I just know he’s alive and that desert spoons are gifted,” Zorian said defeated.
“So, you can’t tell me nothing?” I asked, my deceptive smile fading.
“I can tell you about the inner workings of Baba’s mind and how he’s connected to us all. If that’s something you long to hear,” Zorian said, moving sinuously back and forth across the hall.
He shiftily pushed open another tortilla beige panel door a bit further down the hall, adjacent to the room where twelve Celers were plotting an ill–defined battle. I followed him inside a room much like the one we’d just visited. This room, however, was a mirror image of the first and had white hand–drawn Ferris wheels on black posters instead of rabbits in suits.
“Up until you arrived, Baba would’ve had us believe the incredible gifts he and Leto possess are something innate in an individual since birth. Set free by chance. No explanation on how this profoundly isolated event can occur. Now I’m not so sure Baba’s verdict’s correct,” Zorian said, internally debating whether to have a seat or not atop a cranberry desk as I kept still by the door. “He never mentioned Tommy’s a desert spoon. I wonder why he’d withhold such intel from us. Unless Tommy knows something he shouldn’t. He’s a very curious thinker that boy. It wouldn’t surprise me at all if he stumbled upon something Baba was attempting to conceal and if so, he might’ve not been as keen as Leto to play ball and keep the fable of innate ability within the select few desert spoons.”
“How many are there?” I inquired.
“Three if Tommy can fly. How sure are you he flew? Did you verify he wasn’t lifted by the mechanics of a jetpack or rocket boots? Were you under the effects of padda divinorum when you saw him?” Zorian asked, sticking to standing.
“What’s pad of devil–doorknob?”
“Padda divinorum is what the locals call ‘jaguar’s spit’ as a way to disparage us. We make it in–house,” Zorian said in a levelheaded way that made me feel he was confiding in me. Not because it’s a secret the jaguars produce drugs but because the cards upon which Tommy being a desert spoon fall have dire implications.
If Tommy is a desert spoon, it only follows he knows how to become one and if Tommy’s anything like Zorian, that imperils us all. Is Baba really wrong for wanting to suppress knowledge, serviceable to the weak but parlous to the horde? For any power as simple as rewinding the bust of an egg could be dangersome in the wrong hands. What if that egg had been a person, most recently dead, 2.5 feet from him? Could he reverse death? Make a zombie?
Could he reverse his death? Be a zombie?
I’m unsure whether Zorian and I are on the same side of this rift keeping Baba and him at odds. He could mistrust Baba for keeping this secret amongst those already exposed to it. But I know gifts, the likes of which people in the otherworld are accustomed to seeing played up in theatrics, will be abused by the routine knavish people who preach virtue through grating megaphones on college campuses. That’s why if Baba’s purpose in going after Tommy is bringing him in before talking up a storm, I’m aligned with his efforts.
“I saw him fly before I was drugged. This I’m sure of but…” I boldly raised a finger to Zorian, eventually lowering it as he got pestered, twisting his face. “Whether or not Tommy’s a desert spoon, I agree with Baba’s claim that the gifts are innate. And say they’re not, so what? It’s best not to know. Where today a gift is rebuilding an egg, ground up from its shattered pieces, tomorrow a gift can mean climate manipulation—the tilt that’ll knock the human race off its high horse. I only tell you this, not to put you off with my blunt emotions coming through about people and farcical powers, but because I trust your drones are still helping find Lucas. I see no reason to lie to you about how I feel as long as you’re not lying to me about your drones on the hunt. That is how you know Ramze’s alive, correct?”
“Yes, but we lost him. A mysterious spear penetrated the drone quadcopter just as we obtained visual. We’ve a general sense of where he’s at but that doesn’t mean once we find him, he’ll want to come back with us,” Zorian said in a clipped voice.
Zorian’s opinion struck me as honest. Above all, nothing’s impossible. “He may not want to,” I agreed. “The Ramze and Lucas your drones are after are not the same friends I flew in with from Florida.”
They don’t know my brother.
“I’m not your therapist but people do change. Without further ado, allow me to brief you on the complex nature of Baba’s telepathy. Please, sit down.”
