City Of Phase

by George Willson

  “Well, when the people that were here previously were sent back, we went to the very moment in time when they were taken. Basically, you were plastered in your apartment, right?” She nodded again. “When it’s your time to go back home, you’ll be there in just enough time to walk through your door and watch yourself crawl into the elevator. Well, hypothetically, anyway. We usually end up somewhere other than where the elevator picks people up. Point is, you can just pick it right back up at the moment where you left off with a little more time and wisdom under your belt. And since the Maze is what takes us everywhere, it is the one that decides when you’re done.”

  “But I don’t just have emotional problems,” she said desperately. “A lot of my problems came out of money. My ex managed to destroy just about everything I had. If I had won the lottery or something, I’d be just fine.”

  “Oh sure, money helps,” Perry said, “but I’ve learned that when you’re at rock bottom, money isn’t everything. If you aren’t ready to deal with that kind of a windfall in a moment of desperation, then you could easily end up a lot worse than you were before you started.”

  “Oh, you who were so quiet before are now the one with the wisdom?”

  “Okay, how about this? Before I could get into that elevator even once, I had to detox from about ten years of drug use. You freaked out over three days, but I don’t even remember my first month here. I owe my life to this place, and not just because of the beating that night. I was done. I had been evicted from my apartment for not paying the rent, and some stupid lease contract clause allowed the owners to keep everything I owned to cover back rent. I was not only out on the street, but I had nothing. Would money have fixed it? Doubt it.

  “The night I ended up here, my dealer said I could make good with him by stealing a bunch of guns from a pawn shop. I had busted out the window of a pawn shop and took the lot. I met up with him and a couple of his buddies in an alley a few blocks down to make the exchange. The value of the guns would clear me of the debt I owed him, and help me square up my back rent too. Well, never trust a crook. I sound smart now because I had no choice but to clean up and play along.

  “If you hang around here long enough, you find other stories are very similar among people in the Maze. Everyone who has come here had nothing to lose. Everyone here was in some kind of dire straights or massive distress when they see that elevator. I don’t know what kind of sick individual would come up with such a thing, but I know that I am grateful to it. My time here has been well spent.”

  “So are you ready to leave, then?” Michelle asked.

  “I don’t know,” he replied with a shrug. “I’m smarter now. I can handle myself better in a lot of weird situations. I have confidence that I never had before. If I had been sent back with enough money to get back my apartment as an addict, I would have spent it on drugs, or at least, completely screwed myself up to the point of losing my apartment anyway and still ended up in the wrong crowd. If I were sent back today with that same amount, not only would I get my apartment back, but I’d make a real life with the same amount.

  “The Maze changes you for the better. It not only gives you hope, but it shows you what to do with it.”

  Michelle just looked at him without realizing she was staring. She was not surprised, exactly, but moved. He spoke like any addict in a recovery meeting who talked about getting his life back together, when truly, all he had done is spend time in this place. Part of her still believed this was some kind of a weird dream, but another part hoped it was real, and some power in the universe had saved her to give her a second chance at her life when she had lost hope.

  A ding sounded from the living area, and they walked out of the kitchen to find Blake staring at them with a smile, dressed as he was before with the navy pants, tan polo shirt, and grey overcoat. With both of them fully dressed, she felt more than a little uncomfortable at not being so.

  “Time to go,” Blake said, looking at Michelle. “Are you ready this time?”

  Michelle looked at the elevator with its innocent, familiar interior and nodded without a word. Butterflies crowded her stomach over the unknown expectations that lay before her. She glanced at the screen, which showed Carburast, Pilkrand and a temperature rating of seventy-five degrees Fahrenheit with the highs and lows right around that.

  “I just need to change,” she said sheepishly and then chuckled. “I can’t exactly go out like this.”

  “Of course,” Blake said. “We’ll wait.” Michelle nodded and ran toward the wardrobe room, not only for a fresh change of clothes, but also for a pair of shoes, since she had not looked for any yet. She found some sneakers in her size that looked new and figured those would be best for whatever unknown was coming. Choosing a fresh pair of jeans in her size as well as a yellow blouse that she thought was pretty, she disappeared into the changing rooms just inside the entrance to the room. Moments later, she emerged freshly changed and tentatively ready to face whatever lay out there.

  She looked at herself in the mirror. Her eyes were the same eyes that had cried so many tears recently. If this were a dream or fantasy, she would have hoped that her face would have changed for the better, but all of the extra years were still there staring back at her. At twenty-five, she was barely old enough to rent a car, but she felt she could pass for much older because of the stress of her former life. She had to shake it off and see what this new future would hold.

  With a deep breath to steady her nerves, she returned to the living area where Perry caught her attention and tossed her a granola bar from the kitchen. She unwrapped it and noticed that both Blake and Perry were also eating one as they all stepped into the elevator.

  “You look very nice,” Blake commented as she stepped in.

  “Thanks,” she said nervously looking around the elevator. The wood paneling wrapped around the full interior and as she expected, there was a button panel on the right side of the interior on the wall with the door, but unlike other elevators, this one only had one button. She had to ask, “Why is there only one button?”

