I don’t know how many magnetic trains there were zooming around. Maybe just the one. This cramped engine compartment certainly could have been the same I had previously shared with Nora.

“Someone said these trains are powered by nuclear energy,” Saligia said in the darkness. “I’m blaming you if all of my hair falls out.” I heard her shift around, trying to find a comfortable position. “I’m guessing you didn’t bring along a flashlight.”

Me without a flashlight? Not likely. But I didn’t bother pulling it from my pocket. There was enough light for me to see by.

“Your eyes will adjust,” I told her.

“Adjust? To what?”

“Give it a minute.”

 “You mean the glow coming from behind this panel? Is that where they keep the plutonium?”

“No idea,” I said. “But if I were you, I wouldn’t monkey around with anything.”

“The thought hadn’t crossed my mind.”

There was a time when such mild yet barbed banter would have shifted into a protracted session of bickering between us. But now, Saligia just sounded defeated.

After we rode in silence for a bit, she asked, “What’s that smell?”

“Smell?” Then I realized what she meant. “Almost forgot. I picked up some food for the road as I passed the Alamo. Falafel à al Charlemagne.”

I removed the parcel wrapped in waxed paper from my rucksack and we shared the falafel sandwich.

I’d been having trouble dislodging from my mind a sense of guilt involving Saligia. Not the big things—I would probably have to unpack that stuff at some point. Saligia and I had been a couple for almost a year, so we had accumulated a fair amount of baggage. But it hadn’t been just us, we also shared the same house with my previous romantic partner. An odd time in all our lives. Sy, Saligia, and myself living in that wonderful crumbling and rambling adobe mansion in the Chihuahua Desert—what Sy called Casita Ménage à Trois.

And then there was the time I never returned home. That weird and terrible day on the ranch with the dinosaur.

I knew Saligia felt abandoned whenever Sy and I would head out of town to shoot segments for Wonders Unfolding. And I can’t even begin to imagine what she went through when word reached her about the accident, or whatever it was, that caused the production truck to explode. Had she thought I died? And how the hell did Sy survive? I still hadn’t gotten a clear answer about that.

I would prefer to ask Sy instead of Saligia, except Sy wasn’t available. He was…where? LA? Really? Was that really where the resurrected Dead go?

And did I honestly think we’d see him again?

Well, stranger things have happened. Indeed they had.

The guilt I was thinking of at that moment there in the dim engine compartment was something seemingly so small and inconsequential that I’d laugh if I heard someone else trying to work his way through it. It was the guilt I felt for not recognizing Saligia when I saw her on the TV screen in that bar. Somehow, that felt unforgivable.

I tried, best I could, to play back in my memory that moment in La Condesa Cantina and Sports Bar. That was, my god, just last week! It felt years in the past. I’d not given the woman up there on the TV screen a second glance. True, I was barely paying attention. What was it about people who went to a bar to watch television? If it was that important to them, why not just stay at home where there were no distractions? Of course, I’d never understood the appeal of the shared experience, be it watching television shows with others or attending spectator sports. I found it alienating every time I’d stumble into a bar and realized I was surrounded by the vacuous expressions of a roomful of obsessed faces, all collectively staring at a screen on the wall. They would occasionally come to life to scream in elation when their team was winning, or groan in collective commiseration if the other side moved ahead. They were focused, intent. Just the way the people in La Condesa bar were focused on Serpientes y Escaleras, and the intense hostess of the show.

I certainly had not shared their fascination.

And if I had, would I have snapped to attention the second I saw her face? Rising up from my stool at the unexpected sight of a woman whose bed I had shared so often?

True, I had been preoccupied. No one could argue that. A journey across the wilderness. My first time in a city in years. The taste of alcohol after a long period of abstinence.

Also, I should point out that Saligia possessed a chameleon quality—a quality much valued in performers. So maybe I could be excused for not spotting her outright. She had been playing a role.

The problem with that line of reasoning was that her persona on Serpientes y Escaleras matched her aloof and sardonic behavior in real life. Her makeup choice, also, was the same, just a touch more severe.

Still, I was oblivious as I absently sipped my beer at La Condesa.

Was that me all the time? Shallow and noncommittal? So lacking in nostalgia that I could walk away from one life in search of the next, never to look back or even reflect in fond recollection? Not even pause, my mug of beer halfway to my lips: “Where have I heard that voice before?”

I guess all that was me.

I had moved on. Allowed Saligia to leave my mind.

But now, now she was back. I stole a glance across the compartment to see if I could detect some expression on her face that might suggest she was listening in. But I couldn’t tell. I never could tell. Whether or not she was in my mind, it certainly did appear she was back in my life, and I, in hers. Fair enough, but what were we to one another, now? Were we a we?

The faint light spilling from the engine console struck her obliquely, giving a soft warmth to the strong lines of her face, the clean jaw and high cheekbones, the widow’s peak made more prominent from her hair being tied back. She still wore her lipstick and mascara from the show. I recalled all those years ago when she would come home from hosting her psychic dating show, and how she rarely removed her makeup until the next day, when she’d wake up, with everything smeared and slightly fuzzy as though her face was out of focus. Early in the morning, when she was still half-connected to that world of dreams which she never shared with me, that was when she’d smile the most. Right after waking.

I’ve always been an idiot with relationships.

Thankfully, things between me and Sy had been fluid. Neither of us were suited to longterm commitments. Nothing much changed, really, when our relationship shifted back to us just being friends.

Saligia, well, once the the initial excitement began to wane, I realized I had no idea how seriously she took such matters. Both of us lacked the basic skills to speak openly about our feelings.

Probably I was relieved when I found myself driving away from the smoldering ruins of that production truck on the outskirts of San Angelo.

Who was I kidding? Of course I was relieved. And add to that I felt virtuous. I struck off into a life of self-imposed exile to protect a woman. A woman I loved. That was my narrative.

The demise of the us which was Morris Fisher and Saligia Jones happened because of extraordinary events beyond my control.

Strange, in a way, another event beyond my control had brought us back together. The demise of San Antonio, or whatever was happening as I slammed shut that hatch.

Maybe things back there will settle down, or even return to normal. But from the way Ida and the rest of those Network employees were rushing about to get on the train, I feared the worse.

 So, all those slamming of Doors Number One and Number Two had caused the destruction of an entire city? That was starting to sound like the insanity of the Changes. Had they returned? The Changes?

Her nervousness aside, Ida had taken the whole thing pretty much in stride. Did such things happen often? Other cities blinking out? Maybe that was how the Network went about cancelling shows.

Though that seemed extreme.

Admittedly, I didn’t have much invested in San Antonio. But I had met some interesting people. Good people. Like Fran, and all his passionate associates from the All Seeing Eye Society, with their spirited exchanges each week in that drafty basement meeting hall. Also, the unfortunate production staff Ida had left behind. Raul, Myra, and the others whose names I never learned. The whole of La Vida Tower—Sy’s penthouse. Hell, the Alamo! Just gone. And Charlemagne DeWinter, as well as his falafel stand.

All gone?

I sat there in the dim glow of that cramped space watching the way Saligia ate her falafel sandwich. It made me think of an otter or a raccoon, probably because she had the sleeves of her thin sweater pulled down so only her fingertips were exposed. She wore her nails short and painted black, like a sensitive teenager.

Once she had finished, she began to tear open an individually wrapped moist towelette Charlemagne had kindly provided.

“Are you thinking what I am?” she asked, peering at me in the dimness.

Well, here it comes. The great Saligia Jones was in my head, savoring my guilt as a sort of, what, post falafel dessert? I guess it was time to roll up my sleeves and prepare myself for the onslaught of Saligia’s critique of years of my irresponsibility and general bad behavior, culminating, of course, on the day I abandoned her. It wasn’t that I didn’t have it coming.

“Well,” I began with a sigh. “I guess it’s been a long and convoluted road which brought me—”

“Oh, don’t. Just don’t.” Saligia wiped her fingers and lips. “I’m talking about the lack of a toilet in our cramped quarters.”

Mona LeCroix

Programing Dept.

The Network Interoffice Memorandum #4517442

Tuesday, September, 23, 2025

To: Brad Vaughn, HR Dept.

From: Mona LeCroix, Programing

RE: Serpientes y Escaleras, and this evening’s loss of San Antonio, Texas

 

ISSUE

The unexpected termination of the Network’s popular show, Serpientes y Escaleras (and the unfortunate eradication of the city of San Antonio—with the associated and unavoidable loss of that city’s TV viewing audience) will necessitate the quick action of all departments here at the Network.

(Parenthetically, I need to make it clear that Serpientes y Escaleras has not yet been officially canceled, but as we have never seen a production continue after a similar incident—you will recall the catastrophe that ended Ripcord Follies—we will go ahead and work as if Serpientes y Escaleras has been canceled.)

So, Brad, the question is this. Can the Programing Department and the Human Resource Department both get a jump on things before the impending cluster f#@k that will be Wednesday morning?

 

BRIEF ANSWER

It is obvious that we have an immediate need for all hands on deck! An overnight crew must be rallied to handle all eventualities to allow for a seamless continuity of programing.

Because of the huge popularity of Serpientes y Escaleras, there are enthusiastic audiences far and wide—not just in San Antonio. For those markets expecting to see Serpientes y Escalera shows in the days ahead, we here in Programing have selected older archived episodes which we will package as “Gems from the Vault!”

As for you folks in HR, we will immediately need some specific anticipatory paperwork generated and at the ready if it is called for (which I suspect it will be). More on that below.

 

STATEMENT OF FACTS

Here is what is currently known.

Several minutes before the end of Serpientes y Escaleras, a REINCOR seated in the studio audience went “rogue,” attacking one of that show’s production staff (a Ms. Rosalinda Aguilar, employed as a “Reader,” a trained psychic, which I’m sure you’ll recall is a feature utilized by that particular production to heighten the drama). This REINCOR pulled Ms. Aguilar into a standard Class A Transport Pod and engaged the portal trigger. That’s right. Two people, a REINCOR and a non-REINCOR, together for a single transportation!

Additionally, the producer of Serpientes y Escaleras—Silverio Moreno—followed those two through the same portal pod. And yes, you read that correctly! A trained broadcasting professional did that. It only gets worse. He was accompanied by an unknown young woman, apparently not even connected to that production!

As one would expect, the portal pod began overheating.

This whole mess was exacerbated by a similarly cavalier misuse of that show’s second portal pod. Before any of the Tau Field capacitors could cool down, reset, or even switch into auto shutdown mode, the two REINCORS who had initially been chosen to be transported through the portals to Central Processing, were BOTH stuffed into the second pod and sent on their way.

In the interest of full disclosure, I should let it be known that that final transport transmission was ordered by the Network’s very own Ida Mayfield.

Perhaps a lapse in her judgement?

Maybe she had valid reasons which will eventually be explained?

Whatever the case, those extreme mistreatments to the portals had the expected results.

A full Level 11 Markowitz Discharge with a general quantum cascade causing wide scale Higgs field dampening out to a radius of 22 kilometers.

To the best of our knowledge, San Antonio, Texas has been lost.

Thankfully, almost all of our Network employees working on Serpientes y Escaleras managed to escape the devastation. This is according to the passenger manifest telegraphed from the San Antonio train depot. (See below for specifics regarding the lack of Saligia Jones’ name on said manifest.)

 

CONCERNING THE REINCOR ISSUE

Brad, remember, REINCORs are not a HR matter! Stand firm! No matter what Parcell might tell you. And certainly ignore any meddling from Ida. I will back you up on this.

As for Central Processing, I do indeed know how, in the past, you’ve lost HOURS getting the runaround from those secretive uptight weirdos who work over there. Not matter what Parcell Prescott might think, REINCORs are neither employees nor outside contractors of the Network. Furthermore, as there is no clear consensus if they are (let’s be honest here) even human, I cannot fathom why anyone would suggest that they should fall within the purview of Human Resources.

In short, they DO NOT.

And, yes, you can quote me on that.

However, to be candid, I can give you a quick update of what I’ve learned from LeeAnne over at the REINCOR Liaison Department, and what she has learned from this evening’s communique from Central Processing.

It seems that those REINCORs currently under the custodianship of Central Processing and earmarked as “contestants” for upcoming Serpientes y Escaleras episodes, will be shunted off to other productions, or otherwise resituated according to the Central Processing charter in a manner both timely and humane.

