Penult (25 page)

The ladies walked four abreast down
the pavement, arm in arm, singing nineties pop songs. I followed a
couple strides back, silent. I was regretting letting myself get
talked into this excursion. But how could I say no? They all knew
and loved Karla. They were eager to help.

I didn’t really believe going to
Glasgow would accomplish anything. The chances of Karla being
there, and the chances we could find her, were impossibly slim. But
at this point I didn’t dare dampen their morale by voicing my
reservations. I remained compliant like a leaf in the
breeze.

When we reached the station, we staged
our gear while Helen dashed off to buy soft pretzels for everyone
while Fiona and Jess went to use the wash room. Britt and I stood
watch over the bags.

I leaned against a vending machine and
stared out across the platforms, scanning the station crowd for the
usual suspects – those solitary young men who stood apart from the
crowd. There was always one in every station, and I found him
quickly, a guy with a scraggly beard leaning forward on a bench,
expressing no interest in any train. I wondered what these guys
thought of me.

I spotted a crumpled religious tract
someone had tossed at a waste bin and missed. A piece of my will
possessed it, unfolding it remotely, refolding, reshaping,
reconfiguring it molecular structure until it became a sort of
origami hummingbird, hollow within, but fully functional and
sensual. I blinked and for a second I was down on the station floor
looking up at myself through Billy’s eyes.

“
Go!” I mouthed without
voicing.

I set Billy loose to follow his whims
which were my whims I supposed. But no strings attached. No duties,
no responsibilities. Billy was a free bird. No one noticed him
flutter off and out of the terminal except the scraggly-faced loner
across the tracks.

“
Time to board!” said
Britt, glancing at the departures display as the others returned. I
was slow in reacting. Jess had to drag me away from the vending
area. I could already feel the roots begin to prowl the periphery
of my consciousness. I was not long for this world.

The ladies took facing seats sharing a
table. I sat across the aisle by myself. The train left promptly.
We had barely left the station before the roots came and took
me.

***

Back in Bern and Lille’s subterranean
garden, I lay sprawled between rows of thick green stalks studded
with knobby buds resembling miniature cabbages. Brussels sprouts?
Whatever happened to the zinnias?

There was a kid sitting at the corner
by the fence, rocking back and forth on a stool. Upon seeing me,
his eyes popped. He leapt to his feet and knocked over the stool.
Slipping through a gap in the fence, he took off running towards
the main settlement.

I was naked as usual, but Lille and/or
Bern had anticipated my returning to this very spot and had left me
a nicely folded stack of my preferred attire in the afterlife: a
pair of black Levi 501s complete with an authentic-looking label, a
blue Hanes pocket T-shirt and a grey hoodie.

I was zipping up my jeans when Lille
stepped out of the cabin. Two tweed suitcases, an overloaded pack
frame and several cloth sacks were piled together on the
stairs.

“
He’s back!”

Bern limped out behind her, beaming.
“That didn’t take long.” His smile quickly vanished. “Must be bad
news.”

“
No word from Karla?” said
Lille.

I shook my head.

“
So what do you think of
our garden now?” said Bern. “Coming together nicely, is it
not?”

“
Looks great,” I said, as I
slipped on the T-shirt. “But I thought you guys were
leaving.”

“
Just killing time. We have
to keep the old skills honed, don’t we? Turns out the zinnias were
the problem, not my weaving. I just didn’t have a good feel for
zinnias, I guess.”

“
But with Brussels sprouts,
he’s a savant, a veritable vegetable whisperer. Go figure,” said
Lille. “In any case, they made a nice addition to our stew. Hungry,
James?”

“
Actually … uh … I just
ate.”

“
That was there, this is
here, silly,” said Lille. “Different realm, different body. You
have two mouths to feed, remember. Even here we benefit from some
nourishment now and then.”

“
For the pleasure alone, if
nothing else,” said Bern.

The young man who had fled from the
garden reached the edge of the main settlement. He turned a corner
and vanished into the heart of the Burg.

“
Who was that
kid?”

“
Oh, that’s Trent. Olivier
sent him to look out for you. I suspect he’ll want us to be on our
way. But first you’ll need to have your flying lessons.
“

“
Flying
lessons?”

“
They can wait till after
supper. Come up on the porch and sit with us. Tell us what’s going
on in your world.”

***

We were having our stew, when shouts
from the settlement caught my attention. A huge and ungainly winged
creature flapped out of the plaza and went swooping and veering
over the settlement like a butterfly being chased by a
swallow.

“
I must say that was some
pretty nifty weaving, James,” said Bern. “They took your joints and
installed them into four pairs of new wings. I believe that would
be Mister Tyler taking one up for a spin.”

“
Wow. You mean they
actually work?”

He flicked his chin towards the
aerobatics display. “You tell me.”

Tyler seemed to have trouble flying
straight. He kept drifting to the right. At one point he soared
into the ceiling and scraped against the bottom of the dome. He
fell into a disconcertingly steep dive before recovering some lift
and pulling up for a stumbling landing in the open space just
beyond the garden.

“
Luther has been raving
about you,” said Bern. “Sheer sorcery, he calls it. I suspect he
would love to keep you here to help him make more toys. But what’s
done is done. The expedition is all set. There is to be a prisoner
exchange.”

“
Safe passage?”

“
That part is not so
clear,” said Bern. “The Penult side has been a bit evasive on that
point. But they do want their Seraph back and have agreed to return
one of ours.”

“
You get to fly with the
scouts, James,” said Lille. “The rest of us will travel on
foot.”

“
Me? Fly? But I don’t know
how to use those things.”

