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Player One, his satchel over his shoulder and the black paradome in a fishnet
sack, takes Trevor by the hand trying to lead him away. Trevor hesitates and the boy makes several hand signals towards him. Satisfied it is something of importance, he
follows the boy to the top of the arena where they briefly sat; when the crises
on the Skytrax led to a parting of the ways between Michelle and Mr. Eight. Waiting for Mcbain to sit in the only open spot on the arena’s top tier
he takes the paradome out of its fishnet, setting it on his lap. He traces his fingers around the circumference of the object; and unseen by the spectators below the sphere separates into two halves: The Player catches the top half, setting it down, he
unwraps a baseball size object.
The luminous glow from the five new disks is intense, mesmerizing; and extremely soothing. Wrapping the objects back up he seals the paradome and points at McBain. The Player presses his index finger over his sealed lips; gently tapping them three
times like he has done many times before. He pushes the sphere towards McBain who pushes it away. Standing up he puts his hand on McBain’s shoulder and clicks his heels silently. They are in a location that Trevor does not recognize. The Player goes to
a nearby garden birdbath kicking it softly and sliding it off its concealed repository. The boy puts the vortex paradome disk locker safely in the hidden cache. Placing his hand on Trevor’s arm they return to the Arena above The Octagon. Trevor sees
the old screens are flickering with chaotic light. They return to the group of allies and The Player raises his fingers to his lips one last time. Trevor touches his heart his hand sweeping outward.
“Have you had a chance to poke around the Oldham base Bob?” Tatianni asks
cautiously.
Bitterman is trapped signing autographs and Aurian is pacing off her nervousness. She draws nearer to him, noticing the two body guards, studying the small gaggle of fans surprised to be in his company. She walks up to the tallest one in a casual suit
jangling her keys, “Telephone Bob!”
The tall man takes his cue grabbing Bitterman’s arm whispering in his ear and
following Auri
to the fire escape door. The soundproof conference room is no match for the five thousand fans
stomping their feet wanting an encore from The Kookers. Tatianni keys the alarmed fire door. The tall guard exits first leaving to descend two flights down from the rooftop metal landing. The other guard stays inside the locked door. Auri offers Bob a
cigarette and he accepts lighting hers.
“There’s a lot of activity at Oldham tonight! I’m worried about Pierce;
very worried.” Tatianni trails off watching three jet copters swoop in from the west above The Gorge head north beyond Great Fork Falls and then circle back along the coast.
Tati and Bob are sitting on opposite rails
of the fire platform; Bob scrunching to keep his knees on the lower rail his chin resting on his crooked elbow and open palm. Auri’s half turned annoyed by the air traffic. The arena sits snug between the air base and the two lane coast road. From this
height she can see the well-lit mushroom shaped Reed Estate on the other side of the base. “It’s probably Secret Service stuff.”
“I guess so Bob. Why did you give up playing; too much hustling doing shows
every night?”
“It got dangerous after a while. I got to the point where I was a fuzz head
walking into walls.”
Aurian cocked her head scrunching her eyes, “I never heard of you being hard core for drugs.”
Bitterman exhaled deeply. “Its… It’s all… There are many names; first
it was, “The Project.””
“I’ve messed around at the base with special recovery team training for SRT-73 with Lisa.”
“That’s a façade for talent spotting. The place she went to tonight is the sealed hub entrance.”
Bitterman starts coughing violently. Aurian lunges off the rail and grabs his
arm. He pats her hand three times, “I’m OK a bit of a cold, fourth one this
year; been on steroids since January.”
Her hand on his shoulder staring into his eyes pleadingly, “Tell me about the…The Project.”
Bob continues smoking applying drying relief to his mucus cluttered lungs, “The Project, was, is…” Opening the deep inner pocket of his denim jacket
he hands Auri a pair of slim goggles held in place by a finger ring handle. Auri fumbles with them
and gets the rimmed lenses over her eyes and removes them to wipe them off. “There’s no smudges, their clean, look towards the northern tip of Oldham then across to the shore and beyond. It’s out there somewhere.” Bob stifles
a coughing fit. “
What am I looking for? I see it.” Removing the lenses it is gone.
Bob takes the opera style trifocals, “A genuine artifact; worth two hundred
thousand dollars.”
Auri is concerned for Bitterman, watching him clenching his jaw fast enough to wiggle his ears, while fidgeting with the glasses, “What’s the big black
thing with the blue X-shape on top?”
