JMJ

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Static Limits

The halls of the laboratory were always disquieting at night, but had the dormitory always been this uncomfortable? Had it always felt like some cupboard-sized dorm meant for a doll rather than a living being? Last night it was like sleeping in a sleazy motel room at the edge of a precipice at the end of the world that could hardly be meant for comfortable sleeping for anyone who wasn't too old, sick, or senile to comprehend it. It had to be meant to chase a person out of bed in the middle of the night to take that last shower of one's life.

The bed was hard and noisy whenever Copper Fria turned over. The whistling wind of the lonely prairies beyond the hilly road had always gotten under her skin, but that last night had been so quiet and empty that she had had to open the door if only a crack to hear at least some light fixture humming somewhere. Oh, if only the wind would pick up even if it threatened to tear the room right out of the building! Still she woke again and shut the door for fear of something out there.

The door was then locked, but she had been unable to shake the dread of someone coming in with a knife in the dark to kill her while she slumbered. Somehow it was morning, or at least what stood for morning in this dreary place— drearier than any post-apocalyptic drama, because at least in those there would be crazed government officials, robots or zombies out there to get a person, but the silence?

Oh, the silence consumed her. It was enough to make her seriously consider the possibility that time had stopped and the clocks did not know it. At least with the clocks moving it meant that she was not in a black hole. It was late if the clocks were correct. She had not gotten up at her alarm, and she only sluggishly came down for a breakfast that she only nibbled on by herself on a bench in an anteroom corridor. Everyone else had apparently eaten, but at least the cooks inside the cafeteria were there cleaning up for lunch.

What else is there to do, she supposed, at least until the food runs out?

Then she was summoned. The Pantheon was summoned to meet at last together. Perhaps for the last time, though Jupiter did not add that.

"The Event Horizon has sent a representative," was the only explanation he gave over the loudspeaker like a school principal calling naughty children to him after a bad prank.

Not that she knew what that was exactly like as she had never gone to the office except to be congratulated when she was in school as a child. Yet she felt very guilty as she went up the elevator. She did not speak a word, but stood straight and emotionless. She felt like an android elevator attendant isolated from Neptune and Uranus' low hushes behind her not as though to keep anything secret from her but as though she was of no consequence. All she needed was the bellhop cap and a stewardess-style uniform dress.

Maybe she was a robot. She felt as though she had been programmed like one and was malfunctioning.

"Still no sign of Mercury, right?" asked Neptune dryly.

"Not a word," whispered Uranus who even without a tone sounded screechy and scratchy somehow.

Rather than feel offended by being ignored, Copper pretended she heard nothing all the more.

"And no Hakuto is even more alarming," Uranus added. "He might have gotten trapped in Heartland for all we know."

"We still don't know if Pluto was telling the truth about this or if he's simply crazed himself," said Neptune.

"Everyone was too afraid to go into the program to find out," said Uranus.

"Well, it's possible we'd all be better off being lost there, virtual or not, once the Event Horizon person is done with us," Neptune shrugged darkly.

It was like looking down into a black and endless abyss. Copper was done with space, orbits, and vacuums of no return, but it was too late for that now. Whether or not the precipice was avoidable, she was sure she had no strength to get out of the current of the situation, or rather the cyclonic whirl down into a cosmic drain.

She stared at the numbers on the elevator counting as the passengers rose to the top floor. Then she held her breath. The elevator stopped.

"I haven't even seen Pluto for that matter," Neptune added.

The doors opened as to a mall at night, except that a pale light came through a window upon turning along the hall. The room they needed was opposite it and quite some ways to where a pair of broad doors stood like an entrance to a forgotten temple to ancient gods. The trio's footsteps echoed ominous with that light still behind them, and Copper shuddered despite how she ignored the thought of symbolism in this action as though turning from the light of reason and forcing oneself into the darkness of Bedlam, but she knew that the light outside would lead to nothing but the surreal too.

