Wyrmhole: Jack Stein #1 New Edition

by Jay Caselberg

  "Mister Stein," he said.

  Jack really didn't have time for this. "What do you want, Ng?"

  "I would suggest a little more civility, Mister Stein."

  "You can have your civility. I've already answered your questions. What do you want with me now?"

  "We have fresh information, Mister Stein, and we'd like you to corroborate a few things."

  "I've corroborated about all I'm going to. What right have you to drag me in here without any decent explanation?"

  "Tell me about the girl."

  "What girl?"

  "The girl at Heironymous Dan's apartment. We have reason to believe he had a young girl staying with him. Would you know anything about that?"

  Shit. They knew about Billie. Think quickly, Stein. How much should he tell them? But wait a minute. If he had been on the apartment’s security records, Billie should have been there too. There was only one conclusion. He was right. All the records had been doctored and that could mean only one thing. Someone had been feeding the police information. There was no other way they could have known he was there. It was the only way they could have known Billie was there too. But who?

  "Why would I know anything about that? I told you the first time we spoke that I'd visited the apartment. That's all. Now, if you want to read anything more into it, then that's up to you, but I don't know what you want. Maybe it’s about time you started answering some of my questions."

  "We've had information, Mister Stein, that you've been seen in the company of a young girl — a young girl who fits the description of the girl that was staying with Heironymous Dan."

  "That’s bullshit, Ng. Information from whom? And why? Why would anybody tell you that?"

  "That's unimportant. It just seems very peculiar don't you think? You visit Mister Dan at his apartment, and he subsequently disappears. Then you're seen in the company of this young girl, and she appears to have vanished as well."

  Shit again. Someone was watching him — had to be. Time to clam up in case he inadvertently gave anything else away.

  "Listen, Ng, unless you've got anything other than a few unfounded rumors to go on, I've got nothing to say to you. We can sit here all day if you like, but I've said all I'm going to say."

  He crossed his arms and stared across the table, daring Ng to push it any further.

  Ng smiled. It was the last thing Jack expected. The Special Investigator leaned across the table, putting his face close to Jack's, the smile still plastered across his features.

  "Well, Mister Stein, I find your attitude very disappointing. Especially in light of the unusual circumstances. I don't quite know yet what we will charge you with, but we will charge you. It's somewhere between unlawful abduction and murder. I haven’t decided quite which, yet." He stretched his hands wide for emphasis, looking at first one then the other. "Somewhere in between here lies your guilt, Mister Stein, and I'm going to find out exactly where. Until that time, I've decided for the good of the community you will remain confined here. We have a nice little room for you. Comfortable, but basic. Very basic. Somewhere we can keep an eye on you."

  He took a moment for what he was saying to sink in, then sat back, looking satisfied. It was time for Ng to cross his arms. There they sat, both with crossed arms, staring across the table at each other, Ng with his self-satisfied smile and Jack with tight-lipped mouth. For about a minute, Jack's resentment overcame his rationality, and then he realized the full implications of what Special Investigator Ng was telling him.

  "Listen, Ng. I can't afford to stay here. I've got work to do. Stuff I have to look after. I'm working on a couple of contracts at the moment, and things are finely balanced. I need to be out and about."

  "You had your chance, Stein. Now it's my turn."

  Jack lapsed into silence. It wasn't like the old vids. Ng could do just about what he liked. There wasn't any trial process. There wasn't any jury of one's peers. There weren't any lawyers. There wasn't even a judge, unless you counted Ng himself. The police went about their business and justified whatever they did through a series of reports to the people who kept the force running.

  "I see you're finally starting to understand the gravity of your situation," said Ng. "Now, if you were to tell me where Heironymous Dan is now, and perhaps also his young companion, it might help, but otherwise..."

  Jack sighed in response. "I don't know. I wish I did. Listen, Ng. You've got my records. It's not my style. Even you should be able to realize that. So why don't you let me go and I'll get on with what I'm supposed to be doing? That way we both might find out what's happened to one Heironymous Dan."

