Ocean in the Sea Read online

  “The floor is magnetized and the cane has a metal base.”

  “You realize how weak magnetic fields are? Run that much power through the floor and you’d fry every piece of electronics in this room.” He snatched the cane, twirled it in his fingers, and repeated the performance in a different location, but still in Lewis’s line of sight. “A freak accident?” asked Valon. “Or am I just really really good and landing my cane? How about this?” Spinning the cane, he landed it upright on the stool. Grabbing it, he sat down at the console and flipped the first card, holding it up for Lewis to see. “Ace of Spades, Three of Hearts, Two of Clubs, Jack of Diamonds.” Each card was correct.

  “Card tricks aren’t going to convince me.”

  “That’s why YOU have to do it!” exclaimed Valon. “And you can’t until you believe you can.” He shook his head in exasperation. “Maybe I should have summoned a savant. Asperger’s is usually enough.”

  Lewis’s eyes widened angrily. “You picked me because I have Asperger’s Syndrome?”

  “I didn’t pick you,” snapped Valon. “I simply believed that someone capable of operating as my messenger and completing the delivery of my message would come to me when I was ready. Then I engaged the trigger.”

  Lewis felt his anger slack.

  “Although the fact you have a touch of autism is probably relevant on some level,” added Valon. “Most messengers I get usually have some form of mental aberration.”

  “Not unlike you,” snapped Lewis.

  Reaching a hand to his head, the white-haired Chairman rubbed his temples as if massaging a headache. “If… you can’t believe. If… we can’t get this to work… there is one other way. I dislike the technique, but… large quantities of LSD have been known to break down disbelief…”

  A shiver of horror ran down Lewis’s spine. “No,” he whispered. He felt sick to his stomach. Regaining his voice, he spoke louder. “NO. I’ll do what you ask. I’ll try harder. No drugs. Please.” He knew what LSD could do. A large enough dose, and he’d become a different person. He’d lose control. “Let’s keep going. I can… I will do it.”

  Valon tapped the deck. “Next card. I’ll give you ten more tries before I stick a needle in your arm. And do try to relax. It’s far easier to focus.”

  Relax, thought Lewis. Under these circumstances? He focused on believing. The odds that he’d pick the right card were what? One in 52? But he had to believe. Valon was watching the console again. Lewis couldn’t see the screen, but knew it must depict something about his thought processes from the scanner. Maybe he if showed Valon he was trying it would be enough. So how to overcome doubt?

  The opposite of doubt was assurance. Trying to relax and obey, Lewis assured himself that he’d pick the right card. The Two of Clubs. What were the odds? It didn’t matter, the odds were one. He scoured all doubt from his mind, trying hard to remove even a trace. There was no doubt. The card would be the Two of Clubs. It already was the Two of Clubs. When he was ready, he hit the trigger and felt the rush. “Ah!... The Two of Clubs! The card is the Two of Clubs!”

  Valon flipped the card and the Two of Clubs appeared. “Again.”

  “Five of Spades.”

  The Five of Spades appeared. Lewis felt his confidence grow.

  “Now we’re cooking with butter,” said Valon. “Again.”

  They went through the entire deck. Lewis guessed them all correctly. His confidence soared along with a mind-reeling sensation of shock. He felt as if he were actually doing this. Furthermore, the effort to believe erased his previous rejection. It opened his mind to the rest of Valon’s story. If he could do this, what other explanation was there? That revelation brought a wave of understanding with it, and something in his mind flipped from cynicism to knowing.

  “Excellent,” muttered Valon. “Admittedly, I did the first twelve for you, just to build your self-confidence, but you did the rest on your own. Your disbelief was holding you back. It isn’t uncommon, but once the ball gets rolling, it all falls in place.”

  “We are in a computer simulation,” rasped Lewis.

  “Yes. We are. Although what ‘you’ consider a computer is a far cry from what the ring actually is and how it functions. There’s really nothing I can compare it to.”

  “Who made it? What is it for?”

  Valon smiled a secret smile. “Questions I’m not going to answer. But let me assure you that the ring does have a purpose – a very important one to those who built it – and it’s not shutting down anytime soon. If ever.”

