The Dark of the Moon: Josette's Story, Chapter 2

  12-06-24

 
[Author's note: Far from catching up with my work, I fell further behind this month. A publisher suddenly offered me an opportunity that I want to make use of. But the extra work will tie me down for a while. In the meanwhile, I'll continue with "Josette's Story," which is written and partially polished and won't take so long to get ready to post. By the way, I'm learning how to use AI image creation apps and I added an illo to this story, and also one to Chapter one. I've always liked illustrating my stories, but I lacked good Paintshop Pro skills, and also didn't feel right about using copyrighted sources as a picture source. But AI is much faster to use and AI creations are legal to use (at least until government gets around to making a mess of things). By the way, I created a new illo to add to my old story posted here called THE TOY SOLDIER. Take a look at it. I'd like to improve every picture in that tale, but I don't have enough free time these days. Anyway, I'll get back to TWILIGHT OF THE GODS as soon as I can, but until then enjoy JOSETTE'S Story.]

 

THE DARK OF THE MOON: JOSETTE'S STORY, Part Two

 By Christopher Leeson 

THE DARK OF THE MOON: Josette's Story Chapter 2

Because she was wearing short pajamas, he didn't at first notice her face. When he looked higher, he saw her goddess-like face what had a bewildered expression. He glanced over his shoulder and realized he was in a girl’s room, which would be impossible unless this was a dream.

So far, it was a good dream. It had the makings of being the most fun lucid dream he'd ever had. But he knew lucid dreams never lasted long, and they always ended just before the real fun got going. To make this dream last, he didn't dare get too excited or else he'd wake up. Could he in invite his dream girl to in and join him? 

"Miss, can you come around to the door so I can talk to you?" he asked. "You're super-hot and I just know I'm right guy for you. I bet we share a lot of interests!"

But while he was speaking, the blonde girl was talking, too, but he wasn't hearing anything. And, now that he thought about it, his own voice sounded funny. What a minute!

His mind was less woolly now. He was standing in front of a window and talking to his own dream reflection. It was crazy, but he was dreaming about being a girl— and not just a girl, but one of the prettiest blondes he'd ever been close to. For some reason, he thought that the situation was a hot one and wondered what he could do with while it lasted.

Loren thought might be dreaming about being a girl because he had had fallen asleep thinking about that silly sex-changing oil. Maybe the strange oil induced lucid dreams. He reminded himself to keep calm again, to keep the dream from ending.

On impulse Loren felt the bust that the dream had given him, using both hands. Wow! What a sensation. Squeezing them made a shiver run through him.

Now Loren took a hard look the room around him. It was definitely a girl's room in disgraceful ill-array. It was off-putting, in fact. It reminded him that girls should be tidy. He didn't he could get serious about a slob, no matter how pretty she was.

The teen crossed to full-length mirror in the room, and suddenly became aware of how strangely his body was moving. Loren went to stand in front of the mirror, thinking that in lucid dreams a person could do anything he wanted. Cautiously, he touched himself between the legs.

He found that he was missing what a girl should be missing. Though there wasn't much there, it sure felt good when he rubbed it. The more vigor his stroking became, the more intense was the pleasure.

"Oh, this is kinky," Loren whispered, amused how girlish and sweet his voice was.
 

Loren suddenly realized was that this was no stranger's room. It was his own room, but it had been repainted, refurnished, and redecorated to be a girl's bedroom.

Crazy. It was like the room he knew so well had put on drag for Halloween. Everything in the messy place was cloyingly feminine. He frowned. The silly tastes of girls didn't appeal to him.

Loren looked at his reflected legs. Man, they looked good! But there were a couple things he wanted to see even more. He pulled out the neckline of his slip-over to take a gander at the real live girl inside. Was he saw would do credit to a photographic layout in a male magazine.

"Kinky," he whispered to himself.

Loren glanced at an envelope on the floor by his feet. It was addressed to Josette Melford.

Josette? Could that be the name of the girl whose room this was? It was funny that she would be named "Josette." It wasn’t a common name, but it had been the name of his mom's favorite character on the soap opera Dark Shadows. She had told him that if he had gotten a sister, she'd want to name her Josette.

Now Loren looked up at the poster hanging on the wall, showing some too-pretty male teen heartthrob. He was holding a mike, so he must have been some singer he didn't know. There were guys that made music for teen girls. He believed that chick music was for chicks, and guy music was for guys, and never the twain shall meet.  

On impulse, Loren crossed to the closet to see if it was loaded with sexy things. And was it ever! The closet was just as girly as the rest of the room. It was full of girl's clothing, and a lot of it looked hot! The mini dresses looked child-sized, but he wasn't complaining. They were the kind of dresses girls wore when they wanted guys to notice them. Most guys Loren knew like girls in bikinis, but really short dresses revved him up more than bikinis did. A bikini was a kind of outer wear, meant for public display. But the girl's with high hemlines had to walk carefully in fear of showing too much. There was a special trill in glimpsing undergarments that a girl didn't was trying not to show off.

Suddenly, Loren felt like exploring the rest of the house in his girl shape. He stepped into the hall and went to the stairs. This part of the house looked like the same home Loren was used to. He noticed that went he walked his hips had a funny sway. And his breasts reminded him that they had weight by the way they bounced. Girls wore bras, after all, so they wouldn't jiggle so much.

While descending in the near dark, the girl stepped on a can opener left on one step and it hurt like hell! "Ouch!" she yelped.

"Josette! Is that you?" called someone in his mother's voice. Mrs. Milford came out of the kitchen like a first responder. "Did you hurt yourself, darling?"

It surprised Loren to be called Josette. And embarrassment made her face flush being seen wearing girlie pair of pajamas.

"I s-stepped on something," Loren, or rather Josette, replied. "Why are you up so early, Mom?"

"We're having a morning presentation at the lab and I have to check in by six. Why are you still in your pajamas?"

"No reason," he said.  

"Well, if you're up you can join me for breakfast. But put on a robe to keep your jammies clean."

Josette went back upstairs, but when she reached the upstairs landing, she was fully awake. "O.M.G!" Josette thought. "This feels too real!" It was also feeling creepy, so she decided to wake up after all. His mom showing up had sort of ruined the fun.

To make himself wake up, Josette slapped herself and jumped up and down, too, repeatedly whispering, "I want to wake up!"

It didn't work. Poking himself with a nail file didn't help either.
 

He fell into Josette's disordered bed, his mind spinning. Was he in a hallucinatory delirium?


His mother called from the foot of the stairs. "Josie, honey! Have you fallen asleep again?"

Josette struggled to sit up, remembering that the paper said that he couldn't explain things to anybody, including his mom. The instructions for breaking that taboo would be dire.

With nervous hands, he took a robe off a wall hook and struggled into it. On the floor was a pair of fuzzy slippers made to look like lambs, and he slipped his feet into them. Then, taking a deep but shaky breath, he went downstairs more carefully this time.

As he stepped into the kitchen, Josette heard the toaster pop. There was a plate on the table and he sat in front of it. When the food reached his mouth, it tasted like actual food and that worried him. It wasn't like a dream anymore and he so much wanted his girlhood to be a dream.

"You don't look well, darling," Lynette Melford said. "Are you ill? Is that what made you stumble before?"

"Yeah," he answered. "I felt woozy when I got out of bed. After I eat, I want to try to get back to sleep."

"Unless you're very sick, I have to go to work," Mrs. Melford said. "Check in with me often until you're feeling better. If I don't hear from you, I'll call you. If you don't answer, I'll rush home. If you start feeling really sick, call 911. Keep your phone with you all the time!"

Her mother ate quickly and then grabbed a jacket and hurried out to the car. Josette was glad to be left alone. She went back upstairs and tried to sleep, thinking that might end the yard lighted up with daylight, he -- she -- was still a girl.
 

Josette was getting afraid that this wasn't a dream. What if the worse thing possible were true and the magic oil had done just what the paper with it said it would do!

If the copy were literally true, she would have been stuck as a girl for the rest of her life if she had mentioned to her mom that she was her son Loren. What a narrow escape from disaster!

She was horrified by her close brush with a life-changing disaster. A thing like that could ruin a person's life!
 

Her head spun from fretting. She learned something about her anatomy when she went to the bathroom and relearned the use of a toilet.

Like she'd promised, Josette's mom phoned her every hour. The teen told her that she was getting better little by little to keep her from worrying. What else could she say? Certainly not the truth!

How long would this last? She asked herself. One month? Forever?

What would he life be if she had to stay this way forever?

#
 

Everything about her life was in shambles. School would open soon. Would she have to go to school as a girl named Josette?

Josette thought hard about school. Would the kids there remember Loren Melford? If her own mother didn't know about Loren, how could she expect her classmates to? What about her best bud, Darrell Rivers? Had he also forgotten that Loren existed, too?

She thought and thought about what to do, and finally, a useful idea to mind.

