Crown Vic to a Parallel World

4

You want me to what?

After lunch, Shawn and I went back to the roof where I smoked, and Shawn explained the city layout.  I grasped just enough of what he said to understand the city was a grid of units.  The units were either park, residential, or industrial.  Each residential unit had a small shopping area, a school, a cultural center, like a museum or theater, and at least a few restaurants.  Narrow side-streets ran between the blocks within the units and large arterial roads ran between the units.

The industrial units, that housed factories, warehouses, and the like, were carefully interspersed with the residential units and parks to minimize traffic crushes and to keep large trucks out of neighborhoods.  A very efficient public transportation system made inner-city travel easy and eliminated the need for most residents to own personal vehicles.

The city explanation was somewhat interesting and very innocuous.  After the morning I’d had, I badly needed the innocuous.  Just before four o’clock, we left the roof to keep our appointment.  On the dot of the hour, we were standing in a large corner office on the top floor of the building while a man who looked a lot like an age-advanced version of Shawn, was shaking my hand like he was trying to pump water from a deep well.

“My, my, my, my, my, my, he certainly looks powerful, nephew.  Yes, he certainly looks powerful indeed.  Wonderful to meet you, young man, yes, very wonderful indeed.  Ars Summas, is my name.  I am Steward of this organization.  You, sir, are Church Philips, and what a wonderful, masculine name it is.  It fits you, young man, yes…a strong name for a strong man.”  Ars Summas spoke in a high-register tenor voice, and his words came in rapid staccato bursts, like fire from a tentative machine-gunner.

Ars let go of my hand and waved toward his desk.  “My manners seem to have abandoned me completely.  Sit, please both of you, sit and relax.  We have much to discuss and we may as well be comfortable.”

We moved to seats, and Shawn sat down.  I remained standing to scan the room.  The setting was a lot to take in.  Ars’ office was a status office, but it whispered the word instead of shouting it.  The room was finished and furnished in the style of a company president’s office from the 1950s.  A massive desk of what looked like darkly varnished oak commanded the room.

The desk could have been oak, or almost any hardwood.  I don’t know anything about wood, so I tend to think any furniture that isn’t pine must be oak.  Whatever the desk was made of, it was impressive.  It was an eight-leg executive desk with a green leather top, a brass lamp with a green glass shade, and a creaking oak swivel chair.

I couldn’t tell if the leather desktop was tooled, as it was completely covered with clutter.  Stacks of opened and closed reference books fought for real estate among tablets of black glass, the detritus of two or three meals, half-empty cream-colored coffee cups, smeary water glasses, and a frosting of steno sheets covered with sprawling short-hand writing.

The wall behind the desk, and the one to my left that we’d entered through, were floor to ceiling bookcases whose wood matched the desk exactly.  These held rows and rows of learned-looking volumes bound in brown, green, and deep-red leather.  A library ladder on a wrought-iron track gave access to the upper shelves.

A square, short-pile burgundy carpet covered the center of the floor but stopped short of the desk.  At the edge of the carpet and facing the desk were two hard-backed oak visitor’s chairs with green leather upholstery brass-tacked to the seat and arms.  A small round table stood between them.  Everywhere the carpet didn’t cover was a highly polished parquetry floor made of at least three types of wood.

In one corner of the room, the farthest corner from the door, stood a waist-high mahogany cabinet with a delicate brass rail around the top.  I guessed it was mahogany.  It was darker than the other wood and seemed nicer.  The cabinet was as wide as it was tall, and I took it to be a liquor cabinet.  In the opposite corner, the one nearest the door, was a colossal globe, double-suspended from deliberately tarnished brass hoops and supported by a heavily varnished and intricately carved oak stand.

The other two walls were jarringly incongruous to the rest of the room.  Both of them were a floor-to-ceiling, transparent view of the outdoors.  They were so transparent that they didn’t look like they were there at all.  I’d had to touch one to reassure myself that there was a barrier between me and the outdoors.

As I gaped at the room, Ars sat, squeaked his chair, leaned forward, and clasped his neat hands together on his desk.  His hands disappeared from view behind the mound of clutter.  Since his noisy chair had drawn my attention to him, I took a second to give the small man a closer look.  Upon closer inspection, the man was even more jarringly incongruous than the two transparent walls.

