Hello. Sam Stefanik here. Welcome to the eighth installment of 'Crown Vic to a Parallel World.' I appreciate you reading and hope you're enjoying the story. Drop me a line if you like. I'd love to hear from you.
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8
Heels and It Is What It Is
Early that afternoon, we were crammed into the plastic egg car, headed toward The HALL. Shawn's earlier phone call to his uncle's answering service had secured us an appointment at two o'clock. I was dressed ludicrously, this time bright-blue heels, orange pants, and a yellow shirt. I looked like a torch flame that wasn't getting enough air. From the top down, Shawn was wearing red, yellow, and purple. It was when he presented me with my second pair of wedge-heels I finally asked.
"Heels make your butt look better." He answered.
"WHAT?" I squeezed my eyes shut and felt like I had a head injury. `I'm never gonna get used to this place.' I thought. "Shawn, everyone I've seen since I got here has been wearing some form of heel. They all...all of them, wear heels because heels make your butt look better. Really?"
His clinical tone explained and he did that thing where his left arm crossed his body and his right rested on it and gestured from the elbow. "Everyone likes butts. You like men, you like men's butts. If you liked women, you'd like women's butts. If you were a woman who liked men, you'd like men's butts. If you were a woman who liked women, you'd like women's butts."
He trailed off and lost focus for a second. An oddity of what he was explaining struck him. "Though, I really don't understand why women like butts. What can a woman do with a butt?"
He shook his head and picked the story back up. "Anyway, we all wear heels because everyone wants their butt to look nice and everyone wants to look at attractive butts. That's it."
I was dumbfounded. Between what he'd already told me about the attitudes toward sex, the docu-orgy I'd seen the day before, and this explanation about heels...another question formed in my mind and came out of my mouth. "Is everything in this culture about sex?"
He thought for barely a second. "Yes. Isn't the one you came from the same?"
He had me. "It never occurred to me, but, yes, everything eventually boils down to sex. You win." I bowed to Solum culture and put my heels on. Then I did something I'd never done before. I looked at my butt in the mirror. He was right, the heels made it look better.
Ars greeted us boisterously. "So very good to see you again, yes, so very good to see you, young man," he pumped my hand then switched to Shawn, "and nephew, always happy to see you, dear me yes. Fortuitous for you to call me today, yes, very fortuitous. I wanted to see you, both of you, as well, yes, indeed. Please, come into the office and sit. Rest yourselves and let us discuss whatever it is you wish to discuss."
The emotion I felt from Shawn was resigned frustration, roughly equivalent to gritting one's teeth. I felt the same. We sat. Ars paused his endless speech to fit himself in his swivel chair. I lunged at the opportunity to ask a question. "Ars, why do you keep calling me `young man?' You don't look five years older than me."
Ars gave me the first of what I would come to think of as his Cheshire Cat smile. "There is much you have to learn of this place, Mister Philips." He steepled his fingers in front of his grin. "It will probably surprise you to learn I am three times plus eight years your age."
I did some quick mental math and came up with 128 years old. I didn't believe him, except I had to. Shawn's memories told me it was the truth. Ars provided some context. "Our relationship with magic permits us very long lives. People here routinely live to be three-hundred. If you stay here permanently, you will be afforded a very long life as well."
My eyes crawled around to Shawn. I wanted to ask a question, but was afraid of the answer. Ars read my confusion better than his nephew did. He chuckled out a reply. "Shawn is twenty-one and the son of my younger sister. She is five years younger than me and," he went on, preempting another question from me, "it is not unusual for people of this world to be in their second century before they reproduce."
That fact checked out as well, but I was still stunned. I didn't have time to mull it over. The staccato assault began afresh. "Ah, Mister Philips, I have someone that very much wants to meet you, yes wants to meet you very much indeed. I told her a little of your history and recent agreement to help us. She is enthusiastic, yes, enthusiastic about the possibilities. If you will permit me, I will call her now. She is anxiously awaiting your arrival, sir. Yes, indeed."
Ars routed through the clutter on his desk until he uncovered a pistachio-green, rotary-dial, desk phone. He had the receiver clamped against his shoulder and had started to dial when I interrupted him. "ARS!" I barked.
He paused his action and looked at me along his eyes. "Please hang up." I begged. "Shawn and I need to talk to you."
He set the receiver back on the hook and gave us his reluctant attention, his hands clasped on the desk. Shawn explained the events of the morning. As Shawn spoke, Ars' initially vague attention, locked on his nephew like a laser beam.
"Fascinating." Ars said when Shawn finished. "Indulge me, gentleman, yes, indulge me please. The person I mentioned earlier may be able to help us with your current...ah...situation."