In the days ahead, she would have to impersonate someone she didn't know. Everyone else in school would probably know more about Josette than she would. She needed to find out more about Josie Melford -- as she found herself calling the missing owner of the body she occupied.

Did Josie have a Facebook page? If she behaved like most girls, she would have put a lot of personal stuff online. But when the teen tried to get into Loren's Facebook page, she couldn't. His account couldn't be found. So, what now? Did Josette keep a diary or journal like Loren had?

The girl searched through that mess of a room and eventually found a shoe box filled with letters. She took them to the bed and spent the next couple hours soaking up the facts. Josette was looking for personal information about Josie Melford, trying to figure out her personality and interests so she could impersonate her. Like it or not, to avoid a lot of trouble she had to learn enough so that she could pass for the real person.

Most of the letters were from adult relatives, since younger people used texts and telephones. Not much was said in them except the "How are you and how are you doing?" stuff. Except for her mom's parents, Loren didn't have any relatives who were fun to talk to.

Josette kept looking for sources of information abut Josie, getting more and more frustrated. In his own messy room, Loren had known where everything—or most of everything—was, but this was a stranger's digs and she was clueless about where Josie kept her stuff.

It was about 3:00 p.m. before she found a journal inside a box crafted to look like a stack of books. Josette hoped it would contain the private thought of Josie Melford.

Josette didn't have to read far before deciding that the book was boring. The writing was all about girly dribble. As beautiful as the old Josette had been, the new Josette couldn't imagine that she would have been fun to talk to. She never wrote about interesting things, like science fiction, war gaming, movies, or television.

Josette shook her head. Josie wrote about her friends a lot,  almost always using their first names. Who were all these people? A couple of names sounded familiar from past issues of the school newspaper Loren had read, so they must be from Cantor High School.

But Loren and Josie had one thing in common; both of them had gotten a car from their mother. In general, it seemed like Josie had been popular with the smart set at school. Loren had always wanted to be popular, too, but only on his own terms. Josie put a lot of stock in going to parties. But to the unpopular kids, like Loren, going to parties where the girls would all ignore him was something to avoid.

Eventually, Josette realized that Josie didn't have a special boyfriend. That was lucky, since she didn't want to have to fend off some grabby guy at school. But why didn't Josie have a steady date? The mirror told Josette that he counterpart was a was a girl any boy would want to hang with. Had the teen kept her options open for some reason, or did she have a personality flaw that kept guys away from her?

But, if anything, Josette would have wished her doppelgänger hadn't been a lot less popular. She didn't want to start living Josie's social life, pretending to be someone she wasn't.

Though the reading wasn't fun, Josette forced herself to keep at it. Josie was obsessed with shopping. Her clothes-horse idols seemed to be female rock stars and actresses, which explained the party clothes hanging in her closet.

Josette came upon at note about last New Year's Eve.

"Year in review: January - Oliver and me, Margo and Matt hung out and listened to music. I didn't like most of the it but pretended I did. Tilda is going back to boarding school. I'm not sure if I'll miss her or not. She's cool about some things, but uncool about others."

Did Tilda stand for Matilda? Josette wondered. What parents would have named a kid of the 21st century Matilda?

#

Rang again. Previously, Josette had ignored it, preferring to be "radio silent."

But she realized that could be a mistake. Silence might induce a concerned friend to come to the house and check on her. What if she didn't know the name of the person who dropping in? Word could spread that she having mental problems. So the girl looked at the cell's screen and saw that it read "Leah."

"Leah?" she spoke into the device.

"Oh, Josie! I haven't heard from you for a couple of days."

"Ahh...I haven't been feeling well. I'm staying in. In fact, I haven't even changed out of my pajamas. I tried to read a little, but I'm too blah even for that."

"That's too bad. Have you been thinking about this weekend?"

Josette had to bluff. "Unless I feel better, I'm not sure I'll be up for the weekend."

"Oh, it could be so much fun! We still have tons of plans to make!"

"I can't concentrate on planning right now," Josette said. "I get dizzy just standing up."

"Should you see a doctor?"

"My mom's pretty smart about health and doesn't think I've got anything serious."

Wanting to cut the conversation short, Josette said, "Look, I've been running to the bathroom all day and I have to go again. Let's finish this conversation next week when I'm up to form."

"Next week? Do you feel that sick?"

"No, I just mean as soon as possible. But I can't hold back any longer. Got to run. Love you, kid." Then she switched off the phone.

By that time it was almost six. The teen could hear someone walking around downstairs. She could only hope it was her mom and not a serial killer.

Somebody was climbing the stairs and Josette tensed. "Josie!" came her mother's voice. The door swung in.

Mrs. Melford blinked. "You haven't dressed all day, darling. Have you been that ill?"

"I'm getting better, like I said. But I don't feel like going anywhere, so what's the point of getting dressed?

"How are you eating?"

"My appetite's gotten better, too," Josette said.

“Do you think your problem could be mononucleosis?”

"I don't know. Is that going around?" the teen asked.

“Not that I heard. It could be iron deficient anemia.”

“How's that treated?”

“By taking ferrous iron supplements.”

“That doesn't sound too disgusting.”

"Or you could have depression," her mom said. "Have you had anything to be depressed about?"

Oh, brother! If she could only tell... "A little. I don't know why," the teen replied.

"Well, you're facing the start of your senior year. That's when a young person realizes that he's on the brink of adult life, and that's always stressful."

Josette ad-libed. "Yeah. When I page through college catalogs, I can't figure out what I want to study. Everything seems so...dull."

"You were talking about fashion design before."

"Ah, yeah... I was kidding myself about that. Sometimes I think I have no fashion sense at all. And it depresses me to have to leave so many friends behind."

"That's one of the many sad things about growing up. But, you know, if you hit upon a career choice that you really want, it will become fun for you."

"If you say so."

Mrs. Melford smiled. "You don't sound too sick. Give me about a half hour and I'll have something on the table. By the way, what happened to your promise to get this room cleaned up?"

"If I had been feeling better today, I would have tackled it," Josette fibbed.

"I hope you'll get to it soon. How can anyone feel pretty living in a roped-off disaster area? Why don't you dress up your room as nicely as you dress yourself?"

Josette looked askance at her mom. "Do you like the way I dress? I mean, do you approve of...my fashion taste?"

"I wasn't sure about teen fashions, but all the women's magazines tell us there's no way to fight back against the youth culture. Think of when Victorian-born women had to raise flapper daughter! In your grandma's day, her folks were dead set against miniskirts, but she wore them just the same.

"Think that with all the problems this country has, high hemlines are the least of our problems. Anyway, I feel proud when I see you outshining the Hollywood starlets."

"I'm feeling worse again," Josette said, not liking to continue this conversation.

"We'll get some iron into you. If you're still unwell in the morning, we'll have you checked out."

Mrs. Melford went out into the hall, but looked back and said, saying, "I'm doing the wash Sunday. Please put your dirty things into the machine as soon as you feel strong enough."

"Okay, Mom," said Josette forlornly.

TO BE CONTINUED IN PART 3

THE DARK OF THE MOON: JOSETTE'S Story, Part 1

 

 

 

11-10-24 

Revised 12-06-24

 

THE DARK OF THE MOON: JOSETTE'S STORY, Part One

 

By Christopher Leeson 

 

AUTHOR'S NOTE:  It wasn't possible to get the next chapter of TWILIGHT OF THE GODS ready for posting this week. But I didn't want to miss my accustomed posting day, and so I'm offering a sneak peek at a work whose first part was ready to go. It is the prequel of the story "THE DARK OF THE MOON," which was posted here at TFTGS years ago. I checked; it's still there. Hopefully I will be able to start posting "Josette's Story" in earnest after the posting of TWILIGHT is finished. I want to go back to TWILGHT next month. Here's hoping. By the way, I wanted to put this note into the ending comments box, because the box hasn't been working right for me all year. It beats me why Blogger.com doesn't fix it.

Loren Melford had time to kill, and the mall was his favorite place for doing that. "This is so unfair," the teenager grumbled inwardly. He stole a quick glance through the window of Amanda's Secret lingerie shop. He had to be careful because people were so unfair and judgmental.

They always supposed that a guy who was too interested in women's nighties must be either a sex fiend or a cross-dresser. So he would "casually" walk past the display window and roll his eyes over the window displays while pretending that nothing was catching his eye. In fact, he was was trying to see everything at super speed and store it away by photographic memory.

If only he had a photographic memory!

Life is crazy, it seemed to Loren. If this were a free country, he would have gone into the shop and looked everything over while taking his time about it. But that would have gotten him labeled a pest by the staff and a degenerate freak by the customers. He could only avoid that ignominy by taking a girlfriend into the shop with him, but he unfortunately didn't have a girlfriend, and didn't suppose he'd have one in the near future.
 

He wondered why should a guy be treated like a pervert just for acting on the natural male instinct. Weren't lingerie and party dresses created to attract men's attention to the girl wearing them? If men—even men of his age—were not supposed to ogle at scantily clad girls, who in hell was supposed to do the ogling?  

