JMJ

Chapter Twelve

Rhetorical Gravity

The sound of muffled lo-fi lounge music met them as they stepped out of the egg. Matthias was as though hatched into another dimension. He was no longer being abducted by human aliens but was in a lively corridor atmospherically lit like the lobby of a movie theatre. He had only been in a sci-fi horror movie and had stepped out into… well, he still could not believe this was reality.

"Am I allowed my clothes?" Matthias asked suddenly realizing that they were going to be in public by the sounds of voices around a corner and the stray people passing by already, however strikingly near non-human they appeared.

One of those few people may have been wearing a jumpsuit, but at least she had a puffy retro eighties jacket over the top of it.

"Oh, excuse me!" said Ladle. "I was in such a hurry, I forgot. Yes, we'll go there first. The lockers are this way."

He motioned for Matthias to follow, and they headed down a short elevator shaft into a clean little locker room with echoing elevator music so sluggish it sounded like it was about to drool through the invisible speakers. Stickers and nametags were on some, but most were clean of anything but numbers. His was one of the plain ones, and Ladle stooped down to the floor to open it and pull out Matthias' clothes.

"I wouldn't recommend wearing the whole ensemble," Ladle insisted.

As he examined his clothes to make sure they were his, Matthias shrugged. "Style doesn't seem to be all too organized around here."

"A little neon, though," offered Ladle.

"I'll be fine. I'd rather wear them."

Ladle smiled. "Suit yourself."

"Most grownups do," retorted Matthias.

"Not anymore."

Matthias glowered, but chose not to respond. "Where's the bathroom then?"

"The changing room is there," said Ladle pointing.

They were alone at the moment, but Matthias could see even before he went in that it was not a very private place. He strode in and chose a stall that was a little like a clothing department changing room only without the door, but as soon as he entered a shoot came up out of the floor and surrounded him with mirrors. It gave him a start, but he soon rolled his eyes, and mostly at the slender consol that also came out of the floor. He decided not to push the button that asked if he wanted to be changed like a baby with a dirty diaper. He did not want to know the indignity of the experience. Nor did he wish to exchange for any change to his clothes, which was an apparent in the options for any color, tailored adjustment, or modification of any kind, really. He apparently could even make his clothes the same material as the jumpsuit which was called vizcoz presumable a variation of viscose.

When he came out back to Ladle dressed in his costume from that party at his store that felt so long ago it was like a grade school mock graduation, he at least felt more confidence. He handed the silver jumpsuit back to Ladle more haughtily than he meant to. Then he straightened his frockcoat and looked steadily at Ladle.

"I suppose I don't have my hat anymore."

"You were not found in a hat," replied Ladle. "It must have been part of—"

Matthias held up his hand. "The hallucinations caused by Horizon. Sure."

Ladle nodded apologetically.

"So. Where are we off to?"

"Well, I'm sure you're hungry. How about the Rhetorical Gravity."

"A date to a sci-fi bar?" teased Matthias. "I wouldn't've pegged you as a drinker."

"Not at all," said Ladle. "It's not a bar so much as a lounge. Though, they do serve whizkey if you're interested."

" Nngh…" Matthias grinned. "Nice. I guess I'll just have to settle for a coffee. The coffee's made from beans, right?"

"Recycled beans."

Matthias wrinkled his nose. "What does that mean?" He paused. "No. Tell you what. Let's just have a look at the Rhetorical Gravity and… you tell me what's going on, eh?"

"That was the idea."

"'Kay! Let's go."

"If you had your implants, it would bypass your natural aversion to what we now must do to survive."

"I think I'll just stay natural for now," Matthias told him. "But I'll let you know when I'm ready."

"This is very serious, Matthias."

"Sure," Matthias told him, and as Ladle was not taking any sort of initiative, Matthias took the first step back to the elevator shaft.

Ladle looked very reluctant to follow. Matthias could picture him having a little tea party all to himself in the locker room quite easily enjoying his own company split into three distinct personalities of his version of "Me, Myself, and I" even if those personalities would be very one-dimensional. He was already a little like a lesser version of the mule doctor he and Esther had met while bringing in the head-wounded Hatter.

Was that where he had seen Ladle before? A mirrored image of Dr. Matter? And was "Ladle" really spelled 'Later'? Perhaps the Rhetorical Gravity would be the sci-fi counterpart to the Mild Spittoon. Instead of wild customers and mild staff, he could soon be in the company of mild customers and wild staff.

