by Jae Vogel
Cries rose into the air all around me, as the terrified administrative staff of Gratis dove down to the floor. As she ran, I realized a gun was in my left hand. Blood had been spilled on the floor of the hospital floor, and I intuitively knew that the while the blood had not all been from my own body, I was without question the source of the violence inflicted.
My hands rose up to steady the firearm on one of the high-end administrative assistants of Gratis. The woman dove to the floor, weeping, and praying to whatever god she believed in that she would live to see the end of the day.
The gun was lowered, and my hand was placed on the surface of the server with the information in question. A surge of electricity entered my body, and my mind was flooded with the information contained within. There was an explosion, from the power supply and the server was fried. Lights went out through the entire building, for the ten seconds necessary for her to jump onto the desk and pop open the nearest ceiling panel. As the emergency system came back on, warning lights followed us into the ventilation shafts which wove about, just below the roof of the building.
"The roof! Suspect is headed toward the roof!"
I couldn't distinguish between the pounding of her heartbeat and the sound of footsteps, hammering up the stairwell toward the roof access.
A panel was kicked out from under our feet, and we landed on the surface of a metal floor of a service elevator. The elevator was commanded to descend, and then moments later, she reached out her hand and pulled the emergency switch, halting the elevator in mid descent.
"Service elevator, twelfth floor!"
Wearily, I watched my own body struggle to climb out of the elevator. A sharp pain shot through my shoulder and I nearly fell to the ground.
Summoning strength that can only be attributed to divine agency, she pulled herself up through the panel, and stood on top of the service elevator's roof. Without a moment's pause, she stripped off her sweater and unloaded the clip of the firearm. The clip and the weapon were quickly bound up within the shirt and the improvised clamp was placed in my right hand.
The distance between the elevator we were standing on and the pulley system adjacent to us was a solid eight feet through the void of the darkened hollow spine of the Gratis hospital. Emergency lights flashed their warning sign throughout the void, providing the lighting necessary for this final, desperate maneuver.
I watched myself sprint to the end of the elevator and leap into the nothingness beyond. The red light flashed at exactly the point of contact; her legs wrapped around the elevator cable, while her hand sandwiched the cable between the two wrapped components of the stolen firearm. A terrible fear swallowed me, followed by a blinding, searing hot shower of sparks as the pulley burned through the contact points where the weapon met the steel cables of the elevator.
She closed our eyes, and I felt the hot sting of burning metal dig into the flesh of my arms. The hands clutched tight, and the legs stabilized our descent. The floor rose up to reach our feet, with only minor pains from the accelerated impact.
Still holding onto the shredded remains of the sweater, and the destroyed firearm bound within it, we stumbled out of an emergency fire door and into the morning light.
Chapter 9
The police had concentrated the majority of their strike force within the top of the building itself. There were a few officers still stationed on the outside of the hospital. I was aware of them in a vague sense, as though one is aware of cars passing on the street, even though my attention was elsewhere. But what took up the majority of my attention in the moment was nothing more or less than hearing my body breathe.
She still retained control of my autonomy, though by that point, it was clear that she had expended far more energy than she was capable of, and would soon need a rest.
Soldiering on, she ducked through a hole in the fence on the far side of the Gratis parking lot. Obscured by a thick hedge, we made our way to the railroad tracks which ran along the skirts of downtown.
Tattoo.
The word came into my mind. More like a directive than anything else. Without conscious association or the realization of what I was doing, my mind came up with all relevant information in my memory about reputable tattoo shops in the area. Really, there was only one that I ever frequented, and that was before all of my money went toward buying junk. The affair with needles and pain started longer ago than I care to admit, and its first incarnation within my life was an addiction to ink.
Of course, the addiction only lasted long enough to be replaced by a succession of poor decisions, but the information was there, and She charted course for The Old Crow Body Modification shop, located in a garage in the slums just outside of downtown proper.
We sprinted along the side of the railroad tracks, down the hill a ways so we could maintain cover by the shrubs which grew along the fencing on either side.
The railroad was essentially a void of urban development located within a hyper dense region. The only trains that went through there were freight trains that carried goods from other cities to the commerce depot just outside of town. All commuter cars were part of the subway system now, and the surface rails were practically a relic of a long forgotten past.
Within twenty minutes or so, we made it to the tattoo shop. A memory in my mind still existed of a key located under the mat in a back alley of the garage. I had once fucked the guy who owned the place. Well, technically, we had been in a three or four month relationship, in which I had given him a lot of sex, and he had given me a lot of company. I picked up a few tattoos while I was there also, but the details of the relationship were mostly about the two of us struggling with our own addictions, and working within some brutal state of codependency. If I had to be real about it, I would say that he was essentially the precursor to Hep, except that instead of getting into junk, he had gotten completely clean, and I had gone farther into sex work and addiction. That was some time ago, but the shop was still there, and for whatever reason, he had never bothered to do anything like change the locks, or find a new place to put his spare.