“I used to think they were ships. Then I thought they were computers. Then I thought they were evil souls.” Bob stands up dropping the antique lens catching it inches from falling through the grillwork of the fire escape; handing them to Aurian who
takes a second look., “A fishing boat?”
Bitterman starts laughing grimacing wildly. “I should be so lucky. A fishing boat; that is funny.”
“They are smudgy though.” Auri wipes them again. “What are the foggy clouds on the glasses?”
“The big blue X-shape is moving towards the airfield.” Tatianni watches intently not hearing the footsteps of the approaching body guard. “A radio shout from green team. RN6 is closing in.”
Bitterman waves off security politely. “Tell Doc I’m always available. Please keep the glasses.”
Aurian knows Bitterman is considered by the public to be an eccentric who is a recluse pursued relentlessly by fans and paparazzi alike. He gives Auri a card,
“This is my private number.”
Ivan losing patience with Grigori applies pressure to the descending carriages two brake levers bringing it to a full stop determined to mount the outer ladder and force his brother into the car.
Realizing he is going to be in a tug-of-war with Ivan while he is holding the snow globe Igor opens the roof’s hatchway hanging on its rim like a sullen monkey before dropping fifteen feet to the formidable disdain of his taller brother. Beaming with
pleasurable anticipation, in his bellhop uniform, the four foot tall hunchback dwarf pulls strands of purple-orange hair out away from his ears: squats, springs upward, front flipping; landing in place. “I names him. My turnsy time.”
Waddling painfully over to the wide railing of the great lifting chamber, facing the diamond glass walls forming the prophylaxis protective shaft, he stares into the putrid tunneled ant farms of The Presence being separated from The Essence of creation.
The dead and the living trapped side by side buried by the curious irony of fate in Dr. Vulchario’s subterranean compression vats.
Ten thousand faces in the one window alone stare at Ivan’s unchallenged supremacy, and the murderous parody in the childlike contours of the afflicted Grigori Vulchario.
Igor stands on the rail, nose scrunched against the glass screaming. ”Suggestions! Suggestions!”
A man, torso torn to shreds below the navel, whispers in mind speech, “Call him Doctor One.”
Igor laughs “Yes a Doctor but what kind?” A four inch long naked woman with
no arms and bone shards impaled in her pus filled bleeding ears screams. “A Spike Doctor. A Spike Doctor.”
Grigori leaps down off the rails sauntering towards The Vagabond. Every mouth opens wide for a mile below and a mile above in chilling unison with a stupendous roar that shudders the air and ground as hope of release from the savage sepulcher is
extinguished. A sound Ivan’s never heard in the miles deep halls of terror of
the Essence Presence Farm. “We Forgets. We Forgets.”
Igor pounds his head, “Dr. Spike?” A man with no eye sockets whimpers, “Dr. Spike Speckle.”
Trevor and Pierce are standing at the southern edge of The Octagon’s granite deck less than twenty feet from where the timestar’s collapse buried Aurian, Aloysius and Lisa Templeton alive. They are both enjoying the military ballet of the extensive
troop movements required to occupy the surreal world of glass and diamond mist.
Walking back to the small group McBain kisses Lisa goodnight and Mr. Eight delivers Michelle, Faversham and Templeton back to The Harland returning a split second later.
Trevor introduces himself to Mr. Eight who is still wearing his casual attire. He cuffs his arm three times changing into formal dress uniform, wipes any possible mist off his hand on his pants leg: and smiles, pumping McBain’s hand earnestly.
Alex and Harris are satisfied exposing Pierce and Trevor to the failed zero machinery directly after the Grand Canyon’s time stop event was the proper way to manage this most essential of security housekeeping chores. Allowing them to experience
proximity; while letting their minds develop a course of thought in their own way, time and speed regarding this baffling enigma; but also launching them into the unfathomable; while still within the emotional luxury of the polite sheltering presence of
trusted lifelong friends and known easily recognized associates.
Neither Pierce nor Trevor have felt dislocated enough to become puzzled, or inquisitive enough to inquire; if they are one of the life size, diamond dust encrusted, crystal statues circling the consoles desks; or one of the small iced multitude present
in the amphitheater or granite stadium.
Alex and Harris, upon accidentally discovering they shared this nexus in common, named this tangled up incomprehensible human labyrinthine graveyard of statues: The Hanging Garden.
