Reminiscense

God is dead. He had heard a man say it once, and it was beginning to grow on him. God is dead. There was no one to save you from your ignorance, your mortality; your life was set by yourself, no one to blame, nothing for self-serving martyrs. God is dead! Probably an existentialist. He felt it now, as he lay naked on rock that struck cold to the very marrow. The wounds that burned into his hand, arm and chest, violating his soul, were not self-inflicted but all the same an overwhelming temptation filled him to create a duplicate set on the opposing extremities. There didn’t appear to be a lot of point though, scrutiny of the desecrated wrist made him think he may have run out of blood; all that was left were deep red etches in his frozen skin. He didn’t like that idea; didn’t people need blood to live?
It suddenly struck him as odd that he was lying naked on rock. He couldn’t remember having done that at any other time of his life. He couldn’t remember running out of blood at any other time either. This was turning out to be a weird day. At least, he assumed it was; he wasn’t really sure what he remembered, if he remembered anything. That was odd. He didn’t like this day.
Realising he had remained in the foetal position since he opened his eyes he pushed out his legs to relieve his aching knees. They weren’t really aching, he just had the feeling that they should be. It was at that point that he was promptly reminded he was naked, and returned his legs to their previous stance. He couldn’t remember why he was naked.
His mind decided to protest against just about everything and he pulled himself up from the floor, determination filling him, orientation struck towards the pursuit of answers to whatever question flitted in and out of his porous mind. He had often heard people liken their memories to sieves, and it wasn’t until now that he had found any real sympathy with these individuals. Trying to align any sort of coherent thought was about as successful as a narcoleptic kleptomaniac.
He tried to discern a direction in which he could travel, direct his inquiries, but he was surrounded by an all embracing darkness that could only be described as at once irritating and dreadfully foreboding. He could see the floor. He wasn’t wearing any shoes. Why was he naked?
A dark, very dark, red rock run up to meet his feet and scattered off into the darkness. It was of a colour to make him think he may have found his blood. He took a step forward, and his little perimeter of deep red rock followed in an almost reverent fashion. He didn’t like moving; it disorientated him. He wanted to sit down, but he had a feeling the perimeter would not move to accommodate his knees, and something told him he did not want to cross that line. He thought it might have been himself.
A deep breath preceded another step onto the same patch of rock and the idea struck him that he may, in fact, not be moving at all, but rather having the small piece of rock move beneath him; like running on a large cylinder that he could not see. The idea disorientated him, so he sat down.
It really was awfully tiring, doing...this. He realised he had deep lines running the length of his arm and set to a study of them. They didn’t seem right to him, he couldn’t remember having lines on his arm before. On an impulse he bit into his wrist and then realised it was his own. He licked the taste of iron from his teeth and rubbed at the bite marks with his unimpaired hand. This was a strange day...or night. That was a point, was it day or night? There wasn’t any light around to tell by so he supposed it must be night. Or someone had stolen the sun. That was profiteering if ever it had existed.
How did one go about stealing the sun? What invirile lunatic was shouting inside his skull? God-damned place. He decided it wasn’t a sieve, in fact, it was a kind of colander. Bloody place.
Was it rock? He ran his finger across the deep red of the surface and found that dust gathered in the wake of his assault. It was like sand...on top of rock; didn’t taste all that great, either. Mouth? Again? How infantile. He was not going to put up with this kind of disconnected behaviour from himself. He was going to pull himself together, he was going to get out of here, get some answers and some bloody clothes!
He threw himself to his feet and fell over, immediately. Apparently his body had been napping. Forcing himself from his face sent a sharp sensation across the scars that criss-crossed his body and arm, and he only managed to position himself on a single knee, genuflected to the mortality of his own form. He did not like this sensation; it was as though an insatiable weakness fed from his strength.
“Having trouble?” Inquired a voice from outside of his own skull. The sentiment felt mocking, but the tone was one of genuine sympathy and regret. Raising his eyes from the line in the sand at which he had fallen, he scrutinised the source of the unbidden inquest. It appeared to be an incandescent impression of a middle aged man. Either that, or said personage was indeed transparent and made of neon. That wasn’t particularly plausible...was either of these theories?
He decided it was best to let things unfold; thinking about things seemed to make them invariably variable.
The man appeared to have obtained a more corporeal presence now, though he lacked the perimeter of deep red sand. The occupant envied him that, a deep envy that he should not have been capable of, not knowing the man. He decided to test the intruder.
“And what relevance would this have to your intrusion of my realm?” The occupant could find no logical path to his use of the word “realm”, no grounds, but it seemed correct. He could not place the anger that laced his statement, either; it was a cold, purposeful anger, but it did not reside within his thoughts. He would use it at any rate, though his subconscious had not really proffered him the option. It may yet aid his cause against this unknown inquisitor. Said individual seemed shocked by the response, though not at the tone or implication, but at the content. The occupant wasn’t sure how he knew it was the content that caught the trespasser; something in his head just told him it was. Not that he had had a lot of luck in communing with the participants of his thoughts. He decided to ignore that.
Watching the confusion play in those deep eyes seemed almost perverse, though. They sparkled with an unrequited knowledge that was abused by this situation. It almost invoked empathy, powerful, unwelcome empathy. The occupant was glad for anger; even if it wasn’t his own.
“I’m sorry, George. I didn’t realise this was your...realm.” The word seemed to taste weird in his mouth. And that name, he seemed to form it into a self contained question, not seeking correction, but acknowledgement. It rung bells in the occupant’s head though, bells that had not realised they would need to ring.
“George Ortwell.” Mused the occupant to himself; the fact that the intruder heard was an irrelevant addition to the situation. The fact that said man thought to assure the occupant of his correctness was also irrelevant; and somewhat degrading.
“George,” continued the intruder, “my name is Michael Bailey. I need your help, George.” Repetition of the name was to assure the occupant - to assure George - that he was in fact a person; that he did, in fact, know his name. Maybe it was a superiority thing.
“Well, Michael,” retorted George, “I don’t really have a lot to offer you. You can have some of my sand if you like.” Possessive; when had it become his sand? Well the population of this place seemed somewhat lacking and so he had a right to it, he supposed. He was grateful for the wave of confidence that seemed to have allied itself with his somewhat obscured cause. “I can’t tell you how much of it there is though, so you’ll have to savour it.”