As for the fate of those REINCORs who had already arrived at the Serpientes y Escaleras studio and were awaiting processing, well that information, as they say, is “above our pay grade.” Thank god for that. Just know they have been “dealt with” in accordance with Central Processing’s protocol, internal mandates, or whatever jargon they’re using these days.

And as in similar exchanges with Central Processing, the Network will take such communiques on faith, and hope that we will not see a repeat of last year’s heinous snafu during that tragic REINCOR bottleneck that befell the beleaguered second season of Panic Bar Sots.

For the nonce, as it were, we will treat all matters REINCOR to be in the capable hands of LeeAnne (bless her heart), and the quote unquote professionals across town at the Central Processing facility. Did I already say weirdos?

 

CONCERNING S. JONES

As stated above, Saligia Jones was NOT listed as a passenger on the last Mag train out of San Antonio. We dearly hope that that is simply a clerical error, for indeed her great value to the Network is reflected by the stellar ratings of Serpientes y Escaleras. Therefore, in the spirit of optimism and general proactivity, we will assume that the extraordinary Ms. Jones will soon be safe in the bosom of the Network headquarters ASAP, so that we can quickly provide her with a new, exciting show!

Even if the unthinkable has occurred and we have lost Saligia Jones to a  full Level 11 Markowitz Discharge (a fate not to be wished upon anyone, I’m sure you’d agree!), we still need to fill a hole in programming.

And that is where the HR Dept. comes in, Brad.

 

HR ACTION ITEMS

We will need to create a new program. Even though upper management has yet to assign us with this task, I have found it best to anticipate Parcell Prescott and those people at the top.

And with a new show, there will need to be a team to run things. On the bright side, we already have this team.

The full list of those who escaped San Antonio is attached to this memo. For the sake of expedience, let’s just assume that these seasoned technicians and administrators will provide the essential personnel of our provisional replacement show. This show will most likely be similar in nature to Serpientes y Escaleras—low budget, small production—but as there is no current working title, please begin drafting new contracts for all the names on the attached list with exactly the same job titles they had on Serpientes y Escaleras. For “Program Title,” just go ahead and fill in “TBA.” 

 

CONCLUSION

In the hours and days ahead, of course, more specific information will be forthcoming. Information perhaps of a grim and dispiriting nature. But remember, Brad, we here at the Network have hit such obstacles before. Lord knows this isn’t the first time we’ve been in this place, right? And even though the loss of such a marvelous show as Serpientes y Escaleras saddens us all, we should look to the horizon with enthusiastic anticipation of the replacement show that these wonderful creative people will soon put together for the joy of all. I know I’m excited!

My news gathering background kicked into gear.

Maybe I should have switched to a camera showing something more neutral, like the game board—or even cut the live feed. But until I had other instructions, I followed the most pertinent action.

And that was the guy everyone thought was a murderer, August.

Until, of course, Sy rushed the stage.

That was when my entertainment industry training won out over journalism.

I’m not proud, but that is clearly who I am. Cut straight to the charismatic man in the bright red wig and the green sequined dinner jacket.

The camera crew kept their frames tight, but still moved with a loose-jointed nimbleness to give full coverage of all the unexpected action that unfolded.

It all happened so quickly that I knew everyone of us in the studio—not just me—crackled with a surge of adrenaline. Then, when the two most interesting subjects to have graced the set had, as they say, “left the building,” we all suddenly found ourselves with nothing to focus on. And I mean, literally.

We had no villain. We had no hero.

This immediate and unexpected stall in the action became so much more apparent in the silence that followed.

That was when we needed Sy to begin filling the dead air with music.

I stabbed my thumb down on the override button for the applause sign.

The audience responded in Pavlovian fashion with noisy enthusiasm. I know they had been excited by the unexpected events, and finally I had given them the opportunity to express themselves.

I looked around the studio. I needed to come up with something to instruct the camera operators to focus on while running out the clock.

Forty-five seconds to the end of the show.

That was an eternity in the world of live TV.

I was about to have one of the camera operators tilt up to the game board, but I noticed that Door Number Two still gaped open, with the losing contestant, Helen, standing just inside, waiting for Michael to shut the door and send her on her way. Through the headsets, I told camera one to dolly in on Helen. I told camera two to follow on Michael, who was looking off-camera to Ida, trying to make sense of her energetic gestures. Michael, still in a panic, held up his hands, uncertain what Ida was trying to tell him.

“Just send them both through door two,” she shouted.

Michael did so. He grabbed the other contestant—Darlene—who waited in the center of the stage, confused, and pushed her, unwillingly, into that little room to stand beside Helen.

“But I’m Door Number One,” Darlene cried out. “I won!”

Michael slammed the door on the two women.

Ed and Valerie were really throwing themselves into their job getting the crowd cheering and up on their feet stamping loudly.

Michael pulled Saligia to the front of the stage. She stiffened and showed her teeth, looking like a cat who was about to be dunked in a bath, but she, too, had her professional training to fall back on. She rose up with her shoulders back and she and Michael bowed in unison as if the crowd were cheering them and the wonderful work they had just completed.

As the clock ticked over, precisely 7:30, I faded out the live video and audio feed.

Myra, holding her clipboard tight to her chest with both hands, shouted out: “Annnnnnd, we’re out.”

“Oh for fuck’s sake,” Ida yelled. “What a mess!”

I took the steps three at a time down to the studio floor, crossed the stage, and flung open Door Number One.

It was empty.

“Careful,” Saligia said, pointing with a shaking finger.

I noticed wisps of blue smoke curling out and around the edges of the door. A cold draft wafted out of the interior. The same thing was happening around the edges of Door Number Two. I opened it up. It proved empty as well.

Michael looked from the doors to Ida.

“The portals, I think they’re busted,” he said to her. “Should I check the two downstairs?”

“Don’t bother,” she said. “The arrival portals will be dead, too. Massive overload. There’s the proof.” She pointed to the audience.

Everyone in the rows of tiered seating—some in chairs, others on their feet—flickered. That was the only word that seemed adequate. Their arms and legs seemed to be shuttering in and out of reality. Some lost their balance and fell to the floor. The moans and screams had the entire production crew standing and staring. Some recoiled in utter disbelief, others just shook their heads as if this was something not completely unexpected.

I took a step forward, and froze when I noticed that those parts of the contestants I thought were turning invisible were actually morphing back and forth from human appendages into something with no more definition than bread dough—rubbery, stubby. Soon it wasn’t just the arms and legs. But their heads and their torsos. Flickering. Changing.

I remembered what Nora and Raul had said about contestants when they left the upper floors turning into things that weren’t really human.

I looked over at Saligia. She had clamped her hands to the sides of her head and dropped into one of the contestant chairs.

“Oh, this is too horrible,” she moaned.

She closed her eyes. Her hands moved to cover her ears.

I couldn’t blame her. The screams shifted to a sort of collective burbling hiss. It sounded like steam pushing aside a loose-fitting lid on a pot of boiling broth.

As I moved toward them, thinking I had to try and do something, Valerie put a hand on my shoulder. She pointed to the people filing into the studio.

The clean-up crew had arrived. I called them that, because that was clearly what they came to do.

About a dozen young men and woman pushed through the double doors. They were all dressed in matching black dress pants, short sleeved white button shirts, and skinny red ties. They rather looked like Mormon missionaries, except they all wore the heavy black rubber gloves that I remembered from high school chemistry class. Each carried a zippered bag of the same black rubber. The thing was, those bags were clearly too small for people. Maybe you could cram a couple of agreeable beagles into one of them, but a person? Unlikely. But, again, the audience members were no longer people.

Valerie and Ed escorted all of us on the production team out into the stairwell. Saligia moaned, rose to her feet, and shambled along with us.

“Let them do their work,” Ed said.

What that work entailed, I had no idea. Valerie closed the doors to the studio.

“Where the hell did they come from?” I asked.

“Where else?” Myra said. “The fifth floor.”

“Where the Network hides all its secrets,” Raul added. “I guess they’ve been down there all this time, waiting just in case something like this happened.”

“This?” I asked. “But what the hell is this?”

From their expressions, I doubted neither Myra or Raul knew much more than me.

Whatever they were doing in there didn’t take long. In just a couple of minutes the doors opened and the smartly dressed men and women filed out, each gripping a black, bulging bag.

“While I don’t care for their outfits,” Raul said as we watched the clean-up crew hurry down the stairs, “it is nice to see a return to the tie tack.”

I looked closer as the last of them passed. His red tie sported a black clasp with the Network logo, the letter N in gold.

I stepped back into the studio with the rest of the team. It was empty. The contestants, all gone.

“Right,” Ida said, looking around. She raised her voice and it cut through all the activity. “All employees of the Network, that’s a wrap! No more show. Meet me at the train station in an hour. We’re pulling up stakes.”

“Canceled?” Raul asked Ida. “Just like that? On whose authority?”

“No contestants, no producer.” Ida shrugged. “No choice.”

“But our jobs?” Myra stepped up to Ida.

“Your contract isn’t with the Network, honey.” Ida stared Myra down. “It’s with Sy’s Silver and Brown Productions. And if you haven’t noticed, your beloved Mr. Silver and Brown has left the building. You could follow him through Door Number One, but I don’t think it goes anywhere anymore.”

“Protocol Delta?” Michael asked Ida.

She nodded. “It has already begun.” Then Ida looked at me. “Good job, sir. Best episode ever. Nice to go out with what promises to be record-breaking ratings.” She turned back to Michael. “So, get all red-flagged documentation out of Lydia’s office. And if you find her—alive, I mean—tell her the final train leaves on the dot at—” Ida checked her watch. “Eight-thirty.”

“I know the drill,” Michael said, rushing away.

I hadn’t given much thought to who worked for the Network and who worked for Sy. In this business it wasn’t supposed to matter. We all were working for the same goals.

Until the project ended, that was.

I watched Ed and Valerie follow Michael out the door. As well as two camera men, the sound woman, and the makeup team.

“That’s your Protocol Delta?” I asked Ida. “Bug out of town?”

“That’s right,” she said with what appeared to be more than a touch of satisfaction.

When the double doors fell shut behind her, all signs of the Network had been expediently and surgically removed.

I looked around at my remaining baffled and shellshocked colleagues. All, apparently, hired by the absent Silverio Moreno.

“So,” I said, scanning the studio. “Who knows where Sy and Nora went?”

“The same place as Rose and August,” Raul said with an exasperated groan. “Wherever that is.”

###

Leaving town seemed the right thing to do. And so, with few words exchanged, Saligia and I agreed to meet half an hour later at the train station.

First I needed to collect my belongings.

My hope was to get in and out of the Omega Hotel without drawing any attention to myself. Luckily no one was in the lobby.

I was tempted to sit down on my bed and take a breath. Clear my mind. Think things through. What had just happened? What were the implications? What in fact was my role in all this?

But overthinking never worked out too well with me. Besides, I didn’t have the luxury of time.

I managed to stuff everything into my rucksack in only a couple of minutes—shocked, but in a pleasing manner, by how little I had to call my own.

“I thought I might find you here,” said Fran.

I turned to see him leaning against the door.

“I was down at the bar. I saw the whole thing on TV.”

I’m not sure how Fran learned I got a job on Serpientes y Escaleras. Raul. maybe? He did seem to have his sources all over town. But, always a man of discretion, all he had said to me when he saw me in the Omega Hotel lobby on Saturday morning was: “I understand that the ASES has another man on the inside. Congratulations! We’ll talk more in-depth, later.”

“I’m kind of in a rush,” I said, closing the buckles on my bag.

“Is it true?” he asked with grave concern. “The show is over?”

“Yeah.”

“That will leave a hole in so many people’s lives.” He looked to the floor, shaking his head in disbelief. Then he turned to me with a grin. “Was that a kidnapping?”

“It was. Some mad man grabbed that woman—”

“Grabbed Rose, yes. Poor girl. But she’s resourceful.” Then Fran crossed his arms and smiled. “And you said all those shows were scripted.”

“Live TV can throw a curve ball every so often.”

I shouldered my bag.

“Silverio Moreno, he’s a brave man. Chasing down that fellow. And your friend, that girl. Shelvia, right? Quick thinking.”

“They are the impulsive types,” I said, waiting for Fran to step aside.