The world was full of crazy rules; they were like a noose around every man's neck. But who had made up the rules? The preachers? That couldn't be. People didn't care about preachers opinions these days. And the even the preachers weren't all that big on morals. What they were interested in was preserving their tax-free status.

Was it women who were making the rules? If women were making up the rules for men to follow, that was so wrong! It never happened in the other direction. Men were called Neanderthals if they made even a small suggestion about how women should behave.

Being a male in 21st Century America was like being treated like an American Indian in the 19th Century. It was Washington politicians who decided that free-roaming Indians should live on reservations. Did that help society? Hell no! The crooked government Indian agents treated them like hell while they lived in miserable sheds. The way America treated innocent people were treated hadn't changed. The only thing that changed was which groups would going to be the fall guys for the current generation.

When younger, Lore had liked to lie on his pillow, imagining he had the superpower of invisibility. And the best place for an invisible man to go was someplace, any place, where the hottest-looking girls got together.

But he gave up on that fantasy after about ten years because thinking about doing the impossible depressed him too much. He started filling his time with "allowed" things – like grooving to movies, TV shows, concerts, the internet, games, books, and comics. But while he was doing those things, deep down he was wishing that he lived in an alternate where where the high school where the TV comedy "Unhappily Ever After" was set was a real place where he could attend. That school was hemline heaven!

He was frustrated. A lot of men worked off their sexual frustrations by watching sports, but the only sport Loren cared about was women's figure skating. He didn't notice the skaters'  technique, but her sure noticed their costumes. For some reason those ice-skating babes liked to wear outfits just as hot as what Las Vegas chorus girls danced in. And what was wrong with that?

The lunacy of life could drive a man crazy. No wonder there were so many addicts and drunks. He thought that if society wanted to get rid of self-destructive people, it should stop treating people in ways that could make them suicidal.

Suddenly, Loren realized someone was standing behind the mall hall bench he was sitting on.

"You look like the sort of young man who needs what I can give him," said someone in an old lady's voice.

He looked back and found that the speaker looked about how he expected. She must have been pushing sixty-five and hadn't gone easy on the fattening foods. Whatever she had to offer wasn't what he wanted.

"Are you talking to me, ma'am?" Loren asked.

"I know what I'm talking about, because I have psychic abilities, and can see your blue aura," the stranger said.

"Do you mean my Lee jeans?" he asked.

"Oh, no! Do you even know what an aura is?"

"Oh, sure. They're colored lights, aren't they?"

"They are, yes. And your aura is blue. Blue-aura boys are very special. Whenever I see a blue-aura boy, I try to do them a favor."

"Don't bother. You're creeping me out. If it won't insult you, I'd like to take off for home right now."

"I won't take a minute of your time," the sag-jowled woman said. "And there is no reason to say more than I have. I have something for you to read. If you read it and do what it says, you might become a much happier person very, very soon."

She handed him a tiny box. He had thought she was going to hand him a religious magazine.

He frowned. "What's in there? Drugs?"

"Not at all. It contains a little bottle that comes with a page of instructions. It's like what you get when you pick up a drugstore prescription. The medicine will do you good, but if you don't follow the directions, there can be adverse side effects. Always be careful."

A prescription? Now Loren was sure that she was pushing drugs. "I don't trust gifts from strangers. And I don't have enough money to buy anything."

The woman chuckled. "It's not for sale. I only want to help people. This magic oil is just what a blue-aura boy needs. But don't take it until you read the directions. If you do, anything that happens will be no one's fault but your own."  

She put the box on the bench beside him, turned, and hobbled away.

Loren sat staring down at the little box. He thought he should leave it there and walk away, but if the substance was harmful, somebody could pick it up, use it, and be harmed. He decided the best thing to do would be to take it to Mall Security.

Loren didn't know where to find Mall Security, so he checked the directory kiosk. It gave him a room number, so he went there directly and found a cramped office with a paunchy security guard sitting at a desk. Loren couldn't see what he was looking at, but he quickly punched a single key. It was probably a "boss button."

Loren told him about his encounter and the man took the box, shook it next to his ear, and listened. Maybe because he was less paranoid than Loren, he opened the box. Inside was something that looked the size and shape of a little perfume bottle. The security man squinted and peered through the tinted glass, and then set the vial on his desk. The box also contained a folded piece of printed paper, which the guard started reading. After a couple of minutes, he started shaking his head.

"It's some crazy stuff. The woman you talked to must have been one of those New Age mystical types. The paper talks about magic."

"What are you going to do? Send it to a lab?"

"No, we just throw silly things like this into the toxic waste disposal box."

"What does the letter say?"

"Like I said, it says that the oil in the bottle will work magic. I'm not paid enough to want to read the rest of its garbage."

"What if it's narcotics or poison?"

"That's the business of the people who work with the toxic materials box. If you're afraid it's harmful, just leave it with me and I'll get rid of it."

"I'm curious. My mom is a pharmaceutical scientist. If I showed it to her, I bet she could tell what's in it. And that will give me a subject to write a school essay about."

"Sure, sure, kid," the guard said. "Finders, keepers. Somebody gave it to you, so it's yours." He put the vial and the letter back into the box, closed it and then handed it back to Loren. "Just don't breathe it in and get yourself high unless your mom says it's safe."

Loren departed the security office with a worse opinion about big business than he'd had before. But it had been a dull day, and this was a kind of real-life adventure. Somehow, he wanted to read what the slip of paper said before he decided what to do with the bottle.

#

Loren sometimes wondered how his mom could work an important full-time job and keep the Melford house clean. He would have to spend the night alone again because Cantor Pharmaceuticals had sent her out of town. When he'd been small, his mom would put Loren in the back seat with the luggage and take her with him.

When he turned sixteen, he'd been allowed to stay home alone, since he no longer needed a sitter. Right now, he was thinking about calling his friend Darrell before bedtime. That would give him something to do for an hour.

Loren took the box to the living room table and turned on the chandelier light above it. He wanted to read the letter that had come with the little bottle.  

The guard hadn't been kidding; the thing read like the plot of a fantasy story written in a concise, orderly way, without noticeable grammatical mistakes or misspellings.  

What it said was a lot weirder than he had expected! The copy claimed the vial was a sex-change potion! It said, "This distillation will allow a young male to take on the physical attributes of the favorite female image he holds in his mind. But BEWARE. This is magic of the highest order, and violating the stated taboos may bring on undesirable and irreversible side effects."

No wonder the guard hadn't read very far! But somehow thought the idea of sex change was hot! One of the most memorable sf novels he had read was The Identity Matrix, by Jack L. Chalker. He continued reading.

"To commence a sex change, place a small drop of the oil extract upon the bare flesh of the subject to be transformed. The transformation will magically initiate at the start of the next dark moon. The shape-change shall be stable until the next dark of the moon, at which time the subject shall revert to his natural form without effort, and without ill effects."

What was the dark of the moon? A cloudy night? An eclipse? The new moon?  

The youth checked his smartphone. A Net search told him that "the dark of the moon" was the period of the moon's cycle when its light was not visible from Earth.  

That was too vague. He tried another link.

1: The period at the time of a new moon when the moon's light is absent from the nighttime sky

2: A period when the moon is not shining, or when it is obscured.

It also said that the magical effect would be almost instantaneous if the oil was applied during the three days of the moon's darkness.

Okay, so the dark of the moon was another term for "new moon."

He read on.  "The transformed boy may develop emotional or psychological traits that mimic the behavioral traits of his ideal woman.

"The user will exist in an alternate world in which family, friends, and physical records will attest that the subject has been a female from birth. Also, the subject's physical environment will change to conform to the new reality. For example, a boy who becomes a girl may find that his closet is now filled with female clothing."

Wow!  This wasn't just a sex change, it was a full-blown reality-warping spell. The concept was absolutely impossible! Even if there were magic, no magic could be that powerful! This stuff was nonsensical.

Somehow, that realization disappointed Loren.

The teen skimmed ahead, trying to find the term "blue aura" mentioned, but couldn't find anything. What he discovered was a paragraph entitled "Taboos."  

"The spirits that enable the change of the boy's reality will abandon the spell if the subject seeks to expose their existence to the material world. Their abandonment results in making his alternate life as a female permanent. If the subject breaks the taboo while in male form, the magic oil will become inert for him and he will lose his ability to experience a female reality.

A second warning followed: "If one is already transformed, he must not reapply the oil to his body before reverting to his natural form at the beginning of the next dark moon. If this taboo is violated, the subject shall continue to exist in his female reality for the rest of his life.

Wow! If this silliness were describing something real, it was too dangerous to mess with!

And then he came upon a really nasty taboo. "If the subject in female form becomes pregnant, he will remain female for the duration of his life."

Loren could only imagine that the lady who gave him the box was off her rocker, or else she was doing it to frighten people. But Loren couldn't imagine anyone being frightened by something so obviously unbelievable.

Maybe this "magic" oil could be a hallucinogen, and reading the paper could somehow determine what the hallucination would be. In that case, the oil would produce something like an LSD trip.  

