13.
Panorama -
Break Down
“...nightclub called al-Burj was subject to a gas leak earlier this morning, killing nineteen people and hospitalizing twenty-eight others. In a shocking move, City Hall has rushed condemning the building, and the lot has already been bought by...”
“The Virgin Group has bought most of the contaminated land in the greater Albuquerque area through various subsidiaries, CNN reports. It is believed that they are going to unveil a plan to...”
“It was awful. Not a gas leak, at all, there was a fight, a robbery. These four men came in wearing horrible masks and started waving guns around...”
Graffiti in the alleyway behind the property in question: QGA.
“A blood bath in Sevastopol earlier today: unknown assailants have involved themselves in the EEC Protest Hostage Crisis. Several Kidnapees have been safely returned to their families, though none of the kidnappers have been brought to justice. The BBC is already speculating about Spetsnaz involvement, but the Russian Government is denying...”
The Janus Group's facility north of River City placed an order for an assortment of different materials from local sources:
-1000 mg, Ketamine.
-5000 mg, pharmaceutical lithium compounds.
-“All of the Carbamazepine you can spare.”
-“Similar amounts of Scopolamine.”
“The oncology department at the John A. Hill Hospital has discovered an epidemic of Cancer among the people examined after last night's incident. An anonymous group has donated the funds to build a new wing dedicated to Cancer treatment...”
Graffiti on the side of an apartment building: THE WAY IS NOW OPEN.
“Big news in the stock market, today, as the Janus Group started production of small-scale T-Engines, promising cheap electricity for the five-year lifespan of the device. It is being touted as the solution to the energy crisis, in the form of supposedly 'infinite energy,' though they make it clear that it comes in the form of 'finite power.' Many are calling this a hoax, but a demonstration is being arranged.”
“While the police note that reports of 'monsters' are unsubstantiated, and considered to be laughable. Authorities did reluctantly note that a disconcerting number of similarities among the hallucinatory experiences of those recovering from the al-Burj gas leak.”
“The demonstration will take the form of a room designed by a third party, shielded against the remote transmission of electrical power, and cooled to a constant four degrees Celsius, and with no ports through which electricity may be wired. The Test T-Engine will sit in the middle, and an electrical light bulb, of the variety that one could buy at a store, will be wired into it. Observers will be allowed to enter the room at their leisure, on their own schedule, and even set up cameras if they wish.”
14.
Portrait -
The First Casualty on Our Side
Hannah Sweeney was the youngest of three sisters. Her parents had moved to River City from Baltimore when Mrs. Sweeney got a chance to play first violin with the River City Municipal Philharmonic, and Hannah's first memories are of climbing in and around boxes, staring down at coffee mugs wrapped in newspaper, of her parents and eldest sister May arguing about what should be brought along and what should be thrown out.
Hannah told herself that they would never leave her behind, they wouldn't throw her out. Middle sister Emily suggested otherwise, though. And this fear took root in her heart of hearts.
She was just four years old, and she feared being thrown away more than anything else. She sometimes saw old men with cardboard signs and women with shopping carts full of bulging plastic bags, all of them wrapped in ninth- or tenth-hand clothing. Ill-fitting and stained canvas jackets. Flannel shirts. Jeans that were abraded and covered in splotches of I-don't-know-what. She thought that was what happened to people who had been thrown away.
Her mother never knew why young Hannah would always walk over to pan-handlers and say things like “I'm sorry” or “Why did you get thrown out?” or “did it hurt?”
She would grab her daughter's arm and drag her away.
Hannah grew older and threw herself into her school work. By the time she graduated from Middle School, she had forgotten what the source of her fear was, or even its object, but it still lurked behind and beneath everything she did.
She tried to join the basketball team, but failed. She tried to join the debate team, and succeeded. Though Hannah had grown into a beautiful young woman – some would even say “pneumatic” – the intense look in her eyes and constant scowl drove off any who tried to approach her.
For college, she was accepted to a State University and majored in Political Science for a semester, then switched the Public Administration for a semester, then Communications, and finally to Graphic Design. She transferred back to Westin College in River City, which had a strong Media Arts program at the time, and finished her degree.
