08 Illusion (58 page)

Parmenter put on a headset and spoke via his computer to Moss back at the lab. “We are ready at this end.”

In the solitude of the lab, Moss, headset in place and eyes on the monitors, replied, “Clear signal. Go ahead.”

Parmenter scanned his computer screen, Mandy, the blocks, the sensor wires one more time. “All right. Now, this is all exploratory. We need to find out if you can include the mass of the blocks in your timeline with you. You were able to do that with the nurse’s coat when you slipped out of the Spokane Medical Center.”

Oh!
Mandy thought.
I still need to return that!

“You’ve done it with smaller objects in your magic act; you’ve managed to keep your clothes with you whenever you’ve traveled interdimensionally, so we know it’s possible. If you can make yourself one unit of mass with the blocks in this test run, then you should be able to make yourself one unit with them when you default to your original timeline and attempt to swap timelines with the Machine. Is that all clear?”

Mandy ran it through her mind again, then asked, “So then, it would be Mandy and her blocks, one thousand, six hundred and thirty-two pounds of stuff, bumping out the Machine’s one thousand, six hundred and thirty-two pounds of stuff and taking over its timeline?”

Parmenter gave a big nod. “So all you have to do is pull in those blocks. Go interdimensional and take them with you.”

She drew a deep breath and sighed it out to ease her jitters. “Okay.”

She looked down at the blocks, big, blah-looking, lifeless concrete things. It was hard to bond with them. No images came to her mind, no feelings to her heart. She could feel Parmenter and Dane watching her. “Am I supposed to make them move or something?”

“If that will help.”

She stared at them again, but nothing happened. She and the blocks were in this time dimension, stable and benign, and it was tough to find a reason, a desire, to go elsewhere.

Parmenter suggested, “Well, why don’t you try doing a magic trick with them? Yes, make them move.”

She closed her eyes for a moment, stroked her forehead—

“Careful of those wires!” Parmenter butted in, shattering her concentration.

Can’t find it. Can’t find it.

Then Dane stood before her, leaned over the blocks, and touched her shoulder, looking into her eyes … just enough. “What if you thought about … Christmas? The dress you wore, the cake we enjoyed … how we danced.”

Oh, no, was he going to go there, actually permit one small measure of belief that once, maybe still, they were in love? That she could really be …

She didn’t want to cry but she did, from deep inside, from so long ago. “… sorry …”

“No,” said Parmenter, eyes glued on his monitor. “Don’t be sorry, these are good readings, very promising. You’re deflecting the Kiley
and
the Delta!”

Mandy whispered, “Could you please get him to shut up?”

Dane looked at Parmenter, and the scientist got the message. Then Dane said, “Think of home.”

And then he removed his touch and backed away.

No, don’t go away! Don’t leave me!

He kept backing away, then turned and walked across the darkening desert, not looking back.

Walking away … again. She felt it, the longing to go with him, to be where he was.

The earth moved and she felt she was floating above it. The blocks beneath her wavered, their cold gray turning to a tea-stain amber. She could smell that same old smell of something burning. She slipped
inside
, reaching, finding the waves, the currents, the invisible, nonmaterial handles that could carry her wherever her thoughts would take her. With longing and sorrow, she reached with a hand she didn’t have and touched a block.

It leaped through the veil and became a solid gray block, part of her world.

She reached for another, then another, then felt herself expand into a
will
that had no shape, no size, just presence, surrounding and permeating those blocks. They all joined her, became real within her envelope. She hung on, learning the feeling, the effect. They weren’t hula hoops, doves, or singing bottles and they were no fun to watch, but they were hers.

“I’m Mandy Whitacre,” she heard herself say, “and I want to go home.”

“Excellent!” Parmenter shouted. “Excellent!”

Wham!
She was back under the canopy, sitting on the blocks. Her backside was getting sore without a pillow. They’d have to have a word with Parmenter about breaking her concentration.

Parmenter was on his feet, calling into his headset. “Did you get that?”

* * *

Moss was impressed, scanning the monitors. “I copy Delta thirty-two on thirty-two, Kiley twelve on twelve, Baker twenty-three on twenty-five, a little short but within limits. I would say we have a match.”

