Volume
One: The Road Out
Chapter Two
Verse Three: The Path of Fear
After Amy left, the mood became
significantly more awkward. Harley kept trying to obliquely assure
Marion than no harm had been done. Marion kept pointing out that
Amy's ultimatum was more than no harm. And the two eventually
descended into an uncomfortable silence as they sat on the brown
microfiber couch watching Horrible Science Fiction movies from the
seventies on Harley's old tube Television. Some time after eleven
Harley wandered to bed after throwing Marion some sheets and a
pillow, leaving Marion alone with the cold white glow of the
television talking about the
terrors of the unknown and the
evils come to devour mankind from outer space.
Marion wasn't ready to fall
asleep and face is probably hallucinogenic nightmares, and continued
watching the parade of dark and lurid entertainment on the shimmering
screen before him. Bored with dated science fiction plots, Marion
began channel surfing and eventually settled on watching the
Lovecraftian horror classic "In the Mouth of Madness",
about an insurance investigator who finds himself drawn into a web of
insanity by an author who seems able to control reality itself by his
storytelling.
The story climaxed with the
investigator hiding in a mental institution pretending to be insane
so that he could hide there. Marion didn't appreciate the parallels,
but kept watching until the world ended and the film was over.
As the film ended, a television show
began to play, one with which Marion wasn't familiar. Called the
'Unbroken Line', the series opened with a gleaming glass highrise
identical to the one from Harley's earlier Firebird hallucination.
Dramatic orchestral music and ominous faux latin chanting rose as the
camera panned around the tower before using a wipe cut to transition
to an interior shot of an austere white and grey office occupied by a
man standing with his back to the camera looking out at the skyline.
Three government agent looking men
entered from off camera, dark glasses and ear pieces visible. They
stood in a line behind the man, who ignored them. The agent in the
centre raised his right hand and touched his index finger to his ear
piece.
"Bring her in."
The man remained motionless with his
back to the agents.
"We've discussed your debts, you
are aware how much you owe if our agreement is to continue." The
centre agent said.
The man at the window said nothing. The
agent on the left spoke.
"You have yet to meet the quotas.
The quotas are not negotiable. If you wish us to provide continued
assistance, you must provide us with the agreed quotas."
The man at the window spoke, "Feast
with me and starve tomorrow. Fight against me and die today. That's
the deal, right?"
The centre agent spoke again, "The
feast can only be maintained by meeting the quota. Your success has
resulted in growth. Growth means a larger empire to sustain. A larger
empire requires a larger quota to maintain our end of the bargain.
This is not negotiable. There are consequences for failing to meet
your side of the contract."
The door behind the agents opened and
from where he stood Marion could see a four agent had entered the
office with Maia, Fitzroy and Mary Salt. Marion turned sharply back
to look at the man at the window as he finally turned around.
"They don't need to be here."
Darius Salt said quietly.
"They have value, beyond their
mere biological worth, beyond their labour value. They can be used to
meet the quotas. All of them have power, value to the story. Any one
of them could dramatically improve your progress towards meeting the
quota."
As the agents spoke, the walls of the
office began to shatter in slow motion and drift away, leaving a vast
black and white checkerboard floor extending as far as the eye could
see. A grey fog rolled in, wet with steam and soot. And coiling out
of the fog came the enormous serpentine figure of Falsenight. The
huge oily black Python radiated steam as he moved across the tiles.
Marion spun around and realized that he was now standing in a long
line of people slowly marching up to be devoured systematically by
Falsenight. Looking ahead, Marion saw Harley standing in line, much
closer to Falsenight imposes jaws than Marion.
Darius Salt stood to the side of the
whole spectacle with the agents and his family.
"I will not offer my son for the
quota. My line will remain unbroken. I cannot continue the line
without an heir."
"Then offer one or both of the
females, with them added to the quota you might still succeed in
reaching the current quota."
"One of the females. You mean my
wife and daughter! You're asking me to be a cannibal! You may as well
ask me to gnaw my own leg off!"