  “How did you… learn the technique?”

  “I’m not exactly human, Lewis. Let’s leave it at that. You need more practice. Let’s keep going with the cards.”

  “What are the odds,” asked Lewis. He knew the answer.

  What seemed like hours passed. Lewis seldom failed. Valon assured him that he was no longer helping in any way. The deck was shuffled many dozens of times. Finally, Valon’s watch chimed for his attention, and he rose from the stool, stretching his back. “Time for this to stop,” he grunted. “You’ve got the hang of it. Next comes the language interface, and after that the jump. I’d have given you language first, but from where we’re at in the ring, most of the simulations you’ll run into will be Earth analogs. The Attistar will find a host for you relative to a nearest matching position and my directives. That means most of the time you’ll be close to where you left – position wise. Once you get further out in the ring, there won’t be any good matches, and you’ll start to arrive in random locations. Not to worry, though, that’s sometime ahead of you.”

  Valon’s finger hovered over a button on the console. “You’ll get a different memory for the next two nights. Sleeping will activate them. For now, I’m shutting you down for further formatting. When you wake up, your current memories will return, and you’ll be in an entirely different place. I can’t know where that is, but it won’t be this world, it will be a different simulation further down the ring.”

  “So this is all a dream?”

  “It’s a memory, Lewis. You were here, and we did do this, but you’re remembering it where you are now. You’ve already left.” He pursed his lips. “I have a dinner to attend to, and most likely another assassination attempt to stave-off. Stay safe. You won't be able to jump for three days. Try and keep track. You'll have to survive until then, so unless you're dead, I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  Lewis opened his mouth. There were too many questions to ask! But Valon’s finger descended and Lewis’s vision went black.

  What If…

  The rush of memories hit Lewis with the weight of a train, and in the absolute blackness of the cistern, his eyes opened visionless, remembering where he was in a rapid jumble.

  This was not Earth – not his Earth, and a flurry of emotion shocked his body. It wasn’t imagined, it was real. As real as the cards Valon had forced upon him. Instantly, he felt regret, wishing he’d asked more questions, but in the dream, he couldn’t. His dream-self in the memory had no knowledge of this place - couldn’t’ know until awakening, at which point the pieces fell together and the memories merged with the present reality. Valon’s statement about him not being in the chair, not being in the lab, now made sense.

  Turning on the flashlight, Lewis validated his surroundings, an act that felt necessary. Nothing had changed. The water still dripped to the floor at five minute intervals. The cold rusty grate of the catwalk still dug into his back through the olive drab military blanket Marcia had given him.

  One day, Henry had said, in one day he'd come back. How long had he slept? Without some way to tell time, it was impossible to know.

  Impossible…

  After the cards, the word had a bitter taste. If nothing was real, then what was impossible? Was telling the time in the dark without a watch impossible? Lewis considered how that might work. He didn’t know what time it was, and Valon had said ignorance was the key. If he believed that it was morning and used the… interface… the trigger
… would that make it so? It seemed unlikely. There were probably millions of people above, and for them, if it were night, it would remain night. Or… maybe the Attistar would change him. There was that to consider. The system could shunt him forward in time without even his knowing, or make time pass so quickly that he wasn’t aware of the interval between night and day. Poof, he’d be there.

  It boggled his mind.

  He decided not to try it. If the weapon changed him instead of the world, there could be undesirable effects. He might be frozen here – made unconscious until morning. Someone might come down and find his comatose body. And they were looking for him, an escapee from the local C.R.A.P. facility.

  Night or day, he was sure of his hunger. He’d been hungry when he’d woke in the alleyway against the wall. Now he felt famished. Thirsty too. Thirsty enough to drink the water out of the cistern. How bad could it be? He swung the flashlight around and located the ladder. Finding the dripping pipe, he ran his finger along the metal and tasted the water. It was clear, clean, and delicious. He wanted more, but the drip was torturously slow. He wasn’t going to stand under it for five minutes to get a single drop on his tongue. But what if…

  What if…

  He focused his mind, remembering Valon’s instructions. What were the odds that the drip would increase to a small trickle? The answer was one. He pushed the trigger and felt the now familiar rush of tingling over his skin and down his spine. As if broken somewhere, the rate of the water increased, drizzling onto the cistern floor instead of dripping. Without hesitation, he put his mouth under and drank his fill. Nothing had ever tasted as good.

