Low City: Missing Persons (A Tractus Fynn Mystery Book 3)

by Alexander, MK

  “The builders?’

  “To my mind, mythical beings… and yet, someone did build this place, the Library, and the various points of departure scattered across the globe.”

  “Another vortex?”

  “There may even be a few undiscovered locations,” Lothar added with some enthusiasm.

  “Highly doubtful,” Mr Q said.

  “What about the circle of null?” Lothar protested.

  “It doesn’t exist to my mind.”

  “Is there a temple here?” I asked. “Or its equivalent?

  “Of course.”

  “Does it connect to the one in New York? Along the Hudson?

  “Heavens no.”

  “Where does it lead?”

  “Lead? Hmm, if one were to burrow through the Earth in a straight line, I suppose you’d pop up near Costa Rica, or the Corn Islands, in the Atlantic.”

  “What does this vortex do then?”

  “Would you like to see?” Mr Q asked. “Let’s take a stroll, shall we?”

  chapter fifteen

  rising tide

  Mr Quandary, Lothar and I walked down to the ground floor and exited through the dark museum. Outside again, the heat was oppressive, the air tropically thick, though there was a very steady breeze.

  “Is it always this windy?”

  “Yes, even during the doldrum season.”

  “Why is that?”

  “Full of questions, aren’t you, Mr Jardel? I suppose it has to do with the time differential and the weather.”

  They led me to a small enclosure some distance from the main tower. It was surrounded by a tall wrought iron fence. Lothar unlocked the door carefully and ushered me inside. “Watch where you step,” he warned.

  I stood on the edge of what seemed to be a large flat stone cut in a perfect circle. There were engraved markings along the perimeter, and a bench about three feet high that enclosed a different circular stone, this one jet black and highly polished, almost like obsidian.

  “It is exactly the opposite of the temple at the Palisades,” Mr Q explained. “Here, time is constrained but space is not.”

  “Huh?” I reacted. “Wait, you mean, time doesn’t change but I can jump to anywhere?”

  “Not exactly. It allows one to jump in space but not in time.”

  “Sounds ideal.”

  “Hardly,” Mr Q replied and arched an eyebrow. “It dampens one’s inertia, momentum. You don’t move at all, but the earth does.”

  “I’m not getting this.”

  “Obviously not. When I say that time is constrained, I mean, if you were to jump to the center, you’d likely end up in orbit.”

  “Why?”

  “Because the earth has moved to a new location while you have not. For you, time was completely constrained. Lothar can do the math for you.”

  I turned to him and he looked down with a smile. “If it takes a second to jump, the earth has revolved on its axis approximately half a kilometer, and orbited the sun for about thirty more; the whole solar system has travelled around the galaxy for two hundred kilometers—”

  “Lothar, enough,” Mr Q interrupted, but the giant continued:

  “Well, not accounting for galactic drift, in all, you’d be floating above the earth just shy of four hundred kilometers.” He pointed. “In that direction.”

  “It doesn’t sound very practical. It sounds deadly.”

  “Not at all, it’s very useful for disposing of things,” Mr Q said.

  I saw a small smile slip from Lothar’s lips.

  “You don’t mean people?”

  “Heavens no.” Mr Quandary laughed a bit.

  “What then?”

  “We get an inordinate amount of junk mail delivered here.”

  I had a mental image of some envelopes floating amidst the stars.

  “It’s also good for buckets of toxic waste.”

  “What?”

  “We have a small disposal contract with the Australian government.”

  “Why would someone ever build something like this?”

  “One of life’s great mysteries… I’ll concede.”

  “Well, if I’m understanding this, isn’t it your holy grail?”

  “How do you mean?”

  “I remember you mentioning something to me: a single thing in all the cosmos that is not moving at all.”

  Mr Q seemed puzzled. “You mean if one were to jump from this temple?”

  “You said the earth moves but you don’t.”

  “So I did… I never considered this before. You may be onto something.”