A way of dismissing the seriousness, while enjoying a night of steady drinking and the light hearted gallows humor that ensued. The name stuck for them and helped each one deal with the oddity. Meeting each other in the daily natural world convinced both
of them it was a reality.
Harris’s statue is standing right next to McBain’s statue at the one and one-thirty positions; immobilized when he is here, he can’t see Trevor. Alex is across the way at the ten o’clock position and he can see both McBain and Harris. Both
prisoners of this infernal triality made it their first order of business to determine whose body and face occupied the keyholder’s slot at the twelve o’clock due north position. It was not who either had guessed in the past. Harris had believed
Augustus infiltrated, seized and jammed The Local Zero using some method known only to him. Mathias suspected it was The NID’s Danes who turned out to be right next to Alex.
When both, sanctioned and unemployed intelligence operators, discovered that Pierce Daniels was at the key holders desk, a position that all the junior consortium players of the game refer to as Mr. North, they realized that an attempted coup d'etat is
active and unresolved. Both Alex Mathias and Frank Harris know from the unforgeable, irrefutable proof, of the full time stop events witnessed at the Grand Canyon and Augustus’s surrendering of the amber books; that beyond any shadow of doubt, Trevor
McBain is the old-original and new-original keyholder:
Pilot One and Pierce Daniels is his assistant Navigator One. The entirety of all lightmach sets created within The Construct is their vessel. This overwhelmingly convincing intervention by The Origin as The Great Mystery, in its: one-verse-three-verses-
one equals five; time formation function; has begun a Great War, led by two young men who are still indifferent to its outcome.
Its two primary representatives are deemed more valuable than The Totality of
The Construct.
“Are you crazy old spooks ready to blast, I’m hungry and Doc’s girlfriend is waiting.”
Harris shook his head laughing and Alex sighed with relief. “Yeah I’ve seen
enough for now.”
Mac knows Doc is eager to check on Aurian and grateful he doesn’t have to hustle the old timers along. Pierce studies the Roulette Gate on the way out scribbling questions for the Amber Books.
Grigori is laying in a fetal position between The Vagabond and Dr. Vulchario.
The trillions of small veins of dissolving beings are throbbing with agitation.
Seed sized balls of light are smashing up against the outer side of the diamond
shaft,
transmuting into lightcones the size of a child’s spinning top; before evaporating forever within the confines of the compactly latticed barrier. Small escarpments built of mud and bone, unable to hold the weight of the surging throngs give way;
turning the wide expanse of glass one hundred feet above and below, into a unified; seething, crimson cauldron. Igor has swallowed far too many tiny paradomes of eternal presence, before they were completely distilled, to resist
this onslaught of
frenzied beings.
“You have sixty seconds to resume your role of coachmen; lowering a cabin platform to its destination, or I must presume your consciousness has been ambushed, usurped and dissipated.” advised The Vagabond, ignoring the blubbering breakdown of the
parasite infested Grigori.
“A tall pure glass of The Essence shall restore Igor’s good humor, but if
you are going to be issuing time based ultimatums we must agree on a clock to measure by,” explained Vulchario.
“Your point is well taken. How did your brother become vulnerable to body jumpers?”
“I am very willing to answer personal questions if you are prepared to reciprocate in kind,”
challenged Ivan; his skin beginning to itch from the poverty of motion, while surrounded by the great swirling , reddish-brown ,greenish-ochre, shaking necromancer’s blender; of tumultuous electromagnetic horrors, Igor had triggered by threatening The
Vagabond.
“My current name is Artrex Alliant. I am responsible for maintaining safe, secure, open lines of communications between the opposing commanders and their forces during this engagement.”
Dr. Vulchario more than satisfied by that response. “Body jumping from person to person was a game Grigori discovered when we were lads. We didn’t realize we were poisoning our essence.”
Ivan gave Igor three injections of pure essence in rapid fire order, soothing
the distressed and overwrought hunchback. Pressurized tears of primary colors leaked from each orifice further staining his hair and teeth. Vulchario eased the brake levers
open passing away from the tainted portion of this distillation sequences failed blending. A thousand feet further below the doctor
begins slowing, the grand carriage used as a distillery viewing platform, at a break in the vertical protections where a lateral corridor leads off. “Dear Sir please accompany me to porch seven,” enunciated Ivan with a peculiar, but
growing sense,
that The Vagabonds presence might not be as monochromatically sterile and blandly distasteful as he first imagined.

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