“What sand, George? I don’t understand.”
And the occupant thought he was insane. There wasn’t a great deal of scenery in this place. It wasn’t as if the eye got lost on myriad distractions. In spite of himself he took a glance at the red rock beneath, to make sure it hadn’t been consumed by the creeping dark. He had almost forgotten the creeping dark. This alternate presence had distracted him from fear. George supposed that was something to be grateful for, not that the intruder would ever discover this.
“I may not be a cartographer, Michael, but I could draw you a map. It wouldn’t be much, but if you’ve got a napkin and a crayon I’d take great pleasure in being overly condescending.”
Michael seemed quite taken aback and his sparkle was once again assaulted by this unwelcome obtrusion. This time though, the sparkle never dwindled; it overruled the imposing shadow of confusion and held its place. A purpose allied itself with the knowledge, and Michael became a new man. He became the essence of sheer, unavoidable intent.
“George, I need you to do something for me, George. I just need this one thing from you and then you can... you can tell me to go and... well, you can tell me to fuck off, OK?”
George felt that the man was on the edge of desperation, but it never touched his voice. He was cool, calm collection. The occupant also knew that denying him any request that was to follow would be an exercise in futility; and he had no desire to engage in such a thing. The self-dubbed “Michael” seemed to be leaning forward, anxious? Or prepared? Maybe he believed – or hoped - that he would not be denied.
“Well, as you can see my schedule is very packed, what with all these visitors.” George said, gesturing to the empty space around him. He didn’t know why he was being so sarcastic with this man, but something in his head still told him the fellow was intruding, and that wasn’t something the occupant appreciated. “But I suppose I can make time for you, Michael.” It might, after all, make the time pass by; bring some light so that he could see his way out of this sand riddled weirdo convention.
The boy had been leaning forward, and he used it now as he broke into a stroll that was at a pace between rush and leisurely jog. George found it almost amusing; the boy must have been younger than he looked, he didn’t seem to quite be in control of emotion yet. Then again, that wasn’t always what every man strove for.
As Michael reached a distance of arm’s length, he grabbed hold of the occupant’s wrist and made a move to grab for the other. He missed, and fell back as though Mother Nature had seen fit to protect George’s injured arm with an almighty gust.
“George, please,” beckoned the boy, somewhere on the edge of pleading and anger, right hand still firmly clasping the man’s wrist as he balanced himself once again.
“Well don’t look at me, boy; what do you think I am: a wind farmer? Pull yourself together.”
Confusion again; it was becoming apparent that maybe the eyes did not know as much as they thought to display. The occupant held out his other hand to appease Michael’ complaints, but the boy seemed to be getting further away. Lot of good that would do him; hadn’t he needed a favour? Fortunately for George’s arm the boy no longer had a hold of it – he had a feeling that should he have had then he would not have let go – and he appeared to be walking away, looking utterly discontent. Poor fellow, thought George; strange, but seemingly nice.
“George!” screamed a voice in his right ear, which, needless to say, made him jump. He turned sharply to be confronted by deep green eyes with a familiar sparkle. What the Hell was going on now? Had they been green last time? He wasn’t entirely sure.
“What do you think you’re-” The occupant tried to protest, but Michael cut him off.
“No time, George, no time. Give me your hands.” The intent was back again; this cold, hard, unwavering man. George had a right mind to give him the back of his hand, and all the better if he remembered it; strange little boy.
“Why the blo-” but he was interrupted again, determination was coming on par with rudeness. The boy simply grabbed his wrists and vanished again. Next time, he was going to hit him. What the Hell sort of game was this? Lucky the child – Michael - hadn’t taken his wrists with him, mused the occupant.
He was behind him now, George realised as he searched for him rather than be snuck up on again. How had he managed that?
“What game do you think you’re playing, boy? It grows very tiresome.” He was beginning to sound like his father, the occupant realised, and that was disconcerting at best.
“It’s no game George, there’s been a-” began Michael, and was gone, again.
Very tiresome, George thought to himself as he surveyed the encompassing dark once again.1

His concentration was slipping, the scream of the immemorial dead resounded thoroughly within his unrestrained mind. Again he fought the ceaseless light aside to try and reach the incorporeal form of George Ortwell, but this time it would not leave him. He raked metaphysical hands through ceaseless shards of incredible light though it all but held him in its grasp. The scream rose in a mind shearing crescendo and Michael Bailey was suddenly very aware that the physical world called him back.
The walls of the hotel room coalesced into the abode that he had left, in a violent but ethereal union. Suddenly becoming aware of everything was quite a head trip and Michael fell back to lie on the floor upon which he had been seated. He went to run a hand across his forehead but was promptly reminded that his left was covered in the blood of George Ortwell. Moaning to himself, he rubbed his forehead and right eye with his other hand, running his fingers through the wild brown hair that adorned his temple. The unavoidable light still throbbed in his head, pulsating like a cut worm. For a while he simply lay there, staring up at the embossed pattern of the Seven Spire hotel’s ceiling, all roses and vines. It was of a pattern to remind him of his mother’s curtains; she had a thing about flowers, and nature.
His thoughts were still recovering from the scattering effect of being thrown from another’s mind, but slowly they came back to him, and slowly he remembered he had only done half a job - and that by default, not by completion - and that the second half still awaited him, a metre or so to his right. He turned his head to the left in an attempt to deny the inevitable and found himself face-to-face with George’s leg. He had almost forgotten the man was still there. Pushing himself to his feet, Michael examined the body once again, though he had no idea why. The Imperial Force forensics had already fine-toothed the place and they had found all they needed, or so they hoped. He was the last here because he needed to “mess around with the bodies”, as the Chief had so eloquently put it.
Wiping the blood from his hand on to the shirt of its owner, Michael turned to the other body; the one that had probably pushed George’s wife from her balcony that much quicker. The corpse of Maria Desheva lay splayed across the four-poster bed, the covers drenched in her blood. Michael might have called her beautiful, once, but the broken jaw and bloodshot eyes that now adorned her face were somewhat less appealing. With her long, light brown hair soaked in the sanguine fluid that had escaped her opened throat she was now a picture of horror. An image Michael was becoming accustomed to, he realised, somewhat regretfully.