She worked in advertisement and, for three years, had a comfortable life of little consequence to those who didn't know her. Then, one day after sneaking away from a particularly boorish blind date, she was confronted with a man holding a gun, who was politely asking for her purse.
Catatonia is a funny thing. She froze, staring blankly at the gun in the man's outstretched hand.
Her future employers would refer to what she had done as a “Kinetic Point Praxis,” that is, seizing a small point with some variety of power she never really understood, and moving it, destroying its connection to anything adjacent to it.
She bisected the gunman, then quartered him.
There was no piece of him larger than a cubic centimeter by the time someone called the police about the screaming.
She was still standing there, looking at the mess of mingled ruined flesh and metal, as she was loaded into an ambulance.
They gave her a saline drip and an oxygen mask, which was as close as an emergency room can get to a blanket and a cup of hot cocoa.
She and her temporary therapist, Karen Wells, were already shopping for support groups by the time that Elizabeth Voss knocked on her door and said, “Miss Sweeney, can I speak with you for a moment?”
They met again an hour later, at a park bench across the street from the hospital, where Miss Voss – Miss Voss, Captain, Eli, but never Liz or Lib or Libby or Beth or Elizabeth – waited for her with her “friend” Miles, a tall black man wearing a red sweater and a newsboy cap.
“What did you want to talk to me about?” Hannah asked quietly.
“We know about the incident,” Miss Voss said. “And we wanted to talk to you about it.”
“I don't know anything,” Hannah said, dismissively.
“We know. We do know something,” she said, and glanced over at Miles, “if you would demonstrate?”
Miles nodded, and cupped his hands.
Inside his clasped hands, a pale orange light like an ember took shape, and grew in intensity, eventually throwing off heat waves.
Miles smiles, and crushed the small fire out in his hands.
“What was that?” she asked.
“It was a Praxis,” Miles said, smiling, his voice melodious, “The Praxis of Localized Thermodynamic Reversal, the gong fu of fireballs.”
“What in hell is a Praxis?” she asked.
“It's difficult to explain, is what it is,” Miles said, his smile turning rueful. Miss Voss provided her concise explanation:
“Spooky action at a distance. We store up a charge inside of us. We expend it when we use it. The charge refills when we stop.”
“Do you have one?” Hannah asked, and all expression drained away from Miss Voss's face, and she gained the seriousness and the clipped tones that made her the Captain.
“I do,” she said, “but I won't show you.”
“Then how do I know you have one?”
Elizabeth and Hannah stared at each other for a moment. One immovable and one insistent.
Miles reached out, and gently touched Hannah's left arm.
“Don't ask to see it. Please, she isn't about to show you, but I've heard, and I don't want to see it if she does.”
Hannah furrowed her brow.
They offered her a job. She rejected.
They contacted her a week later. She rejected again.
A month after, she showed up in the waiting room of the Janus Group's facility.
“I'd like to reconsider my refusal,” she said, her voice quiet and tight. When she left, she had a handbook and an ID badge.
15.
Steadicam –
Waking up in the Well
His eyes opened, and he did his best to interpret what he saw. A ceiling composed of blank white panels, between the panels were recessed lights, hundreds, maybe thousands of low-wattage bulbs.
For a moment, he couldn't tell if he still had a physical body, but the sensation of an oxygen mask affixed to his mouth and nose told him that he possessed a face, at least. He wiggled his toes, he flexed his calves and he stretched.
The sheets were smooth, and he discovered later that they smelled as if they had been dried in sunlight.
He tried to force himself upward, but his back hurt, and something was holding on to his left wrist.
He glanced down: a pair of handcuffs held him to the bed.
Next to it was a call button.
Closer, jabbed into his arm was an IV. He glanced up, and saw a clear solution in the IV stand. Saline solution or something like that.
He pressed the call button.
Shortly afterward, a male nurse in green scrubs entered a clipboard held under one arm. The man had a dark brown goatee and heavy eyebrows that stood out against his pale skin.
“You're awake,” he noted, and picked up a small flashlight from a nearby table, and shone it in Gregory's eyes, and made a note on the clipboard, muttering under his breath, “pupils reacting normally.”
“Where am I?” Gregory asked.
