[Original Novella] Mansionarium, Part 7

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Dead, or just awakened? No way to tell. No time to ask either, although time was growing increasingly meaningless as the battle unfolded around me. One after another, more men in black velvet uniforms emerged from the orb. And in turn, each of them was paused by the green blur I now figured for Dr. Bizen, then forced out of the Manifold entirely. I finally understood. I’d only ever been a mule. Somebody to smuggle the orb past his traps so they could get to him.

They never cared what happened to me. Not the Institute. Not even Violet, much as it pained me to admit it. The black blurs dwindled in number until the last few stood frozen in various poses around the room.

Doctor Bizen slowed to a comprehensible speed, pointed his remote at the orb, then pressed stop. The light inside flickered and went dark. “If it were that easy to stop me, don’t you think they’d have extracted the girl by now?” he gloated, snatching the orb from me.

“More are on their way. You haven’t won.” My bluff was just as transparent to him as I’d intended. But to be safe, he waddled over to his desk to check the ticker tape machine. Immediately he cried out in fear, recoiling and nearly tumbling backwards with one hand over his eyes. I approached as he writhed about on the floor, and despite myself, glanced at the tape.

Just as I expected, there it was. Over and over in an unbroken string. The machine only continued to print more of it as I stomped on the custom remote he’d dropped, reducing it to scrap. “Stay back!” he threatened, holding out the glass orb as if to drop it. I backed away as instructed, but then narrowed my eyes, smiled, and produced the real orb from my pocket. He blinked incredulously, then flew into a rage once he realized what I’d done.

I’m not sure what he hoped to accomplish by hurling the fake orb at me. What I do know is that when I reflexively pointed my remote at it and hit rewind, it flew backwards along the same trajectory. Only he’d moved his hand since then. So it sailed right past him, smashing through the bay window.

The moment the glass panes shattered, the illusion of the landscape on the other side faded away, revealing what he’d been hoarding there all this time. What, in his vanity, he believed he could forever maintain control over. An endless geometric array of floating platforms spiraling off into infinity. Each bearing the same desk, the same wall, the same clock. Each supporting the same familiar ghostly figure, going about its eternal routine.

“You’ve fucked us!” He wailed, loose strands of grey hair falling over his eyes as he struggled to get up from the floor. “You’ve done it now! Why didn’t you listen?” His voice was soon drowned out by the increasingly loud ticking. Accompanied for the first time by their voices. Carefully defaulted to mute anywhere they’ll be near people, for the first time I could hear what they really sound like.

“STOPPERSBACKSTOPPERSBACKSTOPPERSBACKSTOPPERSBACKSTOPPERSBACKSTOPPERSBACKSTOPPERSBACKSTOPPERSBACKSTOPPERSBACKSTOPPERSBACKSTOPPERSBACKSTOPPERSBACKSTOPPERSBACKSTOPPERSBACKSTOPPERSBACKSTOPPERSBACKSTOPPERSBACKSTOPPERSBACKSTOPPERSBACKSTOPPERSBACKSTOPPERSBACKSTOPPERSBACKSTOPPERSBACKSTOPPERSBACKSTOPPERSBACKSTOPPERSBACKSTOPPERSBACKSTOPPERSBACKSTOPPERSBACKSTOPPERSBACKSTOPPERSBACKSTOPPERSBACKSTOPPERSBACKSTOPPERSBACKSTOPPERSBACKSTOPPERSBACKSTOPPERSBACKSTOPPERSBACKSTOPPERSBACKSTOPPERSBACKSTOPPERSBACKSTOPPERSBACKSTOPPERSBACKSTOPPERSBACKSTOPPERSBACK”

I winced, then put my hands over my ears trying to shut out the maddening rhythm. No good. I had to remove one in order to aim the remote and mute them. But even then I could only mute them one at a time. My head started to hurt. When I tasted something warm and coppery in my mouth, I rubbed my hand along my upper lip and discovered my nose was bleeding. Ears too.

