The Elders

by Dima Zales

  I succeed in overextending my attacker’s shoulder and use that moment to throw him off balance.

  As he falls, I catch a quick glimpse of him, which confirms his gender. This person is far too big to be a woman, at least an average-sized one. He’s wearing a strange mask, which prevents me from recognizing who he is. Aside from that, he’s wearing a plain black kimono and no shoes.

  I pay the price for examining my attacker. He does what looks like a breakdancing move, his legs sweeping mine.

  When I trained with Caleb at the Temple, the thing I learned best was how to fall, so I don’t flop down like a sack of potatoes. Instead, I make sure I land on my attacker with my elbow out, wrestling-style.

  My elbow plunges into his chest area, and his breath rushes out of him like air from a punctured balloon. I use my advantage to reach for the mask; I need to find out who this is since he’s likely the Super Pusher. If he is, by the way, then punching him in his privates already proved I was wrong in calling him a she.

  I move to complete the identification, but his hands catch mine before I can unfasten the mask. He rolls to his side, and I fight not to roll off him.

  We wrestle in the style of the ancient Greeks, each trying to catch the other in a submission lock. Only the Greeks didn’t allow dirty moves. Since this isn’t the Olympics, I bite his arm when he shoves it in my face. He retaliates by grasping for my genitals. I back away just in time.

  Unfortunately, he uses that moment to grab the tail end of the nearest bookshelf and tries to tip it over. Though the shelf doesn’t fall, it does lean. I snap to alertness when books rain down, slipping off the polished shelf. As I protect my head from the heavy tomes, he crawls away.

  I move to follow and notice he’s trying to topple the shelf from the other side. Again it leans, and before I get out of its path, a book hits me in the temple, blurring my vision and sending a wave of nausea through me.

  The masked attacker jumps up and makes a run for it.

  Ignoring the pain, I scramble to my feet and follow.

  He slams the door shut when I’m a foot away.

  I hear a click, and rage blazes through me.

  The bastard must’ve had a key to the library door.

  In my crazed state, it takes me only a few kicks to break the flimsy lock, which is clearly meant to be decorative. When the door swings open, my attacker is nowhere to be found.

  Damn it.

  At random, I choose a direction and run, checking rooms as I go. He’s not in what looks like a chemistry lab. Nor is he in a room filled with gorgeous rugs or the one filled with murals.

  A few more doors down, I find myself near a relatively small room that looks like a painter’s studio.

  There, without a care in the world and with his back to the door, a man is standing in a black kimono.

  What’s more, I see the strings from the mask that’s tied around his head.

  I enter the room silently, filled with grim anticipation. My heart is pounding from the fight and the chase.

  Maybe I’ll grab his head in a lock the way he did to me, or maybe I’ll do a karate-style neck chop first; the pain might disorient the fucker.

  Halfway to my target, I marvel at how quiet I am, despite my faster-than-usual breathing. Stealth isn’t something I ever thought myself capable of.

  “Darren,” a voice says from behind me, “what the hell are you doing?”

  Chapter 11

  Amazingly, the voice doesn’t startle my attacker. He’s still standing with his back to me. There’s something very ballsy about his lack of concern; he’s either really self-confident or deaf.

  Ignoring the voice, I continue on toward my strangely behaving target.

  He still doesn’t move.

  “Seriously, Darren, what in the world—”

  I think I recognize the voice. It sounds like Gustav. I don’t dwell on it or turn around to verify I’m right.

  Gustav, if that’s him, doesn’t get the chance to finish his monologue, because I grab the masked man in a deadly lock.

  Oddly, the masked man doesn’t react in any way. Something is weird about him—a stillness that is kind of familiar.

  Another masked figure materializes on our left.

  “Who are you?” the figure asks. I don’t recognize his voice. “Is it Celebration time already?”

  “It is,” Gustav says as I turn toward him, battling my confusion as I hold on to my unresisting victim. “Jamie, this is Darren, our visitor.”

