DESTINY BECKONS

1

THE LOYAL READER WILL doubtless recall sometime back I found a US Marines flag someone left in my pickup. Now today I find myself the recipient of a gift nearer to my heart: A lance. An actual lance. I have no idea who left it for me, but I'm keeping it.

With my trusty tape measure I find it is eleven feet long. The width of the wood varies, but it weighs just a few pounds. The only way I could get it into my apartment was through the window. I propped it against the sill, went back inside, and pulled it right on through.

Now I have a lance. I have no idea why.

My cell phone is dead and my charger doesn't work, so I can't take pictures yet. I don't know, maybe it's an olde-time selfie-stick. Sure looks like a lance, though.

It is. Don't worry. Joust you wait and see.

2

Somebody keeps leaving me things in my truck. It's bizarre. This morning's Mystery Gift:

A sword.

First a flag. Why? Then a lance. Why? Now a sword. So why not keep them? All carefully placed. Well, not the flag so much. That seems separate. The lance and the sword were placed very specifically in a particular way though, and unlike the flag they both look and feel old. Authentic.

It's a cool old sword. Leather scabbard with either an N on it or a Z, depending how you look, or maybe both. Horse head hilt. Blade even looks like it has ancient blood rusted on it. I love working on my new story while I wear my sword hanging from my belt. Which is a perfectly legal thing for me to do here in Oregon should I so choose to travel out and about with my sword.


Soon I have to find a new job again. Work is running out once more. No more holes to patch with joint compound, no more walls to prime and roll, no more masks and no more fumes, no more pools to paint, no more floors to tile or to pull, no more ants to kill, no more toilets to install, nor hardware to screw back on while the co-worker's mix on Bluetooth blares, no more trips around town in a truck with any appliances strapped down in back, no more paycheck, no more food, no more rent, no more gas, no more bills, no more anything.

Today, by the way, I received yet another lovely gift, this time right outside my door: A shield. An ancient shield, stately and sturdy, such as a knight might use. And on the surface of the shield are arranged such figures as resemble those of Sumerian cylinder seals revealing the planets in this galaxy, and the placement of each in relation to the rest. It is a right noble shield, and I shall carry it into battle with lance and sword against all enemies of justice.

Bopping around the boondocks in quest of gainful employ I find myself inordinately conscious of the many, many, many, many, many giant windmills spinning on the rolling hills.

Finally I reach it. The hotel in the middle of nowhere.

Yet another wild goose chase from the employment department.

A scrawny rooster announces the day and hustles off at my approach. It's mid-afternoon. At the squeak of a screen door I turn to see an incredibly hideous woman.

"Hi, I'm here for the interview."

"Jasper! Get over here!"

From behind me, a mangy dog growls and snaps as it slinks by.

"Get your butt over here! Jasper!"

Now I know how young Siddhartha felt on his first visit outside the palace walls when he witnessed really haggard people all over. Bright pink stretch pants poorly hold what appear to be a double-set of shapeless buttocks like to make a body wince at a disastrous glance. We go ahead and interview. Not exactly my first choice of work, minding the front desk at this barren, depressing establishment, but such is life.

"You got a resume?"

"Yes I do, right here."

"Okay then, we'll being doing calls next week."

A little imbecile boy with a banjo on the porch informs me as I leave that the position has already been promised to his cousin's Narcotics Anonymous sponsor.

3

Returning on foot from the gas station a few blocks away with my blistering cup of coffee in hand as is my morning habit of late I see loitering about my pickup truck a short round Latino personage of amiable aspect. His are the simple white pants and shirt of a laborer, as are his sandals, serape, and sombrero. I switch the coffee in one hand, too hot to hold for long, to the other. "Mornin'," I say, when I am close enough to be polite. No one else in the leaf-strewn street. No one else alive in sight. Only me, this little round guy, a couple of squirrels on the telephone wires crisscrossing overhead, and a couple of cats crouching by the tires of parked cars still cold with frost at the edges of the windshields.