Parmenter threw back his head in jubilation. “Ahhh! So far, the theory works!”

“So you got what you wanted?” she asked, feeling very tired.

“Phase one, complete! We’ve established that you can combine yourself with other objects to compose one unified mass! Very good.
Very
good! Now note that, remember that, remember how you did it.”

Dane returned from the dark, stepping back under the canopy.

“I guess we got it,” she told him.

He smiled at her. “I could feel it.”

Fourteen days to Mandy’s premiere …

Emile DeRondeau handed Dane a pair of safety glasses, a requirement for being on the main shop floor. “You should know, Seamus Downey’s already here. He likes to keep his nose in everything.”

“Oh. Oh, that’s good,” Dane replied, putting on the glasses. “The closer he’s watching the better.”

“Exactly.”

Emile DeRondeau’s company, EDR Theatrical Design and Effect, occupied an expansive building that used to be a major grocery store and was one of the backstage wonders of the showbiz world. Some of the most memorable and impressive set designs, stage effects, and convention displays originated in this place, conceived and constructed by Emile and his team of eight semi-eccentric dream builders. The place sounded like a factory, with the incessant whirring of drills, whining of saws, and growling of grinders and sanders.

Emile led the way through the main shop to Room C, tucked away in a corner of the building and placarded against casual visitors. In the center of the room, the pod hung like a plumb bob from a ceiling hoist, suspended a foot off the floor. It was functional but still in the bare plywood stage until all the gimmicks and safety features were tested.

Standing next to it, getting a thorough briefing from one of Emile’s builders, was Seamus Downey.

“Mr. Downey!” Dane called out, walking right up to him.

Mr. Downey’s face tightened a moment, but he immediately put on a smile. “Well. This is a surprise.”

Dane extended his hand.

Downey shook it and asked, “What are you doing here?”

Emile piped in, “It was my request, actually. Eloise needs a safety coach, Dane was the first one I thought of. Turns out they already knew each other!”

“Yeah,” said Seamus, his smile crooked. “Small world.”

Dane looked the pod over, allowing himself to come close to Seamus for a lowered-voice conversation. “Just so you know, you are her manager, Mr. Downey, and I respect that. I’m only here to assure her safety. It’s a technical role.”

“Looks to me like you couldn’t stay away.”

Dane smiled. “Well, we have our friendship, but we’d make a pretty odd-looking couple, don’t you think?” He poked his head through the escape hatch, inspecting the pod’s interior. “Just give her some time. As near as I can tell, you’re definitely in the game. As for me, when the stunt’s over, my job’s over and I’m going home. But it’s a privilege being here and I want to thank you.”

Seamus eased a bit. “Okay. You’re welcome. We all want Eloise to be perfectly safe.”

Emile called, “Eloise, you ready?”

Mandy was perched on a chair against the wall, watching the little encounter between Dane and Seamus and reminding herself not to show any feelings about it. She was wearing navy sweats and a body harness and wrapping each ankle with a sport bandage to protect her from the shackles. One final wrap around her left ankle and she was ready.

Dane greeted her and talked only about the stunt. “Now, I know heights don’t bother you much, but you’re going to be upside down and hanging by your ankles a hundred and fifty feet off the ground, so we’re going to do a little fear inoculation and step through this slowly.”

Emile signaled the hoist operator. He raised the pod to where it aligned with an escape platform fifteen feet above the floor. With a quiet whirring, the six panels composing the bottom of the pod opened like a flower, and a second cable passing through the pod dropped back down.

A nasty-looking pair of leg shackles were laid out on a tumbling mat immediately below the pod. Mandy stepped up and a crewman clamped them around her ankles as Dane explained, “These shackles are safety-wired so they won’t fall off and hit you on the chin and embarrass you in front of all those people. Make sure the safeties are in place before they hoist you up. Now, this cable hooks to your body harness …”

Dane kept explaining, she kept rehearsing and testing. With her ankles shackled and her hands cuffed to a chain about her waist, she lay down on the mat and the hoist took her up, feet first, until she was hanging upside down with her face even with Dane’s.

