Spik

[Katzaniel]

"Man, this is gonna rock. It's gonna be so slash. You're gonna have your *own apartment*, man. I mean, wow. How cool? I'm going to come over all the time and we'll watch movies and - and we're going to be in university. Like, how sweet? We're so totally done high school! Zip, done, over with. And you, dude - you have an apartment! We are so adults now."

 

That's my friend, Nathan. He was keeping this particular commentary as we - my name is Spik, by the way - were manouevering a table up the three floors to my new apartment. I was excited, too, don't get me wrong. Not as much as my friend, of course, but that's pretty normal for the two of us. Nathan can get worked up over virtually anything and talk about it for hours. You should have been there after Nathan's first date with his current girlfriend. He went on about it for *days*. And, speak of the devil - or not, as the case may be - at that point the melodious strains of Linkin Park began to play out of Nathan's pocket, interrupting him midsentence.

 

"Set it down!" I hissed immediately, as Nathan, on cue, began to reach for his cell. "Oh yeah," he muttered abashedly, taking the time to carefully set down the table before reaching again for his phone. "And to think, I would almost have just let go! Well, not really, I'm sure I would have - Hello? Why yes, Natalie. Of course 'tis me. Yeah, we're about half done here."

 

I rolled my eyes. I know Nathan well, and he might very well have simply dropped his end of the table in order to answer the phone. Not on purpose, of course. Nathan is easily the most clumsy and easily distracted person that I knew. It makes our friendship interesting, to say the least, and of course I enjoy the running monologue that he provides, or I could never have put up with it for so long. Somehow, Nathan makes the most mundane things fun.

 

"Oh, rock on! Really? Are you sure? Well yeah, I guess. Okay. Yeah, bring it over. Sure, now. Of course. Why not? Oh, no, Spik won't mind. We're almost done." A pause - uncharacteristic - while Nathan looked around for something he obviously wasn't finding, and then, "Well, I did say that. But more than half, I'm sure. Look, I don't know. There can't be all that much left to move. Okay. See you soon, then. Yup. Love ya. Bye." In a fluid motion, the phone was back in his pocket. "The TV next, man. Come on, this is gonna be great. We need-"

 

"The table first, Nathan!" I burst out. Okay, I was getting a *little* frustrated with him. The two of us had been going at it for three hours already, and Nathan was constantly getting distracted by one thing or another. "Hey, remember this?" and "Want to pause for a snack?" had become my most feared phrases since this morning.

 

"Oh. Yeah." The two of us continued up while Nathan filled me in that Natalie had been watching a show that her parents had taped for her, and - get this - had seen my commercial. Oh, by the way. I have a commercial. A few months ago, I managed to score a role in a Levi commercial. Not big - certainly no lines - but I got fifty bucks out of the deal, not to mention the neverending appreciation of my small circle of friends. I've been involved with theatre ever since elementary school, but for the longest time I was too shy to actually do any acting. I finally tried it out, and I guess it turns out I'm pretty good. At least, the teachers who cast our high school's versions of "Romeo and Juliet" and "Grease" seemed to think so, and I *did* get to do this commercial. So anyway, Natalie's got the thing on tape and Nathan wants us all to settle down and watch it. Again. I do have a copy already, but this is "in the element", he says, that is, right in the middle of a show and sandwiched between two other commercials. Real.)

 

So, Natalie came over. I wasn't going to protest; Nathan *had* earned a bit of a break, in fact we both had, by the time we had finished dragging up the couches and television and VCR, hooking everything up, and arranging everything. Natalie had anticipated us, and stopped at the store for chips and pop. We would finish that evening, I told myself, and settled down to enjoy a half hour of chatting and watching television. Of course, that turned into a few hours, as we began to reminisce about high school - only a week past - and plan for university - a little less than two months away. Nathan wanted to be an engineer, he had decided. His marks weren't fantastic, but he had succeeded as one of the 200 or so students they were accepting that year. Natalie had signed up for some math and science classes, not quite sure what she wanted, but at least she knew more than I did. At that point, all I had was some basic arts classes. I had my eye on a Theatre degree, but what can you do with that? I didn't want to get a useless degree, even if acting *was* what interested me most. Of course, we had talked about all this stuff before, but it wasn't old yet. We wondered when the booklists would come out. We lamented that Natalie and I had managed to get into the same English (a class required by every student, regardless of faculty) but that Nathan was expected to take a special engineering english.

 

Well, before too long it was getting dark, and none of us was tired of talking. I mean, I was the first of us to have my own apartment, and this was my first day in it. We decided that we'd all crash at my place. (It sounded so great: Crash at Spik's place for the night...) I returned my uncle's truck, knowing that he'd lend it to me again the next day. Nathan ran home to grab a change of clothes and replenish our food and alcohol stock. And Natalie went home to ask her parents if she could hang out with us for the night. Natty's parents are pretty cool. They were skeptical, of course, but knowing that it would be three of us, and trusting their daughter as well as Nathan and I, they okayed it.

 

Oh, we had fun that night. Stayed up pretty late. Nathan had to catch a shift the next morning at Wal-mart, and Natalie needed to do some errands, including swinging by her job at Pizza Hut to check the next week's schedule, but neither minded being tired. In fact, I seem to recall being the first to suggest we actually go to sleep.

 

That was why we were all there that morning, when the news broke.

 

I was between jobs at the moment, so while Nathan showered and Natalie did her hair, I lounged around in my PJ's making breakfast. We had the radio on (Nathan had insisted in bringing the radio in, first of everything, so that we would have music during the actual move) and Natalie was idly watching the news without sound. Nathan came out of the bathroom, cursing the lack of towels, (his own fault, remember) and I put some eggs on for him. Natalie had done her long dark hair up into a ponytail and had on a black dress with little flowers on it, way too nice for any sensible person who didn't have school or work to do that day. Oh well, that's girls for you. Nathan's brown-blonde mop was still wet, and he *did* have work. Anyway, we hadn't brought the chairs in yet, so we ate while sitting on the couch listening to the early morning tunes. We were all regretting last night's lateness, now.

 

Anyway, the news. Well, it might not have sounded very exciting. You probably heard it at the time, and dismissed it as nothing. We didn't believe it either, but that wasn't the point. Some scientist down in Toronto were being interviewed. That's why Natty turned down the music and unmuted the news. Apparently he and some others had discovered some amazing breakthrough of quantum mechanics or something that allowed them to do some pretty neat stuff, like create an illusion, you could see and feel it, but it wasn't actually there, or rather it was made of the same material as the stuff that was actually there, or something like that.

 

The guy, he wasn't making a very good showing. He had these long white mustaches and he kept breathing into them and pulling on them, and adjusting his glasses. And he couldn't *prove* anything. "I swear, it really works," he kept insisting, "But they don't want me to tell. They've got it rigged so that it doesn't work for me. You've got to just believe me." We all had a good laugh, and Nathan went on a tirade about the guy's mustaches.

 

"I mean, obviously I don't want mustaches like that right now, I'm only 18, but in forty years, dude, I *want* those!"

 

Natalie was looking fixedly at the screen.

 

"Upset about the poor image it gives science?" I kidded. I mean, we'd just been talking last night about how she kind of wanted to make a living as a researcher. Probably even physics. But I knew she wasn't all *that* serious about it.

 

She shook herself away. "It does, I suppose. But people can think what they want. What worries me is that I half believe the poor guy. I'm probably supposed to be more cold or logical or something, but he seems so ... so ... convinced!"

 

He did. But the interviewer didn't; it was obviously a slow news day. And we all laughed it off. Even Natty didn't *really* believe anything. She went off to run her errands at the same time Nathan left for work, and I didn't see them again until 2 when he finished his shift. It was a pleasant surprise that she came too, to help finish off the move.

 

"Some guy came in today," Nathan was saying. "And he was yelling at me about wanting a refund. For *bread*! I told him I'm only a cashier, I mean geez, what did the guy expect from me? But he just started in about how no one takes any responsibility, and how did I expect to earn a living if I never took responsibility? Man, what an idiot. If he's going to buy bread, he should check the expiry date... seriously, I think he was lying about how long ago he bought it, too. And then my manager came, and *she* started yelling, and it was really horrible. I had three people angry at me today. I mean, I guess the eggs were kind of bad, but *man*, they sure get mad at you just for dropping things."

 

I caught Natalie's eye and we exchanged a grin. Trust Nathan to drop some eggs and expect everyone to laugh it off. That's part of why he's such a good friend, though, and probably why Natalie like him, too: He's so easy-going. He cares about *people*, not *things*, and he does everything like it's the first and last time ever.

 

Apruptly Natalie said, "Nathan."

 

He ran down the end of a sentence, then said, "Yeah?"

 

Man, I love this guy. And no, I don't mean it like that. I mean, he's so amusing. One minute he's complaining fervently about how horrible his day's been, and he doesn't even *notice* when he's been interrupted. Of course, no one would ever say a word around Nathan if he was difficult to interrupt, so it's kind of like turning down the TV when you want to talk. He doesn't mind. He just likes to fill in the silence. Natalie figured that out before they even started dating. And man, she's good for him. She enjoys listening to him talk. And she has that same passion that he does for everyday things.