Ars Summas was five-foot-two-or-three, well-preserved middle-age, and thin and slight.  He had smooth white skin, an oval face, small, soft features, pale-blue eyes, and an unruly shock of shining, raven-black hair that stood up on his head.  He dressed in a road-crew-orange jacket, cut like a lab coat, long enough to reach his knees.  Under that, he wore a neon-green pull-over shirt with no collar, maroon slacks, and canary-yellow wedge-style heels.

I made a mental note to ask Shawn why everyone wore heels and sat down.  I braced myself for whatever fresh madness I was about to endure.  I wished I had a drink, I wished I could smoke.  After the morning I’d had, and the afternoon spent on the roof, I had no choice but to suspect that I was on another world.  The idea that everything I’d seen thus far wasn’t an elaborate joke for my benefit seemed pretty far-fetched, farther-fetched than the idea that I had traveled across dimensions.

I didn’t have a drink and I couldn’t smoke, so I did the next best thing.  I shook a cigarette from the pack in my shirt pocket, stuck it in my mouth, and fished in my pants pockets for my lighter.  My right hand found it.  I took it from the pocket and flicked it open and closed a few times to hear the familiar clinking of the metal lid on the metal body.  I closed the lighter in my palm without striking it and used the first and second fingers of my right hand to take the cigarette from my mouth.

I tucked the lighter behind the cigarette pack in my shirt pocket, broke the cigarette in half, put half in the pocket, and pressed the other half between the cheek and the gums of my lower jaw.  I shut my eyes and waited.  Saliva soaked the cigarette and served as the vehicle for the nicotine to enter my bloodstream.  It made me feel marginally better.  I opened my eyes onto Ars’ expectant face and issued a plea for something…anything that I could understand.  “Steward Summas, I…uh…Christ…I’m struggling with…everything.”

Ars’ face took on a paternal expression and his speech slowed.  “That is fair, young man.  You probably feel like you woke up in The Twilight Zone, perhaps even Night Gallery.  For that I am heartily sorry.  I also need to apologize for rewarding your altruistic act, that of rescuing my nephew from severe harm, by kidnapping and traumatizing you.  I assure you; it was an action I did not take lightly.

“You are looking at a desperate man.  Desperate men often do desperate things.  The need for the action does not make the action right, but right or wrong, the action was necessary.  I will explain our trouble, if you will allow me.  I request you reserve your comments until I am finished.  What I have to say is difficult, and I do not want it to take any longer than necessary.  Agreed?”

I prepared myself from whatever Ars had to tell me by using my tongue to pack the half cigarette tighter against my gums.  I also massaged the side of my face with my hand to force more nicotine into my system.  It worked…a little.  “I uh…sure.” I said.

Ars leaned back slightly and raised unfocused eyes to the ceiling.  “Far to the north and west of here, almost at the edge of the continent, in the middle of a vast, rule-flat wasteland, is a mountain.  This mountain is the Antitheus Arx or The Demon’s Citadel.  It is a tower of black basalt, projecting like a single column, from the uninhabited plains.  The mountain is completely inaccessible as it is surrounded by the most remarkable feat of magic executed in recorded history.  Exiled on that mountain, is this nation’s last monarch, King Veneficus Pravus.”

Ars paused for a breath and to gauge how I was taking his story.  I hadn’t heard anything to be alarmed about yet, but the man’s tone was ominous.  He cleared his throat, returned his gaze to the ceiling, and proceeded.

“The feat of magic I mentioned is a barrier.  It is a barrier created using Vitalis magic, also known as direct magic.  When the barrier was created, it was linked to Pravus’ own life force.  This accomplished two things; it made it impossible for him to escape as leaving the barrier would be equivalent to leaving his own skin, and it made the barrier self-cancelling.  When Pravus died, the barrier would cease to be.  The barrier remains, therefore Pravus lives.  This is both surprising and troubling.  It is surprising because Pravus was banished to the mountain, in round figures, one-thousand-five-hundred years ago.  It is troubling because Pravus is revenging himself on the world.”

Ars leaned forward, hands flat on his desk, eyes in firm contact with mine.  “Mister Philips, all life is magic.  The power that makes seeds sprout, that makes plants grow toward the sun, the spark that makes your heart beat, and the energy that fires your nerves, is all magic.  Ancient King Pravus is stealing that energy from the world.  If he is not stopped, all life on this planet will cease.”

