The Master vs the Deft Hands
“Why would he do that?” Gregory asked. He was hunched over his knees, staring at the portal Wazad had woven into the space between the two of them that broadcast the scene of a man named Zacchaeus with a smoking, black hooded cloak as he opened a portal big enough for three Razew to walk through in their gruesome form.
“We are going to find out,” Wazad said, her golden eye glistening sunlight that shone down over the garden behind the Museum of Aphro-Arcana. “He is possessed by the Needy, I didn’t know that was possible. The Needy is too ravenous to possess without consuming, but there he is.”
“Who is he?” Gregory asked. “How does he even know about the Razews? How many are on Earth now? They’re starting to add up.”
“I only felt the surge of the Needy’s power and was curious what it was up to. You learn about the Needy when you become Wazad. A Wazad was there when the Needy was born and we know how to subdue it, to slow it down, but we can’t stop it. Like the thing is undeniable, but I guess the hopeless view it represents is undeniable. It’s hard not to slip into it sometimes, especially with all of the history that the Needy has seen in its existence. These Razews are cause for worry indeed. What planet are they from? I should consult my colleagues off-world to see what information I can find. But someone has to track down this man possessed by the Needy and either save him or kill him before he dooms us all.”
“I’ll get the good Master,” Gregory said and then sprinted for the back entrance to the Museum.
Zacchaeus hated waiting rooms. No matter what he waited for, nothing felt worth the agony of sitting in a box, in an uncomfortable chair with strangers in the same chairs, with the same annoyance and anticipation of relief from the box. But the odd man had been insistent that Zacchaeus meet him at his office and lab in the COHH Inc headquarters. He wanted to make good on his promise to give Zacchaeus access to sublime technology, but apparently the odd man was in a meeting that ran long, according to his secretary, and Zacchaeus was forced to wait in the waiting room.
He was nervous. Zacchaeus had dreamed of this day and his mind had run through so many different scenarios of the world he could experience on the other side of the sublime. Sometimes he let himself indulge the possibility that he could find himself on an inhospitable Earth or some other planet, or on some bitter Earth that was hard and murderous, but mostly he indulged the wonderful possibilities. A porn world full of decadence, a world of stark and picaresque beauty, a world of heaven. Anything was possible, and that uncertainty did make him nervous even if he was ready to become a trailblazer.
“Mr. Raza will see you now,” the receptionist said to Zacchaeus who jumped up from his chair quickly and flashed a knowing smile to the others in the room.
Inside the office of the odd man, Zacchaeus was surprised at how big and high tech it was. The odd man’s desk was on the wall opposite the entrance and Zacchaeus walked the length of the room, marveling at the tools the odd man presumably used to make the elaborate metal and wire contraptions in the room.
Zacchaeus was casually dressed, khakis and light blue polo shirt, but as he stood before the odd man behind his desk, a black hood spread over Zacchaeus’s head while a black cloak fell around his shoulders and down his back where it crumpled on the floor at his feet. A dark smoke issued from the cloak in a steady cloud that dissipated about a foot from Zacchaeus’s back.
“You’re looking well my friend,” the odd man said as he stood from his chair and offered a hand to Zacchaeus to shake. Zacchaeus eyed it with an eyebrow cocked high on his forehead.
“After everything,” the odd man said and a twitch seized him like electricity had been suddenly forced through his body, but he held himself together to continue, “I hoped you would trust me.”
“Trust is a big word,” Zacchaeus said and smiled with half his mouth.
The odd man nodded.
“Indeed, well, hopefully after today you will see that I am a man of my word and this is just the start of a long and mutually beneficial friendship. I wanted to meet with you and answer any questions you might have before we head down to the labs for the sublime. If you’re comfortable to go today, we can send you…”
“I just got two questions and then we can do this,” Zacchaeus said. “I get that when I sublime, you turn my body into some kind of smoke and then it can move to another world. But you sure the thing you sending me with to come back gone work?”
“It’s a device that you carry in your hand. You use it to get where you’re going and to get back. If it works to send you wherever, it will work to bring you back.”
“If my grandma don’t see me in a couple weeks, she coming after you,” Zacchaeus said.
“There’s no need for threats. But you possess the Needy now, no? What do I have to fear from Mavis Turner?”
