As I began climbing the steps in that dim stairwell, I realized I was no longer afraid of August. Without noticing, I had transitioned from a state of trepidation, into one of frustration. He had become a burden more than a threat.
The premise that I exuded some sort of powerful psychic energy that kept August from metamorphosing into a quivering tentacled grub worm struck me as laughable. August thought differently, which apparently was why he hadn’t tossed me over the railing yet. Of course, he’d no doubt come up with a grisly disposal method when I was no longer useful.
It was a shame there was no one to witness my nonchalant poise in response to this series of astonishing events. I was very proud of myself. Not everyone finds herself abducted by a murderer during a live television broadcast and taken through an inter-dimensional portal to an underground facility beneath Los Angeles that is run by robots. Add to that, the sight of Helen and Darlene being turned into…those things.
August certainly displayed disgust at that sight, but I did not register surprise on his face. He seemed to understand that he was in danger of becoming such a creature himself, and he was steadfast in his opposition to become one.
He was an unwilling pawn in all this, he had pleaded to me. Plucked from some liminal place of spiritual limbo, and deposited into a dreary linoleum-tiled and fluorescent-lit prison where he waited out his days until he would be selected to have his life judged on live TV. A strange definition of hell, he had added—only made more ghastly by its utter banality.
What he had said, while not untrue, was presented in such a tone that he managed to chase away any scrap of empathy I might otherwise have felt. I couldn’t stomach much more of his whining narcissistic self-pity. Of course, there was that other thing—him being a sociopathic sadist who most likely had murdered two people.
Just because the man had been victimized didn’t mean he couldn’t be pure evil.
I needed to get away from him.
I had things to do. I was in the place Lionel had gone. It seemed impossible, but here I was. Here in this strange—but not really supernaturally strange—place. Here where my dead brother had been sent…once he had been resurrected and plopped down on a soundstage in front of the cameras of a televised game show.
To have his life judged.
I allowed that last bit to sit a moment, feeling some of August’s ire.
Should I have followed the robot who rolled Helen and Darlene away? Or maybe headed to the Control Room to locate someone to answer my questions? Those options were not available as long as I had to serve as August’s babysitter.
Each time we reached another landing on our journey up the stairs, I was tempted to fling open the door onto that tier and run as fast as I could. But I had no idea of the distance I needed to be from August to, well, disable him. (Which, again, I wasn’t completely sure was a real thing.) Maybe my powers were so great they permeated the entire place. Those robots had sounded very impressed with my Fitzroy score.
“When you made your escape,” I said over my shoulder to August, choosing my words with caution, “did you pull me along because you knew I would keep you from turning into one of those things?”
“Correct,” he said. “That was one of the things Dr. Hetzel told me. My lifeline would either be you, or Saligia. You two were the only people with the show who had a Fitzroy above a thousand.”
I made it a point not to inquire what had become of Dr. Hetzel, because I was afraid August might tell me. Instead, I asked, “So, whatever that Fitzroy scale measures, it does more than just let me read people’s thoughts?”
“What?” August laughed. “You aren’t very well informed. I’d think you would know…well, at least all that stuff. Maybe if you’d exercised your mind-reading muscles better, you would have known all the good doctor’s secrets. As she explained it to me, gifted mind-readers like you and Saligia naturally radiate an electrostatic discharge—the tau field that those robots mentioned. It’s some sort of unexpected side effect. I mean, it’s not the main thing that keeps the contestants back in San Antonio from, well, let’s just say, transforming. No. The portals do that—and much more effectively. Four portals in all. Two on the 28th floor in those closets where the contestants arrive, and the two on the 29 floor behind the magical doors in the TV studio—through which they depart.”
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August had fallen into a relaxed and chatty attitude. Almost pompous.
I didn’t care for it.