Just before the elevator shaft left without Ladle, the man leapt in with agility that proved that it was not only his long fingers that carried such deft. His toes even through his boots must have had the grip and grace of a monkey's.

Up into the theatre corridors again, Matthias looked around at the other doors as they followed the lo-fi jazz. It carried a relaxing Asian flavor now.

He wondered if each theatre was a mood-theatre of sorts. Perhaps they were all ambience-chambers, and Matthias had been stuck into one with the theme of "medical bay" or "medical pod" in this case— one that was meant to be soothing, but really was only claustrophobic in the end. Though, he also was willing to think against Ladle that it was not to sooth Matthias why he was put in there, but to convince him of the assistance he had been given. That he had been rescued. But had Matthias been rescued from anything?

Maybe these were all just aliens, after all.

In science fiction stories such beings abounded—aliens that looked like humans but inside their bodies they had two hearts, five livers, and a brain in the butt. Those must all have to be very tiny organs to fit in a normal human frame. This was not to mention the necessity of very strong pinkish skin tones to hide the fact that the blood was fluorescent aquamarine and glowed brighter than a glow stick when drawn with a needle and turned sparkly puke-green. Needless to say, he had a firm belief normally that if there were aliens out there, which he had always felt unlikely unless from a different dimension entirely, they would not look anything like a human being save maybe for being bipedal. Why an alien beauty should look like a current fashion model of one's own country on earth was quite silly.

Either way, though he was convinced this was no reality, he was not sure if he was in Wonderland anymore.

Perhaps this was Horizon. He knew Horizon was more than just some silly company. Of course they would lie about themselves. It was an organization of people that were worse than any sort of tyrant, because of their delusion in which they believed that their desires were to help humanity whether or not humanity wished for their help or needed it. Smothered by love was one way to put it, but love for oneself, really, than love for the one being helped. It was greed beyond money like the soul-tax of tsars or a literal blood bank of human beings used like living money sacks in a business run by literal vampires.

Perhaps the event of their horizon, sucking all into itself was upon them all, but Matthias could not respond to such a threat until he knew what was going on. He felt for sure that anything that came out of Ladle's mouth would be a lie even if it was not his own lie, but at least now Matthias would know what not to believe with more than the smallest grain of salt.

As he was pondering these things and partly wondering how long this silly corridor was, he suddenly stopped at a broad doorway looking into a chamber that at least had some sobriety for the supposed disaster that had fallen upon mankind.

Another thing that might be in favor of this place being Horizon itself was the arrogance of the power Horizon had. Sure enough beyond the computers, holographic screens, staff in white and black clothing, and the sounds of beeps and whistles of a musical sort, beyond the shifting of steam that proved that the ship they were in was not as sound as it appeared, there was a window. Maybe it was a screen? Whether real or not, Matthias felt a chill rigid enough to have frozen him by reason of an immobilizing ray-gun.

It was the planet Earth with a capital "e".

Beautiful and bold in all its color and depth, it was like the eye of the universe itself looking in at him slow and just in time with the tinkling beats of tea-ceremony music reduced to the lowest fidelity. He had never cared much for lo-fi, yet it was as a lost treasure from the planet before him now somehow. If it was the eye of the universe, which of course either way it was not, it was an eye swollen with grief and agony. All its beauty was tainted with fiery redness in the clouds circling it. Black smoke swirled in its atmosphere. All that was still verdantly green was in peril of the coming molten storm. The oceans were turning a bruise colored purple. It was a black eye, if an eye. It was a diseased heart, if a heart. He thought he could almost see it pulse, unless that was something related to the monitors of the screens.

It was so real and yet so surreal. He felt his own heart throb and his breath grow shallow despite himself with all the affect of seeing his own loved ones drying on a barren landscape, and he helpless to do anything. Even if it was only a nightmare, it was still an image that wounded Matthias. It wounded him even more when he the heartless voice of Ladle chip, "Matthias."

As though he was speaking to a little boy being distracted by something as insignificant as a wrecking ball wrecking a building already dilapidated was the manner in which Ladle spoke. It was a tone that even profaned the lo-fi beats. When Matthias looked at him, Ladle's sympathy was a busy teacher's for a boy who lost his favorite toy on a bus from forgetting it himself no matter how he was warned not to bring it to begin with. It was a patronizing pity.

