The Disobedient
Chapter 1 Awaking from a dream Jaelyn I awoke without my alarm clock. Couldn’t remember the last time that happened. A mind-numbingly dull job as…
Author: Theo York
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Chapter 1 Awaking from a dream Jaelyn I awoke without my alarm clock. Couldn’t remember the last time that happened. A mind-numbingly dull job as…
Chapter 1
Awaking from a dream
Jaelyn
I awoke without my alarm clock. Couldn’t remember the last time that happened. A mind-numbingly dull job as a receptionist at a hair salon (Bombshell Beauty Bar, a place to get overpriced cuts by Instagram starlets) meant late nights playing my favorite role-playing game, Dark Saints, was a necessity. I was working on leveling my bloodthirsty vampire-dragon crusader to God-like status. DemiGods didn’t have to hunt for fresh blood like peasants. I would get offered sacrifices by NPCs or low-level players. Most nights, I drank cherry soda pop and ate Cheetos, the fluffy kind. I licked my lips before opening my eyes. My stomach was empty, and I felt like I hadn’t eaten for days.
I was lying on a comfy mattress, which felt nothing like the cheap bed I normally slept on. When I opened my eyes, a jolt of anxiety rushed through me. Where was I? The large bedroom was a marvel of lavishness. The kind of bedroom I would see on My Home Make Over, a show about the rich and middle class remodeling their residences on a “budget.” Of course, their budgets were always skyscrapers above my bank balance. The room I was in had orange paint, small oil paintings of flowers and fruit, and a beautiful dresser. The dresser was a fairytale-like piece with a striking silhouette, opulent carvings, and crown molding. A tessie canopy draped orange curtains down to the floor. I eased my feet over the edge of the bed. Before me was a stand-up mirror.
In comparison, my bedroom’s walls were covered in anime posters. They were framed and considered collector items. Even still, most would think my room belonged to a teenager. I also had a small flat-screen T.V. and a twin-size bed. My biggest expenses were for computer upgrades and tennis shoes.
I got out the bed and looked around. Fear embarrassingly shook me. What happened to my tennis collection? That collection was worth a few thousand dollars. Surely if I was kidnapped, those shoes would be worth more than anything a ransom would give up.
My body was covered in a white gown with black pearls down the middle. I walked over to the mirror, backed into a well-lit corner. I saw that my thirty-one-year-old body was the same. My brown, bony shoulders were bare but for two spaghetti straps holding up my gown. My trimmed nails were without polish. I felt a bit too frail and dainty in the gown. In Dark Saints, I had a crimson clergy character that was half-panda, half-woman with a starving model built and a cute panda face. I would dress that character up in gowns, skirts, and dresses when I wasn’t raiding covens for the demon-possessed.
Someone walked into the room. There was a preppy style about him with his turtleneck under a black blazer. He was around my age.
“Hey,” he said to me.
Before all the fear of being attacked by a strange man could settle in, a wave of exotic emotions washed over me. It was like I could sense his feelings and oddly rationalize them. He was sweet like cherry and as intense as a heartbreaking scream of agony.
I often thought with lines of poetry after twelve years of reading classics and practice. When I tried to process the man’s emotions further, I got three random stanzas:
I am not a human being.
I’m a clutch purse
in the firm grasps of misery.
“Hey,” I said, but my stomach turned. It was time to be practical about my situation. “Did you kidnap me?”
A bay window to the left of him poured in light. His irises were shimmering the way glitter sheens under sunlight. They were brownish and big. The shimmer only lasted a few seconds, however.
“No. Not me,” he said quickly.
“Not you?!” I exclaimed.
I looked around for something to arm myself with. I had to settle for a lamp on the nightstand, which had golden handles. If I was kidnapped, they certainly took me far away from the typical worn-down digs of inner-city life in Maryland. I held the lamp up, but it was still hooked to the wall.
“I will defend myself,” I said.
I knew kickboxing and pilates but could probably only break a sweat instead of someone’s bone. If I was my vampire-dragon champion, things would be different. I owned a level 100 sword that I pried from the dead hands of a titan I slew single-handedly. I killed his minions just for the loot and giggles.
