by Travis Borne
Felix angled his head up and over to Jim, throwing his voice over the gusty air and resonantly humming motor, “I say, you do not want to die here, Señor. You do—you don’t go back. No, this ain’t a normal map, Señor.”
Jim simply shrugged it off with a weightless smile. His expression said it all; and the old man noticed. As far as he was concerned, there was nothing this DC knew that Rico didn’t. The ride itself was nothing more than a probe into Rico’s mind. Likewise, Felix wasn't hellbent on making them believe anything either. And both were solidified in their opinions.
Although the truck had plenty of space on its springy bench seat Rico couldn’t help but feel like he was the rope in a tug-of-war. He tried to keep his lucidity piqued, as Jim had instructed to him earlier, not to let the idea meander, mutate, or dissipate. This is just a dream character.
Felix reached under the seat and pulled out a large leather-wrapped flask. “Señors?” he spouted, after taking a swig himself and shaking it off. Jim looked at Rico and grinned.
“Another, fuck it?” Rico laughed, and he shrugged his shoulders then turned up the flask. “Mezcal, wooo-damn! Bueno, gracias, Papa.” Watching him, Felix snickered. It’d been a long time since that flavor stung his tongue, easy to tell by the look that uglied his face. And he passed it to Jim.
“Damn is right!” Jim said, shaking his head and blowing fire. Felix watched him with a missing-toothed grin, taking good note of his bald head.
“You need a hat, Señor,” Felix blurted. He reached behind the seat, searching for something. “Desert sun not good for bald head.” The truck swayed a little, hitting the rocky side of the road. Jim and Rico gripped the seat. Felix pulled out a large sombrero and handed it over to Jim; it was colorful and decorated, unlike the simple straw hat he had.
“Uh. Thanks?” Jim said, looking at the hat before deciding to actually wear it. This is turning out to be an all-around fuck-it day he thought, then put it on. “It doesn’t look half bad.” He inspected himself in the truck’s chrome side-view mirror. He sort of wished he had his hair again, but told himself he wasn’t looking back. Rico raised his brow and gave him a thumbs up, telling him that it fit quite well—for a gringo.
The road was empty, save for a lone clunker speeding through the desert. It left behind a mountain-sized plume of dust and a few alarmed hares jumped aside as the noisy old rattle-trap sped by. The three sipped some more mezcal, passing time, eventually eliciting Felix to pull out the whole bottle. In no time at all they were each a bucket of laughs, tipping and spilling over. Felix told them some wild tales and threw in plenty of jokes. Jim half understood because of the Spanish but the liquor helped to fill in the blanks.
The road was quite bumpy at times and they drove for a good half hour. Three men, in good company; and they finally made it to the end of the line. Then, Felix slammed on the brakes—having realized he’d almost missed the stop—and the truck skidded sideways; the shock of his almost fuck-up sobered him a bit. The others held on for their lives. As soon as it stopped Felix jumped out. The dust plume caught up with them, forcing Jim and Rico to gag uncontrollably. Felix had seen it coming and energetically ditched to avoid it, then couldn’t help himself but laugh at the two sitting in the truck with a dust bomb. “You gotta open it from the outside,” he yelled. And his laugh ripened into an all-out wail.
Only scraggly walking paths veered off in opposite directions along a magnificent edge; before them, a drop off that’d give flat-Earth theorists a hard-on. Jim and Rico, still gagging on dust, headed to the cliff’s edge. And yes, Jim surely saw the geezer laughing. It made him reflect onto his old self, before Amy. He knew he would’ve been pissed about the dust and likely would have delivered to the Señor a swift kick in the ass—or worse. But, as much as he didn’t want to, he was beginning to like the nutty old DC.
Felix hopped back into Esperanza and putted the pift-pift-pifting beast slowly around a huge boulder between the road and the drop off, edging it in with second gear. Jim thought about the poor clutch, hoping the bucket of bolts would make it back. Snapping out of it, he regained his lucidity. It’s just a dream map. We can call the director and log out anytime.
Then the old man shut ’er down and headed to the side of the cliff. Jim and Rico were still clearing their lungs with a few lingering hacks. Near the edge Felix kicked some dirt away and revealed it. A rope ladder dropped out of sight. He pointed down, “Ahí está—allí abajo.”
“Wow!” Rico gasped. His eyes were bloodshot but he was finally able to see clearly.
“What’s down there?” Jim asked. He peered cautiously over the edge. “The bunker?” Felix nodded, half shaking his head at the same time. Serious for a change, he headed back to the truck.
The view sobered them up. The canyon was vast and beautiful—shocking really. Green, perhaps vegetation or trees, could be seen on the far side. Is that the thin sliver of green I can see from atop the wall? Jim thought, then again, slapping himself. Just a map, NOT real! But it was there: part of him just wanted to hop back into the crazy old man’s pickup and drive, and drive and drive. But he had to lock himself to reality. It is just another map. He’d never had a problem staying lucid before, but now, something was different. “Rico, if this is where the codes are, we never would’ve found it.”
“I’ve never known about any of this, Jim. Maybe he really is—”
“Or perhaps a part of your subconscious is taking us on a wild joyride. When you're logged in, you have to be quite diligent. Our minds love to rationalize—get too deep into things. On the odd chance this pays off—well, like we agreed earlier, fuck it.”
Felix came back with a rope. He’d tied one end to the truck’s bumper. He wrapped the other end around his waist then swiftly headed down the ladder. “I’ll yell then you go, Señor. You don’t want to fall here so por favor—use the rope.” The rope ladder cracked and stretched and Felix descended from view. Jim and Rico questionably met each other’s gaze once again: Rico shrugged his shoulders, and Jim replied with a wry smile and a slow shake of his head.
“Aye, yai yai yai yai!” A scream echoed throughout the canyon.
“Uh, that must mean it’s your turn, Rico,” Jim said mockingly. Rico rolled his eyes and pulled up the rope. His turn it was, and he headed down the side of the cliff, letting Jim the party-pooper be last.
“Wooo, hoo hoo hoo!” Another loud yell reverberated against the canyon walls.
Jim let out a single puff of a laugh. “Fuck it.” My turn, woo fucking hoo, he thought, and headed down the rope, still wearing the large sombrero. He didn’t bother tying himself to the safety rope.
69. The Bunker
It was thousands of feet high, a dent carved into the cliffside. “How did you build this, Papa?” Rico asked. Looking up, he could see Jim’s feet working the difficult-to-manage rope ladder. “The view is, it’s amazing! You have chairs, a railing, what a place!” Jim descended into view. He put a foot on the railing and hopped into the thirty-foot-wide cave.
“You should see it when the sun sets—y las estrellas. Magnifico. But this is not my bunker, Rico. My bunker is a cold hole under our old house. I don’t go down there, no need, nothing there—except black widows. I come here sometimes, to think, a relejarme—your codes are here.” He walked to the back of the cave and returned his attention momentarily. “You haven’t seen anything yet. The land of pensamientos, la tierra de los sueños.”
Jim couldn’t imagine any codes being there. Nuts. I waited this long—what’s another few minutes, then fuck this, we’re out of here, he thought.
The old man pressed his hands to the rock wall at the back of the cave. He closed his eyes and mumbled in Spanish. And he appeared to be deep in concentration. Jim impatiently exhaled and glanced around at the view; it really was quite magnificent, a painted canyon banded with reds and yellows, deep browns and pale tans. And the vivid blue sky above contained a cotton masterpiece.
There wasn’t much else. The cave went b
ack about twenty-five feet, dead-ending into a smooth barrier of grayish-tan stone. Like an amphitheater, the ceiling was a dome, almost perfectly round and the floor relatively flat, dry and dusty. Similar to those at the saloon, a couple of wooden rockers waited to be used. A small cooler sat next to one, and the charcoaled remains of a camp fire before it all. A few gold and green beer bottles littered a sloping corner. And oddly enough, there was purple graffiti on the cave walls, which looked more like artfully crafted symbols. Felix was between two of them. Jim tilted his head and eyeballed one: an animal, long ears, leaping—
“He camps out?” Rico asked. The question stole Jim’s attention. Rico nudged the dead fire pit with his foot.
“No,” Jim said, answering a completely different question, one that taunted his growing impatience. “No codes here. Come on, let’s go. We’ll take the truck.” He looked at the DC. He was frozen in the corner, humming against the wall. A dead-end, totally useless, big waste of time. What the fuck is he doing back there anyway? And—it’s just a map, no need for that piece-of-shit truck either. His thoughts jumpstarted his mouth and became words, “Actually, we can just call the director and log out from here. They’re probably shaking their heads, wondering what in the—”
“Listo,” Felix announced loudly. “Vamonos, Señors.”
“Where to?” Rico asked. Both turned to see—nothing, nowhere. What?
Felix raised an arm, then wiggled his fingers, and put his hand on the wall once again—but this time it passed right through! The wall had become an illusion. He stepped inside and disappeared, leaving them alone. They stood looking at each other, dumbfounded. Jim considered himself a veteran so it wasn't a look he surrendered easily.
“Andale!” Felix said, his voice echoing hollowly from the inside. Then his arm appeared through the wall, waving them over. “Apurense cabrones!”
“You were saying?” Rico chuckled.
In light of the nifty magic trick Jim sighed as though he could continue on a bit more. He went first this time, followed closely by Rico.
70. Fantasy Land
As Rico entered the wall it seemed to gel up and he found himself stuck and yelling for help. Jim reached into the hundred-foot-tall grey stone he’d stepped out of, feeling for him. He touched his chest then spidered his fingers to find an arm. Then reaching down for his hand, he pulled and tugged. It was akin to pulling a mammoth through a tar pit. But Rico was coming, albeit slowly. As he heaved a third time, Rico finally slipped out.
“Ugh, I felt like you were stretching me apart,” Rico groaned. He shook the odd feeling of distortion while blinking his eyes rapidly, then looked up at the boulder he’d just emerged from. “Bizarre feeling, like glue, as though even time clung together in gobs.”
“Don’t get weird on me again,” Jim joked. And then they saw it.
It was a pleasant starry night. Felix stood at the edge of yet another cliff, hat in hand, his hair blowing slightly from a noticeably cooler breeze. Blindsided by the immensity of it, they shuffled over. Jim and Rico had become a pair of round-eyed zombies; their jaws hit the ground. Even for Jim—who’d logged in to almost every other map—this view was nearly incomprehensible. Rico mumbled vaguely, saying something to himself.
“Remember what I told you, Señors,” Felix said, turning right to face them both. “There are rules here just like back on Earth, so—cuidado. You do not want to die here, especialmente si te gusta tener un cuerpo.”
Jim noticed how the old man loved demonstrating the ol’ throat-slashing hand gesture. It was at least the third time he’d made it, sloshing spit at the back of his throat, each time with a—sceeeek—noise to boot. He found himself getting more and more curious about Felix as they journeyed together, and likewise taking slightly more heed to his warnings.
“Tu mente, your mind, it wouldn’t make it back in time,” Felix continued. “If you're lucky you might get to join me in Pueblo Viejo, Old Town, permanently.”
Jim looked at him then down at the cityscape below. He set his stubbornness aside for a minute, and for the first time, besides just hearing Felix, he listened. He thought, could he really be telling the truth?
“For now, esperamos, we wait. Relajate aquí.”
Rico’s knees got weak, so he took a seat three feet from the edge of the drop. There was a myriad of grassy-mottled grey boulders to sit on spread about the colorful pebble-littered ground. It was surely a night-and-day contrast from the place he’d just stepped out of, and it wobbled his mind. Besides, he spent most of his time caged. This was a lot coming at him all at once, quite a difference from his normal office-type job managing the control room.
Together the three of them gazed at the countless wonders filling the seemingly magical new world. Felix held his chin up, hands on his waist; he enjoyed the fresh air with deep rejuvenating breaths. In the distant left, miles away, a dozen waterfalls worked their way down cascading tiers. The spotty forest around the rocky falls was like a painting; vivid spring-green trees were broad strokes and dabs. Darker larger-than-life evergreen trees permeated the higher altitudes and mountains beyond. Sparkling whitewater edged glimmering lakes, ejecting mist that made for cool twilight rainbows. Rivers branched through gardens of kaleidoscopic flowers, one meandering its way near the base of their mountainside. Others flowed through and around the magnificently glowing city poised straight ahead. Varying segments of turbulent white water churned then became calm again; and there were people, frolicking and fishing below.
Rico pointed like a happy child at this and that and smiled brightly. The light made his teeth glow as if he was near a black-light bulb. Likewise, with an attracting fluorescent glow, the colors of the land popped vividly. And refreshingly, although they were perched high above, the water’s mist could be felt arriving with an occasional gentle breeze. Look, she caught a fish!
And the sky was overflowing with stars, populous no different than Jewel City at night, but most stunning were the addition of two galaxies, two moons—one a shadowed sliver, Martian red; the other full, cratered and grey—and one immense swirling-gas planet, light blue with purple and white coalescing bands; all reflected onto the beautiful lakes, giving the world an ambiance of enchantment and a glow of cool welcoming light.
A winding path could be seen and Jim traced it with his eyes. It zigzagged down the mountainside from the right, eventually over a bridge and into the heart of the city. Tall technological skyscraping wonders reached high. And disappearing into space: elevators!
Massive mountain-sized ships, there were two, floating cities made of unblemished, gleaming metal; platforms overextended the base on which a myriad of thin illuminated buildings speared the sky. Slowly they crisscrossed the landscape, making huge fuzzy shadows. Large and small spaceships, even personal vehicles darted gracefully about the sky, slowing as they entered the city, speeding like light as they left. All were soundless and graceful. Jim recalled the days of his youth and all of the neat technology, but this, this was…
In the distance, hundreds of miles beyond the city, majestic snow-capped rocky mountains edged the world. To the right, an ocean and a beach, and island mountains on the violet horizon, some smoking like volcanoes. People were everywhere, out and about enjoying themselves but the world was not overcrowded—just right. Not an unhappy face could be found. Assisted by thin backpack hover devices, some flew into the sky and dove or crunched into a cannonball then crashed into the water. Gravity was obviously less. Jim noticed people jumping great distances, competing and doing a form of gymnastics—he supposed. So, he gave it a try, and jumped straight up; without trying very hard he put at least six feet between him and the fruity-like pebbles at his feet.
“One could sit here for hours,” Rico said.
“But we don’t have hours, Rico,” Jim replied. “Felix, what are we waiting—”
“Look, someone’s coming!” Rico pointed. A purple-suited man flying through the air, and he promptly landed on their bluff. He bustled right up t
o the two, mere inches from Rico. He was short, couldn’t be more than four feet, with a broad face. He looked to be of island descent, perhaps, and had glossy bowl-cut hair. Rico stood up and fumbled a step back aside his rock because the little man obtruded himself so quickly and curiously.
“Hello there,” the man said, fixing his purple bow tie and adjusting his purple inner vest. He also wore one of the thin round backpacks. It was glossy white like a bubble on his back and had white straps. There were similar devices at the back of his shoes, and strapped around his elbows.
Taking a cigarette out of his front pocket, “Hola Q,” Felix said.
“Felix,” He greeted simply, putting one hand up as if not to be bothered, yet not peeling his gaze from Rico. “My name is Quain Renmore but like everyone else, you can call me Q. What are you both doing here? It’s not often we have guests like you.”
“Guests like us?” Jim asked.
“Flesh. Meat popsicles, skeletons, humans, you know,” the little man fleered. “And if you wanna keep ’em don’t go jumping around too much. Got it?”
Quain, more like insane, Jim thought.
“I already warned them,” Felix said, blowing out his first big drag. “But they don’t listen very well. Especially Señor Jim.” Q turned to inspect Jim closely and waited for him to talk. Ten uncomfortable seconds, eleven, twelve—
“My name is Jim and this is my friend Rico. We came here to get the codes to our facility. Felix told us they would be here. Our control room got—wait, what is all this? We must be—Felix here—he has taken us on a big fantasy quest or something. We’ve lost it.”
“I’m afraid not, dudes,” Q said, stabbing Jim with a short but hard finger. “This is where the action is. Although most people here are not—plugged-in mortal meatballs like you. It is quite a place really, and one day you might be lucky enough to see more of it. Follow me, let’s take a walk.”
The four headed right, and onto the yellow-flower edged path that descended the mountain, zigzagging its way toward the city. Several other paths veered off in various directions: some farther up and around the mountain, some to the beach, and others crosscut to the waterfalls and lakes. Rico’s nervousness faded, and for a moment he thought it would be nice to explore this world. Felix lagged behind; he enjoyed his smoke and some respite from the toasty desert air. The breeze grazed them with perfect temperature and velocity.