“I see you’re going after them,” Fran said. He stepped aside, hand on his heart.

“Something like that,” I muttered. I thanked him for everything and walked down the hallway.

“The hero departs!” Fran said after me. Of course, I was no hero. “Godspeed, Stranger!”

Good lord.

###

One thing the both of us, Saligia and I, had in common was punctuality. Eight-fifteen on the dot we both walked through the gate to the platform at the same time. I had my rucksack over my shoulder, she gripped a small canvas bag.

“Where should we go?” I asked her.

She barely acknowledged me as she began walking along the platform toward that weird magnetic train.

“Where everyone else is going,” she said over her shoulder.

I rushed to catch up.

“LA?” I asked. “Right? You think that’s where Sy is?”

“Lydia told me once that the portals send the contestants to some Network facility in Los Angeles.”

“Then that’s the plan.” I wish she would relax. She was way too on edge. It’d be better once we got on the train.

“The last time I tried to get a ticket, they were way overpriced,” I said. “But don’t worry, I have plenty of money.” And I had. I’d sold another couple of gold coins just in case of something like this.

“That’s not how it works,” she said with irritation.

I stopped. But she kept walking.

“Saligia.”

She stopped but kept her back to me.

“What’s going on?” I asked.

She turned around.

“The train is just for the Network.”

“You think Ida’s going to let you on this train?” I asked.

“Us. She going to let us on this train.”

“Is that so?”

“We don’t have time to do this, Morris.”

She turned and continued walking down the length of the train.

I followed her up to where Ida and Michael stood on the platform beside the only open door of the waiting train.

The dusk was gathering and the harsh glow of the sodium-vapor lights illuminating the platform glinted off the curved sides of the train, throwing an unhealthy jaundiced tinge all about.

Suddenly everything about this unplanned plan seemed wrong. I wanted to tell Saligia that she’d be better off without me. I was a jinx. Meteors and murderers. But she’d shut me down so fast. Even without psychic abilities, she’d know I didn’t believe that. There was also an argument that Sy could take care of himself. Hadn’t he bounced back time and again? As for Nora and Rose, those women hardly seemed the type to need rescuing. I knew what Saligia would say. She’d say she needed me. Of course, she only thought she needed me. She would find within her that inner resolve she needed. She’d done without me before. Then there was those warm and encouraging platitudes Fran had heaped upon me. That heroic and glowing narrative he painted of me girding my loins and flinging myself into the maelstrom to vanquish devils and dragons.

I found myself in such a familiar and chaotic place. That place where I dither, vacillate. I flounder at the most importune moments.

I tugged the shoulder straps to my rucksack until the slack was gone. It felt light and manageable. Everything I needed was stowed away. I cold go anywhere. Or, I could continue walking down that train platform. Allow myself to become ensnared by Saligia and Sy and all that baggage from my past. Our past.

“I’m thinking of heading in the other direction,” I told Saligia.

We had just come alongside Ida.

“What?” Saligia’s eyes widened in panic as she looked back at me.

“I believe I said Network employees only,” Ida said to us.

“But, there’s nothing here for us,” Saligia moaned at Ida as her hand clawed tighter upon my sleeve.

“That’s not my concern,” Ida told her.

Saligia was trying to focus her thoughts between me and Ida. I probably should have just walked away. Instead, I stepped forward. I don’t know what I was going to say, but apparently Michael took my action as a physical threat. He waved to a figure inside the door of the train, and one of the more beefy members of the clean-up crew stepped onto the platform and walked up to us.

I wondered if they had already stowed away the black rubber bags containing whatever those poor contestants had transformed into. Though, for all I knew, they just tossed them into a dumpster behind La Vida Tower.

Ida glanced over at the newcomer who cracked his knuckles and jutted out his jaw.

She just laughed.

“Oh, I don’t think force will be necessary. Not for the likes of these two.”

“Ida, please.” Saligia took a deep breath and steadied herself. “Look, if you check the records, you’ll see that I never had a contract with Sy. I was signed on to the Network before the show was created. I have as much right to be on that train as anyone else.”

I wondered where that left me. Two days working on Serpientes y Escaleras, I realized I had never signed a contract, spoken with the HR Department, nothing.

Ida’s lips tightened into what I think she considered a smile. She barely leaned forward, but something about her demeanor caused me and Saligia both to move back a step.

“Oh, I don’t have to check anything. I know all about your contract with the Network. But today’s idiocy happened because of you. No one else. It was you who was supposed to select August. We were all in agreement. You let us down. And you saw how things turned out. The absolutely worst possible outcome. So, you’ll understand when I explain that your contract has been terminated. And good riddance! Saligia Jones is too unstable to work for anyone. I guess what I’m trying to say is, don’t bother using me as a future reference.”

Ida stepped onto the train. The muscular young man followed.

Michael managed a pained and pinched smile like he had forgotten to put on pants, and he, too, stepped into the train, leaving Saligia and me alone on the train platform.

Saligia turned to me. The hand not holding her bag fluttered about like a confused bird.

“Well?” she finally said, her lips gathering into a firm and questioning frown.

“Well, what?” I wasn’t sure what she expected me to do.

“I need some help.”

“Do you?”

“Yes,” she said. “With plan B.”

“What’s plan B?”

“That’s why I need help. I don’t have one. But it does not involve heading in the other direction.”

“Plan B to LA?” I laughed. “I believe I can help you.”

Saligia followed me down the length of the train to the engine car. There was no one in sight. I twisted the lever on the low door into the engine compartment.

“In there?” she asked. “Your plan is for me to get in there?”

“It’s how I came to town. I made it fine. It’s roomier than it looks.”

She sighed and squeezed inside. I passed the canvas bag to her.

“Don’t get off at the first stop,” I said. “It’s a little town with nothing but a glacier.”

“And you’re going, what? That way?” Saligia pointed to the east.

“I think so.”

“Of course you are. It’s what you do.”

“What’s what I do?”

“You run.”

“Well,” I said nodding, “you’re not the first to notice that.”

“Sy wouldn’t give up on you,” she said.

She tried to meet my eyes, but I looked away.

Because she was right. He would.

“He’d cram himself inside an airless box like this,” she continued. “He’d steal a car, or walk across the country. He’d even try his best to fly to California in his Zeppelin.”

“His what?”

But it hardly mattered. I needed some distance from all this madness.

“Please,” she croaked “I need your help. Sy needs your help. Rose needs your help. And what about your friend, Nora?”

I had already turned from her and was walking away.

“Besides,” she continued, her voice rising, “when Ida said the Network was pulling up stakes, she meant everything. I don’t think there are going to be any more trains once this one heads out.”

I took a deep breath and stopped.

Oh, hell.

When I turned around, Saligia smiled and slid further into the compartment, making room for me. I walked back, hefted my bag into the opening, and climbed in. Fran would no doubt approve.

When I turned to shut the panel, I froze.

Well, that wasn’t good.

“Everything okay?” Saligia asked.

And I saw it again. La Via Tower flickered. It was there, then gone, and back again. It was really happening, I knew. Not just some strange effect caused by the final weak rays of the setting sun. Were the Changes returning? Or maybe those portals in the tower—the ones that shut down—had been holding everything together?

It felt like Santa Cruz Island all over again.

“It’s fine,” I told Saligia.

Before I snapped the panel closed, I saw large chunks of the city doing the same thing. Flickering.

Everything was losing stability.

I leaned back in relief when I heard the engine hum to life and felt the sudden acceleration.

We were on our way. To Los Angeles.

END OF BOOK ONE

Little did I suspect at the time that this would be the final episode of Serpientes Y Escaleras.

Ever.

That my life—everyone’s life—would change. Irrevocably change.

I hope that got your attention! 

At least the show ended with an exciting and unexpected climax.

But that also meant that my grand plan would not be be happening. Not in the manner I had envisioned it.

However, as was often the case on the eve of such auspicious moments in history, many of the players were woefully unprepared. Take me. At the top of the show, my biggest concern was who kept stealing the chocolate bars from my snack drawer.

I made a mental note to investigate the matter later. I took a deep breath and did my best to focus on the show. That was difficult because things started off so slowly, mostly because Sal picked the most uninteresting pair of contestants imaginable.

Darlene and Helen were charming older ladies. Adorable, to be sure, but about as enticing as ordering two bran muffins for dinner.

Usually, Sal did a better job selecting two contrasting types.

Of course she was off her game. Frightened of August and his, well, predilection for murder. And then there was the whole mind-melding business. I had made it a point never to ask about that part of her job. But I knew it could be harrowing for Sal to connect so intimately with other people, especially when those people were swimming about in a sea of their own negative emotions. I wasn’t really up on matters of second-hand psychic trauma, but I’d seen how it could take a toll on her.

As much as chaos and madness had their place on the grand buffet table of life as presented on our show, the fact was, things had veered too, too far off course. This murder business was getting in the way of our important work. And August had become too distracting.

As such, I had expected Sal to stick with the plan and choose August as one of the evening’s contestants so we could send him on his way for good. I had convinced myself Sal would pull through for the greater good.

Unfortunately, she stuck us with these two benign cat ladies.

I did hold onto the flimsiest of hope one might turn out to be an embezzler or cannibal. But who was I fooling?

In short, my dear Sal had balked. Indecisive at that important moment.

No do-overs on live TV.

She was also shaky from too much drink last night. And quite possibly she’d downed a couple of quick ones behind her curtain before stepping on stage.

Of course, Sal’s reaction to the current tone of the work place was completely reasonable. Fear and paranoia, that was the normal response to skulking danger and escalating homicide.

Although such internal turmoil hadn’t found a purchase in the psyche of Silverio Moreno. Probably I should work on cultivating those more tender attributes. Not just fear, but grief, anguish. We’d suffered losses here in La Vida Tower. True, Hal and I were never close. But shouldn’t I feel, well, an empathetic twinge? Maybe it would have been different if we’d been left a body to deal with—something other than that short video clip Morris had brought to my attention. Instead, the remains of poor Hal just went away. Poof. Like our nightly pair of contestants.

Maybe Hal would come back to us. You know, resurrected. What a thought! Appear in one of those arrival pods and join our studio audience.

And there was the matter of Lydia. It was beginning to look like August had gotten to her as well. Like Hal, she was not one to skip a day of work. I wondered, would her body turn up? There was not much of her, so skinny. But because she was lanky, I would think it’d be a challenge to stow away her corpse.

I will miss her. Unlike Hal, I felt more of a connection with Lydia.

We shared similar outlooks on life.

Kindred values.

From Lydia’s perspective, people were always redeemable. She never gave up on anyone. I like to think I, too, had that indomitable altruistic impulse.

That was when I realized I had begun to think of Lydia in the past tense. Did that mean my grieving process had already begun?

I bet Dr. Lydia Hetzel herself would be able to answer that question. Too bad her counsel was no longer available.

She had possessed a nice balance, Lydia did, of the analytic and the intuitive. When Rose came for her initial interview, she displayed great intelligence and boy did she knock that hoodoo test out of the park with her Fitzroy score. But Lydia saw other, more nuanced qualities in Rose. Particularly kindness and loyalty.

Empathy. Yes. That was what Lydia saw. She had felt it lacking in our show. I was beginning to see things her way.

I looked over at Rose. She stood in a dim blue pool cast by the overhead light grid, intimately connected via Sal’s brain to Helen. Rose was reliving a moment in Helen’s life when she found herself walking up to the opened casket containing the body of her father.

Rose’s eyes were red and she twisted something that wasn’t there in her hands. Paisley bandana would be my guess.

And then she—meaning Rose, channeling the memory of Helen—spat into that imaginary casket.

Rose. What a natural!

From the first day I knew she’d show us some serious performance chops. But I was most interested in Rose’s past. I always researched those who applied to work on the show. And her dead brother got my interest. She had an agenda, I was sure of it. A secret agenda, the best kind! And she was curious. I saw it that first day. Her eyes taking in everything.

I practically swooned during that interview, whispering to Lydia we must hire her. Curiosity is in such short supply these days.

And when Sal told me last night that Rose’s dead brother had already been on our show as a contestant—over a year ago—I saw Rose in a different light. Not just some driven, obsessed spy come to tear apart the upper floors of La Vida Tower in search of the truth, but maybe, just maybe, she had a deeper role in my work. A role—dare I say it?—of a metaphysical nature.