Once he'd read everything, Loren put the bottle and the paper into a safe place and got up to make his lonely dinner.

He felt sad remembering his parents' divorce. Now his dad was living a thousand miles away with a new wife and child a thousand minds away, and he was lucky to see him as much as once a year.

But when he tried to stop thinking about his family life, he started thinking about the bottle again.

Loren realized he could do a simple experiment on his own. Mrs. Melford had a small lab in the house, and she kept a few white mice for her experiments. It was Loren's duty to feed the stock during her absences. He wondered what would happen if he exposed a white mouse to the oil. If the mouse died, well, he could pay his mom for a mouse replacement out of his allowance.

After a quick meal, Loren went to the laboratory and put on a pair of quality rubber gloves after carefully checking them for pinhole-sized leaks. Then he donned a high-grade breathing mask. Finally, he opened the vial, which was only conventionally sealed.

He used tweezers to remove the inner seal, and then carefully washed the tweezers without touching them, not even with his gloves. He avoided breathing deeply when the bottle was open, even while wearing the safety mask.

Loren placed the vial on a lab dish, which would capture any spillage should the bottle be tipped over. He unstopped the vial and wetted the Q-tip's cotton tip with the oil, which he then set down on an absorbent tissue.

The teen went to the mouse cage and randomly took a white mouse out. But when he saw it was female, he returned it and took a male instead. Since he was doing a sex-change experiment, he wanted to do every detail perfectly. The little beast didn't struggle, being used to being handled by Loren and his mom.

Loren carefully rubbed the wet Q-tip on the rat's belly, making sure the oil reached the creature's skin. Subsequently, he washed the Q-tip inside a tuna can full of soapy water. This presumably contaminated water he poured into the sink and turned on the facets to flush it far into the sewage system. Finally, Loren put the Q-tip into his mom's wall-mounted toxic waste receptacle.  

Still wearing his gloves, Loren used a spray-on cleaner and Bounty towels to clean the bottle and every part of his work area thoroughly. He took the soiled towels to the backyard barbeque where he burned them, being careful not to breathe any of the smoke.

Though he was taking every precaution, Loren did not really believe in magic. But whether the oil was toxic or magical, he didn't want its smallest particle to contact anyone.

Finally, Loren examined the mouse, still wearing his gloves. He thought it was behaving normally. Of course, the paper had said that the magical effect would manifest only with the "dark of the moon." But when would that event occur?

Returning to his computer, the teen checked the date of the next new moon and found that it would happen in thirteen days and be most perfect at 11:51 pm.  

His anticipation of the next new moon remained on his mind when he dropped off to sleep.

In the morning, Loren checked on the mouse and saw it was spry and active. After breakfast, he switched on his desktop and searched for "blue aura." There was a fair amount of New Age "teaching" about auras, even blue ones.

A passage said, "The presence of blue energy in a person's aura is linked to an openness to receiving or perceiving spiritual energy. People with a blue aura may have a strong sense of intuition, but be unaware of where their instincts come from. "Blue auras are often associated with calm, collected people who live a balanced life. In short, the meaning of a blue aura often reflects a relaxed, receptive energy that is aware of the bigger picture.

This was all very well, but it had said nothing about sex changes or femininity. Maybe the old lady's ideas about blue auras were crank, or they represented the thinking of a tiny cult that no one ever heard of.

Loren's mom returned from her trip, and Loren's summer days became humdrum, just as before. But the day of the next new moon finally arrived.  

Loren wondered why he kept obsessing about this matter. He decided it was because it was a fun flight of the imagination.

At 10:30 pm, he next checked on the rat for the hundredth time. It still looked just fine, chipper and eager for his grain -- and it was definitely still male.

At midnight, and again at breakfast, he saw no change in the mouse.

#

Either the oil was a slow killer—like inducing cancer or heavy metal poisoning—or it was harmless.

A month passed, and Loren realized another new moon had come around. "Maybe I should leave bad enough alone..." he began thinking. But then...

All the next month, Loren mentally speculated about how beautiful girls experienced life. Beauty made a girl popular, he knew, and she was treated like royalty. Loren's life was very different. People seemed to forget he existed as soon as they looked away from him.

It was actually angry that the mouse hadn't changed sex. Just once he would have liked something to happen in the real world that wasn't dull and hum-drum. Maybe that was why that was the reason he impulsively wetted another Q-tip with the mysterious oil and dabbed it on his forearm. He had been promised magic, but there was no magic. This was his way of telling the world of phony magic-makers, "F* you!"
 

Seconds after the oil had touched him, a chill ran through Loren's body and suddenly everything went dark.

#

When Loren woke up, it was still dark.

It was obviously too early to get up, and he wanted to go back to sleep, so he just lay there. But something kept tickling his cheek and kept coming back after he repeatedly brushed it away. More wide awake now, he felt something like a web draped over his face. He took a handful and gave a yank to get rid of it.  

Ouch!

Something had pulled his hair. What was this?

Sitting up, Loren swept his face with both hands, trying to brush the web-like stuff away. When he made a grab at the stuff and pulled it, his scalp hurt again. Flummoxed, he threw off the blanket and swung his legs off the be. Switching on the lamp, he stumbled still half asleep toward the dresser where he could check the mirror to find out what was stuck to him.  

Blinking the blur from his eyes, he was surprised to see the dresser was loaded with unrecognizable things. When he glanced bemusedly at the dark window to the outdoors, he saw a girl looking at him.

And what a girl!

She had lots of pale blonde hair and had on a scanty and super-hot pale blue nightie with a white lace trim. His glance zeroed in on her cleavage, and he immediately wondered what her legs looked like.

It dawned on Loren that he was dreaming, that he hadn't really awakened at all. He took a second around the room and realized that it wasn't his bedroom. He was standing in a messy girl's room with plenty of feminine things cluttering it. 

Now that he realized he was having a lucid dream, he thought this was an opportunity to have some fun! He liked being alone with a beautiful girl his own age. In a lucid dream you could do anything you pleased and nobody could say anything about it. Nobody could blame him if he took a dream girl into his arms and smacked her down with kisses.

Loren at the girl again. She was really there and she was gorgeous. He stepped close to touch her, but his nose touched what felt like cold glass. His  hands touched the glass, too. This was a bummer. Why was it that he couldn't get a break, not even in his own dreams? If he couldn't touch her, he could at least look at her, and what he most wanted to look at were her legs. Wow! Her pajamas were very short, and she had knockout thighs! Babes like her were meant to be chorus girls dancing on a stage!

Worried that he would soon wake up, he began speaking. "You're a pretty one! Why don't you come around to this side and get to know each other?"
 

He suddenly realized that the voice coming out of his mouth sounded all wrong. When he touched his throat, his lower arm rested on something that was soft, warm, and wonderful...

TO BE CONTINUED IN PART 2

The Twilight of the Gods -- Chapter 17

Saturday, October 8, 2024

The TWILIGHT OF THE GODS -- Chap. 17

Posted 10-08-24

 

A Story of Mantra and Black September

By Aladdin and Christopher Leeson 

 

Chapter 17

STARTING OVER

 

“By seeking and blundering we learn.”  

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe


I never got as far as the flaming tower. The next thing I knew, I was back in the piloting deck of Gabriel's Time Capsule. Startled, I looked and saw him standing across from me, frowning.

"Mantra, you've been taking unnecessary risks," he scolded. "I had to bring you back."

I rounded on him. "I was trying to save lives! How did you snatch me out of mid-air?"

"Teleportation technology is relatively easy compared to time travel. I needed to bring you back to the Time Capsule. The moment after I transported you, the Avengers will receive the alarm that Nemesis is approaching Earth. They will commit themselves to the fatal battle that will destroy them and the universe they occupy, just as the three alternate timelines we've visited have been destroyed. If we remain in the same universe, we will be destroyed, too. The Capsule's self-preservation AI would have left you behind without my intervention."

“You mean everyone I just saved down there is going to die?"

"The possibility of that is close to being one hundred percent," he replied. "Even if that timeline's version of Amber Hunt intervenes, the universe will merely be written over by an aberrant and flawed replacement. Even that will be unstable and disintegrate in two to three hundred years."

"For a change, why don't you tell me something that will cheer me up?" I asked.

He gave a faint smile. "You'll be glad to know that people are waiting outside that hatch door, who will be overjoyed that you've returned safely."

He opened the portal, and the three kids came rushing at me.

Jamie grabbed my cape, and Evie's arms were tight around my neck, her cheek pressed against mine. Gus stood off, hovering just beyond her, looking uncertain. He looked so much like his father, just as tall though thinner. But the senior Gus wasn't so emotionally constipated as his son. I have sometimes wondered whether it was his parents' divorce that had damaged him.

I reached out to him over his sister's shoulder, and he took that as encouragement to step up closer. I put my gloved hand behind his head and stood on my tiptoes to kiss his forehead. I remembered how much I had liked to be kissed by my own mother at his age.