  "Don’t play games with me, Stein. You can give me more than that."

  Jack gave a heavy sigh. "It's all you're going to get."

  Ng slapped the table. "Enough!"

  One of the other officers appeared in the doorway, awaiting instructions.

  "Take him to the cells. Take his handipad, whatever else he has. I want him to have plenty to think about."

  Ng stood and faced the wall, turning his back as Jack was led wordlessly from the room.

  He was escorted in silence down a long corridor to a desk. Just as they'd been directed, Jack was searched, his handipad taken, the couple of spare patches from his inside pocket and his coat removed. Another corridor, a small door and they led him into a small windowless cell. The walls were bare, unmarked. One thing about the Locality: graffiti, small scratchings saying you'd been somewhere didn't last very long. Even that small avenue of making your mark on the world had been programmed out of existence. A small cot bed lay against one wall and a toilet in one corner. A basic hand basin was attached to the wall beside the toilet. That was it.

  "I hope you like things simple," said the officer who now stood in the doorway. "Welcome home." He grinned and shut the door. The locking mechanism slid firmly into place.

  oOo

  Black and silver. Black and silver. The dream was upon him. He knew it was a dream. Things just weren't adding up. Something slithered across his foot. There was a metallic rasp against his boot. It was a snake. Tiny, tiny, the serpent had a black front half and the rear was colored silver. Jack peered at it as its body wave-formed away from his foot. The rear section scales were not just colored silver; they were actual silver, metal. The rasping had been the feeling of sharp metal against the thick, hard tops of his boots. He stepped after the snake, but it slipped away into the darkness, elusive.

  For the first time, he noticed how dark it was. A thick blanket of gloom sat over everything, not that he could make out what the everything was. He had to strain to pierce the velvet darkness. It was a dream, wasn't it? He knew it was a dream, but he was powerless to control its direction. Not good.

  A sense of foreboding swept over him, and with the foreboding came despair. What was he doing here — in the middle of nothingness? The blackness trickled through his perceptions and on into his chest. A sigh broke inside him, deep, forlorn, and he took another step. There was nothing for him here. Nothing for him anywhere. Pointless.

  A glimmer of light in front, or perhaps it was merely his imagination, his senses creating a visual image to make up for the starvation of the darkened void.

  But no. There was something there, off in the distance. The vaguest hint of light smudged the darkness in front of him. A rush of hope spread through him, replacing the sense of desolation inside and he stepped toward the faint beacon that beckoned him forward. All around, on every side, came the sound of rustling. He daren't seek that sound, for inside, he knew it whispered peril. He had to focus, to seek the light. What was beyond the thick blankness, he didn't need to know. He didn't want to know.

  After what seemed an eternity, the source of luminescence started to take shape. It was tall, vaguely oval, and with each step he took, its form became more defined. With each deliberate placement of each foot, forcing himself relentlessly forward, the ever-present rustling grew stronger, louder in his ears. For an instant, the sound distracte
d him as he realized what noise it was. It was the sound of scales, hundreds, thousands of scales rasping as they slid over one another. With that understanding, Jack suddenly knew fear.

  Taking a deep breath, he willed himself to ignore the noise, instead concentrating on the shape ahead. One purposeful step after the other, he drew closer. The vague light grew more distinct, silvery within the black and he stopped. Standing defiant in the midst of nothingness was a giant oval shape, a jet and silver torus that stretched high above him. He allowed his gaze to track its form and finally, as the details were lost in its vastness, he recognized the shape for what it was — a giant serpent, half silver, half black, the end of its tail grasped firmly in its jaws. Vague feathery formations projected just behind its head. A blood red eye stared sightlessly into the blankness, faceted, a huge red jewel. Here then was Ouroboros standing in the darkness — the wyrm of old. He swallowed. His legs were shaking, and there was cold sweat on his forehead.