Across wooden floorboards he walked to the accelerated beating of his own heart, and stood beside the bed. He knew not why he always chose to examine the bodies, but it seemed to help his practice, as much as anything could. It did nothing for his mental health, he was sure.
He sat down upon the bed and for a moment caught his reflection in a mirror. His dark green eyes seemed lost to him and he was an obscured realisation of the man he had once been. Life in the Imperial Force had changed him a lot; out of necessity. He spun himself around, crossing his legs, as much to get on with his job as to avoid self-scrutiny.
Observing the corpse once again disguised an attempt to brace himself – though he knew not from whom - as he prepared to throw himself once again to the other side. In the couple of months he had practiced his ‘art’ he had never become used to it, or accustomed to its manners. There were things even now that he was still learning, and things that still frightened him; though if he was honest there was little that did not frighten him.
He reached across the crimson sheets to grasp the wrist of Maria Desheva, feeling the damp cloth on his knuckles and the dilated veins against his fingers. He followed those veins with his mind, picturing the flow that no longer maintained this body; through caverns of meat, across muscles and arteries and into the fortress of blood, the heart, where a light still shone, pulsing as if fighting against the cold that ate its way through this corpse. It pulsed with all the strength that was left in this vessel. It pulsed with all the determination of the survival instinct. It pulsed, and Michael joined its glorious requiem.
Staring up at the impenetrable darkness of the Evervoid - the eternal House of Charon – Michael wondered why he always entered this enigmatic world laying down; or how, in this all consuming dark, he even knew he was lying down. Another of the many questions whose answers he feared would escape him forever. He righted himself and tried to find the woman whose suffering had brought him here. It shouldn’t be hard, to find a naked woman against a sheer jet backdrop. That was another question he wouldn’t mind having answered; why, within this shadowed veil, did the souls of the dead stand out so incongruously? An ‘expert’ – which was to say a raving hierophant – had told him that only the lantern of the Ferryman could break the ever-night of the House of Charon, and yet he perceived the souls as clearly as if all was bright. He shook his head; he would blame it on religion and leave them to deal with it.
Upon his third circuit – which amounted to spinning on the spot in the hope of finding what he was looking for – the woman appeared to him, huddled in on herself, legs drawn up and eyes wide as she rested her chin on her knees. She certainly didn’t seem aware, as George had. In fact, she looked positively blank. Even the surprise her wide eyes should have conveyed seemed somewhat diluted by obliviousness. She was going to be irritating, Michael could feel it. He stepped forward, but she made no motion to suggest she had seen him; in fact she made no motion at all and seemed lacking the enthusiasm to do so. Blokes make the first move, he thought to himself wryly and took another step forward, calling the woman’s name. Maria didn’t move. A repetition of the process achieved the same result and left Michael feeling rather futile and foolish.
“Mary?” he tried, using the name he’d been told George had for her, hoping to catalyse something.
“George?” came the frantic response from the young woman, head spinning towards him. Or at least that would have been what she said, had her jaw not been hanging loose around her throat like some awkward adornment. A strange sound, like a rewound snapping, accompanied the realignment of Maria’s jaw as her pupil’s attempted to watch. Michael would never become comfortable with that, he thought, as he flinched from the noise. Nor would he ever understand how the dead were aware of an ability to heal themselves; or at least the visual representation of their immortal soul. Or why a metaphysical entity required any kind of notion of snapping; but that was more for his state of mind.
“You’re not George,” declared the forlorn woman, “where’s George?” she asked, in a voice both pleading and wrought with despair; a voice no one could deny. “They killed him too, didn’t they?” she inquired before Michael could respond, her voice still laced with sorrow.
Michael didn’t know if he should confirm her fears – if they even were fears – or let her believe the man she loved had lived on. What would be better for her? Did he have the time to try and comfort her? Not that he knew how. It had never been his strong point with anyone in life, let alone death, and he was especially lost when it came to women. Her eyes demanded something from him though; she was upset and he was here. He would comfort her. Michael supposed that that was quite arrogant, after a fashion. He decided to respond with the simple truth, no floral decorations of cold facts or inauthentic testament; it was for the best, he thought, and she seemed to take it as such. Her staring eyes dropped for a moment, but she seemed to collect herself quickly, perhaps realising the similarity of their positions and finding hope within it. Perhaps. Who knew what the dead thought of death? Michael had never claimed to, partaking in what he saw as only the briefest of stints into their world; or rather the edge of their world.
She did not question the means or method of his departure, perhaps already perceiving the inevitable brutality of men who had wandered into a Seven Spire hotel room with firearms and eight inch blades. Or perhaps her mind wandered amid other things of which this intruder into her misery was not to know of. Michael did not like the idea of being an intruder. He had never questioned his presence within this realm of stolen light before, never thought to see that maybe they didn’t like him here; George had catalysed his mind.
“Are you dead?” the woman asked, rerouting his train of thought. It was, strangely, not a question he’d been asked before, and not one he’d really considered being able to answer.
He hesitated, unsure of how or if to continue. Would this woman accept that a living man could pass into this place? Or would it invoke a conversation the length of which would see her slip between his fingers, as Ortwell had done?
In the end, the truth will out, he thought to himself, with somewhat of a mental sneer in which he preordained the disappearance of Maria’s soul.
“No, no I’m not dead.”
The woman conveyed a surprising amount of melancholic acceptance in the moments before her face dropped once again, this time with disappointment.
Disappointment? Michael thought to himself; maybe she had believed him a sort of companion. Death had to be awfully lonely, he supposed.