“I’m all ears.” I sat down on the tan chair of a cranberry desk, slamming my hands on its surface and producing a quick drumroll, directly in front of where Zorain stood, steps in front of a black glass dry–erase board with an empty aluminum marker tray.
“Baba Azul’s mind reading powers are wild. He can translate different languages from his own through emotion. Emotions are all the same across language barriers. So, through sadness, happiness, etcetera, he’s able to assign meaning to foreign words. This is a tricky facet of his telepathy I’ve yet to fully understand but I know it to function because I myself have tested it. My native language is Russian you see.” He said something in Russian which flew over my head but after disclosing his native tongue, I startlingly began picking up on the subtle accent. I might’ve just overlooked it till now because he’s a kid and ashamedly, I never really listen to kids as intently as I listen to my peers or elders. This changes his narrative completely.
I giggled under my breath.
How funny would it be if he’s a spy? I am frrrom Soviet Rrrusia, I thought in a bold accent with heavy rolling R’s. I’m a callow impressionist of a Russian man.
Zorian got in close, his face inches from mine, as I promptly sunk deep into my chair thrown off by his explicit disregard for my personal space.
“He can read your mind, tap into any emotion you have at that point in time, and be able to intercept any other memory of yours in which that emotion was held. The same goes for sensations. Anyone in a memory he’s reading is also vulnerable to being read. So, you thought of Luciana after seeing a jaguar dressed as a French maid and he was able to connect to her through you. He found out where she was and brought her here. When you were hungry, he was able to connect to every memory in which you’ve expressed hunger and from what was brought out to the Dome of the Plebeian, my only guess is my best. Your most recent food craving was chili lemon octopus alongside cucumber salad, was it not?”
“L–Luciana,” I said dreamily, my chin tucked into my neck, not having heard a word after ‘he brought her here.’
“That’s right. The criminal long having evaded arrest for your father’s murder is here, right now, in Neptune,” Zorian said, backing away slowly.
“Take me to her,” I ordered, my fists tightening, chewed–down nails piercing into my palms.
“I will but I wanted to soften the blow before I did,” Zorian admitted, carefully treading on treacherous waters.
I felt the superheated steam of a great western locomotive pulsating inside me, ready to rush from my ears for the 400–meter dash. After all this time, she’s here. I’ll finally have closure. Can I stare directly into the eyes of the woman who murdered my father without strangling her? The woman who cut the most important person in my life out of existence, denying me a father through the whole of my adolescence.
I thought I’d forgiven her. That I was at peace. A compulsory invention of a mind driven astray. My foolish sympathy after having been hammered in this idea by my middle school counselor that we’re all human and we all make mistakes. I’ve always known I never truly forgave her. To forgive is the ultimate act of maturity. I’m a cut below mature but more so than she’ll ever be. As a human, I embrace my mistakes, not run from them. Had I truly forgiven her, I’d see a beast of betrayal. One who spits on my father’s grave every time I look in the mirror.
Pardon me my Lord but today I take from you vengeance.
“Believe me, I’m trying to follow here. Baba managed to locate my father’s murderer through me having simply thought of her?” I questioned, my voice cold.
“Thought of a memory with her in it, yes. He infiltrated her mind and found she’s been living in Tipitapa, Nicaragua. I’ve discussed the matter with him. She’d been thinking of visiting Lake Managua as she paid for groceries using the córdoba—Nicaragua’s own currency. She’d counted five banknotes of one hundred córdobas each. More than enough to buy a twelve pack of beer which she’d been planning on doing. However, the cashier notified her the beer she was thirsting for—Saarland Frost—is only sold at one convenience store in the entire city—Pulpería Saxony.” Zorian retired his hands behind his back and held them there, speaking without blinking.
“Having exited the store, she admired the bright orange–red color of its exterior. By the time she’d made her way through town into Saxony, Baba already had a brother from Mercury waiting for her outside. She was taken in broad daylight. This, he’s done for you. He’s extending an olive branch after he’d foolhardily brought up her existence in conversation at the Dome of the Plebeian, admitting to me he knew how much this pained you.”
“That’s nice and all but how? If she was taken today, sometime after we dined in the dome…it all happened so fast. How could a jaguar get to a neighboring country that fast, then return, smuggling in a full–grown adult without being spotted?” I asked confounded.