“It doesn’t matter whether or not they’re active,” he continued. “The inter-dimensional portals, that is. I suppose, in a sense, they’re always active. Anyway, the entire upper region of the building is irradiated with this tau field. That is why all of the contestants retain human form. But if one of them—meaning one of us—gets too far from the portals, they transform into…well, you saw yourself. The tau field dissipates over distance. I suspect it follows the inverse-square law, like luminosity or gravity. However, if I understood those robots, the arrival portals in this place (those glass tubes) have devices that dampen the tau field, so that people like me are guaranteed to arrive as those tentacled things. As we witnessed, in that state they are easy to manage. They can’t run. Can’t fight back. But, thankfully, your 1200 Fitzroy mind powers work as a tau-field-dampener dampener. You’re my bullet-proof vest.”
“Until I get too far from you.”
“That’s how I understand it, my dear,” August said.
My dear?
I did not care one bit for his psychological bonding techniques.
And then, quite unexpectedly, he asked me what year it was. Of all the things he might want to know, this one question seemed so odd. Wouldn’t it have been the first thing he would have asked the doctor during his interrogation? I mean, if it was truly important to him.
I told him the date.
However, when the words left my mouth, I wondered if I was right. I mean, I knew nothing about inter-dimensional portals, or how time works with them. I assumed we had traveled to Los Angeles. But maybe this was Heaven. Hell. Or some distant century in the far-flung future.
“Six years,” August said so softly I almost didn’t hear. “I died six years ago. But where was I in the interim? Some place I don’t remember? Or just…in suspension, on hold, as it were?”
It did occurred to me that my brother had also died six years ago. Was that a coincidence?
When there were no more stairs to climb, I placed my hand on the door in front of us. I looked over my shoulder, not wanted to behave contrary to August’s wishes. Not at the moment, at least.
He nodded his head, but slowly, which I knew meant we were to proceed with caution. Silent caution.
No one was in sight, so we stepped out and looked around. This tier was different from the others. There were no levels above us with lighting fixtures along their railings, so that added ambient illumination was absent. If the green light didn’t have such a creepy quality, I’d say Tier One was quite cozy. Also missing were the glass arrival tubes.
I crossed over to the railing and looked down. The huge, cylindrical space appeared even more impressive when viewed from the top.
This floor was covered in a dark, almost black carpet unlike the other levels which had beige linoleum with a slight rubbery bounce. The walls also were covered in the same carpet material, and this made it easy to locate any doors along the curving wall. There were the two gleaming metal sliding doors of the elevators, right where we expected them to be, opposite one another. If you thought of the circular tiers as a clock on its side—I guess a sundial would be more apt—the recessed alcoves to the two elevators would be at noon and six o’clock. We’d just come out of the white door to the stairwell, which was at three o’clock. Directly across from us, at nine o’clock, was another alcove. A third elevator? Or was it the entrance to the Control Room? Or the exit?
August motioned for me to follow him. We headed along the curved mezzanine and eventually came one of the elevators. There was a single button labeled, Down.
August muttered something and resumed walking.
The mystery alcove had a metal elevator door. This one also had only one button. But it was labeled, Up.
August and I spoke the same words in unison.
“We’re still underground.”
This subterranean facility was larger and more impressive than I imagined. Dozens of levels beneath Los Angeles. A pool at the bottom. And yet we were…how far still from the surface? A place like this was certainly not where I expected to find myself when I got up this morning.
How many hours ago was that?
And, poor Marta, what was going through her mind?
Had someone called her? Explained what had happened?
August turned to look at the door beside the elevator.
White letters in a black rectangle read: Control Room.
He compressed his lips. He had no intention to go in there.
“We keep heading up until we get out,” he said, reaching out to push the lone button beside the elevator.
Nothing happened.
“There’s a lock beside the button,” I said, pointing at the small circular depression for a key.
“I can see it,” he said, with an edge of irritation in his voice.
“So, it seems that Dr. Hetzel left some things out,” I remarked. August didn’t respond. “We could check the other elevator, but I’m pretty sure it only goes down.”
I turned to the door to the Control Room.
“We might as well give it a shot,” I said. “What’s the worst that can happen?”
August narrowed his eyes, but he didn’t say no.