  Food was next, but all he had was the old lump of bread. Would the weapon work on it? No, he already knew it was a crumb of crusty stale chunk. But what if this bread were completely sterile? What if it was enough to fill him up? What if it tasted fantastic? What were the odds?

  One.

  As the rush subsided, he took a bite and nearly dropped to his knees. Whatever the bread was made out of, it was incredible. He wolfed it down and chased it back with water. When he was done, he stared at the trickle and the floor of the cistern. Best not to leave it like this. He focused on the pipe and bent probability again, reducing the flow of water back to a five minute drip. What had caused it? Most likely, someone up there had turned a valve, increasing the flow until now. The system’s will bent to his own.

  It was real. He had power – or, at least, a power. He still couldn’t do the other things Valon had promised. Language and jumping. He would learn them later, though he didn’t look forward to those memories. They were of the past. In them, he would know nothing of current events. He’d be an observer, trapped and forced to watch a dream of things that had already happened – memories locked in his head.

  Regardless, he needed Valon’s information. It was unfortunate he couldn’t acquire those memories some other way, like just remembering them. Could he? No, no. Again, that would be asking the system to change his mind, and he wasn’t trusting of it. In retrospect, he probably shouldn’t have made the bread taste good. Damn. That had been stupid. Maybe stale scraps of crust would always taste good to him now. Maybe he’d changed his taste in food. He had to be careful. Developing an addiction to shoe leather or fabric would be flat-out nasty. No more toying around. He needed to think seriously before he used the weapon.

  Feeling refreshed and full, he pondered his next move. Stay alive, seek sanctuary, and avoid the authorities. Why? That was something of a conundrum. It seemed important to know where he’d landed in the… ring. That’s what Valon had called it. What was it really? Toying with the weapon might reveal something, but he’d be asking the system to mess with his brain. That was a serious limitation.

  Should he stay here? Several days without food was not going to be pleasant, but those were his options. He could either stay in the cistern, or open the hatch marked C and follow it out. Of course, that meant he might be captured or shot. Or both. Not a good risk to take.

  He thought of the strange car and the walking mechanized tank. U.S. Army. SeaPac Urban Militia was obviously an organization. This world was similar to his, but different in ways he needed to figure out.

  It was a puzzle. More than that, it was a reason to live, and he didn’t want to die without the answers. That would have made Brenda happy. She’d have wanted the same. Thinking of her brought a sudden revelation. What if she were still alive here? Lewis’s mind spun and his spine stiffened. What if she and Scotty were both alive! But… they wouldn’t be his Brenda and Scotty. They’d be this world’s version. He didn’t care. Not if he could make her fall in love with him again.

  At the thought of Brenda, Lewis reached down to touch his wedding ring and discovered it was gone. His clothes weren’t his. He didn’t have his glasses or his watch or his pen. Crap. How did a ‘jump’ work anyway? Had he hopped into the body of an alternate version of himself? Actually, that made sense. Valon had said that from where they were in ‘the ring,’ most of the simulations would be Earth analogs, and that the Attistar would find a host for him relative to the nearest matching position. He was still in Seattle, just not his Seattle. So what did ‘host’ mean? His bladder notified him of an urgent need. He unzipped his pants and felt around, receiving a rather large surprise. This was not his penis!

  “Holy…! OH-My… GOD!”

  He was hung. Not that he’d been small before, but this was different. The weight of the girth was double what he was used to. A bit shorter, but far thicker.

  Relieving himself on the wall, he zipped his pants and pulled the wallet out of his pocket, shining his light on the ID card. The name read Michael K. Garibaldi, age: 44, height: 5’11”, weight: 195, eyes: Brown, Descent: Italian/Irish/English, Citizenship: U.S. NBC – San Francisco 1978.