"Si, senor." The little guy nods and smiles so politely, I feel rude to continue on my way.

"You, ah, you need somethin' there, buddy?"

"Si, senor."

Hm...

Something, call it a voice inside my head heard artificially via chip inserted at base of skull sometime during childhood, tells me to offer a beverage.

"Si, senor."

"Ain't got no fancy sofa, nor no fancy TV, amigo," says I, leading the way upstairs, "and I damn sure ain't got no fancy lamp, nor no fancy re-sealable baggies, neither! Them things is for the spoiled. Why, if I can afford the rare onion, and have to slice it, the other half gets wrapped back in the plastic shopping bag. How's that for authentic poor? Am I right?"

"Si, senor."

"I don't have money for paper towels," I say, turning the key. "Paper towels are for the weak. What I have are a few coffee filters left. Because I don't have enough money for coffee. That's how poor. Have a seat."

"Si, senor."

"Make yourself at home. Oh, and be careful, because of the four chairs that go with my excessively used table, two are broken and one has a rip in the upholstery. Also the lid of the CD player won't stay down, so I have to keep something on top of that. You should also know, I turn my socks around. So that the holes in the heels are up. That way I get more life out of my socks. Yeah, I guess you could say at the second-hand store I see a lot of things I used to own."

"Si, senor."

"You want to know why?"

"Si, senor."

"It's because I'm extremely poor! Got nothin' out of the divorce."

"Si...senor..." my little round friend says, coughing.

"Somehow I knew you'd say that."

"Si, senor."

"Excellent, yes, very good. Let's go! No need to reply, come on. I need to get a job."

"Si, senor."

"Okay, all right."

"Si, senor."

"Okay then, that's fine."

"Si, senor."

Around this time I launch into my spiel about the history of me writing my writing, which means I show my less than loquacious friend the writing on the wall...all of it mine.

"Absorption in my writing cost me my material life. Might say it withered my brain."

"Si, senor."

I show my friend my black broadcloth on the wall. "Doubles as a cape," I understandably brag. It being a Saturday, I offer lardy eggs.

4

"All right, my friend," I say inside my truck, still feeling an awesome vibe having listened to Santana upstairs, "time to venture off in quest of gainful employ. So here we go."

"Si, senor."

"Hell yeah, there's the spirit." I turn the starter, but nothing happens. No ignition at all. Nada. The battery appears to be dead. Or it could be the sensors. The alternator, the starter...no. How old is my battery? How old is my truck? How much more can I take?

My little round friend has exited my rusty old pickup during the course of my rant. I look up now. In the tranquil light I see his morbidly obese squat form leading a horse before my truck. Standing in front of me with this insane-looking horse, one with wild horse eyes no matter the angle, he offers me the reigns. Whereupon I exit the truck, hop in the back, mount the horse, and ride around the block.

"Yes, my fine fellow," I pronounce probably out of reach, "good job here, excellent work indeed." I take the mount around the block, frankly never questioning or caring how my friend supplied my need. Whereupon I spy beside my truck two tall chaps wearing dark suits and antiquated hats, perhaps Fedoras. What is more, they seem to be trying to intimidate my friend.

"See here," I call from behind. "There'll be none of that."

As my friend avails himself of the opportunity for flight, I perceive the chaps are identical twins. The hair on their heads lacks authenticity, and seems rather to be part of each gent's hat rather than his head. Neither has eyebrows. Their faces look waxy.

"Amigo," I call, "mi lanza y espada."

"Si, senor!"  he energetically replies.

Whereupon I make unto these chaps such pronouncements as I deem necessary to distract them sufficiently to secure my weaponry from my retainer.

