Sky Parlor: A NOVEL

by Stephen Perkins

  With an acerbic jab of his finger, Tepper’s holo-screen dissolved into a colorful funnel and whirled back into the chip embedded in the center of his palm.

  “How can this…this can’t be,” Tepper whispered aloud.

  He felt his gurgling blood seethe. Wondering, his gaze wandered toward the monorail’s window to behold the panoramic cityscape spreading out from beneath the tracks to the darkening far horizon.

  “Why didn’t Bobby tell me about this? Eileen and I didn’t even have a chance to wish him luck or say goodbye – I just can’t believe…”

  Turning away from the window, Tepper noticed the monorail approach a trident fork in the tracks. From a distance, he could see what appeared to at first resemble a minute pastel speck, perhaps another coach traveling in the opposite direction and accelerating at tremendous speed.

  Tepper heard the soft hum of the monorail crescendo to a ghastly shriek and, as if under supernatural command, it shifted to the left and from its designated track, hurtling headlong onto the path of the oncoming coach.

  Horror’s volcanic jolt of adrenaline assaulted his bracing limbs before impacts’ gruesome crunch twisted the monorail into splintered gobbets of flaming metal.

  Jackknifing over the track’s precipice, they plunged like wild meteorites to the ground below and settled into an infernal graveyard.

  *

  City Transportation and Trade Commission building (Sky Parlor’s borough region of Colombia)

  Desmond sat in his office waiting for the arrival of Mister Tepper when his eyes scanned the upper left-hand corner of the holo-screen floating above his transparent desk and realized he was late for their scheduled consultation prior to that afternoon’s testimonial proceedings before the commission’s trade and transportation board. Lifting out of his chair, he went to his office window and saw the puffs of smoke visible from more than a few blocks away billowing from underneath the complex array of monorail tracks. Sensing the ill-portent of a palpable tremor growing within, Desmond turned from the chaotic scene and rubbing his smoothly complexioned cleft chin, began to wonder if something wasn’t amiss.

  They might, even try, to kill those who would want to make it public…

  He heard the tiny click of hinges and the urgent tap of footsteps cross the threshold of his office door.

  “I’m sorry Dez, but I wanted to come up and tell you personally,” he heard Mister Pembroke relate. “It’s Michael Lee Tepper. There’s been an accident. I just saw the reports on ZEN news – there was a tragic monorail collision – and I’m afraid he’s gone.”

  Desmond saw his sober-faced mentor blink then lower his head as if he were standing graveside at a funeral.

  “What do you mean, Mister Pembroke?” Desmond exclaimed while turning once more toward the panoramic view of his office window. “There’s been an accident – Tepper’s gone? But that’s impossible,” he conjectured, spreading out his hands. “I gave him my pass to take the executive route straight to the commission building. It’s the safest monorail in the city with, as you know, an immaculate safety record.”

  Though his mind seemed stirred by a frenetic cyclone’s churning vortex, Desmond’s memory harked back to the death of his parents, and how the investigation of their accident was so quickly and efficiently ‘closed’. Pacing in circular patterns behind his desk, his eyes began to study the patterns of threads woven into the hand-crafted rug, and while his mind reverberated with a distant bell’s clanging omen, he began to feel like his feet were becoming steadily mired in a bog of quicksand. Whirling on his heels as if trying to desperately keep from sinking, Desmond turned toward his mentor, and while his features fixed into a pleading expression, he noticed Pembroke’s diverting eyes.

  Had Abigail’s warning – the benevolent spirit from his strange but revealing dream – come to fruition? Had perhaps the only man in Sky Parlor he trusted betrayed him?

  “Forgive me for seeming paranoid here, Mister Pembroke,” Desmond beseeched, “but long before this, I thought there was something wrong, and now,” he said, gesturing with an upturned palm, “I’m pretty damned certain there’s something wrong going on here.”

  “There’s certainly something else going on here Desmond and, I promise, this is news that should very much please you,” Pembroke’s voice leapt as if loaded onto a vibrant spring.