 

"I keep thinking about that scientist guy, from this morning."

 

"Uh huh?" Nathan's light brown eyes got an interested spark in them. I could tell he was thinking about those mustaches again.

 

"We've got a couple of weeks before school starts."

 

"*University*, Natty! Don't call it school, we're in *University* now."

 

Her face broke into a grin. "That's right. University."

 

"I mean, *man*, we're *slash* now!"

 

Of course, as soon as Nathan had picked up the term, I still don't know where he got it, I had asked him about it. "Slash?" he'd said. "It's the new cool!" Not that *that* much hadn't been obvious. But Natty, she refused to ask about it. It was like a big joke between them, that he kept using it and daring her to ask, and she kept ignoring that there was anything odd about it. And the longer one hung around Nathan, the more one picked up his language. I knew I'd be using it before long, too. With Natalie, though, it was always obvious and deliberate.

 

"Oh, definitely slash."

 

A brief pause.

 

"Anyway, I was thinking. Wouldn't it be fun to go down there and talk to him?"

 

And that's the thing about Natalie. She's all calm, and unassuming, and then all of a sudden she comes out with these grand schemes. What, just pick up and leave the city for two weeks? The two of them had arranged to have this coinciding time off, it being the "last summer of youth" as they put it. They would probably both go into co-op, and then they'd have work terms instead of summers, and not even always *during* the summer. Bah.

 

"Oh, rock on! Like, go down to Toronto for two weeks? That'd be slash."

 

He didn't even realize he was using the word anymore, sometimes.

 

"Yeah. We've got until the fifteenth to plan it out. Shouldn't be hard to book a flight. And Spik, you could come with us."

 

"Totally!" Nathan was wrapped up now. "We could check out the CN tower, and have a grand old time. And my cousin told me, if I ever go to Toronto, I have to check out this bar on Church street. We could totally pass as 19."

 

I actually laughed aloud. "Nathan, he was talking about a gay bar!"

 

"What?"

 

I couldn't believe Nathan hadn't caught that. "Yeah, the one with a mural of cowboys outside? The one he said was called 'Wild Oscar's'?" I snickered.

 

"How do you know that?"

 

Natalie laughed now, too. "Wild Oscar's?" She giggled. "Never heard of Oscar Wilde, Nathan?"

 

"Some writer," he mumbled, reddening.

 

"It's a pretty clever name. Oscar Wilde was gay. So, y'know - Wild Oscar's. That's great."

 

Well, anyway. You get the point. I wasn't immediately keen on the idea of taking off for two weeks, with so little warning. But the two of them were obviously jazzed about it, and it's not like I had anything better to do. And I had the money. That's something I don't want to get into right away, but I guess it's better not to put it off. See, my mother died when I was pretty young. She'd been a lawyer, I guess, so of course she'd had a will and everything, and then there was the insurance, and so I actually had a fair bit of money in the bank. Enough for university, and enough to occasionally do things like fly off to Toronto without having to save for weeks. Look, but don't think I'm all cold about it. It's been six years and I'm still getting teary writing about it. I was pretty withdrawn for many years after, too, but I'm basically normal again. I feel guilty when I try not to think about it, but you know. I can't think about it all the time, either. That's how it goes, I guess. Anyway, Natalie's got money, too, because her parents are pretty well off, and they'll probably put something into it. And of course she works. She's had that job at Pizza Hut since grade 10, I guess, though I didn't really know her until grade 12 when Nathan started dating her. And him, he comes by his money the hard way, and he saves it really well, but he doesn't squirm when it comes to spending on something big that he'll really enjoy. So it wasn't quite the simple thing that it seemed, but we *could* all afford it, and it would be nice to have a bit of vacation before we had to get back to school. Er, University.

[Katzaniel]

"I have to see that bar, you guys," confided Nathan as we disembarked from the plane. Natalie laughed, deep amusement making her eyes twinkle. "It's barely past noon!"

 

"Only 'cause you made us take the first flight out! Getting up at 4 a.m.? So not slash!"

 

"Speaking of which," I cut in, "where can we grab a bite to eat around here?"

 

Nathan muttered something under his breath. I could tell he wasn't going to let the evening go by, never mind the trip itself, without visiting the gay bar. And if I knew him, he had a crazy scheme in mind that involved the two of us pretending to be partners. I wanted nothing of it; but if I knew Natalie, she would jump on it as soon as he mentioned it. Bah.

 

"There's probably some fast food places in the airport, here," answered Natty, and then winked. "Or would we like some more authentic Canadian fare?"

 

Nathan pretended to punch her in the shoulder. I may not have mentioned, but we're from Saskatchewan. That's in Canada. Not that it matters much. Anyway, we decided to have a quick lunch at Dairy Queen so that we could spend a leisurely afternoon at the Royal Ontario Museum. Nathan wasn't exactly pumped about it, but I thought it would be fun. I mean, we didn't come all the way to this city for one bar.

 

Natalie had been browsing brochures since we agreed to go, so she was a walking reference of all things Toronto Tourism. She had a list, with things written out, crossed off, and even prioritized. "I like planning," she asserted when Nathan asked her about it. Which apparently suited him fine, because he wasn't about to do any planning himself.

 

The museum wasn't bad, but I won't bore you with it. I mean, I don't think any museum could be so fascinating that reading about it does it justice. The only thing worth telling you about is that Nathan tripped over one of those cleaning-the-floor signs and we got a talking to by some guy with either a spectacularily thick accent or no understanding of english; we're not quite sure which. The man had obviously had a bad day, so I hope he didn't hear us laughing afterward. It was awfully hard not to laugh.

 

Anyway, that evening, as predicted, I found myself in our hotel room, trying to convince Nathan and Natalie out of their crazy plan. The three of us were all sharing one room. Natty's parents were pretty cool, as I believe I've mentioned, and they're also pretty clever: they figured that if they insisted Nathan and I share a room and give Natalie her own, Nathan might sneak over there. So with three of us in one room, it's actually *less* likely for anything to happen. I don't know why they confided that to me, but the two star-crossed lovers themselves were pretty happy about the arrangement.

 

"What?!" I said, taken aback. "How do you 'dress up' as gay?"

 

Not only was he crazy, apparently, but he was also insane.

 

"I dunno, dude. A little make-up in the right places, a well-chosen outfit..."

 

Natalie was sitting cross-legged on the bed, having a giggling fit. No help there.

 

"They'll *maul* us!" I cried. "It'll be immediately apparent that we don't fit in there!"

 

He's a stubborn little man, though. We ended up at a Shopper's for hair highlights and make-up, and then scoured Wal-mart for some deals on what Nathan figured were the most, how shall we say, gay-looking clothes. I had to admit I was having a little fun by the time we were back in our room, albeit still horrified by the thought of actually attempting to perpetrate this crime against sanity.

 

"What do you think," Natalie was saying, "a little more blush?"

 

"You've got too much blush already," I moaned.

 

I might explain at this point that when I said I had been "involved in theatre", I actually meant that I ran the gamut from being a sound techie, the props finder, a background artist, a costume assembler and doing make-up before finally trying out acting itself. I think it was when I failed at the former areas and then found success with costuming and make-up, and experienced just how much gaff a guy takes for that sort of thing in high school, that I realized I had nothing to lose by just sucking it up and getting out on stage, where I really wanted to be. Still, I do know a thing or two about looking the part, and how far you can go with just a little bit of make-up. Natalie was totally overdoing it.

 

"All right," she sighed, and began to remove a little. "I guess I was just getting carried away by the whole thing."

 

After I'd had my say, you could barely tell we had make-up on at all, which should have been the point from the start. Anyway, with that and the clothes we'd bought, and Nathan with his red streaks, we looked pretty dashing. Natalie wasn't dressed up at all; we had decided she'd better stay at home.

 

"Much as I like the thought of her getting picked up by some lesbian," Nathan mused, "I wouldn't be impressed if it actually happened."

 

So. Dress the part. Now, think the part. Mmmm, men. Big, muscular, hunky men. Smaller, feminine men. Light-boned. Hair, blowing in the wind. Like a woman. Mmmm, women. Skirt lifting up like the Marilyn Monroe - no! Men, it was supposed to be. But it's just not natural for me. Whatever you might think of a guy who knows how to apply make-up, I really don't have the slightest attraction to other guys. Not the littlest inkling of what a woman sees in us. They've got their curves and their great hair and those little feminine smiles going for them. But the average male?

 

"Hey, Natty," I called. "What's attractive about men?"

 

She giggled. "Their bums," she said. "Their muscles." A slight pause. Another giggle. "Oh, lots of things. You know. You're all just so cute."

 

Cute?

 

Well, whatever. Do without the thinking the part, then.

 

 

----------

 

 

Wild Oscar's was actually quite a bit of fun, at first. Nathan pretended to be insanely jealous whenever I looked around, and elbowed me a few times, until he got tired of it.