The doomsday scenario laid out by the small man was difficult for me to process, almost as difficult as the idea that I was on another world.  I shoved out of my chair, literally because the arms were too narrow.  I had to force them over my too-wide hips so I could stand without taking the chair with me.  I moved to the transparent wall opposite Ars’ desk with my back to the man.  I looked out to see that the parks and the buildings, the cars and the people, everything was still there.  Everything seemed fine.

I rotated to lean my back against the glass.  I reached for my watch but gripped it around my wrist instead of stretching the band.  I was worried.  I was worried about why Ars had bothered to tell me the story at all.  I suspected that he was leading up to something and the something involved me.  I asked a question that didn’t come out quite right. “So what?”

Ars took offense at my words.  He leapt from his chair to stand behind his desk and bluster at me.  “So what, young man?” He demanded of me. “So what, indeed!  I have been trying to explain the end of life on this world and you have the unmitigated gall to as me…”

“I’M SORRY!” I insisted at the top of my voice.  Ars stopped his angry chatter and glared at me. “I meant…I meant, why tell me?  Why bring me here and tell me about your world ending?  What does it have to do with me?”

Ars seemed to smooth down his own ruffled feathers.  He climbed into his swivel chair and nodded what I took to be understanding at me. “I see, young man.  I see that it was not your intention to be flippant.  No, not your intention at all.  I am sorry for getting upset.  You previously indicated that you were overwhelmed and overwhelmed you must be.  I will attempt to come to the point, but you must have patience with me.  Patience, young man.  I beg you to have patience with me while I tell the whole story as I know it.”

Ars tilted his head toward me and waited.  I guessed that he was waiting for me to give him permission to proceed.  I shook my head because I didn’t know what else to do.  “I’m sorry.” I said again. “Tell your story.”

Ars acknowledged my request with an almost imperceptible incline of his head and continued his tale.  “When the theft of the magic was observed and the perpetrator identified, every scientific authority was consulted.  No path forward presented itself.  Science failed us.  We therefore pursued an alternate resource.  We consulted the seers, powerful First-Class Empaths with A or AA power ratings.  These are very rare individuals, with only a few born to each generation.  They cannot see the future, not exactly.  They can only feel the combined energy of all life in this world.  Some even get impressions from the planet itself.

“The seers have expressed a two-pronged prophesy, a fork in the road if you will.  We are threatened by an ancient evil.  Either a powerful and compassionate man from another world will destroy that evil and light the path to a bright future, or that evil will consume the world and darkness will reign supreme.  You, Mister Philips, are that man.”

Ars bored a hole in me with the gravest pair of eyes I’d ever seen.  I stared back and waited for the punchline of his joke.  None came.  I laughed anyway.  “Get the fuck out of here!” I roared with laughter and doubled over in hysterics. “ME?  Your world is ending, and you called ME?  Was ‘fat alcoholic’ on that list with powerful and compassionate?  Look Ars, we’ve both seen this movie, the everyman winds up on a parallel world and he’s got whatever that world needs to save the day.  I PROMISE YOU I ain’t that guy.  Fuck me…I’m a welder, an unemployed welder as of yesterday.  Save the world…that’s a piss.”

I rubbed the humor off my face and dropped my hands to find Ars scowling at me like the long-dead principal of my high school used to when he caught me smoking behind the woodshop.  “I am not a jokester, young man.” He snapped. “My nephew went to your world at great personal risk.  He found you or you found him, makes no difference, the end result is the same.  This is not a prank.  I need your help.  This world needs your help.  Will you help us or stand there and make fun?”

Ars and I had another round of our staring contest.  By the time I blinked, I realized the man was dead serious.  “Wait, you’re not shitting me, are you?” I asked.

“No sir,” Ars shook his head only once, “I assure you I am not ‘shitting you,’ as you put it.  I am as serious as life and death, because that is exactly what is at stake here.”

“But…why me?” I asked.

“You saved my nephew,” Ars said with a nod to Shawn, “you stood against four men with nothing but a low-capacity firearm to protect you…”

“Starter pistol.” I interrupted to correct him.

“What was that, young man?” Ars asked.  He leaned toward me and stared with concern branded on his face.  It was a look that made me nervous.

I tried to explain.  “The gun I have, it’s a starter pistol…a gun they use to start races with.  It fires blanks.  I didn’t stand against four men with a low-capacity handgun.  I stood against them with a cap gun.  The whole thing was a bluff.”