  “How about a way to stop time for everyone except yourself?”

  “How extraordinary… Might make for a good story, but I can’t imagine how it’s possible or even feasible.”

  “Maybe Edmund or Pavel could come up with something? Like a bubble that protects you from time…”

  “What makes you conjure up such a preposterous idea?”

  “The Flatlands.”

  “The Flatlands? Ha,” Mr Q scoffed. “It doesn’t exist. It’s a myth, a fallacy.”

  I saw the goliath fidgeting on the bench. “Lothar doesn’t seem to agree. And Mr Mekanos said it only exits in nineteen sixty-four.”

  “That’s ludicrous.”

  ***

  The sun was too soon to sink below the horizon as we made our way back towards the tower. We must have made an odd sight. A goliath in a white tunic, a man with a cape, and a tourist with a cane, all strolling along a crushed shell path. There were no witnesses though. As far as I could tell the rest of the island was deserted.

  “Of course you’ll be our guest for the evening; spend the night, why don’t you?” Lothar broke the silence. “It’s so rare that we have visitors.”

  “If it’s not too much trouble.”

  “No trouble at all. We’ll find you a nice cozy cell in the catacombs.”

  “Catacombs?”

  The Quantifier laughed at my expression. “That’s just what we call the lower chambers… They’re more akin to bedrooms. We try to sleep in proper time when possible.”

  “Just below the kitchen,” Lothar explained. “And I’ll make us all a lovely supper. Do you like seafood?”

  I nodded.

  “Shellfish? It’s very fresh, considering.”

  “Um, sure.”

  “Don’t spend too much time upstairs, Lothar,” Mr Q cautioned. “We’re all quite famished as it is, I’d imagine.”

  “Be as quick as I can.” Lothar grinned and lumbered off ahead to the tower. Mr Q and I maintained our ambling pace towards the shore.

  “The rest of the islands in this chain make up a coral atoll, yet this particular piece of land is a guano island.”

  “A what?”

  “Accumulated guano. Millions of years of avian excrement.”

  I thought twice about the crunchy path below my feet.

  “We are all creatures of habit, Mr Jardel. I am no exception. Most every evening I take this same path to the beach. I turn left and follow the shore, always with the wind to my back.” He nodded up ahead. “Habits and routine are often the enemy of awareness.”

  “Are you trying to say everyone is a traveler?”

  “I might not put it that way. Certainly not all travel requires moving to the past or the future,” Mr Q replied. “You must realize that the most common kind of travel is in the present, from one timeline to the next. For the most part, people are completely oblivious to this, yet it happens all the time.”

  “Do you mean parallel dimensions?”

  “A misleading term to my mind… You of all people, Mr Jardel, must realize that another timeline is not another place.” The Quantifier smiled. “True, it may seem that way, especially if you think you’ve traveled there, but I assure you it is the same place and time. Only the events are different.”

  “So… it’s like traveling sideways?”

  “That’s one way to say it.” Mr Q laughed. “It’s wholly a matter o
f perception. A timeline can only exist if you’ve experienced it. Surely Fynn has explained this much.”

  “He may have mentioned it.”

  “A timeline can only be a reality if you live through it. Otherwise it exists only in one’s imagination.”

  “Or your memory.”

  “Indeed.”

  “Why do you suppose no one notices any of this?”

  “As I’ve said, most human beings are slaves to habit, and hence their lives don’t change very much.”

  “Their timelines?”

  “Yes… or their lives. People relish their routine, they take comfort in their regular ordered existence. Generally, they rise each morning, drink the same beverage, take the same road to and from work, interact with the same people, and perform the same repetitive tasks. Very little changes for them.”

  “Not everyone is like that.”

  The Quantifier turned to look at me. “I suppose you are correct, Mr Jardel, though even your extraordinary memory must have its limits.”