The man started to chuckle.
“What is so funny?” I asked.
“If you don’t listen, you won’t get answers.”
I took a deep breath and checked my wrists for signs of being restrained. Nothing in me hurt. I wasn’t groggy. With embarrassment, I placed the lamp back down.
“Go on,” I said.
“I am Mael. They brought me here with you. I was awake. You weren’t.”
“Who are they?”
“Workers from the Tower of Babel.”
“From where?”
Outside the window, I saw a cliff. Down the cliff sprawled a large city that enclosed a tower. The tower was the largest thing around. It stood out like the Empire State Building amid a sea of much smaller skyscrapers. The tower had a broad base and sloped upward gradually. If I was playing Dark Saints, I would aim for the peak to claim as mine while expecting hordes of beasts to slay along the way.
“I have no memories of being in that place,” I said.
“But do you remember everything before you woke up?” Mael asked.
“It was 3 a.m. I was playing Dark Saints. Suddenly I got drowsy.”
“Dark Saints?”
“MMORPG.”
He gave me a blank look. His confusion reminded me of cotton burning while in a dirty puddle of water. Very odd sensation to have. I figured something was off about him because of that.
“It’s an online role-playing video game in which a very large number of people participate simultaneously,” I said.
“Okay. Well, I remember nothing before waking up in that tower.”
When I closed my eyes, I could see emotional waves coming from an outline of Mael. More poetry came to mind:
I am trying to convince myself,
there is meaning in a touch,
a wealth of purpose in grief,
the right way found only while lost,
beauty in the chaos.
However, I am on solid ground while drowning,
I come to a fork in the road
it’s a daunting task to pick a path.
One leads to continued disappointment.
The other to the land of
uncertainty and bittersweet hope.
I wanted to write the words down. I normally kept a dream journal next to my bed. I got dizzy when I opened my eyes.
“You okay?” Mael asked.
I opened my eyes and was a little wobbly.
“What’s going on?”
“I’m still trying to figure that out.”
Someone said from outside the room, “Is she up, Mael? I had a feeling that she would be today.”
“That is Christina,” Mael said.
Christina entered the room while humming a strange melody. I figured that she was about forty-ish. A feeling of tired disquiet came from her. Christina had a few stanzas, too:
These are my options:
succeed or succeed.
Either way, I need wealth.
I aborted dependence and got an adoption
for a sweetheart that I named “Faith In Myself.”
You know I must spoil him with success
but never foil the little one with doubt.
“Twirl for me, darling,” she said.
I twirled in place. The ruffled hem of my gown danced.
“Such class,” Christina said and clapped.
Mael joined in but was also preoccupied with something outside the room.
“I am Christina LeMay. This is my home. I am here to help you enjoy yourselves until border processing handles your citizenship.”
“Pearly,” Mael called to someone outside the bedroom, “come here, please.”
Pearly was tall, around the same height as Mael. She was skinny but not athletic. A chaotic noise drowned out my thoughts when I tried to analyze her emotions. I winced. The poetry that flowed after was unpleasant:
I feel like my soul got the bends
As I sink deeper into this abyss
The water is cold
This life is getting old
“That is Pearly,” Christina said.
“You are late—very late,” Pearly said. “I befriended five cockroaches as we waited for you. They did not survive my love.”
I waited for her to continue her thought or explain such an odd statement. She just stopped talking. I glanced at Mael, who seemed unfazed.
“I do not have roaches in my home. You befriended my collection of golden fire beetles—which was very expensive,” Christina said.
“Your beetles were too weak for my love,” Pearly said and grinned.
“Pearly is different,” Christina said.
“She can inflict pain through touch,” Mael said.
“Yes, be careful around Pearly,” Christina whispered.
Pearly didn’t seem to be paying attention as she stared out the window.
“That tower’s soul is ghastly, Mael,” Pearly said.
“It was our home. Couldn’t have been that bad,” Mael said.
“That positivity is what we need. These are difficult times—for you. I am generally fine. I am a bit tired, though,” Christina said.