No one believed they had escaped the so-called nexus no matter what anybody said. That was why everyone had stayed in the building and had not dared to try driving away into town.

Just as Copper, who was ahead of the two old men, reached for the doorknob, she halted as the doorknob turned of its own accord. She half expected a face to appear upon it. If not the face from an animated movie, at least the face of some dead partner warning of a coming doom. Like Mercury, perhaps? The tremor through her spine relented to annoyance when Pluto poked his head through the door from the other side like a little rat.

Copper stamped her foot and rolled her eyes.

"Come in," he said like Igor for his master.

"Hmph!" was all Copper answered pushing past him.

Neptune and Uranus followed after like minions themselves, and Copper wondered suddenly what she looked like before the visual toady shut the door behind them like shutting the door to a tomb.

And there was Dr. Frankenstein at the head of a round dimly-lit table, which reflected his shadow like ice in a pond in its gleaming surface from the pale window and its drawn shades behind him. Beside him was an even more shadowy figure, though he had an elegant profile from what could be seen of him. His posture was enviable. Copper was no amateur to posture either, and she sat beside the equally as sentinel Saturn to face this new comer.

Mars was already seated beside the man from Event Horizon, even if he was looking away with arms crossed. He was sitting sloppily, leaning back with a foot against a stretcher beneath the deeply set table. His chair was leaned back just enough so that it was in no danger of falling.

Neptune and Uranus sat across from each other after that, and Pluto sat down skulking eclipsed behind Uranus' large bony frame.

"Is that everyone then?" asked Jupiter calmly.

"Unless we forgot to invite the Rabbit," snorted Mars humorlessly as much as idly.

Neptune rolled his eyes visibly with distaste, but somehow Copper caught herself smiling wryly. She looked with distaste only upon Jupiter as she could not bring herself to study the unknown figure yet who would not dignify the Pantheon with showing its face like a proper human being.

"Sir, may I flip on the light?" Copper asked innocently in a manner that conveyed it was not all too professional to have a meeting with someone in the dark.

Mars snorted in amusement himself.

As Jupiter did not answer, Copper took the initiative.

"At least the shades, anyway," she said clapping her hands, and the automatic shades pulled up revealing a surreal orangey glow.

They might as well have been in space, if not somewhere underwater near a bioluminescent school of some creature or other, but again she did not look outside. She dared not.

The man before them all was far too interesting in his own right anyway. At first glance he looked merely pretentious. His sneer alone was enough to punch him for, but there was something deeper than mere conceit after one took him in a little further. He was handsome Copper had to admit; though in a very peculiar sort of way. His nose was sharp, his eyes dark with boyish lashes. His hair was thick and red, almost wine-colored; though the light made that difficult to say for certain. After all, when his eyes caught the glint of the window's slow shimmers, they almost looked wine-colored too. His face was boyish and yet it was sharp, muscular in a sinewy sort of way, and lean-cheeked but not enough to be called gaunt. He was tall, but not gangly; though, his fingers were spidery. His office suit fit him with perfect tailoring, even if it did make his frame look just a bit effeminate. His neck was almost a triangle from his very prominent Adam's apple to make up for that, and yet he almost looked like a leprechaun in human form. He was not the sort to be in a Saint Patrick's Day department store sale but perhaps the sort to be caught in a rowdy Saint Patrick's Day parade— or rather he would catch you like a nightmare-haunting on All Soul's Night. Despite all this, he was not terrifying as much as it was terrifyingly annoying that for all his smugness he was captivating.

He looked at Copper, and Copper felt her face blush despite herself.

Oh, please, it can't have been that long since you've seen a pretty face, she huffed to herself. Besides, Mars is more handsome than he is even if more in a rugged sort of way.

Nonetheless she could not deny the presence that this figure carried.

Almost like a vampire, Copper decided.

Once that thought went through her mind, she settled it officially that she didn't like him. What made it worse was that he somehow looked like a stereotypical anime vampire besides, and she refused to oblige him or his repulsive smile any further.