Ars’ gaze doubled in intensity to the point where I felt that his eyes would burn into my body.  “Now,” he said and patted the edge of his desk with his neat hands, “now I know for certain that you are the powerful and compassionate man we have been waiting for.  You stood against overwhelming odds with nothing but a loud voice and a toy.”

“But I was drunk.” I objected.

Ars countered my objection. “I believe you would have done the same thing cold sober.”

I felt that Ars was missing the point.  Somehow, I had to make him see how it really was.  “You don’t understand.  It wasn’t compassion.  I don’t have anything to lose.”

Ars grimaced at my confession, like what I’d said didn’t make sense to him.  “What do you mean, ‘nothing to lose?’”

I shrugged and admitted a simple truth as I saw it.  “No one needs me.  No one loves me.  If I went up against those guys and they killed me, no one would care…not even me.”

Ars laced his fingers together into a two-handed fist.  He squeezed tension into it until the knuckles whitened.  His faded blue eyes flashed.  “Mister Philips, if your life means nothing to you, then give it to me.  Sell it to me if you like.  Put whatever price on it you wish.  If you succeed, the entire population of this world will owe their lives to you.”

I asked what I thought was the obvious question. “But what if I lose?”

The gravity returned to Ars’ face and voice as he answered.  “If you lose, you will be dead, your misery at an end.”  He took a breath and the staccato assault started fresh.  “Do not answer me now.  No.  Think about it, by all means think about it.  Yes, take some time and see the city.  Experience this life.  Decide for yourself.  Today is Thursday.  Perhaps by Monday you will have your answer.  What say you, Mister Philips?”

I took a deep breath and blew it out, then took another.  “OK.” I nodded and groped my way back to my chair.  I tried to think about everything that had been said to me, but my mind wouldn’t work.  The only thing my brain seemed capable of was listening to Ars as he continued to talk.

“Wonderful, yes, wonderful.  Nephew…” Ars shifted his attention and the rest of his sentence died in his throat.  I looked where he looked.  Shawn had silent tears streaming down his face from wide, frightened eyes.  Ars’ paternal tone returned.  “Ah nephew, I am heartily sorry to tell you like this.  I did not tell you before because there was nothing to be done.  We had to find our champion.”

Ars hopped down from his chair and went around the desk to stand in front of Shawn.  He rested a hand on either of the weeping youth’s shoulders.  “Dear boy, I will not say that all will be well, because I do not know that to be the case.  I think it is a very cruel fate that puts a burden such as this one on someone as young and sensitive as you.  All we can do is our best.  We hope that will be enough.”

Shawn’s mouth moved but no sound came.  Several tries brought a raspy and whispered, “how long?”

Ars hedged.  “I would rather not say at this time.”

Shawn raised his hands from his lap and slammed them on the arms of the chair.  “How long?” He hissed.

Ars dropped his head.  His whole body sagged.  “Right now, ninety-five percent magic capacity is the most anyone can achieve.  In three months, that number will be eighty percent and the effects will be felt.  In six months the elderly and infirm will start to die, then the very young, then the rest of us.  If nothing is done, all animal life on this world will cease in less than one year.  The plants will follow until this planet is reduced to a barren rock.”

Ars turned his very bleak gaze to me to explain what he’d been saying.  “You see, young man, the amount of magic available to us on this world is finite.  Every living thing has a given magic capacity.  Our bodies strive to keep that capacity full by absorbing power from nature.  As nature can only generate so much per day, there is only so much to draw on.  As Pravus’ theft increases, there is less and less available to us.

“Think of magic like oxygen in the air.  Right now, every breath delivers only ninety-five percent of what our bodies need to function.  The lower that percentage gets, the harder it will be for us to function.  Below eighty percent, people will feel poorly but they will not know why.  Below sixty percent, those with compromised health will begin to die.  From there, it will be a steep and rapid descent to the end of all life.”

Ars gathered himself, his posture returned, and he focused his attention on Shawn.  He held Shawn’s face and looked in his eyes.  “But we can win.  Have faith, nephew.  I need your confidence because I need your help.  Will you help me?  Will you put your fear aside and work with me?”

Shawn sniffed and cleared his throat.  “I will.” He croaked.

