The Tau Ceti Transmutation (Amazon) (16 page)

“Excuse me?”

One of our sermons recently began. You are late. But I suppose I could let you join it in progress. Please, come with me.

The Dirax turned and walked off down the hallway behind it. I glanced into the halls to my left and right as I followed. The left contained nothing of note—just a few closed doors and a whole lot of empty space—but farther down the right hallway I spotted a bald, glassy-eyed male human, roughly my height, in a flowing navy blue robe. He glanced vacantly in my direction before disappearing into a doorway.

The Dirax stopped in front of a lift. It flicked its antennae and the down signal lit up. I waited patiently at its side.

“So your chapel is downstairs?” I asked.

The Dirax clicked its pincers.
I do not understand the query. The cosmos enfolds us, surrounds us. The practice of Veesnu is not spatially dependant.

“Sorry. I simply meant, if your place of worship is below ground, what’s the rest of this place for?”

Rooms for study. Contemplation. Quarters for us, and the disciples. Space to manifest the Ascension.

“Disciples?” I asked.

Practitioners of Veesnu. Seekers of the One Truth. Those whose journey into the metaphysical has brought them close to the Ascension.

“Like that guy in the navy robe I saw as we walked in?”

Correct.

The lift dinged, and the doors slid open with a puff. I entered the elevator, keenly aware of the Dirax’s size.

“And, um, this ascension you keep talking about… What’s involved in that?”

It is a journey of the mind. A physical, spiritual, and psychological test, one meant to free the psyche from the limits of the self and enter the ultimate, timeless expanse of the cosmos.

Sounds like a blast, huh?
said Paige.

I ignored her. “And is this difficult?”

Extremely.

The lift stopped and the door opened. The Dirax held out a pincer. We exited and I followed the insectoid creature down a dimly lit hall to a closed door, which flicked open halfway as we approached. Darkness within loomed, thick and dense.

The sermon has begun. Enter, Pilgrim, and welcome Veesnu. Use senses beyond the visual. Absorb, do not emit. And bring to a forefront in your mind the will to accept.

I paused at the door, staring into the darkness, unfamiliar sounds leaking through the crack, and I started to question my plan. What the heck kind of sermon was this?

You’ve come this far,
said Paige.
Might as well go through with it. Don’t worry. I’ll be here.

I slipped into the room.

I blinked, trying to adjust my eyes to the gloom, but I could barely see. Diraxi voices bounced around my head, different streams of thought coming at once, as if multiple Diraxi were shouting and whispering and jabbering at me simultaneously.

The portrait of the cosmos stretches into infinity. Why must we accept an infinitesimal slice? Yearning is acceptance of the One Truth.

Using my hands, I fumbled forward until I found a seat. I took advantage of everything it had to offer, plopping myself into its cool embrace. Darkness swirled around me, sinking into the space between my eyelids, but there was a hint of light as well. No burning sun, just pale, floating specks.

Thought is concrete. A measure of the mind. Electrical pulses, transferred by neurons. All life, not merely human, or Diraxi, functions in such a manner.

Sounds rippled through the air, incoherent, indistinct, barely more than background noise. A slow, burning star—the voice of the cosmos, translated from electromagnetic impulses to pressure waves for human ears. Mist floated on my tongue, and my nose detected a clean, rich scent that reminded me of apples and rain.

Differences in composition, mental and physical, do not impede the metaphysical. They merely interfere with the process. The One Truth remains. The journey remains. The Ascension.

Something furry and foreign tickled my gut. I suppressed the urge to scream. The Dirax had instructed me to absorb, not emit. I think screams were included. But my gut defiantly felt odd. Was I hungry? The bear claws hadn’t travelled through my esophagus that long ago.

The intensity of light in the room shifted, shocking my system. I floated in my chair, alone, before a blazing white sun as blobby neurons floated around me.

Good effects,
I thought.
I can’t even see the rest of the room. Or the floor. Or anyone else for that matter.

I expected a snarky response from Paige but received precisely nothing. The smell of apples and rain intensified—which was odd, because I was floating in space—and I suppressed a sudden urge to vomit. Maybe the bear claws had been a bad idea.