“But I do need your help,” he added, hoping the suggestion of some kind of purpose to her otherwise groundless existence might spark something in the woman. It was a loose hope, almost arrogant of him, but he did need her help, and he had to keep his mind local to his own purpose. “I need you to help me find the men who...” he hesitated, wondering what the woman would respond to. He could talk about George and hope she loved him enough, or talk about her and hope she had valued her life. Her initial sentiment bound it though... “...slaughtered George.” He hoped that the verb wasn’t too strong for her taste; he had intended it to invoke some emotion and sense of having been wronged within the woman, but women were less predictable than men in their reactions. He had lost cooperation over less, he regretted to remember. Michael saw the spark strike through her though, at the mention of her lover’s name. Her eyes almost seemed alive now; certainly more alive than the pale, gaunt body that represented her immortal soul. She seemed to analyse him, perhaps assessing his value, the trust she could place in him. It took far too long in Michael’s mind – he could watch the sands dripping through all too fast – but eventually the woman agreed to help.
Let it begin, thought Michael to himself, not without a hint of regret; regret that he once again had to make these demands of people who should have been done with the binds and trappings of the human world. He took up a pace that he hoped the woman would not perceive as rushed, in spite of the urging tones in his own skull. Reaching her self-constricted form he dropped to one knee, hoping to put the woman at ease, and asked her to hold out her hands. For the first time, under his subservient gaze, she seemed to realise that those hands were clamped around her drawn up legs, and promptly shifted her position entirely, sliding her legs around to her side and holding out her hands as instructed. She did not seem at all bothered by her nudity, though the dead were aware of it in different degrees, Michael had learned. Of course, he didn’t rule out the possibility that she may simply be comfortable in her own skin. He wasn’t sure he would have been.
He took her hands as gently as he could manage. Her skin – or whatever passed for skin in this place – was soft and ethereal, as though, had he held any tighter, he may have left an impression. He gazed deep into her eyes, deep past her eyes; the windows to the soul. He didn’t know if his practice required any of this – he had never been shown an instruction manual – but he knew it helped him work. I should have asked her to relax, he thought, as his mind slipped away from its moorings within his own body, professionals always ask you to relax.2

Welcome to the labyrinth, thought Michael to himself as four grey walls crashed together around him, framing a floor that was already there and a ceiling-less gaze into a sky of dim, static, strobe rainbow storm clouds. Each of the walls then proceeded to explode into a spider-web of corridors, streaming from the centre of each. He could not see the spider-web he simply knew it was there, as it had been so many times before, as it would be so many times succeeding this. He did not know if the mind appeared to everyone like this – he was quite convinced that each of them, all who held the key to the Mindgate, saw it differently, that this structure was a product of his own mind – but this was what he had to work with. In retrospect it was often best not to think about these things; it got messy - mentally. He was dressed as he had been in the ‘real’ world, navy-blue Imperial Force trench coat, black trousers, and white shirt. He supposed that showed a lack of imagination, and wardrobe, but never mind either of those. Taking a deep breath he pushed off of the wall against which he had been leaning, and started off down the left. He always favoured the left, to begin with, though he didn’t know why; it was part of a tradition that only he upheld, a tradition without origin. Running his hand along the wall he looked down the length of the corridor. It appeared to stretch forever, but he knew better than that. He stepped through onto the red carpet of a finely lit entrance hall; intricately woven patterns in golden thread chasing the edges and bursting into exotic flowers. Myriad people chatted away on all sides, each in fine dinner suits or elegant dresses, half-masks of various shapes, sizes and colours perched upon their faces, flitting in and out of existence in flashes of pale blue as much as the waiters clearly distinguished in their white garb, carrying gilded trays of assumedly expensive wines from crowd to crowd, bowing as if in the presence of lords. Michael hoped they had been paid well for this feigned meekness; money helped in the hunt for lost dignity. One of the men came towards him, a look of apathy painting his moustached face.
“Loss of dignity, friend? Feeling the pinch of everyday life nip at your heels?” Michael inquired casually and smiled to himself as the waiter walked straight through him in a scattering of mental pixels. “Such is the world we live in,” he finished and strolled towards the carpeted staircase at the centre of the room, some twelve foot wide, entire walls and pieces of scenery flickering between the recalled appearance and pale blue wire-frame as he walked.
Michael didn’t know what this place was but he doubted anyone Maria knew owned it. She wasn’t the sort of person who walked in these circles. Her circles were more... secluded. She was the sort of girl who walked in circles and hoped to find progress, perhaps lying on the ground. George hadn’t been lying on the ground, though he was when she finished with him that night.
Michael ran a hand along the oak banister as he climbed, feeling it as he knew oak to feel, not as it may have felt in actuality. This place was a combination of the memories and assumptions of Maria Desheva and those of Michael Bailey. That was the main problem with Michael’s art; it was based on the reliability of people’s memories and perceptions. He worked with an odd little group, gathered together by the Imperial Forces, to make up for the flaws.
A raucous laugh brought Michael back to the task at hand and he realised he was standing in a large, elderly gentleman whose moustache was trying to escape his bottom lip. Maria was wrapped around his arm like a handbag, beaming as if this moment fulfilled her. The glazed eyes told Michael that it was probably the alcohol that had. They vanished after a moment and the wire-frame devoured the stairs for a moment. Michael took a step forward and found himself eye-to-eye with the banister at the bottom of the stairs. Good ol’ stabile human mind, thought Michael, stifling a mental sigh. He vaulted the oak and went up again, as was his preference, even if there were doors downstairs. Shrugging, he picked a random door and walked through; he could guide himself in this place as well as a blind-man in a desert. There were no such things as locks in this place so he barely broke stride as he stepped through the finely cared oak wood into the back of a butchers, so much so that he nearly walked into a hanging carcass. Not so nice. He just managed to shift to the side. It wouldn’t have made a bit off difference – he would have passed straight through - but he was vegetarian and this was better for his mentality.
The unmistakable, if somewhat unwanted, sounds from somewhere within the room found Maria for him again, but Michael decided off he was better off trying another door...quickly. Through a temporarily wire-framed pig he saw the walk-in freezer; it would do. He pulled it open and stepped through into a vast landscape with a green tent some way off to his left; two figures cuddling close in front of it. Snow crunched under his feet as he walked forwards, an image of the northern lights dancing over the sky; an image most probably created by someone who had never seen them. Another problem with Michael’s work was that the Mindgate also incorporated dreams, but dreams were easier to manipulate when you were conscious of being within one, so it was indefinitely an advantage. For example, a door in a dream could open anywhere you fancied, say... the Seven Spires Hotel, June 4th 2131 at approximately four o’clock. A plain grey door appeared to his right and Michael decided he was a very dull person. He needed to exercise his mind more, get his imagination working. Of course it all functioned the same, so no qualms there.
