The Starry Sphinx

by V X Lloyd

  Moony sat at a table by himself and watched Heath breathe, who possessed a sort of peace he could not identify. The Swede’s velvet pullover made him look like Little Red Riding Hood with the itchy build of an energetic running back.

  Julio marched over to Moony, grabbed his wrist and put the miniature camera in his hand, and accused him of being the one who planted the camera in the gym's bathroom. Moony was miles away from doing any such thing, but Julio, a man who had a very long, very narrow mustache, didn't seem to hear, and all everyone else was doing was laughing, drinking, and threatening Moony with the evidence that he was a massive pervert.

  As the man who looked like God mentioned, perhaps it was Julio who placed the camera there.

  “I say there was no camera at all,” said the man who nursed Keystone Light from a can. “I never seen a camera in a bathroom before. They’re probably even illegal to have there.”

  “Hand over the photographs,” said Bachman, drinking his Guinness.

  Julio dragged Moony toward the bathroom of the bar, commanding that since Moony was depraved, he therefore hides cameras everywhere he goes – if there is a hidden camera in the Frog Regal’s bathroom, it would prove Moony was the one they were all after. Perry, his eyes fighting to make out solid objects in the dark bar, wagged his finger at Julio’s general direction like the sheriff in an Old West movie.

  “God damn it, Moony is right! He didn’t do anything. You let go of him right now, or I’ll... uh... bust your ass!”

  Julio let go of Moony only to slap his thigh and point and laugh at Perry. The rest of the crowd laughed hysterically as well. As long as there is something to laugh at, people will laugh.

  Moony grabbed Julio’s collar and dinked his face against the counter. When he heard the meaty thunk resound, he realized he had been too forceful. The laughter around the bar subsided – a little. Moony said he was sorry, and scratched the back of his own curly-haired head. He tried to feel Julio’s pain.

  Deb set down her drink and hopped onto the counter, leaning over in front of Moony to check on Julio. She was generous with the view down her blouse.

  Julio would have a multicolored bruise on his forehead tomorrow, but for the sake of the crowd, he pounded his fist on the counter and demanded another Pacifico. Deb obliged. The crowd cheered.

  *

  Moony sat down in between Julio and Josh the Satanist. Josh’s incessant talk about the necessity of blind egotism wore on everyone's nerves except for his own, which pleased him, but because he got what he wanted in the short term he could develop into nothing more than the lonely owner of a 1950 Landau Hearse who worked as a telephone support technician at a 24-hour satellite television call center. He had wanted at first to work at a graveyard, but struck out and instead was greeted each morning by the faces of those who worked the graveyard shift. Josh’s budget Gothic mode of transportation got on everyone’s nerves, especially those close to him, since every morning at 6 o’clock when he left for work, he fought the uphill battle to start his car. The Hearse’s routine was to backfire a few times, and then the alternator belt would scream until he sharply revved the engine up to 4000 RPM, producing a riot’s-worth of noise on account of his two dead cylinders, dual exhaust and no mufflers.

  The power came back on at the Frog Regal. It took four seconds for anyone to react.

  “Thank God!” said Deb, and held up her drink, which was now a Coors Light, to salute God, apparently. The man who looked like God gave a dignified cheer.

  Julio charged over to the front door as if carrying heavy bags, intending to make an exit where he said “See you later, suckers.” He made the incorrect assumption that since the power returned the snow would no longer be packed up against the front door. He yipped for help as infinite mountains of snow cascaded onto him. Remembering his previous situation, Perry grinned toward Moony, who was also being smiled at by Celia. Moony chose Celia.

  She gave him a suggestive look which was so lazily sexy only she herself could pull it off. She was a paid professional face model. Though Moony believed her when she talked about her days attending class at college, she was eighteen and had dropped out of high school to pursue her budding career. He didn’t know how old she was, but he wouldn’t have had any qualms about their age difference. The living she earned from baring her olive skin at modeling gigs was sufficient to afford her own place. Not that she spent any time there.

  He grabbed his coat and on his way out the back door nodded a stately goodbye to Perry, who realized it was already two in the afternoon and he had another art movie to screen. Many people in the room, including the Little Red Riding Hood asleep in the corner, had still not seen the new King Kong.

  *

  “Moony, wake up.”

  Had he been napping? Moony opened his eyes and turned his head to look at the big blue spruce tree outside his window, but instead of a window or a tree he saw coruscating patterns of burnished brass against the black of space.

  He sat up. He was in the Hall of the Celestial Stewards. The air felt crisp and invigorating. There was no one else in sight. He was alone in all directions for as far as his eyes could see.

  “I’m right here with you, Moony. We made it through the transition phase. You now have the chance to be one of us.”

  The voice had the warmth of the Sphinx, but he couldn't see where it was coming from.

  “I will be with you, and you can call on me whenever you need help.”

  Moony sat there for a moment, gathering his wits. For some reason, he was having a hard time orienting himself.

  “Kitty? The Sphinx -- are you ... Kitty?”

  From all around him, Moony sensed a wide, knowing Sphinxlike smile.