She looked over to Pearly, who was nibbling her chapped lips. Christina gently grabbed Pearly’s chin and said, “Ladies do not chew their lips.”
“I am bejeweled with guilt,” Pearly said.
Christina blinked a few times and tried to hold back a laugh.
“I had too much pixie tea this morning,” Christina said as she giggled. She abruptly left the room and spoke from the hallway, “Follow me, please. Let’s get something to eat.”
“What is pixie tea?” I asked Mael.
“A hallucinogenic brew. She is normally micro-dosing it.”
“How long have we been here?”
“Two days.”
“I been out for two days?”
I felt lost at that moment. I was knee-deep in a situation I had no clue how I got involved in. Still, I worried about what my boss would say since I had missed two days of work so far. I had bills. Dark Saints cost forty a month, and that was on top of student loan debts. The realization of the possibility that I was having a vivid dream came to mind. My sprinting heart stopped that, however. Fear while dreaming never felt that realistic. I figured I should take it easy while looking for exits if things went wrong.
“March forward, soldiers!” Christina screamed up the stairs.
Christina’s house was a two-story home. It was primarily made of glass, wood, and stone. The house was beyond my typical tax bracket. Down the spiraling staircase was the bottom floor. We found Christina in her kitchen. There was a swimming pool big enough for parties or long laps outside a glass patio window. The house was stationed close to the cliff along with other homes. Some were even built into the side of the rock. Though the drop was significant. Christina turned on a radio and tuned into a jazz channel.
“Have a seat anywhere,” she said.
There were stools behind the kitchen island. Nearby was also a table adjacent to the patio window. I sat at the table. Mael and Pearly sat at the island. Christina was sipping from a teacup. The tea spilled out of the cup onto the island’s marble surface as she grooved.
“Alright. This is fun, right?” Christina asked.
“Not really, but I am glad you are having fun,” I said.
“Oh, don’t be a grouch.”
“I don’t know where I am.”
Her home was lovely but a bit posh for my taste. I used to live in a bottom-floor apartment that had a pest problem. My next-door neighbor was a bit of a hoarder. Still, my complex was in a pleasant neighborhood.
“Well, you are in my house, silly,” Christina said.
“Let’s talk about that tower and me leaving it,” I said.
She was almost as high as a kite on a hurricane breeze.
“This is the real world. You were asleep like a baby,” she said.
“Mael, what is she talking about?” I asked.
“Maybe I should give her a rundown, Christina, while you sober up,” Mael said.
He was monotone, but I could tell that he meant well.
“I get nervous around crowds. I need something to take the edge off,” Christina said.
“This is a crowd?” I asked her.
“There are three of you now. Including me, that is four magicians, which is a crowd. A clique. A posse.”
The fact she said “magicians” didn’t sit well with me at first, but I ignored the feeling.
“Says who?” I asked.
“Me and my unnerving thoughts,” Christina said and gulped the rest of her tea down.
She spun in place, burped, and got the church giggles.
“Go on, Mael,” she said after finally laughing.
“Euphoric dread,” Pearly said as she grabbed the teacup Christina had put down.
“I will keep it simple,” Mael said. “All of humanity, what remains of them, is stored in the Tower of Babel. Each person has a cube. There are around seven billion cubes. You, like us, but not Christina, were once in a cube.”
“What type of cube?” I asked.
For some reason, Star Trek’s Borg came to mind. The Borg ships were square, and they thought within a collective mind. My Netflix subscription allowed me to watch old reruns when not dungeon crawling in Dark Saints.
“It enchants. A computable illusion falls over the inhabitant’s mind. Therefore, all residents of the Tower of Babel consciously experience the same collective illusion, called ‘Ava.’“
Maybe if I hadn’t played computer games since my youth, Mael’s explanation would have shocked me. I didn’t believe him, but everything sounded feasible. I wasn’t a caveman being taught about iPhones or satellites. Also, Mael had an emotional emittance of trustworthiness that reminded me of early-morning dew and peppermint. Both were beloved topics for my mother when she wrote poetry, long before she got diagnosed with dementia and died at sixty.
