When Juujee was younger, she scavenged the edge of the river with her friends looking for sucksnails. They’d pop them in their mouth as they found them, being careful not to chew or swallow; then roll them around on their tongue and lie down on the bank and wait for ‘the wash’. It was hard to keep from spitting them out, which was part of the fun. Starting in the head, a warm wavy feeling would slide over them. It felt like lying on your back in the water, rippling with the waves. This eventually gave way to a brain-tickling sensation and fits of laughter, inevitably making everyone eject the sucksnails from their mouths like tiny pilots from a cockpit. One would go down the wrong way every once in a while, which caused a three-day bout of ‘the drips’—not worth talking about.
She sat at Fountain House, thinking about that wash feeling, waiting for Raket, who was going to stop by for a quick mingle before they continued on their journey. She hadn’t been popping sucksnails recently, yet she’d been feeling that sensation and caught herself laughing at all kinds of things. She giggled at the way the fountain splashed on the back of her neck as Raket came up the stairs and joined her.
In between bursts of laughter, she managed to get out, “Hey Raket! Not sure if you’ve noticed, but there’s a little bird just hanging out, right there, on your shoulder!”
Raket smiled gently and nodded as they sat down. “Yeah, I couldn’t help it. This little guy can’t walk, can’t fly, and can’t seem to keep his head straight.” To prove the point, it cocked its head from side to side.
“All right, all right, hey, so before you go, do you wanna try that thing again? I’m trying to figure something out.” She thumped the pattern on the table in front of them, “Just follow me.”
Raket joined in tentatively, closing their eyes and letting the back and forth begin with a flurry of dream-like scenes; then, without consciously doing anything, the tempo got faster, then even faster until the table started vibrating. The intensity kept building until there was a thwump, snapping them out of it. Tumbling off Raket’s shoulder, the little bird lay there dead.
“Sorry, sheesh, but I think it was on its last legs anyway,” said Juujee, not meaning to make a joke; she tried badly to hold in her snickering,
“I don’t think that’s it,” said Raket, poking at the bird hopefully, “I think it was the rhythm—drummed the life right out of it!”
Juujee held back the urge to laugh again and, with some empathy, changed the subject, “You been feeling normal these days? Like, anything out of the ordinary?”
“You mean besides hallucination inducing mingles, rescuing flightless mystery birds off of a roof and vibrating this little guy to death?”
“Point taken, just wondering, you know.—Ever suck on a snail?—Naw, just kidding, never mind.” Juujee reached over and put her hand on theirs, “Stay safe out there. Watch your step. Things are weird these days, you know? Sight and sound, lost and found.”
Raket looked pensive, and a bit worried. She couldn’t help but count them blinking their eyes, blinky blink blink blinky blink blink blinky blinky blink.
There was enough hallucinogenic byproduct from the now hyper-mobilized Fanastrigo metadido to turn most mingling encounters into shared psychedelic experiences. Less trippy confusion, this new social augmentation was imbued with an otherworldly harmony, tenuously analogous to the physical reality they lived in. It was void of conventional constructs. A language of symbols, it was living inside a metaphor.
In turn, this altered awareness was home turf for the Nebs, who could easily use this affected canvas to conjure and inflect meaning. As a result, their modus operandi was now supercharged and humans, once the passive front line, became a volatile agent in an escalating battle for supremacy.
The nightworms carved grooves in the spinal bark of a great dirigible ferrying cobra nationals, suckling fight milk from private proboscides to a darkyard of suspect materials. Here, chloroplastic aviators flapped viciously against the Reprodome. The intercom sizzled, squeaking out Mixolydian dryads. They were all trying to get in and out at the same time. Boneslugs lay low in the nutgrass, swiveling tentatively on their monopods, waiting for the Rope Lord to drop the Scepter of Netherwrath, signaling the first and last dance of Winter, their martyrdom and salvation.
This was the dizzying, transcendental arsenal available to the Nebs. In no uncertain terms, they were driving humans insane.
As Fantastrigo metadido industrialized their infrastructure, they weakened their hosts and left them susceptible to this abstracted influence; but the construction continued. Implementation and activation had already begun. The Nebs’ existence here was genus dependent, and their enemy had started taking them out with harmonic dissonance created by bead movement, building exponentially in a culling crescendo. It targeted the ultradian rhythms of birds disrupting their flight. Similarly and in tandem, this acoustic weapon also duped the ectothermic reptile systems into thinking they were overheated, compelling these animals to seek cool water and drown themselves.
The dissonant frequencies could be transmitted anywhere there was an active population concentrated in these signal emitting structures. Interestingly, the effect increased in power exponentially around water and other reflective surfaces by piggybacking on the photon energies of light in the electromagnetic spectrum. Indeed stranger than fiction.
Juujee decided to look for Dez when they hadn’t returned after a few days. Something must have happened. She worried, wishfully, that Dez needed her help.
The bubbling wash-like feeling persisted, and the multisensorial ferry ride was more entertaining than she expected. All the way, Fair Kelvin and his security squad practiced Praetentio, executing playful sneak attacks and surprise ambushes on each other, looking for a first move advantage and bragging rights.
