This is Episode 1-23 of a serial urban fantasy & paranormal story.

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Part 1-23: Hut

Similar to its brashness a few hours ago, Eden made no effort to hide. Willy was all the camouflage it needed. I spotted him well before I was even close to the field: a man sitting behind the stands, his back up against one of the thin steel poles that made up the support system.

I could tell he was reading.

I speed-walked over, angry at the perfect sunny day. It should have been rainy, or storming. Isn’t that what it was supposed to do at times like this? Plus, it would have rained out the game.

Eden looked up and grinned at me. It stayed seated as I stood over Willy.

“Alena. Ready, help?”

“Yeah.” I let my headache distract me from the creeping terror of what I was about to say. “I have a question.”

“What is?” it asked.

“Can I come with you again? When you go in? To… to get the keys.”

His head tilted a few degrees, but the brows didn’t scrunch up like they did when I’d confused it in the past. I waited, not breathing.

“Too hard. You stay.”

“Right, right,” I said, wind rushing out of me. I supposed I sounded incredibly relieved to any human within earshot. Probably because I was.

A few moments passed before Eden spoke again.

“Big keys,” it said, raising Willy’s arms. The chatter of the crowd washed over us. There was a metallic tink! as a bat made contact, and they cheered. I tried to avoid hearing any single voice. It was too much responsibility.

“Yes,” I said.

“Big. You help, wifi, soon.”

“Yes,” I said again, then had an idea. “Can I borrow that book?”

“Book?”

I pointed at it. “That. It will help me… with the wifi?”

Eden looked at the blue cover like it had only now noticed it was holding it.

“Need?” it asked.

“Yeah, please?” I held out my hand.

Now the brows were knitted. It looked at the book again.

“Trust me,” I said.

I am not a skilled liar. I feel too guilty about it. Deluxe sometimes likes to talk about how pure truths can be as deadly as cold cut lies, and I believe her. It makes sense, in theory. But out there in the real world, it’s tough to look at someone, smile, and lie with utter conviction. I failed even now—somehow, uncomprehendingly, I felt bad about telling this homicidal monster that I was trustworthy and that I needed its stupid book to help disable wifi. It didn’t know any better.

But then, The Secret to Living was in my hand. It did tingle a bit. The creature smiled. I’d lied and it worked, and there’d be time to reflect on it later.

“Thanks,” I said, “gotta go. Uh, screw wifi, am I right?”

“I wait. For you. Hurry.”

I walked away as fast as I could, pistoning my legs and moving south until I could cut across to the wooded side of the park. I had to keep switching the book from hand to hand to keep them from going numb, wishing now that I’d brought a bag or purse. I finished texting Deluxe about Willy’s whereabouts as I reached the edge of the trees. The man made forest was young here, and thin with new leaves, but the trees were packed close enough together to make me feel isolated from the rest of the town. There were no buildings tall enough to ruin the forest effect, save the weather vane sitting on top of the big hut. I used it to guide my weave through the pathways, and arrived at a large, paved clearing in the center at 1:46pm.

There were some people here, sitting on benches and strolling around. I asked Deluxe what to do, and found my own bench to avoid standing around and looking like an idiot. It took a minute for her to respond, telling me she’d just unlocked the service door in the back.

I walked around the structure, trying to seem like a normal park goer. It was decorative and fancy looking, stained wood panels and little ice cream murals here and there. But along the backside of it, there was a single steel door beside a rusted electrical box. I took a look around. There were maybe three people who would be able to see me go in. Like with the cop, the key was not to freeze. I rolled up to the door, stuck the book in my armpit as I made a little show of digging my condo key ring out of my pocket, and mimed unlocking the door. I walked in and shut it.

Deluxe and Dack looked up at me. We were in a cramped utility room of some sort that smelled like cleaning supplies and concrete. They were crouched over a tangle of wires and blinking lights. There was one normal laptop and one that was a heavy-duty Deluxe-special, complete with oversized rabbit ears.

“You made it,” she whispered.

“Hi,” I said, locking the door. “How did you all get in here?”

“Dack applied an impressive point of force to the entrance.” She grinned at him.

He sucked his lips back and shrugged. “I kicked in the door.”

I twisted around. “This door?”