Gabriel was walking with a shuffle behind my back, and I looked his way. "If we can't save anybody, what have we accomplished by coming here in the first place?" I asked him.

"We've come to observe and learn."

"What have you
learned?" I asked."

"The most confounding thing I've learned is that Amber Hunt has escaped."

I glared at him like a grizzly bear. “What? After the hell I went through to capture her, you already let her slip out the back door?"

“In a metaphorical sense, yes. I'm very sorry
."

"What I'm sorry about is that you have me believing you're smarter than you really are!" I told him.

“Recriminations are not productive, Lukasz. But I haven't told you everything yet. The Reality Gem vanished with her. Possibly, it had even instigated Amber's escape. It's bonded to the young lady, as you."

“Do you think they'll remain together?"

“I hope so," said the little man. "Because without Amber, the Time Gem, and the Reality Gem working in tandem, they cannot attain so much as a Pyrrhic victory over Nemesis.
 If the Main Bough collapses, it will take the Tree of Eternity with it, not hundreds of years from now, but immediately."

"Is the Time Gem gone, too?" I asked.

"Fortunately, no. The Time Gem remains, at least for now. It's probably created its own bond with Jamie and hasn't seen fit to abandon her yet. If it can be reunited with the Reality Gem in time, we will not have worsened the situation."
“Do you have any more good news to dispense? At least tell me you've discovered something useful on this doomed planet!"

“Every experience teaches the keen observer something. It has brought us one step closer to crafting a new plan for saving the Multiverse," remarked Gabriel.

"If you have a new plan to fix this disaster, tell me about it before I develop ulcers!"

"The VIGOPS has no explicit recommendations for a new course of action. But in general, it is saying that our earlier action plan is fatally flawed and should be abandoned."

"Duuuh! I could have guessed that much on my own! It sounds like you've got nothing but a wish, not a plan. Or did you concoct a bright idea while I was fighting ten-alarm fires?”

Gabriel shook his head.

"I can envision various possibilities, but we must polish them carefully before returning to Zero Time on the Main Bough."

"By the way, what's happening in Zero Time?"

"Presently, the UltraForce is trapped in Sersi's Soulscape pen. She is, of course, doing the bidding of the Ego Gem. The Ego Gem intends to use them as bait to lure Loki into a trap.”

“You've said that the Avengers will join with the UltraForce and do battle of Nemesis. I met a couple of the Avengers’ time clones in the world we last visited. Where are the real Avengers right now?”

"In Zero Time, the Avengers are still in their home realm, the Scaffold Universe. They will soon enter the Main Bough when the Grandmaster induces Loki to accept a challenge with the seventh gem – the Ego Gem -- as the prize. That is the trap that the Ego Gem has set to take the six gems from Loki. When Sersi touches Loki, the Ego Gem possessing the body of Sersi, it will take power over the six that Loki holds and the seven will merge to become Nemesis."

“I don’t remember you mentioning anyone called the Grandmaster before? What woodpile did his one crawl out of?

"The Grandmaster is one of the oldest living beings in the Multiverse, coming from one of the first intelligent races to evolve after its creation. In the Scaffold Universe, he once possessed some of the Infinity Gems but lost them to a mighty being called Thanos. He's a strange being, a cosmic game player whose favorite game is pitting teams of mighty beings against each other. The Ego Gem can control his actions, probably due to some contact the Grandmaster has had with it over the eons of time since the death of the Demiurge.

“Since Sersi is the one who has been entrapped into acting as the Ego Gem's main puppet with the job of seizing the six, shouldn’t we be trying to keep Loki out of her grasp? Shouldn't he at least be warned?"

"Definitely, but Loki is a hard entity to guide or manipulate. Because he is the god of lies, he will naturally assume that anyone who tells him something is also lying. It's hard to negotiate with Loki, but his ego makes him susceptible to trickery.”

Then Gabriel abruptly changed the subject. “You seem exhausted, Mantra. Fighting that fire by the lavish use of magic so lavishly has depleted you. You need to rest and allow your power to regenerate.”

"How can I doze off when I'm hot-wired the way I am now?"

The scientist resumed fiddling with his control board and, a moment later, spoke to me over his shoulder. "I’ve brought the Time Capsule into attenuated time again," he said. “A single second can be extended into a century, giving you plenty of time to rest and recharge. The Capsule has a guest room with a subliminal-wave emitter to induce a long, restful sleep. I use it frequently myself. I can configure it to accommodate a human being such as yourself."

Though I still didn't want to drop into bed, Gabriel had a hard core and knew how to dig in his heels whenever he wanted to.

I was too weary to argue, so I excused myself from the kids and let the alien scientist lead me along the corridors to the resting room he'd highly recommended. The couch it contained looked pretty much like a bed, though it didn't look comfortable. With a show of grumpiness, I lay down and shut my eyes. The next thing I knew, I was wide awake but feeling rested.

#

As I already knew, going to bed in armor caused me to rise with aching shoulders. I flashed into my civilian garb to be more comfortable and then went to find Gabriel.

"Hi," I said, "has the VIGOPS come up with any good ideas?" My tone had sounded chipper, and I realized that my cloud of morbidity had been lifted. It seemed as though I had had a good night's sleep!

“The considered opinion of the VIGOPS is perfect unless it is carried out with perfection, and no extraneous events occur to disrupt the perfection of the plan which is otherwise being carried out perfectly," he said.

“That's just a bromide saying nothing!" I replied. "How can mere mortals ever achieve perfection?"

"Do not you Earth people have a saying that practice makes perfect?

"That's just a cliche! But how can a person prevent chaotic events from occurring to make a mess of everything? Don't you Timekeepers believe a chaotic principle is built into the universe? No matter how carefully one can plan a picnic, a sudden cloudburst will squelch it!"

“That is very true. Success comes from carrying out a perfect plan perfectly, plus the addition of one vital ingredient."

“What’s that?” I asked.

“Luck.”

“A two-bit scriptwriter can come up with an idea better than that. If that's all that your AI app has to offer, we're in big trouble."

"Mantra, our greatest piece of luck is having you to rely on when we deal with this dilemma. When you've needed strength, you have been strong. When we've needed a charm offensive, you have been charming. When we needed negotiation, you negotiated.  When we've needed courage, you have been courageous.  When tenderness was called for, you have shown tenderness."

"Let's hear more about my strength and courage. Tenderness is for wimps."

He looked at me with patient amusement. "Entire religions have been built from the foundations of tenderness and compassion."

“If you want to start talking religion, remember that the nutcase Demiurge was a god.

"Don't depend on me to do a fix-job for this catastrophe. I recently fought and lost a battle that allowed this avalanche to tumble down upon our heads. If I had had power and smarts enough to keep the Mind Gem out of Loki's grubby paws, he couldn't have assembled the Infinity Gem array in the first place!"

"But you never possessed the gem yourself. It was the synthetic life-form Primeval who took it into battle. Primeval was so weak of mind that required the mighty power of the Mind Gem to raise him merely to the mental acuity of an ordinary Earthman. He was entirely unfit to challenge Loki. On the other hand, if the Mind Gem had been able to enhance your brilliant mind, you might have been inspired with the means to win the day. An opportunity was lost, but you are not to blame."

"If so, why don't we time-travel back to that day on the Godwheel and start all over again?"

He shook his head.  "It is too late for that. Refighting that battle with Loki would only create a new alternate reality, one doomed to perish with all Creation when the Tree of Eternity collapses. The Main Branch can only be rescued with actions initiated in Zero Time.

I took a deep breath. "We've already learned that we can't win the battle over New York by using Amber Hunt, with or without the rebel gems. We must find the weakness in the Ego Gem's plan and keep Sersi from ever getting her hands on those gems!"

"I agree. Now, Eden, do you see what a good night's sleep can do for a person? We will have to use every bit of information gathered and build a new plan from the ground up!" said Gabriel.

I threw up my arms.  "You're so damned agreeable! Stop flattering me! Why don't you shout at, insult, or demean your companions?"

He smiled. “I've found such behavior on my part to be productive."

"What do you really expect me to do? I'm no match for the power wielded by the ancient gods! The magic I've used so far hasn't done us all that much good!"

"The VIGOPS recommended you as the optimum companion I could recruit. And I have not been  at all disappointed in your performance so far. You come closest to making mistakes when you yield to your best qualities. Namely, tenderness and compassion."

"Don't soft soap me! Add as much sweet talk as you like to $2.83, and you still can't buy more than one cup of coffee!"

Chuckling lightly, he shook his head. That gentle smile of his was starting to infuriate me. I wondered if the alien scientist honestly admired me in some naive and undeserved way or if he was calculating that flatter could motivate me.

What good was flattery coming from a man of his sort? What was Gabriel? A short guy with the look of a high school math teacher who had downed a few too many Whoppers in his day?