"Now now, you'll have to wait for your proper trouncing, sirs!" Apparently perceiving I hold a sword, the chaps intend toward their car, a shiny black Mercedes parked discretely around the corner, but I hasten the horse to intervene. A few quick strides and upraised hooves suffice to take the tall pasty twins aback, and indeed I find myself surprised, only for a moment, to see both lance and shield in my shadow before I even bear them.

My friend appears with my weapons in his chubby clutches, additional armor included. Score! Not perfect, but good enough.

"Como te llamas?" I ask, adjusting my helmet, such as it is.

"Cece Nyore."

"Your name's Cece? Cece Nyore?"

"Si, senor."

"Alrighty then," I say, raising my voice as I raise my lance, with my mount putting on an impressive display. "You task me! You...HEAP me! Now, COME GET SOME! YEAH! How ya like me now?"

In my battle against the Men in Black I prove utterly victorious because my cause is joust. They have no business trying to lord themselves over my vassal. One's hat falls off when I hit him with the point of my lance from behind as he tries to run back to the car. Sure enough, the fake hair stays with the hat. Knew it!

Sad to say, at this point the horse seems right on the verge of collapsing. Turns out Cece grabbed the neighbor's horse shabbily penned next door, and the unfortunate beast is simply insanely out of shape. But there is no backing off, of course. I chuck my lance back to Cece and whip out my sword again, whooping as I give chase on foot. The helmet doesn't want to stay on. Damn, I think, not now. Better go ahead and tear it off. That's what Amadis of Gaul would do.

These guys are tall, though. So they use their long legs to their advantage at getting away from me and run really fast in their dark dated suits back to their dark shiny car.

"Cece," I say, hustling back down the street toward the wobbly horse, "let's return this veritable Rozinante back where you got it before it dies!"

5

Well, it turns out those guys were Scientologists. Or so they claim. For the record, they did seem for all the world like Men in Black. But according to the cop at the door, nope.

There's a whole thing with the neighbor and the horse I don't want to get into now. What's the point of having a horse if no one can even ride it?

When I put the question to Cece, his economic response in equal parts dismays and intrigues.

"Ah, what a rotten time and place for one such as I to be trapped."

"Si, senor."

"Exactly. I don't suppose you have somewhere to go?"

"Si, senor."

"Did you notice how weird that cop looked? No need to respond. Almost reptilian in appearance. Ah, but of course--reptoids! Clearly what only appeared to be a cop was actually a shapeshifting deceiver. So obvious now, but a mere few minutes ago the knock at my door came from a deputy sheriff with solid black eyes, no iris, no pupil, no white, just jet-black, and he had a wide slit for a mouth and no hair at all, not even eyebrows or eyelashes, and he coldly hissed--what was it he said? Odd, I can't quite remember now. Something to the effect that the guys I accosted were Scientologists and I was never to interfere with them again under any circumstances."

"Cece," I say.

"Si, senor."

"I put it to you plainly: Are you in fact a form of artificial life sent here to aid me in a fantastic battle against hostile giants?"

"Si, senor."

KNEW IT!

"I see now that someone has been orchestrating my gradual transformation into Don Quixote."

"Si, senor."

A knock at the door. Tap tap. "Special delivery."

"Thanks," I respond, signing for the package before closing the door. "Holy moly, it's a genuine Lost in La Mancha t-shirt!"

"Si, senor!"

I decide to head back out for a little visit to the book store. Somewhere in the esoteric volumes haphazardly shelved may well lie some clue to the mystery in which I find myself increasingly enveloped. The old guy at the book store worships John Dee and shall surely know something on the subjects of artificial life, Saurian shapeshifters, Men in Black, Cervantes, and so much more.

Outside the people in their cars to me look crazy. Down the street I see the Savings and Loan where I used to work and think of my many wonderful fiscally-minded boon chums still trapped there, so whatever. Further down the street, a drunk in a stolen snow plow (there is no snow in town at all) rams into some eccentric drug dealer's escaped pregnant anaconda hitching jerkily across the road, plowing the twisting heap of giant snake a full block before careening into the corner of a building blaring music inside, mangled anaconda bits spasmodically flopping, busted snake eggs spewing the ragged mess of the premature clutch ruptured on the broken brick, half-dead baby snakes horridly a-twitch.