  Lewis couldn’t take his eyes away from the picture. It was most definitely not him. He was only 36. But Henry had said he looked like the picture. A picture of a man with bushy eyebrows, a thinly trimmed mustache, a narrow beaked nose, and wide-set brown eyes. Lewis moved his hands over his face and jerked them away, remembering that he hadn’t washed them. He sniffed his fingers. They stunk of unwashed penis – unfamiliar unwashed penis. It wasn’t his scent at all. He almost gagged.

  Host apparently meant… someone else’s body. So what had become of Michael Geravaldi? He must have had a life. No wonder Henry and Marcia had distrusted him when he’d insisted he was Lewis Herman. They’d thought he was some kind of… reject, programmed by the NSA. Apparently this world’s version of the NSA did that, which implied a lot of other things, none particularly good.

  “Sorry Michael Geravaldi,” he whispered, placing the wallet back in his pocket. “Maybe you’ll come back when I leave. I’ll try not to make trouble for you.” That was easier said than done. The SeaPac Urban Militia was already looking for him. Michael Geravaldi was going to have some explaining to do.

  Approaching the hatch marked “C” Lewis grabbed the wheel and turned. He should at least have a look before deciding. Shining the flashlight inside revealed a long black metal pipe that turned to the left after about a hundred feet. It was large enough to worm through, but not big enough to crawl. It would be elbows against metal the entire way. Stay or Go?

  Leaping up, Lewis climbed inside. He didn’t want to stay. Not if there were some version of his wife and child out there.

  Crawling and turning left at the end of the tunnel, his knees and elbows quickly ached from pressing against the steel. Another turn led to a hatch. For all he knew there could be water on the other side, but Henry had told him to go this way, so he thought it unlikely. Spinning the wheel, he opened it. On the other side lay a cistern, identical to the one below Henry’s bunker. And just like Henry’s, a ladder ran up to a hatch in the ceiling. Lewis figured he was probably below the neighbor’s back yard. If every house had an underground bunker, he could expect another family up there. Popping in on them might be dangerous. On the other hand, if it was daylight, they’d p
robably be off doing whatever it is they did during the day.

  Climbing the ladder, he tried the hatch. It was locked – sealed tight and probably hidden under something like Henry’s. He climbed back down and opened the next “C” hatch in the cistern.

  Through three more tubes, he found identical cisterns and matching tunnels, all with locked hatches. He was beginning to think he was trapped until the fourth one yielded results. It was unlocked.

  Spinning the wheel, he pushed the hatch open and popped his head over the lip. The power was off, and the chamber was uninhabited. His flashlight illuminated shelves loaded with blankets, water, canned food, and stacks of spare clothing, appeared beneath his light. He climbed into the room and shut the hatch behind him.

  Further investigation of the bunker revealed a lot of details and clues, particularly the posters. They encompassed a type of propaganda that seemed congruent with a style Lewis recalled from history books – heavy solid lines and smooth gradients with minimalistic texturing - World War II posters. One showed a mechanized army laying waste to another mechanized army. The vehicles were walker mechs similar to the one he’d seen last night. The winning side of the conflict bore US flags. The burning upturned mechs all sported swastikas. Words in an old-style Metro font captioned the header: “In Freedom’s Name We Prevail.”

  Another poster showed an overweight man eating a bowl of soup. The lettering read, “Do your part for the war effort. Clean your plate!” Lewis raised an eyebrow, trying to figure out what it meant. Failing, he moved his light to another showing a cylindrical space station composed of rotating rings floating over the earth. U.S. military symbols and flags ran down the sides. A man in a space helmet peeked up from the bottom, holding an odd looking pistol. The word-bubble next to his mouth read: “Join the Star Force. Keep Nazi Boots on the DIRT where they Belong!” Another poster showed a Nazi moon base launching missiles. “BEWARE!” it read. “Let NOT the blood of freedom be shed in vain.” The bottom banner showed a curled snake with the words, “Don’t Tread on Me.”