  ***

  It was very dark by the time Mr Q and I returned to the tower. The wind had not abated in the least. We trudged up to his study again. And it wasn’t long before our goliath suddenly appeared rolling a dinner cart with him. Lothar had prepared a delicious dinner of scallops florentine in a light béchamel. He lowered himself into a special chair at the table that was twice as wide as the others, and half as tall. Once we all sat, he appeared almost normal-sized. Despite lavish compliments from Mr Q and I about the gourmet fare, Lothar harshly criticized his own sauce, blaming the terrible lack of fresh oregano.

  Mr Q began our dinner conversation by saying, “We are fast approaching the dark times.”

  “How fast?”

  “Eh? Oh… a few hundred years, I suppose.”

  “And where is that on your scale of inevitability?

  “Most timelines funnel that way, but not all.”

  “What can we do to stop it?”

  “We?”

  “Hypothetically.”

  “That’s almost amusing, Patrick.”

  “Is this future assured then?”

  “By no means. It all depends on what we do in the past.”

  “You mean the present?”

  “No, the past. The present has already been lost.”

  “How?”

  “Take the people of your era, the so called environmentalists… Sad to say, but they are fighting a battle which has already been lost.”

  “Why?”

  “They are despised by industry, branded as extremists or liberals… and yet, they are at the heart of things, very conservative.”

  “I’m not following.”

  “They rail against change, even geological change… If it were up to them, they would see the polar ice caps remaining intact.”

  “And they shouldn’t?”

  “Surely, the epochs tell us otherwise.” Mr Q dabbed his mouth with a napkin. “Now that humans are out and about on the planet with such force, geology takes a backseat— wouldn’t you agree?”

  “So we can change things?”

  “Of course.”

  “When did we start going down this road?”

  “The road to our own destruction?”

  “Yes.”

  “I would guess the pivotal moment was at the turn of the twentieth century… when the idea of unbridled progress took hold— with never a thought to its consequences, I hasten to add.”

  “And no one noticed this was happening?”

  “Hmm… I suppose there were a few dissenting voices at the time… Even one of your presidents seemed to be aware of the situation.”

  “Who?”

  “One of your Roosevelts… he recognized unbridled progress was not necessarily beneficial.”

  “Oh, I guess you mean Teddy.”

  “That’s the man. A conservationist at heart. Set aside vast tracts of land to be preserved… an environmentalist, you might say in hindsight.”

  “Isn’t there anyway to avoid the dark future at this point in history?”

  “I’d say no. You’d have to change a lot of people’s minds, their habits, their routines— and I don’t think it’s possible.”

  “Can you be more specific?”

  Mr Q thought for a moment. “Alright then, take the death of the ocean.”

  “What?”

  “The collapse of life in the seas.”

  “Is that even possible?”

  “Probable is the better word. The question becomes: How to prevent such a thing?”

  I had no answer to that.

  “For example, do you think it’s possible to convince billions of people the world over to stop drinking water from tiny plastic bottles?”

  “Probably not. They are sort of convenient…”

  ***

  Near the end of dinner, in fact, just as I pushed my plate away, I heard an odd howling noise. A low moaning. I looked at my companions; Lothar and Mr Q seemed unfazed.

  “Oh yes, it’s our cat. He lives upstairs,” Mr Q explained.

  “I’ve never heard a cat meow like that.”

  “The flow of time can distort the sound.”

  “What’s his name?”

  “Um… Mr Snuggles,” Lothar said.

  It was immediately clear that both men were lying. They were shifting glances around the room. I suspected that whatever was upstairs, it was far larger than a cat and decided to investigate. I stood abruptly and sprang across the room, up the sloping floor.

  “Stop him,” Mr Q called to his giant.

  Lothar was huge and strong but he was slow. I was out of sight before he even rose from his chair, and sprinted up the slight incline. The room seemed to narrow and the floor grew steeper. I knew that time was becoming thicker. Physically, it was like walking through water, or unseen jello; though the sensation soon passed.