“Mercury has its ways. They bring us messages from the otherworld, but Baba’s found uses for them beyond bearing news,” Zorian said, grazing the subject lightly.
“Kidnapping people at warp speed? That doesn’t make fucking sense! Nothing here makes fucking sense!” I said, rising in frustration and knocking the desk aside so that it nearly toppled over.
“And yet it’s happened,” Zorian said, meeting my glaring eyes with mild scrutiny, enough to gainsay my attitude.
“Fine! Then it should be easy to relocate Ramze and find Lucas. I’ve been thinking of them the entire time I’ve been here so Baba should have access to their thoughts by now too,” I said, moving hesitantly towards the door, donkey kicking the desk back into its column along the way.
“It doesn’t always work like that. Firstly, it can’t simply be a thought of the person. It must be a memory involving that person in–person. There’re people who can bypass Baba’s mind reading. For example, say someone has recently inhaled, consumed, or injected themselves with padda divinorum. It’d be hard to read them because what they’re seeing and currently thinking is nonsensical. He can’t control thoughts and actions, just read minds and communicate telepathically. As of now we know Ramze’s alive and have some sense of where he’s roaming based on his thoughts about the forest scenery. Lucas on the other hand is unreachable. I think it’s because the effects of the drug haven’t worn off on him yet,” Zorian said, hurtling towards the door. “Where do you think you’re going? We’re not finished talking!”
“I was the only one injected by the drug,” I said dropping my voice and squaring up to Zorian behind me.
“I don’t know what to tell you. Maybe Baba has found him, but I promise, he’s told me otherwise. Baba may have his reasons for telling me this just as you believe he has his reasons for concealing how to become a desert spoon,” Zorian said, averting his eyes.
“You’re the one who doubts him, not me. I said if he is concealing that information from people then it must be his sound judgement. You think many of your brothers would be cracking eggs over their heads with the power to playback time like a cassette tape? Shit, if I could do that, I’d have endless redos in life.”
Zorian guffawed. “Oh please. Leto can rewind things that happen within his cramped sphere and only seconds after they’ve happened. He’s so limited in his ability that I wouldn’t even broach the term power when describing what he can do.”
“How big is Baba’s sphere?”
“His reach is far. The exact volume of his sphere I’m unsure of but it’s enough to reach anyone in this castle. He can’t read us when we’re outside Neptune’s boundaries. He doesn’t have permanent access to your thoughts. In fact, he has zero access when you’re outside of his sphere, but he does have unlimited access to your thoughts, present and past, and anyone within a memory, when you’re in it. Once you’re inside his sphere, you’re fair game. Leave his sphere and his access into your mind lingers for about a half an hour before it wears off,” Zorian said, restraining his irritation, either from my lack of grasping outrageous concepts or for my urge to leave, pressing my shoulder up against the door so that it stayed ajar.
“Luciana. Now,” I demanded nastily in a voice I did not recognize.
Zorian nodded, taking in my edginess without reservations, and traipsed past me back towards the hall. To get to the prison, we returned to ground level. From autumn blended cobblestones to smoothed out gray halls and into the Lemon Room. Then back through the black shale and light–blue slate rock configured tunnels, into the health farm teeming with jaguars, and out to the blue springy turfed dome. Past the Wolf’s Den, there stood a monumental moving glass door amidst two Olympic white stone columns. Behind them, a quartet of Tudor living rooms.
The glass door separated us physically but not mentally from the Dome of the Plebeian with its large panel of high–performance glass maximizing the views outside. Inside, the space could very well be the layout of a medieval hotel lobby with oily black stone walls and polished black marble floors. The seldom seen guests of several white geese can be found waddling about the glass door waiting to exit or lounging within an indoor waterway under a short bridge at the far end of the space.
Where we were exactly was the living quarters for the last four classes in the jaguar hierarchy—The Honeycomb Lodge. Though I’m sensible the name comes from the building’s shape, there’s nothing giddy or bright about the lodge such as a honeycomb bespeaks for bees.
The building’s a hexagon rising five floors. Each floor’s visible from the first. A consecutive black railing on each floor allows views from a stratum of loci and heights. Servus live on the second floor, Plebeians on the third, Tribunes on the fourth, and Vicarius on the fifth.