  “Why did you pull me in in such a strange manner?” Jamie asks. “And why are you choking my frozen body?”

  “I would also very much like to know the answer to that question,” Gustav says, staring at me the way one might look at a rabid kangaroo.

  I release my hold on Jamie’s body and step back, more than a little baffled. “He just attacked me, in the library.”

  “I did not,” Jamie says, sounding outraged.

  “That’s impossible,” Gustav says. “You just pulled him in.”

  I ignore my attacker’s denial. “He must’ve been in this Mind Dimension before running back to his body and Splitting.”

  It’s the only explanation that makes sense to me.

  “I would have seen him enter this room,” Gustav says. “I came here right after we spoke, and I’ve been here reading. I was planning to pull him in in a few minutes.”

  “He must’ve done it somehow,” I persist. “How can you defend someone who’s clearly up to something shady? Just look at him.”

  Gustav looks the guy over, appearing more confused than before. “What about him?”

  “Do people often wear masks around the Castle?” My hands tighten at my sides. “It’s not exactly a—”

  “Wait,” Gustav says. “Jamie, please leave.”

  “He’s not leaving until—”

  “He is leaving right now,” Gustav says. What shocks me isn’t his words, but where he is when he says them.

  A moment ago, Gustav was sitting in his chair, but now he’s suddenly standing next to me.

  For someone of his late age, or for someone of any age, he moved very fast. He must’ve leapt so quickly and quietly that I didn’t even notice.

  Placing himself between Jamie and me, he says, “Please don’t do anything rash, Darren.”

  He says it calmly, yet there’s enough command and threat in his voice that I unclench my fists for the moment.

  I look at the guy he’s protecting and belatedly realize his mask may actually be slightly different from the one my attacker was wearing. He might also be a bit smaller in the shoulders. Still, I’m hesitant to let go of my only suspect so quickly.

  Taking my stunned expression as his cue, Jamie rushes out of the room.

  “Now,” Gustav says, “please tell me about this attack.”

  “Not before you tell me why you let my number-one suspect get away,” I say, my voice clipped.

  “I explained why he can’t be your attacker.”

  “But the mask—”

  “The mask and the black outfit are common during the Celebration, as are white and gray robes.”

  He walks over to the desk and picks up an object. It’s a blue Zorro-style mask, one that only covers the eyes.

  I realize he’s changed out of his plain hippie clothing and into a blue kimono-type outfit.

  The truth begins to dawn on me. “You guys are having a masquerade? In the morning?”

  That would explain the two men in masks—three, if I count Gustav.

  “We find that the Celebration is a good way for everyone on the Island to start their day, and for us to catch up with friends and family before we start the century without them.”

  “But masks?” I point at the frozen Jamie’s head.

  “They can spruce up any festivity, don’t you find?” Gustav says, putting on his own.

  “So I guess he didn’t attack me,” I say stupidly, looking at the frozen version of the guy. My heart is still pumping from the a
drenaline rush I just experienced.

  “No,” Gustav says and gestures for me to follow him. “Now tell me everything.”

  One thing is clear: if my attacker is the Super Pusher, Gustav is unlikely to be him. There’s little chance he changed his clothing this quickly. So, as we walk out of the room, I proceed to tell him what happened after I left the fountain get-together. Gustav doesn’t bat an eye at the story of how Victoria tried to seduce me and looks unreadable as I tell him about the fight.

  “That is most unfortunate,” he says thoughtfully after I’m done. “But as you now understand, it could’ve been any one of the people already pulled in for the Celebration.”

  “Or more likely, one of the Elders.”

  “No, it wasn’t one of us,” Gustav says and starts taking the stairs down. Over his shoulder, he adds, “What would give you such a preposterous idea?”

  I debate telling him about the Super Pusher, but decide against it. “I only know a handful of people here and most of them are the Elders.”

  “That is true, but the fact remains that if one of us wished to make you Inert, you would now be Inert.” He navigates the slippery stairs expertly, as only someone who’s done so a million times could.