  “You’re working for light, and your sister is working for the dark side, is that it?”

  “The darkness hangs around you with tenacity, but it will not overcome me.”

  His cerebral apparatus flashed an update in his perceptual display.

  [Internal Encrypted Documentation Updated]

  [Received 1 Recipe: Checkered Potion]

  “There it is. Your most important message and my last communique with you. From this point forward, I will only communicate with you through hints and clues. I will send you coded messages that will point to bookmarks in documentation you already possess. That way, our transmissions, if surveilled by the enemy, will not give away sensitive information. Using those texts, I will guide your steps.”

  Moony deduced that this meant the Sphinx -- and therefore Kitty as well -- had the ability of knowing him from the perspective of all the documentation and highlights he had made in his time as a practicing alien. She saw a side of him no one had seen. His data search requests. The side of him that looked up the dirt on everyone around him whenever he felt threatened. The side that had always sought for an unfair advantage when playing games. Not a flattering angle, to be sure.

  Moony cleared his throat. He wanted to sound like a man who was perhaps more in integrity than he actually was. “My mission--”

  “You know your mission. It is your task, but you cannot do this alone. Be patient. Look after yourself, and allow your enemies and friends to reveal themselves to you. Only when you have formed true alliances should you dare set out on this treacherous path.”

  *

  He woke and looked out his window at the big blue spruce tree, wondering what to make of these things. This mysterious woman he had met and slept with was no ordinary human, and not even an ordinary alien human. When he had met Kitty, somehow also he had met the Sphinx, a super-powerful being with a very important role in cosmic affairs.

  We should all be so lucky.

  All his life, Moony had been handed things. Life had been easy for him in all the ways that it was hard for other people. He was wealthy, charming and attractive, and he had the ability to read thoughts and consult intricate nonphysical documentation on just about anything. It wasn’t such a stretch for Moony that someone extraordinary had found him and wa
nted to hang around him.

  But the Sphinx was different than many of the friends he had made in his life.

  She wasn’t just trying to get something from him. The Sphinx wanted him to be more than he was. She spoke to some part of him that he himself barely knew. He wanted that part of him to come alive. Everyone else in his life had with good reason just assumed he was a privileged guy who things came easy for. Maybe they wanted to spend time with him, but it was always about what he had or what he could do. He’d believed that terrestrial life felt flat because he was empty and shallow. But maybe he didn't have to be.

  *

  All the same, it was inevitable that Moony was to heed the Sphinx’s advice about looking after himself.

  In his defense, it was pretty much true that Moony was snowed in. His chi was in sore need of rebalancing, and so he sat on his couch playing Double Dragon enjoying the heat from his cranked-up radiator. He had a few rented DVDs and largely unplayed video game rentals that were overdue, but he figured he would just have to wait a day until the weather cleared to venture forth.

  Then he remembered that he had just been given the recipe for the checkered potion.

  He paused the game and sat back, mentally thumbing through his bookmarks and manuals.

  Finding it, he viewed the recipe.

  [Checkered Potion Recipe]

  Lo! Heralds sing glory to the all-encompassing sun, in whose presence all mysteries find home.

  Here follows the list of ingredients.

  The one who brews the checkered potion

  must first obtain the latest serum crafted by the force of darkness.

  Next, common opalescent lunar exudation bestowed by a force of neutrality.

  Third of three, verily third of three, is dew from space-stone.

  This abides at the sacred cave.

  Of all the ingredients, time is the most essential.

  This potion also requires one negative ingredient:

  Only the pupil, not the master, must be present.

  Here follows the instructions for preparation.

  In silence without blending them overmuch,

  add in equal measure darkness and neutrality to the vessel.

  To this, the dregs of material life, brim the vessel with dew

  using your corporeal hand to feed it.

  Before drinking, set it to the noontime light for one hour.

  Then it is ready for the maker to quaff entirely.

  The maker whose pillar of self rises high will descend even to the dregs.

  His heart sank. He didn't like how the recipe ended. Descending to the dregs didn’t sound like an exalted conclusion for him. But maybe he was misinterpreting the verse.

  First things first, he would need to get the ingredients. It sounded like there were only three. One from a dark source, one from a neutral source, and the final from a light source. To make matters simpler, it sounded like the third ingredient could be found at the same place where he was to brew the potion. So he really needed only to find these dark and neutral substances, and then this sacred cave.

  The neutral force he couldn't guess about. It was easy to deduce that the dark force was behind his own telepathy. The Sphinx had said that the dark forces were working on crafting some powerful drug or cocktail. He only needed to get his hands on some of that.

  His rumination was interrupted by three hard knocks on his front door.

  Somehow, despite the weather, a woman in a bronze and brown polyester jumpsuit had managed to arrive at his apartment. He let her in.

  Simple as that, his destiny grew closer.

  “I’m known as the Gypsy,” she said.

  Moony remembered her, as you know. But, Moony wondered, if he had met her before, why had she introduced herself to him again just now?

  There was one likely possibility. All it took was one look at the Gypsy to understand that she lived her life in a world of altered perceptions. The person who looked out from her eye sockets was unmistakably one who had taken so many mind-manifesting chemicals in coordination with each other, her personal sphere had dissolved.