Ravik was his name.
He was basically the perfect mixture between old world chivalry and gutter punk body artist.
"I don't know what you see in a masochist like me,” was one of the last things he had said to me before I had fled.
I don't do well with people who have problems loving themselves, which is probably why Hep and I get along so well. Neither Hep, nor myself actually do any better in terms of loving ourselves, but at least we had the decency to be totally oblivious to the fact.
Ravik was unconscionably self-aware, which made him kind of a pain in the ass to be around, because you couldn't spend more than two days with him without seriously questioning the validity of your own existence; that type of critical thinking is really only useful if you're planning on actually doing something about your problems. At the time, I had no intention of doing anything about my problems. As a matter of fact, I was actively searching for ways to avoid confronting myself at all. No real surprise that didn't end up working out.
Whatever thoughts I had about Ravik floated to the top of my head, and were summarily absorbed by Her. It became clear to me, even in her exhausted state that she was more than a bit irritated, and I got the impression she would have preferred I shut the fuck up. I didn't see any reason to argue. This whole thing seemed like little more than a bad trip that I hoped I would soon wake up from; until that point, I had to hope she had a plan.
Ravik was still asleep when we showed up, stumbling around in his kitchen, trying to heat up water. She was rifling through drawers, looking for clean rags, when Ravik showed up in the kitchen with a rifle in his hand.
"Who the fuck! ... Jayne?"
She looked at him, and his expression changed immediately from anger to concern.
"Oh my God...."
"Hurt."
The words came out of her mouth with a grimace, and she ripped my shirt off to show the bullet wound in
the back of my shoulder. In Ravik's eyes, I could see legitimate fear. Concern for my well-being, and not so much for his own, but fear nonetheless.
He walked over to me, and held both hands on either side of my body.
"Look at me..."
We looked up, together, and I saw his face shift, as multiple iterations of him moved in front of my eyes.
"What are you on Jayne? I've never seen anyone's eyes like this before. Your iris is completely gone."
“Hurt! Please..."
The plea was too much for him. The pain of her voice echoed in my own mind, and I couldn't help but feel completely responsible for everything. Tears rolled down our cheek, though I'm not sure whether they were hers or my own.
He nodded, and then locked the door.
"Follow me."
The three of us headed into the room where he took care of his clients. Another woman showed up, confused and sleepy. She was still wearing her underwear. Suddenly, I felt like a complete and total piece of shit, but She refused to entertain any of my self-pity.
"Ravik... is everything ok?"
He nodded.
"Donna, this is Jayne, she's an old friend of mine. Could you do me a favor and reschedule my appointments for today?"
The woman nodded, and even though it was obvious that she was concerned, the amount of trust that existed between the two of them was something that moved me.
At least he has someone in his life who appreciates him, I thought.
Ravik laid my body down on the medical chair he used to do tattoos and piercings, and I felt Her consciousness slip away from me. While she faded, I faded as well. I felt weak, and found it difficult to keep my eyes open.
"Thank you..."
The only words I could offer came out from my own lips. I knew that they were insufficient. There was no excuse for how I had treated him in the past, and there was no reason for him to help me. No reason except that he was a lover, and I was someone desperately in need of that love.
He readied his tools, and began to poke and prod at my body, trying to determine exactly what needed to be done, and how he would best be able to help.
"You got fucked up pretty bad. I don't have anything except alcohol, so this is going to be sterile, but I can pretty much promise you it’s going to hurt like hell."
I watched her smile, in my mind's eye, and I knew that the worst was over. My hand closed gently over Ravik's, and I passed into unconsciousness.
Chapter 10
Slipping into darkness had a feeling of coming to terms with solitude, but I wasn't actually alone.
The comfort of knowing Ravik was there with me helped to ease the struggles in my own mind. I trusted him, and even though I got the feeling he was uncomfortable with what was happening in his home, I knew he would do everything possible to alleviate the situation. The other reason I didn't feel alone, and perhaps a more substantial one, ironic as it may seem, was that I knew I could be with Her.
She was taxed beyond strength, and I knew she needed rest. What I didn't understand at the time was exactly how much both of us had sacrificed during the course of that escape. Sure, my body had been pushed beyond any limits that I previously knew existed, but it turned out that I had sacrificed more than a simple emotional fatigue. All of this came clear to me when I fell into a dream, on the other side of Ravik's makeshift operating table.
The place that I went to was a calm, peaceful place, with wild grains rising up into the air in a salutation to the sun itself. Ancient Oak trees lined the sides of the field, and a wind blew through the tall reeds of grass, causing them to dance and sway below the idyllic sky. I was lying on my back, flattening the grass around me to the warm earth. To my right, still holding my hand was the Angel.