The two of us, I had told myself, would have to sit down for a serious conversation.

But you’ll recall, I said this was the night everything changed. In a sense, ended.

Back to the show. Rose had moved on to act a scene from the life of our other contestant, Darlene. There was Rose, turned perfectly toward Camera Two. She was mimicked jumping rope and snapping gum, the perfect portrayal of a seven year old girl.

I’m glad Michael hadn’t chosen to portray that scene. It would have been unintentionally comical.

I found myself looking at August. I didn’t care for the way he was looking at Rose. I didn’t care for it at all.

We had to get rid of that man.

I glance down at Ida’s hastily scribbled note she had passed to me during the commercial break.

You WILL find some way to get rid of this monster TODAY!

Well, I could think of no way to do that today. Ida had to know that as well, but she kept trying to get my attention. And to be honest, I was getting a crick in my neck avoiding all eye contact with her.

Tomorrow. Yes. It would need to happen tomorrow. Send that one on his way. Even if it meant forcing him into a straitjacket and tossing him through one of those doors. Does Raul have any straitjackets? A nice powder blue with white buckles would go well with August’s eyes. And once we shipped him off, we could get to work. Pool our brain power and polish my plan. Door Number Three. Me and Sal and Morris. And Rose, of course. Maybe even Morris’ friend, that elevator girl. I liked her combination of impulsiveness, unflappability, and moxie. That sounded like quite a team!

But first, we had a murderer to deal with.

August was an unusual one. An understatement, if ever there were one. Not everyone was a cold, calculating maniac. He was a rare species. Hyper-perceptive, that man missed nothing. I could tell he had become suspicious. People were behaving differently around him. And he was watching the activity with more obvious intensity. I found it fascinating. I’d never knowingly been able to observe a murderer.

I asked around earlier in the afternoon if maybe someone in the canteen could slip a mickey into his Ovaltine or whatever was his beverage of choice. Turned out, they’d been doing that to all of them since season one. Apparently we drugged all of our audience members. I hate when I find myself out of the loop.

But either our killer spat out the dope, or he was one hardy fellow. Those were not heavy lids above his roving and suspicious eyes. He was wide awake and focused.

Earlier in the show, August caught me staring at him. I decided to give the man a little wink.

He did not like that. Not at all.

Where does this temptation of mine come from? This unhealthy desire for me to go poking at a hornet’s nest?

And then, I wondered, what would I do if August rushed me? Could Valerie and Ed wrestle him to the floor? The man was slim but wiry. I wondered, would my training come back to me? President of the jiu-jitsu club in high school. A whole semester of stage combat at that acting conservatory before I dropped out. And, I was quick for a man of my age. People said it all the time. August might be able to take down a dyspeptic TV director and an undernourished shrink, but he’d never crossed swords with Silverio Moreno, that was for sure.

When I noticed that Camera Three had gone in for a closeup of Darlene, I glanced down to check my watch. The show was coming to a close, and it was time for Sal to call the winner.

And there she went, right on schedule.

“So, audience,” Sal said in a voice pregnant with high expectation. “What’s it going to be for dear Darlene? Serpientes? Or escaleras?”

I hit the button that flashed for the studio audience both words, one after the other. Serpientes! Escaleras! They shouted and swayed in their seats.

And then, at the exact moment Sal cried out—“Escaleras! And it’s Darlene for the win!”—I pushed a switch so that the picture of a ladder appeared at the very instance Sal said it. I was very fast with a button.

Rose beamed down at the seated Darlene. She held out her hand, and helped the woman stand.

Just as Rose began to escort Darlene to Door Number One, I saw August rise to his feet. Valerie and Ed didn’t even notice, they were watching the action on stage.

August stepped onto the stage with a calm and deliberate series of movements.

Sal saw—or felt—his presence. Her eyes opened wide and she spun away from him. Once he made it to the center of the stage, August turned to look at me. I dropped into the classic grappling stance, suitable to defend against any number of offensive moves.

For a second I was convinced the man would leap over my piano and strike, but he only sneered and moved away.

Coward! Also, intelligent enough to recognize a man trained in hand-to-hand combat.

I watched as the mad man side-stepped around Camera Three, and grabbed Rose around the waist. Noticing for the first time that August was on stage with her, Rose screamed and released Darlene.

I had to pivot around my stool and step over the nest of cables at my feet. By the time I freed myself and was crossing the set, August had opened Door Number One and pulled Rose inside. He slammed the door shut.

I was only a second behind them.

I jerked the door back open, all prepared to employ the Brazilian style leg sweep. Keep things low, get him to the ground so Rose could….

The space inside was empty.

I had been too slow, and now they were gone.

If these portal chambers worked the way I understood, they would still be active until the very last second of the show. 7:30.

I could hear the faint hum of a capacitor recharging. Door Number One powering back up—I was sure of it!

I turned around. I saw Morris, up in the booth, standing, uncertain what to do.

And then I saw his uncertainty drop. His production training kicked in as naturally as had my jiu-jitsu training.

Good man!

He pulled the microphone of his headset closer to his lips and spoke into it.

I could see the head of the camera man nod in response as Camera Two rolled in toward me inch by inch, its red light glowing.

I smiled into the lens, took a deep breath, and I adjusted my toupee. I stepped into that empty little room behind Door Number One. But before I could close the door, a girl rushed in to join me.

The elevator girl! Nora.

Had she been hiding in the studio all that time?

Wait! Was it she who had been stealing my chocolate?

“Are we going after them?” she asked, crammed in tight beside me.

Remember what I said about moxie? Oh, yes! Nora was indeed full of the stuff.

I pointed to the camera.

“Smile for the people at home,” I whispered in her ear.

Nora did just that. She put an arm around my shoulder, cocked her head, and presented a pouty smile that celebrities always seem to give the paparazzi. And then she pulled the door shut.

I felt the floor—no, the entire universe—fall out from under us. Nora grabbed on to me tighter as we were whipped into some black and infinite void.

The applause sign flashed. We were a well-trained audience, so we loudly cheered and clapped as Valerie took Helen’s hand and Ed, Darlene’s. The two contestants chosen to play tonight’s game of Serpientes y Escaleras were led from their seats toward the stage.

I watched Rose. Her face rapidly ran through a range of emotions—confusion, relief, anger—before she slipped into her professional TV persona which radiated simpleminded compassion. She and Michael stepped forward as the contestants were handed off to them. Helen and Darlene might have had large gaps in their memories from their past lives, but they were both engaged and outgoing and had spoken often about how excited they were to become, one day, contestants.

Today was their day. The fools.

However, I knew I was supposed to be in one of those chairs they were sitting in.

And from the glances exchanged by many of the production crew, it became immediately clear that they, too, had expected a different selection. Saligia, yes. Saligia had balked. Changed her mind.

She was afraid. I’d seen that look from some of the others—they feared me. Saligia, though, hid it better than most.

Was it because of Lydia? Do they know?

And, yes, I do feel comfortable referring to Lydia by her first name. Such an ordeal as last night—an intimate encounter few get to share—had left us with no secrets to hide from one another.

I was quite sure I had left no evidence, but because of her absence, they all certainly would have begun to suspect something. I could see it from how they behaved around me. Especially when they brought us in to be seated. Valerie and Ed, usually so solicitous to everyone, were keeping watch over just the front row, where I sat, as though posted to sentry duty.

Then there was Silverio. He was not afraid of me. He had been looking over my way every so often. Nothing the least surreptitious in his manner. He watched as if daring me to do something. Anything.

Not that they truly expected me to become a bother.

They all thought I was too heavily drugged to be a threat.

I don’t know what they used. Some fairly pedestrian tranquilizer, but in a substantial amount. They sedated all of us at midday by dosing our lunch. I found it pleasant at first, but as I needed to keep my mind sharp, I found ways to get around it. To fool them.

But maybe I was not fooling them. If Saligia truly possessed the ability to read minds, could anything be hidden from her? Though I found that hard to believe—telepathy.

Whatever the case, she was not in prime form. Her composure had slipped, just a bit. I noticed earlier when she was selecting the contestants. While she was moving her fingers in the air around her head—manipulating thought waves or whatever—her fingers had brushed against her face. She’d never done that before.

I knew the signs. The woman was drunk.

That would have made my original plan so much simpler. But I hadn’t been selected.

So, I would adjust my strategy. Before the show ended, I needed to act.

I watched and thought.

Saligia moved to greet the seated contestants while Silverio shuffled through a stack of index cards to find the lighthearted biographies of the chosen contestants. Were those accurate, or just some nonsense he made up?

“What a couple of charming ladies we have with us tonight,” Silverio said as he lightly tugged at his lapels to adjust his sequined green jacket. “I would like our audience in the studio as well as everyone at home to meet Darlene. A mother of three who enjoys baking bunt cakes and playing the harmonium. Her greatest thrill was to meet Joe Namath while shopping for a shower curtain!”

Darlene smiled. She seemed thrilled to learn those facts about herself.

“And Helen, a retired astrophysicist with, what she considers, the largest collection of blown glass manatees west of the Mississippi.”

“Such sweet women,” Saligia said to Silverio as she returned to her podium.

“But we will soon discover, before the end of the show, which is the sweeter,” Silverio said. “Isn’t that right?”

“That’s correct, Sy. We can’t have the both of them going through the coveted Door Number One.”

“Oh no, that’s is not the way we do things here,” Silverio said, grinning into the camera. “We might need to dig deep, but I don’t doubt we’ll find a dark hidden secret or two. And we’ll get to work right after these wonderful words from our sponsors!”

During Saligia and Sy’s banter, one of the rolling cameras had been repositioned to an area in the corner of the studio where they staged the live commercials.

If indeed I had died and the people around me possessed the skills to resurrect the dead, I would have thought they’d be more accomplished in television production than to air these low budget live commercials.

A man obviously lacking the most rudimentary acting skills stared intently into the camera and began to extol the merits of some eatery called the Long Barracks Steakhouse.

“Steaks are indeed their name and their game,” he said with breathless conviction. “But let me suggest a more adventurous choice for your next visit. The Crêpe Cod is a surf and turf unlike anything you’ve tasted before. A deep fried fish filet wrapped in a delicate pancake and laid atop a generous portion of steak tartare.”

I had to wonder if anything more loathsome could possibly await me on the other side of Door Number Two.

I saw that Rose was trying to get the attention of Silverio. But he was focused on peeling a hard boiled egg. Rose looked over at Saligia, but she only shook her head, holding a finger to her lips.

Of course we in the audience were told at the beginning of every show to remain silent during the commercial portions.

Rose knew the rules, but I could tell she was frustrated. Because of me, I was sure. I wondered what she thought they could possibly do? Swap out me for Helen or Darlene and not expect anyone watching at home to tell the difference?

She leaned over and began to whisper in Michael’s ear, but the short woman with the clipboard and headset caught her eye and pantomimed the zipping of lips. Rose sighed and stood there on stage watching that man in the corner talk to the camera about the longest salad bar in city.

That city being San Antonio, which was one of the things I had learned from Lydia last night. True, I had already assumed as much, but she confirmed that I was in an office building in downtown San Antonio, Texas.

Additionally, I was in the future. Six years after I died in the prison hospital.

Everybody in the audience of this TV show had also died.

When I tried to get Lydia to explain who was bringing people back from the dead, and how, she started in on some convoluted gibberish about the Changes. I realized I wouldn’t get a straight answer from her about that matter—apparently some disaster where the laws of nature fell apart.

I moved on to other lines of inquiry. I didn’t want to increase my chance of being discovered, so I kept things as simple as possible.

I had her share with me everything she knew about why I had gone through that horrible transformation in the elevator and how I might best get out of this diabolical place.

She provided some very useful information. I might’ve gotten more from her—like the alleged telepathy—but unfortunately I got carried away, and I eventually realized she was no longer in any condition to continue supplying me with the answers I sought.

What I learned, however, allowed me to fashion my plan of escape. And, even with the unexpected turn of events that kept me from sitting on stage in one of those contestant seats, I could still see a way to make things work.

I just needed the right moment.

Silverio, having finished his egg, patted his lips with a linen napkin and began playing the show’s theme song. That was the cue for Valeria and Ed to excitedly draw our attention to the strobing applause sign.

We were back to the show.