“How you feeling?” Dane asked.

“Like a bat,” she answered.

“Your weight should be on the harness, not your ankles.”

Her ankles felt fine. “Good to go.”

“Okay.” Dane almost touched her. She couldn’t touch him, she was handcuffed. He renewed his business-only face. “We’ll see you upstairs.” He said to the hoist man, “Up slowly.”

The cable raised her. With her chin to her chest she could look up past her feet and see the pod about to swallow her like a man-eating plant. To one side she could see Dane hurrying up the scaffold stairs to meet her at the top.

An invisible guide wire kept her turned toward the rear of the pod and the escape hatch. Feet first, she slipped inside until her feet rested on the pod’s ceiling. She hung the chain that bound her ankles on a hook in the ceiling, and a quick outward roll of her feet tripped the shackles open. “Legs are free,” she said, then pressed a button with her toe to close the six petal doors. They whirred shut below her, a soft cradle came up against each of her shoulders, and she was sealed inside, in the dark.

She heard Dane’s voice right outside.

“Okay, cuff release.”

Bending her elbows triggered the cuffs—they slipped off.

“Hands on the grips,” he told her. “Cable release when you’re ready.”

On either side of her, at shoulder level, was a short handgrip. She grabbed on. The grip on the right included a small lever she compressed with her hand. Click! “Cable free.”

“Now drop your knees toward your chest …”

Her knees pressed against the panel in front of her but nothing happened. “Uh, am I doing this right?”

“Your knees should be pressing against the panel.”

“They are.”

“Oh, brother!” Dane yanked a packing bolt from the escape hatch locking mechanism. “Attention, everybody!” All the techs and observers on the floor looked up at him. He held up the bolt for them to see. “This packing bolt should only be in place during transport of the pod. Be sure to flag it and remove it before the stunt. Got it?”

They were embarrassed. Good thing. Seamus looked disgusted, but with good reason.

“Okay,” he called to her, “knees against the panel.”

She kneed the panel and it popped open. She pushed against the grips, lifting her body, and with one quick tumble, she was out on the platform. High fives.

“Is she out?” came Seamus’s voice from below.

Mandy peered around the mirror system that would hide her escape and gave him a thumbs up. He looked astounded, then delighted.

Okay, so more than just the illusion was working.

Twelve days before Mandy’s premiere …

Dane met with Preston Gabriel, Emile DeRondeau, and Keisha Ellerman in a tree-shaded picnic area behind an elementary school near Preston’s house.

“Mandy’s checked out in the pod,” Dane reported. “All systems are go.”

Emile asked, “Go? Going?”

Keisha told him, “ ‘All systems are go.’ It’s old astronaut talk.”

“Ohhh.”

Dane asked Preston, “Comfortable with the big room show?”

“It’s coming together on schedule. Emile’s building the sets and I’ll bring up some effects from LA. We’ll be ready for the premiere.”

“So Keisha, what’ve you got?” Dane asked.

Keisha opened her sketchbook. “The Grand Illusion involves these two designs …” She flipped to the pages. “This one, in black leather with silver tunic, is in keeping with the macabre, medieval aspect of the stunt’s opening. The cuff release is integrated into the waistband, and I’ll include some extra banding around her ankles as she requested. It’s cut with a little extra room to fit over this one …” The flowing, angelic costume in glimmering white got an immediate reaction. “This was her idea, something totally opposite the black outfit to express a metamorphosis from death to life, escaping this world and soaring to heaven. The train and the streamers fold up against her back inside the leather suit, and the quick change deploys in less than a second.” Keisha loved the thought of it. “Like a butterfly from a cocoon.”

“Weight?” Preston asked.

“Ten and one-half ounces.”

He nodded with a smile and wrote it down.

“The harness is sewn into the gown in this waistband, in the sash, and in the bodice. And these slots running along the tops of the sleeves will hold the torso rigging and trapeze clamps.”

“Those clamps are nearly ready,” Emile told her.

“What about the rigging?” Dane asked Emile.