Toy Soldiers

by Keith LaHue

  James spoke first. "I'm not sure what happened, but my mind...it's as clear as the -" He paused to look up. "- I was going to say sky, but something has happened to it too. At any rate, whatever was in place to prevent us from truly exploring our world, if it is a world, is gone. I've got a feeling that we can travel now. Go back to Byzantium and see what they look like without the spell we were under.

  "I'm game," said Donna. "I'm also...hungry. I think. It's a feeling in my stomach. Christ, you don't think that half-formed thing at my house is....you know, like us, able to think?"

  "I don't know," said Kenneth. "But I think I'm hungry too. I could also use a bathroom. It's funny, all those parties with people eating and drinking. I don't think I ever saw anyone go into one."

  "Well, there are five full and two half baths at my house. I've never used them," said Donna.

  "Let's head back there and eat. I hope the food is real. I know we just ate, but at that point, I felt like it was mostly for show. Now I feel hungry, "said James.

  "Who knows, I don't think I've ever seen the inside of a grocery store. But we can hope. There's all the stuff for tonight's party. I seriously hope I don't have to call everyone and tell them it's off."

  "Somehow I don't think that will be a problem. Whatever just happened to us happened to everyone in this...this wherever. Let's go."

  In New York, the streets were filled with people that had come down out of their towers, and down into the city. It was there, in the concentration of people stacked up that the difference between the formed and the unformed was most apparent. The unformed wandered without purpose, occasionally walking into obstacles, then bouncing off in a new direction like one of those robot vacuums that were set on eternal mode.

  The rest of them were self-aware now. The flow of traffic in the streets came to a halt. All over the city people were getting out of their cars. The cognoscenti amongst them now knew what they had suspected for some time: reality as they knew it was a sham.

  At the base of the Brooklyn Bridge, a group of people that had spent their entire lives knowing they lived in Brooklyn was going to cross over the now-complete bridge for the first time. They could tell that Brooklyn proper didn't exist, there were a few indigenous buildings that had sprung up since the spell had begun running amok, still, they needed to see it.

  Beyond it, they could see the desert. Only a portion of them knew what that was.

  32

  Dave had felt it when the lay lines had slipped momentarily, then reasserted themselves, albeit in an altered form, downstairs. The infrastructure of the magic world outside of his basement was unaffected as far as he knew. Still, his order would notice long before he would be able to get down there and do something to correct the situation.

  He thought of his son. He was too young to wield any real magic, but a stronger talisman might work. Or not. When he'd created Pangaea, he'd imbued part of it with a rudimentary intelligence. He'd done so because he was lazy and he had no talent for manually building the expansive miniature landscapes he loved to look upon.

  Depressed, he tried to think of a single thing he had actually built with his hands. The list wasn't long. He had put up the tables, tacked down some green cloth to simulate grass (until the “real” stuff filled it in) and that had been about it. He'd created his army of worker-bees, having them create the majority of it at night and at times when his son would be away. In doing so, he'd told a fundamental lie to Davey. Davey thought his dad was great because he could build such a fantastic creation. In reality, it had been the spell that had done all of it.

  If he was going to use Davey, that meant an honest apology was in order. Along with a lengthy discussion on the fact the one, magic was real, and two, that Davey would become a wizard as well. None of this sat well with Dave, he was acutely aware that this entire mess was his own doing. He thought he had had years before he would need to explain things to his son. He was also aware that the talk would involve him admitting he was fraud, at least in the model building department. It saddened him that he had lied to impress his son.

  Hadn't it all been about Davey three years ago when he'd started the thing? He wanted to impress his son, to be a part of his life, in contrast to the lack of relationship he'd had with his own father. His father had been involved in the hierarchy of the order of wizards Dave himself was now a part of, and as such had spent much of Dave's life absent on business. They'd come to grips with it a long time ago, his father explaining that it wasn't that he didn't love him, it was that he had responsibilities.

  All of that was water under the proverbial bridge. It left a sour taste in his mouth to think of it. The end result of his own experience was that he had been, and succeeded to a degree, of him being an integral part of his son's life. He'd accomplished that. He and his son had bonded in a way that he had never had with his father, even now.

  His mind turned to what might be going on in Pangaea now. Some of the workers he'd created had all of the intellect needed to build a city. All hell could be breaking loose and he was helpless to stop it. He desperately wanted to know what was going on down there. He'd felt the barriers go, it had shaken him out of his sleep, as it would whenever a spell or ward a wizard created was breached. The inhabitants were now free to wander from one area to the other.

  And what if they left the table? The thought caused him to momentarily panic. He pushed feeling down and tried to think proactively. Why hadn't he married a witch! If Mary could go down there and help by putting up barriers of her own...he knew this could never work. Even if she were a witch, the best he could hope for was that she'd be able to get him to the basement. He knew as any wizard did that two magicians magic working together was fine. But infringement upon another's work invariably brought disaster.