I licked my lips, which felt exceedingly dry. Then I realized my lips didn’t exist. Neither did my body.

Odd. Very odd, indeed,
I thought.

I floated through the heart of the cosmos, the universe around me darkening as I contemplated where my lips had gone.

19

I wriggled my lips. They were back. So was my nose. The scent of apples and rain was gone, however. It had been replaced with something far less pleasant—urine and garbage, if I wasn’t mistaken. Not a particularly effective scent for converting people to a religion, I had to say. And I’d also acquired a blinding headache, one that pounded on the inside of my skull like a gorilla given free reign with a felt-covered mallet.

This is even worse than that weedache I got from Gerrold’s place,
I thought.

Rich? Rich, is that you?
Paige’s familiar voice partially displaced the gorilla’s drum solo.

“Hey. You’re back,” I said, the words slow and heavy on my tongue. “Where’d you go?”

Where’d
I
go?
said Paige.
Where the heck did
you
go?

“What do you mean?” I asked. “I’m at the Veesnu placeamabob. Chapel. Church. Whatever.”

You want to double check that math, sport?

I cracked an eyelid and immediately regretted it. Blinding light filled my field of vision—except it didn’t. The light was on the dim side. Diffuse, even. But it took me a moment to realize it. Apparently my brain still hadn’t adjusted from the misty blackness of the sermon room.

I inched my eyelids open millimeter by millimeter. I spotted a couple unremarkable bricks walls, one of which I’d apparently befriended. I’d propped myself upright in the corner between it and a dumpster—which explained the smell.

“Where am I?” I asked.

In the alley behind Hallal-peños,
said Paige.
A couple blocks from the chapel.

“What happened to the apples? And the rain? And the vast expanse of the cosmos?”

Ex-squeeze me?

I couldn’t recall Paige ever being stumped. Apparently there was a first time for everything. I squeezed my eyes back shut as I tried to think. “Sorry. What I meant was, how did I get here?”

I was hoping you could tell me,
Paige said.
You went off grid for a while.

“I did?”

Yup. Your Brain feed was acting completely normal. I could sense the sermon room, with the ambient music and the Diraxi preachers. You were there for a while, sitting and listening. And then—poof—your feed cut out. I couldn’t even geolocate you. You popped back into existence in this alley. Those thoughts about your headache and Gerrold were the first transmission I got from you since you disappeared.

“Huh…” I said. “So you didn’t see the burning star, or the blobby neurons, or the vast expanse of outer space? Or me losing my lips?”

No…
said Paige.
Are you feeling alright?

“Sure. Like a herd of Glieseian wildebeests trampled me. But they did so gently. How long was I out?”

About two hours,
said Paige.

“Rich? Rich!”

Carl’s voice echoed between the walls and into my ears. I cracked open my eyes and spotted my old pal near where the alley spilled into the street.

“Over here, bud,” I called. “Where’ve you been?”

“At the ethnic Diraxi cuisine place, like you told me to,” he said as he jogged over.

“How were the waffles?” I asked.

“Quit joking around,” he said. “Are you ok?”

“Peachy,” I said. “Now help me up. I’m not sure if my legs work.”

“I’m hoping that’s another joke.” Carl leaned down and lifted me to my feet.

“It is.” I thought. My knees wobbled as I put weight on them. “Didn’t Paige fill you in on what happened?”

“As best she could, but that’s not saying much.”

“You going to take that from him?” I asked my Brain secretary.

It’s not a jab,
said Paige.
For once, I really don’t know what happened. And your sensory feed is still garbled.

My head throbbed and my knees felt weak. “You’re not kidding, sister. Be glad you don’t have to walk in my shoes.”

Carl put his arm around my torso and helped me toward the street. “You think we should report this to the police?”

“And tell them what?” I asked. “That I woke up disordered and reeking of urine in an alley? I’m sure they’ll believe me when I tell them I have no clue what happened, but I’m certain the nice priests over at the local church did it to me. The lingering drugs in my system will undoubtedly clinch their support.”

“So what do we do?” asked Carl.

“What is this? A date? Do I have to make all the decisions?”

Carl looked at me, his face drawn, the concern clear in his eyes. It was a subtle display of emotion, one I hadn’t expected out of him—the display, not the emotion itself. Perhaps he’d gotten an upgrade on his facial systems at some point along the line.