“
Neither did Tyler a mere
twenty minutes ago,” said Bern.

“
Better hurry up and finish
your stew,” said Lille. “Looks like we have a visitor.”

Olivier came flapping over the garden,
alighting gently between the rows.

He dropped a tightly wrapped bundle of
tubular spars and shimmery grey membranes.

“
Special delivery,” he
said. “Meet you on the plaza in ten.”

***

I didn’t dare unwrap the package by
myself. I just slung it over my back and hauled it through the
settlement drawing stairs from the residents. It was bulky, but
much lighter than it looked.

The plaza was bustling with members of
the relief party, assembling weapons and gear.

Olivier, sans wings, strode over to
meet me when he saw me approach.

“
I expected you to fly over
here. Why else would I bring you wings?”

“
I … uh … I don’t know
how.”

“
Sure you do. You just
don’t know it yet. It’s as natural as breathing.”

Kitt sidled over. “Not quite,” she
said. “I mean, we all crashed a few times at first. But once you do
get the knack, it’s like riding a bicycle.”

“
Yeah, I’ve heard that one
before,” I said, laying down the bundle. “I don’t even know how to
unwrap this thing.”

“
Simple,” said Kitt. She
reached down and tugged at a knot in the very center. It sprang
open instantly, rising up on slender spars, a cage-like array of
struts, all six wings perfectly in position. “Now you just climb in
and strap it on.”

“
Um. Maybe I should see how
one of you guys do it, first.”

“
Don’t be so shy! Jeez!”
Kitt shoved me against the harness and started strapping me
in.

“
It’s all in the shoulders,
kid,” said Olivier. “To take off, you just pinch your shoulder
blades together.”

Detmar, winged, alighted gently beside
us. “Like this.” His shoulders jerked and all six wings cycled
through one beat sequence, lifting him gently off the
ground.

“
First thing that’s
important,” said Kitt. “Make sure the wings are cinched tight, or
else they might just blast off without you.” She fastened the last
strap and stepped away.

“
Okay, now you
try.”

I flapped my upper arms like I was
trying to do a chicken dance.

“
Not your arms, use your
shoulders. Your arms should stay free enough to carry something,
like a weapon.”

It didn’t feel like a natural thing to
do at all, but I did it. I squeezed my shoulder blades back. The
mechanism responded instantly. The wings threw me forward and only
the flexible spars prevented me from dashing my face into the
ground. They caught on the faux cobbles, flexed and bounced me
right back to my feet.

“
Try and keep a good
posture,” said Detmar. “Like you are trying to balance a book on
your head. Do not slouch.”

I leaned back slightly and tried
again.

Each pair of wings pumped in unison,
each of the three sets taking their turn. They tossed me up into
the air and I glided straight for Olivier, scraping my bare heels
against his head.

“
That’s it. Keep at it,
kid! Get some altitude.”

I rose up higher and higher, hurtling
straight forward.

“
How the heck do you
steer?” I shouted.

Olivier shouted back. “It’s all in the
shoulders. Twist one way or the other.”

I twitched my right shoulder and
careened towards a steeple under construction at the head of the
square.

“
Gently!” Kitt
shouted.

Detmar took to the air and caught up
with me, flying alongside.

“
That’s it! You have it.
The trick is not to work too hard. Almost like you imagine the
movement without actually performing it. The device responds to the
slightest motions. It is amazing.”

I soared high above the settlement. As
the ceiling loomed, I relaxed and let myself glide. The wings
naturally assumed a configuration that maximized lift and minimized
the glide slope. The slightest breeze would have allowed me to
hover like a hawk. If it was this exhilarating, flying around a
cave, I couldn’t imagine how it would feel out in the open
air.

A dog came trotting out of Luther’s
lumpy palace and headed straight for Olivier. They seemed to
converse briefly and then Olivier motioned for me to
descend.

I did nothing but lean forward
slightly and wings did the rest. I overshot my intended landing
spot but I managed to keep my feet with the help of the spars. Kitt
ran over to help me unstrap the wings. She was beaming.

“
You did great for your
first time! Looks like we got ourselves a squadron.”

The dog was sitting tall beside
Olivier, head cocked and panting.

“
Luther wants to see
you.”

***

The dog escorted me to Luther’s
palace, trotting ahead, tossing occasional glances over its
shoulder that creeped me out. Luther’s dogs had a look in their
eyes that was far too sentient for a canine, and too complex for a
robot.

Luther had the unique ability to
instill autonomous intelligences into clumps of woven root, far
surpassing what I could do with avatars like Billy. He was god-like
that way.

My canine escort paused at the portal
and glanced up at me expectantly. Two other shepherd dogs were
already guarding the entrance. This time the aperture responded to
my palm and one of the other dogs followed me inside.

I found Luther sitting in his
courtyard alone, the walls displaying scenes of foggy hillsides.
Clouds of actual mist drifted across the space. He was dressed all
in greys and blacks and he gave me the oddest stare as I
approached, as if he were seeing me in a whole new light. I sensed,
or at least projected from that look, a mish-mash of awe, jealousy,
confusion and respect, maybe even a smidgeon of fear.

I pulled out a chair and sat down
across the table from him. The dog laid down by his master’s feet.
“What’s up?”

“
Those joints you made.
They’re … perfect. As good as or maybe even better than the
originals. I expected some modest improvement other our attempts.
Some enhancement of the functionality, some insight into the
mechanism. An incremental gain. Instead Bernard brings me one dozen
perfectly functional angelic engines. How?”

Voices echoed from the entry chamber.
Olivier and Kitt had followed me to the palace.