"This is Mr. Dilparch from Event Horizon," said Jupiter.

"Oh, please, Sir," said Mr. Dilparch with a voice more youthful than Copper would have expected; though she still guessed that he was at least a few years older than she was. "As I'm in the company of the Pantheon, I feel that I should go by my own pseudonym, Betelgeuse."

Saturn now was the one who moved, lifting his head with a tilt as though to silently say, "Are you serious?" The action spoke louder than anything he could have said, and Betelgeuse turned to him with a knowing grin, more knowing in his gleaming eyes than in his teeth with a faintly hatter-like overbite and the cattish slim curve of his lips despite the crow's feet flexing.

"I see that everyone is anxious to get started before the fated supernova," said Betelgeuse.

"We're already prepared for the Event Horizon, why should we be prepared for a supernova?" asked Neptune suspiciously; he cleared his throat. "Betelgeuse."

Betelgeuse smiled. "Because I am fated for it."

"If you're speaking of the star, that won't happen for another ten million years," said Copper refusing to think of herself as Venus but from now Dr. Fria. She decided this as officially as she felt the volatile, pretentious, and simply over-the-top name of Betelgeuse fit the figure quite well even if it would have been better had his face been a little more distended.

"So they say," said Betelgeuse smiling at Copper in a wily sort of way. "Let's be professional now."

"There's nothing professional about any of this, anyway," Mars remarked.

Jupiter glowered. "Go on."

"The Event Horizon in question has already been crossed," said Betelgeuse, "so the only thing left to do is line up the Pantheon for the door."

"You have nothing further to tell us?" asked Uranus unhappily.

"Well, the ball is no longer sustainable," Betelgeuse explained. "I thought that was obvious. All your hot air is cooling, but tensions are heating up, and I know my very presence is adding to that. That will go supernova, long before I do, certainly, and the tightness of it is so dense that it will not go neutral again or phase out."

"But we're not in the ball!" said Mars.

"Oh, you're in the ball and always have been otherwise you'd be at home, wouldn't you?" asked Betelgeuse.

"Then how'd you get here?" muttered Saturn miserably.

"Besides, a virtual ball or even a stupidly floating metal one can't just literally turn into a black hole," growled Mars through his teeth.

"How do you know? In Wonderland it just might," Betelgeuse said with a shrug. "And as for how I got here, I just rode the tension, and it is—"

Mars blasted out of his seat for his own form of supernova so that the chair went flying behind him. The table went thump in front of him shaking everyone else in orbit to attention. But his movement was swift and precise as he punched that representative right smack-dab in the jaw and right out of his chair.

"Answers!" he snarled leaping round Betelgeuse's chair for a kick, but as he got there he gasped.

There was no Betelgeuse. In fact there was no one. The Pantheon was up in arms hot and panicked. Copper clutched the ends of the table with teeth clenched enough to feel them grind.

"Where'd he go!?" snarled Mars, and he threw his head like an angry lion to Jupiter seated stiffly in his chair with a stone-cold face. "Well?! Answer me, you?!"

Mars shook sweating as he thought of tackling Jupiter, but he began to pace instead, flinging his hands through his moist hair.

"I don't know," said Jupiter.

Mars stopped.

"Oh, yeah?" he snorted. "Then what do you know?"

"Hear, hear!" shrilled Uranus.

Mars stopped being angry for a few seconds to stare in shock at this concurrence. Even his jaw dropped and he winced as though unsure he wanted such an antique cheer for a past-primed curiosity. Then he shook his frazzled mane back to the man in question. It was true that everyone now was looking at Jupiter for answers. Even Saturn crossed his arms and did not appear to be interested in defending him at all against the small warrior.