The TWILIGHT OF THE GODS -- Chap. 16

Posted 09-07-24

The TWILIGHT OF THE GODS -- Chapter 16

 

A Story of Mantra and Black September

By Aladdin and Christopher Leeson 

 

Chapter 16

THE TOWERING  INFERNO

I looked outside again, and I didn't like what I saw.

New York was down there again.

But how could that be? We left New York only seconds before it was destroyed.

This must be an entirely different version of New York.

But what version? And what was the date?

The monitor was giving us a few of the physical damage below, as if New York had been hit by something.

“What happened here?” I asked Gabriel.

“As you know doubt have realized, this is new alternate timeline. In this time and place, Nemesis has already seized the Infinity Gems and the ultras opposing have rallied to await her attack." 

“Why are we here?” I asked.

“To plan, and to learn.”

"There are serious fires down there. What are we going to do?"

"It's wisest not to do anything. This timeline is expendable. Standard policy advises the Timekeepers to leave bad enough alone. Do not allow what you see upset you. This isn't your world after all."

"My mind doesn't work the way yours does,” I told him. “Maybe it's because I'm not as educated as you are, but when people are in danger I want to do something about it. Are you going to get into my way about that?"

"You'll be subjecting yourself to danger for a world that is probably unsavable."

"Mom!" yelled Evie. "Don't go where you can get hurt! We lost you before that way!"

The three kids were standing together in the hatchway. "I’m sorry,” I said. “I have to go, but I'll be as careful as possible. If worst happens, remember that I love you."

I turned ghostly and leaped through the hull of the Time Capsule and found myself high above the ground and falling fast.

I arrested my plummet by summoning up my levitation ability. As I floated aloft, I took stock of the ground below.

From where I hung, I saw scorched concrete and plenty of blow out windows. I buildings swaying, but I knew that it takes a lot to knock over a Manhattan skyscraper.

One high rise was a blazing inferno and hundreds of lives were in danger. I don't possess the kind of powers I would need to help so many people evacuate a en masse, but I thought I could help. I could start by initiating an orderly evacuation.

I phantomed through the high rise's wall and entered an inside room I adjusted my shield to protect me from the smoke. I followed the hall until I heard cries and yells. The elevators had obviously been rendered useless by the emergency system and people were instead trying to wedge them into the fire stairs wells. We were high up and the trip down would be long and slow. But something was wrong. People were not feeding forward at all.

Someone grabbed my arm. "Are you really Mantra?!" an adenoidal voiced intern type asked in a shaky, adenoidal voice. Then he answered his own question. "You can't be. She protects L.A."

"I’m hi – her and I’m here to help. What can I do?"

"The stair’s jammed somewhere below.”

“Is there another escape route?”

“There's one on the other side. Maybe it’s clear!"

I did the ghost thing again and took the flew as a ghost to the alternate stairwell and saw people still using it. I went up through the ceiling and took the direct route to the other stair well. The smoke on that side was bad and persons were choking.

I used a force bolt to smash a gap into the outside wall were I could magically draw in fresh air from outdoors. I fed the the air into a force bubble that I had thrown over the asphyxiating people. But these people were as hard to manage as a coop of chickens. Some of them were frantically trying to leave the bubble, as if there was some safe place they could go. Scuffling fights were breaking out among the people. Their clamor kept them from hearing my instruction. To startle them into quiet, I released a bursts of light.

When the noise quieted a little, I shouted, "You’ll be all right. I'm Mantra. I'm an ultra! I'm here to help you!"

That got some attention. "No pushing, no climbing over one another. Settled down and get orderly!" I pointed to where I wanted them line up.” Does anyone know if there are people in the next floor above?" I asked."

"Not many,!" a woman shouted. "People from higher up must be cut off!"

That was bad. What could I do about it? "I'll have to go help them. Now keep orderly and evacuate. Panic will kill you, so keep your heads on straight!"
 

I did the ghost thing again and ascended through a number of ceilings I came out among a mob of trapped and baffled people. There was actually flame there!

The best way to kill fire was by cutting off its air supply, but that wouldn't be easy on floors laid out this way. I thought a flood of water was what the doctor ordered and so I dashed to a wall-sized window and broke it.  Again I used my elemental power to condense the moisture inside the mountainous cumulus clouds above the city. I started drawing it into the flaming building as quickly as I could. In fact, it came on so hard that I had to get out of the way of what felt like a burst water main. I channeled this by magic through the building's broken windows to overwhelm as much of the fire as possible. Clouds of hissing steam rolled up wherever cold water collided with hot flame.

With telekinesis I managed to direct the influx of water into the worst areas. The resulting smoke was so bad that I had to seal it off with force fields. But that wasn't enough; people were still asphyxiating. That forced me to bring in fresh air along at the same time I was trying to bring in which -- a juggling act that was harder than it sounds.

In one place where the blaze was ebbing, I used the respite to break through the blockage in one of the fire wells. I discovered it to be blocked by twisted steel and rubble. The most efficient way to get rid of it was to portal it into another plane of reality, the same way portaled objects into my mystical closet for safekeeping. I hoped the junk was not going into the same place my good things did; that make for a daunting clean-up job! But for now, my actions eliminated the obstruction and created a passable way for the trapped people to use.

This herculean effort on multiple fields at once was draining me. On the other hand, the thrill of my successes was energizing me.

Through a gap in the wall, I spotted a flying man -- an ultra I didn't recognize. Something told me he was a touch guy, the right man to have on my side. I left the high rise and flew after him, waving my arms to flag him down.

He looked back and was gracious enough to drop down and land on the chaotic street below. Whoever he was, he wore red and gold armor that made him look like a robot. I landed also and the guy stood there quietly staring at me.

"You must be some new ultra," I said.

"I'm not all that new..." the guy began, using an electronically enhanced voice. "But one can say I'm new to this locality. Do you need rescuing?"

"I'm good, Armor Man," I replied. "People are trapped in this building, and they need more help than I can offer."

"My handle is Iron Man," the newcomer corrected me. Then something drew his attention to the sky.

"This must be your lucky day, Goldy," he said. "We're getting reinforcement," said the armor guy, pointing.

"I'm called Mantra, by the way," I replied. I could see the "reinforcement" he was referring to. I recognized the amazing shape.

The mighty man -- if human he was -- settled down a few yards away from us. He recognized me, too. "Lady Mantra!" he exclaimed using a powerful baritone that I supposed a woman on the make would really like."

"Verily 'tis I," I affirmed.

"How do you know someone in another universe, Thor?" Iron Man asked.

"I spoke to you about my abduction to the land of Vahdala," answered the blonde titan. "This maid of blue and gold was there with us, fairest flower of the land."

I didn't rate this to be much of a compliment. Barren Vahdala didn't have many flowers to enter into the competition. But he wasn't really complementing me. The Mantra he remembered had been Eden Blake, during that brief span in which she had taken over the role of Mantra. I had been standing right beside her in a male clone body, but up beside Eden, Thor probably didn't even notice me.

"Hi, Thor!" I said. "Can you help me and Mr. Iron Guy get people out of that fire?"

Thor took in the lay of the land and answered, "It shall be done, my lady."

The two guys flew toward the high floors of the burning building, leaving me among a squad of arriving rescue workers.

I told the uniformed people what I knew and then got out of their way. I would be going aloft to help Thor and Iron Man since save lives.

To think that for the last two years I'd been thinking that live in suburban Canoga Park had been difficult!

TO BE CONTINUED IN CHAPTER 17

The TWILIGHT OF THE GODS -- Chap. 15

Posted 08-10-24

The TWILIGHT OF THE GODS -- Chap. 15

 
A Story of Mantra and Black September

By Aladdin and Christopher Leeson 

 

 Chapter 15

IF AT FIRST YOU DON'T SUCCEED

 

"Oh, yes. I have gone through a half million perambulations of possible plans and I think I have discovered the solution to all our problems."

"I didn't believe him, but I didn't want to hear this.

I was holding the Time Gem clutched so tightly in my hand that no pickpocket could have snatched it away. But who am I kidding? The gem had the power to evaporate a galaxy and I didn't have a chance of holding on to it if it decided it didn't want to stay with me. I raised it up in front of myself and told it, "The gentleman with me has an idea he wants to tell you. I hope you'll listen to him without doing anything silly?"

There was a short silence that felt like a gulf of time before it said, "I will listen."

"Okay, Gabriel, do that persuasion thing of yours," I told the gingerhead.

The Timekeeper gave another one of those edgy smiles and drew in a deep breath. I wondered if he had anything to say that might interest a piece of rock.

"You and your brother the Reality Gem have been in constant telepathic contact, haven't you?" the scientist said to the god's bone fragment.

The gem made no reply.

"Perhaps it only communicates directly with its holder. Would you repeat what I said in your own words, Mantra?"

I did so.

Yes. We have been in contact," the gem answered.

"From what we have learned so far, you intend to use Amber Hunt to absorb the Nemesis energy and render it harmless, correct?" Gabriel asked.

"That is correct."

"How is it that you and the Reality Gem expect to defy the will of your five brothers who are equally powerful?"