I sighed. “Look, I’m sorry. I’m just… I need to rest a little. Sit down. Why don’t you call us a cab?”

Paige took charge of that. I leaned against Carl as we waited. The occasional whistle of a full cab zipping by broke the monotonous, low hum of the holoprojectors coming from the strip mall. Over by the Asian-Tak fusion place, an over-served patron made racy catcalls at passersby.

“I told you to be careful,” said Carl in a quiet voice.

“You told me not to do anything stupid,” I corrected. “It’s not exactly the same thing.”

“You know what I meant.”

We let the hum of civilization wash over us, serenading us with its omnipresence. Honks, horns, whistles and music, speech and footfalls, all laid over an ever-present energetic
vibration
that filled every nook and cranny of populated space. I rarely noticed it. I blamed the allure of mobile Brain entertainment.

Soon enough, a cab pulled over and opened its doors.

“I’m assuming we’re heading home,” said Carl.

I nodded and sunk into the cool, air-conditioned surface of the back bench seat. My headache was improving, but not as fast as I’d hoped. The thin walls of the cab shut out the street noise, but they couldn’t do anything to quiet the rhythmic, pulsing rush of blood through my ears.

“Did you bring any of those Buzzkills with you?” I asked as I felt the cab pull away.

Carl shook his head. “Want to head to a pharmacy?”

“I can wait until we get home.”

Carl kept his eyes on me, still concerned. “Do you think they drugged you?”

I shrugged. “Not sure. My headache is similar to the one I had yesterday after Gerrold’s all-natural aromatherapy treatment, but it’s not exactly the same. It’s more localized, way at the back of my skull. Feels like someone’s trying to tunnel through.”

I closed my eyes again and tried to block out the pounding. I needed to focus, to think—and to remember. What exactly had happened to me? One moment I’d been enjoying the subvocal syncopated stylings of a clerical Diraxi quartet, and the next I’d been floating, incorporeal, huffing apple fumes. Somewhere along there I’d gone missing and helped myself to all the best that a trash-filled alley had to offer. Did the Diraxi dump me there, or did I find my way to the dumpster myself? And did I do anything else while I’d been unconscious? Paige said I’d been out for roughly two hours.

“I think Valerie’s behavior is finally starting to make sense,” I said.

“Excuse me?” said Carl.

I opened my eyes. “We assumed Valerie was lying when she said she had no idea who we were outside her bakery. But you presented two likely scenarios with regards to her behavior that day.”

“Yes,” said Carl. “Either she was lying, or she didn’t remember us.”

“Right. I don’t remember what I’ve been up to or where I’ve been for the past couple hours. Maybe I was in a coma, sitting pretty at the Veesnu chapel, getting indoctrinated, or perhaps I was out causing trouble. We don’t know because I went off grid, according to Paige. It’s pretty clear Valerie’s in knee deep with these Veesnu chaps. Who’s to say when she came to hire us, she wasn’t suffering the same sort of swoon I just did?”

Carl steepled his fingers and rubbed them against the bottom of his chin. “So you’re suggesting Miss Meeks wasn’t aware of her actions when she first arrived at our office yesterday? That she was under the effects of some sort of Veesnu brainwashing? And that’s why she behaved the way she did at her bakery?”

I nodded.

Carl drew his index finger and thumb across the top of his lips, down the sides of his mouth, and under his chin. He kept them there for a moment before shaking his head. “I’m not buying it.”

“Huh?” I said. “Why not?”

“We’ve interacted with Miss Meeks three times now,” said Carl. “Well, you have. I was charging during the third encounter. But I have Paige’s feed of the incident. And Miss Meeks’ behavior was consistent during two of the encounters. The only anomalous one occurred outside her bakery.”

“Well, maybe that’s when she was suffering a walking coma,” I said.

“And in her bewildered state, she decided to do some baking?”

“That makes more sense than her seeking me out and bartering for my services while in the same condition.” I leaned forward in my seat. “Look, back up and bear with me for a second. We’re in agreement Valerie planted the initial piece of evidence in her apartment, right? The token from the arcade?”