  Then an earthy odor assaulted. I thought it might be a barn full of livestock. Sure enough, as I rounded the curve, I came across what looked like an indoor farm. There were clucking chickens, and pigs, even a cow in a stall. The animals seemed a bit startled by my presence. I looked around to see crates of produce stacked neatly everywhere.

  The barn however was not the source of the low moaning, nor was it Mr Snuggles. I heard it again from above, and it sounded a bit more human this time. I continued upwards, figuring I had wound around the building at least twice and was probably on the fourth or fifth floor. At the next curve I came upon a completely different scene:

  It seemed to be a make-shift prison, a kind of cell walled off with thick bamboo bars, though I did have to admit it looked cozy inside. I saw a nice Persian rug, wicker chairs and a cozy sofa. There was a four poster bed, an easel in the corner with an unfinished painting, and well-stocked bookshelves. On the table lay piles of fresh fruit and flowers.

  On the bed though, a man was tied there— the source of the low moaning. He looked to be a Drummond, or some iteration thereof, one of his doubles at the very least. And since he had a long beard, I took him to be Kaiser Wayne, though that may have been a bad assumption.

  “Thank you, thank you…” the man kept muttering as I undid his binds. He rubbed his wrists and stepped to the floor. Testing his legs to find them operational, he bolted out the cell door, then looked left and right, and sprinted up the spiraling corridor… and when I say sprinted, he appeared to be in a running posture, though his movements were almost comical, as he seemed to be in slow motion. I fared no better as I followed him ever higher.

  I caught up to the man after a few levels, and in a very different room. It was dark except for an odd strobing light which leaked in from a courtyard window. I watched him pull a huge lever. A counter weight dropped somewhere. I could hear rattling chains and gears groan as they began to move slowly. A giant door to the outside lifted at a constant speed, like some garage opening. I could hear a whistling noise. The tropical air assaulted again, and as a strong wind against us. Next to me was a large boat
of unknown design, sleek and incredibly modern. It was suspended in a harness and seemed poised to launch at a moment’s notice.

  “It’s happening again,” the man screamed and pointed outside. “Last time they left me here to drown.”

  I looked to the horizon which seemed a good deal higher than it should be. The whole tower was either sinking or the ocean was rising— something like a slow motion tsunami. My brain couldn’t quite comprehend what my eyes saw. Daylight flickered on and off, as if I were blinking as fast as I could. But I wasn’t…

  These were days going by outside, and faster than I could count. The ocean grew ever closer and soon enough it was lapping at the base of the tower. I feared for everyone on the other islands and glanced outside, expecting to see tiny people scurrying as the water rose, but there was nothing left but ocean waves.

  “It’s not what it seems,” Mr Q said unexpectedly. He and Lothar had also caught up to us. The man turned to them. I saw panic cross his expression. He hesitated for a moment then leapt through the door. He was swept sideways, presumably by the ferocious wind, then fell somewhere unseen.

  “How tragic,” I heard Lothar say.

  “Was that Drummond or Kaiser?” I asked above the wind.

  “A Drummond,” Mr Q called back.

  “What happened?”

  “We plucked him into the future… from the asylum… back in nineteen thirty-three.”

  “Why?”

  “It was fascinating for me to see if he would be obliterated from history.”

  “What?”

  “We invited him here before you and Fynn prevented the first Drummond from duplicating himself. As his offspring, I wanted to see if this version would still persist through time.”

  “A lab rat?”

  “He was our guest, though as you might have noticed, he was not in proper time… He was living in the future, so to speak.”

  “In that cell?”

  “His room, yes… and in slow time. Only a day passed for him, while downstairs a year would go by for us.”

  I tried to make sense of this. “I seem to recall that Lothar killed two Drummonds by bashing them together and throwing them in the pool.”

  “Yes, and I’m sure he would feel terrible about it if he remembered.” Mr Q paused. “Perhaps this is why he took pity on the third Drummond we found.”