 

"Man, they have all the fun, here," he exclaimed at one point, though I'm not sure what about. Aside from the fact that there were no women there, there didn't seem to be much that was different from bars at home. Well, the ones in Alberta, since we weren't old enough to drink back at home, either. Nathan said it was the fact that we were somewhere new, doing something different, that gave us the confidence to try sneaking in when we weren't old enough. I say, that was a lot of hooey since neither of us had ordered anything alcoholic yet for fear of being ID'd. At any rate, we had decided that if anyone *did* check our IDs, we would fake nonchalance until they actually saw our driver's licenses and then pretend that we had assumed the drinking age was the same as back home, which hopefully no one would know was abundantly false, since it *was* the same.

 

The evening turned sour when Bo tried to muscle in on my date. We'd just been sitting at a table, minding our own business, when this guy with a fantastic red beard sits down at our table. ("In ten years, man," Nathan told me later, "I *want* that!") "Well, ain't you a sweetie," he crooned, looking directly at Nathan, who gulped. "Why dun' you jist git us a drink, hon?" he said to me.

 

"Um," I managed, also gulping. This guy, have I mentioned yet, he was huge. Like trucker size. Stereotypical, big gay trucker guy size. Geez.

 

"Um, that's my partner," I said, trying to sound tough, but not *too* tough.

 

"Yeah?"

 

He turned his attention back to Nathan, and clapped his arm over his back. His big, hairy, muscled arm. Have I mentioned that Nathan and I are both pretty scrawny? Well, Nathan isn't scrawny, exactly. A little on the stocky side, actually. But short. And absolutely *not* tough. And me, maybe not scrawny either, exactly. But lean. And next to *this* guy? Both scrawny as a pencil in a potato factory.

 

"M'name's Bo," said Bo. "Wha's yours?"

 

"Nate," muttered Nathan, trying and failing to sound convinced. He never goes by Nate. At least, not since he started dating Natalie. Anything that underlines the similarities in the names, he avoids. She finds it intensely amusing, though, and even jokes about it when introducing him to people she already knows. "Nat 'n Nat," she'll say. "I better not marry him, or I'll have to take his last name and then no one will know the difference between us any more."

 

Anyway.

 

So there's this guy, flirting with my beau right in front of my eyes. At least, that's what I was trying to convince myself, because I instinctively knew that if this man found out we were not actually gay, he would crush us flat. So I needed to reclaim 'Nate', and I needed to do it absolutely convincingly. And not get beat up.

 

Yeah.

 

"Ahem," I said. "That's my partner."

 

"You tell 'im," Nate goes, staring straight into his coke. Rum and coke, that is, since if I'm playing the part, we're both drinking. In fact, we're both drunk. Yesss. I began to slur my speech a little, hoping the change is inconspicuous.

 

"My partner. And we're jus' here for a quiet evening, see?"

 

Bo smiled. "Izzat right?"

 

"Nate. Nate, you're not gonna go off with him, now are ya?"

 

"He's awfully well-built," Nate murmured. "I bet he has a great bum." Oh God. Oh *God*! He was actually *enjoying* this! The man had his arm around my friend, and he was built like a trucker, no, built like a *truck*, and Nathan was blithely joking around, hoping the man didn't realize he was being made fun of!

 

I stood up. I was angry. At least, I was trying to be angry. Angry is realistic, and our only chance to get out of there alive was to appear genuine, and not tick the guy off, and not get beat up.

 

"Look," I said, still being careful to slur my words just enough. I took a swig of my rum and coke, for the effect. "He probably does. But no one can convince me that yours isn't better, and I won't just give you up."

 

Oh *no*. Not only had I probably just made him want to look at Nathan's butt, but that sounded *so* phony, I couldn't believe he wasn't just going to execute us on the spot.

 

Bo stood up, too, facing me.

 

"Ohhh!" squealed Nathan. "He *does*!" And then, right in front of my eyes, he reached out and squeezed it. God, but I would have been worried about Nathan at that point if he hadn't shuddered while doing it.

 

Bo whirled around. He glanced Nathan up and down, assessing him. I prayed that he would come to the right - ie, wrong - conclusion. He opened his mouth, closed it, then grinned and said, "You like that sort of thing, sweetie?"

 

"Do I ever," crooned Nathan. "Lemme just get rid of Mr. Overprotective here and we'll have ourselves a much better evening."

 

My turn to be looked over. "Sure you dun' want me ta handle it?"

 

"Ohh yes, we'll just have a little talk outside, won't we?"

 

I gulped, trying to look upset and angry, but feeling extremely relieved. "We'll just have a good chat, and we'll see if I can't win you back."

 

Bo watched skeptically as we made our way to the door. "Wait until he looks away," hissed Nathan when we got outside. He stationed himself facing the window and we feigned a heartfelt breaking-up scene - for about the 30 seconds before Nathan barked "Now!" and turned heel.

[Katzaniel]

When we were safely back in our room, we collapsed in a laughing heap. Natalie immediately demanded to know what was so funny, of course, so we told her and she joined in. Now that it was over, the whole thing was hilarious. What kind of a guy was named Bo, anyway? God. Or *acted* like that? And the whole discussion about bums? Ridiculous!

 

Nathan snorted. "I'm a better actor than you thought, hey dude? That was rockin'! That was slash!"

 

He sure was. He'd been speaking differently and everything. "Yes, but couldn't you have resisted complimenting his behind? Or *grabbing* it?"

 

"Caught up in the moment, man. We had to look authentic 'n all."

 

"Yeah." I sighed, then started into a giggling fit again. "Bo!"

 

We readied ourselves for bed, then, discussing the next day. No one said anything aloud, but Nathan and Natalie gravitated toward one bed, so I took the other. Perhaps if I'd had any expectation of being woken up by a creaking bed I might have spoken up, but I didn't think I would be, and I wasn't, either.

 

Natalie had us slotted for a tour of Hudson Laboratories in the morning and the Aerospace Museum in the afternoon. I shrugged my shoulders, not having any quarrels. We ordered breakfast from the hotel restaurant, very good strawberry waffles if you ever decide to go, and then headed out.

 

Our tour guide had one of those thin black mustaches you see on butlers with slicked-back hair, you know, the ones in movies, except that this guy didn't have the slicked-back hair; he was balding. He had little beady eyes, though. The ones that make you instinctively distruct the person behind them. We spent most of the tour whispering to each other about the evil deeds that this man must routinely perform. Well, mostly it was Nathan, but I contributed a few. By the time we'd walked the building, we had him driving a getaway car for bank robbers, laundering money for criminals, and disposing of the occasional body in the dead of night. Oh, and Nathan bumped into a table and nearly knocked over a row of beakers. The guide had absolutely perfected the art of the contemptuous stare.

 

Afterward he let us loose into a cafeteria-like area. We slid into our seats, and Natalie immediately started going on about getting in to see some Dr. Engleton.

 

"I couldn't bring myself to talk to our guide, not after you two said so much about him. You had me half believing it all."

 

"What?"

 

"The guide. About him being so rotten. No, we'll have to ask one of the janitors." She jumped up and trotted over to a man cleaning a window, and began talking to him. I looked at Nathan and found him looking back at me, with the same expression of confusion that I was sure I myself displayed. Natalie returned, complaining that the man had turned her away. Apparently tourist weren't allowed to talk to the scientists. And apparently Natalie had attempted to look like someone who belonged in here, but failed.

 

"Spik, you try it. You can look like someone who's not a tourist."

 

"What are you *talking* about?!" I burst out. "Who is Dr. Engleton?"

 

"The scientist that was on the news. Don't you guys remember?"

 

Well, of course I remembered *now*. Natalie must have done a little research on him and found out where he worked and everything. "Yeah," I conceded. "So what do you want me to do?"

 

Natalie explained patiently. "Find another janitor, and just pretend you're asking about him for some legitimate reason."

 

"Uh huh." I cast my eyes around. A gift shop, perfect. I wandered over to it and found exactly what I'd hoped: A clip board, a pen, some paper, and a pin. Back at our table, I fashioned myself a badge that said "Grotto High - Reporter". A real journalist wouldn't be wandering around the building - they'd call. (When I suggested doing the same, Natalie informed me that she didn't want to give him an out. She wanted to see him face to face.) Besides, I don't *look* like a real journalist.

 

I excused myself a second time, and made my way to the part of the building where they list everyone's office, and jotted down a few names. I also tossed in some questions on the page, for authenticity. "How much does a researcher make in a year?" "Do you really wear those white lab coats all the time?" "What path does one take to get a career here?"

 

Then I went to the front desk and introduced myself as a high school student doing an article on science as a career. I asked the receptionist a few basic questions before asking whether I could speak to (looking down at my clipboard at this point) Dr. Wik, Dr. Trevvison, Dr. Michaels and Dr. Engleton.

 

I am informed that Dr. Michaels is far too busy to take interviews at the moment, and Dr. Engleton is away from the city on a trip, but that I can make an appointment to see the others sometime this afternoon if I am willing to wait around a bit. "Oh," I said, suddenly feigning to be extremely embarrassed. "The article is kind of due by four. How long might I have to wait?" Only an hour or so, I am told. "But that's too long," I claim, "I have to write it still. Oh dear. Maybe I'd better write about something different this week."