The two of us are capable because we are unique.

"Ah, that is good to know. Do you mean to say that you have run a data analysis that reveals a high probability of achieving success? If so, what is the scope of that probability?"

The gem made no immediate reply. That was bad since these living stones must be able to think many times faster than the fasted AI chatbot on planet Earth. Any delay noticeable in human perception must represent a much longer time in the private world of an Infinity Gem.

I looked back at Gabriel. "Why did you bring us here to be the custodians for Amber Hunt? It seems like we risked our necks for nothing. Now that we have her, how do we help her do something different from last time?"

How's that again?" asked someone who had just entered the command facility. Amber Hunt.

"I'm sorry, my lady," said the Timekeeper.  "We have reason to believe that an action that you and the Infinity Gems intend to carry out will come close to succeeding but will ultimately not succeed. Even an entity like the Time Gem that can see all points of time and space instantaneously seems at a loss to know how to improve the odds of accomplishing our goals."

"I don't follow," said the college girl. "If we're following a bad plan, why don't we get cracking and put together a better one?"

"I would conjecture that the immutable laws of time and space are standing in our way.

"I was never good at science," the young blonde said, "but if what the Reality Gem has been telling me is right, throwing in the towel, or just going through the motions of a plan is not the answer."

"The VIGOPS has suggested a plan that might bring us new insights. We have to carry that plan out while we still have time."

We all ran out of words just then until I broke the silence. "A question, Amber."

She looked my way.

"You speak like you're sane," I observed. "The last time we interacted, you seemed to be in a place where even squirrels fear to tread. What happened?"

"The Reality Gem happened. Before the inside of my head would have made Wonderland look sane. But the Gem brought me out of that. I don't know how."

"Maybe it gave you a dose of Realty?" I was surprised I could still make quips while standing one second to Midnight. "Now you seem ready to take on the second most powerful being in the Multiverse. What did it tell you to give you that kind of courage?"

"A lot of things, but one thing it said really made a lot of sense to me.

"I'm all ears."

"It reminded me that I've got nothing to lose."

We all ran out of words at that point and, with a departing nod, Amber went back to her cabin.

Gabriel and I just stood there looking at one another for a minute. I decided to stop badgering the little fellow. I could only distract him and if he got off his game even for an instant, it could be the shipwreck of all our hopes.

"I'm sorry," I said resolvedly. "I'm a worry wart. I believe in you, Gabriel. And I also believe that if this multiverse survives, it will be because of you."

There was a futility in talking to the Timekeeper. No matter what idea I came up with, he would know it before I could utter it. I wondered why the process didn't work for me in the other direction. Maybe since he was my senior, I hadn't been issued the necessary access code.

"You are right, Mantra," the little man replied. "This is no time for division. I do not expect you to out-think a multi-level mind like my own, the VIGOPS, which can think even faster than I can, or the Reality Gems, which can think more quickly than the VIGOPS. Your role is to keep your mind and soul open to inspiration."

"Well, I may not be the brightest bulb in the room, but I'd lay odds that I can think faster than our college girl ex-psycho."

Sheesh! Even at a moment like this, I couldn't stop being flippant!

#

I was almost out of my funk before we were some hundreds of feet above New York City. The scene was the same one we'd seen before.  The battle royal was already in progress. Thousands of ultra-clones were throwing themselves into a battle that staggered the imagination. Raw power alone was useless against Nemesis, because against even the remnant of the Creator God, an army of ants could have done just about as well as an army of ultras.

I went into the corridors of the city-sized Time Capsules and went looking for the kids. I just wanted to hug them because they reminded me so much of my kids at home – the home that was absolutely not safe. One thing that life has taught me is that kids need hugs and kisses at times like these. I don't know how much they understood what was going on, but even Gus didn't squirm too much when I put my arms around him.

"Mantra, get ready," the Timekeeper said from the corridor.

"What do you want me to do?"

"Pray." 

I blinked but was soldier enough to know that there were no atheists inside foxholes. "I promise that I'll at least keep my fingers crossed. But I heard you said something to Amber Hunt that I wanted to ask you about."

"What's that."

"You said the immutable laws of time and space are standing in our way. What do you mean about that?"

"The VIGOPS believes that the Reality and the Time Gem broke away from Nemesis too late to stop the first release of the lethal energy. They cannot go back in time before that event, because they already exist in that moment. For entities like the Infinity Gems to exist in two places simultaneously will destroy the Multiverse as effectively as the Nemesis release will."

"But I've existed at the same time and space with that other Lukasz and that better-looking version of myself."

"That is perfectly all right. You will not ignite the end of Reality. You are not an Infinity Gem. You are not a chip off the Creator God himself."

"That's something to be grateful about, I suppose. But if that is how things are, what has this excursion been for? Why did we go to the south side of Los Angeles in the first place? We rescued Amber Hunt, but we're still clueless about how to help her."

"When we started on the trail of the Third Force, we didn't even know what the Third Force was. Now that we know, we've made progress."

"What progress?"

"It is always progress when one can test a theory and find that it does not work!"

"Excuse me, but there are easier -- and less painful ways -- to fail, aren't there? Like sleeping late, for instance!"

"We have come here to learn something. Who can say that learning it won't be helpful."

"Go to, Bro," I said.

I couldn't help but take another look through the view screen.  The Nemesis power burst moved with the speed of light. I didn't know what I expected to see that was good, but in fact all I saw was a dazzling light.  

And, after that, all of the screens started showing blank blue screens.

"What's happened?" I called.

"Fear not! We have simply gone out of phase with that reality. Now I'm re-calibrating," the little man explained.

"Why did you phase out?" I asked.

"Because we have to."

"Why?"

"Because we would all have died if we stayed longer."

"That sucks!"

"The reality of that timeline was destroyed, but as far as this vessel is concerned, we're fine fine."

"Fine? Fine for how long? And where are we anyway?"

"The Time Capsule has taken us into a different future timeline."

"A universe has died and you act like nothing happened?"

"We learned something. That is the fate of the Main Bough reality if Amber Hunt does not intervene. Nemesis released its total charge of reality-changing energy and it made that universe vanish."

"I guess it's true. When one person dies, it's a tragedy. When a universe dies it's just a note in a history book."

"Sadly, that's true. Living beings are not made to fathom a tragedy on this scale." he said with a sigh.

"How much time does the Main Bough have left?" I asked.

"In your world's terms, hours. But, take heart, that still gives us some time to plan and act."

"That should give us a lot of hope! None of our plans have worked so far."

"That's true about our far-ranged plan, but we did succeed in acquiring data about the circumstances of that universe's destruction."

Gabriel was too easy to please. The dry run we had just gone through had been so intense that I had been driven to my limit! The two gems, meanwhile, had joined with the Timekeeper in watching and learning. I didn't know why that had been necessary. The Time Gem, at least, was suppose to know every event in every time and every place.
 
I had been close to flipping out with stress. Facing what we faced, I realized something about where my core is at. When emotionally driven to that extreme, I had suddenly ceased to be a hero and reverted to my lowest common denominator, a parent. In a way, that shocked me, but it had taught me something. What we think is important perhaps isn't so important. When the chips were down, the people I loved had taken on a meaning beyond anything else in my life.

I looked askance at Gabriel. He, the man, the being, the whatever, who had access to all my thoughts. And the response of his super-fast brain was to flash me a quick, proud smile.

"Do you think the two gems learned anything from what just happened?"

"We will have to ask them," said the scientist.

"Gabriel, do you think we can even trust those weird guys? I guess they're motivated by their wish to go on existing in their state of undeath, but they can't possibly care about the lives of living people. They must see us as dust in the wind!"

"They make strange allies, I agree, but all we can do is what we can do, and hope for the best."

How was I supposed to hope for the best when everything depended on two infinitely powerful aliens? I didn't even know how to classify what they were? Gods? Aliens? Something stranger still? If they could properly be called alive, it was a concept of life that I couldn't put my mind around.

"Gabriel, I said, how much wiggle room do we have? When do we come to the point where we might as well take the kids to the place that's fated to be the last living piece of the Multiverse and hunker down there until there is no place left to run?

I would have wished for a word of encouragement just about then, but my companion didn't appear to have anything to say.

I certainly hoped that he was as quick-thinking as he boasted. We were in desperate need of a single solid good idea.

TO BE CONTINUED IN CHAPTER 16

The TWILIGHT OF THE GODS -- Chap. 14

 

July 7, 2024

A Story of Mantra and Black September

By Aladdin and Christopher Leeson 

 

 Chapter 14

 

THE FLAMING WOMAN
  

I had to step carefully; Jamie still held me by the waist. I sank down to one knee and pinched her sad little chin.

“Evie said you have to go, Aunt Jenny, and she says we can go with you!”

“She’s right,” I said, “but do you want to go? Will your daddy let you go?”

“I don’t want to leave Daddy! Can’t you stay with us?”

I can't, darling. But I really, really want you, Evie and Gus to come with me.”