“The Needy can be in more than one place at a time,” Zacchaeus said. “Second question, do you know what Earth I’m going to, or is it random?”
“The amount of time that you exist in the vapor state dictates what universe you travel to. Your journey begins the minute you turn to vapor. Your energies and constituent parts will hitch a ride on the superstructure and your rate of travel is determine by complex physics I won’t bore you with, but essentially, your being as vapor will move along the superstructure of the multiverse until the timer on your device reverts your body to the solid state. Your solid body will manifest in a new reality at that time and which reality depends on how far your body has traveled. We know the destination of travelers in the vapor state from one second all the way up to one minute. More than that, you’ll be on your own. Let’s go down to the labs.”
As he followed the odd man from the office to an elevator, the Needy said to Zacchaeus, I am scanning his mind. There is nothing there that will help us find the others like him.
Keep scanning, Zacchaeus responded with his inner voice, when we get back, that’s the first thing we doing, finding and killing them all.
Not before I feed! the Needy said loudly inside Zacchaeus’s mind. You owe me lives Zacchaeus!
Don’t act like you ain’t been killing people the whole time we been together. Most of you is still hiding inside the planet, I can feel that, and you been feeding fine.
Yes, but I chose you because of your skill and you still haven’t used it to feed me. I’m starting to regret my choice.
You know we work well together…hell, even I’ll admit that. It just ain’t the kind of work you used to.
Using my magic to solve human crime is a waste of the magic…
It’s making us rich…
What use do I have for money! I need to consume everyone!
We working on it, we getting better. And I’ll let you eat all the murderers you want once we get good enough to solve murders.
Well, you will feed me regularly or I will find a new partner, someone with less scruples and rules. You are not your grandmother.
Zacchaeus chuckled as the elevator door opened and the odd man looked at him curiously.
“Just a joke I remembered,” Zacchaeus said and then followed the odd man into the large laboratory.
I am not my grandmother, but you knew that, Zacchaeus said to the Needy. I’m similar but you picked me because I’m different. Stick with me, you won’t regret it.
The laboratory was large enough that Zacchaeus couldn’t see it all. There were lights only in the sections where he followed the odd man and eventually they came to a large glass tube against a wall that was connected to a large computer and monitor setup with wires. The odd man grabbed a device from the table where the computer sat, and he handed it to Zacchaeus. The device was contoured to fit the hand comfortably and there was an elastic band that held it securely to the hand. Zacchaeus slipped it on and held it like a video game joystick. There was a clear casing on the top of the device and it protected a red button underneath.
“When you press that button on top,” the odd man explained, “you will sublime and the timer inside the device will start. Once it reaches a preset time, the device will trigger and the sublime will end. You will materialize in whatever universe you have traveled to during the sublime. This is the charted multiverse,” the odd man said and indicated to the monitor.
Zacchaeus noticed that there were sixty listed universes not including his own, and each was numbered to correlate to the number of seconds that the sublime of the multiversal traveler had lasted. The universes were plotted on a grid; some were recorded in rectangles colored green, the others red.
“If you go to the red universes, you’ll likely die,” the odd man explained. “You should pick a sublime time that corresponds to a green universe. I’ve been to 45, I highly recommend it in human form. It is familiar and the inhabitants there are very welcoming to strangers.”
“How do I get back when I’m done?” Zacchaeus asked.
“Good question. There’s a button built into the groove near your pointer finger. It is programmed to a length of time that will guarantee you enough time to travel back to this universe. We believe that this time is the amount of time it takes for energy to cycle through the superstructure of the multiverse. But we know that it will bring you back to this universe, even if you are in this universe already. We use it to test the device before we program your destination. That device is powered up and solar powered, so when you’re ready, press the button with your index finger and you will sublime, then return to your current position.”
Zacchaeus took a deep breath, then pressed the index finger button. Suddenly he was not one view through two eyes that associated with a body that had senses. Suddenly he could see through many eyes, and he could feel with many senses, and there was no body containing him. He was many, but one, all of the new perspectives funneled into one awareness but Zacchaeus knew that he was bigger than the one awareness. Surprisingly, it wasn’t a maddening experience, there were no feelings of disorientation despite the many perspectives. Wherever he was, felt familiar and exotic all at once and it was almost like sleeping to be there.