 

Man, I'm good at this. I didn't even plan that part. Just that, and I got an apologetic smile and went away free. Natalie would be disappointed that the man wasn't in town, though.

 

She was. In fact, a little beyond disappointed.

 

"Did you get his office number? When you were looking at the list?"

 

What?

 

"Yeah. I think. Um... 402. Yeah."

 

"We need to sneak in."

 

Nathan laughed aloud at this. "Man, that would be slash. But *why*?"

 

Natalie was taken aback. "I just... guys, it's hard to explain. But part of me *believed* what he said, on TV. Or at least believed that *he* believed it. So... so if it were true, or partially true... well, maybe they killed him." We both started at this, and she rushed on. "Or are keeping him prisoner, or something. We owe it to him to find out."

 

"Geez," breathed Nathan.

 

"Wow," I muttered, trying to figure out when Natty had become a conspiracy theorist. "I... geez." I didn't know what to say. I had suddenly found myself looking into two decided faces again. Natalie because some crackpot scientist's convictions had made her to travel across the country on a whim, and she was determined to see it through, and Nathan because he loved adventure of any sort. And me, because I couldn't let them go it alone.

 

"Alright." I deflated. "What do you want me to do?"

 

Natalie settled into the hard plastic chair with a serious thinking expression on her face.

 

"Easy, man," concluded Nathan with a smile, "Spik goes back and distracts the receptionist with more questions, see - say you're doing the article on careers in administration now, 'kay dude - and we sneak in. Wait in the bathrooms until the place closes. It'll have to be the women's. Probably can do it just with an out-of-order sign. Anyway, we let you in, man, then we're good to go."

 

Natalie opened her mouth a few times, apparently deciding which question to begin with. "Okay, won't the door be locked?"

 

"Nah. The door to the labs, for sure. But no one wants to bring out their keys just to get to their office. And if it ain't, no big loss. We'd just need a new plan. If we need another distraction, Spik can have forgotten some questions he wanted to ask."

 

"And, why the women's?" She said this half-accusingly.

 

"'Cause there won't be as many people in and out of those ones, dude. The scientists, the janitors, the security guards - all mainly men."

 

It was clear that Natalie wanted to disagree with this, but couldn't. We hadn't seen one woman since coming in, and that included the front receptionist. Presumably women were around, but there were obviously much fewer of them at this place.

 

So I found myself, barely a quarter of an hour later and just as prepared as that time gave me, at the receptionist's desk again. Clipboard in hand and ready to play the part for all it was worth, my only extraneous thought was that I needed to sit or stand in such a way that the young man would not be looking where he could see my friends come in and go through that door. I sweated my way through that interview, and if I must say so myself, I did a pretty good job. I could have written a fantastic article, if I had had to do any such thing. Half an hour later, I had three pages of scribbled notes and a very good idea what the job of a receptionist is really about.

 

I left the building, surveyed for my friends, and sighed in relief when they weren't there. I had gotten so in-character for that time that I probably couldn't have thought of any missing questions, had the need arisen. Besides, half an hour should have given them plenty of time to rethink their options. Anyway, the place didn't close until after five (officially, they closed at precisely five, but there would probably be close-down time before everyone was gone) so I had to find something to keep myself busy until then.

 

I started to write that article, actually. I went to a little cafe and worked my way through the notes, pretending I was a journalist from the ficticious Grotto High. At Grotto High everyone played volleyball, I decided. But I, soon-to-be world-renowned journalist, wanted to show them what life outside of sports was like. Then I got distracted by this great-looking girl with incredible hair and a ball cap. I wouldn't have spoken to her if she hadn't had the cap on, despite those lips and amazing eyes, but there it was. I slid in beside her.

 

"Do you play ball?"

 

Okay, so it wasn't one of the best pick-up lines of all time. But I like baseball, and here's this great-looking girl with a ball cap on. Turned out she did play, too. We chatted for a moment about teams.

 

"What's your name?" Her hair was red. Geez, what fantasic red. More orange, really, though. Not sure why everyone calls it red.

 

"Stephanie," she giggled, "What's yours?" I hoped she wasn't brainless. Nothing bugs me more than a girl who goes around looking fantastic but then hasn't a thought in her head.

 

"Spik," I told her, watching as her green eyes widened a bit in confusion.

 

"Spit?"

 

"No," I laughed gently. "Spik. Like in 'Spick 'n span'. It's not my real name, just a nickname. But everyone calls me that now, even my dad."

 

"Spick 'n span?"

 

I could tell she wasn't following. But, just in case, I thought I'd keep trying. I mean, she knew the current situation is baseball. She couldn't be a complete dolt.

 

"When I was little I wanted to be Skip, see. But I couldn't really pronounce it right. I kept getting it wrong. And everyone thought it was so funny, they called me Spik as a joke. It just caught on."

 

"But why would they do that?"

 

Man. What she *trying* to be dense? A nickname is a nickname. It doesn't have to jeopardize what had been a good conversation. Geez.

 

"It was funny. I didn't mind. It's better than my real name, anyway. I don't like people knowing my real name."

 

There it was. I didn't actually mind so much, my name isn't *that* bad. But now I'd know: if she asked now, I would just walk away. No one but a fool would ask now.

 

"What *is* your real name?"

 

Ah, geez. Well, there it was then.

 

"Oh, lookit the time! I've got to finish this article by four, I'm sorry! I completely forgot!" I gestured frantically at my half-written article.

 

"Ohhh," she said, getting excited. "What's it about?"

 

"I've got ten minutes to finish," I hinted, "I can come back and tell you after."

 

"Maybe I can help?" she offered. Bah!! What did she think she could do?!

 

"No, I've got to do it myself," I insisted, and swept everything into my arms. "If I don't come back, the editor is giving me grief. Nice meeting you. Sorry to rush off." And I rushed off.

 

I found another cafe, and for fifty straight minutes I lamented the state of a world where it was so difficult to find pretty, smart, interesting single gals. Then I made my way back to Hudson Labs. Where to hang out, I wondered, so that no one who works there would see me, but not so far that Nat n' Nat (I snickered) would worry about me?

 

Apparently I chose poorly, because a couple of minutes before closing I was shooed away from the building by a security guard. Female, I noted with just a little relief. Not some kind of biological experiment going on in there. Geez, where was I getting these paranoid thoughts? I guess from Natalie's sudden belief in some crazy plot, coupled with the plethora of misdeeds we had imagined for our poor tour guide just this morning. Anyway, so I had to circle around and, to be safe, didn't come back until a quarter after. And she was still there! I managed to glimpse her from behind. God! I waited until after six this time. If I was found again outside the doors, there would be more trouble than just worrying my friends. Good thing, too, because when I got there I found Nathan hanging out outside the door with the news that she had been patrolling around for the last hour and *just* left. Then he pulled me away from that door, explaining that there was a security camera stationed on it, and ushered me inside a side door. This one had a camera, too, but one that swivelled. God, it was like being in a spy movie. We darted down one hallway after another, always with an eye on the cameras. My heart raced. We would be caught for sure. I was especially worried about Nathan running headlong into something and starting the alarms going, but he was being really careful. Very excited - he kept going on about how much this whole thing rocked - but also very careful.

 

"Dude, you should have been there. It was totally slash. We almost got found out. We managed to avoid the guard by pretending the door was jammed - man, my heart was beating like crazy, we were both balanced on the toilet and I was hanging onto that door for dear life - and then slipping into the other bathroom when he went away to get help. But then when the door opened with no trouble, man, they split up and started searching all the other rooms again. Of course we should have realized that would happen, but dude, it was intense! It was like a great big game of freeze tag. We couldn't let the cameras see us. We couldn't make any noise. And we were running all around trying to get somewhere they'd already searched without being seen. I've never done anything so awesome in my life. It was so slash. Anyway, that's why it took so long for me to get out there."

 

Frankly, I was glad I'd missed it.

 

We met up with Natalie again inside the guy's office. Apparently he hadn't left it locked, thank God. Or we would have been there trying to pick it, and I don't think any of us knows how. As it was, Natalie spent half an hour trying to hack into his computer while we searched around for other information, before Nathan stumbled across a yellow sticky note on the underside of the desk, with "silver(47)" scrawled on it. Even so, we almost didn't get it to work until Natalie realized that what looked like an incidental line was actually a hint for which letters were capitalized. Clever guy - except not so clever that he can remember his password, apparently.

 

What we found in the computer appeared to be solid evidence of Dr. Engleton's insanity. There were various files showing tabulated data that meant very little to us, and then what appeared to be a report for a journal - about *magic*. We read through the whole thing, and it sounded very scientific, until the point where he pulled off a tangent and claimed that the results became less and less compliant with conventional knowledge and that for all intents and purposes they had discovered *magic*.

 

Natalie was quite disgusted. "No matter *what* he found," she insisted, "there has to be an explanation within the realm of science. It might not be something we understand yet, but eventually science will explain it."

