by J. R. Mabry
“What?”
“Just do it.”
As discreetly as possible, Marco withdrew the paper from his own pocket and rolled it in one hand. All those years rolling joints have really come in handy, he thought. He pretended to cough, and when he brought his fist up to his mouth, he inserted the talisman, stashing it between his lower lip and his gums. He couldn’t see if the others had done what he told them, but he hoped for the best.
“Please, come in,” the small man said to them with exaggerated courtesy as he swung the door inward. “This is where we welcome all our guests. We call it Ellis Island West. It’s where we determine who is granted citizenship in the Republic of Stan and who needs to be quarantined.”
“Why would anyone need to be quarantined?” Marco asked as he entered. He found himself in a normal, semi-finished garage. Kayaks hung from the ceiling, and a work table ran the length of the far wall. The shiny tools hanging from hooks looked like they had never been used. Marco even saw a tag on one of them.
Filling the center of the room were two folding tables, nine feet by three feet with faux laminate tops. Sitting behind the tables were militia personnel, a man and a woman at each. Stacks of paper nearly obscured them, but they looked up as Marco and the officers entered and waved them over.
“Oh, well, there’s lots of unexplained phenomenon going around, or have you not noticed?” the short man answered. “You might be infectious.”
“Infectious how?” Cain asked as he entered the room. The small man shut the door behind him and motioned for them to move toward the first table.
“Well, there are several signs of infection: uninhibited violent tendencies, for instance. Or ideological liberalism—advocating for ‘multiculturalism’ is a sure sign of infection. Tolerance for, or God forbid, open advocacy of the homosexual lifestyle is a sure sign. It could also manifest as sympathy for the nanny state.”
“We get the idea,” Madison said huffily.
“It is precisely this sort of infection that got Berkeley into all this trouble in the first place,” the little man explained. “But I will leave you in the capable hands of our Immigration Team. I wish you a pleasant stay in the Republic. Pax Stan!” he shouted.
“Pax Stan!” the four behind the tables responded robotically.
A model-handsome young man motioned to Marco, bidding him approach. Marco walked up to the table.
“Name?”
“Marcus Aurelius Sawyer.”
The young man cocked his head. “How do you spell your middle name?”
Marco spelled it for him.
“Cool,” the young man said. “I’ve never heard that one before.”
Marco rolled his eyes.
“It is a fuckin’ weird name,” Madison opined.
“Uh-uh! Language!” the young man wagged a finger at Madison. “Foul language demeans your race and ours. We won’t be hearing any more of that while you are guests of the Republic.”
“Wouldn’t want to demean anyone’s race,” Madison spat.
“Please put all effects here on the table, in this box,” the young man didn’t look at Marco as he spoke. The young woman next to him quickly folded a file box and pushed it in front of him. “Empty your pockets. The case you’re holding, any hats or gloves—everything in the box, please.”
Marco clutched the Liahona case more tightly. There was no way he was going to part with it. “Um…this is just a compass—it has sentimental value.”
“We won’t lose it. Everything is being catalogued and stored. Everything will be returned to you when you clear quarantine or are deported.”
“Deported?” Marco asked. “To where?”
“Back to California, I assume,” the young man shrugged.
“Could I be deported now?” Marco asked.
“Not my decision,” the young man said. “Now, please. Let’s not have any trouble.”
“Wouldn’t want any trouble,” Madison snorted from behind him.
Reluctantly, Marco set the Liahona case in the box. He clenched his jaw as he withdrew his hands.
“Pockets.”
Absent-mindedly, Marco put the contents of his pockets in the box, including his wallet. His mind was fixed entirely on the Liahona, however. He stared at it as the young woman snatched the box back and put a cardboard lid on it. She whisked it off the table and began to fold another box.
“Please step down to the next table,” the young man said, writing on his clipboard.
Marco moved to his right until he stood in the center of the next table, where another young couple sat. They were also fit and attractive. He hated them already.