Then, after a time that Zacchaeus could not measure, he was back in his familiar body inside the lab. He and the odd man smiled at one another.
“That was awesome.”
“I know right…” the odd man started, but then there was a strange occurrence, even stranger than the sublime that Zacchaeus had just experienced.
A thin line of blue energy began to form in space. Other lines coalesced through and around the original line and sparks of the blue energy jumped off them as more and more amassed. Soon there was an oval floating in the space between Zacchaeus and the odd man, and the oval was constructed of intricately woven lines of the blue energy. Through this oval walked a man in all black and a cape at his back with a shiny green ornate underside, like he had used the oval as a doorway.
“What’s going on, Raza?” Zacchaeus asked, staring at the tall black man with the statuesque build. His skin was dark, and there was a scraggly beard at his jaw and on his neck. His hair was cut short and he looked like a distinguished man in his forties. He looked around the lab as though he was gaining his bearings.
“This isn’t me,” the odd man said. “That’s nothing from these labs.”
“You must be Zacchaeus,” the man in black said as he turned to face Zacchaeus and crossed his arms at his chest. “Traitor to mankind. At least you brought me to this one.” He lifted a hand and the odd man behind him was encircled in a haze of blue energy that lifted him off the ground and caused the man to panic.
“What are you doing to me?” the odd man screamed.
The man in black made signs with the fingers of his hand and the odd man in the haze of energy floated to the oval of blue energy that had served as a portal for the man in black, and the odd man disappeared into it.
“Now, tell me everything you know about the Razews and why you’re helping them take over Earth.”
That is the universal Master, the Needy said to Zacchaeus in his mind. He is my enemy by virtue of both our reasons for being.
What’s a universal Master? Zacchaeus asked. He had access to all of the Needy’s vast knowledge, but he hadn’t reviewed it all in the short time the two had been bonded.
“I am protector of this realm,” the black man said. “Issac Washington. And you conspire with the enemies of life. First the foul and dank Needy, and now the Razews. I am here to make you answer for your crimes, and to know why the Needy of all things has possessed a human.”
I would like to melt his bones and feel them incorporate into my being. Fight him! the Needy practically growled inside of Zacchaeus’s mind.
Before Zacchaeus could even process the anger of the Needy, he was attacking Issac Washington and they fought using archaic styles of hand to hand combat that reflected the ancient arcane distinctions that they both wielded. Issac Washington used his legs and kicked a lot, blocking Zacchaeus’s punches with his shins, and jabbing with his feet. He kept his hands free to throw spells as he attacked.
Zacchaeus channeled black energy to his fists that were like balls of black flame with a black smoke trailing off each fist. He punched fast and he could tell that his speed had taken Issac Washington by surprise. Zacchaeus was fast enough to dodge the spells that rolled off of Issac’s fingertips. Issac was very nimble and he blocked every punch that Zacchaeus threw, so Zacchaeus threw black fireballs at Issac who flipped onto nearby tables to evade them.
“You are very good,” Issac Washington said when they stood in a reprieve from battle. “The Needy is much sharper than I imagined.”
“Most of that was me,” Zacchaeus bragged. His body was almost as fast and nimble as his hands.
“So you are the enemy of man?”
“I didn’t ask for the Needy,” Zacchaeus said. “I’m stuck with ’em as far as I can tell, but I don’t just go around killing people if that’s what you think, even if that’s all he want to do. Yeah, we brought them things here, but the Needy did that to save me. And we gone track ’em all down and kill ’em. I know you ain’t fighting nearly half as hard as you can, I’m giving you my all, so this ain’t gone end good for me if that’s how we settle this. I’m not a enemy of man. I’m just here cashing out on a bet before I use the Needy to roundup all them things.”
Issac Washington eyed Zacchaeus skeptically.
“Come back with me to the Museum and we can sort all this out,” he said after almost a minute of silence.
“I wish I could, but like I said, I’m here to cash out a bet.”
“Come with me Zacchaeus,” Issac Washington said and lifted his hand, “or I will take you with me.”
“Sorry universe master,” Zacchaeus said with a sly smile, “but I got somewhere to be.”
Zacchaeus pressed the red button on the device in his hand and he instantly disappeared before Issac’s eyes.
Unfortunately for Zacchaeus, the device had not been pre programmed with a destination.
PRL Serials 