The rhythm does it. Like spinning gears. Like thumping pistons inside your head. Relentless, recursive, secondhand insanity. I thought I couldn’t hear myself think at first, but then realized I was finding it increasingly difficult to form thoughts at all. Except for one. I stumbled backwards, jaw hanging open in dismay as they began to pour out through the shattered window. Replicating unrestrained, rapidly filling the office with more of themselves.

I could no longer see the fat little doctor. He’d been enveloped by it in the span of a few seconds after the windows broke. So I fled for the elevator, fumbling with the weird controls as the surreal, kaleidoscopic swarm expanded towards me. Finally as I tugged at the film, the gate closed and the elevator car descended. I could still hear them approaching from above, the rhythm of their voices and the tick-tick-ticking now so intense I could feel it as vibrations through the floor.

The moment the gate opened on the floor below I erupted from the elevator car, calling out for Violet. “What’s the matter?” she breathlessly inquired, sensing my panic. Before I could answer, they reached the bottom of the elevator shaft behind me and began to fill the library. The moment she saw it, her face contorted with rage. “You did this, didn’t you. It’s all your fault! Really got my hopes up...I thought you’d be the one.”

I glanced back at the advancing 3D grid of platforms, desks and clocks. Then I turned back to plead with her for forgiveness, but she was nowhere to be seen. The orb I’d been holding was also gone. I stood there sputtering for a moment in stark disbelief that she’d really done such a thing. The spreading contagion nearly upon me, I fled to the far end of the library, then through the double doors into the next room.

But they were propagating too quickly to escape on foot. Each time I peered over my shoulder the wavefront was closer than before, that monotonous chant heralding their approach. An epiphany struck me: While they were too numerous to slow or pause individually, I could instead speed myself up.

So I pointed the remote at myself and pressed fast forward. At once, the world slowed around me into a sort of blurred, fluidic continuum. I could feel air being pushed out of the way as I walked down the corridor, now thicker than water. But without the orb, I could only run so far. Each world I’d so far accessed consisted of only a few rooms.

Like being painted into a corner in slow motion. Eventually I backed out of the building and onto the walkway leading to the hanging gazebo. There would soon be no place left to stand. What if I leapt off?

Falling usually wakes me up. But couldn’t it kill me here? Or would I be fine without the cardiac device? Questions furiously jockied for my attention, no answers forthcoming and no time to really consider any of it. My anxiety approached infinity as, at last, my hand was forced.

Of all the frivolous things to think about at a time like that, I found myself agonizing over how I’d disappointed Violet. I couldn’t shake the feeling that I knew her from some other time and place. That this might’ve been my sole chance to liberate her. Somehow, that’s what stung the most as I raised the remote to the side of my head and pressed power.

I awoke with a gasp, bolting upright and choking on my own breath. I leaned over the side of the bed as for a moment I thought I might throw up. Nothing came of it, so I then sat there for a minute or two just catching my breath and letting the pounding in my chest subside.

I briefly searched the building for Travigan, finding most of the doors locked. Not actually wanting to face him and not knowing what else to do, I took my jacket, got into my car and drove home. Rain started up a few minutes into the drive. I was soon lost in thought as the prismatic multitude of water droplets snaked their way down the windshield.

Took what felt like years to finally arrive. It’s a miracle I wasn’t in an accident. Even after I climbed the stairs to my apartment and flopped down on my bed, I couldn’t make myself focus on the here and now. Plagued by visions of Violet, still trapped in the Manifold. That is if any of it really happened.

Was I drugged? I’d never so much as discovered if he was a real professor, much less one qualified to perform human experiments. Should’ve trusted my gut, yet another fuckup. And yet, the subsequent nights I had a variety of dreams. The way it was before the foundry, the way it’s supposed to be. I also vaguely remembered waking up with the remote in my hand. Didn’t I?

Recovery came slowly as memories of the ordeal threw me for a loop. At work, at school, even when I next met Mom for Sunday dinner. She noticed it right away. “I’m worried about you.” I smiled weakly as I pushed the contents of my enchilada plate around with a fork. “When are you not worried about me?”

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^{Stay Tuned for Part 8!}