Matthias had such an urge to punch that face right through the back of his finely tanned face that might have just spent a month in some tropical paradise. At least he did not give Ladle the satisfaction of putting a hand on his shoulder. He refused to give him anything even if he would not hurt him. Matthias straightened himself despite how much his legs felt like noodles ready to give way.

It was not real.

"Your memories are tainted with the retrospective, I expect," said Ladle when they moved on.

Matthias was not sure when they had begun moving, but he had been just beginning to wonder about the implants stopping natural human inclinations for the good of humanity. Would that count as suppressing or as dehumanizing entirely? Was Ladle an alien or a human machine? Matthias did not answer his host; he was not one hundred percent sure what Ladle was asking anyway. Ladle continued on with a mournful sigh. Though, it seemed superficial.

"You recall Earth in the manner in which you desired it to still be. You were a steam punk dreamer, if I recall your records correctly."

"Hardly," remarked Matthias gruffly.

"You introduced it to your store," Ladle pointed out.

"That doesn't make me a dreamer just because I have a taste for a certain décor or genre," said Matthias fighting the choke down as well as he could; he cleared his throat and turned roughly to Ladle. "What do you want from me?"

"Only to help you, I'm a doctor," said Ladle.

"Oh, yeah? Who's paying for the bill? Nick Sardine?"

"Oh, no!" exclaimed Ladle. "There is no more paying. We only do what's good for the whole of the ship. Part of the ship, part of the passengers. Heh, heh! There is no need to fight over scraps like rats any longer. It is the good that came out of the suffering caused to our home. At last humanity has settled on a way to live in true peace. Perhaps one day we will make Earth habitable again, but for now we are enjoying what we can."

"The implants only make you docile," Matthias said with much more control than before even if he was not sure after he spoke whether he should be speaking this way at all. "Who is in charge?"

"No one is in charge," said Ladle. "We don't need to be controlled anymore. That's the beauty of it. We're all in charge and we all are one together now, pooling everything we are and everything we've been and everything we aspire to be into a single way of being."

"At the expense of humanity itself," Matthias accused.

"The expansion of humanity itself," corrected Ladle, "and you are the only survivor of the last human experiment of Horizon. We cannot afford to lose you."

"Or did you simply not save the others because they were not necessary to save?" Matthias then asked very, very darkly.

As ever, Ladle was unperturbed. "Even if we purposely had not saved them, which is not true, it is true that we could not have afforded the medical resources."

Gravely, Matthias nodded. "That's what I thought."

He laughed despite himself. Despite everything he threw his hand through his hair.

They passed through a door that read "everyone with everyone", which he suspected by some of the imagery painted upon it meant a sort of orgy room. They passed by a room called "communicating in psychic link" and a room called "synthwave trances".

Then the music picked quite livelier than before. It was a form of synthwave, though he was not sure he could call it a trance at least.

They turned a corner and saw a huge cavity like the entrance of the best sort of adventure cavern, though line with an assortment of blinking lights that winked about in time with the music in a fantastic light show. The music took full shape in the ears as a type of space-western variety. A bold false neon sign floated in midair a foot or so below the pinnacle of the arch, the words "Rhetorical Gravity".

He tried not to act surprised. He knew he should not have been, but perhaps it was just the surprise of his own disgust as he saw what lay beyond.

The entrance led the way into a vast sphere of a place with tables and chairs scattered about everywhere. Truly everywhere! As a spherical chamber it apparently had only gravity against the metallic surface. People were upside down at the top of sphere, but it was more than even that. There were many catwalks and balconies all jutting out in a haphazard manner though always sleekly and well atmospherically lit. Some tables were on the topside and others were on the underside and how many more were slanted vertically and diagonally. Not a strand of hair on anyone's head went anywhere but to the gravitational pull of whatever position the patron was in. If he could even call them "patrons". Whoever owned this place was not a proprietor if there was any owner of the place at all. It was like cave of flies. The buzzing of some electric hum of equipment below the "edgy" music added to the affect.

There was a main counter in the center of this vast orb with many walkways leading to it, though never a sharp edge or a straight line, for these paths curves smoothly like waves from a multidimensional pinwheel or veins to an artificial and aesthetically pleasing mechanical heart. Colors were always changing along them also in time with the beat of the music.

It was made to make one feel adventurous and alive, but all Matthias felt was constricted and the space felt like a crypt. It reminded him suddenly of Reality Check. Somehow, despite how awfully dystopian this all was, he could easily believe the members of such a reality-phobic group creating such a place as this and call it heaven. It was everything they could have hoped for, he was sure. No responsibilities, no ties to a past, no worries about a future, all things recycled from one's own waste back into something substantial enough to continue existing, and only existing, while feeding one's feeble mind with emotional pleasure.

Matthias could hardly force himself through the entrance with revulsion along the curved road, but after the first step, it was automatic. There was no need to walk. The path looked like the surface of a record when it was not glowing with neon lights. It took them at nice pace towards the central "counter", a round ball at which he could see figures taking food and drink from openings at a comfortable level, but these figures were not people.

They were hardly humanoid, honestly. They were smooth mechanical creatures with no sharp edges or anything that might be considered hostile. That in itself gave Matthias the feeling of hostility. They were usually white or black and reflected all the lights off their liquid sheens as they carried with soft limbs the desired items to the gourmandizing masses.

Some of these gourmands were not very humanoid either, but he was not sure if it was a holographic trick or not. There were anthropomorphic creatures of select varieties (mostly of the canine and feline), sleek-looking aliens and elfish creatures alike were modified from popular franchises to be more aesthetically pleasing to those who cared little for personality quirks. Some were purposely completely featureless as though in an attempt to be anonymous or inoffensive making them quite transparent and quite offensive even more than those who had invisible skin to show off their innards digesting while they ate— though it was close, and he would have preferred to be seated as far away from both as possible. There were a few people that looked normal enough despite outlandish clothing and near anime hairstyles, but all in all it made the most normal person Matthias had seen yet be Ladle himself.

Thankfully they were directed by one of the smooth-shaped but rather shapeless automatons to a table that was out of the way and with an actual window to space beyond, if the sight was to be trusted. He could not be certain whether or not it was a screen. The nearest party was that of a boisterous pack of wolf-like creatures of wild colored fur. One had a mane like a lion. Despite their occasional howls, they were quite ignorable. He was upside-down from his original position, but there was no real up and down anyway. The disorientation was easy enough to forget once seated on the ergonomic chair before the sleek table.

The space western music turned suddenly into something almost folk-like now, though still tainted with synth. As he stared at Ladle who was perusing a holographic menu with 3D pictures and taste-testing synthesizer options for which one had to stick out one's tongue in an undignified manner, Matthias felt there was no more information he needed from him. The conversation would be as useless as eating at all, since Matthias had lost his appetite watching that tongue if he had even had it to begin with.

"So this is the hot spot," snorted Matthias looking out over the graceful gothic-inspired terrace fence blocking a person from falling, if that was even possible. "Or is it the only spot, really?"

"It has anything you can imagine."

"And that's the problem with it," Matthias said. "It has everything you can imagine and nothing that you cannot."

He smirked at Ladle, and Ladle returned a simpering smile back.

"Coffee and a bagel?"

"For you or for me?"

"For you," said Ladle. "I'm getting myself a continental breakfast vegetarian-styled."

Matthias shook his head. "Is there just plain water?"

"Plain and flavored," Ladle promised.

"You mean watered-down juice? I'll take it as plain as they can give it," said Matthias. "If it wakes up my appetite I'll take more."

Ladle nodded.

Matthias ordered through the touch screen that popped in and out of the table, and Ladle did the same. Then not wanting to talk to Ladle, Matthias turned to the window.

Stars and inky blackness just as one would expect spread out before him, but there was, he soon saw, something of far more interest to him than anything inside this cavern. There was a cluster of stars that took on a spherical shape with a bit of a pinwheel affect. It was not as bright as he may have imagined, but in a double-take, he could see that the center of the cluster was a black space blacker than space itself. It was wreathed as though in distant oven coals, but there was nothing comforting about it.

He stood up.

"What is that?" he demanded pointing it out to his host. "Is this a real window?"

Ladle smiled. "That's a black hole, of course."

Matthias leered dangerously.

"It's quite safe. It's not near enough to suck us in," Ladle said.

"What about the event horizon?"

"What about it? Horizon's Event already happened, Matthias, and it was figurative even if destructive. There's no need to worry any further."

"Do you worry about anything?" asked Matthias innocently.

"I don't actually know for sure," Ladle admitted as though it was a truly intriguing notion. "Well, never mind for now. We do have things to discuss, I suppose."

"This is obviously not a family restaurant," Matthias muttered suddenly.

"What do you mean?"

"Well, I can't help but notice that everyone here looks pretty single. Just curious. It's an observation that there are no children here despite how many people are around."

"Oh, of course!" Ladle said. "You would not know this, but you can't be surprised, I hope. It was officially decided that adults are not safe around children so they must be kept apart."

"What about their parents?" Matthias shrugged. "Children can't exactly take care of themselves."

"Oh, sometimes parents are the worst of all adults because of how they desire them to learn from them, but all children are always at risk of being harmed by an adult when an adult is present."

Matthias raised a brow. "Interesting, so do the robots raise them then?"

"Exactly-so!" said Ladle.

"Right, and the elderly?"

"Oh, all adults are equal, after all, but we are trying to fix the trouble of being too old to continue."

"You're going to cure death."

"Yes, of course. That's the primary function of humanity, isn't it?"

"So… until then, I'm guessing euthanasia?"

"When they are no longer able to join humanity because of age beyond repair, then they are too miserable to continue. Everyone is happy to be put out of misery."

There was a short pause.

"I think I feel a dry heave coming on," huffed Matthias dryly.

"Is that figurative or literal?" asked Ladle.

Matthias stared at Ladle for a minute or two, and one of the shapeless automatons served the drinks with musically androgynous voices saying to the diners in turn, "Your order. Enjoy!" with slightly varying intonations so as to mimic autonomy in some fashion or at least emotional sincerity.

Matthias did not even look, but he took his shimmering crystalline glass and slugged down his water just as though it was whiskey.

"Can I use a restroom," demanded Matthias refusing to relax or sit down, "or do I take a leak into the food recycler?"

"Well, you cannot dry heave into anything but a waste receptacle. Are you feeling ill still and need a rest? Is this too much for you?"

"I just need the restroom."

"Well, if you insist, there is always going into a changing room with a bucket, if that suits you."

"What do people do when you have to extricate!" snapped Matthias.

"Please calm yourself, Matthias."

"Fine," grinned Matthias then. "I'll go to a changing room. Where are they?"

Matthias did not want to press anymore what would happen if he really had to use a toilet. If they insisted he would go right over the balcony at this point if Ladle refused to make any sense. But without another word, Matthias stepped up and looked for the available sign for the changing rooms. He was only too happy to be rid of the sight of that insufferable creature Ladle, but then if all of the people here were "tamed" in this same manner, he knew that Ladle was the same spoonful he would get from any one of these people.

"You're certainly brave," said a voice just as he was reaching for the theatre-styled revolving door.

Matthias did not even bother turning around, but he had a feeling that ignoring this voice made the person attached more curious as footsteps immediately followed. He went straight for the first stall but saw that it was occupied, so that as he turned for another, he felt a hand on his shoulder. He was forced to face whoever was speaking to him at this eternal costume party in the wake of Earth's demise.

The voice was femininely "saucy" might be the word, but the form looked like a burnt corpse with a long rusted beak for a nose but a mouth of lipless teeth. She wore nothing but a gothic red and black concealing cape used like a dress and patterned laughably in shrieking skulls, twining crosses, and bleeding hearts. It was held at the neck with a brooch that looked like a grizzly demon with huge horns that almost matched the ridiculous horns curling on either side of the corpse's head larger than the head should be able to hold up.

Matthias smiled casually. "May I help you?"

"Depends," said the voice from within the corpse head reaching out a hand delicately as though Matthias was meant to see her as an ageless angelic princess. "I just never saw anyone dressed like this looking the way you do."

"Call it retro, I guess," Matthias chirped. "I could be wrong. Please don't be offended. Are you… er, unhappy?"

"Just because I stopped you doesn't mean I'm unhappy," said the creature with a cock her hairless head. Her sensitive cape fluttered.

Here that hand landed gently on Matthias' shoulder, but as strange as it was, Matthias could not help but feel that this person was better company than Dr. Ladle. Her honest curiosity was what made her different, but he knew all her curiosity might be nothing other than lust of some sort as she was trying to seem alluring. Even that was not always true with unhappy people trying to appear happy, however.

"Oh, alright then. I'm 'Matthias'. Who are you?"

"Ghastlish," said the corpse. "I've never met a person called 'Matthias' before."

"I've never met a person called 'Ghastlish'," Matthias admitted. "Though, I once met a person who called herself 'Ghosticia'."

The thing that did bother Matthias just a little was how unnaturally tall Ghastlish was, and as she laughed, her true berth was more evident as the voice reverberated through her hollow bones. It was also at this point that Matthias truly could not be certain if this façade was a hologram or Ghaslish's true form, at least as it was now.