I’ll check into a cheap hotel

made for sailors.

Some serious nausea reeled

and sapping my strength

My head too warm and my guts all liquified.

I’ll just want to get into the motel asap.

Buying the key from the front desk vending machine

I’ll climb up the sweaty armpit of a stairwell

to my room, which’ll feel the hardest thing

in my life.

 

Immediately I’ll kick off my shoes,

shed my clothes and go sit in the shower cube

under a stream of cold water which I’ll have been hoping

will refresh me, shake me out of it.

I’ll feel continuous bad

like my brain and my guts thought it’d be really cool

to trade places for a day and now were thinking better of it.

I’ll throw myself damp on the bed and just crash.

 

16:78, post-meridian. Knock at the door.

There will have been no announcement, no call.

I’ll pull out my Transit, reach for a spell

but the door will already be open.

‘Jasper?’ a voice in the dark. My name, whispered.

‘Unlock the safety chain.’

I’ll get up from the mussed up bed,

my eyes full of aborted sleep. I’ll go to the door.

‘Let me in,’ the voice’ll say.

‘Don’t scare me like that,’ I’ll tell the dark.

I’ll know then who it is. Lydia.

‘Sorry.’

 

Lydia, of course, is the last person

I’ll expect to see at the door.

Another drone, or

Marcus: certainly.

A conman, a madman, a drunken tourist,

all within the realm of possibility.

Even- and I know it’s a stretch-

a maid would be a visitor I could explain seeing at my door.

 

Understandably, the first thing I’ll say is,

‘Do you have any money?’

    She’ll push gently on the door.

I won’t move away from it, keeping it shut.

Not because I don’t want to let her in,

just because I’ll have some delayed motor ability.

Still half asleep.

 

    ‘Let me in,’ she’ll say, pouting a little,

and annoyed. Rain picks up outside,

and the sound of its voice on the roof,

on everything outside, is like some kind of demodulated whisper.

Godtalk.

    I’ll step back and she’ll enter.

I’ll go and sit on the edge of the bed.

Some dream I was having’ll sort of come back to me,

float nearby, and I’ll try to hold onto it, for no good reason.

Try to follow it back. But it’ll already be gone,

like a rabbit running off my highway into the woods at night.

She’ll just see me sitting and staring at the wall.

 

I’ll be thinking about the good old days:

me, the Mark, Yukio- and, of course, Lydia

tagging along on our runs.

How things have changed.

We won’t be a crew, not anymore.

            We’ll be like some derelict

        house, all burned out, ready

        to fall; or like

a car left roadside still running

but running low

on fuel.

A structure ready to fall to pieces.

 

Johnny’ll hang with us now. Johnny Blitz.

But this’ll just be a temporary thing,

we’ll all feel that. Our core’ll be gone.

Since Marcus will’ve left us,

we’ll be leaderless, losers. This, the worst

        thing that could have happened to us,

        the Mark moving up like this.

        Only six, seven weeks prior.

No one’ll speak for us now. We’ll be little

parasites, angry and helpless.

 

    Lydia will slap the table with her hand, startling me.

    ‘Are you high?’ she’ll accuse, opening her bag

and taking off her coat. The mention of drugs,

and my lack of any will sour my mood instantly.

‘No,’ I’ll say, mournfully. ‘I’d like to be, though.’

    ‘What are you doing here?’ she’ll demand,

looking around the sullen room.

    That’ll jog my memory,

and I’ll remember my own questions.

‘How did you find me?’ I’ll say, more curious

and bewildered than suspicious. ‘Did Marcus send you?’

    ‘Marcus? No…’ She’ll sit down in a chair by the window.

‘I used a locator. Got it off Smithie. MadTrax.’

    ‘Oh.’ I’ll think about that. ‘Why?’

    ‘I was worried about you.’

    ‘What is it with people following me cuz they’re worried?’

    ‘What do you mean?’

    ‘Nothing. Why would you be worried, Lydia?’

    Here she’ll be a little uneasy,

as if unwilling to confess a secret.

Embarrassed.

‘I just. I just got this feeling. You know?

I got this feeling like you were in some trouble.

You ever get those kinds of feelings?’

 

    ‘Yeah,’ I’ll say. ‘Every time I wake up I feel I’m in trouble.’

    She’ll laugh, but not cuz she thinks I’m being funny.

More like to dismiss the subject.

She’d revealed something tender to me,

and I’d made a joke of it. Wish I hadn’t done.

Especially cuz I am in trouble.

    Reaching into her bag she’ll pull out a red packet.

‘You wanna know what’s in here?’ she’ll ask me.

Baiting me, and I’ll know it.

But I’ll still want what’s in that packet.

I’ve seen them before.

The drugs of the acolytes.

Alpha-IndoGram Nasatrate.

 

    ‘How did you…’ I’ll say, truly awed.

    ‘It’s Marcus’ store,’ she’ll say.

And that’ll shake me a little. Guy’s gone out to help me

and all, and here I’ll be about to steal from him.

Then I’ll remember: he’s not out helping me.

He’s helping himself.