 

The "magic" they had found was apparently illusions that looked and felt as if an object was really there, for all persons affected by a "magicked" solution. At the end of the report he had made some informal notes. "Too unbelievable! Can't call it magic." "Expand on section C." "How to explain dip in solidity?" "Any way to increase length of effect?" and "How can I convince them we must publish this?"

 

What was most interesting of all, though, Natalie found under the misleadingly titled 'PhoneNumbers.doc'. She'd been hoping to find a way to contact him, she said, but instead we found notes on research he had been conducting, it appeared, without the knowledge of the rest of the group. "Instead of the illusions being dependent on a liquid," he wrote after a long mess of chemical equations and numerical information, "I have succeeded in creating a solid that actually affects everyone within a certain radius."

 

And, at the very end of the file, "I have created several bracelets containing bits of this material. Each bit is capable of remembering a single illusion, of varying complexity. I will give these out to members of the press. Hopefully someone will try to get it to work after I have finished talking to them, and the others will have lifted their anti-illusionment spell from the area. (How do they DO that?!?!)"

 

Sitting on the computer monitor was a little duck. Hanging around its neck was a silver charm bracelet. Each charm segment held a blue-green crystal.

[Katzaniel]

We all looked at each other, then back to the bracelet. Nathan started to reach forward, then looked at us again as if for permission. I half-shrugged, since I'd been hoping I wouldn't have to figure it out anyway. Natalie didn't move, just let out a sort of confused laugh. Which I didn't understand, since she was the one who had seemed to believe all along that something was up. Not that the existence of this bracelet meant a thing regarding plausability of the story; just that it meant we would have our final answer, one way or the other, very shortly. You'd think the one who brought us here would be the one eager to find out.

 

My buddy grabbed the thing and slid it onto his arm. It looked odd over the beige bunnyhug we was wearing. He gave us an apologetic smile, then closed his eyes. He was totally silent for some time before opening them, and cursing. "Nothing? Man, nothing at all? I mean, I thought... a sizzle, at least, or something!"

 

"Maybe you didn't do it right," I said. I mean, it's not like we knew what the guy thought he had done.

 

"Yeah." He didn't sound convinced. He reached down and opened a drawer in the desk. In it were another dozen bracelets. "Found 'em while searching," he asserted, and tossed one to each of us. I caught it instinctively, but kind of wished I hadn't. Who knew what it did? Anyway, now I did remember his wondering aloud why the man would have a drawerful of jewelry.

 

Natalie grimaced at the thing and put it on. She began by tapping and twisting at it, while Nathan turned back to his and started in with verbal commands. I looked at mine. Truth to tell, I felt awfully silly doing anything with it. I certainly didn't want to put it on yet. Well, it had said that each segment could hold one illusion. Maybe they needed to be stored somehow, still. I wandered over to the desk and held the bracelet against the stuffed duck.

 

"It's just a standard charm bracelet," said Natalie, exasperated. "The charms come in and out, but I can't twist them or anything!"

 

"What does turning them the other way do?" I said idly, wondering if it would beep when ready, or what.

 

"Have you ever tried to take these things in and out?" she snapped, "I've been trying, but it just won't come." Immediately Nathan went over to her and started helping. No room for three, I figured, and started working on my own. Geez, she was right. They don't make these things for ease of changing around. Why hadn't he stuck with old-style charm bracelets, anyway? I ended up wedging it between my knees and sticking a pen in either side before it came out. And trust me, there were any number of failed attempts, flying pens, swear words and sore fingers before I was done.

 

"It isn't really any different upside down, is it?" observed Nathan, glaring at the one they had finished reattaching.

 

"Maybe inside out?" Natalie wondered.

 

"Dude, I'm not taking that out again!" he cried, licking his finger.

 

"How about this one?" I said, perfectly willing to surrender my own version.

 

Natalie came to help, so of course Nathan did too. Between the three of us, and with a little experience under our belts now, we managed to get it in there. "Well, here goes," I said, slipping it on. I glanced around. No duck. No nothing.

 

"Oh, *God*! managed Nathan, staring at a point above me. He had gone a little pale. Natty was staring too, with an unreadable expression. I whirled around, but still saw nothing. Natalie was giggling now. "What, what?" I said, getting upset. If they were pulling my leg...

 

"There's... there's a *duck* on your head," she laughed. "God, how did you get it to do that?" And at that moment I realized that there *was* a bit of a weight on my hair. I reached up and pulled it off.

 

Nathan had recovered. "Rock on! So... so it works! It really works! Slash! It's like... I guess it *is* like magic!"

 

"Not magic," muttered Natalie, but she was staring in equal amazement at the replica in my hands.

 

In all that trying to figure out how these things might work, I had actually sort of forgotten that they might not. It was awfully weird, the thought that the stone could take an imprint of the object (I suddenly realized I had not even moved it to all angles of the duck, just pressed it against its back) and create a duplicate. Or an apparent duplicate, apparently. I laughed aloud at this thought. An apparent duplicate, apparently.

 

"What?"

 

I tossed the stuffed animal to Natalie. She caught it. "Feels real, doesn't it?" She patted it a bit.

 

"Sure does."

 

"I wonder how he figures it *isn't* real," I mused.

 

 

----------

 

We decided to take all of the bracelets with us. We did this mainly because Natalie convinced us that the other scientists must have done something to our Dr. Engleton.

 

"I never got to tell him how slash his mustaches are," lamented Nathan while scooping out the drawer.

 

We left a note in the drawer, just in case.

 

"Dear Dr. Engleton.

 

We are not marauders, though we have borrowed your stuff. We aren't sure what we can

do about it, but we believe you. We have acted out of a suspicion that you are no

longer okay. Please contact us at flyingcool44@hotmail.com if you get this message.

 

Apologies,

 

3 well-wishers."

We didn't want to give too much away about ourselves or even mention the bracelets directly lest the other scientists or even someone else find the note. We figured it was okay to leave Natty's email address, though. We'd make sure to stop into an internet cafe every so often, and hopefully we would receive something eventually. If not... well, we'd figure out what to do when that happened. Probably we would then go to the press. Or the police.

 

In the meantime, the thing to figure out was how to get out of here. Nathan suggested - and we tried - to get the illusion to extend to nonillusions, ie make us invisible. But when that didn't work, we resorted to the way we'd come in: just being careful to avoid all of the cameras as they swooped by.

 

When we finally got back to the room, it was about eleven o'clock. "Guess we missed the Aerospace Museum," Nathan cracked before he hit the bed.

 

I woke to the bright rays of the sun in my eyes. "Ohhh," I grumbled, "what time is it? Go away, yonder sun! Or however that poem goes."

 

"It's two." Natalie was on the hotel room floor, instruments of all types spread out around her. "I intentionally booked us a room with windows to the west."

 

"Oh," I said, a little less grumbly. "Ah. Well, still!" Yesterday *had* been awfully long and adventure-filled. I wasn't used to all that *action*. Besides, a guy deserves a little sleeping to two every once in a while, when he's on vacation.

 

Nathan emerged from the washroom, still towelling his hair dry. "Morning, Spik," he chimed in. "Nice of you to join us."

 

A loud laugh belayed the statement. "Oh yes, Mr. Woke Up at One-Thirty!"

 

"Can't a guy sleep in when he's on vacation?" queried Nathan, spreading his hands innocently. He winked at me. "So what are you doing, anyway? Oh, hey, those are Dr. Englebert's -" ("Engleton," interjected Natty) "- bracelets. And ... pipe cleaners? Oh, so slash. Do it again. Coooool. Spik, didja see that?"

 

Yes, I had seen it, though I didn't get a chance to tell Nathan before he went on to describe the process for me.

 

"Rock on! Look, she's just threading in the pipe cleaner so that she can pull on it and the charm, she's using it like a third hand, man, and then it unhooks neatly. Oh, so awesome, man. That's great. How did you think of that, Natty? You're so clever. I bet you just woke up this morning thinking you were going to find a better way to work those..."

 

He still hadn't given her a chance to answer when I decided to get up and shower, myself. But that's all right, Natalie was almost rolling on the floor with amusement at her boyfriend. She didn't mind his oddities. How could she, when she got her daily kicks out of them?

 

"Today was Casa Loma," announced Natalie when I had finished. "Do we want to take up where we left off yesterday, with the museum, or head to Casa Loma for an afternoon, or just enjoy a day off, or what?"

 

Note: The struck-out bit has been replaced with the non-struck-out text, but is being left in in case anyone wants to read it. Also, I had already referred to it in another post, so I may as well leave it there.

 

"I'd kinda like to kick back," I started to say, but Nathan was already getting excited. "I want to try out these suckers," he was saying. "Let's do Casa Loma, and see if we can't illusion ourselves some fun. Maybe they can even do outfits! We could steal some guide costumes without even lifting a hand -"

 

"What, and give tours of the castle for free?" murmured Natalie, eyes sparkling.

 

He was so caught up he didn't even notice the sarcasm. "- yeah, that, or ... man, that place has secret passages, right? We could sneak into a bunch of them, or ..."