He snatched up the receiver and dialed a number before either of us could object. We heard only his side of the conversation. "Yes...yes, they are here now. Yes, by all means." He hung up.
I seized the opportunity to ask an irresistible question. "Ars, that phone, how?" I'd noticed the thing when he dialed it before, but was too busy shouting at him to focus on it.
Ars smiled self-indulgently and launched into a monologue. "A silly vanity, young man, yes, a silly vanity. This entire office is a reproduction based on photos I took myself of a fine office that was at the headquarters of United Chemical in Chicago in 1958. This phone is the only one like it in the building, quite probably, the only one on this world. I wanted to be faithful to the office I saw and loved. This corded phone is part of that. None of this is real. Even this creaking chair is a reproduction. It took experts weeks to make it sound right. You must have noticed nothing mechanical makes a sound here. This chair is the same. I had it specially engineered to sound like it does. The books on these shelves, none of them are bound in leather, not real tanned cowhide. All of it has been synthesized to look, feel, and smell correctly. I love every square inch of it."
His answer confused me even further. "Chicago, 1958, what are you talking about?" I asked.
His self-indulgent grin became one of those that says, I know something you don't know.' He leaned back, steepled his fingers, and explained to the ceiling. "I lived on your world and in your country for eight years, from 1955 to the end of 1963. It was an exciting time. I traveled extensively; saw New York City, Washington DC, Philadelphia, Detroit, Chicago, Baltimore; all the major centers of commerce and technology. I was there to learn about production without magic. I would have stayed longer but between the Red Scare,' the escalating Cold War, and the assassination of your President Kennedy, I thought Earth was about to explode in a nuclear holocaust. I left the day after the President's death."
The man leapt from his chair and circuited the room, gesturing wildly as he went. "The immense power wielded by the Captains of American Industry at that time, the optimism of better life through science and technology, the idea that the United States would lead the world into a golden age of prosperity is all represented in the architecture and ornamentation of this room. What a wonderful time to be alive, a time when being part of the establishment meant you had arrived. Guilt free smoking, martinis at lunch, colorful, aggressively styled cars, beautiful women in colorful dresses, the accepted knowledge that consumption was right, and resources were unlimited. The whole country buzzed with constant activity. They were building the interstate highways, infrastructure, whole cities would spring up where there was nothing. Everyone worked; factories, construction, the suburbs were built in part through the genius of William Levitt, the American Dream, the Jet Age, television, big budget Hollywood; how I miss it."
Ars reveled in his speech. He surprised and fascinated me. The idea that one particular moment in history could fire the imagination of this man on another world and six decades later was astonishing. It was especially so for me, as I grew up in what many would call the hangover of the age he loved.
He made his way back to the desk and into the squeaking chair. "Ah," he said with a sad, slow head shake, "the intervening decades have not been kind to your United States."
I drew a breath to ask him how he knew that, but didn't get the chance. The office door burst open without even a courtesy knock and a well-dressed, professional-looking woman strode into the room. She was short, five-foot-even maybe, and appeared to be in her late twenties, though based on what I'd just learned about Solum life-spans, I supposed she could have been sixty. Her dark-brown hair was dragged back and pulled up tight. Medium-set brown eyes in a narrow face with a light tan complexion and small nose and mouth; she was a petite woman with small curves and dainty features. The Solum version of a pants suit that she wore was solid flame red with a green blouse underneath and green pumps. Aside from the odd Christmas connotation, she was the most conservatively dressed person I'd seen so far.
The way she swept into the office; she dominated the room despite being the smallest one in it. Ars started his routine. "Good afternoon, Miss Canto, yes a very fine afternoon indeed. Thank you for coming on such short notice, indeed, hardly any notice at all. I am so glad..."
"Steward, please." The short woman said in a normal, conversational tone. Her voice was silvery, a silvery tinkling voice that somehow stopped Ars in his tracks. "I'd like to proceed. Perhaps we can dispense with the pleasantries." She leaned her back on the front of Ars' desk, the heel of each of her hands pressed to the desktop. "I am Prea Canto, first and last name or taken together, which is how I prefer it, Preacanto. You may call me Miss Preacanto. I presume the one that resembles the Steward is his nephew and the other one is whom I'm here to see. I am a First-Class Empath with a C power rating. My low power level makes me useless as a seer, but my high class-ranking makes me useful in other ways. I am here to see what your power is, awaken it, and teach you to use it. Clear?"
I was taken aback by her curt manner, but I liked the directness, especially as it contrasted to Ars' ponderous speeches. Shawn entered the conversation, giving me time to chew on the idea of this woman awakening a power I didn't believe I had. "Miss Preacanto, something happened this morning that my uncle thinks you might be able to help with."