  It was little comfort that none of the inhabitants would be unable to establish a true consciousness, as this would be true life; beyond magic to create. Still, some were intelligent while others would be shells. Devoid of any real reasoning; they'd been the grunts doing the heavy lifting of construction, and as such was limited to what they'd experienced during the nights and empty days it had taken to create the diorama.

  The other niggling factor that played heavily on his mind was that if the barriers, which had been created by magic had fallen, there was only one thing that could have brought it down. At least one, if not many of the people in the model had become magicians themselves. Well, not really. The most they could do was tap into the magic of the diorama itself. This scared him even worse because he'd had to lay down some heavy spells to create the thing. And the vestigial magic he'd left in the model itself, in tandem with the ongoing spell that was now running wild, would be formidable. Hell, they'd be about able to do anything.

  Dave was scared. There was no good way out.

  33

  At the Brooklyn Bridge, many in the crowd that had gathered were angry and confused. Until a few weeks or so ago, they'd been content, albeit oblivious. Playing out their pretend lives.

  To Jane Graves, this meant nothing, except that her entire life had been a lie. She had a hazy recollection of being a foreman during the building of the World Trade Center. They hadn't used any actual construction tools or machinery. They'd used magic. Now she knew that what she most recently suspected was true.

  Over the past week, she'd been to the library twice. The first time there had been no books. In a semi-lucid state, she'd wandered the vacant corridors created by the empty shelving. There wasn't even a librarian in attendance. She guessed whatever had created them had screwed up and forgotten something.

  So she dreamed of books, right there in the library. She dreamed of all of the books ever written. Of the shelves being filled with tomes created by authors, she knew not the names of. She had just closed her eyes, and let the movies play in her head. Dreaming of the scribes of times past, in some reality that did exist. Maybe if she tried hard enough...

  But no. When she awoke in the sterile building that she do
ubted a single soul had ever visited was the same, row upon row of shelves devoid of books. The shelves themselves had no character; they were just some cheap white laminate, in contrast to the rich wood she remembered. Or did she remember?

  She went home if that's what it was. She knew she wasn't real, and that something arcane had created it for her. Not without purpose, but still, she was a construct of sorts, not human. If she pushed, she could remember even more buildings she had been the construction-that-wasn't-construction boss of; many of the high-rises in the city if she recollected correctly. But no memory could be trusted now.

  That night, when the light left, she dressed for bed and went on pretending. Although she knew that sleep itself was an illusion as well. She let her mind fade into the oblivion of what passed for human sleep. And she dreamed again. She dreamed of a richly paneled library, full of books and the old, but not unpleasant smell of leather-bound volumes.

  She did not go to work in the morning. It wasn't like the fake job she had selling real estate even existed. She'd gotten the job apparently after the construction that wasn't had...ceased to exist? She wasn't sure. She didn't even bothered to call in sick. She traced yesterday's path back to the library.

  Even the doors were different. Tall wood and glass doors gave way to reveal the library of her dreams. She touched the wood shelves, smooth and polished. There was even a librarian here, just as she's envisioned. An old woman with glasses perched on her aquiline nose. She glanced up as Jane entered and smiled.

  "First time here?' she said with a grin." I remember every face that's come through that door." Jane knew this was absurd, but she let it go.

  "I've got a library card, but I usually use one of the other branches." She fished in her purse, which was empty except for the card. Not even keys to her apartment were there. She gave the card to the librarian.

  "Well how can I help you?" she said with a smile.

  "I'd like the history section. I need some books on old New York, Brooklyn to be specific." The librarian came out from behind her counter. Jane thought it strange that there was only one librarian in a library this big. But she had only dreamed of one, hadn't she? The woman led her to the second floor, to a giant section devoted entirely to history. Jane was dumbfounded. She began to wander the aisles.

  "Was there a particular book or author you were looking for?"

  "No...This will do." She turned to her abruptly. "How many can I take out at once?"

  "Well. Seeing as you're a regular and it's slow...I'd say limit it to ten instead of two."

  As she'd gone from no one to a regular, that suited Jane just fine. "I'll let you know when I'm ready. May I stay here and read for a while. Is that okay?"

  "Well of course. I'll be at the desk when it comes time to check out." The librarian disappeared.

  So Jane read. First, she read all she could about Brooklyn, then spread out to the other boroughs. She'd never heard of Staten Island. Apparently, there was supposed to be a ferry that took you there. Had she ever really seen the water close up? Her place had a view of the Hudson, but nothing beyond that. She guessed this was normal in a world that wasn't a world.

  She had been reading without a break for almost a week before she had become part of the mob at the base of the Brooklyn Bridge. She'd gone back and forth from her place to the library, returning and exchanging over and over. The library was always open.

  Now she stood with the others, and they began to walk. Jane knew what was supposed to be on the other side, but clearly, it wasn't. It looked like the pictures of New Mexico she'd seen in the books, a few of the edifices that were supposed to be buildings where there, but not many.

  As the crowd moved, they felt a sensation, a tug, when they reached the area where the barrier had been. A few of them caved in and turned back, but not many. The majority of them pushed on.