From the fifth floor, Vicarius have a level view of four large hanging cones, hung from the tip by industrial stainless–steel chains on a fan vaulted ceiling. The translucent cones are half full of purple goop splashing about their insides in hoops like mini typhoons; despite the cones sitting motionless above us.
The cones are similar to the ones Lucas got from Fundy’s, with the same substance. Still and all, these cones’ glass is less clear, they’re enlarged enough to double Zorian’s height, and their base is bulbous, a smidge less than a hemisphere. An incomplete hemisphere I’d say is nearly finished loading.
According to Zorian, that purple goop is padda divinorum. Its term of rancor is jaguar’s spit—the name I’d been familiarized with first. They hang directly above the four corners of a scopious square oriental rug with an ivory background. An imperial blue, rose, and teal floral design envelops the rug. The single round medallion motif at its center gleams with supreme verve. It has a pearl white top hat as its focal point and silver ferns, superimposed like tentacles around it.
At each side of the rug is one commodious living room set. All together the four sets bond in their similar voices from the past. For them to suggest horror and mystery would be an embellishment but their settings do recall the Middle Ages. Or at least some offshoot of it.
Delicate wood carvings course like wind shaping zebra stripes over sand on the Sedona red bench, four armchairs, and two coffee tables to our left. To our right, there’re four cappuccino–colored hardwood boxes with small–scale carvings of pigs playing musical instruments such as harps, fiddles, and drums. Six cherry wood oval cane back chairs, three with arms and three without, are intermixed amongst the whimsical boxes.
The living room set nearest to us is of chocolate brown walnut wood with violet streaks. The four armchairs and couch in this set are upholstered in chintz with gold, burgundy, and navy floral prints. Two armchairs have massive growling lion heads as their arm stumps whereas the two others have open beaked, goggle–eyed owl heads as theirs. Parallel to one another, the two owl heads face the two lion heads. A cleared trapezoid coffee table with claw feet stands between them. The coordinating couch aside them.
Beyond this set, the furniture embodies geometrical foliage carvings on four mahogany round side tables. The crisscrossing crooks and flails and regal falcons carved on two light oak cumbersome couches, and two equally cumbersome armchairs, invoke Horus. Their tan bulging cushions, decorated with ebony and khaki beige snakeskin print, look to be the most invitingly comfortable next to the chocolate brown walnut set.
All sets have been run through a foundry to append aged premium black metal on every side. If their wooden cores were stripped, a black metal framework would abide leaving behind a ghost of the furniture to idle.
The four living room sets are set atop navy Persian style rugs of their own. The rugs’ mint–cream complex outlines differ only slightly from one another in their kaleidoscopic patterns. Despite no winter in sight, a warm fire blazes within a rustic desert brown and tan sandstone fireplace. The Dragon’s Throat, as they call it, occupies an entire side of the first floor of the hexagon. Two rows of six whitewashed wood rocking chairs are empty, facing the fire.
We took a semi–long route to get here because Zorian fell head over heels with Dilly–Dally. He made a pit stop at the Lemon Room where he retrieved a platinum gas mask. His locker had a heavenly array of suits, muted dress shirts, florid ties, and black and brown leather dress shoes. The interior was composed of oak barrel floors and a fully stocked bark gray corner piece.
The piece offered chests on either side of it with plenty of shelving space throughout. The shelves were glutted neatly with folded dress shirts or lined with classic dress shoes. A built–in silver bar hung Zorian’s various suits in the widest and longest space. A square shelf where his gas mask laid rest below them next to more casual wear—a small niche in an overflowing haberdashery.
At the center of the space, adjacent to his closet system, was a revolving tie display, around my height with eight sides, fifteen tiers, and three columns each. Tortoiselike in its speed. Each tie was neatly rolled up in its own cubbyhole, resembling a collection of stacked scrolls dyed in vibrant hues. Every side had its own refuge for a particular color with only similar shades occupying the one. Patterns, however, were a free–for–all, crossing boundaries between colors.
“I didn’t take you as one to spruce up so well outside of wrestling.” My genial compliment was one he’d shrugged off with humor.
“I was born in a suit.”