“Please remove your clothes and put them in this box.” The young woman seemed to be calling the shots here. The young man finished folding a box and pushed it toward Marco.
“Now, please,” the young woman demanded, reaching for her sidearm.
Slowly, Marco began to unbutton his shirt. As he undressed, the young man laid out a pair of white paper coveralls, the kind of disposable gear that painters often wear. Marco nodded. That made sense. Plenty of hardware stores would have these, and perhaps some of the citizens of the Republic were painters and had a supply? He pulled off his pants and rolled them up, placing the roll in the box. Then he put on the painter’s overalls, pulling the cheap plastic zipper up to his throat.
“Wrist, please,” the young man said. Marco held out his right hand. “Other wrist, please.” Marco held out his other hand. The young man fastened a wristband around it. A number had been scrawled on it in magic marker—J367.
“This way, please,” the young woman indicated a door on the other side of the three-car garage. Marco stepped toward it and through it, finding himself in a fenced yard. An armed militia member waved him through and he obeyed, walking toward a chain-link gate.
As he passed through, a flash of red caught his eye. Looking up, he saw an enormous sigil spray-painted on the upper half of the house. The roof was covered with solar panels, shining gold in the late-afternoon sun. And at the pinnacle, where the roofs came together at a “V,” he saw a flapping scrap of paper.
83
Brian opened his eyes to find a bright orange sky presiding over utter chaos. He saw something moving toward him in his peripheral vision and dove for the ground. A car door slammed into the pavement and skittered away, kicking up sparks as it slid.
“Holy—” Brian began, but he fell speechless as he beheld the scene before him. He was in a small city park. On an ordinary day, he would have thought it a place of extraordinary beauty. There was something strange and inviting about the orange light cast over everything. At the end of the block buildings loomed in every direction, sheer faces of gray concrete and glass ascending for what seemed like miles. Following them up with his gaze, he saw something even larger—an enormous statue of the Greek god Mercury, running in place on a pillar larger than any of the buildings that surrounded him. A caduceus was cradled in one arm, his winged feet in motion. Brian let out a whistle.
But Brian didn’t have the leisure to admire it. At one edge of the park, street traffic had stopped cold. Instinctively walking toward it, Brian saw the wreckage of two cars, one of which was steaming. The car door that almost hit him hadn’t flown off in the accident, though. The drivers were screaming at each other, yanking parts of their cars off and throwing them at each other. One of them flung a steering wheel like a frisbee. It struck the other driver square in the forehead and he went down like a sack of rocks.
But the noise was coming from beyond the traffic jam. Brian followed it and, turning the corner, found traffic interrupted again, this time by what looked like a massive demonstration. A great crowd of people had gathered, standing on two opposing sides, each side yelling at the other. The tension in the air was electric and Brian sensed it was about to explode into violence. He began moving back toward the park as quickly as he could walk without drawing attention. Then he remembered he was supposed to be looking for Maggie. He scanned t
he crowd without going toward them, but he didn’t see her.
Finally, with one final searching gaze, he began to walk the other way.
“Watch it, Brian, you’ll run a body down, dear boy.”
It was true. He’d almost stepped on Maggie—this world’s Maggie, anyway. She was a bit more slender than the Maggie he was used to. And she seemed to have weathered the ravages of age more gracefully, too. The lines of her face were not so severe, her hands not quite as knotted. Her clerical collar was of the pull-out tab variety rather than the neckband that Anglican priests at home favored.
Even though he’d only left her Yesod version a few hours ago, he hugged her.
“Well, that’s awfully familiar,” she said, a little taken aback.
“Sorry. I’m just…glad we found each other.” He moved his hand around to indicate the scene. “I seem to have landed in the midst of some drama.”
“It’s not just here, my dear, it’s everywhere. We’ve gone babel.”
“What does that mean?”