 

Well, it was out of my hands. I recognized the one-of-my-friends-is-carried-away and one-of-my-friends-is-going-to-go-along-with-it expressions on Nathan and Natalie respectively.

 

Man, I just want to skip to the interesting part. I can do that, can't I? You're not all that keen on hearing about Casa Loma, are you? Suffice to say that we found out, most intrigueingly, that we *could* create an illusion of clothing. It worked wonderfully well, in fact. We stopped in an internet cafe for lunch and to check Natty's messages, then the three of us pretended to be tour guides in order to sneak off into some of the off-limits rooms. We then attempted, with low to zero success rates, to work the secret passageways. When we got tired of it, we headed back to the room. The next morning, we were actually going to run through the Aerospace Museum tour, but when we checked messages there *was* one.

 

 

"Dear Well-wishers,

 

I had given up hope of being believed. I would like to meet and speak with you,

though you can keep the bracelets if you feel you can use them to convince anyone

else of the truth.

 

What time can you meet in the Wendy's across from the Labs?

 

Attentively waiting for your response,

 

John Engleton"

Well.

 

It was all a little confusing. So had he actually left the city? And why, if he hadn't been in trouble? And why come back, if he had? We were a little concerned about meeting him. Natalie worried that he really *had* been killed, the killer had already ransacked his computer or at least knew about the bracelets (if not the purpose), and was now intending to use illusion somehow to become the doctor. I was a little skeptical about this since the three of us had already tried and failed to change things about ourselves; even simple things like adding a beard appeared impossible. But it *was* possible that the other scientists had found ways of doing it.

 

Finally we settled on the action plan of meeting him (he had suggested a public venue, after all, and we could always decide not to go in if there appreared to be too many patrons, ie, thugs, according to the theories Natalie was spouting) and then asking him how many bracelets there had been. We figured if he had actually sweated over the making of each and every one, he would know. Otherwise, he would not.

 

"I'd kinda like to kick back," I started to say, but Nathan was already getting excited. "I totally want to try out these suckers," he was saying. "Let's test them out, and see if we can't illusion ourselves some fun. Like, can they make us look like we're floating? Can we make ourselves a *car*? Oh, dudes, maybe they can do outfits! Or - oh, so many things to try!"

 

I had to admit, I was curious too. So, using Natty's technique for quickly flipping around the charms, we started playing around. The first thing we discovered was that the illusion was dependent on distance (Natalie insisted that this had been in the notes we found) but that you could go a pretty reasonable ways before the image disappeared. I mean, say we create an illusion of Nathan's kangaroo, and I put it, and the bracelet, on. Then I walk away. I can still see and feel the sweater, but when I go far enough Nathan and Natalie simultaneously report it disappearing. Now say I pass the charms to one of them. At that same distance, I am no longer wearing the kangaroo - except to the person holding the bracelet. So it's not the distance of the viewer from the illusion, or the illusion from the bracelet, but of the viewer from the bracelet - though someone had to be wearing it, for some reason. Anywhere within the hotel room was close enough, we noted, so most rooms would be small enough. But too much further, we saw, and it was too far.

 

Next we determined that size is limitted, or mass. Much to Nathan's disappointment; he had been dreaming of cloning ourselves a convertible. We didn't realize immediately that the limit wasn't static. We were lucky: when Nathan got up to go to the washroom, the duplicate television disappeared on him. Prior to that, we thought we had determined that the size limit was just between the table and the TV. Now we realized that anything much heavier than a chair would have much too small of a working distance to be useful.

 

Objects had a tenuous defintion of a single item or multiple items, but we thought we had it figured out: if the real item was in one piece, the bracelet could do it as one illusion, that is with one stone. There was no problem with taking the illusion apart (we made an illusion of one of the charm bracelets, as a test) but as soon as the object from which it had been illusioned was two separate pieces, the smaller piece disappeared. So, we could make a pile of clothes and copy them, and as long as no one touched the pile and took them apart, one charm could reasonably handle a hat, shirt, pants, belt and shoes. Distance on that was about ten metres. Pretty cool.

 

There didn't seem to be any way to make an illusion of a person, or part of a person, like their hair. Unless we snipped a bit off, and then it wasn't very useful - just a clump of hair. We even went outside and tried to make a copy of an ant. No dice. Nothing alive, it seemed, or connected to anything alive. Nothing wrong with *touching* a person, but apparently any part of them was off limits.

 

The next morning, we were actually going to run through the Aerospace Museum tour, but when we checked messages there *was* one. We were a little startled by this, since we had had supper in an internet cafe only the night before to make sure nothing had been sent.

 

"Dear Well-wishers,

 

I had given up hope of being believed. I would like to meet and speak with you,

though you can keep the bracelets if you feel you can use them to convince anyone

else of the truth.

 

What time can you meet in the Wendy's across from the Labs?

 

Attentively waiting for your response,

 

John Engleton"

Well. It was all a little confusing. So had he actually left the city? And why, if he hadn't been in trouble? And why come back, if he had? We were a little concerned about meeting him. Natalie worried that he really *had* been killed, the killer had already ransacked his computer or at least knew about the bracelets (if not the purpose), and was now intending to use illusion somehow to become the doctor. She maintained that just because *we* hadn't found a way didn't mean that it was impossible.

 

Finally we settled on the action plan of meeting him (he had suggested a public venue, after all, and we could always decide not to go in if there appreared to be too many patrons, ie, thugs, according to the theories Natalie was spouting) and then asking him how many bracelets there had been. We figured if he had actually sweated over the making of each and every one, he would know. Otherwise, he would not.

Edited November 9, 2005 by Katzaniel

[Katzaniel]

"I made twenty," he said without hesitation. "One ... two ... I gave four away. I carry one with me at all times, though I haven't successfully used it in weeks. So, there should have been fourteen in the drawer plus the one on the computer."

 

Natalie sighed in relief, and the three of us took our seats. It had occurred to us that even the man who made them might not know the *exact* number remaining. We introduced ourselves; I was happy to see that he barely even paused at hearing my name.

 

Not surprisingly, Dr. Engleton wanted to understand why and how precisely we had broken into his office. Nathan did most of the talking, and basically told him everything. The doctor then explained that he had, indeed, gone on a trip.

 

"I've done the media circuit," he sighed, "and no one believes a word I say. Most journalists won't even speak with me for more than a few minutes, and of those that do, very few will publish anything or agree to do what I've shown them with one of the bracelets after I've gone. My daughter is seriously talking about having me committed, and how can I blame her? She's never seen the evidence herself. I must sound like a raving lunatic. She talked me into going on a bit of a vacation, seeing how that affected me, and now I think the best thing for me is to forget about the whole thing."

 

"But why were you so determined to tell people about it before?" queried Nathan.

 

"Ah," the man sighed into his mustaches. "You cut to the heart of the matter, young man. When we first realized what was going on, we talked about whether or not to go to the media. I wasn't the only one who wanted to, at first. But Dr. Michaels is a very persuasive man, and he talked to us about fame and fortune. He said we would wait a few years, and *then* tell the world. What harm, to carefully settle ourselves, make sure we'd all have a comfortable retirement, and then let some up-and-coming kids take the credit? That bit was so that no one would trace our money to the magic. I disagreed, though. As a scientist, I have the obligation not to hide new advances. And as a human, I have the obligation not to take something that is not mine. So I threatened to go to the media myself, hoping they would come around and realize they at least wanted to be part of it. Perhaps that was my problem; they must have used that warning to find some way to prevent the illusions for working for me, or even around me, apparently. I don't know how. They didn't say a word of warning, and they won't talk about it. And of course, after the first unfortunate incident of telling people about the whole thing and not having it work for me, I had a professional image to restore. It's horrible, having everyone laugh at you. But it's lessened now, and besides, I've resigned myself to it. And maybe eventually I can rebuild some portion of my old reputation."

 

Dr. Engleton occasionally tugged at his mustaches, or blew a whistling sigh. Nathan sat entranced, listening to him, and more than once I saw my friend blow on his own upper lips, almost as if he didn't realize what he was doing. I nudged him, but he just looked at me blankly. I just hoped the man would not notice.

 

"Man," said Nathan disconsolately, as we sat there digesting the information. We were silent for a while, thinking. Finally I got up, and went to the counter to order myself a cheeseburger. It's no good hanging around in a fast food place and not eating. Nathan called to me to get him one too, and I looked at Dr. Engleton, who shook his head, as did Natalie, even upon treatment to a poke from her boyfriend. Well, we hung out for a bit longer and chatted, but the whole thing was generally very anticlimactic. Dr. Engleton told us to go ahead and keep the charm bracelets, though he sort of suspected they wouldn't work for some time now that we had brought them near him again.

 

"It's fascinating to hear that my being gone for two weeks fixed them, but they haven't worked for me since the first time I tried to go the media, not long after I made them. No illusions have. And the people that I gave those four away to, when I phoned them back afterward they all insisted that they had had no success. Anyway, do what you want. At this point, I'm not sure I do want the world to know. The world doesn't seem to be ready. And *I'm* not ready. I've found out I don't much like fame; if you guys would promise to wait a decade or two until I've passed away, and then tell everyone, I'd be much obliged. That way I can just pretend it never happened, and know that the world will know, eventually."