After the Lemon Room, a second delay was gifted to me from a hell where the sole punishment is waiting. Zorian spontaneously ran into another Prefect at the health farm. A man with icy platinum black hair, cut sharp with a low fade and a long fringe. He’d ironically innocent brown eyes given their conversation. He’d on a mellow yellow hooded long–sleeved t–shirt, distressed white denim shorts, and two–strapped white rubber sandals. An acid yellow gas mask with two cobalt blue Xs at the cheeks hung over his chest on a solid gold Cuban link chain.
He talked to Zorian as though he were just another man in his forties—what I presume was his age bracket. Their adult conversation hinged on the upcoming Gauntlet. A game, I picked up, consists of four rounds that Nihils are to play before becoming an Immortal Jaguar. I interrupted imposingly with the question of what a Nihil was as Polka had first called me so in the Lemon Room showers. I wish I hadn’t horned in because after the brightly clad Prefect answered with Nihil literally meaning nothing, Zorian got tetchy. Perhaps he was afraid he’d said too much about the Gauntlet in front of me.
I knew what nihilism meant but somehow, I hadn’t put two and two together. Zorian explained that a Nihil here means a male on the path to become an Immortal Jaguar who’s given up all worldly possessions and forfeited their right to freedom. Before getting into the specifics of each round, Zorian asked me to wait for him outside in the Dome of the Plebeian. I’d overheard the mention of a feather as I was turned away. Until I’d spoken, they hadn’t looked at me once and had I not, I wonder if I would’ve learned more about the Gauntlet.
A game composed of four rounds with each round’s difficulty open to debate. The two Prefects were in unison that the rounds would start with the most mentally challenging task, followed by the most frightening, leading to the most arduous. The game ends with the most honest task. I don’t believe the game they spoke of was a game in which losers get a pat on the back for trying. I don’t know what the alternative to winning is but I’d a strong sentiment regarding such an ask. There is no alternative.
From the way they talked, as if every word concealed pride, I knew the Gauntlet was a game I’d no interest in playing. The word death escaped their lips a few times and while each time it did it was in a joking manner, their condescending smiles said otherwise. I can’t remember who said what, but their words are as clear today as the reflection of a periwinkle ceiling on the slight portion of steel, forged on the handle of an astonishingly sharp knife untainted by blood in my cell.
‘Death will wiggle its way into one of the four rounds.’
‘It always does.’
‘Death will eat em’ up like Yankees gobbling up Sunday supper in the middle of July, Oklahoma 1939.’
‘Ain’t that the truth! And when it does, heaven knows they’d have died in good service to God.’
‘Which round do you believe death will take a liking to this Gauntlet?’
‘It’s obvious, isn’t it? The first.’
‘I say the third.’
‘Death is slutty. It can make love to all four.’
‘I see potential in this group of Nihils more than years past to curb its advances.’
‘Let’s hope none come for our jobs if they sidestep it.’
‘You as well as I know perfectly well that can’t happen. An opening in the Praefectus will only occur if one of the eleven dies or retires.’
‘Still, you never know. With that prisoner on the loose, anything can happen…After what he did.’
‘We have enough to worry about without Tommy running amok. For us, the Gauntlet takes precedence. Let the Celers do their job and coddle that artistry of a baby that is their battle plans.’
‘And should they fail?’
‘Should they fail? Have you lost your mind brother? Celeres is a disciplined fighting machine poised to destroy our enemies. Don’t you ever doubt their skill in combat.’
I’d waited for what felt like nearly half an hour in the dome. A close estimate I believe, no thanks to my watch. My anger had not yet abated. Seeing Luciana would unchain the demon in me long serving as a dormant sun bear. When Zorian arrived, I’d asked the specifics of what the two talked about inside the health farm to which he’d replied, “I take my position as Prefect seriously and if there’s one thing I’m quiet about it’s our plans for the rounds.”
“Don’t involve me in that game of yours. I’m here for a helping hand in finding my friends and that’s that,” I said in a querulous voice.
We charged past the monumental moving glass door into the Honeycomb Lodge. Before it closed, two geese shuffled past us into the dome. The lodge was empty apart from some geese under a short bridge straight–ahead. Not long after, some jaguars on the fourth floor leaned onto its railing to look down at us.