You could pass right by the book store without even knowing it's there. I suspect people do it all the time. Not me, though. I know to go inside. And I do.

The door closes heavily behind me. It's a glass door, with signs all over it that no one ever reads, and sometimes kills people as it closes. The moment the door shuts, sealing me off safely from the outer world, I hear and feel the welcoming warmth from the forced air vent. In elder times, like-minded gentle folk may well have flashed the Star of David writ in their palm upon congregating. Today we indicate civility by talking about movie adaptations of comic book characters. Music in the book store blares, tunes good enough for genuine grooving. Regulars know what to expect from the general layout of the store, including to keep a weather-eye open for the unexpected treasure in a brown bag or cardboard box. Similarly, knowledgeable patrons avail themselves of the proprietor's "Jeopardy!"-worthy erudition on any numbers of subjects.

As I wait by the mythology section for the area around the cash register to thin sufficiently for me to pull the president of the John Dee fan club aside, Cece comes over and hands me a paperback on UFOs, written in the '60s, open to a page with a black and white photo of two tall pale twins in dark suits looking just like the ones we saw in the street.

"Ah, yes," says the book store owner upon perceiving the open page, "the notorious Men in Black!"

6

Saurians.

Source of Dracos, Dracul, cold-blooded Draconian rule. These reeking gold-hoarders have plagued humanity from the time the Annunaki gentetically-manipulated humanity into being. Jack the Ripper was a reptoid, by the way. Summoned in London by a 13 year-old Aleister Crowley.

Devouring books on the subjects of reptoids, Men in Black, and the New World Order well into the night, I eventually see Cece asleep in a chair and wonder should I wake him and tell him to take a hike.

Nah.

I drain the lizard, brush my teeth, and head to bed exhausted with a long day of esoteric study.

My bed is cold, and the night is quiet. I begin to fall asleep, perhaps do even doze, and the next thing I know, I awaken to a series of sharp knocks. I have the feeling I heard the knocks in my sleep for some time, but I can't quite determine if the knocks are on my door, or on the door of either of my upstairs neighbors.

Is that a voice?

Moving blindly in the dark, I feel my way through the kitchen and into the next room toward the door. Now, to ascend the old stairs here is to activate the motion-sensor light. And I can see this light in the crack under the door very clearly. I am careful to make no noise, the better to determine what's going on outside my door. Furthermore, the stairs creak exceedingly loud for anyone walking up or down, and the motion-sensor light, once activated, stays on for ten minutes automatically.

So when I see the light under the door go suddenly out, it's odd because I can't believe that loud banging has been going on for ten minutes. Barely daring to breathe, I move with all possible stealth in the pitch-dark toward the door with the intention of looking through the door's security eye, and expecting to hear the sound of creaking steps recede.

I put my face close to the door.

The sudden banging on it almost gives me a heart attack!

The sound of a girl's voice on the other side does nothing to improve the situation. I dislike the cold edge I hear when she addresses me through the door.

"Let me in. I need to use your phone."

That's it.

I flip on the light.

I throw open the door.

There stands a small blonde-haired girl with doll-like face and skin. Yet her eyes, they are solid black. No pupils, no whites. All only an unnerving shiny black staring back like the lifeless eyes of a shark.

"Let me in," the little blonde girl says, barely opening her mouth, yet sharp. Somehow the words remain in the air. "I need to use your phone. Let me in."

Suddenly I feel a hand on my shoulder. I turn around. Cece, I see.

"Si, senor," he says. "You had better let her in."

