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Jason settled back into his regular routine quickly, and for the first week, everything seemed back to normal. Well, almost. The only problem was that when he did finally return home at the end of the day, usually at two or three in the morning, he found he was unable to sleep. When he would finally doze off near dawn, he found himself back in the Pipes, but in his dreams he was no longer Seattle's prisoner. Instead, he stood side-by-side with her as the Family lined up each morning. After the routine of the day began, the two of them returned to the private area set aside by the colored drapes.
Jason awoke from these dreams feeling disappointed that he had been asleep. By the end of the first week, he found himself returning earlier and earlier, and the time spent at the casino was as likely to be at the bar as at the tables. Boredom had returned in full force.
He decided he was merely bored with Casey's, so he began traveling to different casinos each night, often three or four in a given evening. But despite many of them being larger, more flamboyant, and with various games and entertainment, there was one thing that didn't change—the boredom and not caring about any of it.
After three weeks of this, he decided the only answer was to go on a Blitz. He put away his life-credits and pulled out a stash of worth-credits. He went on a drinking and sex spree with a little street fighting on the side. When three days of Blitzing didn't chase away the mood, he upped the level of drinking and carousing. For the next week, he was rarely sober and never without the company of three or four women. The boredom shifted down to a deep depression.
In a rare move, Jason turned to the latest street drugs to chase away his blue funk. Several of his friends. who had been trying to talk him into joining them on some of their drug feasts. were encouraged by this new liberalism while his few true friends became increasingly concerned. When Emerald Eyes and Casey approached him one particularly bad night when he had been making an obnoxious scene, he flew at them in an angry rage and vowed to take his business elsewhere, then left with his entourage of other dopers.
Four-and-a-half weeks after escaping from the Pipes, Jason awoke on the floor of his luxury apartment. Lying next to him, partially draped over his body, were three women and a man. Jason didn't know any of their names. Being careful to not wake them, Jason eased himself out from the pile of humanity and sat up against the sofa a few feet away. He looked around at the apartment that appeared as though someone had picked it up at one end and shaken it vigorously before dropping it back down on its foundation. Everywhere he looked, furniture had been either moved or turned over. Dishes, glasses, drug paraphernalia, and partially eaten food covered every flat surface, including much of the floor.
A young blonde, who Jason also did not recognize even though she was wearing one of his shirts, skipped from the bedroom holding a small object in one hand.
"Afternoon, doll. What's this weird thing?" she asked, holding up the book he'd hidden in one of his drawers.
"An old family heirloom," Jason replied. “It's of no value to anyone but me. Please put it back where you found it, uh..."
"Mona, doll," the blonde finished for him as she skipped back into the bedroom.
Jason stood up, wobbled in place for a few seconds, then slowly made his way to the autowash where he stayed for a good forty-five minutes. By the time he had finished and dressed, a feat which took rummaging through two closets and three sets of drawers to find something clean, the pile of people on the floor had begun to awaken.
Jason walked into the living area and glanced at the group of strangers. "Okay, the party is over. Whoever you are and wherever you came from, go back. I want you out of here in five minutes. He turned and started walking back to his bedroom. As he reached the doorway, he turned and looked at them one last time. "Don't bother calling me again. The Blitz is over." With that he walked into the bedroom, closing the door behind him.
He lay on the bed, listening to his guests as they sorted out their clothes. The rumpled bed linens smelled as though they hadn't been changed in several weeks. Jason suspected they hadn't. He certainly hadn't changed them. Who cared if the linens were changed. It really didn't make any difference. Life didn't matter; it was the way it was.
He picked up one of the sheets, intending to throw it across the room, but the sight of the book lying underneath it stopped him. I told that bitch to put it back where she found it, Jason thought as he picked the book up and read the title for the hundredth time. Stars Beckon Call. Stars? Other planets with life in distant places called galaxies. How absurd.
He tossed the book down on the bed and lay down beside it, closing his eyes, hoping to fall back to sleep. After ten minutes, he picked the book up again and began to read.
––––––––
TWO DAYS LATER, JASON once more picked the book up and for the second time, read it from cover to cover. He stopped periodically to consider the questions that the book raised. The novel was about a civilization on Earth that had discovered space travel. Over time they built large ships that allowed them to fly at unheard of speeds to visit other inhabited planets countless distances away.
What struck Jason was the matter-of-fact tone of the book. It seemed the author didn't realize that the idea upon which he was basing his story was completely absurd. If anything, Jason got the idea that the whole story was being treated as truth or at least as a likely possibility. But no one he knew had even heard of stars or considered that there might be something beyond the cloud cover that blanketed the MED. The more Jason read, the more he wondered why no one, including him, had thought about it. Why were there no stories, even fables, about what lay beyond the clouds? Why didn't anyone ever think about such things?
The other mystifying part of the novel was that much of what Jason had come to think of as reality wasn't even mentioned in the book. There were no Domes, no mention of the Great Revelation, no indication that Earth was pressed by over-population or staggering pollution, and no mention of the Patriarchy. All Jason could make of this was that the book must have been written centuries ago, before any of the present day society had been established.
The idea was mind bending. If that were true, then at some time in the history of mankind, the entire planet had been inhabitable and no one lived under a Dome to protect themselves from the toxic atmosphere. Out there somewhere beyond the Dome were oceans, large bodies of water. A world of its own with hundreds of different lifeforms. It was more than Jason could conceive without developing a splitting headache.
But the biggest question of all was why had no one else considered any of the questions that the book raised? Why had the current culture been apparently designed not to question the conditions under which it lived? What was being hidden, why, and most importantly, by whom?
Jason stood up and walked over to his closet for a coat. He placed the book in the blue blazer's inner pocket and put it on. It was time to start getting some answers to these questions. The only other person he knew asking similar questions lived deep within the Pipes. It was time to go find Seattle and her Family.
To do so, he would need to go to Emerald Eyes and ask for Mu-Monk back. Sometime during his latest Blitz, she had taken the pet monkey away from him. In the past two days, he had called but had been unable to catch her in. He figured he would pay her a visit and if she weren't in, he'd use his passkey. It was likely Mu-Monk would still be there. Emerald Eyes seldom took him with her since he was bad for her business.
Would Mu-Monk remember how to find Seattle's lair? Would he be able to communicate what he needed to the monkey? I have to, Jason told himself. I've got to find her and ask her about the book. As he stepped on the autowalk that would take him to Emerald Eyes' neighborhood, he realized that the blue funk he'd been in for the past several weeks had finally started to lift, even if just for a little while. He now had a purpose worth pursuing.