Monday, April 23, 2007

Global Weirding - part six

This is my contribution to Pixel Stained Technopeasant Wretch day. I'm going to spread it over a few sections because it is over 20,000 words long. There'll be a version available through Lulu as soon as possible, and a donate button at the bottom of each section if you like it and would like to support my work.

This was written for National Novel Writing Month. I didn't finish the 50,000 words called for, but this stands up well as a novella and part one of a longer story.

Global Weirding - Part Six

"I'll make us some tea."

"I'll have a shower." I have to admit, I could get to like this ensuite lark. I know I have a flat to myself and can traipse naked from bedroom to bathroom stark naked if I want to, but the bathroom pod in Jana's room was at the end of the bed, so close I could almost fall into it.

There hadn't been the guilty silence I'd been expecting when we woke. We'd each taken some time to assess the situation then she'd smiled at me and kissed my nose. "It wasn't all a dream."

I was certain this was a one time thing. There's an unhealthy age difference between us. The sex was just something that happened because of the strangeness going on around us. It couldn't possibly last beyond the solution of the mystery, which we might achieve that very afternoon. The negative thoughts didn't last long, dispelled by the knowledge that I'd just made love with, and received finest fellatio from, one very sexy young woman. I'd been single for a while, so the fact that I could get laid made me feel so much better.

I opened the cupboard door, so Pebbles could come out if he wanted. The little stone pile was arranged for meditation. It looked up at me, its expression unreadable as ever.

Jana brought tea and toast. "It's all I've got."

"We can grab something while we're out. My treat."

"You don't have to buy me stuff just because we slept together."

"I'm going to buy you stuff because I'm a nice guy. And then you can buy me stuff later, or make me a meal or something."

It was still very early when we set out to explore the pathway. The night's chill was still in the air and dew lay on the cars and grass. We wandered down Wilmslow Road and only two cars went past. "I went that way." Jana pointed when I was about to head for where I'd found Twiggy.

"I found mine down there. We can have a look for it later."

Down in the old railway cutting the Sunday morning silence was even more acute. Jana took my hand as we walked along. I glanced at her to catch a serene expression, probably happy now that someone shared her madness and had offered to help figure it out.

Jana kept looking around as we walked, checking for landmarks. I wondered if I'd be able to pinpoint where I found Twiggy at all. She stopped when we reached a junction, "Here."

I don't know what I'd been expecting, but I definitely did not see it. The trees on either side shaded the thin stretch of pale tarmac we'd been walking along and there was a sign telling us where the new branch went. it was very pleasant, but not evocative of occult forces.

"I seem to remember I found mine on a junction as well. Maybe that's a key."

"Maybe."

"If we can find it I'll mark it onto a map and maybe we can see if there are any other similar junctions."

"What should we do now, though? Should we look for clues?"

"Okay. You take this side, I'll take that one. Work back and forth and see if you can spot something out of the ordinary." I wandered away and found a pair of sticks for sweeping the grass.

We walked in opposite directions for as far as seemed plausible. When we passed on the return leg she smiled at me, "What does a clue look like? I've never seen one before."

My swinging stick tapped against something metallic. I knelt down and pulled the rusty spike from the ground. "I think it looks something like this."

The stake had a symbol etched in the top, a segmented pentagon. Each triangular section had a symbol in it, none of which either of us recognised. "Keep going, see if there are more of these."

Half an hour of searching turned up nothing. Well, nothing occult, there were plenty of empty cans and some used condoms. We took our sticks, and our clue, and headed for where I thought I'd met Twiggy.

"If I was coherent enough, then I would have crossed this junction. But I stopped to have a piss, probably against that bush. How about you start there and I'll do the other side of the path."

"Okay." Before we went our separate ways she grabbed me and kissed me. "Am I a freak that I'm finding this quite exciting?"

"Absolutely. But I'm kind of into it too. Let's try to do this one quicker and go and get some breakfast."

Jana found the clue this time, another metal pin with the same symbol on it. "Okay supersleuth, let's go and get breakfast." I took the pin and pocketed it with the other. I felt a light tingle as they touched.



As we headed to the cafe my phone rang. The display said 'Granddad'. I stopped dead to answer it, "Granddad?"

"Ah yes, my boy. You're not at home?"

"No, you called my mobile."

"Mobile?"

"Mobile phone, sort of like a radio telephone."

"Oh, I see. Fascinating."

"How are you?"

"I'll be honest, I'm scared. It just keeps getting closer."

"Yes. I need to talk to you about that, ask you about it."

"Later. I need to talk to you about this girl."

"You do? How do you know about....?" Jana was watching me, mostly just interested but picking up on the concern in my voice. He was going to tell me not to trust her, to keep away from her. That's the way these things always went.

"Trust her. She is important."

"What? How is she important?" Jana went wide eyed and pointed at herself. I nodded.