7

I imagine from the little blonde girl's perspective entering my hovel is something of a bewildering kaleidoscope of special effects all along the walls and ceiling depicting scenes and imagery from my voluminous volumes. And from my perspective, push come to shove, I could easily beat this little girl to a disgusting pulp. Totally unrecognizable, super fast. I sense she senses this.

"So Cece," I say, "I gather your android vocabulary has significantly increased."

"Yep."

"And how long has this been going on?"

"From just now. I was suffering from a speech glitch and they fixed it remotely."

"When?"

"Just now."

"Who?"

"The guys outside the door."

Sure enough, sharp knocks do ensue.

Whereupon with the veritable speed of a disco ball light show gone wild, the shadows of two figures slip beneath the door, slide across the floor, and glide up the walls and all around the ceiling. Abruptly I feel the presence of the Watchers behind me in the room before I hear, before I see, before I turn around to find them so tall, so white, so stylishly clad.

"We've been watching you," says one.

"And we like what we see," says the other.

First one: "We understand you seek employment."

Me: "You understand right."

Second one: "We are prepared to present you with an opportunity."

"One uniquely fitted to your skills."

"Entailing great danger."

"Mortal peril."

"Yet entailing tremendous treasure, too."

"Interested?"

The Tall Whites, who decline to give me their names, offer unto me the opportunity of gainful employ, an offer I readily accept. They set a time upon the morrow for me to meet the carriage which shall convey me to the meeting place, at which time my guides will lead me to what they call a Transportation Station which will then take me to the site where I will begin work on a trial basis. I'm not precisely sure what exactly the work will specifically be, but they do tell me I'm perfect for the job, and how often does that ever happen?

8

We are in the book store together, the woman of my dreams and I, way up on the top of the shelves and able to see the aisles like the overhead view of a labyrinth. Down below in the maze of books I see Ken Kesey in a Randle Patrick McMurphy costume complaining about Jack Nicholson while simultaneously assuring he's never seen One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and never will. It's one of those costumes you can get from the world's crappiest retailer, the shirt and the hat and the red sideburns all thin and cheap and fake. In another corner of the maze Hunter Thompson is down there too, wearing a thin cheap fake Duke suit obtained from the same store. This one comes with a bright plastic long-stemmed cigarette holder, cereal box sunglasses, a paper-thin semblance of a Hawaiian shirt, and a dopey little hat made of the same material. Of course Mark Twain is there as well, dressed in a Mark Twain costume quoting lines from Connecticut Yankee.

Poor unwitting customers trickling all around fawn and scrape to curry favor. "Oh your majesties," they gush, "so amazing what you've done!"

Really? Self-aggrandizement, caricatures?

Disgusted, I stretch out my arms and fly like a god over the labyrinth of book-packed aisles, descending only for purposes of spin-kicks on editions held up like plywood.

Crack! Crack! Crack! Crack!

Confetti everywhere.

Way up on the top of the shelves, the woman of my dreams, languorous as a panther, smiles a great big Cheshire Cat smile. "Good job, Daddy!"

"All for you, baby!"

Whereupon who do I see standing nobly next to the rack of used CDs but Cervantes himself, dressed like Don Quixote, and singing "The Impossible Dream".  The visor and the face-guard of the helmet are obviously cardboard. He hands the helmet to me and when I take it I see there are no iron bars inside, remarking same, to which he replies, "No, no, that was just a lie."

Cervantes launches into a little speech on my behalf, praising me to all the others, and each man takes a bow. "Honestly," Cervantes admits, "most of my best book is boring." My dream feels real, like it lasted in real time all night. I'm disappointed to wake up.

It's jarring. I still see the images from my dream as I pack my bag. I see Cece is gone. Well, no matter. For now tiz time to take the ride. This is it. Finally my big big day of gainful employ. Praise be unto the aliens. I don't know their names or anything about them, and that's the best I've seen around here. At the end of the day, hey, at least they gave me a job.

I still don't know how much I'll be making. And no, I'm not exactly sure just what precisely it is I'll be doing. But, best to be open to the forces of the universe.