 

Nathan set down his burger at this point and ran into the men's room to test the bracelets. He came back, head hung. "Just like that. Man, I wonder what they *did* to you. That totally sucks."

 

And so, we finished out the rest of our vacation, and went home with three hundred magic stones set in fifteen charm bracelets, and permission to use them however we wished. We each took five of them home, though none of us felt we needed more than one. And eleven days after we bid Dr. Engleton farewell, Nathan, who had apparently been testing the things every day, announced that their powers had returned.

 

Ah, in time for classes. None of us used the stones to cheat, though Nathan joked about it from time to time, pretending he might. We did use them like lockers, though, stocking coats, calculators, and textbooks. We learned not to use them for paper - the originals did not reflect anything we'd written on the illusions - or pens - the ink was also illusory, and disappeared when the bracelet was removed. We also did not attempt, after one disturbing experience with beer that tasted like air, to stock food or drink. And, yeah. We didn't always *buy* our texts. But if you had any idea how much they gouged students for those books, you wouldn't blame us. Natalie bought anything that seemed a good reference, that she might want to keep for later, which was most of her books. Nathan did the same, but that was only a few. And there weren't any that I felt I needed to keep. See, I started not knowing what I wanted. Well, I knew I wanted to be an actor, but the odds weren't all that great, and what if I ended up not getting a job? After first year, Nathan convinced me to go for it. Like I've said before, money wasn't a problem. And I talked to my dad for a long time one night, hashing out the possibilities of failure, and the consequences. He ended up supporting me. Our deal was that if, within 18 months of graduation (a compromise) I had not landed any promising acting jobs, I would go back to school.

 

Nathan was only in Engineering for the first year, too.

 

"I totally hate letting them think they're right," he complained, making reference to the fact that the professors had warned them about the incredible dropout rate. "But I just don't think it's for me, man. It's pretty slash; I like seeing how things work. But the work is totally killing me, and I think I've found something I like better."

 

The workload, of course, was greater because he was still putting in hours at Wal-mart, trying to afford it, and he wouldn't let me help him pay so that he could quit. Not even just a loan. But, and this is pretty cool, he *did* cave to my pleas to move in with me, and not insist on paying. I mean, that was part of the whole argument from the start, that he didn't think he could afford to live away from home, and I told him I could totally handle the rent on my own - I already was - and that I'd like a roommate. So I was pretty pumped when he moved in with me. He was, too, actually. ("Parties every *night*, man," he swore, but that lasted two nights before we had to cut it out in favour of homework.) Anyway, when he switched, he went into Social Work. I kind of liked that choice, actually. Nathan was always very person-oriented.

 

Natalie had zeroed in on physics, deciding that she liked it best of the sciences. She had trouble with the workload, too, always up to her ears in formulas and diagrams, but I think part of it was her refusal to settle for sub-par grades if she knew she could do better.

 

My agent found me another couple commercials, which I think is pretty good for someone my age. He gets paid by commission, so it isn't worth it for him to put a bunch of work into finding me petty jobs like that, either. I guess they come across his desk anyway, but I still felt good about it whenever it happened.

 

Nathan and I were both in third year, and Natalie was almost done, when we heard from Dr. Engleton again, via e-mail. "I just found out that Dr. Michaels and Dr. Sarid have continued experimenting all this time," he wrote. "Can I talk to you again? I think they're up to something."

[Katzaniel]

The rest of the message did not add much to that. Basically, he had overheard the two talking a few days before, and Dr. Sarid had said something about their experiments finally yielding a batch of illusions that included smell. Since he could *still* not perform the illusions himself any more, and he did not feel he could trust any of the other scientists who knew about this whole thing, he was asking us to go to the police. "I would ask you to go public despite my personal preferences," he told us, "except that then Teddy and Abraham (Drs. Michaels and Sarid respectively) would know that someone is onto them. So it might be best to go to the police first. Show them everything."

 

But what could we give the police? Nothing, absolutely nothing, at this point. There would be no warrants, no detaining, and certainly no arrests if we went to them with a "Well, Dr. Engleton doesn't think they would still be experimenting if they didn't have some scheme or other. They each already got their share of fame and fortune both." At best, the police would question the two, and then we would have squandered our sole advantage, which was having a suspicion that they didn't know we had.

 

We argued about it for a long time. Natalie wanted to go to the police despite the risks. "They know how to handle these things," she stated. Nathan wanted to go to Toronto and search one or both of their houses, on the assumption that we'd find *something*. We could then send that in anonymously, and a week later go in with our information about the illusions, so that the police weren't working blind against that. We had managed to break into an office building; these were houses, and we had our bracelets, now. I knew Natty had a point, but I tended to agree with Nathan. "It always bothers me in movies when people refuse to go to the police about these things," I complained, "but we really seem to be in a tight spot. The police would only screw it up."

 

So, that's exactly what we did. None of us had any exams scheduled for the next week, so we booked a flight the next Friday, planning to stay the weekend and accomplish the job and be back before Monday's first lecture. We made sure to pack our illusions carefully, adding screwdrivers and crowbars and flashlights and black clothing and anything we might need to do the deed. We had long ago labelled the charm bracelets and put little arrows on them, so that we could reference little sheets:

 

A. (Nathan - Travel)

1. Toothbrush

2. Razor

3. Extra Blades

 

et cetera. We couldn't pack toothpaste or shampoo or anything that way, since the illusions were substanceless, however much they often felt otherwise. We could lather it and wash our hair, but it wouldn't get any grease out. Anyway, the Extra Blades would then be the third charm after the arrow on charm bracelet A. Also, if we remembered the number but not the letter (some items had remained in their spots for years now) we could flip bracelets on inside out, so that *all* the illusions were selected, until we found the right one. And, of course, we usually wore all five of ours at once, all the time. You might think that looked odd, but we wore them on our ankles. You see, we'd been doing this for some time. We basically had one each for personal items like in the list above, and then had community charms that only happened to belong to one of us for simplicity's sake. The idea was, one of us would go, "Who's got the flashlight?" and whoever had it should know that they did, and probably which one it was in, and would be in charge of getting it out. We were all expert on flipping those little charms now, too.

 

The other thing we did before leaving was go to a costume store. We picked out things that might come in handy, like a police outfit (of course, no real officer would be fooled, it was only a costume, but who knew when it might come in handy to appear official to somebody who might not know the difference?) or a maid's outfit, or a suit, and fake beards and lots of different colours of makeup and stuff. Then we made sure we all had packed nice light clothes to wear underneath, so that we wouldn't get too hot, if we had to dress up, but so that no one who happened to be too far away would think we looked odd or remarkable in any way. At this point we were also really good at piling things on top of each other in our closet so that they could be stored in one stone. God, it was a good thing we had an apartment and didn't have to worry about parents stumbling in and wondering what was going on, or moving things. As it was, Nathan knocked a bunch of things over at one point and we had to restock three bracelets from scratch. When all was said and done - if I must say so myself - we were brilliantly well supplied.

 

The actual trip over was uneventful, though we were all extremely nervous. As much as Nathan talked excitedly about it, or as much as Natalie tried to hide her concerns, we were actually planning on seriously breaking the law. If we got caught, we might go to jail for a while, or more likely be sentenced to community service and a huge fine. At the *least*, we would have to survive a lengthy trial, and the humiliation of facing what we'd done. Not to mention the moral implications. And, if we couldn't find anything, we might have to face up to the possibility that nothing sinister was in the works. We'd already put high stakes down once and found nothing amiss. So, to say the least, tension was in the air.

 

When we got there, we met with Dr. Engleton at Wendy's again. He brought out a map and showed us where his two coworkers lived. "Teddy Michaels lives alone," he informed us. "He got divorced a couple of years ago. He's got a burglar alarm, as far as I know. Are you sure you want to go ahead with this?" He paused, breathed heavily into his mustaches, and then went on when we nodded. We had already gone over it all with him over the e-mail and then again over the phone. He agreed with us, we think, that it was necessary, because he never tried all that hard to talk us out of it. But he certainly didn't approve on general principles. "Abraham has got a wife and four kids, so even though they don't have an alarm system, good luck finding the house empty. And if you end up being the cause of his kids coming to harm, I will never forgive you." He looked us each in the eye. We sure didn't plan to harm anybody anyway, even if we *did* get caught. We told the man as much, and he smiled. "Thank God for that much, at least."

 

There was some discussion about which house to try. We settled on Dr. Michaels'; the fact that he lived alone not only made it sound the slightly easier of the two, alarm system or not, but made it seem more likely that any evidence of wrongdoing would be stored at his place. It was dark when we arrived - we guessed that he probably turned the alarm on whenever he left the house, so if we wanted to avoid facing down an electronic enemy, we would have to do the deed while he was at home. Besides which, he would probably not leave for any substantial period of time until going to work the next morning, and we didn't relish the thought of trying this in full daylight. So, one a.m. was the chosen time.