He reached for the handle and put his fingers in a bin, the snow around him climbing in to great, dark, grey walls. Pale blue wires whipped themselves into a fire escape along one of the walls and poured from about waist height to form dustbins. Dreams were fleeting, but hopefully Michael’s influence would last. He dived for an equally grey door, through a bin, and stepped through, deciding slightly too late that approximating the time had been a bad idea.
He wished the hotel room door did not open with a full view of the four-poster, red velvet-adorned bed, but it did. The velvet was on the floor, along with an array of garments and a quilt, the combination of which all but hid the neutral carpet that Michael was staring at with an intensity only acquired through forced distraction or a great interest in carpets. The Psychoscope had no interest in carpets. He didn’t mind the bodies when they were covered in blood and carved up – well he did, but not this much - he definitely felt like he was intruding when he came across these memories. They were often irritatingly prominent; more so in women, even women like Maria.
She was quite beautiful, even if the image of her that bounced atop George Ortwell was not entirely accurate – mental self-projection rarely was.
He forced his eyes away from her again and lit the cigarette that was now in his mouth. He had quit years ago, but it didn’t count in here. The danger of cancer was significantly reduced by a lack of biological or even physical parts; in this world it just tasted good.
He spun the silver lighter across his fingers as he had tried to do so many times in the physical realm. Ha, realm; that was George’s word. He could do anything in here. It was quite liberating, if not for the burden of the job. He had only taken a few puffs went he put the cigarette out on his nose – because he could. The room seemed to deconstruct itself and rotate as he did, and in a moment he was standing next to the bed, watching Maria stroke George’s arm as he stared out of the window. Michael was going to have to be careful; concentration was everything in this place. If he skipped what he had come for he’d be kicking himself... he was glad the moaning had stopped. He flicked the butt of the cigarette away and it disappeared before it more than a few inches from his fingertips. He strolled over to the couple by the window and took a glance outside. The view was much the same as it had been when he had left, so many corridors of urban labyrinth threading through sky-scraping, megalithic buildings, eating the limited space the Muindul city had to offer. Of course, that was probably his doing. From the looks of things, Maria could not see outside, so the view was from his memory. Awkward system.
“Not much to look at, Georgie-pie,” Michael muttered, “Got more to look at behind you, mate; lovely lady and all...” He sighed to himself and leaned against the window, watching the pair and the digital clock on the draw behind them, now turned toward the window for his convenience. If Maria had not paid a great deal of attention to something, like a clock, he could change it slightly to suit himself. He may not have learned everything about the Mindgate, but he could get by. The chief often made claims that he knew of Psychoscopes who could manipulate the Mindgate to their every whim. Michael knew only of only one other of his kind, a man by the name of Soudry Gen who lived in the Ground Guild city of Rau’kl. He had not conversed with the man a great deal, but he seemed just as lost in their world as Michael. Incidentally the chief could not name any of his Psychoscopes. Funny, really.
The clock had struck 4:23 when a knock sounded at the door at George rose from the edge of the bed to answer it. Michael braced himself as the man made what seemed to be an excruciatingly slow advance on the door. This was the calm before the storm; his host’s last peaceful memories of her beloved George.
The man opened the door – eventually – to a group of what appeared to be three Alchemists. Each of them was dressed in black leather trench coats arrayed with various belts and pockets over tight black vests and black combat trousers, or at least they were once they had stepped into the room; Maria had not seen them before then. To the great irritation of the Psychoscope, they were also wearing Alchemy masks. Archon-damned Alchemists got away with too much in this city. It did, however, mean that all three of these men had presented Decrees of the Alchemist at the front-desk of the hotel, which was something. They’d be faked, unless the Alchemist had actually wanted Ortwell dead for some reason, though Michael highly doubted that; the Coven generally kept to themselves.
They had spoken to George at the door, but Maria had not heard and it came out as incomparable garbage. It was enough that George had swung for them though. That had been his first mistake, not that he had really been on a three strike system. He was blocked and socked with the knife that the lead had brought from a belt in the back of his coat. Ortwell reeled back as the hilt jammed into his chin and the other flashed forward, raining cuts on George as if he intended to sell the product on as mincemeat. From the body he had seen, Michael knew that this was exaggerated by Maria but it didn’t make a difference. The details of the fight would not be accurate, thanks to the mind of Maria, so Michael mentally noted the aesthetic details. There wasn’t a great deal.
George slammed into a chest of drawers against the right wall as Michael strode across the room, through the Alchemist and jumped out of the window. Whole thing had been a bloody waste of his time, if he was honest. He could really have done with George’s Mindgate, it would have made things a lot easier, even if it would have taken more time. He break-fell onto the grey stone, rolling into a small room from the right. He couldn’t have said how he got back here; he just did when he needed to... and a couple of times when he didn’t.
Standing, he took out a cigarette – from the air – and lit it with the flame that danced on his fingertip. His imagination was getting better. This one he smoked to the filter; he had the time to burn, not that it actually accounted to time in the real world. He sighed to himself and let the walls slip into themselves.3

The reunion of the physical world was somewhat more violent this time and Michael found himself falling back from the bed, unable to find anything to grip. He fell with a thump that knocked the wind from him and he groaned. Why couldn’t everyone just die on the floor? At least it hadn’t been the balcony again; that was an experience he wouldn’t soon forget. He rolled over and pushed himself up, realising how close he’d been to smashing his head on the nightstand; Thank God for small mercies, he recited almost robotically. It was something his mother always said.
He didn’t look at either of the bodies again this time. In fact, if he could have found his way out with his eyes closed he probably would have done.
Reaching for the doorknob, he took a deep breath.
“Thank you,” he said quietly to both of the bodies behind him, though he never looked ‘round. It was a matter of respect; he had always considered it so.
Closing the door swiftly behind him he leant against it and wished he hadn’t given up smoking. He had given up because he always found himself wanting one after a job. The job didn’t pay enough for him to entertain such a habit, and his lungs had also been adverse to the idea. Besides, his girlfriend had always disapproved.