I lock my apartment, walk down the stairs, yank open the poor tortured door that sticks with its center pane rattling so thinly, heading then onto the old porch a-creak and on outside to find there in the street, only just arriving, the very truck I was told to expect, a silver one, shiny and impressive.

Cece, I see, is the driver at the wheel.

I hop in, and as I do I see catty-corner through the windshield a pack of wild dogs come tear-assing across the lawn of a dilapidated Victorian. Through the open door and up the stairs they go.

"We'll need to swing by the gas station before we head up the mountain."

"What for?" Cece says amid sounds of the wild dogs growling and someone in the old Victorian screaming for dear life.

"I need to pick up a coffee."

"All right. Did they tell you about the hidden base buried in the mountain that houses black projects similar to Area 51 and other black ops bases?"

The wild dogs drag the screamer into the street, drag him out and tear him apart for all the neighborhood to see, and a pleasant sight it is indeed because he's a disinformation troll and part-time crisis actor.

"Yeah," I say to Cece, "they said to be on the lookout for a shapeshifter who escaped a long time ago, and that this shapeshifter seems to guard the cave for reasons unknown."

"They told me it was because of the hypergate."

"What hypergate?"

"The one in the cave."

"Don't forget the gas station. Nobody said anything about hypergates to me." Not that my being kept out of the loop is a complete shock.

"The hypergate is the Transportation Station."

"Oh. Ok."

Inside the gas station everyone standing in line with a phone smiles and is happy because in the last five minutes there's been a reduction in negative obfuscating comments online due, I realize, to the amusing incident of wild dogs tearing the disinfo troll to death in the street.

Heading up the mountain the town stretches out in the wide valley below. Looks like a board game. The way the game is played, each side is pitted against the other, and the people who own the game and do the pitting are somewhere else hiding out of view.

"Where's your armor?"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean where's your armor?"

"Back in my apartment, where do you think?"

"Why did you leave your armor in your apartment?"

"Who said anything about armor? What the hell are you talking about? Lemme guess. I was supposed to bring all that armor? Nobody said a damn thing to me!"

The distinct tones of Skype, muffled by my jacket pocket and drowned down by the engine's sound, reach my ears and make me smile. I pull out my phone and pick up my dream woman's call.

"Hey bebe," she says. I can see in the screen her legs are crossed, an elbow on the knee, her petite brown chin resting elegantly on the back of her casual hand. "And how are you?"

"Tres bien, baby, merci," I say, trying to hold the phone and stay in frame as Cece steers the rig up the winding hill. "How are you, cheri?"

"Sa va, sa va. Merci bebe. And where are you now?"

"I am in ein auto mit mein ami, and we go to work in the berg, the mountains."

"Ah nice, bebe! This is very nice."

"Oui, cheri." My dream woman looks like a supermodel, and when I tell her so she responds with closed eyes, the unintentionally glamorous tilt of her beautiful black head, and the purred words, "Merci, bebe. And what is your work?"

And what is your work?

Well, that's the million dollar question. The problem is I'm not exactly sure what to say, and I hate for her to worry, but I have a feeling my phone will be out of dish-range soon, and although we probably could afford to take a few minutes to just stop right there in the barely used road in order to maintain the call, I can't forget I'm low on data in my monthly phone plan, and on top of that I'm low on battery. So, further considering the language barrier, I nearly make a split-second executive decision, when luckily my dream woman senses some trouble I'm having and says she understands, it's ok, no problem.

"Merci, cheri. Listen baby, I have low data and low battery. No good!"

"Ok bebe, no problem, I say bonjournee. Gros bisous, je t'embrasse! I love you, bebe!"

"Je t'aime, cheri."

"Ohh, je t'aime, bebe," she says, and I feel her love, really feel it.