“We found her in a catatonic state you know. Luciana. Once she exited the store, she dropped her case of beer seeming only capable of moving her lips. It’s like she knew karma had arrived. She told the herald we’d sent for her that her husband and daughter were missing, though we’ve found no evidence she has a husband or a daughter. We had to sedate her of course,” Zorian said inconsequentially.
“I bet she lied,” I said unremorsefully.
Zorian’s lashes fluttered. I speculate he knew then that nothing he said or did to moderate my rage would read as more than waffling to me. He shunted me forth, expounding upon where we were. The name, the four classes housed here, and the fireplace. He didn’t indulge me with how the purple goop in the cones above us was twirling. All he validated was that the goop in them was indeed padda divinorum.
As we crossed the black marble short bridge at the end of the lodge with purpleheart wood railings, I noticed the steel blue brook under it was bubbling with a touch of steam coming through. It couldn’t be heat that’s the cause for geese floated in it uncooked. Zorian put his platinum gas mask over his head imbibing Leonid’s static voice—the one he’d possessed in the nursery when under his snow camo gas mask.
Zorian pulled out a blueberry floral tie from a secret compartment on the backside of his gas mask. He placed it over my eyes, tying it tightly from behind so that everything for me went black. He affirmed this measure was temporary.
Zorian led the way with a hand on my wrist and the tug of an ardent dog on its leash. The muddling of our path was a form of precaution taken by Prefects to prevent newcomers branded as high risk from pulling a fast one on them and releasing a prisoner.
We walked over the bridge and meandered for a bit, coming to a stop near the Dragon’s Throat. The gentle heat waves and sharp crackling stylings of wood virtuoso Cherry Wood welcomed us. It smelled of vanilla. The treble beeps of button pressing went off like they hailed from a microwave’s keypad. After eight beeps, came the chinchilla squeak of a path unveiled.
Audibly, a doddery door creaking open. Its low scrape fizzled out with a flurry of subzero winds. I received a cool kiss from the winter solstice. The reversal of atmosphere smacked me silly. Never would I have expected the threat of a blizzard. Zorian pulled me into a room too gusty for a picnic. Besides the biting cold that gave me shivers, a knot of people clustered around either side of us as we stepped inside, bawling,
“That motherfucker’s a goner!”
“Ay Russki, I’ve got some syrniki for ya!”
“Oye papi!”
“Whip that ass good!”
“I’ll get you one day motherfucker!”
The shouting came bundled with a clangor of metal bars—what typifies older jail cells. I kept getting pulled forth, expecting Zorian to respond. Zorian never gave into the yells. Instead, he breezily talked over them, letting me know we were entering cellblock 13—The Housewife’s Corner, in which every prison cell is a parodical take on a room pertaining to the perfect 1950’s housewife’s dream home. Luciana would be waiting unexpectantly in the ‘The Center of Your Life Kitchen.’
The floor was a carbon steel grid texture. What’d be a slip resistant floor had I worn the right shoes. We turned into a hall and Zorian paused within a few steps of what ought to be an entryway since an access code was entered into a keypad. Four beeps later, a door groaned at the hinges as it lumbered open.
Zorian easily pulled me in as I was awfully ready to go—blood boiling and nearly a decade of repressed enmity at this point unchallenged. He fleetly let go of my wrist. “This is where we split. I’ve some dealings to get to outside. A warthog got into the prison yard and somehow that’s above Leonid’s pay grade. You may take the blindfold off once the door shuts behind you,” Zorian said dutifully.
I waited a whole minute after the door banged shut before untying the knot of the tie at the back of my head, setting free the silk to mingle with the floor. Perhaps it was the nerves encroaching on me as the confrontation with Luciana became all too real.
I was in what could be construed as an edgy elevator shaft. The walls were a thick white plastic agleam in the sun, seen high above through a glazed skylight. An angelfish–shaped cloud easefully sailed past, swimming amongst lumps of bleached coralline algae. Slim transparent plastic trays and deep square bins were suspended in layers on the wall in front of me, ending a foot above me. My insides writhed as I grabbed hold of a plastic bin and delicately pushed open the white plastic wall.