“Memory loss. Might be permanent,” the nurse muttered again, writing.
He waited for the nurse to finish.
“How do you feel? Fatigued, dehydrated?”
“Confused, mostly. I do have some back pain, and I think I need to use the men's room.”
The nurse made an affirmative noise, and pressed a button on the side of the bed, causing the top half of it to rise up until it was about sixty degrees above level.
“I'm afraid I've been told not to uncuff you until you've been awake for at least an hour with no abberancy.”
“Abberancy? I've got rights. Why am I here?”
“By abberancy, we mean 'not trying to kill anyone.' You hospitalized one of the paramedics that brought you here. Jabbed a pen into his tear duct. He's okay, but he's going to be wearing an eye patch for six weeks.”
Gregory sat in stunned silence, before sagging back into the mattress.
“I don't remember doing any of that.”
“Memory loss is one of the expected symptoms. As is the violent behavior. We're getting you fixed up, though you may notice yourself feeling a bit dull for a while. That's normal, and it should be going away fairly soon.”
“...can you let me go to use the bathroom. I'll come right back.”
“I'm afraid I'd have to take the catheter out for you to do that. You could just go where you are.”
Gregory tried, but discovered it impossible with an audience.
“Are you hungry? I can get the cafeteria to send up some food,” the nurse said, “and there's a remote control for the television on the night stand over there. You able to reach it?”
Gregory looked over, and retrieved it with his right hand, having to extend both arms almost completely. The television was bolted to the wall a bit to his left.
“Hungry?”
“A little,” Gregory admitted.
“I'll get you something. My name's Ricky, by the way. I need you to remember that, so I can test your memory when I get back.”
Gregory nodded, and the nurse left.
#
He had insisted that the wheel chair was unnecessary, but the doctors had insisted. Ricky's colleague Angela walked him down the hallway, into the elevator, and hit the button marked W1.
W1 was a long way down, Gregory realized after waiting for five minutes.
“Where are we going?”
“A place called the Well. Doctor Watts says that you won't get well until you go down there.”
“Why?”
“It's hard to explain. She said she'll meet you there and explain it.”
The doors opened into a large room with earthen walls and a tile floor. The walls were reinforced with steel girders and a mesh of wiring, with lights hanging from the mesh. The room was large, maybe thirty meters across, with a circle of benches in the middle.
The room seemed full to the brim with something he couldn't quite see or hear or feel, though there was a pleasant sensation of pressure, a vague warmth that made him feel sleepy and content.
Angela wheeled him toward the circle of benches, where a woman in a white coat waited for him. The woman was only a bit older than him, with long black hair, and a light dusting of freckles across her nose and cheekbones.
“You must be Mister Albemuth,” the woman said.
Gregory held up his right hand in a polite wave but said nothing.
Angela helped him out of the wheel chair, and he shrugged off her arms, opting to stand under his own power while holding the long hospital gown closed.
His hands brushed against the lesions that ran along his spine, and he winced.
“Sit. Sit,” the woman said, gesturing to a bench on her left.
Gregory took the seat, and Angela turned back toward the elevator.
“My name is Melody Watts, and I'm the head of Research for the Janus Group.”
He cocked his head to the side. That sounded impressive, but he had no idea what it meant.
“And you are...?” she prompted.
“Gregory Albemuth,” he said, “I thought you already knew that.”
“I did, but I felt it would be rude to not let you introduce yourself,” she said.
Gregory looked her over. She didn't dress much like a researcher – black turtleneck sweater, dark-colored slacks, sensible shoes, white lab coat – and she seemed too young and fragile-looking to be the head of anything.
“Why am I here?” Gregory asked.
“Well, I'm going to take that in the immediate, rather than the philosophical sense, if you don't mind.”
“Please.”
“You were involved in an incident the other night, do you remember?”
“At al-Burj, right?”
“Yes,” she said, smiling. She had some seemingly-premature crow's feet around her eyes, forcing him to reassess her age, “you witnessed the opening of something we call a 'Speculum.' It's a hole in time and space that resembles a mirror, hence the name.”
“But what were those things?” Gregory asked.
“Emergents,” she said, “or that's what we did call them. Now we use the term 'Abominations.'”