“This is Hod, a place of splendor. I’d take off that Yesod sweater if I were you. Dead giveaway that you’re a magickian.”
“But I’m not a magickian.”
She rolled her eyes. “Yes, dear. Anyway, you know about Hod, yes?”
“It’s the realm of communication—of art, symbols, representation, things that stand for other things.”
“Yes, it’s a regular field day for metonymy around here. Ordinarily.”
“What’s going on?”
“What do you think is going on?”
“People are fighting a lot. Just like on earth.”
“Earth? Oh, you must mean Malkuth.”
“Yes, sorry. It’s mostly married couples there who can’t get along.”
“That would be because of the disturbance in Yesod. That’s not what’s happening here, although it is affecting us. But the fact is, you throw anything off balance and people fight. So here—”
“Everyone is lying on ea—on Malkuth. Is that because of…of this?”
“Probably. Representation has broken down.”
“So people are misrepresenting things?”
“Exactly. I’m guessing it’s manifesting as a compulsion?”
“That’s a good word for it.”
Maggie chewed on her fingernail. Brain cocked his head, watching her. It was a movement that would have looked natural on a younger woman, but Maggie was ordinarily so confident that it looked disarmingly incongruous. “C’mon, then. Your magickian friend has been busy here. We’ve got a complete communications blackout. The phones don’t work. The internet is down. Radio and TV are out. The newspaper presses have jammed. Not even the ham radios—”
She was stopped in her tracks by a small man about her own age walking toward them with brisk steps. His head was bald, wreathed by two scraps of white hair. His hands were shoved into the pockets of his coat, and the fringes of a tallit dangled below it. His face looked grim. He stopped just shy of Maggie. Without bothering to acknowledge Brian he said, “Ducklings turn sour and fret.”
“I know, dear. Brian, this is Aaron.”
Brian scowled in confusion. He whispered, “Does he have a last name?”
“Bar Amram, I suppose. You know, Moses’ brother.”
“What? Aaron, like the Aaron? The first cohen, Aaron?”
“Yes. Don’t get too excited. He’s a pain in the tokhes.”
The old man narrowed his eyes at her. “Corpuscular snid!” he yelled.
Maggie put her finger to her lips, shaking her head.
“As I was saying, not only have all of our means of communications gone out, language itself has completely broken down. That’s what’s filtered down into Malkuth as misrepresentation. Here it’s full-on confusion of language.”
“You mean, no one can understand each other?”
“Nope. In order to communicate, people have to agree on what words represent. If no one agrees—”
“No one communicates.” Brian whistled, and stood up as straight as his hunched back would allow.
“It’s the Tower of Babel all over again, only this time with inter-dimensional repercussions,” Maggie added.
Brian leaned down to her again, “So how is it we can understand each other?”
“I don’t know that, dear. Maybe because you’re not from here, and maybe because I always tell the truth. I suspect that’s why he’s here. He probably thinks I can do something.”
“And can you?”
“I’m doing it. I’m here to meet you, remember?”
Brian felt strangely honored by her words but also humbled since he had no clue what he could possibly do.
Maggie reached out and grabbed Aaron’s hands. She raised them up, moving them in opposite directions, as if she were forcing him to do semaphore code. Aaron snatched his hands away from her, but his countenance brightened as understanding dawned. He pointed to the ground.
“Here,” Maggie translated the charades.
Then Aaron stood stock upright, throwing his right arm toward heaven, as if it were holding something thin and round, like a rod. His left hand extended toward the ground, pointing at it with his index finger.
“What does that mean?” Brian asked. The crowd behind him roared. He looked over his shoulder to see two middle-aged women in the midst of a catfight, while in the background, a sea of people roiled with confused rage. So much was going on it was hard to look away, but he forced himself to do it.
Maggie cocked her head, thinking. Aaron, frustrated, renewed his pointing with force. Suddenly a gear in Brian’s brain clicked into place. “It’s the stance of the Magician, the ‘1’ card of the major arcana in the Rider-Waite tarot deck.”
