Vision2 (25 page)

He ran turned back and ran down the hall, looking in doors as he passed. At the end of the corridor, he found what he was looking for. A small baby girl had been left alone on a bed. Trulle scooped her up and ran back down the hall.

He stopped in his tracks as he rounded the desk. He
’
d expected to be on his own for finding his way back to the surface, but the gnome was still there, waiting for him.

Once again it held out its hand. Trulle took it, and they soon found themselves plummeting back through the darkness. The ground shook under them and several pieces of debris fell around them. Trulle forced himself to keep running, forced his weary body to climb through the tunnels and up through Granffa
’
s Court.

Trulle stumbled into the sunlight just as a final quake rocked the ground and the tunnel
’
s entrance behind them collapsed. He looked back at the rock-filled hole and thought about how much his life had changed in only one day.

He turned back to the scattered clusters of Obawok and gnomes, took a deep breath, and began to fill his role as their new leader.

“But this should be as simple as pass or fail,” Roger told Adenitril as the last image of the young Obawok faded from his view. “Did I pass the second trial or not? You don
’
t need them to tell you that much, do you?”

“No, we don
’
t, but it isn
’
t as simple as you make it sound. It is the matter of your third trial that concerns us. We
’
re unsure of which method they wanted to use. Since no other human has made it as far as you without being deemed unworthy or dying, we were waiting on the President
’
s order before the final trial
’
s administration.”

“Shit.” Roger began to pace on the slick floor. “So I
’
m stuck here because they decided to kill each other?”

“Not necessarily.”

Roger found himself trying to remember what Firturro had told him about the third trail. “They didn
’
t mention what would happen in the event of some…some giant snowball of death?” Roger didn
’
t care if he spent the rest of his days in a sunny white sanitarium muttering that he was King Kong as he thumped up and down in hallway in a pair of old, dirty house shoes. It was being stuck here, an artifact in his own head, that truly terrified him.

Adenitril nodded his head slowly and appeared to be lost in thought. Roger looked back to the screen but was greeted only by darkness. The picture may have been gone, but it didn
’
t help to end Roger
’
s sadness.

“What
’
s going to happen to Obawok now?”

“We don
’
t know.” Adenitril
’
s dispassionate voice resonated in the ebony corridor as a second Obawok appeared beside him, walking out of the air like a hologram. Roger now found himself face to face with a slightly older, more weathered, and definitely healthier version of Firturro. Where Firturro had a round, smooth potbelly and slightly fatty jowls, this one had a slimmer, more athletic look to him.

“Who are you, and what do you think you
’
re doing just popping in and out of my head as you please?” he asked, “It
’
s still my head, goddamnit!” Roger was tired and confused.

“My name
’
s Idrian, and I
’
ll be handling the third part of the Mezoglike.”

“So, you guys are just going to decide what to do with me on your own? That doesn
’
t sound likely.”

“These are unlikely times,” Adenitril told him.

Three unconnected doors had also grown out of the darkness next to Idrian. Roger turned around and saw that he and Trey
’
s bodies lay together in the sand. When he turned back to Idrian, the sand stretched up to the three doors, surrounding them in a thick crescent was a giant glossy black abyss.

“It
’
s almost over, Roger. You just have to pick one of these doors to walk through, and you
’
ll find yourself in one of three realities. The one that you pick right now is the one you
’
re going to be stuck with permanently. Do you understand?” His voice was rhythmic, almost soothing.

“Vaguely. I gather we
’
re doing the
Let
’
s Make A Deal
thing, right?”

“What?” they both asked together, their heads tilted in confusion.

“Nothing.” Roger looked over at the doors. There was something nagging him about the way they stood side by side with nothing to differentiate one of them from the others. He
’
d watched reruns of
Let
’
s Make a Deal
during the long and monotonous days when he
’
d been waiting for his mother to die, and he
’
d always wondered if the same thing was behind all three doors. Then, when the contests picked one, the people behind the scenes would organize the other two a second later. He
’
d always pretended that they had, that life wasn
’
t fair and that his mother
’
s cancer was nothing more than someone switching a door on them at the last minute.

“What
’
s out there? What happens if I choose to keep the money?” Roger didn
’
t want to stay, didn
’
t want to pass up the chance to go home, but he did want to make sure that he knew what all of his options were.

“I
’
m not sure what you mean when you say
‘
keep the money,
’
but there is nothing out there. It
’
s just these doors.”

It seemed like such a silly way to end things. All he had to do was walk through a door and that
’
s it, boom, you
’
re future
’
s decided for you. There was nothing he had to actively do except make a choice. What about their big thing about problem solving and doing the right thing?

Then again, this world was full of idiosyncrasies, from Rubik
’
s Cubes being a matter of life and death to engraved plastic holding the answers. As Roger thought about the whistle Firturro had given him, it materialized in his hand. He ran his finger over the rough engraving.
A child
’
s reality is all that matters.