Then Copper suddenly remembered Pluto. She turned roughly to him, but Pluto was only watching as the rest. He glanced at her briefly with a cold fire, then back at Jupiter. However, there was something about his expectancy that curdled Copper's blood more than Jupiter's stone face did. It was as though he was still being a scientist studying this display of the Pantheon as any researcher studying a conducted experiment, but she could not quite be certain that it was anything but her own nerve… and his, really.

She turned back to Mars and Jupiter. The only person she felt she truly sided with right now was Mars. Had she the strength in her arms she would have punched Jupiter herself. If Mars didn't get answers she might consider using an ankle boot. It was no plastic dress-up replica for children playing house. Her boots were real business. Even the buckles were more dangerous than a choking hazard. The toes were braced as much as brass knuckles, and as for the pointed heel? It was a weapon as capable as any vorpal blade, but Jupiter seemed to consent to Mars enough, to save him that agony.

"I was hired by Event Horizon to study the human brain's compatibility with what was termed 'low' mind control as opposed to 'full' mind control, as you all know, and especially how it correlates with specific computer suggestion much like the addictive and suggestive properties of cellular phones."

"Yeah, yeah, we know all that! What else?" growled Mars. "What part didn't you tell us? Was there always this thing about going into another world?"

"You know the idea of a person's consciousness living in a digital existence without the use of the body," said Jupiter placidly, "but you all know that the bodies of all the patients have always been together now, and Heartland is only a hologram, not a full digital existence. It was performed from this angle because for one to except a full digital realm one must accept the non-digital world to be just as illusory."

"But where is this great ball of metal?" Neptune suddenly joined in growling like an old bear woken from hibernation and not fully awake enough to attack beyond a paw swipe near at hand. "Underground? In space? How far away is it from here, or how close, actually? Since Hakuto could pass through it and out so well. I'm not going to believe he beams there like in Star Trek."

"No more fairy tales," hissed Mars.

Copper could not help but agree and nodded with arms crossed.

As though he was the one who was confused, Jupiter wrinkled his brow. Leaning back only with delicate care in case someone would strike him further, he took special care to glance at Saturn his usually loyal second with a concern more than had for Mars. Saturn was as silent and dead as a mummy, but there was an aura of tension like the aura of a curse about to descend upon the desecrator of his tomb as he stared hollowly back at Jupiter.

"I'm sorry," said Jupiter then folding his hands over the table.

"I'm sure you are," Mars gritted his teeth and prepared for either a shout or a lunge, but Neptune stayed his arm.

Even then, Mars looked about to shove him off, but he relented. Uranus fidgeted. Pluto huffed.

"I see that the affects of Heartland are stronger than we realized. I knew that sometimes you tended to forget, but I didn't know it was this deep," said Jupiter. "We are inside of Heartland just as much as the patients are. We're only on the opposite hemisphere. Or rather the left atrium of Heartland. Though, it could be the working left hemisphere of the mind and soul of Heartland as well."

Silence.

Copper cleared her throat with a sarcastic flutter of her lashes. "Come again?"

"You really have forgotten? All of you?" Jupiter sighed. "We're the numbers and language of the full fruition of the—"

Slam!

Mars shoved Jupiter, chair and all right into the window, and there it shattered. Had the window been any closer Jupiter would have very likely went right through it. As it was he only was cut by the shards that sprayed out.

Meanwhile everyone cried out in shock at Mars' action, except for Jupiter himself who was too in shock to comprehend at first what had happened at all.

"You made us forget, didn't you? You and that—that—that pixie-shrew!" snapped Mars. "We're as much the patients as the patients, aren't we? You and Horizon. You're the man from Horizon! Admit it! Supernova brat's just some other brain scam from this place! The side with those lunatics is down so's are side, huh? Well?! How do we fix it, Jupes? Or are you just figuring out that you're a dupe too?"

He sniggered to himself and prepared for a further assault.

"Mars," said Saturn stiffly. "You'll regret it. You know you will."

Pluto closed his eyes. "Why should he? He's been heartless to the pain we've caused the patients just as the rest of us have. Why not add murder to the list?"