“Nah, main door in the front for employees. That’s why we had you come ‘round this way, front’s all propped up to keep it from falling off.”

“But he could probably kick in the steel one if he had to,” said Deluxe.

“And you didn’t get caught?”

“Waited ‘til the coast was clear,” she said. “I headed off an incoming party by saddling them with questions about the park. Next year is its fiftieth anniversary. Anywho, the network here is terribly insecure so the security cam was simple to jam even before we got inside.”

I crouched closer to her setup, tossing the book to the floor. “Does that mean you’ve got a handle on this wifi? Can we kill it then blast it again?”

“Off and on is easy right now. I’m even in to the box over at the pools. But if the foreign network begins its oscillation it could go any which way. I haven’t had time to recreate and test the scenario locally.”

I brushed back my hair and nodded, checking the time. We had nine minutes before Eden expected the show to start. The plan was pretty basic: shut off the wifi for a few moments, then slam it back on again, with a boost if possible. If she saw any signs of the rogue network, we (by which I mean, she) would do whatever it took to counter it. Now that it was almost go time, I began to worry that it was a flimsy plan at best. My eyes stole to the book.

“I’m thinking someone should have a read on Willy,” said Dack, reading my mind. “Fergus said he was on his way now, I can ask him to stand watch. This CIA magic you’re doing won’t mess up cell signal will it, Zany-D?”

Deluxe giggled and said she didn’t think so. Normally I’d be making fun of both of them for the gooey flirting, but I was preoccupied with the idea that we’d need a different kind of read on Eden.

“We have to know when it’s at its weakest, most tired,” I said. “Then we crank it on.”

“I just asked Fergus. He’ll be at the field in two minutes, and can call me with a live update,” said Dack.

“Sure but, we need to know when Eden is most weak.”

Deluxe peered at me over her shoulder. “You need a read from the pocket dimension. Do we get Persi, somehow?”

“No,” I said. “Me.”

“You? How?” said Dack.

I tapped the book, and sat down beside it, my back against the cold steel of the door.

“That’s the one you spoke of? The word-barren pages?” said Deluxe, turning around all the way now.

I hadn’t opened it to check, but its tingles told me all I needed to know. I nodded, and found a small amount of unexpected gratitude in the fact that I had puked earlier, because my stomach was cinching again. I checked my phone. 1:58pm. Was I really going to try to do this? I thought of the poor little murdered pigeons, and used my sadness for them as a foothold. Tried to transform it into vengeance, or project it into terror for the people out there on the stands.

I mainly wanted to curl into a ball and wait for park security to remove me.

What my mouth said was, “Tell me when you drop the wifi.”

“Of course. T-minus 74 seconds.”

I started to focus on the feeling and sensation of that strange, wobbly, fuzzy world. The best visual anchors were those bright white pearls. Those, or the big black tower. Would Eden be able to tell if I was there? It got me thinking…

“Wait. Wait,” I said. “Deluxe, can you bring it down slow? Gradual like? Bar by bar?”

“Uhm, yes, through the routers’ power input settings and maybe by stuttering the connection. Duration?”

“How long’s it take to run to the field? A minute or two? Give me three.”

“Three minutes. Roger. T-minus 31 seconds.”

I put my right hand on the book, and pressed down firm. The tingles zapped right up to my shoulder and began to spread to my chest.

“Fergus sees him, right where you left him. Should he call?” said Dack.

“Sure, yeah.”

“T-minus twenty.”

I closed my eyes, did the long breathing, and visualized a wobbly fuzz and a ground covered in pearl globs. It encouraged the tingles, which were now in my core and creeping up my neck, down my crotch, across my thighs. Then an insane curiosity from earlier invaded me, I think maybe as a defense mechanism.

“Dack? Dack?” I said.

“Uh huh? What?”

“What’s your last name?”

He stared for a beat, then said, “Vines. I’m Dack Vines?”

“Ten, nine…” said Deluxe, looking between us.

“Thanks,” I said, then rallied an inner pep talk. It’ll hurt at first, and you won’t be able to see, I told myself. But get up, get up and move and go straight because you’ll be able to move through it all.

“…six, five… executing scripts… two, and…”

I opened my eyes.

 

Continued in Part 1-24

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