  “You sound very confident.” I place my hand on the rail; unlike him, I could easily trip over the polished marble.

  “I do, but believe me, this confidence is not rooted in hubris. It’s merely a pragmatic way of looking at reality. Whoever attacked you must have been one of the Ambassadors, or someone who already lives on the Island, which includes the staff, our relatives, and many other people.” He reaches the end of the stairs and waits for me.

  “But I still think—”

  “Darren, why don’t you take my word for it for the moment? You will see the truth shortly, during the Celebration’s Challenge Game. In the meantime, having me around should prevent any more unfortunate attempts.”

  “I guess,” I say, following him down a corridor.

  I don’t say more because I’m distracted by masked figures—two men and one woman—walking toward us. My heart skips a beat when I look at the leftmost man. He looks identical to my attacker. I sure hope Gustav will have my back if push comes to shove.

  Then I look closer and notice that some of the details in this dude’s mask are a bit different from that of my attacker’s. For one thing, his mask has small nose holes, whereas my attacker’s mask was missing that detail. Seeing these masked people is reassuring in a way; it’s not that I didn’t believe Gustav, but as Eugene likes to say, “Trust, but verify.” On second thought, it’s also pretty frightening. This masked event will allow my attacker to walk around like nothing happened. He might even try to go at me again if the opportunity presents itself, and there isn’t much I can do about it.

  “That settles it,” Gustav says as we reach the end of the corridor. He opens the door, allowing me to go in first. “In this room, you should find a suitable mask for yourself.”

  The room we enter is every hardcore Halloweener’s wet dream. There are historical costumes, military uniforms, medical scrubs, and everything in-between.

  He points to a rack of robes. “Those are for the Celebration.”

  Rows upon rows of kimonos of all different colors, styles, and sizes are lined up against the wall. Each robe comes with a mask. The masks, for all their simplicity, differ in subtle ways. Black, white, and gray ones dominate over other colors, like Gustav mentioned, but the whole spectrum of the rainbow is represented.

  I settle on a green getup, just to be different.

  “Great choice,” Gustav says, admiring my new garb. “Let’s go.”

  He exits the room, and I follow him, ignoring the chafing of my over-starched kimono. We walk through the Castle, and I can’t help complimenting the intricate wall rugs that look like avant-garde paintings. Gustav seems pleased by my reaction, so I decide to ambush him while his guard is down.

  “Can you tell me about Nirvana?” I ask as we round the corner.

  He stops dead in his tracks, his eyes like ambers behind his mask. He recovers swiftly, however, and says, “This is something we should discuss when the others are around, though I’d love to know how you came across that term.”

  Since he doesn’t give me an answer, I decide to be vindictive and, in my best imitation of his voice, say, “It sounds like something we’ll discuss with the others. I’m a big fan of quid pro quo, you see.”

  He doesn’t say anything back, but I catch him rolling his eyes in annoyance. Good. We walk in an uncomfortable silence for a couple of minutes.

  “Is the Celebration taking place outside the Castle?” I ask, noticing that we’re walking toward the intricately designed entrance doors.

  “It takes place all over, but most of the merriment is happening at the fair.”

  As we walk farther, he tells me more about this tradition. As he alluded to earlier, this gathering is a way to motivate the Island residents to go about their day. It’s also a nice start to the century, which the Elders plan to spend by themselves. I strongly suspect the latter is more of a reason than the former. During the Celebration, the Island’s citizens are told the highlights of what the Elders achieved during the prior day’s Session—what he calls the hundred or so years spent in the Quiet. Apparently, the Elders don’t really talk to anyone after they do this Session. They have this whole set of rules of how they live outside the Quiet, some of which George hinted at. One of the biggest rules, it seems, is to not stress their physical bodies with unpleasant conversations. This rule, he assured me, is to make sure their bodies age as slowly as possible.

  “Seems antisocial,” I comment as Gustav and I walk into town.