On the outskirts of the cabin to which we head a road splinters down with a length of inch-thick cable stretching across that takes a key hidden in the steel post to unlock. I hop out. When the truck eases past, gray plumes of exhaust ceaselessly fouling the air, I take the slack back off the cable, lift it up and lock it, then jump back in the rig. Down a rut-scarred dirt road we park behind a cabin with sheets of metal siding and roofing paper here and there about. I grab my pack. We lock the truck. We head on down the trail behind the cabin and across the creek, up the hillside, too, sometimes catching glimpses of a shiny black car, like the one the Men in Black had, creeping over the rock-choked switchbacks half-hidden by the trees below. We chug along a bit further.

"Did you hear car doors slam?"

"Si, senor. Mercedes doors, I'd say."

"Indeed. Cece, mi lanza."

Whereupon perceiving, Cece selects a goodly limb upon the loam. "Mi compadre," I say inspecting, "I doubt not these be the very Men in Black of ill repute and bad intent who give us chase this day. And I say, bring it! Welcome indeed we find this test of our very mettle, for I am aided by the fire of having finally got hired, and at a good job with great potential for a highly-motivated individual such as myself. Nothing, repeat nothing, will stop me in my quest to pay my bills and survive. I will have this work, this I swear, even at the health of mine own oppressor."

Lance outstretched, I charge down on the closest one. He coming now uphill, looking surprised to see my attack, used as they both are to being the ones doing that. He dives aside and beefs it. His wig-hat falls off when he slips and smacks his own face on a rock. I swerve lance-most to the next.

This one though, his jet-black eyes meet mine as he withdraws from his dated suit coat pocket a strange device. His pale flat face broadcasts fear as he thumbs away the proverbial mile-a-minute at the doohickey in his spidery grip. Weird waves emanate from this device. My quarry blurs from my view.

"All right, that's it. You mess with the bull, you get the horns!"

Waves emanating...

Lance remaining foremost, I am perhaps ten feet away. He's got the device cranked way up. My teeth are gritted, I'm leaning in. Through squinting eyes and clenched teeth I inarticulately rage, but the weirdly emanating waves into which I rage are strong, strong, strong...

9

The little blonde-haired girl appears. Like an insane juggler she waves her hands around nonsensically. And the Men in Black react as though the girl has somehow hurt them.

Because she has!

While the Men in Black scream on their knees we run, the little blonde-haired girl with the jet-black eyes in the lead, really putting RoboSancho to shame. I could run much faster than either of them anytime I feel like it, but then I wouldn't be able to see them in front of me and what kind of story would that make?

Finally we reach the hillside cave we seek. In we dive without a moment's pause, leaving the outer world with its sounds of wind and birds and smells of flowers and trees. Into the dark we fly, and hasten to the hypergate, that form of nature known unto the ancients as a means of travel. During certain times of the year, the hypergate locks coordinates with an ancient satellite assigned from the time of human creation with the task of protecting the planet. This now is one of those times, and I must hurry lest I lose the moment.

In the very extremity of the place I realize something in the waves transmitted by the device intended to impair me has instead only knocked out Cece's speech capacity again. "Don't worry, mi amigo," I assure. My erstwhile Alice directs me with the aid of a light inside of her hand to the place I am to sit in order to undergo the transference. Stranger still, I am to sleep. Indeed, only when my mind is in deep dream-state will my body transport through the hypergate. In spite of all the excitement, for the sake of the job I accede. "What about both of you? What will you do?"

"We'll be fine," she says.

"Si, senor," Cece agrees.

"Well, I've worked for weirder outfits. Guess I better hurry up and get to sleep. Be careful out there."

"Si, senor."

I've had to jump through many a goofy hoop in my time, that and twiddle thumbs for mysterious nameless forces to make bizarre decisions. Nor am I wildly shocked to see a couple pasty gimps in suits try to keep me from a job. Usually the case.