  With an effort, he tore his attention from the jeweled eye and looked down, into the interior of the vast coiled loop. He hadn't noticed it before, because it was black against deeper blackness. The serpent shape encircled a tall black door. Etched upon the door's surface were letters in an ancient script he recognized, but not that he could decipher. He knew what the letters said, what they meant, but he still couldn't read them. The doorway, the portal, stood before him, beckoning. And as Jack stood there, trepidation pounding in his chest, without a sound, the door swung slowly open.

  "Jesus," he breathed.

  Behind the doorway a vast tunnel lay revealed, stretching off into the gloom. It had walls, but it had no walls. The surfaces shimmered and crawled with ill-defined shapes. They were shapes, but not shapes and every time he tried to focus in the angles, lines, impossibilities, they slipped from his grasp, over through and between one another. The rustling murmur grew in pitch, pressing against his ears. What was he supposed to do? Step inside there? No way.

  With that last thought came silence, sudden, complete. Vast crashing empty silence. And all was still.

  "It's time, Jack Stein." The voice floated up to him from the depths of the tunnel. Laughter. "It's time and more than that." More laughter. He knew the voice, the laugh. The White-Haired Man was back. "Show me, Jack Stein. Where is your girlfriend now?"

  Jack could do nothing but stare as a giant face took shape within the tunnel's bounds.

  Dammit. He wasn't going to play with this malevolent vision. Not this time.

  With an all-encompassing flash of brightness, everything changed. What had been black became white. What had been silver, became ebony. It flickered and flashed, back and forth, changing from one instant to the next. He winced against the visual assault, the strobing images, trying to concentrate on the huge face. Flickering. Hard to pay attention. Pounding his senses with light. But in those brief flashes, he saw. He saw what had been hidden. The White-Haired Man was not a white-haired man at all. He had long dark hair, dark, deeply tanned skin, and his eyes were normal. Dark, dark eyes — almost too dark.

  The images had been reversed all along.

  Look at one side, then the other. Seek the other side. He’d had the clue all along.

  oOo

  Jack struggled back to consciousness, grasping at the threads of reality. He was still groggy from the sleep, but there was something else now — excitement. Why his dreams should give him something now was a puzzle, but he'd definitely gotten something. Now he had a picture of who he needed to find. The White-Haired Man who wasn't. He couldn't keep thinking of him like that. He was linked to the snakes somehow and if he could work out the connections or who this guy might be, then a few more little pieces of the whole would be falling into place. Well, one thing was for sure. Whoever this guy was, he wasn't Pinpin Dan. Bony facial structure, but the pallid pasty features of Mister Heironymous Dan didn't fit the picture, and Pinpin did have white hair, almost, if you discounted those nasty yellowish, gray streaks.

  Jack looked around the blank, featureless cell. Not so different from his offices really. Maybe his subconscious had made the connection and invoked the dream. It didn't matter now, but the similarity stayed with him, locking himself away in a cell to do his work. Great.

  He dragged his fingers through his hair. Look at you, Stein, he thought. What sort of existence is this? Sure there were advantages to self-enforced solitary, but there had to be limits, right? The sound of the door opening halted that line of thought in its tracks, and making sure his face was blank, he looked up to see who it was. Some nondescript officer stood in the doorway, not one of the ones who'd brought him in.

  "Come on, Stein. On your feet."

  Jack just growled at him.

  "Look, Stein, you can stay here if you want, but you're free to go."

  "What?" Jack looked at him blankly.

  "You've got some pretty powerful friends, Mister Stein. I'd count myself lucky if I were you."

  Jack pushed himself to his feet, confused. Yeah, Lucky Stein. Lucky all right. But right now, this wasn't making sense. Despite further questions, he couldn't get anything more from the officer and he was led unprotesting out of the cell, down the same corridor to collect his belongings. Within moments, he was deposited outside the front doors blinking stupidly at the expanse of park and trees and the edges of the lake and none the wiser. There'd been no sight of Ng, nor either of the officers who'd brought him in. Pretty powerful friends. He scratched at the back of his neck. Well, someone was looking after him, but he'd have to worry about that later. For now, he needed a shower and a change of clothes.