“Why are we released from the Tower of Babel now?” I asked.
“We are magicians. You see, humans have a minimal chance of birthing a magician. It is about genetics—”
“We are the sons and daughters of humans,” Pearly said and giggled.
“The tower is run by machines that artificially reproduce humans. Most times, the machines just end up with human children.”
“What happens when a magician is artificially reproduced?” I asked.
“Sorters separate the magician from Ava at five.”
“Well, I am not five, Mael,” I said.
“According to Christina, we were missed by the sorters.”
“It took us thirty-plus years of being in an illusion before they figured out we were different?” I asked.
There was tension in my brow.
“Mistakes happen,” Mael said with a shrug.
“The official statement from my employer is that you three were missed due to a string of errors in the artificial intelligence running the tower,” Christina said in one breath.
Her skepticism wasn’t spoken but came to me with a force like lemon juice in the eye. She looked like she was coming down from a blissful high.
“Let me get some pizza from the fridge,” she said.
We were magicians, but everything was normal. I mean, things did look expensive and technical. However, there were no cauldrons, black cats, brooms, or talking portraits. That would have been exciting to experience. Instead, I felt small and broke in the middle of one of what looked like Martha Stewart’s homes, well decorated and spotless down to the polish pans hanging above the island.
“Humans have been producing magicians since their caveman days,” Christina said while chewing a bite of cold pizza. “There just wasn’t relatively a lot of us. Finding one another was difficult. After WWIII, humans nearly wiped themselves out. Magicians and magical creatures survived where ninety-one percent of humanity did not. After humans were out the way, we magicians could find each other easier and mate.”
She put the rest of the pizza in the oven. A minute later, Christina pulled the thawed pizza out. The smell of hot mushrooms and tomato sauce hit my nose. The swiftness of the oven impressed me. I wished I had one of those back home. Mael and Pearly joined me at the kitchen table.
“They wanted me to do this whole planned-out day once you awoke, Jaelyn,” Christina said as we ate. “But I’d rather not. What’s worse than a crowd is a collection of crowds. A mob. Legion. Army.”
“I hope you didn’t volunteer for this,” I said.
“Hell no. Not to say I don’t enjoy your company.”
Mael said, “Maybe we can go as planned without you.”
“That would be the sweetest thing ever if you could. I have it virtually planned out on my digital assistant.”
Christina rushed out of the kitchen. When she ran back, she had a phone-like device, her digital assistant. It looked like an Android phone with a huge screen.
“I had to lock my ‘personal’ files,” Christina said with air quotes. “So, you now have access just to the presentation.”
She gave her assistant to Mael. A holographic fat-belly dragon appeared above the device. The cute dragon was pink and blue with a white scaly belly. Tiny green wings flapped aimlessly on its hunched back as the dragon sat.
“Hiya, I am Becky. Ask me anything along this journey, and I will try my best to answer,” Becky, the dragon, said with a Southern twang.
“The suffering of one brings pleasure to the many,” Pearly said.
“Does not compute. Please try again.”
Pearly reached out and touched the hologram. Becky became staticky and distorted.
“Hey! Don’t break Becky,” Christina said.
She almost grabbed Pearly but stopped herself.
“Pearly, please,” Mael said calmly.
Pearly retracted her hands.
“Mael, do you feel Pearly is suitable for the trip?” Christina asked.
“I am not her father.”
“I zapped the maiden,” Pearly said.
“You didn’t ‘zap’ me. I accidentally brushed my hand against your bare shoulder and felt the worst pain in my life,” Christina said.
There was fear on her face that gave me goosebumps. The image of grass being swayed manically by tornado winds came to mind. The way my mind was making sense of emotions was starting to frighten me. My imagination never was that bold and vivid.
“She ‘zapped’ me, and I was fine a few moments later,” Mael said.
“Those few moments are hell, Mael. And you are very stoic in tone. Not everyone handles things so calmly.”
“She finds it uncontrollable. Should she be quarantined because of that?”
I could tell that his cool was being chewed at like a juicy orange bitten into savagely.
“Maybe.”