Darlene and Helen took turns as the lighted game board tracked their progress. Every so often, they landed on a special square and Saligia slipped into action with her mumbo jumbo and Rose and Michael stepped forward to playact scenes we were to believe represented interludes from the lives of the two contestants.

Sadly, I didn’t get the chance to watch my life played out. I had been looking forward to that. If they had managed to portray my exploits in an accurate manner, it would have made for spectacular television. As it was, with Helen and Darlene, there seemed little chance for high drama. So far, we’d been given nothing more brow-raising than cheating on a college entrance exam from one, and impassive infidelity from the other.

I certainly didn’t have to work hard to give the appearance of someone in a drug stupor.

When we paused for the final commercial break, I focused my attention on the dimensions of the stage. Sixteen feet wide, thirteen feet deep. The trick would be to keep calm. Every move had to be purposeful. Deliberate. I would need to move around the center camera to avoid Ed. Then step high to clear the three loose cables in front of the lip of the stage. But once I made it that far, it would be straight on to my destination.

Four and a half seconds would do it. The second half of my plan should take half that time. But the truth was, I couldn’t be sure about that part. There would be a struggle. Of that I was certain.

I realized Silverio was not rummaging about for a snack to enjoy during the break. His eyes were riveted upon me. From my peripheral vision, I noticed his expression showed great curiosity.

He knew I wasn’t drugged.

What gave me away?

The intensity of my face while I mentally calculated my movements?

It hardly mattered. What could he do? Nothing. At least not during the broadcast.

There was one person in the room who lacked the slavish respect for the rules of live television production. An executive type named Ida who everyone tried to avoid.

Ever since that moment the two contestants had been chosen, and neither were me, Ida wore the expression of an elementary school teacher with an unruly student who just got more and more disruptive.

Silverio turned away from me so he could watch Ida as she snatched the clipboard from the short woman. She strode across the stage and came to a stop in front of him. Without once relaxing her scowl, she scribbled words on a piece of paper and dropped it on Silverio’s piano. She returned the clipboard to the short woman and stared at Silverio from the sidelines with her arms crossed.

A new development?

After Silverio read the note, he smiled at Ida, shrugging his shoulders as if to say it was out of his hands.

Just as I had thought. There was nothing they could or would do. It meant so much to them all to maintain the illusion of their absurd show.

And then we were back to the theme music, the applause sign, and that crude affair of the weighing of souls.

As Saligia instructed her mind-reading assistants to perform a scene from Helen’s college years, Silverio’s attention drifted back to me.

Silverio Moreno, the head clown of this mad show who had worn that absurd red wig two nights running. He looked at me with a lopsided smile. And then he winked.

He must think I was as unlikely to break the rules of the show as he.

He would soon learn otherwise. I knew precisely what I was going to do. It was just a matter of waiting for the perfect moment.

Just maybe I should add a slight embellishment to my scheme, I thought. I knew well enough that improvisation could be costly, but that was how much I desired to wipe that smile permanently off the face of Silverio Moreno.

The contestants would be led into the studio any minute. I hadn’t seen Saligia all day.

When I finally got free of Raul who had been making last minute adjustments to my dress, I called out to Myra louder than I had intended.

“Where the hell is Saligia?”

Myra blinked. It took a moment for her to process the fact that such untempered language had been directed at her. There were two people on the show one should never make demands of. Myra and Saligia.

I realized my blunder, and I knew my face had flushed brightly. The whole studio had to have heard my outburst.

“Where she usually is,” Myra told me, pointing to the corner. I don’t think it was so much that I was forgiven, as that Myra understood tonight was particularly stressful—especially in light of all she had learned during that meeting earlier in the day when she and a select few had been brought up to speed.

I knew more than a few eyes were on me as I marched up to the light tree positioned at stage left and whipped the cloth aside. Saligia threw up a hand to shade her face from the lights, cowering in her canvas folding chair.

As I let the cloth fall back into place, I heard Myra shout out to everyone that there were twenty minutes until airtime.

Saligia lowered her hand.

“What’s up, Rose.”

“Where have you been?” I whispered so loudly I hurt my throat. “You’ve been hiding all day.”

“I drank too much last night,” she said.

“There’s a plan in place. Please tell me Sy explained it all to you.”

“You mean about August?”

“Of course I mean August! He has to be chosen today.”

Her head dipped and rose in an almost imperceptible acknowledgement that I had spoken, but I needed more from her. I needed to know she was aware of the plan and would follow it.

I didn’t care much of Ida, but when she summoned me to the meeting this morning, I was encouraged to learn she at least had a plan to deal with August. I was there with Sy, Michael, Myra, Ed, Valerie, and Morris. Saligia was feeling under the weather—or so Sy said—and he insisted that he’d fill her in on the plan and make sure she was good to go come showtime.

Actually, it was Lydia’s absence in that meeting I found most disturbing. She was no where to be found.

Our scheme was simple. Saligia would choose August for the evening’s show, and we all would do whatever was needed to get him through one of those doors. When the plan was explained in the meeting earlier, I looked around the room to see if anyone was surprised to hear such an open admission that the selections were not truly random, nor mystically “revealed” to Saligia. But no one seemed to give it a second thought.

The other important part of the plan was to make sure August was sedated. That was why Ed and Valerie were included in the meeting. It was their job to dose August’s lunch with a heavy tranquilizer.

I wanted a chance to speak with Saligia and Michael before the show. Things promised to get intense as we dug deep into August’s hidden memories. I wanted us all on the same page. Of course there were so many distractions, Lydia’s absence being the most ominous to me. And now with minutes until we began broadcasting, I was convinced August had done something awful to her.

“I need to know you understand the plan,” I said to Saligia, moving around so she could see my face. “This is important.”

“I am a seasoned professional,” Saligia said in a small voice. 

“It has to happened today. The man’s not an idiot. We won’t have a second chance. He’ll know we drugged him, and he’ll be extra careful.”

“It will be rough,” she said. “I’ve touched on the edges of that man’s mind. And it won’t just be me diving into his deep end. Not that I’m worried about Michael. He never really makes a strong emotional connection. But you do. I don’t think you really know what it’s going to be like.”

I could hear, on the other side of Saligia’s curtain, the sound of feet on the risers as Ed and Valerie directed the contestants to their seats.

I couldn’t let her do this. Not talk herself out of the plan.

“He’s a threat, Saligia! Did you know Lydia is missing? No one can find her.”

Saligia closed her eyes and breathed deep. She then leaned back and peered through a gap in her makeshift curtain so she could look at the two doors on the back wall of the set. Door Number One. Door Number Two.

“Morris already checked,” I told her. “There’s nothing behind either one.”

“Poor Lydia,” Saligia said with a sigh. “Too trusting. Probably stuffed in some crawl space on the 28^th floor.”

“Saligia! Look, you’ve got to pull yourself together. Once we’ve got rid of him, we can figure things out. But until then—“

“I’ve been thinking about this. You know, this death and rebirth business.” Saligia tilted her head and looked into a mirror beside her. With three expert motions, she applied her lipstick. She then compressed her lips together and blotted them on a tissue.

“Sy has this scheme,” she continued. “Door Number Three, he calls it.” She chuckled. What the hell was she talking about? “Ask him to tell you all about it one day. But why do the ones who come to us, come to us? You heard Ida. They are not supposed to send us troubled souls. No one who died violently or by their own hands. Certainly not a murderer. But why then did we get Connie? Or August? Mistakes, I guess. But, mistakes or not, who is it making those decisions?”

“Have you started drinking already? Dammit!” I pulled aside the curtain so that we could see him. August. Sitting front row center. I knew Saligia saw him—she flinched. I let the cloth fall back, dropping us into darkness again. “We’ve got a killer sitting in the audience. And you’re talking philosophy?”

“I know about Lionel,” she said. “I remember when he was on our show.”

I felt my throat close up.

Of all the times for her to bring this up.

“This isn’t the time,” I told her, even though I wanted to grab her hand and haul her to the elevator, down to the street, and take her some place safe where we could talk all about it. “After the show. Okay? But we have to deal with August right now.” I put a hand firmly on her shoulder. “We can do this.”

And I left her there in her shadowy corner.

I looked around. It’d be okay. Nothing bad would happen with all those people around. Just have a good show. I scanned the line of sound technicians and the make-up crew waiting along the side wall. I looked up at Morris in the booth, pushing buttons and talking into his headset. And I even let my eyes rove over the potential contestants seated in the tiered rows in front of me. I didn’t let my eyes settle on August. They just drifted here and there without ever once even registering his presence.

Well, that wasn’t completely true. I knew where he was. I now always knew where he was. Some primal center of my brain kept track of the danger. Proprioception, they call it. That other human sense that lets us always know where a part of our body is in relation to the other bits. It seemed I now had a new limb. One that I was, at the moment, trying to ignore.

I felt nervous, but good. We had a plan. We were being proactive. And, finally, I was closer to getting some answers that had been gnawing at me for so long.

That pivotal night had been almost two years ago. Thursday. Seven o’clock. Marta and I were all ready, like every weekday night, sitting on the sofa. I remember everything, except what we were eating. Probably ice cream. And all ready for Serpientes y Escaleras.

That was back before Michael replaced Willard on the show. So, we sat there in the living room watching on TV as Willard, Bianca, and Saligia acted out moments in the lives of the two contestants. Nothing the least bit unusual.

Not at first.

It came on me slowly that night. The realization that one of the contestant’s stories seemed so familiar. Was it a repeat? That had never happened before. Always new shows.

Then it hit me. One of the contestants. His stories were my brother’s stories. Lionel’s stories.

But not the big one from his life. Not the drugs, not the dishonorable discharge. No mention of the dozens of jobs he had been fired from. Nothing about the car wrecks. No tawdry tales of Juvenile Court. Not our parent’s death. Not even anything about me.

Just little innocent things I knew all about. His shoplifting of candy bars from Walgreens. The time his girlfriend cheated on him with his best friend. The night he won the Karaoke contest.

I was in a strange limbo between shock and fascination.

Marta obviously didn’t see anything unusual. At one point she even became distracted by the toilet running several rooms away. She went off to jiggle the handler. How could she not know? Didn’t any of those stories sound familiar to her?

Of course, they weren’t using his proper name. The contestant was “Leo,” that’s what they called him.

And then I remembered that Lionel always hated his name. When he was a boy he tried to get people to call him Leo. They never did.

But it couldn’t be him. Could it?

The show wasn’t real. The whole thing about sending people off to a new life was just made up.

It had to be.

Besides, that man on the television, that Leo…it wasn’t Lionel.

Was it?

Marta must have still been in the bathroom fussing with the the toilet, because I’m pretty sure she didn’t see me slip to my knees and crawl across the carpet to peer closer, my face inches from the screen.

Was it?

I mean, it could be. The young man, Leo, sat slumped in his chair on that stage, face tilted down. His hair was combed neatly in a part. He had his shirt tucked in buttoned all the way to the collar. Lionel was never so neat. But….

Oh, my god! It might be him.

I wanted so much for this man to look up. So I could see his eyes. But the show ended so quickly. Leo won, and was made to stand, and escorted to Door Number One.

The door closed. Sy played his music. The credits began to roll.

When Marta returned I was there on the floor like a child, crowding the TV.

“Oh no,” she said. “I must have missed something good! It looks like it got exciting.”

I rushed to my room. I wanted to write down everything I could about the show. Before I forgot.

I was him. It was Lionel.

One of the things I wanted to do when I got my job here on the show was to find the video tape of that episode. Watch it again. See if I had missed anything. But I learned that there were no video tapes. None at all. Well, until Ida said they archived the show back at the Network headquarters. In Los Angeles.

Maybe that was where I should be heading. But I had to find out what Saligia knew. She had been here in the studio that day two years ago. With Lionel. She was in his head! Did she remember anything?

All that would have to wait.

We had a murderer to deal with.

And the show was about to start.

As Myra did her ten-second countdown, Michael touched my shoulder as he made his way to his mark for the opening of the show. I looked over and he gave me a thumbs up.

And then it was all applause, music, Sy shouting his opening spiel, and there was Saligia Jones. Radiant. Poised. She had a knack for not only being able to find her light, but to slip slightly to the edge to get the more dramatic and flattering shadows to fall on her face.