Musings on probs with jobs lull me to repose. I sit in a dark depression, appropriately enough, seeing nothing but the darkness, hearing nothing but the distant whistling of wind. I grow dozey. The wind is tinged with high-pitched howls.

It is the pack of wild dogs entering the cave. They pad into the chamber, nails clicking on the rock. Flashes of their eyes in the darkness appear. I smell them, sense their Sphinx-like postures. One, their leader, nears me and speaks. The shapeshifter, I surmise, in the form of a wolf. Loosely, this wolf explains how the hypergate works.

In my mind's eye a three-dimensional transparent version of Earth spins showing the mathematical pattern of hypergates appearing around the planet; when these line up with their counterparts in space as the planet turns on its axis and orbits the sun, the energy inside will be transferred to a vessel nearby waiting to receive. In this case, I am the energy, and the vessel is the ancient satellite.

Somewhere in the cold black regions above, the enigmatic mass awaits.

10

I am aware that I am asleep. Overnight, I realize, we have gone from wanting to market our work from the familiar comfort of our hovels, to having to do it under the stroke of the laser lash in the unfamiliar discomfort of a rock quarry.

"I hate having to write and market books for Reptoids," someone moans from the .99 cent section.

FZZZZZZAAP!

"Back to work, human dog!" the nearest Reptoid barks.

Not one of us understands why the Reptoids want us to write and market our work. Is it intended to be a humiliation? A distraction? If so, from what? There is no way to know. They don't keep us in the loop at all. Personally, I am struck by the impressive efficiency of the Reptoids. That and the laser lash. Yet, compared to joblessness, it isn't all that bad. I feel a purpose and a sense of community. I also recognize slaves from back in the online days.

"Psst...hey. I remember you from your thumbnail photo."

Everything all around is dust and dirt and hard gray rock. The cattle-like groans of the writers hang multitudinously over the mass of wretches like a pall.

"Huh? Whuh?"

"I recognize you," I whisper again.

"Go away."

"Go? Go where?"

"Stop it. You'll get us in trouble."

"We're already in trouble."

"I'm working on setting."

"What have you got?"

"I don't know. Go away!"

There is nowhere to go. And I recognize him from his thumbnail. I remember every thumbnail pic I've ever seen. We are in a long sort of trench, about six feet deep and maybe ten feet across. These trenches are all over the place, I think the result of huge Reptoid machines that come right out of the ground and leave trench-like ruts wherever they go. Plopping down next to this guy and leaning back against the dirt I tap my pen upon my chin as though I am trying to think of a good setting. Actually though, I am flipping through my mental Rolodex with my photographic memory recalling an exchange one time with this guy online.

"William Hurt," I say aloud.

"I'm not William Hurt!" savagely he whispers.

"Well, doy. I didn't say you are. You're the one who bitched at me that time online about my Altered States post."

I can feel the air drop.

"No...no, that wasn't me."

"Yes it was. Piece of trash. Think you got all the guts in the world online. Now I'm gonna kick your ass."

In one unrelenting motion I take his skull in big strong hands, stand up, and shake it--shake that skull from side-to-side with the little body underneath, and I can feel that little neck grind while he whines and tries to take in breath--

I awaken from the dream with a gasp. Breathing hard, disoriented, I try to gather myself together.

My surroundings are entirely unfamiliar. It is not the cave, that is definite. And what is more, I have never seen the place before.

11

Immediate surroundings encompass an area roughly the size of a gymnasium. Through the dim yet sufficient light cast by an unidentifiable source I perceive bare Spartan conditions with bizarre architecture falling somewhere between Alien and The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. Indeterminate hums subtly convey mechanization, a thrumming sensation indicative of incalculable power.

An aperture reveals the twin Nordic-types of the night before. The Tall Whites approach, bid me welcome, and perfunctorily inquire my well-being before escorting me from the dais on which I awoke in the center of the chamber down a long enormous corridor, and as they do, one assures me that I will soon be given all the details pertaining to my employment...














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