Crown Vic to a Parallel World

3

This is a documentary?

I sat on the bed and rubbed my face with both hands.  I rubbed it like I was trying to rub my expression off.  Shawn pulled the door shut and returned to the armless chair.  I finished with my face and shook a cigarette from the pack I took from my pocket.

“Do you have to do that?”  Shawn asked.

“Yeah, I do.” I said and lit up. “Usually forty times a day.”  I set the pack and lighter on the nightstand and let the cigarette rest in my mouth.

“Do you have any idea what that does to your body?” Shawn demanded in that condescending voice that all non-smokers use when they’re chastising smokers about their life choices.

I felt my hands ball into fists and my brain grumbled about being questioned.  ‘Parallel world, prophesy, faith healing, and life advice…’ I thought.  I forced my hands open, drew on my cigarette, and plucked it from my face with the first two fingers of my right hand.  I pointed it at him and talked the smoke from my lungs.  “Look…I didn’t ask to come here.  You brought me.  Eight billion fucking people on Earth and you picked me.”  I shook my head at the glowing ceiling.  “Eight billion people…” I said to it and was amazed at the odds that I would be selected out of a group that big.

“I’m sorry.”  Shawn said and sounded like he meant it.  “It’s your body and what you choose to do with it is up to you.”

I eyed him to see if what he said was serious or sarcasm.  He seemed to be trying, so I settled down.  “Alright…let’s have it…the whole works.  You were sent to Earth to find a man to fit a prophesy and you picked me.  What’s the rest of it?  Why am I here?  How did I get here?  Who are you?  What is this building we’re in?  What’s next?”

It was Shawn’s turn to look at the ceiling.  “That’s a lot.” He said on a deep exhale. “But all fair questions.” He lowered his gaze and made deliberate eye contact with me. “This building houses The HALL Organization.  H-A-L-L is an acronym that means Humanitarian Agency for Lasting Liberty.”

I opened my mouth to ask what those bullshit words actually meant but Shawn talked over me. “The HALL is an organization of problem solvers.  It answers only to the highest leaders in the government and its operations are conducted in secrecy.  The HALL monitors foreign threats, is the source of all intelligence and counter-intelligence both foreign and domestic, investigates federal crimes, and advises the military.”

I thought, ‘that sounds like the CIA, FBI, DHS, and Joint Chiefs of Staff all rolled into one.’  I said nothing.

“I am an agent of The HALL.  Normally I work in the public health division, but I was put on special assignment by the Steward, or head, of the organization.  He is the one that sent me to Earth to find you.  His name is Ars Summas and he’s my uncle on my Mother’s side.  We have an appointment to see him this afternoon at four.  He will be able to explain the rest of the prophesy.  I was only told to find a powerful and compassionate man.”

Shawn finished speaking and waited for me to say something.  As he waited, he wrung his hands in his lap.  The palm of one ran over the back of the other in alternating succession and added a dry rustling noise to the silence of the room.  I inhaled the last small draw from my cigarette and stubbed the butt out.  My watch found its way into my hands while I processed what I’d been told.

It occurred to me that Shawn hadn’t really told me anything.  He’d provided some background on his employer and indicated that the need for my presence was as much a mystery to him as it was to me.  I grabbed onto the one thing he’d left out.  “How did you drive us to a parallel world in my Crown Vic?  I’ve driven that car several-hundred-thousand-miles and never even found myself in another country.”

Shawn’s hands came to rest on his thighs.  “That’s why I needed to go to Baltimore.”

‘This is gonna be good.’ I thought and gave him my undivided attention.

“I wanted to depart from a tunnel to minimize the risk that our disappearance would be noticed or would cause a wreck on the highway.  Drivers tend to look straight ahead in tunnels and would be less likely to notice a vehicle that was there one moment and gone the next.  That early in the morning, it was half-passed-one, anyone who did notice would probably assume their eyes fooled them.  We arrived here on a rural road in the low mountains you saw from the roof.  I drove us here and put you in this room.”  Shawn explained and sat a little taller, apparently proud of his own ingenuity.