If she were drunk, now was not the time anyone would be able to tell. Saligia was, as she had said, a seasoned professional. I’ve discovered that there was an energy that came from performing in front of an audience, and Saligia could harness that energy almost as well as she could work with that more subtle and spooky force that allowed her to not only mentally merge with the contestants, but also bring others in with her.

Sy leaned close to his microphone.

“Saligia, take tight those reigns of your mystical powers and tell the good people at home who tonight’s guests will be.”

Saligia brought her hands up to her temples and closed her eyes. She hummed a long drawn-out note.

I glanced at August. He sat passive, shoulders slumped, eyes unfocused, yet turned in the general direction of Saligia who had lowered her hands until they were reaching out toward the people in the audience as if feeling their auras.

“Darlene,” Saligia said. “Yes. Darlene.” She nodded her head, decisively. Her fingers continued to stir the air in front of her delicately, searching for the next name to call.

From the corner of my eye I could see Ida, arms crossed, watching August with her smug and superior expression.

But my attention was immediately pulled toward August as he sat up straight. Not subdued and docile at all. He smiled directly at me and then he winked. I thought they were supposed to drug him!

“And Helen,” Saligia finally said.

What?

A flutter of white came from the side. It was a sheaf of papers that had slipped from Ida’s hand. She leaned forward, intent on crossing the stage to Saligia—to do what, I didn’t know—but Myra shot out her hand onto Ida’s shoulder to hold her back.

I looked over at Michael, but he had fallen into his role as performer and was grinning to the camera and clapping. There was no time to interrupt the flow, never with live television. I took a deep breath and smiled and applauded along with Michael.

Ed and Valerie brought down the two contestants who had been named. Neither being August. I guess Saligia was too afraid. There was nothing else to do but continue with the show.

That woman’s glorious scream was still in my ears. I admit to a somewhat childish enjoyment in mentally replaying her reaction to that dead body at her feet—a morbid gift I had provided to her. There was also this timber to her voice, a guttural and mournful wail, as if she finally realized it all: her death, her inexplicable time waiting in this infernal limbo, and finally the awful little closet that might mean the end of everything. Horror following horror.

Of course the fact that I was able to have such thoughts, having survived my own death, meant that death itself probably wasn’t what I once assumed it to be.

And thus, I was beginning to believe that those who go into those closets didn’t actually die. Though most likely they went somewhere. And if that “somewhere” was to be the next destination in my life—for it was clear I couldn’t leave the building in the normal manner—I needed some idea what would be waiting for me on the other side.

I sat in one of the armchairs in the lounge thinking of various strategies. But no matter what tactic I began fomenting, I’d eventually hit a wall. There were too many unknown variables.

Information. I needed more information. First, why did I remember everything from my life? My life before arriving here. The others didn’t—well, some managed to retain a few scraps, but none were as clear-headed as me. And here? Where was here? According to what I saw on that TV set, I was in San Antonio, Texas. But that sounded…inauspicious. And, apparently, I had traveled a few years into the future? I had heard people talk about the Changes. What was that? If I had died and come back to life, did that give me any sort of edge over these people? And why couldn’t I leave the building without my body transforming into something not human? My mind flashed on a series of experiments that could be quite illuminating. Such as sending some of my fellow contestants down the elevator to see if they would experience what I had. Probably too late, after all the chaos I had created. My handlers would be more watchful, more vigilant.

And, most importantly, what happened to those people put through the doors at the end of the game show? Did they arrive somewhere much in the manner we all appeared here, in those damn arrival pods? If so, would I find myself woozy, weak? Too disorientated to take action?

If that man with the wig, Silverio Moreno, was telling the truth, there were two outcomes. One good, for having lived a virtuous life. While the other promised punishment. The latter mostly likely would be my fate. The dreaded Door Number Two.

I had no desire to go off into some situation ill-informed. So, information. I knew what I needed to know. Now, how best to acquire it?

Then I heard a click from across the lounge. The stairway door up to the studio opened. It was the woman from the elevator. Nora. She did seem to work late. It was well past nine o’clock.

She had called herself the Assistant to the Superintendent of Elevator Services. Why would she be working in the studio? Not that it mattered. The only thing that mattered was whether or not she held useful information.

I watched as she moved about the lounge, searching for something. When she neared the cluster of chairs and sofas where I sat, I cleared my throat. She froze, startled. When I caught her eye, I smiled.

“We meet again,” I said. “You work in the studio as well as the elevators?”

“Huh? No, I….” Her eyes darted about the room. I saw she clutched a key in her hand. “I had to come back. I forgot my tool belt upstairs.” She laughed, her fingers awkwardly patting at the belt from which dangled various tools. “You haven’t seen a roll of duct tape around, have you?”

“I have not.” It became apparent she would be of little use to me. Just a flustered menial.

She dipped her head, muttered something about how it was nice to see me up and about, and she quickly rushed off.

She departed through the door that lead to the lobby and the elevators. When the door clicked shut behind her, I felt confident no one else would be troubling me for the rest of the night.

The radical change in that young woman wasn’t lost on me. Only yesterday she had radiated so much sympathy. Now, raw fear.

She knew. And if some low-level maintenance worker knew, who else?

I stood, stretched, and walked to Dr. Hetzel’s office. I’d overheard her tell a colleague she’d be working late.

The doctor looked up from a pile of paperwork when I entered.

“August. Nice to see you.”

After pulling the door shut behind me, I sat in the chair facing her desk. No fear in her eyes. Maybe not everyone knew. Though it struck me as odd. Wouldn’t someone have told her?

She put down her pen and gave me her full attention.

“Not chosen again, were you? I was watching tonight’s show on the TV.” She pointed to the television set atop a row of filing cabinets. “Soon, August. Soon.”

“That woman, Susan.”

“Who? Oh, tonight’s winner. Yes?”

“She screamed.”

“Don’t read too much into that, August. The process of working with active Readers, especially during such a heightened experience as live TV, sometimes results in temporary confusion.” She pushed the pile of papers half an inch away from her. “I wouldn’t be concerned,” she said in that sort of cloying manner one uses to address a child.

Had she not seen Hal’s body at Susan’s feet? Did those bumbling fools with all their cameras and broadcast devices fail to capture a clean shot of my handiwork?

“It’s time to stop feeding me all this nonsense,” I told her.

Dr. Hetzel blinked.

“August?”

“I can make this easier on you by asking specific questions,” I said in a soft but firm manner. “We have a lot of topics to cover tonight.” I produced Michael’s key and placed it on Dr. Hetzel’s desktop.

“Where did you get that?”

“I am quite resourceful.” I reached out and rubbed the key. “With one of these, I can now move about freely.” I leaned in closer, watching her pupils and those tiny muscles around her eyes. “Or so I thought. You see, I tried to leave the building the other night. Can you guess what happened?”

No overt reaction, but I knew she was struggling to regain her equanimity.

“Now, look, August. I am a trained professional. I have been working with those, well, those like yourself for years. We can discuss all this tomorrow. I’ll pencil you in for a consultation sometime in the early afternoon. Now you need to go back to your room. It’s late. And I’ll need to keep this key.”

“What I need is for you to begin by telling me why I can’t go beneath the tenth floor, more or less, without my body turning to putty?”

“This is not the time—”

“Oh, we have plenty of time.” I placed the roll of duct tape on the desk beside the key. “All night, in fact.”

There. A twitch. An involuntary spasm of the inferior oblique of her left eye.

“Now, August, there could be consequences to these actions of yours.”

“I’m willing to take that risk. Besides, I’m quite sure you have never encountered one of your brainless contestants who wasn’t absolutely docile.” She swallowed and her right hand opened up pressing down flat on the surface to the desk. Clearly, she’d never learned to resolve the conflicting fight or flight impulses. “No? No protocol in place for when one of us pushes back? I thought not.”

“I know you, August. You’re a kind man. An honorable man. So, let’s be reasonable.”

A plea for reason? I was surprised she had such undeveloped bargaining skills.

“I’ve learned that you people in show business are weak,” I said. She swallowed again, this time it was more difficult for her. “There’s no fight in you, none of you. I thought I might have had some fun with that director of yours.”

“Hal? August! What have you done?” In a panic, Dr. Hetzel reached for her intercom.

I swept it to the floor in a loud clatter.

“Hal went down like a sack of potatoes. And he did not come back up.”

Hal had been an afterthought. I had been on autopilot, so to speak. But this? I had forgot how much I enjoyed this place, this way of being. Having absolute control. The sense of strength. Decisiveness. Everything I did from here on out would be executed with clean, beautiful precision. This wonderful place of calm. It was as if I was finally breathing clean air after being surrounded by a stale, fetid stench.

I stood up and in a firm and fluid movement lifted Dr. Hetzel’s desk and with a quick pivot deposited it to the side of the room. I handed her the roll of tape.

“You’re going to tape your left wrist to the arm of your chair. Then you will hand me back the tape, and I’ll do the same to your other wrist, and then your ankles. Let’s not turn this into a game.”

Wordlessly she followed my instructions. Of course she did.

It was a long night for the both of us. But sometime before dawn, she had told me everything she knew. About the show, about the world beyond the doors. Everything.

This was going to take some time. And a few more rounds of drinks. The three of us clustered at the end of the bar beneath a huge stuffed bison head. Sal perched sullen on her stool, draining her Campari on ice through a narrow red straw until the slurping noise of an empty glass caused her to stop. Morris still had a couple of swallows of draft beer at the bottom of his mug. And I politely nursed my bourbon, waiting until everyone else had finished their first drink of the evening. At which point I’d down it and get everyone a fresh round. Rinse and repeat as needed.

“But this is good,” I said. “Right? A start. A fresh start with the three of us together again.”

“Is that so?” That was more than I had expected from Sal. It was a start. A good start. “He’s waiting on you,” Sal added, waving her hand at Morris.

Even better. Now she’s talking to Morris.

‘What?” he asked, looking up from the bowl of peanuts.

“Drink up,” Sal told him. She pointed at me with her thumb and repeated herself to Morris. “He’s waiting.”

“Oh, right,” Morris said, gulping the rest of his beer.

I finished my bourbon and motioned the bartender for another round.

“It was the creepy one,” Sal said. “August.”

“What?” asked Morris.

“The guy who killed Hal,” she added. “One of the audience members. The quiet man with the shaved head and weak chin in the first row.”

“They’re all quiet,” said Morris.

“Quiet and attentive.” Sal took a deep breath and then shuddered. “Like a spider.”

“Good theory,” I said. “He is an odd one.”

The drinks arrived.

“Theory?” Sal laughed. “It is a fact. I know. Right? Know.” Sal brought her hands up to the side of her head, wiggling her fingers.

“Right.” I nodded. I got it. “Of course.”

“I knew he was a psychopath from day one,” she said. “Me and Rose, we had him pegged. He’s got Lydia absolutely snowed.” Sal looked over at Morris. “That’s Dr. Lydia Hetzel, our resident shrink.” Then she swiveled her head back in my direction. “Lydia’s not the hardened clinician she wants us all to think. Too trusting. She’s the one I thought August would kill first.”

That made sense to me. Lydia had a naive streak that a psychopath would find very attractive. I mean, so I would assume.

There was movement behind me, but before I could turn around a vaguely familiar young woman stuck her head in between me and Morris.

 “Well, what a coincidence bumping into you,” she said to Morris. “And you’re here with your new work buddies.”

Some new conquest of his? The thing about Morris is, he doesn’t have a type. He’s pretty much drawn to anyone who will give him the time of day.

Did that come out too spiteful? Not my intention. We don’t hold such behavior against, say, a puppy, do we? Of course not. And everyone loves a puppy.

The young woman was chuckling to herself.

“Oh, me,” she said in a sort of singsong voice. “I can’t lie. I just cannot. No coincidence at all. I wanted to come join you guys. As a matter of fact, I rushed off so fast to follow you, that I left my tool belt behind. Not that I need it here. Besides, it makes it easier to sneak up on people without all that stuff dangling from me.”

Tool belt? I looked closer. She wore familiar coveralls. That was when I made the connection. She worked with that building maintenance guy at La Vida Tower.

“Hello, Nora,” Morris said. He got up and dragged over another stool. 

“It’s the elevator girl,” Sal said with an odd smile as she moved the ice around in her glass with her straw. At first, I thought it was jealousy, but, no. It appeared that Sal genuinely liked the woman. Besides, I’m sure any possible spark of possessiveness she might have once felt for Morris had long ago been extinguished. At least I hoped so.