Which is precisely what I’ll choose to do:

help myself.

    ‘So how much, then?’ I’ll ask, daring her.

Making it seem like if she won’t dole out

a good portion of it on both sides it

won’t even make the whole venture worthwhile.

 

    ‘I don’t know,’ she says.

‘Marcus sometimes takes up to three tabs,

but then he locks himself in his room

and I won’t see him for days.

That’s a serious trip, three tabs. I think we should do one.’

    ‘How about two?’ I’ll press her.

    She’ll shake her head. ‘No, Marcus.’

    ‘I can take it. I want to do two.’

    ‘I meant one between the two of us. I think we should split one.’

    ‘Fuck that.’

    ‘He’ll know, Marcus. He’s gonna find out-’

    ‘He’s gonna find out even if we only get off licking them.

If we’re gonna do this, we should do it right.

Otherwise, it’s not worth taking the risk.

I want two.’ I’ll be a real dick about it, and what’s more

I’ll know it.

But the promise of the nasatrate,

of an illicit look at the big secret,

will be too much for me not to run for.  

 

    Then, all very quickly,

she’ll bend the corner of the plastic lozenge

so that one tab busts up from it bubble,

breaks out of stasis. In the same motion,

she’ll pop it in her mouth, dry swallow.

Then some calm will come over her.

Like the moment between lightning and thunderclap.

She’ll hand the violate lozenge to me.

I’ll try to make it casual, but inside my heart’ll be thumping

and my hands’ll be all cold.

Once I’ll have swallowed the tab,

I’ll feel somewhat exposed, naked.

I’ll go further into the bed and sort of build up

the blankets around my knees and legs.

 

“Do you wanna watch a clip?” I’ll asksay.

I’ll be wanting to watch a particular clip,

a speech made by Roark earlier in the year,

which I’ll’ve recorded.

“Sure,” she’ll say, coming to sit next to me.

I’ll outcall my takoshi and logo it to play the designated clip.

We’ll see the Hall in Lawton House,

and Roark up at his wooden podium

which is carved up with all kinds of arcane symbols,

a big caduceus in the middle.

This speech alwise inspires me,

gets me revved.

 

“We all know the TimeLine.

But let us look at it again, for it is only by re-examining

what we think we already know do we realize

how much there is still to learn.

In the beginning there was Hermes Trimagesterius.

The Thrice-Great.

Maker of the Emerald: the Smaragdine Table.

No one knows what happened to the emerald

he inscribed with the Equation. Some say

it did not exist but in the fanciful writings and beliefs of later men.

If you ask me what I believe I will not tell you.

What matters is whether or not you believe.

If you do, if you don’t- either way, you’d better ask yourself why.

 

“Three hundred years ago

another man, a man named Androse, rose out of the gloom and dust

of the Last War whose fires and devastation caused the many cataclysms that changed our world forever.

No one knows where he came from, nor anything about his past.

Even less is known about how he came to find what he did.

Was it some ancient text, or the Emerald itself? None can say.

Does it matter?

With this secret knowledge he went on to discover

the Philosopher’s Stone- that which turns base metals into gold-

and in-so-doing he unwittingly handed mankind its salvation.

The building blocks for the New World Order. Indeed.

Men of Greatness.

 

“Few people outside of Kirin or the alchemical resource labs of the Empire

give much thought to the Solomon Construct. To them it’s just something

that provides their lives with more luxury, greater convenience.

They think of it as part of the Revolutionary Technology,

just another amenity. No sees the Construct for what it really is:

a sacred text, with deep and meaningful truths hidden in the coding.

These mindless people are like machines. They have no vision. They don’t

care to find the truth. They are blind. Do not be like them.

 

“Hermes inscribed on the Emerald Tablet everything one needs to know

in order to find the truth. Think about that. Everything

needful was put there, on an emerald. Everything you’d need

to know to find the Philosopher’s Stone written there,

plainly enough for those who could see through the code he used.

 

“So too has Androse, who understood the secrets of the Emerald,

inscribed his own secrets in the Construct. All we need in order

to follow in his footsteps is there. All any of us need in order

to attain the same power.

 

“Those who are even now trying to break down the Construct’s coding

in research labs in all corners of the Empire, they will never understand it.

Why? Because they don’t have the brains? No. Because

it takes more than brains to see the truth. It takes faith,

and it takes an understanding of certain truths of the spirit.

They will fail time and again, with all their mighty Formulas.

 

“Do not be like them either. For to see the truth

to uncover the secrets, you must be able to see the

craft in the coding, the magic within the mathematics.

You must study not just the equations and the characters,

but the art of the weave; and you must learn

to see the secret meanings of the characters;

and only when you have a full knowledge of them

and are familiar with the 12 tiers, inside and out,

can you achieve greatness.

It is yours. All you have to do is take it.

Through hard work, discipline and daring,

you can have it all.

While they fail you may succeed!

I have the tools that you need

to see the truth that has been given to us. They can observe

the atom under their microscopes but they will never

understand the power that animates the electrons,

that moves the atoms and the Universe itself!