  Moony welcomed her in without much thought as to why she might drop by or what he might offer as a means of explaining her presence to Celia. He was the sort of person who always gave room to others to explain their own existence. Some grant space out of courtesy; he did so to relieve himself of the burden of responsibility.

  The Gypsy also said nothing. She made herself welcome by sitting on his imitation leather sofa and pulling from her jumpsuit a wooden box. Opening it, Moony could see it was filled with stacks of cash. Fives, ones, twenties, and hundred dollar notes, in no apparent order, all of them as perfectly crisp as if they had come straight from the mint. She began counting the money, subvocalizing an increasing sum, though doing nothing to reorder the bills into organized piles based on the value of each bill. She looked satisfied that her cracked and busy hands were given a purpose.

  He closed his eyes and turned to the Sphinx for some hope of inspiration or guidance.

  A moment passed while the only sounds in the room were the subtle shifts and scuffs of money on skin.

  He noticed no light, no sound, and no trace of the Sphinx’s warmth. All inside him seemed dark, and the room felt strangely cold.

  He was on his own.

  Moony stood and watched, wondering about the money. He could only think of three reasons for having large sums of money in cash: illegal weapons, illegal murders, or illegal drugs. If drugs, any number of his neighbors might have contributed to it. Sod Hill boasted a healthy population of addicts.

  In his mind, Moony put on his detective cap and decided it was time to go to work on this woman.

  She would definitely scan him, he knew. But if he was smart about this, maybe she wouldn't pick up everything. Maybe, for one thing, he really was as thick-headed as people had always accused him of being. He would redouble his efforts at his ever-useful mode of cerebral denseness.

  “Let’s say I know someone interested in mind-tweaking serums.”

  “I’d say you're talking to the right person. What kind of serum does this someone want?”

  “This person is a connoisseur seeking the latest and greatest.”

  The Gypsy eyed him, and he felt a tingle down his spine. “This person wants some Nano-3 Alpha Carbon. This person wants to a more proactive role in the global sharing of minds.”

  “I’m listening. How does it work?”

  The room grew even colder. The chill he felt now recalled the feeling of being drained when he stood on top of the bar with Perry yesterday. Not an experience he relished.

  “You’ve heard the truism about how most people use only ten percent of their brains? That’s not exactly true, but the idea applies here. And it applies to people’s potential in all senses: who among these terrestrials really uses one hundred percent of all their capacities? Nobody, that’s who. And what happens with all that potential processing power? For centuries on this planet, we have seen such a terrible waste of potential. Most people have a fair amount of specialized knowledge and they know a few things pretty well, while the other parts of them aren't really doing much. With our compound we tap into and make use of the latent processing power of ordinary human beings all over the world. Through a simple wireless resonance triggered by our nanoengineered proteins, we gain access to a sea of human processing power, human storage, human bandwidth.”

  Her greed was palpable. Again, he tried to reach out to the Sphinx, but felt only darkness. Resolutely, he gathered himself and did what he could to play the part of an interested client. “A nanoengineered protein can really do that to terrestrials?”

  “Nano-3 is a truncated telepathy compound. A one-way mirror. It wakes up some dormant parts of the brain and places our access seal over it. It has no real bearing on their day-to-day lives. Our compound is already in many water supplies in this country and even some scattered around the world. Eventually we’ll be everywhere water is treated and
anyplace where it gets rain. Just think of it this way: Nano-3 unites us all. Terrestrials will all be connected in the alien network of minds.”

  “Yeah, interesting. Interesting. Except, well, there is just this one piece to what you're saying, that the terrestrials in your equation are slaves, basically, whose brains you use like batteries.”

  She closed the box of money and fanned the stack through her fingers, turning to face him. She gave a playful frown.

  “Oh, poo, you’re making it sound bad. Understand me well, we have so many minds, and so few masters, we barely make a scratch in the mountain of potential. Still, you should realize that it's better to be a part sooner rather than later. Rank is important. The compound is available and on the market. All anyone has to do is ask the right person and be willing to play by the rules. Our goal is the advancement of those who show promise. Whether terrestrials or alien humans. Clearly you've forgotten, but alien humans didn't land here to harmonize with the terrestrials. They came here to rule.”

  “By draining others.”

  “Unfortunately, most are like you. They're unaware of their real abilities. They’ve forgotten their real purpose.” She laughed like the joke was on him. “For someone ostensibly interesting in experimenting with my serum firsthand, you seem surprisingly reluctant. But no worry, Moony. You’re already on my side. I got to you first. It was I who awoke your abilities, not my sister. Since that time, you've made great use of your telepathy. Why stop now?”

  With a growing sense of dread, he understood that his telepathic ability was not something contained within himself. The ability that the Gypsy had awoken in him years ago, seemingly without strings attached, had linked him to this network. Anytime he used his telepathy, it was a drain on others. In the Hall of the Steward, The Sphinx had alluded to as much. He shuddered to admit to himself that he had been enmeshed in dark forces.