I stared at him and tried to think of something to say, an objection of some sort, but nothing came to mind.  I almost objected to the fact that, again, he hadn’t explained anything.  Shawn had provided some background and peripheral detail, but he hadn’t explained how we had traveled across dimensions…if that’s what we did.  It occurred to me that even if we did as Shawn said, traveled across dimensions in a worn-out Ford sedan, and he explained how we did that in minute detail, I likely still wouldn’t understand.  I decided to set the whole mess aside until I spoke to this ‘Steward.’

I said as much to Shawn.  “I don’t know what to say.  You explain it so plainly, but it’s batshit crazy.  Look, I’m just gonna pretend to accept all this is real and play along…at least until we meet your uncle, then we’ll see.”

I lit another cigarette and noticed the pack was almost empty.  I held it up to him.  “I need more of these.  There’s a carton and a half in the trunk of my car.  Can I get them?”

Shawn got up like he’d been sitting on a spring.  “I’ll go.  When I get back, we can order lunch.”

“Sure.  Anything you say.”  I shrugged.  “How about a magazine or something to pass the time?”

“I don’t have any reading material.  Would a show be alright?”  Shawn pressed his palm on the surface of the nightstand and a grouping of dime-sized green dots glowed in the white surface.  In them, were arrows and numbers from zero to nine.  He touched the ‘up’ arrow and the entire far wall of the room lit up and became a television screen.

“That’ll work.” I gave him a ‘thumbs up’ and started to flip through the channels.  Shawn left and closed the door behind.

I flipped through the channels and watched a minute or so of each show until I identified the theme of the entertainment.  The shows were all reality based and most were educational.  The one I finally decided on was a kind of docudrama about the lives of a group of people who worked in a large power plant in the far south of the Protectorate.

As I watched, I learned how electricity was generated and distributed.  The eye of the camera toured the facility and narrated the process.  The power station was clean-room neat and built like a cathedral of light.  Glowing pipes ran in racks across vaulted white ceilings.  Plant operators moved along golden catwalks or through broad galleries.  They wore long, red lab-coats, and dark wrap-around glasses.  Supervisors wore turquoise.  All the employees carried tablets of black glass that showed them the status of the various plant operations.

The process of generating the power is what fascinated me the most.  The plant was actually a pumping station.  Great solar collectors gathered energy which was conditioned in transformers as big as freight trucks.  The resultant electricity was directed to sets of electrodes ranged in rows behind smoked-glass panels.  Angry white arcs were established and tuned by the operators.  When the arcs reached the right intensity, a magic catalyst, a diamond-shaped piece of clear glass perched on the end of a thin, glass rod, was raised into the plasma.

The arcs were drawn into the catalyst where the plasma changed to a viscous luminescent fluid.  This fluid ran down the rods into collection basins that fed to pumps.  The fluid was then stored in tanks and distributed through glass pipes just like water.  When it reached its destination, another, much-smaller catalyst was used to convert the fluid back to usable electricity.

The screen showed huge pipes discharging the plant’s production into the distribution system for the city it served.  Then, in a juxtaposition of the outflowing power, the screen showed a flood of workers leaving the plant at the end of their shift.  The eye of the camera selected one of the workers from the crowd.  It followed this attractive, young man home to a large studio-style apartment.

The décor of the man’s apartment was simple, bordering on stark, but clean and neat.  The man’s live-in boyfriend was already home from his job and was setting plates of food out on a kitchen island.  The two men greeted each other tenderly and sat to eat.  They made small talk about their respective days and expressed how glad they were the work week was over.  The plant worker kept saying how excited he was for some friends that were scheduled to drop by later.  He hurried through his meal and went to get cleaned up.  The boyfriend finished his meal and cleared the plates away.

The fact that a same sex couple was shown so nonchalantly told me that sexual attitudes on Solum were more permissive than those on Earth.  I was interested in that as a topic of conversation, but the domesticity of the scene was failing to hold my attention.  I couldn’t understand how two people eating dinner qualified as entertainment.

I half-expected the plant worker and the boyfriend to sit together on the couch and watch a show where another couple would have dinner and make small talk.  I was just about to turn the channel as the boyfriend was wiping the island clean from the meal when someone knocked on the apartment door.  The boyfriend opened up to welcome a young blonde woman.  She sat at the island as the boyfriend finished cleaning up.  ‘They added a character.  Something will happen now.’ I reasoned.

