Xenoman

35 Malcolm Maulchild

(FREE Ebook on SMASHWORDS: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/773380)

COUPON CODE: XT57L

The faux medieval castle doors swung shut behind Xeno. He looked over the ovular entry, expecting someone to greet him. There was just a distant electronic buzzing sound, and the insidious cephalopod eyes of a kraken mosaic glaring up at him from the floor, with mutant tentacles flailing in tiled space. The domed ceiling fresco depicted a bright sun with angel-winged circuit boards, descending towards the Earth, in rays of heavenly light. The inner walls consisted of alcoves filled with potted plants, a mounted wall fountain of textured bronze, flowing with a veneer of running water, and a reflective chrome Sunlite pill silo, looking more like a showroom piece on display, rather than something for commercial use.

"Hello?" Almost as soon as he called out, the electronic buzzing stopped. He paused for murmurs of conversation, sounds of bodies shifting in furniture, the clink of utensils. Still no one to greet him, just the low hiss of distant plumbing. He crossed the kraken mosaic and peered down the opposite corridor. At the end of the hall he could see a bergère chair in the open entry, the lamp on the side table still lit, a teapot, cup on a saucer, no drinker in sight. In front of the chair was a curious device on a metallic prong stand, made of several steel arms, delicate, elongated, with small claws on the ends.

He crossed through the corridor and entered the sitting room, coming face to face with Malcolm Maulchild—the life-size cardboard cutout— standing in front of an open window, wearing the same leisure sweater, the same bright-eyed expression, the same pipe clenched in his teeth. Over the cutout's shoulder the ocean view, outside the bay windows, appeared bright and sunny, and quite real, until the footage on the rear screen projection skipped and restarted the filmic loop.

He turned his attention to the device facing the armchair. The little mechanical hands had empty circular holders with open clamps that appeared to hold some sort of drawing utensils. The mechanical arms extended from a central control console, embedded with a blank viewing screen, an alphanumeric keypad, and a flowery inscription:

NEEDLER

He went back through the corridor, tried opening the other doors midway through. All locked. He came back to the entry, crossing the kraken mosaic, stopping at the Sunlite pill silo, admiring his distorted reflection in the spotless chrome. He reached for the motion sensor to open the silo door.

"I wonder whatever became of Natalie."

"What's that?" Xeno turned to see a familiar piece of pottery—a Wonder Vase—sitting beneath a cone of light, in one of the alcoves.

"I wonder if people in real life makeup their own lines," the Wonder Vase wondered out loud, with the same professorial voice of an old male scholar.

Xeno went to the wall fountain and cupped water in the palms of his hands. He went back to the Wonder Vase and dripped the water into the Wonder Vase's ceramic mouth.

"Ahhhh." The Wonder Vase was quenched of thirst, and fell silent.

Xeno went back to the pill silo, continuing where he left off, waving his hand over the motion sensor. The door slid open, and he put one foot in the door.

"You won't find any Sunlite in there," a voice grunted. An old man in robe and silk pajamas crossed the kraken mosaic with a walking stick, sniffling, hobbling his way towards Xeno. His eyes had the sunken glare of a condor, looking to disembowel rodents, or visitors, he didn't like, with a claw of snow-white hair folded over his freckled scalp.

"Sorry, just having a look," Xeno said to the old man. "I thought someone was in the sitting room using—"

"The Needler?" the old man huffed.