At Mount Magnet, there were long lines at the pipes waiting for empty bullet cars. So instead of enduring the long wait, she took the lift up to the balloon docks hoping to hitch a ride to the Springs. Unfortunately, all the airships here were full or headed in the wrong direction, so she resigned to sit near the veg stand and wait.
Then, in the distance, a smaller balloon headed toward the mountain station at an unusually fast clip. Juujee stood up and giggled, spontaneously imagining this spritely airship beating giant hummingbird wings at an imperceptible speed.
Most incoming vessels would ring bells and slow their approach, but this one was silently headed right for the docks at a dangerous velocity. Even more alarming, there appeared to be no pilot steering the ship. With barely any time to react, Juujee, apparently the only one noticing, ran toward the likely point of collision in hopes she could deflect the balloon and minimize any damage.
She inched her way out and sat, leaning back, on the docking pier with her legs poised in the air, ready to kick the bottom of the ship away as hard as she could. It came in faster than she anticipated, and while she managed to redirect the trajectory, her foot tangled in a ballast line and dragged her off the mountain. The runaway ship was now headed out across the Sindonglahya with Juujee dangling underneath. A couple of other waiting passengers at the station heard her yell something about birds before she was out of range.
Juujee managed to pull herself into the balloon compartment as the ship crossed the channel. On the deck, crumpled in the corner, was an old bearded figure, breathing but unconscious. They looked as if they might’ve been out for a while. She went to the cockpit and arbitrarily fiddled with the controls until the ship stuttered to a more leisurely speed. This wasn’t a passenger vessel. It was too small and too narrow. The inflatable solar membrane was striped in orange and blue, and the compartment, a fuselage from an old fuel flyer. On the side of the metallic grey cabin was the name of the airship, in dark purple: GULLIVERSWIFT
She sat down next to the passed-out pilot and attempted a passive mingle. The pull began with a storm cloud, a flood; then a raven turned rooster and a star-filled night sky with odd constellations that throbbed in time to the shallow but steady wheezing from a weathered brown face. The connection faded as she took in the details of the sailor. They wore a typical light-colored one-piece with a grey work jacket. On their lapel, in tattered yellow embroidery, a couple of words, she moved her lips, sounding it out, “Sup-er-cel-es-tial Car-tog-graph-y.”
Dez had been feeling increasingly manic since the dream on the river bank. They were still onboard the Axolotl, writing obsessively about the widespread pattern synchronizations and trying to convince Captain Pearl to take them seriously.
Now was the moment they’d been waiting for, “See? See what you just did?” pounced Dez, pointing at the Captain's fingers tapping back and forth on her wide red belt.
“What, where?” said the Captain, looking down below her waist, now with her arms stretched out like a vulture.
“That little finger dance you do. Ever pay attention to what you’re doing?” Dez continued without letting her answer, “You tap four fingers down and then five back. Nine taps. Nine times. The patterns are nines! And something else crazy—maybe it’s related—dunno—probably not, but there’s something quite magical about nine. I’m writing a thing about it.”
Before Captain Pearl could respond to any of this, Dez stood up, positioned the notebook in front of them on the table, cleared their throat, and started reciting a poem using their fingers to sign the numbers.
Form a number—groups of nine
Split the digits—center line
Number one plus number two
Are nine again—as numbers do
Let’s do six in groups of nine
Split the digits, fore and hind
Fifty-four is five plus four
Sum is nine, let’s do some more
Let’s do five in groups of nine
Split the digits down the line
Forty-five is four plus five
And every time the nines survive
How ‘bout nine in groups of nine
Split that number up the spine
It’s Eighty-one, that’s eight plus one
It’s always nine when it’s all done
“That’s as far as I got, but you get the idea right?,” Dez looked at the Captain with their eyes and mouth wide and waiting.
The Captain started, “I guess that’s all true, but what does any of this—uh—”
Dez didn’t let them finish again, grabbing the captain by the arm, “Come, let me show you.”
They climbed out onto the deck of the Axolotl, moving quickly upriver. The sunset beamed through the bands of trees, flashing on their faces, an arboreal rotoscope. “There! Do you feel that? Do you hear it” Dez motioned toward the bow, “Count the splashes—splish splish splish splash splish splish splash splash splish” It seemed so obvious to Dez.
The Captain did not look as amazed as expected, “Everythin’ can be counted in nines if you want to—I mean—the math rhyme was fun and all...”, offered the Captain leaning back against the port rail, “I just don’t think it’s that big a deal”
Dez, disappointed, changed the subject again, “You never did tell me where we’re going”
This time the Captain, feeling a little sorry for her strange new ensign, answered, “We’re headed to the Circle Sea. There’s some unfinished business to take care of. And before you get too excited—it’s not on the charts. In a few days, we’ll be sailin’ blind—off the edge—into the unknown”, she smiled mischievously, “you’ll see.”
The world you have created is confronting in its vividness. It’s also somewhat uncanny in that I feel like there is this way in which it could be possible.
Very much enjoying it Jon :)
How many parts are left of this, Jon? I don't want it to end. So good!