“Why can’t Daddy come?!”

“Your daddy can absolutely come, and I hope he does. But I don't know what he'll want to do. I’ll have to talk to King Daddy about that.”

I wasn't eager to confront Tark just then. I had banished his wife Necromantra into a different time and space, and he might get steamed up about that! Even if he didn't love her, as he probably didn't, he still would have wanted to keep her power arrayed on his side.

Suddenly, the door burst open, and two rough-hewn guards admitted themselves.

I threw a shield around Jamie and myself. "What is the meaning of this break-in?" I asked.

"The chamberlain sent us to protect the princess," said the uglier of the two. "We weren’t told that you’d be here."

"I just dropped in. I’m the girl’s aunt, aren’t I, sweetheart?"

Jamie nodded emphatically.

“The king has been injured by an assassin and may die," said the second of the guards. “He wants to see his daughter!”

The clod! How could he have said that in front of a dying man's child? "All right,” I said, picking up the little girl to carry. “Let’s go!”

The gunmen led me to the armory's rear area into a makeshift dressing station. Nicolas was already there, garbed in his Solitaire outfit. His intimidating hood mask was down, exposing a stern and urgent face. Warstrike lay on a cot too small for a man of his size and had an old blanket thrown over him. He looked awful, with his face scored by burn and blast marks. Jamie let out a moan.  I squeezed her close and kissed her.

"What happened?!" I demanded.

"Jimmy Ruiz made a suicide attack," Solitaire said.

"Prototype tried to kill him?"

"Ruiz wasn't wearing his ultra armor," Solitaire replied. "He ignited an explosion without it."

Jamie made a pathetic sound. I had heard many children cry that way. Usually, I heard it just after I had killed some kid's father. It was memories like that that made me want to forget the life I had lived before.  When I lowered Jamie to the floor, she dashed to her father's deathbed.

"Daddy! Don't die!"

Coming up behind her, I put my hands on her shoulders. I didn't want her to leap upon her dad's chest and hurt him even more.

"Jamie…" Brandon whispered. Then he glanced my way.  "I…I'm glad that you could be here for her, Eden."

"You've got to hold on," I told him. "That accelerated healing of yours can pull you through if you give it enough time."

He let out a weak laugh.  "That cheap Chung Brothers' wetware isn't working so well today. Damn me for not having my work done at NuTech."

"I can give you some of my energy," I told him. "Maybe it will kick-start your Chung Brothers enhancements."

"I'd like that," he said "Whenever you used to shoot me up with energy, it was almost as good as having sex."

He was remembering his wife, not me, but I didn't say anything. Touching his brow, I projected some of my bio-energy into him.  I've learned to do simple surgery over the centuries, but nothing I knew would help with such serious injuries. We would have to wait and see what my energy injection would do.

"Eden…" Brandon whispered hoarsely, "Those crazy rebels are capable of anything. I want you to take the kids away if I don’t make it!"

"No, Daddy, don't die!" the child shouted.

"I promise to take care of them," I said. "I know of a world that’s better than this one."

"Thank..." he started to say when his face became a mask, staring at the ceiling. I lightly touched his cheek and felt a flicker of life, but he was fading fast.

"Give me room!" someone said from the door. A man wearing old doctor's togs barged in. He carried a gym bag – probably for holding first aid gear. I backed out of his way, guiding Jamie along with me. She was shaking with sobs. The youngster hardly remembered the mother she'd lost; this was so much worse.

The dying man was not the same Warstrike I knew in my own world. The leadership this one exhibited exhibited had been a catastrophe. Had I been a native of this dying city, I might have joined the rebels against him. But, yet, I knew that the Mantra of this world had loved and stood by him. Had she been misguided, or had she understood things I didn't?

"We haven’t been able to find Queen Marinna," said Solitaire. "Do you know where she is, Mantra?"

I didn't feel like lying. "The two of us came to blows in Jamie's room and I had to send her away."

"What do you mean?"

"It’s a complex business,” I said. "Do you want me to bring her back?"

"No way!" he exclaimed.

"Who's in charge here now?" I asked.

"I'm not sure," Nicolas answered. "If the king and queen are gone, it will be our last chance to make terms with the rebels’ leadership."

"Why don't you make yourself king?" I suggested
.

"I should ask why you don't take the throne, Mantra. You have fewer enemies here than I do," he countered.

I shook my head. "No can do! I came here to corral the Flaming Woman. It's absolutely vital!

The medic who'd been working on the king spoke up. "He's gone," he said, pulling Brandon's blanket over his face. The girl beside me gave out another heart-rending wail.

"Jamie, let's leave here," I said. "Going through this is too awful for you."

"No! I want to be with him!"

Now I heard other young voices. Gus and Evie were squeezing their way into the crowded room. I hadn't seen this version of Gus before. How tall he'd grown! He looked more than ever like his father.

Gus moaned, looking down at his stepdad's covered face. While Evie was weeping as if doubled over in pain. Her brother, though, just stood there, displaying an expression too ambiguous for me to read. Then his fierce blue eyes shifted my way.

"You!"

I nodded.  "Yeah, it's me.  Whoever me is."

"Evie told me…."  He ended his sentence in midair. I was left to wonder whether he had ever found out that the Mantra who'd died had not been his real mother, other than physically. He certainly wasn't looking at me like a long-lost parent. Though he may have accepted Brandon Tark as a stand-in father figure, Gus wasn't reacting to me as Evie had. That was all right with me. My presence hadn’t made Evie any happier, and I wouldn't have wished the same agony she felt onto Gus.

Evie said, “Mother – I mean…"  

I  reached out to her and she stepped between my arms. The teen clung to me like a lifeline, and that was what she most needed then.

"Is he really gone?" Evie whispered.

"I'm sorry, yes.  Can you do anything for your sister?"

Evie, releasing me, turned to Jamie and dropped to her knees to hug her.

"What's going to happen to the rest of us?" Evie asked me without looking my way.

"Brandon wants me to take you three kids away from here. I want to do that."

A woman guard scrambled in. "Lord Chamberlain!" she yelled piercingly.

"What now?!" Nick barked, sounding like a man going over Niagara Falls in a barrel.

"War Eagle has brought in a prisoner! The guards have her in the cage wagon at the great hall’s entrance."

"Is…is she flaming?" the chamberlain asked. I was just as eager to hear what the guard had to say.

"She was, but witnesses say she flamed out when she struck the earth."

#

"Is that the flaming woman you're looking for, Mantra?" I heard Solitaire’s baritone ask.

I continued staring at the prisoner in the cage. It had been a while since I'd seen high school and college pictures of Amber Hunt in Aladdin's files. Most photos showed her distorted inside a blade of energy. "I believe this could be her, especially if she came covered with fire."

"That's what the guard says," replied Nicolas.

It made things easier for me that Warstrike's men had captured Hunt. Nicolas Lone was giving the orders now, and he'd impressed me as someone who was semi-sane. I wasn't at all familiar with the rebels' leadership. Choice hadn't made a positive impression on me. Los Angeles was a dying city of broken people.

I looked back at Solitaire. “Nick,” I said, “it’s vital that I take her away from here. Do you have any objections to that?”

“Not really,” he answered.

I regarded Amber Hunt.  There was a crowd of people around us, a lot of them ultras. Among them were Mastodon, Ironclad, and Meathook. For some reason, Warstrike had few supporters whom I would have called good guys. Solitaire seemed like a solid type amid this sinister crew.

The captive was lying on her left haunch, resembling an exhausted, battered college girl – which was what she really was. I detected power emanating from her, but it was a power of a certain kind. It was similar to the aura the Time Gem gave off, so it had to be the Reality Gem. But the new Gem was not to be seen, making me worry that it was inside her body. 

Amber Hunt had to be kept alive since it was her energy-absorbing power that could save the Multiverse, not either of the Infinity Gems. It was strange that I had to think of her as a savior, knowing what a world-endangering menace she was.

Just then, Hunt's eyes opened slowly and gave a feral reaction at beholding the bars of her wheeled cage. She instantly flamed on as if covered with burning gasoline. But I knew that Hunt could burn much hotter than gasoline and would melt through the simple metal bars confining her!

Damn!

I sent out a mental appeal to Gabriel. Have you got any ideas, Gabe?

The next thing I knew, the little man was nudging up from behind me. No one around us reacted to his sudden appearance, which told me he was invisible -- at least to anyone who didn't carry the Timekeeper nanobytes.

"We have to persuade her to cooperate!" he said.

"If you know how to do that, talk fast!" I said.

"If the Reality Gem controls her, I suggest you ask the Time Gem to negotiate with its brother.”

I didn't trust the Time Gem, but I had no better idea. “Time Gem!" I said to the lump inside the bag tied to my belt. "Speak to the Reality Gem and get his help to make the girl understand that we need her help to stop Nemesis."

Then I looked at Gabriel. "What then? You do have a plan, don't you?"

All I got back from him was an abashed look.

TO BE CONTINUED IN CHAPTER 15