  With some deliberation, Desmond studied his mentor’s face. The pale layers of skin seemed to fuse together like layers of plastic, melting into a formulated grin. Why had the commissioner chosen to so readily ignore his assertion, Desmond evaluated?

  “Although I know you’re disappointed the commission’s hearing has been hereby adjourned for now,” Desmond heard him announce, “an administrator from SAGAN – Harlan Romaine – contacted me and they want you at their headquarters complex in Sardinia this evening. Apparently, the deep space teleportal mission you’ve been selected for has been pushed up a few days – congratulations.”

  Desmond felt confusion’s spinning tornado touch down upon the surface of his brain, wreaking its violent havoc.

  “I thank you for the kind compliment, Commissioner,” Desmond replied with cold formality, “but have you never considered that, like what happened to my parents, it may be more than a coincidence – on the very day he was scheduled to testify before the commission concerning an issue the sustainability council finds uncomfortable or maybe even unwilling to listen – Tepper is reported to have perished in a tragic monorail accident?”

  While waiting for Pembroke’s reply, Desmond began to study his mentor with greater scrutiny, watching in silent amusement as Pembroke’s thin face twitched with traces of involuntary agony.

  “As you know Alderman,” Pembroke’s tone grew officious, “the latest reports from the city transportation techs have indicated – after those improvements and upgrades you so strenuously lobbied for to Columbia’s monorail system were implemented – there still exist a number of technical issues and, from time to time, there still remain systemic glitches,” the commissioner’s eyes froze into a robotic glare. “So, considering these facts, I don’t see what occurred this afternoon as more than coincidental whatsoever. Perhaps after working such long hours enclosed between these four walls and after hours staring at facts and figures on your holo-screen, ”Pembroke condescended, “getting away from your office for an entire week during this SAGAN mission will result in a great benefit to you and, if I might boldly suggest, of great benefit to your overall sanity – Alderman Starr.”

  Desmond felt his senses alight with resentment’s inferno in reaction to Pembroke’s blatant and rather clunky attempt at psychological gymnastics.

  “Before I leave on this SAGAN mission,” Desmond seethed while maintaining a superficial calm, “I would like – with your gracious permission – to file a motion to the transportation and trade commission requesting a formal inquiry to determine,” and Desmond flexed his long fingers in the gesture of quotation marks, “whatever technical issues and systemic glitches may have caused this collision, Mister Commissioner.”

  Desmond watched his former mentor’s eyes squint into stone rimmed slots.

  “Your request is duly noted, Alderman,” Pembroke said before shuffling swiftly toward Desmond’s office door. “Not that it will benefit much,” he snorted, “if anything.”

  “You might think I’m being careless; maybe even foolish, Commissioner,” Desmond declared, determined to have the last word. “But I would rather drown swimming against the dooming tide than safely sail on a ship filled with passengers who are blissful fools.”

  *

  The long-marbled hallway was half-shrouded in swirling shadows, and Ulysses’ palace servant felt a shiver in his limbs at the sound of his leather soles tapping on the long hallway fashioned from black marble. Though he had served President Ulysses as his personal valet for many years, he could not imagine why he had been summoned to this remote room located near the darkened bowels of the presidential palace.

&n
bsp; After all, he began to agonize at the recurring notion, what would the chief of the sustainability council want with a humble servant of the president?

  Arriving at a darkly varnished oak door, he cast out his hand to push it open and recoiled at the sound of the creaking hinges. Moving across the darkened aperture with reticent steps, the room became flooded with blinding bursts of burning orange light. He crept forward to observe the outline of a solitary still figure silhouetted in darkness while huddled behind an imposing wooden table encircled by tall iron rod candelabra.

  “You are Alban, a palace servant by trade,” he heard an authoritative voice echo from the surrounding cold stone walls. “Do not fear, my good man,” the voice beseeched. “Come closer,” the voice demanded.

  “I don’t understand sir,” the servant’s reply feebly croaked. “I mean…that is…I really must protest, why…”

  “Come my good man, you do understand why it is you’ve been summoned,” the iron textured voice intoned. “And you very well understand what it is that’s expected of you, correct?”