  “But don’t you see how wasteful it would be to expend our mental resources outside the Mind Dimension?” Gustav retorts. “It’s far more rational to conserve our body’s energy and conduct our business when real-world time is at a standstill.”

  “But don’t you end up with the most boring lives imaginable while outside the Mind Dimension?”

  “Simple lives, yes, but I wouldn’t go as far as to call them boring. Even if those lives are perhaps uneventful, we more than make up for it when we Split the next day.”

  He proceeds to describe what their day outside the Quiet is actually like. It all revolves around a bunch of research they’ve been doing on the subject of longevity. He explains that when the Elders maximize their lifespans, they don’t just add a year here or a few days there as normal people do. It’s multitudes of centuries and millenniums of time in the Quiet that they gain. So they try to mingle with close friends and family, with no stressful topics allowed, in order to satisfy their basic needs for human companionship. For nourishment (his term), they eat mostly unprocessed, plant-based foods, emphasizing greens, beans, onions, mushrooms, and berries, with the very occasional wild fish mixed in. They do numerous relaxation techniques, drink a glass of red wine, work out in a special gym, nurture physical relationships with their loved ones (Gustav speak for daily hookups), walk barefoot through nature during most of the day, and make sure to get adequate amounts of sleep.

  “So, in other words, when you’re not doing your Sessions, you’re living in a health nut’s paradise,” I conclude, casting a suspicious glance at one of my attacker’s lookalikes as we pass him by.

  Gustav laughs. “You sound just like Victoria. She resents that lifestyle. If we didn’t enforce it for all the Elders, she’d probably smoke, curse, and—”

  “Why did she join you then?” I ask. “She strikes me as someone who likes her freedom.”

  “Because she enjoys her Sessions. We all do.”

  “Arts and crafts for a hundred years? Sign me up.”

  “That’s just one aspect of it,” Gustav says. “We do the things that make human beings unique. We do them all, and we take great pleasure in them. Victoria is very much one of us in that.”

  I nod absentmindedly as I look around.

  The houses in this
town are more decorated than a suburban neighborhood at Christmas, only the actual motif of this celebration is more reminiscent of Thanksgiving, what with the harvest-oriented decorations. A dirigible so big and colorful it would give the floats of Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade a run for their money drifts across the sky.

  “I heard you pass judgment when it comes to certain Guide-on-Guide crimes,” I say when I’ve heard enough about their lifestyle. “Does that happen during the Celebration?”

  “Not exactly,” Gustav says. “It’s something we only discuss with the Ambassadors. They give us new cases to review during the Session, and when it’s done, we hand over our decisions on the prior day’s cases.”

  “Are they all murder cases?” I ask, recalling how Thomas and Liz mentioned something along those lines.

  “They concern a variety of complex issues, things that require wisdom to judge.”

  It’s clear he’s not comfortable discussing this, and I don’t push the issue, since it’s not really that important to me.

  Throughout our conversation, I noticed more and more masked, cheerful people pulling their friends into the Quiet. My mental tally of near-duplicates of my attacker has reached double digits.

  “Can we stop to listen?” I ask as we near a group of masked musicians, one of whom also looks like my attacker. The music they’re performing is incredible.

  “Sure,” Gustav says, lowering his voice.

  “What’s that song they’re playing?” I ask in a reverent whisper after a couple of minutes. “I think it’s the most hauntingly beautiful melody I’ve ever heard.”

  “Thank you,” he whispers back. “I wrote that score myself.”

  When the song is over, we resume walking, and I wonder whether I’ll become desensitized to all this breathtaking art surrounding the Island. I’ve been meaning to take Mira out to do something ‘normal,’ and after this, that something might not be a museum, at least not for a while.

  We approach a heavily decorated square, and I suspect that my attacker-lookalike count will soon reach triple digits. I surreptitiously move closer to Gustav.

  This square seems to be the epicenter of the Celebration. Crowds of people surround stalls filled with games and displays.