He glanced at the clock down the corridor and realised he had been in the room a grand total of eighteen minutes. Fortunately he was paid on commission and not by the hour. Then again, for room 422, he had a feeling both would amount to the same. It had not been a great day. At least there were the Decrees of the Alchemist he could look into, so he didn’t need to have a complete breakdown.
He reached into the inside breast pocket of his coat and drew out his mobile, spinning the screen through one-hundred and eighty degrees to reveal the keypad. He liked his phone. Speed dial three displayed a picture of blues and twos on an old fashioned land-line, the kind with the circular dial, and he raised the phone to his ear to report in. He didn’t like the flashy wireless crap that all the starched suits used, it made them look arrogant; talking to the air as if there were not crowds of people around them.
When he hung up he drew the card out from the back of the phone. It was now imprinted with the authority of a section chief, rather than that of an Imperial Force Psychoscope, if only for the rest of the day. He slid the card through the reader by the door, having reminded himself of the need to do such, to relock the room and headed down the corridor towards the stairs. Michael could have used the lift to reach the entrance foyer, had he fancied it, but he needed the exercise, even if it was nine stories’ worth. It was ‘lucky’ he had the dedication for these things; the lift looked mighty comfortable as he stared down the centre of the myriad flights.
The entrance foyer of the Seven Spires Hotel was - as expected from the one-hundred and seventy-second floor of New Muindul – quite incredible. Three awesome glass spires soared into the sky about seventy-eight feet from the floor, seamlessly joining the deep crimson walls that soared to support them, refracting countless colours of stained light across the heights of the room and reverting to a soft, natural light as it came to the floor. There were, obviously, another four of these spires atop the penthouse floors, but they did not quite stand up to those here. Eight pillars also hugged the walls to either flank, right-angled triangles and the same colour as the walls, casting soft shadows in the eaves, where figures lingered and stairs terminated, so that they were hidden, making the room untouched, flawless except for the large desk at the very back under the hanging, red banner of Seven Spires: a simple circle with seven isosceles triangles rising from equal placement about the circumference.
The receptionist wore a smile as fake as the lips that it twisted as he wandered to the desk after catching his breath at the bottom of the stairs. She was the kind of dense employee that hotels hired because her otherwise vacant mind was good at accepting commands. Smile, sit, rollover, and play dead, for example. She greeted him with an upgrade of her current grin which he returned by default rather than out of courtesy.
“Hi, I’d like to see your admittance records for the past fortnight,” he said, proffering the I.F. card between his index- and middle-finger. She blinked at the blue card as if she had never seen anything of its like before and for a second the smile even slipped. She clearly did not know about room 422, which was not unusual. She didn’t even check the card before curtly offering acceptance and obedience. Michael was already beyond caring.
“Will Mister Olivers please report to reception desk B,” she said into a Tannoy with the same airy voice that seemed to come with every loudspeaker system.
Mister Olivers was, apparently, a woman. She strolled up to the desk staring contempt at the receptionist and bowed respectfully to Michael. She was clad in the same dark crimson jacket and trousers as the receptionist, edged in a dark blue, but she had epaulettes to match. She was clearly a higher status of hotel lackey.
“Thank you, Sandra,” she said through clenched teeth to the beaming girl and then turned to him, “Mister Bailey, if you’d like to follow me please.” She was the kind of woman you could tell added courtesy to her sentences with great effort. She must have locked the imperative in a draw somewhere to keep it from her speech. In spite of this, she did play subservient quite well. Michael could picture her in a poorly made movie with an improvised German accent and a cane. Frau Oliver!
“Through here please,” she said, derailing his train of thought and disappointing him with a firm English accent. Some people just weren’t born to play the parts.
Michael nodded his thanks and entered a small room with three features, not counting walls of deep crimson and carpet of grey. One of them was a security camera mounted in the corner; the others were a large desk and a computer monitor, the former of which touched all but one wall, effectively filling half the room. Cosy, thought Michael as he slipped inside. Frau Oliver closed the door behind him and he heard the sound of high heels clomp down the corridor. The Psychoscope grunted, so he was not to be watched with the hotel’s personal, confidential records then. He hoped that the three “alchemists” had not discovered the lapse in protocol here before him; if they had, the next step may have been removed from under his feet.
He supposed a chair was too much to ask for and so he leaned against the desk as he booted up the monitor which would turn on the computer, wherever it may be hiding. Chances were it was in an entirely different room.
When it had sprung and whirred into action, he inserted his card into the reader at the side. The shield of the I.F. spun onto the screen after a moment, blue and edged in silver, the fist in the rising sun logo embossed in the centre.
“Greetings Psychoscope Bailey,” said the machine in an airy voice he was sure it borrowed from the Tannoy, “How may I serve?” AI creeped him out so he decided to use the touch screen rather than vocal commands to access the files.
The Decrees – thankfully still on the system - were in the names of Gordon Richards, Almena Redered, and Carlos Santaigo. Nice, local names, thought Michael wryly. The Coven would not be happy about these, whether they were all faked or not. They valued their privacy and the tenuous relationship they had with the city. A breach of the Imperial Forces into their “hallowed ground” would paint frowns on their faces, and they would work quickly to see that the boys in blue left. In a way it was almost a relief to work with the Alchemists; they were brutally efficient.
Michael slid a transparent card into the reader, behind his ID, and clicked a small button on a black strip at the very end; it would burn the files from the computer, for the Chief to observe at his discretion. A red light sparked up on top of the strip and a progress bar announced the burning of the current files.
With all the technology they had, Michael couldn’t see why they did not create a bar that showed steady progress, thus suggesting a remaining time period, rather than one that jumped as if it was being filled by a bicycle pump. In what kind of useful function was 8% succeeded by 13%? He sighed to himself and leaned against the wall, wishing he had a virtual cigarette.
He departed the hotel some moments later, with ID in pocket and data in hand as he absently spun the card through his fingers, onto the translucent walkway of the one-hundred and seventy-second floor of New Muindul. The Seven Spires had acquired a much sort-after ‘clean’ spot in the city - south facing and unblemished by higher walkways - and as such Michael could look up and gaze at the sky. Not that there was all that much to gaze at. The sun danced on the surface of the synthetic atmosphere as if on water, but beyond that the sky was blank; the same deep, formerly-beautiful blue it had been for so many years.