  The servant drew in a long breath and, though in his mind reticence lingered, he began to reflect on the evil deeds to which he was made privy, witnessed and dutifully kept secret while in the president’s employ at the palace – so many young children lost, and merely for the pleasure of consuming their blood.

  “Yes, I do, Sir,” the servant croaked again, “Indeed, I do.”

  Squinting, the servant saw a pallid hand emerging through the swirls of shadows. Its fingers crept across the desk like the gruesome legs of some spindly spider. The hand withdrew and in its wake was left a single glass vile filled with a clear liquid.

  “Pick it up, and use it well,” the voice advised.

  The servant’s eyes warily studied the vile before secreting it away in the pocket of his formal white coat. He watched as the hand crept forward again, this time clutching what appeared to be a gleaming solid bar of smelted silver.

  “This is worth a fortune in UIC credits,” the voice explained in a low octave. “With this you could purchase more than enough credit to build a comfortable cottage with your very own vegetable garden and perhaps, even some beef cattle out in the remote buffer zones, and live the rest of your life in peace and serenity, both well protected by the praetorian trooper’s guard and far from the bustle and squalor of Sky Parlor.”

  The servant’s covetous eyes grew wide as the silver bar settled atop the table with a dull thud. Beneath the circular glow of the tall candelabra, its flawless surface began to shimmer like a precious jewel.

  Hunching forward, his eyes bulged with lust as he reached out to receive the uncommon gift. But while forming his fingers to grasp it, the pallid but agile hand thrust forth from out of the shadows. Snaring him like a snake’s predatory fangs, the cold fingers cruelly seized him by the wrist. He felt his heart begin to quake; his quivering limbs threatened to give way from underneath him.

  “Betray us, and I will utterly destroy you,” the solemn voice warned. “Do you understand?”

  19

  Grand Forum

  (SAGAN headquarters complex, Sky Parlor’s borough region of Sardinia)

  “Good evening, this is Polly from ZEN news welcoming everyone from around Sky Parlor for this livestreamed broadcast from SAGAN’s Grand Forum. Tonight, everyone will become witness to not only a great spectacle but to one of Sky Parlor’s most historic events since its founding over two centuries ago after the ‘Great Rapture.’”

  The ZEN reporter’s voice was drowned in a mayhem of joyous roars from the capacity crowd and the camera view panned toward four figures – donned in black and orange overalls stitched with SAGAN’s official emblem of a blue star topped with the image of a red crescent – emerging from a cavernous and lighted tunnel to stand underneath the Forum’s soaring puddingstone archway entrance.

  “As the millions of viewers across all thirteen borough regions of Sky Parlor and the tens of thousands filling the Forum to capacity here at the Forum can see, everyone is excited in anticipation for this exciting, momentous and historic event,” the ZEN news reporter’s voice strained over the mayhem din, “And now, behind me at the far end of the Forum, we can see the two pairs of SAGAN’s voyagers arriving onto the Forum plane, about to enter the twin teleportals placed inside and at the center of the holy pentagonal ring of red bricks, which in a few minutes after some words from our honorable President, Garth Ulysses, will teleport these intrepid young voyagers a long-distance out into our solar system and to specified coordinates located on Enceladus, a habitable moon orbiting the planet Saturn.”

  Lucius stepped from the sinuous brightly lit tunnel and onto the vast diamond configured grassy pitch with Boudica, Desmond, and Marissa. Glimpsing the towering tiers filled with cheering throngs, his thoughts began to wrangle with what he considered to have been the strange circumstances concerning Bobby. Had he been teleported to Enceladus ahead of the others as SAGAN officials claimed, and were they about to travel to ‘outer space’ or to somewhere else?

  “Wow, such a big crowd,” Lucius heard Boudica exclaim while waving toward the applauding tiers.

  “Don’t you think it’s more than a little strange about Bobby,” he remarked to her as Lucius’s eyes rimmed with sincerity and hints of terror in equal measure.