“How about we ask her?”
“I swear to speak only unspeakable truths,” Pearly said.
“I find you not acknowledging that she is a bit off reductive,” Christina said.
Mael sighed. Christina had supposed Pearly was mentally ill. Neither of them spoke on the topic, though. Their tension was lava meeting the chilly ocean. Since I was new to the situation, I stayed out of the argument.
“Pearly, do you want to go on this little trip of ours?” Mael asked her.
“That would be a bubbly yet persnickety idea.”
“Yes or no, please.”
I was surprised he thought he would get a straight answer.
“Y-Yes,” Pearly said.
My jaw dropped. I wondered how he knew she could answer so directly. I tried to reaccess Pearly’s emotions, and I again winced from the noise. A poem came to mind:
How appalling the way
My demons start applauding
As I am falling and then start crawling
Toward another letdown
I knew I needed to get to a notepad or drive myself crazy trying to remember the words of the poems.
“You need a jacket to cover more of your skin,” Christina said with hesitance.
She looked remorseful about her assault on Pearly, but she was still a bit angered at her defeat. Worry emitted from her, too.
A leather jacket appeared on Pearly.
“I forgot you can do that.”
“Where did that come from?” I asked Pearly.
“The snooty ethers,” Pearly said.
“She can manifest her clothing,” Mael said.
“I’m envious.”
“Alright. You guys need to get going.”
“I need to change. I can’t walk around in this,” I said.
My gown was delicate, and I felt snobbish in it after a while.
“Luckily, they sent more clothing with you. The pickings are slim but were calculated to be likable to you.”
Chapter 2
Clean fuel but at a cost
Mael
I awoke from the darkness with ignorance, like a newborn out of the womb. Now, I didn’t know what to feel. I didn’t believe for a second what Christina’s bosses said about me being missed by the sorters of an A.I.-controlled system, far more calculated than any magician or human alive. I researched while everyone waited for Jaelyn to awake. The magicians that oversaw the Tower of Babel were four engineers. There were no bios or profiles on them. Everything except tourist trap details was hush about the tower. I agreed with Pearly that something was off about the place, but I didn’t want to needlessly give into paranoia.
Outside Christina’s house, the smell of magic was thick in the air. It was a peculiar scent that reminded me of fresh lemons and burning flesh. At first, I thought magic was the scent of pollution, but Christina eventually corrected me. She also helped me ease my odd amnesia. While we worked, I recognized many concepts but couldn’t remember where I had learned them initially. For example, I knew what a car was after seeing one, but I didn’t have any personal memories attached to the concept. So, a flying car or car on wheels didn’t shock me much to witness. This certainly helped ease my exposure to Krodance, a city lost in technology. If magician kind was an old man, Krodance’s technology would be the cane keeping him up.
I looked up to see a flying vehicle built like an S.U.V. It landed down on skids. The door opened up automatically. There was a driver behind the wheel dressed in a suit and tie. He rolled the passenger window down when Christina walked up to it. In Krodance, the autopilot was used only for high-risk scenarios. There were over two million vehicles in the city, and the amount of processing power and bandwidth needed to calibrate them all would be too great.
“Take them wherever they need to be. Give me a call if there are any issues,” she said to the driver.
The driver nodded. Pearly, Jaelyn, and I got into the luxurious flying car with its comfy bench seat that made an L shape. There was a mini-fridge with a miniature flat-screen T.V. atop it.
“Flying cars?” Jaelyn said as she searched through the fridge while stooping down.
The flying vehicle took off like a rocket, propelled upward.
“This vehicle’s make and model is Ali 626—luxury edition,” Becky said.
The city that we were in was named Krodance. It had a population of over eight million. It was a self-sufficient oasis in the middle of a furious desert. A fun fact: Krodance didn’t have a large population of androids. Androids were often used for labor and military operations. However, too many of them in the city would lead to a CodeBlue scenario. That is to say, a potential for a machine revolt caused by tampering, programming bugs, or something along those lines. Though, most androids were “brain-dead,” with some higher cognitive abilities depending on upgrades. According to a book on the topic, political authorities overpowered scientists when it came to allowing machines, whose sole purpose was to serve, the ability to ponder on anything but the task at hand. Politicians wanted safety and productive labor, and many scientists wanted to recreate life, which then would be forced into labor.