  It was a long walk back through the park to the shuttle stop. He strode, head down, his hands shoved in his coat pockets, fingering his handipad. As he touched it, his stomach lurched. What if they'd been through it, seen what was on it? He'd just have to hope they hadn't. He wouldn't normally give the police a second thought, but now, suddenly, they too were trouble. He was starting to become too complacent. He'd been relying on his instincts, his natural luck and a sense of wrongness to warn him, instead of using his head. It was about time he used his brains as well. That was what was wrong with this coddled existence, everything on hand at a spoken command, things delivered to you from walls and ceiling panels and little mobile drones that followed you around. You just expected things to be fed to you. The place conditioned you.

  By the time he reached the edges of the park and walked along the street, nursing his preoccupation, finally ending up at the shuttle stop, he was starting to formulate a plan of action. Top of the list was keeping out of the way of the police. He had things to do, and couldn't afford their interference. He didn’t really need an extra risk now, particularly if they actually had been at his handipad.

  FOURTEEN

  Back at his apartment, Jack knew what he had to do. He had to go back to the snakes, back to the Ouroboros. That was where all this had started. The dream he'd had in the cells only enforced the need, a need he was conscious of without the sleeping prompt. The ring. The symbol in the mine. That was his first clue. Sure, he'd been taken down the path of the Tree of Life, but somehow they were linked. Ten spheres, ten points, there was a message there too, but he didn't know what it was yet. Virtually all the dreams he'd had since the mine dream had been populated by snakes, or snake-like things. His subconscious, his other sense, was trying to tell him something and he had still not made the connection. It was no point going to his office and invoking a dream state. A dream would just tell him the same things all over again. He was just being too stupid or maybe just too lazy to pick up the link. He called up the material Billie had saved for him and started scanning. It wasn't long, with his attention properly focused this time, before a new passage jumped out at him:

  It is interesting to speculate if this stone is not the original archetype of the Holy Grail (which has alternately been described as a cup, a stone and a light by different mystics) or the Philosopher's Stone, which has the ability to open up the Ouroboros or c
lose it.

  Wait a minute. So here, the Ouroboros was merely symbolic of a doorway. Some sort of gateway or portal. The circle of the snake could open or close. That was what the passage was saying. Exactly like it had in the dream in the police cells. And this was a clear link to the alchemical stuff as well. The Philosopher's Stone could open the doorway represented by the Ouroboros. Doorways, gateways, leading into what?

  "The thing in the cloud place. The water place. The air place. The place of dark earth. I don't know."

  The dream had been telling him it was a place unlike any other. Okay, that was a start. The images were implying there was some sort of gateway that led into another — what? He continued scanning, and discovered another linked passage. Old, old stuff.

  Far off, unknown, beyond the range of thought,

  Scarce reached by gods, the years' rough haggard mother,

  Stand a primeval Cave in whose vast breast,

  Is Time's cradle and womb. A Serpent encloses

  The Cave, consuming all things with slow power,

  And green scales always glinting. Its mouth devours

  The backbent tail as with mute motion it traces,

  Its beginning. At the entrance Nature sits

  The threshold-guardian, aged and yet lovely

  And round her gather and flit on every side

  Spirits. A Venerable Man writes down

  Immutable laws. He fixes the number of stars

  In every constellation, makes some of them move and others hang at rest...

  ... Of its own accord, the adamantine door swung open, revealing the huge interior, displaying the House

  the Secrets of Time.

  Making the stars move, eh? The Secrets of Time. A vast house? All he'd seen in the dream had been some sort of shapeless tunnel. Yet, through all of this stuff there was a common binding thread. Motion. Gateways. Doors. And now there were references to space and stars. Movement. The serpent climbed the kabalistic tree, tracing a path through the ten nodes, ten spheres, to reach what? Transcendence? Enlightenment? No, that was too mystical. There had to be something rooted in reality that tied it all together. There was the mention of Nature. Nature guarding the doorway. Interesting...