“Am I the only one not to have been introduced to your charming friend?” I asked of Morris.

“My name’s Nora,” she said, offering her hand.

“Silverio Moreno,” I said as I clasped her hand in mine. “In case you didn’t recognize me out of my professional attire. And, please, call me Sy.”

Usually my presence, or at least my, name elicits a stronger response than the pleasant smile she gave me.

“You’re talking about that skinny guy who looks like a turtle, right?” she said, her eyes wide. “I saw him the other night—”

“In the elevator?” Morris asked in a teasing tone.

Nora’s smile evaporated. She cut her eyes at Morris.

“As a matter of fact, yes.”

“What?” Morris stiffened. “I was joking. You mean he’s got access to the elevators?” Morris looked around, as if August might have slipped into the bar.

“I don’t think he can leave the building,” Nora said.

“If he can get on the elevator,” said Morris, “I assure you, he can leave the building. There’s no security in the lobby, that’s for sure.”

“No, not like that. It’s, um.…” She squirmed uncomfortably on her stool, as if searching for words. “Some spooky stuff. The lower he went on the elevator, the less he was, well, there.”

Nora seemed perplexed that neither Sal nor I showed much curiosity about what she was saying. The fact was, we weren’t surprised. But Morris was.

“What do you mean?” asked Morris, perhaps more curious than surprised.

“He was flashing in and out,” she whispered dramatically. “Parts of him were turning spongy like chewing gum. It was like he was transforming into…well I don’t know what. But it was hurting him. Poor thing.”

“Poor thing?” Sal glanced around to see if anyone else might be displaying even the smallest scrap of pity. “He murdered a man!”

“Goodness.” Nora looked around the table. I don’t think she believed the man had killed anyone, death being a thing of the past and all. “Well, at least he won’t be able to get out to harm the public. I mean, I don’t think he would be able to make his way down to the lobby and out the revolving doors. But what’s wrong with him? Is there some weird research laboratory up there?”

“No, honey,” Sal said to Nora. “It’s not an experiment. Well, not exactly. August is a contestant on our show. All the contestants are housed on the 28^th floor.”

“Oh, right. For that television game show you guys make.”

“Did he seem violent?” Morris asked.

“In distress, at first,” Nora said. “But once I got him back to the upper floors, he rallied. A very polite man.”

Sal snorted at the utterance of the word “polite.”

“Excuse me,” I said. “But everyone seems to be missing the elephant in the room.” All eyes turned towards me. I peered closer at Nora. She didn’t seem blind or particularly mentally deficient.

“This girl is apparently unfamiliar with Silverio and Saligia, stars of the most popular game show around.”

“Girl?” Nora bristled at that. “I’m not as young as you seem to think I am. Besides, we didn’t have television in Great Falls.”

“I meant no disrespect,” I said quietly before things escalated. “And the fact is, I have, on occasion, encountered people from the hinterlands who haven’t heard of Serpientes y Escaleras.” And it was true, of course. Take those wonderful folks on the shore of the Great Expanse. “My child, I am in no way trying to equate uncouth with simple ignorance.”

“Okay,” Nora said, still smiling, but lifting her chin in a defensive manner. “Now I’m starting to get offended.”

Suddenly I understood what Morris saw in her. This girl was no bubble-brained pushover.

“Offended by Sy, are you?” Sal said, attempting to wave down the bartender. “Join our little club.”

Nora had already shifted gears—clearly not one to grasp tight a passing emotion.

“So, you called the cops, right?” She made a low whistle. “I mean, murder!”

“Interesting quandary we’re in,” I explained. “Have you seen much in the way of law enforcement since the Changes?” I then smiled up as the bartender looked our way. I held up a three fingers indicating another round.

“Well, I guess not,” Nora said. “But Great Falls is a pretty small town.”

“And whatever our new friend would like,” I called over to the bartender.

“Oh!” Nora brightened. “I’ll have a Shirley Temple. Heavy on the grenadine and with a shot of vodka.”

As the bartender began mixing our drinks, I thought to bring our new friend up to speed.

“I don’t know how things are in Grand Falls—”

“Great Falls.”

“—but you might have noticed that in this town, the standard bureaucracies are mostly absent. And, strangely—or not so strangely, perhaps—seemingly unnecessary.”

“Yes, but,” Nora repeated, “murder! Shouldn’t someone be notified?”

“I believe Rose took the matter to Ida,” Sal said. “For what that’s worth.”

Ida? That sounded like a horrible idea to me. But what was done was done.

“Then it’s not our problem anymore,” I said. “It’s the Network’s.”

Sal laughed without humor.

“Until that man is removed,” she said, “I won’t feel any safer.”

“I shouldn’t think,” Nora said. “I mean some of you live in that building.”

“It wasn’t pretty,” Morris said glumly as he fidgeted with a sodden cardboard coaster. “The way the man’s neck was broken.”

Nora’s hand short to her throat as she gasped. Why did Morris go putting ugly images in that poor child’s head?

“Consider him under house arrest,” I said to placate Nora’s fears. This was no time for fear. I wanted celebration. It all felt so warm. So right. “Isn’t this nice, though? Us. Back together again. The three of us. Well,” I grinned at Nora. She was growing on me. “Plus one.”

“Don’t go changing the subject,” Nora exclaimed. “Maybe you’re fine with roving killers, but I live in that building, too!”

“You?” That didn’t sound right. La Vida Tower was nothing if not exclusive. “You have an apartment in La Vida Tower?”

Wait, was I coming off as a snob?

“It came with the job,” she said defensively and gave me a challenging glare. Then she looked away. “Well, it’s a little efficiency. In the basement.”

“Oh, the basement.” That made more sense. “You couldn’t be safer. As you yourself witnessed, our villain could never make it down to the basement.”

Nora looked over at Sal. Apparently, I wasn’t trustworthy enough. I needed to brush up on my people skills, I guess.

Sal’s nod seemed to relieve the girl. 

When my drink arrived, I scooped it up with a graceful movement I’d seen William Holden do in some late night movie and drank it down. I placed a wad of cash on the bar—enough for Morris and his friend to keep drinking—and stood up.

“Well, I for one, have hit my limit,” I said, turning to Sal. “Shall we?”

I don’t know if it was the drink, the company, or the exciting evening, but I was a bit unsteady on my feet. It was a wonderful feeling! As she stood, Sal shot a glance towards Morris. They still had some unfinished business. But now that the three of us were back together, there’d be plenty of time for that.

Sal gulped down the Campari which had just been placed before her. She let out a long, low sigh.

“Sure. Let’s go back home and try not to get murdered.”

We left Morris and Nora at the bar.

On the walk back to La Vida Tower, I threw my arm around Sal’s shoulder and looked up at the stars.

“I had high hopes for Serpientes y Escaleras, Sal. Remember? Back in the early days?”

“What I remember most, Sy, was that huge pasteboard diagram you used to hide behind the curtain on that rolling room divider. Afraid that the Network spies might see the machinations of your grand two-year plan.”

“I admit I’ve fallen behind somewhat.”

“Whatever happened to that diagram?”

“It’s in storage behind Cleo’s old tank that she outgrew.”

“It wasn’t terribly feasible, was it?” Sal asked with a laugh.

“There’s always a way. Always. And now that we have Morris back on the team, I want to get back to that plan. Door Number Three!”

“Won’t work.”

“With Morris on our side, up in the booth, we can do anything. Hal would have cut the feed the moment anyone from the Network started to panic. Now? We will have complete control.”

Door Number Three. It was the most audacious of all options. Certainly so for the contestants. Not to Paradise. Not to Perdition. Neither up nor down the karmic ladder. Not Door Number One. No. Not Door Number Two. But Door Number Three. A series of doors, really. Out the studio, down the elevator, and through the revolving doors of La Vida Tower onto the breezy streets of San Antonio. Simple. But profoundly revolutionary.

“You know that can’t happen,” she said.

“We muck up the status quo. Upend the paradigm.”

“That’s not how you pronounce paradigm.”

“It is when you want it to rhyme with upend. And I’m sure if we put our heads together we can figure out how to make it happen.”

“We’ve tried,” Sal said. “The outcome is ugly.”

“We need to try harder.”

“If you really want to threaten the status quo,” Sal said. “Bring a camera into the elevator with one of the contestants and take him or her down to the lobby. Let the world see what Nora saw when August pushed the Down button.”

“That’d be extreme,” I said. “But it’d be honest. The problem is, we don’t have wireless cameras.”

“I was being facetious.”

“Hmm. I’ve fixed the problem with video recording.” I was intrigued by Sal’s simple notion. “But for your idea to work, it would have to be live. How difficult, I wonder, would it be to drop a length of video cable down the elevator shaft? Morris’ friend, Nora! She’s on our team, right?”

“Sure, Sy. Whatever you say.” 

“We need to move Morris into the penthouse with us!” It was the obvious next step. I pulled Sal in closer. “We’ve got so much room.”

That made me wonder if he wasn’t already living in La Vida Tower, crammed in that little basement efficiency with Nora.

“Right,” Sal muttered. “Let’s all move in together. Because that worked so well in the past.”

I ignored Sal’s sarcasm. It had worked well. On occasion.

“And Rose,” I added. “She has an important role in all this. I can feel it. But we have to get her over that absurd obsession about her dead brother.”

“And what would that be?” Sal asked me.

Was she truly unaware? The all-knowing Saligia Jones?

“She got the job on our show in hopes that her dead brother will pop in on us via an arrival pod. Then she can, oh, I don’t know. Say goodbye to him properly? Something like that. It’s so absurdly unlikely. One in a million chance.”

“You’re wrong, Sy. Rose is here because her brother has already been on the show.”

“No!”

“Early in Season Two.”

“Well, that gives me something new to think about.” In fact, it gave me too much to think about. Where to begin? The sheer coincidence. One in a million, right? Probably one in two million! I was wondering how well Sal recalled that episode, but I didn’t have to wonder long.

“He was very confused. Befuddled. I managed to spare our Readers and the audience from the most disturbing interludes of his life. There was so much tragedy with him.”

“You’ve talked to Rose about this?” I asked.

Sal shook her head and walked beside me in silence.

“I’m thinking our Rose is one of two things,” I mused aloud. “She’s come to infiltrate herself amongst us to exact revenge because we turned her brother into a piece of entertainment, in which case she’s a potential assassin!”

“Oh, good lord, Sy,” Sal said.

“Or, she’s come for answers. Like a detective!”

“She wants to know where he went.” Sal said it with the authority of someone who had been in Rose’s mind.

So, detective. I knew it! Though I would have held no malice toward Rose Aguilar, Girl Assassin.

But my intuition had been correct. Rose had a very important role in all this. Maybe the most important.

“I see amazing things before us!”

“You’re drunk, Sy.”

Sal was right. And it was wonderful!

I had no idea what I was going to say. I never thought of myself as a particularly shy person—reserved, maybe. But I disliked confrontation. And that was what it felt like when I was around Ida. One big confrontation. I tried not to let her confound me, but I constantly failed. Things would be easier if I could put everyone into a box, the way Saligia did. That woman had a category for everyone and everything. For instance, everyone who worked for the Network was not human. Sometimes she called them aliens. Sometimes, insects. The particulars weren’t important. They were stuffed in the box labeled: Not Human. That seemed to make it easy for her to sneer at them and avoid all contact.

That was why I was doing this on my own, without her to back me up.

I had never visited any of the floors in La Vida tower between the lobby and those three upper levels which were reserved for the TV show.

The elevator opened on the fifth floor, where I’d heard Ida had a suite of rooms provided by the Network.

It had been agreed that Saligia would tell Sy about August, and I would tell Ida.

Not much of a plan, I realized. Hell, I didn’t even know which was her room number. The central hallway in front of me led in each direction, past a series of numbered doors. I chose a direction at random, my steps muffled by the deep carpet. As I wandered the fifth floor, I considered randomly knocking on doors. It wasn’t so late that I’d be waking people. But then, I wasn’t certain if anyone other than Ida was on the entire floor. Maybe I should head upstairs and find someone who knew which room was hers.

Then I found it.

Room 517.

On the door beneath the brass medallion with the number was a small metal frame with a printed card: Ida Mayfield.