“Where is Krodance City?” Jaelyn asked Becky as she turned away from the fridge with a curious look. “That fridge has nothing but boxes of pills,” she said to me softly.
When I first interacted with her, she didn’t come off as a magician. I could see when people used magic. My eyes picked up on an energetic ripple that emitted from them. It was like seeing someone’s brain waves on a machine but without the technology for aid. Jaelyn gave off an energetic ripple, but it was far more intense than most I had encountered. It reminded me of butterflies swarming around her. Her energy had a butterfly shape and looked to be almost conscious. In comparison, when she used empathic magic, Christina emitted a sparking pinkish hue that looked like body heat. When my eyes picked up on magic, for some reason, I could also do that magic. However, I was still reading up on the topic of magical abilities.
“Krodance encompasses the Tower of Babel. It is technically a city-state in Sultia, the continent we are on,” Becky said.
The driver flew the vehicle through the air with expertise. The turbulence was minimal. We flew over the cliff named Temple Point, where some of the most valued employees of the Tower of Babel, nicknamed “the tower,” lived in a small town called Cherry Way. The town, overlooking Krodance, was a gated community consisting of around twenty-five residents. The vehicle swooped down toward the city. It was almost noon. The sun above claimed the blue sky alone. However, it wasn’t too hot.
“Where are we headed?” I asked Becky.
“Great question. Our first stop is an aerial view of the Tower of Babel,” Becky said.
“We will be there in fifteen minutes. You may close the privacy window if you like,” the driver said.
The vehicle had a divider between the front and back seats like in a limo. For hours after I arrived at Christina’s house, I combed through books and online sources for information. I wanted to quickly learn about the world. The task wasn’t that hard, but I couldn’t feel much emotion about anything.
“Thank you,” I said to the driver.
I pressed the button to close the window.
“I left a lot of shit behind, but flying cars are easing that blow,” Jaelyn said.
“I imagine back in Ava there was no such thing?” I asked.
“There were some prototypes but nothing like this. So, you and Pearly remember nothing?”
“Not a thing. I woke up on a surgical table. I didn’t know where or who I was. Eventually, an android walked in with the clothes you saw me in.”
“What did Christina mean by the clothes being calculated for our taste?”
“Inside Ava, programs collect data on inhabitants’ personalities, mannerisms, interests, and the like. The overlord A.I., named Waffles, modifies Ava based on that data.”
I loved learning about new things. I could accept concepts when I knew interesting tidbits about them.
“But why?”
“Humans will subtly reject Ava if it isn’t fine-tuned.”
The city below was a marvel of skyscrapers among residential apartments, storefronts, and factories. Above the city were three large fuel reserves floating like air balloons. They were refueling stations for flying vehicles and airliners. A massive lake surrounded by parkland was west of the tower. Beyond the city’s borders was desert land. Christina told me that the air was never arid inside the city. The modified weather conditions were created by machines stationed along the city’s border that projected a clear dome of protection. The Tower of Babel was a modern spectacle. No windows. Lights from the tip to the bottom illuminated the tower. Large pieces of artistically curved metal wrapped around the structure, giving the building a stylish look.
“The tower is coming up now,” Becky said.
Becky disappeared, and a holographic representation of the tower appeared.
“Hailed as the tallest magician-created structure in Sultia, the Tower of Babel is before you,” Becky said over the digital assistant’s speaker. “The tower is a wonder that produces all the needed power to fuel Krodance without pollution. The fuel is as powerful as a mix of oil, electricity, and nuclear fusion.”
The massive tower reminded me of a slender mountain lost amid a concrete jungle. A strong overpowering eeriness overwhelmed me the closer the vehicle got to it. The faint echo of memories forgotten was ringing through the corridors of my mind. They were indistinct and strained like the screams of a person locked in a coffin underground.
“What is with the name ‘Tower of Babel?’” Jaelyn asked.
“A delightful question,” Becky said.
A little scripted cartoon was displayed atop the personal assistant.
“Humans, like magicians, had religious fables. In the Bible, the tower is a structure built after a great flood. Humans spoke one language and wanted to build a mighty city and a tower ‘with its top in the heavens.’ However, God struck the humans down by diversifying their languages. The tower was never completed, and the people fled. Through word of mouth, the tower was nicknamed the Tower of Babel.
“More importantly, if the tower was completed, it would have been a marvel of harmony. Some say the magicians’ rendition of the Tower of Babel is perfect harmony completed. Humans rightfully inhabit it. While Ava, the simulated reality, is the one language that all humans understand.”
“I wouldn’t call what we had in Ava harmony,” Jaelyn said.
“Harmony can only be observed from afar,” I said.
I didn’t know where such a philosophical concept came from in my mind, but I believed it.
“Harmony is the last thing I would call life on Earth.”
“How bad was it?”
“Wars, poverty, pandemics, and that is not even counting the number of preventable diseases that led to death because of ignorance.”
“Humans can not die in Ava,” Becky chirped. She chuckled playfully. “They live out thousands of lives until finally being of no use around the age of three hundred, counted by years outside Ava.”
“Three hundred?” Jaelyn exclaimed.
“The machines running the tower keep a human’s body in peak health for as long as possible.”
“For what reason?”
A holographic image of a human appeared. Spinning in the person’s core was a ball of energy, a soul, emitting waves out.
“Human souls emit magical energy like a bulb gives off light. Magician souls also emit magical energy, but your kind can utilize the energy to perform magic. Anyway, the tower siphons the humans’ magical energy and creates magical fuel with a type of fusion.”
The flying vehicle circled the tower at a leisurely pace. That spinning core in people emitted energy, which was what I saw when I looked at them. The smell of magic was on everyone. Even the flying vehicles had a faint gleam that my vision saw as a near clear distortion.
“They are farm animals being bred and herded,” Jaelyn said.
“Does not compute. Please ask me something else,” Becky said before showing a pleasant smile.
“Whatever.”
She did not look pleased.
“I can smell the perdition simmering from here,” Pearly said and abruptly changed thoughts. “Can the tower be destroyed?”
“That question will need to be lodged for further review. Anything else?”
“What is up next?” I asked.
“Next is a secondary medical review!” Becky said with too much exultation.
“Can we skip that?” Jaelyn said with fingers crossed.
“The medical review can be postponed by one day,” Becky said.
“Let’s do that then.”
“Let me process that request.”
Jaelyn gave me a smirk while she waited for Becky to answer. She was attractive with a personality that had a youthful charm.
“Request acceptable. Giving the driver a new waypoint. We will be dining at the Rosy Garden next.”
Jaelyn chuckled.
“Notice how she said ‘dining,’” Jaelyn said. “That is fancy talk only for fancy places. Nothing like at a Jaby.”
“What is a Jaby?” I asked.
“It’s a fast-food restaurant.”
A rush of images of fast-food franchises came to me. Visions of brands, all with vibrant colors, flashed in my mind. Lastly, snippets of commercials. I could even hear the jingles. Jaby was a burger joint like most fast-food restaurants. However, they also served limp and under-seasoned fries smothered in melted cheese that tasted like seasoned rubber. My head ached after the deluge of information. It wasn’t exactly what I wanted to remember all of a sudden, but it was something.
“Jaby helps the hangry satisfy their inner beast,” I said.
“Yeah. That is it,” Jaelyn said with one eyebrow raised.
“I just started remembering fast-food restaurants suddenly.”
I felt embarrassed for some reason.
“That is good. Maybe you only have temporary amnesia.”
#
The Rosy Garden was a restaurant atop a skyscraper. Light evenly poured in through the row of floor-to-ceiling windows. We sat at a table on the upper floor only for V.I.P. The area was empty except for a bartender and us. Lights beamed down onto the liquor bottles. The bartender’s bald spot also gleamed under the lights. Jaelyn sat across from me. Pearly was next to me.
