End Game

On the street again

Tim's lunch suggestion was ignored. When Husk then gave them the rest of the day off, they took up the offer before he could change his mind, the two of them emerging alone onto the now familiar streetscape of drab commercial architecture.

"Well that was exciting," said Tim. "But we're still no closer to finding out what those boxes actually do."

"Guess not."

They dawdled along, unconsciously appreciating the comparative cool of the morning—the best part of the day. Not that either of them would have been out so early were it not for Husk's promise of paid work.

"After I got home last night, I did some research," Tim went on. "Wanted to see what I could discover about Husk's disappearance. I found a lot of wild speculation from other people – not much from Husk himself. 'Something world-changing,' was pretty much all he said."

"Just not something he considered the world worthy enough to be told about in advance? If it's all about those boxes then I was thinking maybe some sort of immersive VR? But is yet another way to escape the world really going to change it?"

"You know what the coffins made me think of," asked Tim, "when I first saw them? Sensory deprivation chambers – heard of those?"

"If sensorially deprived is a euphemism for dead, then yeah, I can kind of see it."

Tim shifted into know-it-all mode. "Nah, these are for the living. The idea is you fill them with water at body temperature. Strip naked, climb in, close the lid and just float there. The complete lack of any sensory input is supposed to trigger your brain into filling in the gap, bringing on these intense hallucinations. At least that's the urban myth. I have no idea whether it's true."

"Sounds like your idea of heaven."

"Huh?"

"You know? Sloth."

Tim laughed. "A sin that gets you into heaven? That doesn't sound right."

They turned the corner onto the main road, again bypassing the Zest café and continuing in the direction of a coffee franchise – probably run by some evil empire, though not so you'd notice.

"Maybe they're inter-dimensional portals," mused Tim. "We got into them in one world where everything was normal, got out in another where all hell had broken loose and that strange woman had appeared out of nowhere."

"That would certainly fit the definition of world-changing," said Min. "So long as you took it literally."

Tim followed his thought a bit further. "There'll probably be some telltale giveaway. Like the president here will have a different middle initial, or she'll have grown a Hitler moustache."

Min tapped a few things on her phone. "'fraid not. Still the same old doofus."

They entered the coffee place.

"I had a premonition about what happened back there," Tim continued. "Yesterday, when he first took us into that big room. Something about it felt wrong. I didn't say anything at the time because I couldn't figure it out. Only that it was something to do with the lack of a ceiling. Then what happens today but the roof falls in. That's got to mean something, right?"

"So you felt it too?" Min had stopped, was looking at him with genuine admiration in her gaze. It took Tim a moment to register – he wasn't used to people looking at him like that.

"I have a sense for these things," Min went on. "And didn't I tell you yesterday how there was something wrong about that guy?"

"You mean, like, you can detect some sort of aura about him?" asked Tim, leading in the direction he thought she was wanting to go. Another Tim, a younger one, might have scoffed at her claim of special powers. But everything about Min's demeanor suggested that she trusted him as someone who would understand, while for himself Tim couldn't deny the peculiarity of his own feelings.

"Yes," said Min. "That's it. Aura is exactly what I mean. Some people can sense it and some can't, but there's more to be seen than what you can see with your eyes."

They ordered their coffees iced, took them over to a table.

"And Husk? What sort of aura has he got?"

"That's the thing – he doesn't have one. It's like I said last night, like he's standing outside the realm of normal human beings and normal moral judgement. A force unto himself."

"And yet, if he's to be believed, he holds the world's fate in his hands." Tim shivered. "And her?"

"Oh, witch. Definitely."

"She did seem to just manifest out of nowhere. Spooky."

"I sat up from my coffin a bit before you did. Husk was as surprised to see her as we were."

"She seemed to have his number; I'll give her that much. It was quite entertaining to watch the two of them at it."

They were silent for a moment, as if replaying recent events in their heads, perhaps in the hope of their making more sense second time around.

"There's more going on here than we are being let into," said Min. "We need to be careful."

But Tim's concerns were elsewhere. "And me?", he asked. "How's my aura."

Min peered at him for a long time, in the end only shrugged.

Tim wisely chose not to press the issue. What he didn't realize was that his soul had shriveled – not the same as lacking one altogether, more of a protective measure – the inevitable response to spending long days talking to disgruntled insurance claimants. His soul was still there – it was just waiting for the right potion to be poured over it, to rehydrate it back to its full glory.

*

The conversation moved on to more mundane matters.

"I don't think much of this coffee," commented Tim, somewhat later.

Min agreed. "You're right. It is pretty bland. Not to mention the décor is kind of blousy and the service poor. I don't think I'll be coming back here any time soon."

Not long after this they left.