She huffed a ragged, impatient breath like a spoiled child denied her way and turned her head toward Shawn without any other acknowledgement that he'd spoken. He redescribed the morning. "Well," she said when he finished, "that's one of the more interesting things I've heard so far today." She used the heels of her hands to push herself up and slid back to sit on Ars' desk. The pile of clutter displaced toward Ars who scooted back out of the way of the debris that fell from his side to the floor.
"I read about such a thing once." She continued without acknowledging the chaos she's caused on Ars' side of the desk. I flicked my eyes at Ars. He had hopped off his chair and was busily snatching miscellanea from the hardwood floor and piling it back on the desktop with all the care of a beaver adding sticks to a dam. Preacanto didn't break stride. "You two have strong feelings for each other; admiration, desire, lust...something along those lines. Shawn did not protect himself adequately when you connected. He either did not recognize the feelings he had, failed to recognize Church's, or both. There's something more though. I suspect Church has a power level that Shawn did not anticipate. You shared memories and set up a magic link that now shares your location and emotional state."
Shawn seemed to understand what she was saying, but I didn't. He sensed my confusion. "Magic energy is generated, converted by plant-life from the light of the sun." He explained. "Animal life, including humans, draw this energy from nature through an automatic recharging process. We also share energy with each other. If you and I spend time together, and my power level is low, but yours is high, power will flow from you into me until our levels equalize by percentage. Magic flows according to proportion of capacity, not total magic amount. If I have a large capacity, but yours is very small, and my level is at fifty percent and yours at one-hundred, when we equalize, we might both be at sixty-five percent. See?"
I nodded a basic understanding of what he was saying. "It's normal that whenever people are together, a small amount of magic will drift between them. The `magic link' Miss Preacanto described, is that magic. Instead of just magic, we now share our emotions and location over that link."
I tried to compare what he was saying to something I understood so I could get a handle on it. "Like a radio carrier wave?" I asked.
He considered my question for a moment. It occurred to me that he was probably searching my memories for the definition of a `carrier wave' before he answered. "The principle is roughly the same, yes."
"What do our feelings or any of that other stuff have to do with what happened?" I asked.
Shawn dropped his eyes and I felt some embarrassment and shame from him as he explained. "The connection I make with people I'm treating...I have to adjust that depending on the other person. Their power level and their feelings for me make a difference. Physicians are often discouraged from treating loved ones because there is a risk of connecting too deeply. Though, I didn't know what happened to us this morning was possible. I treated you as I would someone who had a very low power level and no more than superficial feelings for me. Based on what I learned from your memories and...uh...what we did afterward, I should have been more careful. Even with intense attraction, I still don't think what happened should have happened."
The sound of Ars' chair squeaking as he climbed back into it distracted me, but only for a split second. "So, what can we do?" I asked with my eyes back on Shawn.
Preacanto took up my question. She tapped an index finger on the desktop as she spoke. "Very little. You can't unlearn the memories. Once information is shared, it cannot be unshared. As to the link, the only solution to that would be to never see each other again. Whenever you are close enough to share magic, you will share emotion."
She let her statement hang in the air and waited for us to process it. Shawn was mortified and started apologizing for what he saw as his mistake. "Church...I'm sorry...I'm so sorry...I didn't mean to..."
"JUST STOP!" I shouted. Fear momentarily replaced his embarrassment. He braced for what was coming next. "It's fine." I said and felt his surprise and relief. "The lady says there's nothing to be done, then there's nothing to be done. You made a mistake. It is what it is. I'm not innocent in this either. You warned me I had to be calm. I should have warned you how...uh...not calm I was. We'll figure it out. Let's move on."
Ars took that as a cue to chime in. "Sound thinking, young man. Yes, sound thinking indeed. The genie cannot be put back in the bottle, dear me, no..."
I felt Preacanto's frustration spike without needing an emotional link. "Steward, please." She snapped. Ars fell silent. I was again impressed.
She slid off the desk with a hop and moved to the right side of my chair. She offered her hand to me. I reached out to shake it. Something between a shock and a spasm passed between us when our hands met. We each recoiled from the other. She held her hand up and studied it, then studied me over her hand. Her tone was no longer curt, or conversational, it was worried. "I feel like I've just touched the spark of creation. Your power is unparalleled."
It was another instant when I waited for a punch line that didn't come. She shook her hand back and forth like she'd burned it. She spoke to Ars but didn't take her sharp, concerned eyes from me. "Steward, I will not awaken him here. The danger is far too great. I request the use of the reflection room."