. “She’s got a person-tech Scrabble game going on. She’s pretty hardcore about it. See that wire?” I pointed to a lead winding its way into the base of her skull. “Force feedback. She doesn’t just play for the thrill. That wire connects to a select few opiate receptors in her brain. It sends a voltage equivalent to the points she scores, so the better she does, the more pleasure she gets. But you probably don’t want to know what happens if she loses. But she rarely loses.”
“I’ve heard about the feedback, but why is she doing this inter-neurally? Aren’t there enough people to play with around here?”
“Hoshiko is one of the best in the world. No one around here wants to play her. She’s probably hooked up to the Scotland quadrant. They’re pretty brutal about their games.”
We sat back down, and waited. Erin said, “Her eyes are creeping me out.”
“Oh, she’s got a comprehensive Scrabble dictionary implanted on her corneas. Comes in handy when you’re up against an uber-literate Scot.”
Hoshiko spoke up. “Junky, triple word. 39. Pause.” Her eyes settled, focused on us, and said, “ Sorry, LMNO. I’m up against a guy who calls himself ‘William A Wallace’. He’s kind of a tool, but a decent enough challenge. So things might get a little Schizy. 14,” she muttered.”
Erin leaned over to me and whispered, “why does she keep reciting numbers?”
Hoshiko grinned. “Hi. I’m right here. It’s ok to ask, I’m not violent like Horab.”
“I am rarley violent!”
“Hush. You must be Erin,” Hoshiko said, extending her hand. “I have a bad habit of counting the points in a word out loud. You’ll have to forgive my blather. 44.”
“Pleased to meet you.’
“Likewise. 47. So, what brings you here?”
I leaned forward. “Look, Hoshiko. I need to find the Triple Oracle.”
She laughed. “What? You? Let me see if I can imagine the script. 9. You: ‘I need answers.’ Them: ‘Doom.’ 5.”
“I know, I know, but I need their tarot skills.”
“Why not ask Mangrove? 47.”
“Trust me, I thought about it. But he’s more one of those prankster Kabbalists, and would undoubtedly try to ‘enlighten’ us by sending us off to Dr. Dee’s lab to decode the hidden meaning of the word ‘Hamzah’.”
“13. But good point. Well, I suppose I could give you some pointers.”
“…Well?”
With a grin, she stood up, her eyes beginning to flicker again, and she said, “Just turn around. Oh, and say hi to mom for me. Zinky, double word, motherfucker! 26!” as she walked away.
I turned around, and peered into the smoke and noise. “Ah.”
“I don’t see anything,” Erin said.
“Exactly. You can never see Doom until it’s too late. I think they’re in the next room.”
“But there is no next room.
“If you’ve learned anything by now, darling, it’s to just trust me on some things. Hang on.”
We stood, the credit chip in my arm tingling as Malaul scanned the price of the coffee (and I was sure I was going to find an additional fee for “cleanup” or somesuch. Probably not as much as Horab’s gonna get stuck for after killing Paul, I thought), and I straightened my coat as Erin looked around. “I don’t get it,” she said.
Horab also stood up, out of courtesy, ands spoke up. “The Oracels, bieng a Three-in-One kind fo thing, tend to exist outside and between dimensions. Yuo have to adjust you r frequency to fit.”
“I almost understood that.”
“Just hold on to L. He usaully knows wha thes doing.” Horab leaned over to shake my hand. “Good luck, man. I’m off ot deal witht hat zebra again.”
“See you at the Bar later?”
“Sure.” Horab walked out the door, his fingers lightly brushing the hilt of his sword, making the Haiku Battle-ists flinch. His laughter followed him into the night.
I turned to Erin. “You ready?”
“I guess.” She took my hand, and I felt that electric shock. She smelled like cinnamon, and freshly turned earth, and spring air, heavy with morning dew. “This is all getting pretty weird. And I think your whole ‘quantum’ thing is wearing thin. It’s like you’re just sweeping everything under the rug by throwing the word ‘quantum’ at it.”
Hand in hand, we walked through the smoky café towards the back wall, and I sighed. “I know, it’s like I’m making everything up as I go along, and then ascribing something vaguely technical to it, so it doesn’t seem so odd. It’s an old habit, updated. What if I told you that I was a magus, given powers by Lucifer to warp time and space and to bend reality to my will?”
“I’d say you were fucking nuts.”
“Ok, how about if I said I was a prophet of the One True God, sent to this earth to right the wrongs of Satan, and given the blessings of the Lord that I would never want, and that Our Lord will forever aid me in my quest by performing miracles?”
“Did I say you were fucking nuts before? I was wrong. You’re obviously retarded.”
“Fine. Suppose I told you that shit just tends to happen, and I have no clue why, or how, but I’ve learned better than to ride it out?”
“Slacker.”
“So you see my point. After you rule all the other possibilities out, the pretty much the only thing that offers some sort of rational solace is Quantum Physics brought into the Macro world. Even if it’s not exactly true.”
“So what istrue?” “Nothing is true. Everything is permitted.”
“…”
“Hassan I Sabbah. Ok, look, I have a confession. I usually don’t do this, but you’ve been through a lot, and I figure full disclosure is in order. You know that group that formed the Open Bar I was telling you about? They’re what are known as Erisians. And I’m one of them.”
“...And exactly what did you do for them?”
“A bit of this, a bit of that… I added focus, imagination, a slight knowledge of Tantra, and some of the symbolism. But that’s not the point, really. The point is that as an Erisian, there isn’t ever a big-T Truth, there’s just the one that fits for now. And for the past few hours, the quantum model has been working well. But we’re going to have to change things for this next bit. As Horab tried to explain, The Oracles exist outside of this dimension, but not like a multi-verse traveler.”
“A what?”
“It would take far too long to explain Verthaine to you. I shouldn’t have even brought it up. Ah.” We had made our way to the back of the room, and there was what appeared to be a beaded curtain hanging over one section of the wall. I concentrated for a second, and reached out to brush the beads aside. As I did, I felt Erin’s hand tighten up. What should have been wall was a dark patch of... something. Like a vertical oil slick, or something you can’t focus your eyes on, the section of wall was flat and bottomless at the same time. “Ok, we’re ready.”
I felt a sharp tap on my shoulder, like a claw. Which, in fact, it was. I turned to find Malaul holding out a bottle. “It’s rum,” she said. You’ll need it.”
“For me or for—“
“For Zorga, of course. It’s all about her, remember? And here.” She handed me a bunch of carrots.
“Carrots? What are you playing at, Mal?”
“You must not have heard. The Pookah’s brood are out there. Watch your step.”
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