I found out I was right as the plant worker came back to the room from having his shower.  He exited the bathroom, busily toweling off his close-cropped hair.  He was completely nude, and I was confused.  The plant worker sat at the island and greeted the blonde woman with warm familiarity.  Interestingly, the woman didn’t seem surprised by the worker’s lack of wardrobe.  Even more interesting was his choice to drape the towel on the back of his chair instead of using it for his modesty.

Some minutes later, another knock preceded the entrance of a young couple, this time a man and a woman.  Everyone greeted everyone else with familiar warmth.  The man from the couple teased the plant worker for being enthusiastic but no one took issue with the man’s nudity.  After a little small talk, the four clothed members of the group stripped naked, carefully folded, and set aside their clothes, and all five began the first tentative exploration of each other.

I watched with growing consternation as the members of the group kissed and touched without regard to male or female or who was apparently in a relationship with who.  As I continued to watch, the scene heated up.  The group moved from the kitchen to a long, low couch in the living room.  Kissing and touching evolved to oral ministrations, again without regard to man or woman or relationship boundaries.  Soon, what had started as a documentary on the workings of a Solum power plant, had somehow evolved into a five-person, bisexual orgy.  I was intrigued, but very confused.

The action was starting to arouse me, and I was considering whether or not I’d have time to rub one out before Shawn got back, when he strolled into my room without knocking a warning.  I hurried to hide the swelling in my crotch and felt like a teenager who’d been caught with a skin magazine.  My face flushed in embarrassment at being caught watching what I assumed was porn.

Shawn noticed the action and commented on it with barely a casual glance in its direction.  “This is a good one.”  He observed as he handed over a half-carton of cigarettes.  He sat on the white chair and watched what had become full-on, sweaty sex.  After a few minutes, he asked me if I was ready for lunch.

‘OK,’ I thought, ‘where the fuck is the hidden camera?’  Shawn had asked about the afternoon meal like he’d found me watching the weather instead of life-sized, high-definition porn.  I pointed at the action.  “Can you explain that to me?”

“Oh, did you just turn it on?”  Shawn rose and went to the screen like he was giving a multi-media presentation.  He started by pointing out the characters.  “The man with the dark-complexion, ” Shawn had to wait for the scene to switch from a penetration close-up to an establishing shot before he could point out who he meant, “well, you can’t tell he’s dark because he’s flushed…but the one whose facing us, bent over the back of the couch, he works in a power plant…”

“STOP!” I barked, and Shawn stopped.  I searched for and found the ‘pause’ button on the nightstand surface.  Paused, the image on the screen was even more disturbing than it had been in motion, so I shut the screen off and stared at the blank wall.  “I was watching a documentary,” I announced, “then I was watching an orgy.  I need you to explain that to me.”

Shawn spoke slowly like he was a patient instructor working with a backwards child.  “That show is true to life.  Sex is part of life.”

I started to object, but Shawn raised his hand to stop me.  “There are no diseases here, no accidental pregnancy, no stigma about preferring the same sex or the opposite, no stigma about alternating preferences, or liking both.  Sex is fun.  On this world, it’s treated as pastime.”

“WHAT?” I asked because I was unable to formulate a more intelligent question.

Shawn tried to explain with more specifics. “People still love each other, and the long-term two-person relationship is the basis of our society, but…” he trailed off to think and seemed to reframe what he’s been saying.  “Sex between people in love is a beautiful physical celebration of that love, but not all sex is physical love.  Between friends or acquaintances, it has no more meaning than getting together for a drink after work.  See?”

I dropped my head into my hands because the entire situation had overloaded my prudish mental circuits.  “I better wake up soon or I’ll be in a straitjacket.”  I muttered to my palms.

My lowered head seemed to worry Shawn. “Church, is something wrong?  Do you feel sick?  Let me look.”

I felt Shawn near me.  I jerked my head up and fended him off.  “NO!  No more.  I can’t take anymore.  PLEASE…please, let’s just have lunch and go see your uncle.  Don’t tell me anything.  I don’t think I can take it…not sober anyway.”

Shawn backed away and sat down.  He seemed as much at a loss as I was.