  “Simple,” Blake said. “There is only one way to go.”

  “And which way is that?” she asked.

  “I can answer that for him,” Perry said. “If you’re up you go down, and if you’re down you go up.”

  “Precisely,” Blake confirmed.

  “And where are we now?” Michelle asked.

  “We are whichever way we aren’t,” Blake said and pushed the button. With a ding, the doors closed.

  “You really aren’t much help sometimes, are you?” Michelle complained.

  “Welcome to my world,” Perry quipped.

  She could feel that the elevator was in motion, but she could not tell which direction it was moving. It was actually very disconcerting, but after about thirty seconds, the ride was over. The elevator dinged, and the doors opened.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  On the other side of the elevator doors was the last thing Michelle expected. She stepped out into the middle of a deserted city street with tufts of grass growing between cracks in the asphalt scattered down the road as far as she could see. The sky overhead was a clear, bright blue with only a few wisps of cloud, and the light from a yellow sun served to illuminate just how quiet it was.

  She turned around to look at the elevator behind her, and noted that Blake and Perry had just exited as well. The doors appeared to be suspended in space in the middle of the street with nothing supporting them. She walked behind them and as she did, the interior and the door disappeared entirely as if they only occupied that slim bit of space. She moved back to the front of the doors and watched them close and disappear, leaving an empty street in the other direction as well. She looked at Perry who was smiling at her.

  “Weird, huh?” Perry commented, and she could not argue with that. She walked to Blake who was focusing his attention on their surroundings.

  “Before you ask,” he said without giving her a chance to say anything, “the doors se
rve as a pathway through a space-time vortex. They appear long enough for us to walk through to somewhere other than the main Maze hub, and then they disappear. Once our task here is complete, the doors will reappear allowing only those that the Maze has chosen to re-enter the elevator.” He turned to her reassuringly. “We always have a ride out of anywhere we go, no matter how far from our starting point we get. That should give you some solace.”

  “How do we know we’re done?” Michelle asked. “Do we have to call them?”

  “Not at all,” Blake said almost proudly, “The Maze knows when we’re done, and the doors appear.”

  “How?” she asked, skeptically.

  “All in good time,” Blake said. “It will make sense eventually.” He walked onward in the empty city, and Perry walked up behind her.

  “More accurately said, you get used to it more than you understand it,” Perry said. “It still doesn’t make sense to me.” Michelle nodded, resigned to accept the fact that she would not understand at this point and decided to explore with them. After all, she had never been in an abandoned city before. She had to wonder why they were dropped here of all places.

  The buildings looked to be mostly of concrete ranging from one to seven stories tall in what was probably a downtown area since there were not only taller buildings than the surrounding area, but there were parking garages and four wheeled vehicles of a variety that Michelle had never seen before. They looked kind of like cars, but they did not look quite right to her. Something was off about them.

  “What’s with the cars?” she asked.

  “We’re not on Earth, you may remember,” Blake said. “The versatility of the carbon bi-pedal humanoid form is well-known throughout the universe, and planets in addition to earth have found that adaptation to be the sturdiest and therefore, most dominant. You’ll find that the cultures develop similarly here and there, and sometimes the technologies are similar simply because the body styles are similar. But that doesn’t mean they will be identical. People possess imagination, and it always manifests itself in interesting ways. These vehicles probably work very closely to how cars work on Earth, but they probably also have a lot of differences based on their culture and need.”

  “But this city looks like the ones on Earth,” Michelle said.

  “And why wouldn’t it?” Blake asked. “The design handles gravity and supports its weight very effectively. We’re not dealing with monkeys here. We’re dealing with intelligent beings capable of devising a logical means to construct a building. You shouldn’t be surprised that many races find the same solutions.”

  She only nodded. The concept of dealing with intelligent races on planets other than Earth was foreign to her, and then it hit her. Aliens. All the alien stories could be true. There could actually be alien conspiracies and everything that the government is actually hiding. She had to ask.

  “Um, Blake?” she called out. He turned to look at her. “So, aliens.” He looked confused, as if he did not know what she was asking. To be fair, she had not asked anything, just made a comment. “So there are aliens out there.” He chuckled.

  “Alien is a word that simply means ‘not from around here’,” he pointed out. “’Illegal aliens’ is a term used to refer to people who cross a country’s borders without permission. We are aliens on this planet. And in reference to what you’re thinking, yes, those particular aliens exist, not all of the stories are true, the government really doesn’t know that much, and so far, we had nothing to do with Roswell, though I have had the pleasure of meeting someone who did.”

  “You did?” Michelle asked, interested. “Who?”

  “Some other time,” Blake replied with a smile before raising his voice to include both Michelle and Perry. “What do you think of the city?”

  “Well, it’s a little creepy,” Michelle confessed.

  “It’s in really good shape for no one living here,” Perry observed.