Michael fingered the Imperial Force badge in his pocket and silently thanked a God he could not believe in, who took the form of the Imperial Order’s Archon if the Psychoscope thought about it too much. He didn’t like to think about it too much. The man was a messiah, at best, and a tyrant, at worst. Fortunately he was a sincere tyrant though; he took power in his stride, granted, as if he had been born with the right in his mouth, but he did not overrule or undermine. He seemed to think that because they lived within, and because of, his technology, they were all quite content with him reigning supreme. Arrogant as that may be, it certainly kept him off of everyone’s back. He would not preach to the ‘converted’.
He wished Blood would not stare at him like that.
“All finished, Mister Bailey?” She asked in the voice that always reminded him of Dickens’ Oliver Twist.
The woman was small for her age and often seemed huddled in on herself, though he couldn’t say why. She dressed in tight cat-suit and elbow-length fingerless gloves of red and black beneath her Imperial Force coat that did nothing to debase her nickname, and the long, black hair that flowed to her waist always seemed slightly unkempt. She was very odd and Michael had to confess that he had no clue as to her actual name; he knew her only as Blood, like so many of the Imperial Force. She had the uncanny ability to ‘taste’ death from several miles off, as well as DNA from blood samples – she could name the owner of any blood sample literally by taste - which was limitlessly creepier. Michael didn’t like the girl at all, he wasn’t sure anyone did, but she was useful. However, he had a feeling that if she hadn’t been able to taste death she might have been killed; technology could do the DNA just as well as her, and many people considered her inhuman. So much so that certain members of the I.F. had taken to calling her Angel ‘Vampire’, though Michael felt that went too far; it was almost sacrilegious.
He really wasn’t quite sure why she was here.
“Yes, Blood, all finished.” She smiled at the use of her nickname, a smile that didn’t suit her appearance, the way it seemed to fill her figure with happiness and twinkle her dark brown eyes. Sometimes Michael wished she didn’t smile.
She trailed him back to the ‘Hive’, on the thirty-fourth floor of New Muindul, as she had trailed him from it. It was one of the lowest facilities in the city, but the Chief maintained that that gave them prime position to “sieve the scum”. Michael was not so convinced. He didn’t like it down here; it was too dark for him, what with the sunlight having to diffuse through so many walkways. He did not envy the Rat Runners in their deepest dwellings, though many of them took to it and some more than happily; like Blood, incidentally. She’d been one of the Orphans, or so he was told; a group of children with Angels, watched over by a questionable woman who named herself Patricia. She and they were another of New Muindul’s enigmatic features. What a city to live in, thought Michael to himself, though he doubted there were many better, under Imperial rule.
“Bailey, you alright, mate?” asked the heavily armoured individual at the entrance of the Hive and Michael realised he had been staring down into the Rat Runs, or rather into the shadowed mist that shrouded the depths.
“Yeah...” Michael began, “Just... lost in thought.”
“Unfamiliar territory, aye, Mike,” replied the guard, winking.
“Yeah,” Michael replied, absently. Something had caught his eye in the shadows, but he wasn’t quite sure what it was, or how anything that deep and in that much shadow could have caught anyone’s eye.
The guard pulled a face and shrugged; Familiars were all weird as far as he was concerned anyway.
“Well if you fancy finding your way home, Psychoscope, I’ll dangle a light and shout your name. Well, I might.” Michael looked up for the first time and gave a half-hearted smile to the colossal man.
“Sorry Ian; wandering in my own world, you know,” he said, trying – and failing – to make himself seem less obscure. He shook his head as he walked past the man and slid his ID through the wall’s reader. He had to watch himself, especially in front of... humans; Familiars were executed if they were thought to be losing their minds; apparently, you could never be too careful.
The great glass doors opened before him, beckoning him in and, he had learned, sparking a light in some annexed booth. Imperial Force Psychoscope 004 was now officially within the Hive. The phrase “breach of privacy” had been sidelined owing to exhaustion; such was the security state that they now lived in. The Imperial Order liked to be informed.
Giant foyers were, within the Imperial Order, the new black, and the Force was not one to be left behind. Its ‘greeting hall’ spanned a ridiculous amount of space, and yet there always seemed to be people milling around it. Michael had a feeling they were paid to make the place look busy, if not exactly efficient.
He strolled up to the desk across crimson carpet and nodded to the receptionist – this one male and not paid enough to fake a smile – whose name he did not know. Inserting his ID into a slot in the mahogany desk – a great crescent of wood about a pace wide and several long – he waited for the click. There wasn’t really a click, it was just – for some reason – what his mind had designated it. It was more of a woosh, and the hanging navy-blue banner of the Imperial Force, a couple of yards in front of him, against the wall, twitched slightly. No-one else paid it any heed at all, not even so far as acknowledging their awareness of it, but they had seen it all before, more than likely. Nodding once again to the receptionist Michael made for the banner at what he hoped was a steady pace. The ‘observation’ he had made while watching the Rat Runs was still making him uneasy, and he had to speak to the Chief anyway. The man may even send him into that pit to speak with the Alchemists, though he had fingers crossed against it. They should have had an ambassador or something for this sort of thing. Suggestion box, here I come. They should have a suggestion box or something. Where were you supposed to place your suggestion for a suggestion box?
Michael brushed aside the banner and climbed – or clambered, with the size of the bloody thing – into the tube-like lift on the other side. He was quite sure it was not this size out of necessity, but more for the general amusement of the Chief. He never had to use this bloody thing.
When he climbed out of the thing, about a million floors up, he was quite sure it was laughing at him. He had arrived at what was effectively a penthouse greenhouse; the ceiling, like windows caught in a spider-web, slowly curved down from where he was to some two metres above the black desk that sat at the other end of the room, seating the large man who was “forever and always” the Chief of the Imperial Force’s hand in New Muindul. He wasn’t immortal, thankfully, just cocky and powerful.