“Of course,” Maggie nodded. “The magickian has been here. We know that, dear. Yes.” She nodded vigorously.
Aaron moved his right hand back and forth quickly, then pointed at the ground.
“Not here.” Maggie thought out loud. “The magickian was here, but now the magickian is not here. The magickian has moved on?”
Aaron nodded. Brian wasn’t sure who actually understood what, but they seemed to be making progress. There was an explosion behind them, and Brian struggled to keep his feet. Maggie and Aaron fell into one another and clung to each other reflexively. Brian whirled back to face the park and saw that one of the cars in the accident was ablaze, bright yellow flames reflected off the glass of the buildings, rising to become one with the orange sky.
Maggie stepped away from Aaron again, urging him with her eyes to continue. Still continuing to ignore Brian, he pointed at Maggie. Then he pointed at the sky.
“Translation?” Brian asked.
“Oh, that’s easy. ‘Stop dicking about in Hod. The damage has been done and the fucking magickian has moved on.’ He’s saying, ‘Hie yourself to Netzach—and step on it.’”
84
Susan felt oddly calm as she and Chicken traversed the island. It took about an hour to walk from the east side parking lot where Terry had been shot to the west side complex near the old naval shipyard. Even though it was nearly dark, Chicken had made only one wrong turn, and she had quickly righted herself. For the rest of the journey the little girl took point, leading confidently toward the place she had last seen Dylan.
At first Susan wasn’t really paying attention to their surroundings—finding Dylan was the sole thought in her mind. But as they walked, and as the sun grew higher and the autumnal air began to warm, Susan began to bask in it, to enjoy it. The shotgun became heavy in her hands, and she realized how thirsty she was. As they crossed Webster Street, it occurred to Susan how strange it was that she was walking down a busy city street carrying a shotgun and no one seemed to notice. True, there weren’t many people around, but those that were did not bat an eye. This is the Bay Area, for God’s sake, she thought to herself. People generally disapprove of guns here. And yet here she was, and no one opposed or questioned her.
Perhaps it was her gri
m, determined demeanor. She was not oblivious to it. And she knew she could be a powerful person. Normally she worked to keep that in check. It was easy for her to overwhelm people. She had discovered as a younger woman how quickly people jumped to a negative opinion of her—as if her forceful nature was all that there was to her, as if she was not also kind and warm and funny.
She knew she was all of those things, and so did the people who loved her. But she had always been a “business first” kind of person, and that was as true now as ever. She slung the shotgun over her shoulders and hung her arms over it until the blood drained out of them from being so high and she felt the prickly sensation in her fingertips begin.
Chicken was no less determined, but her affect was leavened by adventure and playfulness. She led, but sometimes she led as a galloping horse, skipping head of Susan, and sometimes she led as an airplane, arms stretched out like a bomber, emitting an extended raspberry to simulate the engine noise.
When they reached the shipyard, Chicken “flew” directly to a long, connected string of buildings. They might have been warehouses, except that they were smaller. They might have been army barracks, except that they were bigger. Susan got the sense that they had been built without a plan, assembled like a train with a new building added at the boot of the last one whenever they ran out of space.
There were guards at the doors of the end-building. They seemed curious as Susan and Chicken approached them. Susan didn’t stop to chat. As soon as they were in hearing range she raised the shotgun to her waist and emitted a ululation that scared even her a little. Their hands went to their side arms, but she blasted a shell high, over their heads. It would be their one warning. Their hands went up. Susan paused by their SUV, Chicken clung to her leg. Susan ejected the spent shell.
“Do you know these assholes, Chicken?”
“Nope.”
“Do you care what happens to them, Chicken?”
“Uh…yes. They might have puppies.”
“They might indeed, my dear, I hadn’t thought of that. Either of you have puppies?”