 

It was my job to make my way around the place and look into windows, trying to determine whether or not he was really asleep. Or, more accurately, whether he was up and about. It's not like we could count on his sleeping light, anyway. All we really wanted was to check for lights on, and rule out the possibility of him watching TV or reading or something. In the eventuality that he was awake, we would wait around longer. In the eventuality that he *saw* us... well, the plan involved Nathan and Natalie hightailing it out of there, and me pretending that I'd lost a baseball in his yard, and not wanting to be mistaken for a prowler had decided to see if he was awake before digging around. We'd "packed" a ball and glove for the purpose, and already dropped the ball into the bushes. I would simply pull off the bracelet that was currently supplying me with dark clothing, and try to talk my way out of trouble. But... it wasn't a very *good* plan. Marginally better than all three of us running, since an unexplained silouette in the window and a running figure would certainly alert him to us, but it was not exactly the most believable story. Really, if he saw me, we were just screwed. We would have to do anything we could to get away and then Nathan and Natalie would have to go to the police.

 

I completed a circuit of the house, peering into each window. In one, which looked like it must be the bedroom, I saw what a prone form, apparently lying asleep in bed. I kept going, though, just to be sure. When I made it back to where I'd started, I signalled my friends over and we crouched above a basement window.

 

"Man, I'm regretting this actually. This is pretty scary. Dude, I don't know how to work a crowbar or anything! How are we going to do this quietly? What if we get caught? What if he has a dog? What if..." Nathan went on as I set the crowbar against the window and surveyed the situation. I didn't know what to do either, really. And it's not like Dr. Engleton knew for sure that Teddy Michaels *didn't* have any pets, so there *was* the risk of running into a Doberman or something. But Nathan wasn't expecting an answer, he was just frittering away his nervousness by talking about it.

 

"Wait," whispered Natalie. "Or maybe, go ahead, but - okay, I don't have to tell you carefully. Anyway, I'll be back." And she disappeared into the shadows. Nathan and I shrugged at each other and turned back to the window. Gingerly, I pulled on the crowbar. Nothing happened. Man, I didn't want to put too much force on it in case it popped open and made a big crash. How *could* we keep it quiet?

 

We worked at the window for about ten minutes before Natty returned, and didn't make any real progress. I was starting to sweat. "Found it," she grinned, and held out her hand as if to give something to Nathan. He reached and took it. "Slash!" he said excitedly, and kissed her. "You rock." He handed the object to me: it was a key.

 

"In the barbeque," Natalie explained, and shrugged. God bless her.

 

The next stop was the back door, then, since we wanted to stay out of sight of curious neighbours. Natalie put the key in the door and turned it until we heard the click.

 

"Stop," said Nathan frantically, "what are we doing if the alarm goes off?"

 

We hadn't discussed this, since we hadn't counted on a key. But, of course, most alarms could be set to go off on movement, for when no one was home, or just to go off when a door was opened, for when someone was.

 

"That's all right," I answered calmly, "it won't go off."

 

Natalie raised an eyebrow. "What makes you say that?"

 

I beckoned them over to one of the windows, and showed them what I had seen earlier: The alarm's keypad. A little green light blinked periodically. "Okay, I'm not 100% sure," I told them, "but I think that's the same kind my dad's got. It blinks red when it's set." Natalie leaned as close to the window as she could. "I think most kinds do," she conceded.

 

We looked at each other. "Okay, man. But if it *does* go off, we lock and close the door, and then we get the h&!! out of here. Maybe later, dudes, much much later, we can even return the key. He just *might* assume some sorta bug caused it to go off."

 

"He'd be on alert, though," mentioned Natalie. "We won't be trying to get in again."

 

"That's for sure," was the response.

 

I nodded, slowly. So did Natty. We had our plan of action. We went back to the door, and opened it.

 

A single, quiet beep.

 

Nathan went white.

 

"I'm sure that's normal," I whispered to him.

 

"Stay here," Nathan ordered, his voice strained. And he disappeared *into* the house. Natty and I exchanged a glance. When he returned, he was calmer. "The light's still green," he told us. "May as well come in."

 

It's funny, the things you don't think of beforehand. Like, what were we supposed to do about our shoes? If we took them off, we wouldn't be able to run as quickly, if it came to that. But if we didn't, we would make more noise as we trooped across the kitchen to the stairs. It felt really odd kneeling down and removing my footwear while breaking into someone's house, but a quick hushed conversation brought us to the decision to carry our shoes with us and put them back on once we reached the basement.

 

The lower level was, by the way, a thing of awe. The two men had apparently spent some time in converting it to a mini-lab. Although the whole thing was just one big room, the floor was concrete, and the walls, with pipes clearly visible, and a water heater and a freezer lay at one end, it was incredible in that there were rows and rows of counters, all filled with beakers and measuring equipment and piles upon piles of paper.

 

"Camera," Nathan requested, when it had all registered in our minds.

 

Now here's where I get to tell you about one of the really neat things we had figured out. We couldn't bring a real, physical camera with us, that would be bulky and get in the way. Or rather, we *could*, if we had to, but it wasn't an ideal situation. But we couldn't pack a regular camera as an illusion, or the film and the ink would be illusory, too. Neither could we pack a digital camera and expect the pictures to still be there afterward - or could we? A 1 gigabit disk for a digitial camera was small enough to go in any of our pockets without hindering us. So we packed the camera as an illusion, but brought a real disk. Nathan took that out while I pulled a pipe cleaner out of my pockets and referenced our little reference sheets. Then I flipped around charm D8 and soon enough held the camera in my hands. We put the disk in and made sure the camera was set to record to the external storage. We had tested all of this at home, of course, and it worked wonderfully. The real camera might be miles away, packed in a closet in our apartment in Regina, but the illusion was still capable of sending the signals required to store on this tiny disk the pictures of this laboratory in Toronto.

 

Isn't technology great?

 

The three of us began to wander around the lab, checking out labels and riffling through papers. We found plenty of evidence that the two men had been researching this stuff for the last few years, and we documented it, but we had been there a full half hour, and getting very nervous, without coming across anything that showed what they were planning on doing with it.

 

"Hey," said Nathan quietly at one point. We gathered around. What he'd found was a list of weights, dimensions, and distances, each tied to an ID number, and some notes in the margins. This was the most easily understood thing we had found so far - most of the scientist's documentation was very technical, and it's not like they ever labelled their papers "Attempt to overcome problem such and such". It was always along the lines of "Study of electromagnetic effects on the illusion". Anyway, this sheet clearly showed that they had managed to overcome, to some extent, the limitations of weight and distance that we had noted ourselves.

 

"This sample can project a 100 kg weight up to 1,000 meters!" exclaimed Nathan, pointing at one row. "That's ten football fields! How much is 100 kg?"

 

"That's a fairly heavy person," said Natalie, who worked with weights more than we did. "And they've managed to make an illusion of a 30,000 kilogram weight - that's like, 400 people - that goes 30 meters."

 

Yikes. Clearly the heaviest objects were still limitted by distance, but most everyday things were beyond the scope of practical limitation, now, for these guys.

 

"Sample RC176," murmured Nathan, navigating the countertops for one labelled as such. He grabbed one, examining it closer. "Oh, oops, these are RL." He reached up to place the solution back onto the shelf, but the next thing I knew it was falling out of his hands. Time seemed to slow as I struggled against calling out - by the expression on his face, it was clear that he needed no warning - and watched it crash into his flailing hands. The glass broke apart and the reddish liquid fell all over my friend. Time returned to its normal speed and I rushed over to a sopping wet Nathan.

 

"Don't touch me," he ordered, "we don't know what it does." He pulled off his shirt and started using it to clean up the spill from the floor and the counter. Actually, he pulled off the illusory black shirt, tossed it on the floor, and then pulled of his actual shirt, which is what he used. At least he was thinking straight - the illusion would not have held any water.

 

"Let's get out of here," said Natalie, who was making herself useful by finishing up with the photos of interesting-looking paper documentation.

 

"Yeah," I agreed, casting around for something to store Nathan's shirt in when he was done. Oh yes, that would do it - I reoriented one of my stones and came up with an umbrella. "Thanks, dude," Nathan grinned when he saw it. He stuffed the soaked top into the umbrella and closed it, then fiddled with the bracelets around his ankle ankle he was dressed again. By this time, I had retrieved another illusory shirt; its purpose would be to serve as a makeshift broom to help dispose of the glass. Nathan reopened the umbrella and we tossed it all in there. Luckily his shirt didn't take up much room, since we had chosen our clothing to be light, and the umbrella could hold it and the glass without straining much. We were almost done when we heard the footsteps from upstairs.

 

 

NOTE: I have been reading disturbing things about "First Publishing" rights, that basically amount to the idea that if I have any thought of publishing this someday, it shouldn't be posted in its entirety in a public forum. Giving copies to friends is okay, and having it inside a passworded forum is okay. So, since I figure this is the first long story that I'm probably going to actually finish, I'd like to be more careful. I will consider posting in the guild or somewhere else, but in the meantime if you want to receive updates, please PM me or accost me on messenger. Though I wouldn't advise you to count on me being on messenger until December, either.