Ars took a pink flag of a handkerchief from the inside pocket of his jacket and wiped Shawn’s face with it.  He stroked his nephew’s head.  “We can win this.” He said to Shawn’s face.

He pocketed the hankie and resumed his position behind the desk.  “Mister Philips, nephew, what we are facing is unprecedented.  I have known about this problem for a long time…years.  I have had agents on Earth searching for the right man to help us.  I believe, at long last, we have found that man.”

Ars leaned back and steepled his fingers.  “To say we have a plan would be to overstate.  We do not know enough about our enemy to develop a plan.  We have a strategy, and we have the right kind of support from the right type of people.  If Mister Philips agrees to help us, I will set in motion what has long been idled.  We will go on the offensive.”  Ars fell silent again.  He looked at me without staring.  He looked like he was trying to see inside me.  I looked back at him.

The way he was dressed, Ars Summas could have been a carnival barker.  The way he spoke when speaking of everyday things, he could have been a character in a screwball comedy.  The way he spoke about the end of the world, I knew he was a serious and sincere man.

I thought about what I’d seen that day, about what I heard, and about what Ars had just said.  I thought about my life.  I thought about the wet streaks of grief on Shawn’s young face.  I saw the grave expression on Ars’ older but similar face.  I took my watch off and stretched it.  I brought it to my face and looked at it.  I ran my fingers over the gold-tone band and my thumb over the cracked, non-functional display.  I closed the watch in my left palm.

“Steward Summas.”

Ars smiled at me.  “Mister Philips, you may address me informally.  Ars is fine.”

“OK, Ars, how do you think I can help?” I challenged.

“I do not know, no, I do not know.  The prophesy was not specific.  I believe that you are the powerful and compassionate man and that, working together, we will discover how you will help.”

I felt like I was on the wrong side of the mirror.  I wondered if maybe I had a stroke and everything I’d experienced since I woke up was the product of my bleeding brain.  I gave up wondering because there was nothing that I could do about it either way.  Instead of worrying that I’d lost my mind, I decided to embrace the insanity.  “If we’re going crazy, we may as well get there.” I said to myself.

“What’s that, young man?” Ars asked to my muttered silliness.

I didn’t bother to repeat myself.  Instead, I primed Ars for the decision that I’d come to. “I…uh…oh-fuck…I don’t…uh…I don’t need the weekend.  I can give you my decision now.”

Ars leaned so far forward that his face was almost in the pile of debris on the desk.  “Yes, young man…yes.”  He prompted me eagerly.

I put my watch back on my wrist.  “First, I need to say something.  I think you’re out of your mind to ask my help for anything.  That said…that said,” my train of thought derailed, and I stumbled over what I’d planned to say, “that said, uhm…I’m willing to…you know…whatever you need until you figure out that…I’m not, you know…the guy.”

Ars didn’t follow what I was saying.  I didn’t either.  “Mister Philips.” He said as a question.

I took a deep breath and tried again.  “Ars, I’ve wasted my yesterdays and my tomorrows don’t interest me.  If you can use them, you can have them.”

Ars clapped his hands and bounced in his chair in celebration.  “Wonderful, yes wonderful.  You truly are a compassionate man, Mister Philips.  Put those sad days in my hands and I will make use of them.  Yes, indeed.  Do not think I forgot my offer to buy them.  Name your price and it will be paid.  I am so glad you agree.  My, my, my, my, my, I have so much to do, so, so much work to do now.  Must get started right away, yes.”

He ran his hands over the clutter on his desk like an old woman checking her hair when coming in from a damp day.  Ars brought his attention back to us.  “Nephew…”  Ars halted and heaved a breath.  His tone grew tender.  “Dear Shawn, I am proud of you this day.  Take heart, if it is possible to win this fight, then win it we shall.”

Ars briskness returned.  “Now I must get to work.  Unless you have questions that cannot wait, I would be obliged if you would take Mister Philips to the hotel as we discussed this morning and help him get acclimated to his new home.”  Ars addressed me.  “Welcome to Solum, young man.  May this day be the first of two bright futures, that of this world, and that of your life.  Whatever your dreads, leave them behind.  Help us save this world and let us help you find your purpose.  This is a wonderful and wonderous place, embrace it.”

With that, he selected a glass tablet from his desk and started to work.  Shawn got up and waited near my chair until I got the hint.  I rose and followed him out.