Jaelyn looked at the menu and said, “It is like the mini-fridge. All the options are pills.”
“What do you mean pills?”
I hadn’t opened the menu yet.
“A steak and potatoes aren’t served as food but pills like mini rations.”
I took a look at the menu. There were pictures of pills of different sizes and colors. The pills’ coating could be modified by taste.
“That is odd. Christina goes to a shopping center down the street from her home. All restaurants were serving actual food,” I said.
“Earth is never enough,” Pearly said and got up abruptly.
She sat down at a table away from us. With a cloth napkin, she made a paper plane. One after another.
“Let her be. No danger to anyone over there,” Jaelyn said. “Let’s get to know each other formally.”
“Sounds like something I would enjoy.”
“Great. You give me a question, and I will give you one. You first.”
“What’s your last name?”
“Jackson, or at least it was. I didn’t like it other than its association with The Jackson 5—they were a popular group of singers. My mother loved their music.”
I didn’t know who The Jackson 5 were or much when it came to human culture or trends. I assumed I would eventually get those memories back. Though Christina said there were hundreds of different cultures and nations in Ava. Many countries and continents. Ava was as accurate an illustration as possible of Earth eons back during the 21st century. Jaelyn was from a place in Ava called America on the east coast. Christina wasn’t given info about where Pearly or I lived in Ava. That was another reason why I was extremely skeptical about the whole tower business. The engineers put very little effort into explaining themselves. Not as though they had to. Very few had any authority to question them in Krodance.
“Sometimes, I wonder about things like what my last name was. Though the curiosity leads to a dreadful feeling,” I said.
“I empathize, literally,” Jaelyn said.
“Yes, I bet. Christina said your bio stated that you know empathic magic.”
Jaelyn looked at me with a blank expression and shrugged.
“Do I?”
“Well, if you can feel my emotions, you are using empathic magic.”
“Magic is that easy?”
“All magicians have at least one group of magics that they are naturally proficient at. Magic is a single use of magical energy in a particular manner. For example, empathic magic increases empathy to supernatural levels.”
I read several articles on the topic. In Krodance, most made use of technology, however. Magic was a luxury citizens only toyed with.
“And Pearly there knows how to manifest clothing. What category is that under?” Jaelyn asked.
“Imaginative,” I said.
We talked until lunch was served. I had spaghetti with sausages. Jaelyn had a double-patty burger. Our pills came in a small plastic container. The waiter also gave us a rendition of chopsticks. Apparently, it was proper not to take the drugs by hand in restaurants.
“I feel this is a dream I expect to wake up from. I haven’t yet, and this feels very real,” Jaelyn said.
“Not enjoying your time here?” I asked.
“I had a whole life before this. I am expected to accept that it was all a dream.”
“You will have to accept this is your new reality.”
“Easy for you to say,” Jaelyn said. “Sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.”
“It’s okay. I suppose it is easy for me to say. I bet leaving family behind and remembering that you did is hard.”
“My mother died before me. She was my only family,” Jaelyn said.
“No significant other?”
“I called relationships off after a messy breakup in my twenties.”
“Messy, how?”
“Heart-shattering.”
I started to feel the effects of the pills working. My mouth was filled with the taste of tomato sauce and seasoned sausages. A feeling of comfortable fullness came a few minutes later. Jaelyn and I talked for another hour. I was so into my conversation with Jaelyn that I overlooked that Pearly was gone.
“I will be back,” I said.
She nodded as she looked over the dessert menu. There was a large lobby outside the restaurant’s doors. A row of elevators was a few feet in front of me. There were exits to the stairwell. I had no idea where to start looking for Pearly. With a deep breath, I closed my eyes. At that moment, I saw a blurry view of the rooftop. It was what Pearly was seeing. That I knew intuitively. I took the stairs up to the rooftop. Pearly, eyes closed, was on the edge of the building with arms stretched out. To the left of her were some pigeons. Pearly was about to commit suicide. She leaned back, and I dashed to save her. When I grabbed her hand, one of her feet was off the ledge and the other barely on. The pigeons took flight.
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