  Once across the bridge, they spread out. Jane made a beeline for New Mexico, or whatever state this was. When she arrived there, she knelt down to feel the sand. She had no concrete idea what sand was supposed to feel like, still, it struck her as odd, that it was not as it was supposed to be. She let it run through her fingers. Did it feel like...plastic? She didn't know.

  She did know she was hungry. In her memory, she had never eaten. Now she would have to. And that other thing too, she supposed. She opened the jar she had secreted in her purse, and filled it with "sand". Perhaps she would dream up a laboratory.

  She crossed back over the bridge, and into the wandering herd that made up the street life that had become the norm in the city. Cars had all come to a stop, mostly cabs that realized they served no purpose.

  Then there were the half-formed ones. She wondered what purpose they had had. Some of them had walked into the East River, only to bounce back up when they hit the solid surface. The water didn't exist of course; it was an illusion, like everything else.

  She went to a pizza place in Little Italy. She seemed to remember she had had a date here. To her surprise, the place was packed. The employees, all of them real, might have the only job that mattered she mused.

  After a long wait, she ordered a large Pizza with everything, to go. She collected her pizza, the man behind the counter had looked bewildered when she asked him how much it was. She left without paying.

  Back at her apartment, she scarfed down the entire pizza. Afterward, she looked into the bathroom and realized she's never been in the room before. She went in and found that it was fitted with everything she'd need, including some items she couldn't imagine a use for.

  In the west, far from where Jane and a posse of New Yorkers had invaded one of their own parts of the city they lived in, Jimmy and Jerome, with Tom and the others, had made camp for the night. The primitive Indian dwellings were a cut above what Jimmy and Dizzy had experienced their first nights here, and they were surprisingly portable. Bringing them almost seemed as if it were meant to be. They hadn't been glued into place. There were more and more things about the entire place that didn't make sense. Jimmy thought about the magic it had taken to build all of this. The part they were in now was big, big enough to encompass the Grand Canyon. Had he known about it before? It scratched at his memory then faded. It didn't matter.

  The nuisances of becoming increasingly alive were uncomfortable for Jimmy. The others that were supposed to be Indians, but in reality were the same as everyone else; neutral, took to it better, as they'd been dealing with it for a longer period of time. As for Jimmy and Jerome, they'd figured it out all right; still, Jimmy didn't like it and hadn't asked Jerome about it either, given the private nature of the subject.

  The trudged on through the desert, keeping the Grand Canyon to their right, following it roughly, in hope of reaching the point where New York City met Arizona. They walked on, stopping to eat when they got hungry, and of course that other thing too.

  After several hours, the light was becoming dim, so they made camp for the night. Scrounging the desert for wood was pointless, so when the last vestiges of light faded, they retired to the shelters they'd set up.

  "It seems like we came a long way just to go back," said Jerome.

  "I think we're doing the right thing. We came, we discovered, and now we're leaving. Something big has changed. I felt it when it happened, and so did Tom. Did you? For me it was a leap, a sudden clarity that came upon me," said Jimmy.

  "I think so. I definitely feel it. But I'm not certain what it was that happened. Whatever the case, one thing is clear: while we may not be human, or even alive, we're going to be. The existential hallucination we live in will continue for a while, but I have no doubt that the ascension is coming."

  "The Ascension"?

  "Well, it's just a term in this case. I couldn't think of anything better. We're becoming more than we were, the fact that we're increasingly sentient proves that we are evolving. What else could it be?"

  "I'm not holding my breath," said Jimmy. "C'mon, let's get some....shit, sleep. I'm, not sure, but I think I'm tired.
Usually, I just lay there and wait for the light to come back. Now I want to lie down and close my eyes."

  "Can't say as I'm totally with you on that one, but I'll shut up. We've still got a lot of terrain to cover before we get back to the city if we get back to the city. I think the land itself is changing. I'm seeing things I either hadn't noticed before, or they weren't there before. Hell, maybe we're lost."

  "I don't know," replied Jimmy while he laid out his bedroll Tom had given him. There was always a little light, regardless of the time of day. But no moon. Did he remember the moon or had the memory been placed there? He decided he'd think about it later and crawled into the makeshift bed.

  He wasn't Jimmy the Quick anymore. He was James and he lived in California. He had a car, and friends, and a nascent career in films. He looked around at the four walls that surrounded him. A door appeared without warning, like Jimmy, the room was becoming formed as needed. Pictures appeared on the wall. There was a bed here now, it hadn't been there when he'd...come here? No, that wasn't right. He was dreaming. But then why wasn't he himself?

  He crossed the room and opened the door, passing through it into a larger room, the living room he surmised. It too was in the process of being populated with furniture and the usual accouterments. He plopped himself down in an armchair that had suddenly appeared. He needed to think. If he wasn't real, to begin with, why was there the added layer of being someone else too?

  Donna. She was helping this version of his being, and they too had discovered the same things he and Jerome had. With sudden lucidity, he realized that whatever forces had kept the restraints on the people of wherever they were had been lifted, at least to some extent. He probed deeper into the memories of James, the actor. He was trying to make out what James knew. Parts of this James' memories were incomplete, as were Jimmy's.