She was more of a simple beauty than I had anticipated. Her hair was dark, like the wings of a crow. Metallic highlights outlined a few of the strands, leaving the impression that she had a halo around her crown. A closer look revealed that no such halo actually existed; it was nothing more than a trick of the light, the amber color of the grain, and my own wishful projection. She looked simple, in the sense that all of the times I had seen my own Angel - the marketing aberration propagated by Solis Entertainment, she was covered in makeup, and shining like a beacon of sexuality to her crowds of adoring fans. Keeping in mind the way that she appeared in my mind, in contrast to the woman who was laid out next to me on the grass, I couldn't help but be disappointed with the way that they used her for their own profit. Her natural glow was so much stronger than anything the marketing boys at Solis could hope to dream up.
The juxtaposition of the two images made me both sad, and bitterly amused.
She turned to me, and looked at me strangely. She seemed wasted, and totally lacking vitality, though she still spoke to me with concern.
"Are you all right?"
My heart broke a bit, just watching her. Then, I looked down at my own body and realized that though she was the one who appeared wasted, it was me who had sustained all of the damage from the events which had just transpired.
My hands were burned, and the bullet wound was still reflected in my shoulder. Beyond that, my skin was covered in rashes and hives. I looked like a leper, or a burn victim. The sadness I felt for her became immediately focused on myself. Without her explaining, I realized that while she had been the animating force in my salvation, it was my own body and spirit which had paid the cost of the experience. The conclusion came to me as dream logic often comes, without spoken word, or blatant clarity. The message was delivered in the language of intuition and feeling. The validity of my own observations could not be denied or contested.
You were dead, she told me. The human soul struggles to compensate in these sorts of situations, but you cannot sustain your health by spending all of your time in the next world.
Her words brought back images of myself, floating above my own body, watching as the Angel possessed me, and did what needed to be done. The crimes committed, and the violence inflicted on others was also my responsibility, because it was my finger that pulled the trigger.
For a moment, I grew indignant. Blame welled up inside of my mind, and even as these emotions flooded me, I saw her face contort in pain. Acceptance was the only valid option available. Anything else would only perpetuate the damage that had already been done. Now was the time for reflection and healing; to do anything else would be to drag the two of us down from this peaceful landscape, into a pit of fire, and accusatory damnation.
I'm sorry.
She smiled once more, and laid back on the grass, staring upward at the sky. We were free in that moment, and nothing else could harm us. The bliss of heaven is something that visits you, and when it goes away, often it is because you yourself have left to pursue less fruitful pastures.
I laughed to myself.
I thought you would be telling me this kind of stuff. You know, offering enlightenment, or something, so I could take care of my own life.
She shook her head, though there was no mirth on her face. No response was necessary. I already knew everything that needed to be known. We were partners. I wasn't some eager disciple, lapping for crumbs at her feet. Everything that we were doing now was something that we had agreed to do for one another long ago. This was nothing more and nothing less than a beautiful cosmic drama, played out for the amusement and edification of every actor involved.
I took a deep breath, and let the sun shine its healing light down on my skin. Insects floated through the air like faeries, above the pregnant heads of grain. For a brief moment, I was home, though as soon as I settled into it, I knew that it would soon be gone.
She rose up to her feet then, and looked down at me. Offering a hand, she pulled me to my feet as well, and we stared at one another.
It works better if we work together. The information we captured now belongs to you, and no one else. Only you can decide what to do about it.
She looked down toward the ground, sadness in her eyes once mo
re.
You're going to have to find more courage next time, she told me. The astral realm is like an ocean for the souls of mortals. You are free to dive in at any point, and in the end, all of us pass through that place. But if you drift for too long, the heat from your life will slowly dissipate into the next world. This is why we must work together.
I had questions, of course, but I couldn't articulate them adequately.
My mind had become clouded once more with uncertainty, and doubt. I reached out to hold onto her; to try and seize a hold of the satisfaction that I thought would come from being close to the one who had taken such good care of me.
She was rigid in my arms, and I realized that she too had suffered, though I couldn't possibly begin to understand the magnitude. The wind picked up around us, and the heads of grain swirled around my insecure plea for security. My own desperation was the force that destabilized the dream, and caused everything around me to collapse into pain and entropy.
Luna, was the last sound I heard in my mind, before the dream faded into nothingness. You will know me by name.
Chapter 11
I woke up slow, sometime in the early hours of the night. Nobody else was around, and my body ached all over. I was at least in complete control of my body, which I took as a positive sign.
When I tried to move my body, I found that each time I moved my shoulder around, the pain was unbearable. The first time I tried to sit up, I got dizzy and had to collapse back down on the surface of the medical chair.
I had no idea how long I had been out, but I guessed it had been close to a solid day. The difference in perception of time between my current state of mind, and the state of mind I had been in when I arrived, was confusing. In spite of my disorientation, I knew that my time here was done, and that I needed to remove myself from Ravik's home. The memory of his partner waking up confused in the middle of the night had stuck with me though the dream. I didn't want to continue to be more of a burden than I already had been. Ravik had done his job, and it was time for me to find somewhere else to go and lick my wounds.