  “That’s what I thought,” Blake agreed. Michelle looked around again. They had been meandering down the street, and she noticed that though the buildings showed some natural wear and tear from having been here for a long time, the actual structures appeared like someone had closed up shop one day and just left. Where they stood right now had a seven-story office building, she guessed, on one side of them with every window absolutely intact, and even lights in some of the windows, while the other side had a sort of strip mall look to it with shops on the first floor and what was probably apartments for the proprietors on the second. There was a flower shop, a restaurant, a curio store, and another restaurant closest to them, and every one of them looked absolutely pristine except for the untrimmed weeds creeping out of the cracks in the sidewalks. It was complete abandonment to the point that not even looters remained to bust out the windows.

  She turned her gaze from the shops ahead of her again when she gasped and stopped dead in her tracks. She was face to face with a young woman in her twenties staring blankly at Michelle. She was dressed in a grey pant suit, like a business woman, with her hair pulled back into a tight bun, and a face that would probably brighten a room if it smiled. The woman did not move at all, and Blake and Perry were immediately by her side, looking at her.

  “Why isn’t she moving?” Michelle squeaked out.

  “I don’t know,” Blake confessed. He reached his hand out and tried to touch the woman’s shoulder, but she disappeared in front of them only to reappear, still unmoving a few feet away. Michelle gasped again and put her hand over her mouth. Even Blake and Perry stared in awe as people of all ages and races appeared around them, all of them seemingly frozen with blank expressions. They showed up in the windows of the stores and office buildings surrounding the trio on every side.

  “What is this?” Perry asked.

  “The important question is still ‘Why aren’t they moving?’” Blake said.

  “The first girl moved,” Michelle said.

  “Sort of,” Perry corrected.

  “She changed her position, but she did not move to do it,” Blake said. “I think we found our problem, at least.”

  “Easy one this time, then?” Perry asked.

  “A starting point anyway,” Blake said. “But we need information.” He walked to four people standing in close proximity to each other, staring ahead. They consisted of two men and two women, all dressed in similar, grey business attire. The two women were in grey pant suits, just like the first woman, who was still standing where they had left her. Their hair varied slightly in that one had short, straight, dark hair, while the other was longer and blonde. The men both wore grey two piece suits, both with black ties and white shirts and both with short haircuts. The only difference between them was that one looked to be around thirty with dark hair, while the other was twice that age with white.

  “Excuse me,” Blake said politely, “but are you able to speak? Communicate in some way?” The four of them disappeared and immediately reappeared, facing Blake, but with their arms out, pointing down the street. Blake staggered back, still staring at the people, his mouth and eyes wide open in surprise. He glanced at Perry and Michelle, who both showed the same sign of shock.

  “I guess that means something then?” Michelle asked. Sure, it was an obvious question, but for all she knew, stuff like this could happen all the time, though based on the surprise on Blake’s face, she suspected it did not.

  “Well, I’d say they can communicate,” Blake said, responding to Michelle, “though I can’t say whether or not they understand us.”

  “What, like English?” Michelle asked. The idea of other languages just occurred to her, but she decided against asking at this point. She was sure Blake would have a logical, but equally cryptic way of explaining it to her, but she also suspected whatever was going on here would occupy their attention, so she would save this one until they had a better moment to discuss it.

  One by one, the people, other than the four who were pointing, disappeared rapidly, only to reappear pointing the sam
e direction as the first four who started it. As the people were changing their positions, Perry and Michelle moved to stand by Blake, who was mesmerized by the display, but his face did not show a childlike amusement. He looked disturbed.

  “They’re pretty insistent about going that way,” Perry said, as Blake’s eyes continued to dart across the crowd of pointing people. Blake seemed unwilling just to do as they said and just stared back at them.

  “Do you understand me?”Blake asked.

  “If they can’t move, how can they–” Michelle started to say, but before she could finish, the dark haired woman closest to them disappeared and reappeared with her head bowed.

  “I would call that a ‘yes,’”, Blake said triumphantly. He stepped forward with considerable self-assurance and open arms. “Now, can you tell us what is going on here?”

  The woman disappeared again, but then reappeared only inches from Blake, anger etched across her face, again pointing the direction of everyone else. Blake took a step back from her. “I’d say that’s a response too,” Blake said. “I think we should go this way.” He pointed and turned in the direction that everyone was pointing, and Michelle and Perry followed. Michelle turned around as they walked away, and noticed that everyone was gone. The street was as empty as the rest of the town was when they arrived.

  “What is going on here?” Michelle asked, partly to Blake and partly to herself. Blake shook his head.

  “No idea,” he admitted.

  “So what is down this way, you think?” Perry asked.

  “Looks like the way out of town,” Michelle observed. The largest of buildings were behind them, and not too far ahead, grasslands and trees dominated the landscape with only the road to separate them from nature. As they drew closer, the final feature of civilization revealed itself in the form of a fence marking the city’s boundaries about a half mile ahead of them.

  “I would agree,” Blake said. “They seem very eager to get rid of us. Since we don’t know what happened to them to get them the way they are, that may be a good idea, though I would have liked to look around a bit more.”