“Enjoy the ride?” he barked between laughing as Michael caught his foot and almost fell from the pod. He had hoped he’d never do that. The Psychoscope considered a number of witty retorts, along with a few abusive ones that he would never use, but in the end he just smiled and said nothing. The Chief was a brutal combatant, both physically and verbally. He was a fairly odd-looking man, if truth be told, being of a build to match Father Christmas, and of an attitude to make the corpulent saint cry. His facial hair was at once bristly and straggly, a black moustache that seemed to prop up his large nose and he always wore a square cap over what remained of his thinning hair, with the sleeves of his Imperial standard-issue shirt rolled up to show hairy forearms that were either muscular or fat. Of course, no one was perfect, and – once you navigated his flaws – he was actually a very easy man to get along with. Michael hadn’t really navigated his flaws.
“So what have you got for me, boy?” demanded the Chief. He had gotten into the habit of calling everyone boy – though Michael felt he had probably always been into it – since he was promoted to Chief; it was a superiority thing.
Michael remained silent and took the question as a queue to stroll across the dark blue carpet and throw the transparent data card onto the desk. The Chief responded in kind and simply took the card and slid it into a port in his desk. A holographic blue screen flickered into life, suspended above the desk, and displayed the contents of the card. The Chief flicked through them silently, using the kinetic sensors, reading each one at least twice.
“Decrees of the Alchemist?” he inquired sceptically, though the question he asked wasn’t in the words.
“The three assailants were garbed as Alchemists and used these passes to clear themselves. The Alchemist will know-”
“Yes, yes, I got that bit,” interrupted the other man. “So you want me to send someone to the Fortress then?” It was a rhetorical question, Michael knew, and space for him to say that he would go, except that he had no desire to commit himself to any such thing.
The question hung in the air like some putrid cloud, Michael playing ignorance and the Chief refusing to bend a hair, because that was what he did. Michael was tempted to just say “yes”, except that the Chief would not be best pleased and probably send him anyway, out of spite.
“Well, that would be for your better judgement, Chief,” replied Michael finally, almost cringing with the words. He hoped it would do for both of them. At least he had not used “sir”.
The Chief mumbled something inaudible and made an amused sound in his throat.
“As you say, Psychoscope,” the man said, “since this is your case” – when had it become his case!? – “I’ll send you. But take Matthews; they like Matthews.” Whereas they’re not so fond of you was the missing conclusion that sounded in Michael’s head with the Chief’s voice. So much for that.
The Psychoscope nodded in feigned appreciation and went back to the ‘lift’, but not before he was demeaningly notified that he’d forgotten the data card. Out of luck rather than skill he caught the thing as it flew through the air towards his face and he offered thanks through somewhat gritted teeth.
Back in the lobby he glanced up at the enormous black clock that dominated much of the room’s beige back wall, the golden minute hand at least four yards across, and, with the aid of the hour hand, announcing the time as somewhere in the region of eight o’clock, post-morning. Nine to five was the dream, when he had a chance to sleep.
“Can you tell me if Hank Matthews is in the building, please?” he asked the man behind the desk, trying to avoid the fact that he didn’t have a clue as to the man’s name.
Hank was not so much liked by the Alchemists, rather they would have liked to tie him down and cut him open; he was incredibly intriguing to them, thanks to his Angel, Uriel. It allowed his skin to excrete a flammable liquid – thankfully, now, when he wished – which lit very easily. He was one of the fortunate Assault-class Familiars that had been born outside of the Purging. Humanity did terrible things in the name of fear.
“He’s at the firing range, sir,” answered the clerk after ruffling through the holographic screen. Michael thanked him and he returned to his lounging position, happy that his work was done for the moment. Well, maybe not happy, from the look on his face; perhaps content.
The firing range was quite a literal designation while Matthews worked the alleys. Fireballs shot up the otherwise dimly lit range, casting their orange glow as they shuttled down to the specially crafted targets; the generic paper ones had some trouble dealing with burning projectiles.
Michael shouted the man’s name at the stalls as another ball of fire streaked down the alley and Hank stepped out from behind one of the furthest walls, the arms of his wrist-mounted rail gun sliding up into the main body. A single silver orb, about the size of an average marble dropped from within the main housing and Hank cursed as he caught it.
“Bloody thing keeps doing that,” he informed Michael as he held the ball in his little- and ring-finger. Taking of the odd, leather, rabbit-like mask he wore with his left hand he clicked with the other, sparking the flints on his middle-finger and thumb, courtesy of a specially-crafted glove. His hand went up, as did the orb, and he smiled as he held it aloft. “Funky, isn’t it?” he asked, grinning wildly.
“It was the first time,” Michael said, smiling; he didn’t share the man’s enthusiasm for fire. “We’ve got a job to do, mate,” he continued; there was little point dancing around the purpose of his visit. Quick and painful, “The Chief wants us to visit the Fortress, got some business to sort out.” Hank’s smile faded at the mention of the Fortress, he was a confident man, but he had no appreciation for the way the Alchemists eyed him. He was also aware that when the Chief said jump, you jumped, unless you wanted to be thrown. The fire on his hand went out and he smothered the silver ball.
“He told you to take me with you, didn’t he?” It was a rhetorical question, but Michael nodded anyway. “Pretty sure the old bastard wants one of them to cart me off and cut me up,” he said, with no hint of amusement or sarcasm. Hank shared Michael’s view of the Chief. “Probably keep sending me there until his wishes are granted,” he continued, “I’ll cremate any one of them that tries,” he said, pointing his flinted finger at Michael as if it had been the Psychoscope’s idea. The anger seemed to leave him though, and his hand sunk. “What time is it, then?” Hank asked, though he could check the clock on the wall just as easily as Michael could.
“Half eight,” replied Michael, “Just after the Rising,” which was the equivalent of the Alchemists’ morning. For some reason – for some creepy and undisclosed reason – the Alchemists operated on a different time-frame to the rest of New Muindul. Michael was sure it was simply to aid their mysterious, midnight dwelling facade. Creepy bastards.
“Into the breach, then,” concluded Hank, resigned and fastening the buckle of his glove tighter than it needed to be.
“Into the breach,” agreed Michael, fingering the Imperial Force badge in his pocket.