"I'm afraid I don't know. I'm just passing on what I suddenly know. I'm told that you're current investigation will likely yield results. Keep her close to you and value her judgement. I'll be in touch again." And with that he hung up.

"Who was that?"

"My grandfather."

"How did he know about me?"

"He's dead."

"Oh. Right. How dead?"

That last question threw me. I took her for a fry up and tried to explain how I was getting phone calls from someone who was, from their perspective, in the final moments of their life. Again, as when Jana had raised the subject the night before, I was struck by the absurdity of it all. I didn't believe in ghosts. I believed in people's suggestibility and sensitivity to their surroundings, but not that what they experienced was in any way supernatural. The oddest thing about the strangeness going on around me remained my unquestioning acceptance of it.

We went back to my flat. It only seemed natural. I booted up Google Earth and started looking for ways to hack it. Having found a way to flag points on the map and overlay shapes I plotted the two junctions where we had found our elementals. "Two pieces of data aren't much use to us," I told Jana, "because the best we can get from them is a straight line."

"What about the symbol on top of the spikes? could you overlay that? What if the points are where we found the spikes?"

"That was my next step, honest."

I drew up a pentagon, resized it and dropped it onto the map twice. In one orientation it covered south west Manchester, in the other it nearly wrapped around the centre. More importantly, in the central Manchester version the points matched up to junctions on the old railway lines, at least one of which wasn't yet converted to pathway. "I think we know where we're going later." I observed.

Next I broke the pentagon into segments, as per the symbol on the pins. The centre point didn't seem to coincide with any really interesting architectural points or street junctions. It wasn't even anywhere near the railway. This was a little disappointing. "Maybe it's a red herring." Jana offered.

"Maybe. What about those symbols?"

"I've copied them. If we scan them we can put them online and see if anyone recognises them."

When that was all done I was ready to head out again. "Oh no." she told me, "You really need to get changed. Go to the bedroom and take all your clothes off."

"All of them?"

"All of them." How was I ever going to refuse an order like that. She followed me into the bedroom and watched me undress. Then she handed me a condom and pushed me back onto the bed so I could lie back and watch her strip.

Naked, she climbed onto the bed, crawled up me and slid me into her. I don't know how she got so excited, but I wasn't going to complain. She began moving gently, pausing to look around after a few strokes. "No visions?" she commented.

"No. Disappointed?"

"No. It's good."

Now, I've never had many complaints, and I've been paid a few compliments, but I don't think I've ever had movie sex. The sort where everything fits together perfectly and you come together. This time I did. The lighting was even right, the sun casting the shadow of the window frame across her glistening body as she moved. And, unlike sex in the movies, we really were having sex, which made it so much better.

We lay together afterwards, Jana running her fingers through the hair on my chest. "We should get dressed and go find those other points." she said distractedly.

"We should."

"Or we could stay here and do the sex thing again."

"Or we could do that."

"You're not very good at making decisions are you?"

"Whatever you say, darling."

She twirled a particular bit of chest hair for a while. "Steven, have you considered that it's odd that I'm having sex with you?" And my balls just shrivelled up and popped back into my body.

"Well....."

"Not. I mean, not that there's anything wrong with you. You're a nice guy. You're funny, and interesting and clever. And you are attractive, and the sex is good. The sex is great. It's just.... Maybe that's part of the whole weirdness."

"You think someone, or something, wants us to have sex? Like it might be part of some rite? Some sort of occult power is making you shag a man you wouldn't normally give a second glance?"

"I would give you a second glance. And probably a third. But I wouldn't normally jump into bed with anyone this fast." She looked away, perhaps a little embarrassed.

"Why is there a mouse watching us?"

I pulled myself up to look over her. On the bedside cabinet one of my friendly rodents sat on its haunches staring at us. It cocked its head to one side, waved a paw and then leapt off the top. It bounced out of the door and into the living room. We followed. On the living room floor, formed from bits of scrap arranged carefully by little paws, was a simple message, 'We want our mouseness back'.

"Yes, I'm sure you do. But how can we help?"

Jana bent down and held out her hand. The mouse hopped onto it. She stood and held the mouse before her, just where she could focus best. They looked into each others' eyes. I moved uncomfortably out of her line of sight, I didn't want her seeing that I was turned on by a naked woman communing with a small rodent.

"You can't talk, can you?" Jana asked. I swear the mouse shook its head. "Okay. So maybe you can leave messages like this if you've got anything that might help." Again, another twitch of the mouse's head, this time one that might have been a nod. "Right. Well, you get on with that while we go and investigate these old railway lines." She put Jerry down then turned to me, "Right let's...." She looked down. "Oh, erm, okay." She headed for the bedroom.

The mouse was giving me a look. I sort of shrugged, but couldn't hold its gaze for very long. Jana had closed the bedroom door. I decided to cool off in the bathroom for a while.

Part One
Part Two
Part Three
Part Four
Part Five
Part Six
Part Seven
Part Eight
Part Nine

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