Saturn clicked the roof of his mouth in disgust at the toady worm, but as for Mars himself, he suddenly stood up and backed away. Though still panting from the exertion, he wiped his face and looked out the window and then at Copper.

Copper stiffened, but she did not look back without sympathy. She knew what he was feeling.

Had they all woken at last to the realization of what game they had been playing with other souls only because of the nature of their own predicament now? They were nothing but lab mice in some horrible maze without twists and turns to discern much less try to escape or even get to the end. Corny to the limit and absolutely pathetic. It was as if a trance of mad science had covered them in a haze just as much as the Wonderlandian haze artificially covered those in the steam punk carnival attraction the scientists' created… or was it only Jupiter's creation? …Or was it Betelgeuse's plot and Jupiter really was a dupe?

If this was all still a holographic space, maybe he was the one truly in charge and would show both the fake Wonderland and the fake lab— the fake heart, mind, and soul— to whatever the Event Horizon truly was. Aliens? The Pantheon may have been the denizens of the solar system humanity knew as the home of Earth, but if they were in the orbit of Betelgeuse that meant that they had never been in control at all. Jupiter was a planet, not a sun. They were out of orbit or hijacked into another round an unstable star. The red giant in all its lunacy may not blast into a supernova for quite some time, but he may spike at them in a way that would destroy all life within the system.

"We still need him for one thing," muttered Saturn then hovering over the mere shattered planet. "And for another, I know that Mars has regretted joining this gaggle of science fiction nerds before any of this madness began."

"You're in this gaggle," Neptune pointed out.

Uranus only gaped enough that Copper was surprised he was not passing out from all this madness.

"I'll get the first aid kit," Copper said.

"That's not necessary," cracked Jupiter.

"Shut up," said Copper. "I'm getting it, and Mars and Saturn can get him on that leather bench outside the door."

"You mean that couch?" squeaked Uranus.

"Hardly a couch. A rhinoceros' back would be more comfortable, but it's as much as Jupiter deserves," said Copper with a more characteristic toss of her beautiful long hair.

And with that she passed everyone by and went for the door.

"Are you sure you want to go alone?" asked Pluto just as she touched the knob as though he was its avatar.

Copper jumped and turned savagely to him.

"Better to go alone than with an anglerfish boy," scoffed Mars.

Copper sneered even if Pluto only blinked unaffectedly.

"I'll only be gone a minute," said Copper ignoring her own fears for now.

Maybe she had to scream, maybe to sob, but she knew only for certain that she had to get out of the presence of all these… the phrase that came to her was "toxic males". Maybe that made her a toxic female. It was in strife when the true nature of a thing comes into play. Maybe just humanity itself was toxic.

Out she strode proud and tall through the doors. Once she shut them, she still carried herself high. She did not cry or scream or make a sound except the stomping of her boots. She went out round a corner or two ignoring any window churning with low orange light as though from an observatory over a churning magma pit.

She found the nearest first aid kit in a mostly unused office. She checked the box. Alcohol pads, bandages, tweezers, cotton balls, and disinfectant all seemed in order.

Closing up the little box she marched away, but it was here that she heard footsteps outside the office. Fortunately she had shut the door already. As silent as a mouse save for her pounding heart, she slipped to the door and locked it.

But could Betelgeuse get through without a lock?

Was the door even lockable if this was a hallucinogenic place? A holodeck?

Sorry, Dr. Marcial, not everything in Star Trek is a fairy tale— just the plot, Copper thought.

She paused.

Then bravely, she recalled her strength and unlocked the door again. There was a hovering presence just outside. She opened the door and was not surprised to see the business suit and the red haze attached. In fact, she felt that she had wanted this somehow. To face him head on without the others to sort this out for herself.

Despite how she trembled inwardly, she frowned boldly and asked with cool precision and a careless cock of her head, "What do you want, Betelgeuse? To escape some oversized lugworms or a small rabbit's wormhole?"