He drew up short at this. The name told him nothing, but he still felt better for knowing it. To name something was to limit it and define it, to deny its whole awfulness, if necessary.
“Where did they come from?”
Melody shrugged.
“I'm still looking into that. Up until two weeks ago, only one had opened before, and we only knew that through inference. Mostly, we know about them from the mathematics involved in the other part of what happened two nights ago.”
“The...thing...that I did with the sound?”
“Yes. Your Praxis.”
He could hear the capital letter.
“What?”
“You're what we call a Teke User,” she said, “which means you have a Praxis. You draw energy from the Tellurian, the background of ambient energy that encircles the earth, and turn that energy into Orgone, which sustains your body when it would succumb to fatigue and fuels your Praxis. You're only the hundred and eighth we've encountered.”
“Tellurian?”
She reached into her pocket, and pulled out a small tablet computer, holding it so that he could comfortably see the screen.
She tapped in a command, and said: “Tellurian Orientation, basic.”
A picture of the Earth appeared. A soothing, neutral voice began to speak:
“Here is the Earth. It's where we were all born, where we love and hate, live and die. We've always lived here, and we do so surrounded by invisible energies.”
Rippling lines meant to represent radiation spread across the world.
“Radio waves surround us, and the sun shines light, heat and ultraviolet radiation down on us. Despite this constant barrage, we are protected by the Earth's magnetic field.”
A white line encircled the Earth from pole to pole, then rotated, forming the traditional loops of a magnetic field.
“As the Magnetic Field passes through space, it bleeds a bit of its energy into what we call 'Heim Space.' Most of this energy is unusable, but some of it lingers, and can be tapped through the proper methods.”
Melody tapped the pad, and stopped it.
“The Tellurian,” she said, “is that field of untapped energy that sits just a little outside the normal four dimensions of Einsteinian space-time we know and love.”
She tapped out a complicated sequence on the pad, turning off the video and opening up a three-dimensional model on the pad, forcing Gregory to squint.
“My doctoral thesis was an attempt to interpret results from the LHC that suggested the Telluric field. Unfortunately, I won't be able to prove it until the Super Large Hadron Collider comes online in 2019.”
The model showed the earth, but surrounded it in a wavering field, with certain points surrounded by wavering lines that were ever expanding and fading.
“But the Janus Group already had proof of it and offered me a chance to work on Telluric Theory. The proof was an individual that was called Subject Zero.”
She zoomed in by tapping repeatedly on one part of the model, then spawned a person with a snap-drag of her fingers.
“Normal people don't store Telluric energy, you see? It's not there for us, though parts of us project ever-so-slightly into non-Einsteinian dimensions.”
The small person walked around on the surface, surrounded by the wavering lines, oblivious to them. Melody tapped again.
“But sometimes a mutation occurs. Not like X-men or anything like that, but a piece gets bent into the Telluric field, into the Heim Space that's full of so much energy, and the energy gets shunted into the body. Oftentimes it doesn't do anything. But...”
The individual turned into a white outline around an empty black pocket that gradually filled with white until it was solid, then emptied out, becoming an outline again, and filling.
“Sometimes a person has a second, more improbable mutation, and can process the energy into a usable form. This is Orgone. A User is someone who can use this energy to effect the world in a measurable way. The minimum threshold of energy for this is called a 'Telluric Quanta' or TQ for short.”
She touched a button and the pad turned off.
“This is a measurable and recorded phenomenon, though we haven't really published on it. But the math that predicts it also predicted the Speculum, and you know better than most what's on the other side. We'd like to offer you a job.”
Gregory didn't say anything for a long moment.
“What kind of job.”
“We'll pay you to help us close Specula. In return you will receive a paycheck and access to this room.”
He looked around.
“What is this place? Why is that an incentive?”
Melody slapped her forehead.
“Sorry, I should have explained that – there are certain places where the geometry of the Earth's surface extends into the Telluric Field, dragging energy out. This is a place where Users can rest and heal.”
Melody scooted closer, and touched Gregory's spine with her index finger. His flesh was unbroken, the lesions that had been there had knitted shut.
“As you should know, by now.”