“Can I still call on someone to help me?” He asked as he turned the whistle over and over in his hands.

Remember my name
….

“I guess, but it was my understanding that everyone you had could call on is now dead.”

“They are.”

Idrian nodded his head. He may not have understood what Roger was trying to do, but he wasn
’
t going trying to stop him.

Roger raised the whistle to his lips and blew, his breath soundlessly tumbling through the empty plastic. “I want Firturro to help me,” he said, clamping his teeth around the whistle and speaking from the corner of his mouth.

Idrian raised his furry eyebrows, but said nothing. Roger jumped as he felt someone
’
s hand slip inside his own. The phantom hand grasped his own tighter, and for a second Roger was afraid that he
’
d made a horrible mistake. Then Firturro swirled out of the air like Idrian, but unlike Idrian, Firturro wasn
’
t quite as solid, but he wasn
’
t quite a shadow either.

“Sorry I got you killed,” Roger told Firturro. He didn
’
t think that his crappy apology made any difference, but he had to unburden himself somehow. “Pretty cool day for flyin
’
, don
’
t you think?” Roger asked, hoping that Firturro would understand what he was about to do.

Firturro nodded.

“What do you mean, flying?” Idrian asked as he moved forward, panic rising in his eyes.

Roger never answered Idrian; instead, he grabbed Firturro
’
s other hand, and together they ran for the black.

Right over the edge of the world.

And then they were falling through layers upon layers of eternity-filled nothing. For a brief second, Roger thought that he might have found that elusive section of the universe that lay beyond the brick wall, that he might somehow have found all the answers he
’
d so fervently searched for. As they fell, Roger felt Firturro
’
s hand being ripped from his own. His physical body seemed to float away from him, and he melded in with the murky world that now encapsulated him.

Images floated past him in circular flashes that rose and ballooned out through the darkness. They reminded him of those old movies where a fortuneteller or psychic would consult their glowing orbs. The camera would always zoom in on these orbs until they stretched out and filled the entire movie screen.

One such image showed the electricity billowing against the blockage while he and Trey ran across the vacant room. There had been no circuit breakers to stop the flow of current; nothing to diffuse the electricity that remained after they
’
d destroyed the pipeline. And, when it had nowhere else to go, it built up among the rocks, weaving its way blindly through the tunnels, causing the massive earthquake he
’
d witnessed. He saw the yellow sun pulsing through the sky, growing brilliant for a sheer second of eternity before being propelled back through time, through space, marking the final separation between the two worlds. It hadn
’
t been a mystical event that had caused so many deaths, but his hand.

In these brief glimpses Roger also saw Adenitril and Idrian bury Trey
’
s body with soft swoops of sand that dusted his face and poured into him until he was lost in the ocean of light green grains. He no longer had eyes to cry with, but he knew the tears were there, burning their way into his soul.

Another image showed the young Obawok that had killed the President organizing and rebuilding everything on the surface. The gnomes, women, and male Obawok were living together. The brief flashes illuminated several struggles and the efforts that it took, but in one bubble, Roger saw that gnomes were working alongside Obawok to build shelters. It looked hard, but there was also vibrant laughter and genuine smiles, and somehow it made the idea of Trey being buried in a sea of sand a little easier to digest.

Several other glimpses flickered in front of him as he fell, each one a little weaker than the one before it until everything he saw had the dark tint of a bad photograph, and eventually there was nothing more. For a while he thought he was alone again, and the emptiness tore at him with razor sharp talons. If he hadn
’
t felt Firturro
’
s presence reach out to him, his ghostly hand intertwining with Roger
’
s equally vaporous one, he might have lost himself. But their particles melded and combined into something different, something comforting.

They were falling into the black beyond the edge of his world, of their world, beyond the edge of understanding, and Roger was taking Firturro with him to the other side.

After an eternity of hours melding into a lifetime of nothing more than simple blackness, Roger felt his feet connect solidly with the ground.

No!

“Roger? Roger? It
’
s a healthy baby girl, weighing in at eight pounds, four ounces.”

Roger felt something being put into his arms, and even though he couldn
’
t make out anything but shadows, the compact, wiggling, weight fit easily into the crook of his arms, as if it was always meant to fit there.

What about the falling? What about Firturro? Whose baby is this?

Roger looked down and actually saw the perfect round face staring up at him. Its eyes half shut, its perfect little fingers curled into fists and thrust up into its chin. The black around the edges of the baby began to fade until there was a whole room surrounding him. There was a doctor standing right next to him, surgical mask pulled off to reveal his lopsided grin.

He looked up, looked at the bed where a sweaty-faced Mary Beth was holding out her arms.

It can
’
t be.

He shook his head to try and clear it, but when he looked back, she was still there.

“Give her to me, Roger. You can
’
t start hogging her already.”