Falsenight paused in his meal and
hissed at Darius, "It may come to that, but not yet. And why
this pretence of honour now? You repeatedly strike your mate, and
verbally abuse both of them. Any loyalty to them is overshadowed by
your treatment of them. This veneer of morality in unconvincing and
comes much too late. I hunger and I will be fed. You know this
Darius." The last syllable hissed across the room.
"Don't you make me the villain!"
Darius roared, "I didn't do this alone, you helped me. You
tempted me and encouraged me."
"Yes, we did. And that is what we
do. We tempt. And you accepted our bargain. We did not deceive you.
Now you must meet the quota or pay the price of not doing so. What is
your choice Darius?"
Marion broke from the line and ran to
Harley. He grabbed Harley by the wrist and dragged his friend out of
the line The agents turned as one, "The Dreamer is here. The
Walker is here. We are exposed. But they have not awakened. They are
vulnerable. Pursue and apprehend the targets."
Marion dragged Harley along as the
footsteps of the men of Black and White echoed on the checkerboard
floor. Marion could feel them getting closer and closer until he
suddenly felt a hand grab his shoulder and he jolt up from the couch
flailing wildly and knocked Harley backwards in surprise. Harley's
arms pinwheeled and he regained his balance and looked and Marion
with a slight but noticeable expression of pity.
"Bad dreams?"
"You have no idea." Marion
answered, looking around at the early morning light playing across
the basement suite walls.
"You had a rough day yesterday, I
would have been surprised to hear that you slept well. No offence."
"Yeah, but the hallucinations or
dreams or visions or whatever are starting to tie together. I don't
know that they're making sense yet. It's kind of like like a Peanut
butter Thai hamburger."
"Did I just hear you right?"
"See that's exactly it. If I
started pulling out sweet thai sauce and peanut butter and bacon and
then starting frying up a hamburger, you'd know I was cooking
something, but you wouldn't know what until I started assembling the
whole thing. And it tastes so amazing too. You have to use crunchy
peanut butter though or it just doesn't work."
"Like your metaphor?"
"But you get the idea right? I'm
getting visions of things that seem all different. Government agents
and evil Lord of the Ring type Empires and space birds and now Darius
Salt and his family are part of it, and it looks like Darius is
somehow secretly the Evil King and his Wife is the lady from my
visions who wants me to save her kids and its all getting really
freaky, because the government agent guys that have been watching me
seem to be shaking him down and he doesn't like it, so I don't know
what's going on."
"If I've heard you right, the only
thing that's actually happened is that you've been seeing things,
dreams or hallucinations."
"You think it's a tumour."
Marion said flatly.
"Did you hear me say 'tumour'? I'm
not assuming any kind of cause here. I'm just listening to what
you've actually said you've experienced. All I've heard for sure is
that you're seeing things that seem to be hallucinations and
sometimes proper dreams. That's not much to make a case for magical
empires and such."
Harley's pocket played the first few
notes of Thus Spake Zarathustra and Harley looked at his Blackberry
in response. Harley's brow furrowed, just slightly.
"What is it?" Marion asked.
"Another five guys just took early
retirement packages. Five people in my Department. Five guys
senior to me. A lot of people have taken early retirement deals
recently. coworkers are starting to worry and starting to gossip,
that's what I'm hearing here."
"Is the company in trouble?"
"I don't think so, but the parent
company might be. They could be trying to trim expenses from our
company to help overall profitability."
"Who's the parent company?"
"Salt and Sons Enterprises Inc."
Marion stood up.
"Might this company have any
connection to Darius Salt, the guy who got me fired and about whom
I've been having crazy freaking visions? Any chance?"
"He's the CEO, and a shareholder I
think."
"And this doesn't seem crazy to
you?"
"It sounds coincidental at this
point. I'm more concerned about your lack of a job and my suddenly
less secure employment status to be honest. If they're offering early
retirement now, lay offs may come next. We can't manage if neither of
us have a job. So forget your hallucinations for now, or at least try
to keep them under control; go look for a job, we may need it more
than we thought previously."