 

After the clip, we’ll just lay there not talking,

not saying anything. And I’ll start to feel afraid

that maybe she’ll want me to kiss her,

that the real reason why she came here

was to get laid. Thinking this, under the nasatrate,

I’ll start to feel really para and uneasy.

    ‘You know what Marcus told me

he does sometimes, when he takes nasatrate?’

she’ll say, dreamily.

‘He’ll boot up the Saloman Construct and look at it.’

    ‘For what?’

    ‘Just looks at it. He says you can see beauty there.

Patterns. It brings him closer to understanding it.’

    ‘I don’t think I’ll ever understand the Construct.’

    She’ll turn over onto her side to look at me,

and in the darkness laying over us both she’ll look beautiful,

or not so ugly anyway.

She’ll say, ‘Someone wrote it, Marcus. A man. Just a man.

If one man can write it, then others can come to understand it.’

 

    This annoys and baffles me. ‘Lydia,’ I’ll say to her,

my voice abrasive as a wake up call,

‘wasn’t just any man that wrote the Construct.

It was Androse. Fucking genius like him, freak of nature, right?

Sees things that no one else can see.’

 

    ‘Well,’ she’ll say, rolling away. ‘He was a genius,

I’ll give you that. But what he’s made for us-

there are older and stronger powers in the world than what he had.’

    I’ll scoff ‘Like what?’

    ‘Like…I don’t know Marcus. But I feel it.’

    Then I’ll pretend like the idea just came to me.

‘You got your Pad here, right?’

    ‘Yeah.’

    ‘Let’s look at it.’

    ‘Marcus, I’ve seen it a million times. So have you. I’d rather just lay here.’

    ‘Come on, let’s look at it. We’re not gonna get a chance like this again for years.’

    Again, she’ll know that there’s no stopping me.

This is what it’s like having someone in your power,

someone who’s desperate enough for attention that they’ll cave,

soon or late, to your every whimsy/request. Master/slave.

 

    She’ll bring out her LilyPad,

and’ll dig up the Construct, bringing it up on the screen.

    ‘Let’s see it in holographic,’ I’ll say.

    ‘It uses up so much juice,’ she’ll complain.

    ‘Come on, Lydia.’

    She’ll unfold the three prongs

and configure the cadre. Then the Construct, blooming all blues

and greens and ochres in front of us.

Like a campfire. Dazzling.

Code so tight you couldn’t fit a prayer through its lattice/latwork.

    Perfection.

 

    For us it’ll be some godly event.

The Construct’ll unfold and twist

in the cadre like the aurora borealis, unreadable.

Some glorious anthem of light. Dancing djinns/genies.

I’ll try to guess at the mind that created this.

    I won’t recognize which part of the Construct we’re looking at.

I’ll hate to ask, but I’ll want to know.

Lydia’ll check, then read off the screen.

‘Third quadrant. Epsilon drive. Conformulant.’

 

    ‘Switch to NanadEen,’ I’ll tell her.

    ‘Why?’

    ‘Just cuz.’

    ‘Roark says to be looking at a piece of the Construct

is to be looking at all of it,’ she’ll respond,

but she’ll do as I bid, anyway. AnadEen will come up.

This is the part I know the best,

what I was able to grasp the most,

and what enchanted me the most.

For long minutes we’ll just stare at it, the coding.

    The nasatrate will cradle us, sing us its weird,

witchy lullaby. Chemical reengineering.

I’ll try to attune my every cell to its song.

I’ll try to find the Key to the Construct.

 

    The truth is I’ve done this many times before, with the drep.

I’ve sat just staring at AnadEen, or sometimes 2DocK

and I’d try to see the patterns, try to figure the code.

No go.

Never get anything but a wicked headache.

    ‘What was that?’ Lydia’ll say.

    ‘What?’ Startled.

    She’ll jump forward to the Pad

and sweep her wand into the Cadre.

AnadEen closes, folds up. And 4Square comes up.

‘There,’ she’ll say. ‘There it is again. Gone.’

    ‘What?’ I’ll bark. ‘What is it?’

    4Square’ll fold down, then she’ll bring up Silvenn.

Only for a moment. Then fold it down.

Gore-X. And down. She’ll jump into 2nd Quadrant, go up the scale.

 

    Pissing me off. ‘What are you looking for?’ I’ll growl,

way angrier than I should be. Jealous.

    ‘Not looking for anything,’ she’ll reply, but robotic.

Not really caring about me anymore. ‘Looking at something.’

    ‘What? What?’

    I’ll stare into the cadre, trying to see something,

anything. More than the coding, the spiels and spools I can’t see.

She’ll flip over to some clips I don’t know.

Unmapped territory for me. I’ll read the onscreen display.

    Ymen.

    Godspell.

    Inflat.

    ‘There!’ she’ll say, then sort of sink back onto her haunches.

    I won’t see anything. I won’t say a word.

    ‘Can’t you see it, Marcus?’ she’ll say,

turning to me, after a moment. The readout says Amber.

    ‘See what?’

    ‘The hole. The Keyhole.’