  “What did you say, Lucius?” Boudica hollered over the pounding din.

  “About Bobby,” Lucius bellowed over the crowd. “I can’t explain it, but I truly think something has happened to him and maybe it isn’t good – like maybe something similar to what happened to his friends on the varsity squad.”

  Boudica swiveled her head around as they approached the towering twin teleportal monoliths and while fixing Lucius with a dismissive glance, he observed – harboring some measure of reticence – her emerald eyes pinwheeled in ecstatic delight.

  “Just think Lucius, we get to spend some time together all alone on another world – no parents, nobody to bother us, and we get to make some scientific observations and perform experiments, and when we get back and arrive at our prom together, we’ll be heroes to everyone in Sky Parlor. The graduating senior class might even vote for us as king and queen of the prom,” she said while still waving to the crowd.

  “That’s great Boudica,” Lucius replied. “But you don’t think,” he reiterated, “there’s anything suspicious about Bobby?”

  “Forget about Bobby, Lucius,” Boudica shouted. “You heard Mister Romaine and the other SAGAN officials tell us, for the entire week, he’s going to be at the other camp half-way across the planet. What could be better than that?”

  “And now,” Polly from ZEN news announced, “I see the second pair of SAGAN’s intrepid explorers are about to step onto the pitch and enter the sacred ring of stones.”

  “I guess this is an opportune moment to tell you Marissa,” Desmond said as they both stepped from underneath the stone archway and onto the expansive Forum’s field of rich grass, “I’m glad you’ve chosen to go on this mission with me – you’re perhaps just one of a pair of the only honest and honorable people left in Sky Parlor, and the other is now no longer with us.”

  The capacity crowd again unleashed an untamed roar.

  “You wouldn’t consider yourself to be either honest or honorable, Dez,” Marissa wondered as they joined hands and began striding towards the behemoth teleportals.

  Desmond turned to gaze into Marissa’s sparkling eyes and could think of nothing other than his contempt for Commissioner Pembroke.

  “I can only say, Marissa,” he began to lament, “I’ve now become honorable enough to admit I’ve been honestly betrayed by someone in a great position of power and influence that I naively trusted.”

  Together, Chief Blythe and Chief Sustainability Councilor Plato Charlemagne stood watching the proceedings at the edge of the diamond shaped Forum’s field.

  “Per your request, Icarus,” Plato said, “soon after the attack on Praetorian headquarters by the rogue dro
ne, our techs examined the SAGAN teleportal coordinates and discovered Doctor Zoe’s whereabouts.”

  “And what did they find, Plato?”

  “Though the doctor did his best and took care to hide the coordinates within the algorithm of some obscure code, I was able to discern the destination coordinates are nearly identical to those now programmed for the SAGAN mission to Enceladus,” Plato revealed. “Only of course, Enceladus is not in outer space,” Plato divulged while stifling a mocking chuckle.

  “From our perspective that is rather simple to surmise. In that case, Plato,” Icarus said, “Zoe should not be hard to find.”

  “He’s in a location nearly twenty-five miles from President Ulysses’ private estate, far out beyond the city walls – a remote and mountainous area that, before the ‘Great Rapture,’ was formerly known as Rupert. According to ancient maps I consulted – kept locked away in the presidential palace’s archives – Rupert was an old farming town formerly located between the borders of the US states of New York and rural Vermont. It was thought by SAGAN officials that this was an ideal location from which to observe the results of their social experiment – to observe the mating habits developed between breeders and saints. This remote location also happens to nearly coincide with the hidden location of Doctor Zoe’s private estate and laboratory, where he reportedly, in secret, developed his holo-technologies for the popular narco-cubes and advanced saint models now found at his Paramount Gaming parlor in Columbia.”

  “Zoe is a very clever man and perhaps I underestimated him as a potentially formidable enemy,” Icarus replied with a hint of admiration. “But allow me to be frank with you, Plato. Considering all that has happened lately, I’ve grown weary acting as the president’s political enforcer and sole henchman.”