I knocked.

I shouldn’t have been surprised by who opened the door.

“Rose.”

“Michael?”

“I’m taking the last meeting of the evening,” he said. “Ida wants my help landing a big sponsor.”

I raised a brow.

“Oh, Rose, please,” Michael said with a smile. “Grow up. Besides, I wouldn’t be trying to keep a secret from someone with a 1200 on the Fitzroy Scale.”

“Who is it at this hour?” Ida shouted from behind him.

Michael opened the door wide. I entered.

I followed Michael into a spacious room with huge windows overlooking the nighttime lights of the city. Ida sat on the sofa with her shoes off drinking a glass of milk.

“Rose? What a surprise.” Ida patted the cushion beside her. “Have a seat.”

I did.

“We don’t talk, do we?” Ida shifted a bit to look at me, ignoring Michael who sat in an adjacent chair.

“I guess not.” I shrugged. “You know, one on one.”

I looked at Ida, reminding myself to smile. Ida didn’t seem so much to be looking at my face, but at some point beyond. There was a sort of insect-like stillness about her gaze. She was waiting. I decided to give it a couple of beats. I saw Sy do that sort of thing all the time. Allow enough uncomfortable silence until the other person rushes nervously to fill it. I immediately realized that the trick would never work on Ida. Michael, however, was different.

“Well,” he said, making a move to dispel the dead air. “I’d hardly call this a one on one, I mean, I’m here.” He gave a weak laugh.

One of the things I had begun to notice during my training as a Reader was that, even without Saligia’s assistance, I could get emotional scraps and fuzzy impressions from other people. Nothing sharp or defined. Certainly no repeat, yet, of that moment with August. But those casual flashes were more clear than intuition. However, I wasn’t getting anything off Ida. From her there was nothing. It all came from Michael. Suspicion. Jealousy. And, as he had said, secrets.

“It’s August,” I said.

“Yes.” Ida nodded. “He’s a problem, isn’t he. We don’t want contestants so, well, lucid. And with him, it’s more every day. God damn that Saligia!” Ida turned her attention to Michael. “And, Michael. You have some culpability in this as well.”

“Me?”

“As an associate producer, and a senior one at that, you have some say in matters of the show. Right?”

“Well, I guess. I mean, of course I do.”

“Get Saligia on board with this. We must have August in one of the hot seats and off the show this week. I don’t care whether it be Door Number One or Two. He’s a disruption. And I know that stuff about choosing the contestants at random is pure bullshit. It’s done at Saligia’s whim and caprice.”

“He killed Hal.” There. I said it.

“He, who?” Ida looked back at me. “And, what? Who did what?”

“August murdered Hal.”

“Now let’s not dive into a conspiracy,” Ida said with a laugh. “Sure, Hal is AWOL, but I understand your director has a history of enjoying his drink. When he sleeps it off, he’ll come slinking back.”

“The scream,” I said, interrupting. “Susan’s scream. She stumbled on Hal’s body in the pod.”

Ida furrowed her brow as she recalled the events of the evening.

“And the stench,” I said, looking at Michael. “You smelled it. That odor of decomposition.”

“Oh, no,” Michael said, stiffening. “I’m going to be sick.”

“Look,” I said. “I was there, in Susan’s mind. I saw what she saw. And what she saw was Hal on the ground at her feet. With his neck bent backward.”

Ida looked at Michael.

“Is this true, Michael.”

“Um, well.” Michael smiled, looked from me to Ida. “Sometimes I lose the connection. So, I don’t know.”

“Ask Saligia,” I said. “She saw it too. And she told me that, for a flash, she was able to read August. I mean, he was right there. Front row. Saligia flashed on his memory of when he strangled Hal.”

“Weeeeell,” Ida stretched out the word. “These things happen.” She took a sip of milk.

“They do?” I looked over at Michael. “They do?”

“Well, the jumper,” he said, scrunching up his face. I knew he wasn’t really sure what Ida meant.

“That poor creature,” Ida said shaking her head. “They’re all so confused and disoriented when they come to us.”

“But he’s a menace!” I said.

“Oh, we’ll put an extra detail on that one,” Ida said. “See to it,” she added to Michael.

“That sounds like an excellent idea.” Michael pulled a notebook from his back pocket and made some scribbles.

I couldn’t believe it!

A man had been murdered! And we knew who did it!

“Wouldn’t it be better to hand him over to the authorities?”

“My dear, unless you haven’t noticed, around here there isn’t any authority higher than the Network.” Ida smiled. Just like an insect would—I bet. She lifted her shoulders an inch or two as if to say it was nothing of great importance.

“Can’t we rush him?” I looked around for some support. Michael was looking at the floor. “Tie him up. Cram him in one of the exit pods. Someone else’s problem.”

“Hardly protocol.”

“Maybe if we told him the truth,” I said. “Crazy, huh? If he’s done this out of fear, why not tell him what’s on the other side of the doors?”

Michael fidgeted.

“There is a way in which we do things around here, Rose,” Ida said firmly.

“I see. And telling the truth isn’t it. Right?”

“Look here, I know you are Sy’s pet at the moment, but make no mistake, Rose, the Network comes first. I’m certain that one day Sy will make some grand heroic gesture—the ratings will be astronomical, I have no doubt—and following in the aftermath, he’ll implode and crawl away in defeat, his career finally over. But the Network will still be here. It’s not going anywhere.” Ida held her glass aloft. “You want answers? They’ll come bit by bit. But your allegiance needs to be with the Network. Michael understands that.”

She finished her milk in a single gulp and banged the glass down on the coffee table.

I knew a cue when I got one. I stood and looked for a moment at Michael. He held up his hands but didn’t stand. I nodded to them both and left.

###

I was curious if Saligia had any more luck with Sy explaining the danger posed by August than I had with Ida. But, frankly, I’d had my fill of Serpientes y Escaleras for the night. Besides, I didn’t feel safe in the building, especially at night when there were so fewer people.

But I wasn’t in the mood to go home.

I stood on the sidewalk in front of La Vida Tower for a moment, then I began walking toward Olmec Street Coffee.

Maybe Charles would be there working.

I was halfway down the block, when I saw Fran walking out of the coffee shop. I immediately ducked into a darkened doorway. This couldn’t continue. My avoiding Fran was adding too much guilt to my life. I needed to talk to him. But not tonight. I remained in the shadows until he disappeared around the corner. 

When I walked into Olmec Street Coffee, I thought the place was empty. That happened often in the post-Changes world. With no real crime, people often forgot to lock up their businesses. But the aroma of fresh-brewed coffee hung heavy, and I had seen Fran holding a to-go cup as he walked out the door. Smooth jazz oozed from the speakers overhead. Regina Belle, I think.

Then I saw Charles, lounging in a comfortable slump in a shadowy corner. I sat down in a cozy chair and was just able to read the title of the book he held before he noticed me and put it down. It was called People from the Other World by someone named Henry Olcott.

“Rose,” he said softly with a smile. I almost expected him to say: “I’ve been expecting you.” But instead he asked if I wanted anything to drink.

I hadn’t given it much thought, but I immediately knew I wanted some hot chocolate.

It took him only a few minutes to return with a cup for me and one for him. They both were piled high with whipped cream that he had dusted with chocolate powder.

It was delicious.

“That was quite a show tonight,” Charles said. “High drama.”

“I thought you didn’t watch TV?”

“Not until I learned I knew one of the stars!” He laughed. “I almost forgot there was a television set in this place.”

I decided to steer the conversation in another direction.

“I see that we have a friend in common,” I said. “Fran.”

“Who?”

“Francis, the man who just left.”

“Oh, yes. He’s in all the time for herbal tea. I never asked him his name.”

“It’s just that, well, the other day when you mentioned a group of people who want to know what the Changes are all about, I thought you meant….”

But that was as far as I went. If he didn’t know about Fran’s All Seeing Eye Society, he probably didn’t need to. It seemed that Charles had his own group.

“The group I belong to,” he said with quiet deliberation, pausing a moment to spoon some whipped cream into his mouth, “is a rather closed community, I guess you could say.”

I patiently waited. I knew he wanted to talk to me, so it was just a matter of time before he opened up. If not tonight, some other day.

Were they scientists? People who might have real answers, unlike Fran’s crowd of…well, I can only base my opinion of Fran’s associates by what he himself had told me over the years—but they seemed no closer to any answers than when he started his organization.

“Are you familiar with the Grand Esoteric Order of Futonians?” Charles asked.

“I am not,” I answered. I would have remembered that.

“That’s good. I mean, that you don’t know. That indicates we’re succeeding at keeping our secret society secret.”

“Futonian? I don’t think I know that word.” I was, at that point, mostly being polite. The other word, Esoteric, had immediately made me sorry I even began this conversation.

“I’m speaking of one of the marvels that came with the Changes. The most marvelous of all those marvels.”

I nodded, encouraging him to continue. I shouldn’t, really, be so quick to judge. Maybe he did have something of interest to share.

“You’re familiar with the the courthouse?”

“Here?” I asked. “The one downtown?”

“Yes. The Bexar County Courthouse.”

I shrugged. “Sure.”

“If you take the stairs to the basement,” he continued, “there, adjacent to the offices of the Department of Motor Vehicles, you will find this marvel. It floats, defying gravity, forty-two inches above the polished granite floor. A futon.”

I shook my head and held up a finger.

“Excuse me,” I said. “I thought you just said a futon.”

“I did.”

“Futon? You mean, like a mattress?”

“I can never get over it,” Charles said with a sigh. “How so few people know about it. I guess the Changes brought so many surprises. But, you must come and stand before it. I guarantee, it will transform you.”

“Okay.” I was wondering if maybe this futon spoke to people. Told them all about the Changes. I mean, I have seen my fair share of impossible things, certainly back when the Changes were in full swing. My cousin had a Barbie doll that told dirty limericks for a full two weeks before her mother flushed it down the toilet.

I asked Charles what he and his group leaned from the futon.

He explained when it first arrived, how people came to the courthouse basement and look at it with wonderment. How every three days it would vanish, only to return sixteen minutes later. People began to place offerings on the futon. When it returned, the offerings were gone.

“Some have speculated that it was actually a different futon returning each time. But once the Changes ended, the futon remained. Floating. Unchanging. A mystery.”

That was it?

“So, you people don’t have any answers?” I asked.

“Excuse me?”

“About the Changes.”

“Oh, no. All we have are questions. Speculations. The Answer will only be given to whoever is sitting on the Holy Futon when it returns to its place of origin.”

“What is that? Some sort of prophecy?”

“Just an educated guess.”

I wasn’t sure about the educated part.

“So,” Charles continued, with the blissful smile of a true believer, “we take it in turns. A rotating schedule. Everyone in our group spends two hours floating up there atop the holy futon. One thing is certain, it will not vanish unoccupied.”

“But how can you be certain that it will vanish?”

He looked at me with pitiable patience.

“Rose! It’s a matter of faith.”

“And you?” I asked. “Do you have you a speculation? What might await you if you’re lounging on that mattress when it disappears?”

“I do. Infinite sleep, more peaceful than one could ever imagine.”

I was beginning to suspect that Charles and his friends belonged to some sort of death cult. Maybe I should introduce them to August.

I looked down at my half-finished hot chocolate. It no longer held any appeal.

“What is it that each of us has in common?” Charles had finished his chocolate. He learned forward in his chair with his hands on his knees, not really looking at me. “No matter when in history we were born or what part of the world?” I knew he wasn’t expecting an answer, so I let him continue. “Rest.  A desire for rest. The rejuvenation of slumber. We toil, all day, every day. Unlike animals, we humans, with our intellect and our sense of time, must plan and execute, and plan again. The wheel of industry. Is there no end to this drudgery?”

I was about to ask how many customers per day came in for coffee and tea? Whatever drudgery that entailed, he seemed to find ample time to read big fat books about people from other worlds. But I let him drone on.

Charles and his Futonians were nothing new to me.

That was one of the more embarrassing things that the Changes had left us with. Whenever I manage to encounter people who even bothered to acknowledge that the Changes were pure mind-melting madness, they almost always skewered far into the realm of religious mania. Like those friends of Sy on the far side of the Great Expanse.

I had so wanted to find in Charles a seeker of truth. A critical thinker. An intellectual rebel. