by Curtis Hox
These battles had been fought, mostly, with mutual respect, although Stephan had requested more than once that the dean move his office a floor above Eliot’s (something that hadn’t happened).
“She could ruin you,” Stephan said.
“I know, and she could turn the world upside down in the best possible way.”
“How Panglossian.”
“Listen, Stephan, competition, as far as the university is concerned, is internal and needs to stay that way. The fact I help her, while you spend at least ten percent of your overall budget on disproving a cultural issue, your Hoax Thesis, also doesn’t sit well with some university board members who consider it excessive.”
“Beside the point, Eliot. I have a knack for fund-raising, and results. My other labs are moneymakers. At Riodola the science of mind is king. Anyone in any discipline from musicology and philosophy to neuroscience and physics who has something viable to say about how the brain produces mind can get funding from me.”
“Except Hattie. Besides, don’t lecture me, Stephan. I was on the board several years ago when the university proposed the change to its curricular structure that benefits you. That I fought for.”
“I thank you for that.”
“Sure you do.”
“I acknowledge what you’ve done for me and this university, Eliot. The traditional departments stay the same, although any new hiring follows this radical procedure of yours. All departments in the arts and sciences now work together under certain large problems. New faculty with specialties also have to work closely with members from other disciplines, learning their language, studying their methodologies, etc. The Mind/Body Problem is a key cluster that has drawn much attention and generated much work for me. Again, thanks.”
“There are plenty of other clusters that need funding,” Eliot said. “Globalization and Empire; The Modern Human; Religion and Science—”
“Ah, here it is. We arrive at Hattie Sterling pushing for the N.P.B. and Culture Science to be recognized as an official academic cluster at Riodola University. Thanks to you. But she’s had no luck, has she?”
“Times have changed,” Eliot said.
“You believe she’ll succeed?”
Eliot nodded once. “Yes, I do. Bye, Stephan. See you at the demonstration.”
He left Stephan alone in the hallway, whose jug of water nearly spilled on his feet.
* * *
Stephan’s office was brightly lit with natural sunshine flowing in from the rising sun peeking above the skyline of Jersey City. His desk was small compared to the leather sectional couches and the wide conference table fully wired for video conferencing. A large vid-screen hung from the ceiling. He also had a stocked bar and an island counter for refreshments to be spread—all designed to impress investors.
He punched in his contact’s name on his workstation.
Bernard Corrigan.
Corrigan represented a law firm that made sizeable donations to Stephan’s facilities. Corrigan also paid a consulting fee to receive a comprehensive map of his work at Riodola. All of this material was public. Corrigan simply wanted it in a condensed form with Stephan’s personal notes. He also asked to receive material on Stephan’s debunking project of the N.P.B. In fact, this request had been repeated several times to the point Stephan realized all the man really cared about was how well his task to combat Hattie Sterling was going.
Corrigan’s inquiries meant the world was watching. Stephan sensed that Corrigan represented powerful, hidden interests. He balked at investigating further because he didn’t want to face the reality of how things operated in a geopolitical world of nations and governments. Hattie Sterling’s claims meant his next report would be drastically different. It might be prudent to mention the press conference and give Corrigan an invitation.
Stephan left a voice message.
He then began typing a response at his workstation.
If (and that was a big if) Hattie convinced anyone at the press conference that her display merited consideration, he would be ahead of the game.
Mr. Corrigan: Dr. Harriet Sterling has foisted a big prank on us all. Shame on her. They’ll be a demonstration, if you’d like to attend …
CHAPTER SEVEN
The rest of the day, Drs. Sterling and Brandeis busied themselves in the Landash Library, directing the final preparation of the press conference.
Alice, Towns, and Masumi worked together arranging the technical materials on the stage now dominating the center of the hall. A simple table with computers and audio equipment stood atop the platform—no speakers yet; just a mic stand, stool, and headphones.
Alice paced in the middle. “Maybe the computer should go on the other side.”
“It’s fine where it is,” Masumi said. “What do you think, Towns?”
“Fine where it is.”
“He’ll say whatever you want,” Alice said. “God.”
The last of the union workers filed out, leaving them alone in their new space.
“Come on down, everyone,” Hattie said. “We can finish bickering later.”
They moved to folding chairs setup in front of the platform. At this late afternoon hour, plenty of summer sunlight penetrated the glass windows in the ceiling, providing diffuse light. In the back, individual rays slanted at angles. Dust motes, kicked up by the new activity, swirled in the air. Hattie paused for a moment to consider what needed to be done.
“Everyone,” she announced, “I have a suggestion. First, pizza and Cokes. Second, we spend the weekend in the library.”
“Fun,” Alice announced. “The whole weekend!”
“Here’s my card,” Hattie said, and handed it to Alice. “If you need to get a change of clothes or a sleeping bag and pillows, rush back to your dorms. I have something important to tell you.”
Alice jumped to her feet. Masumi and Towns both agreed, neither questioning why they needed to spend the night, and left.
Hattie’s satchel sat on a chair not far from her. Tonight, she planned to empty it and sanctify the place.
“Eliot, will you help me with something?”
He offered his hand. “My pleasure.”
She accepted, lingering at the touch of his fingertips, grabbed her bag, then gently pulled him along for a few steps, before letting go. They both smiled. They both also refused to acknowledge the moment any further as they walked into the vestibule. They stopped before the marble statute of Kant, who stood over them like a protective guardian.
“Help me with this.”
She handed him her satchel. She dug around until she found thumbnail-sized laminated squares, then raised one into the remaining light. A tiny piece of paper lay between the plastic. Upon it was written impossibly tiny script around a picture, no bigger than a dime, of a horse and rider standing over a horrible serpent. She withdrew a tab of adhesive rubber, then thumbed off a piece and placed it on the back of the laminate.
She began eyeing the statue. “Where should I put it?”
“Why not the forehead?”
She grimaced. “Too obvious.”
“Of course.”
Kant stood with an open book in one hand, while the other pointed to a page. Sapere aude dare to know was written in large type. The hand holding the book had its fingers splayed. She placed the adhesive on the upturned palm so that the laminate was hidden under the book.
Eliot waited patiently, while Hattie stared at her choice.
“I’m going to ask them to put twenty or thirty of these in various places in the library,” she said
“Why, exactly?”
He was getting closer to the question she dreaded, the one from which she should never flinch, the one she knew posed the ultimate challenge to his scientific rationalism. This place’ll be a haven for rational thought, Eliot, not mysticism.
Yet she planned to institute it with a ritual that made no sense … to anyone but her.
“Why does bleedover happen?” Hattie countered.
“You want to christen your rational temple with mystery, Hattie? Is that it?”
She nodded. “Mystery that works.”
“What’s written on them?”
“A special stitch of interpolations about Saint George. This one doesn’t need to be sung.”
“The card you showed the Lyells? Very traditional.”
“Too Catholic?”
“You tell me.”
She rounded Kant to get a good look at him. “It has nothing to do with the saint part—”
“And everything to do with?”
“Slaying dragons.”
He snickered. “Dragons.”
“I know. Silly, but dragons are just metaphors, of course.”
“I see.”
“Metaphors for other things, whatever things, that might come calling.”
“You think little pieces of paper in plastic—”
“Will trigger bleedover? Yes.”
“This sounds like primitive nonsense.”
“I know, and it’ll be a part of our mission to explain bleedover, all of its effects, not just the rational part.”
“Your Society could be overrun with mystics—”
“I won’t let that happen. Its primary aim will be the systematic description, step by step, of rational bleedover. However, I’ll not deny hope for explanation of the other.”
“All right, so we have a patron saint, Saint George—”
“No, no, no. He’s just a character in a story—remember that. And he’s a she, by the way. I found the interpolation in a translation of a medieval hagiography that tells the tale. I stitched it between two powerful enactment interpolations, like the ones I used for the apple. The Saint George image is one of those rare pieces fully consistent with the text in which it is found. It almost pushes out of the page on its own. The original can be found in a twelfth-century codex. Many reprints, like the one I identified as bleedover, show Saint George as a female. But I could very well have used Buffy, if I’d found one, although I think she might be less effective. My point is that traditional stories are no less important, even if priests and prophets have misappropriated them. We can’t be afraid to use familiar architecture, as long as we understand why.”
“You’re not suggesting that Saint George will just appear, are you?”
“A female Saint George.”
Hattie knew this was difficult. They had proven instantiations could be rendered as Full Generated Objects through her incantation method. She also knew Corbin had had limited success with Lucid Media Projection. How to explain there were other ways for bleedover to emerge? “This is different. It doesn’t need to be sung. It simply needs to be in close proximity to … to danger, to trigger its effects.”
“And it just works?”
She waited until he shook his head. “Threats to this place will be nullified by Saint George …”
She almost said, in another reality. She stopped herself. She knew that she was at a crossroads with Eliot. He had always backed her, never faltered, although he had questioned her when she’d spoken of troubling subjects. What would he do now, if she told him the full truth, that what she believed was as ludicrous as anything Corbin and Dreya could concoct?
“Think of it as poetic license, Eliot.”
“Symbolic?”
“Transliterary.”
“Whatever you say. As long as it doesn’t start looking like High Anglican or, worse, require me to dance naked around a fire with other men.”
The door to the library swung open and Alice appeared. She carried a sleeping bag, pillow, and a change of clothes; she barely made it through the door before clipping her ankle.
“Where do we sleep?” Alice asked.
Hattie waved the question away. “Worry about that later. Just set your stuff down over there.”
A knock on the door meant pizza and soda.
Alice dropped her bags, then busied herself setting up the food and drinks in the atrium at tables set along one wall. Soon, Masumi and Towns returned, and they all enjoyed a harrowing meal of processed cheese, dough, tomato sauce, and sugar. They chatted, even Masumi, about how different it would be to have classes in Landash. Soon, they finished the last slice, and the automatic lights clicked on, illuminating the lower galleries but leaving the higher levels in darkness.
“Gather round,” Hattie said. “I have something for you.”
She handed each of them a laminated, personal Socspin ID with their school pictures, beneath which was written Society of Spinners.
“Simple and to the point,” she said. “By accepting them, you accept entrance into our Society. Turn it over.”
On the back, in tiny script, ran a series of what appeared to be random snippets of text. These were not random. She had formulated this ward (like her Saint George) as personal protection. She had composed it for herself years ago and called it her Bastard Buster. It had worked on several occasions when her life had been threatened beyond the regular hate mail she received.
On one occasion that had frightened her terribly, a man had followed her to her loft and waited all day for her to leave. He approached in the street, raised his hands to grab her, and keeled over with a heart attack, thanks to the little sheet of paper she’d had in her pocket.
The lines fit together well, a combination of seven interpolations she’d stitched in a moment of crisis after her attacker had promised to come for her. It turned to ash in her jacket pocket during the attack.
After the incident, Hattie gave it its name.
“What’s it say?” Towns asked.
The words were barely readable, which wasn’t a problem. She’d layered them several times so that you’d need a magnifying glass and a day of patience to tease it out.
“It says you’re a member of the Society. They’re yours. Proof you’re members. Carry them with you, always.”
She handed one to Eliot.
He winked, and declined.
She had already given the ward to him years ago for his birthday. It hung in his office, a pastiche of physical objects from the streets of NYC: broken bottles, cast-iron netting, some wood, a cigarette lighter, etc., and a piece of paper with the ward. But, still, she wished he would carry one around with him, just to be safe.
“Now, something fun,” she said.
Hattie withdrew the folder with the tiny Saint George squares and gave each of her students a handful. She also gave them strips of adhesive. “Wander around the library and stick them in hidden places.”
“Why?” Masumi demanded.
“The library must be a sacred place.”
“Sacred? I got major problems with that word.” Masumi handed her pile to Alice. “Take mine.”
“Sure.” Alice turned to Towns. “Let’s start upstairs. I’ll take level two; you take three. We’ll alternate. Then we’ll do the lower levels.”
“It’s just a harmless ritual, Masumi,” Hattie said. “Stories within stories. This is a library, after all.”
“Not just a ritual for me.”
“Fine. Don’t participate.”
“As long as you don’t pressure me to join in such activities, we won’t have a problem. Rituals are silly.”
“Some, true, but not all. Eating dinner together is a ritual. It binds us socially. By sitting and eating with someone you’re doing more than ingesting food; you’re communicating that this person is someone of interest.”
“Why give us little pieces of plastic?” Masumi asked.
“To bind you to the Society.”
“What society, exactly? And why do we need to spend the night, Dr. Sterling?”
Alice and Towns were nowhere in sight.
Hattie moved closer to the stubborn, young woman.
“Our Society. And for the next three nights you stay here. Just to make sure.”
“Make sure?”
“Humor me.”
If Corbin and Dreya were going to act in any way that could harm them, it was better to be prepared. O
nce the demonstration took place, they would all be at the center of things.
“Make sure of what?” Masumi demanded.
“How willing are you to follow this through?”
Hattie knew that Masumi had no choice. Her academic career was in jeopardy and, worse, her own rational understanding of reality had been challenged.
“I have to stay the entire weekend?” Masumi asked.
“You do. You should know, there are others with your dedication.”
“They’ll try to stop us?”
“Maybe.”
“Call the police then.”
“Tell them what?”
Masumi just stared. “Right.”
“Wait one minute, please.”
Hattie left the atrium for the vestibule. She withdrew her keys and locked the front door. There were four other entrances, two in the back that led to an alley, two that led into adjoining buildings, all locked doors at ground level and accessible from the atrium. The windows in the upper levels were sealed. Those could be broken, of course. The roof had an ingress, but that was locked as well. Under most scenarios, the building was secure.
When she returned, she said, “You sure you won’t help out?”
Masumi picked up one of the laminates left on the table. “You just want me to go put this somewhere?”
“That’s it.”
“Fine.”
Masumi stood and wandered away, muttering to herself.
“I hope you know what you’re doing,” Eliot said.
* * *
In the darkness, Masumi sat alone in the atrium, tapping away at her laptop. She had wirelessly logged in to the university network. She was preparing for an audit by her soon to be ex-boss, Dr. Stephan Ross. She would resist his political maneuvering with a forthright and thorough assessment of the work she had done, both in the lab and for her dissertation. She knew, though, that ever since she had seen Towns in that studio, life would not be the same.
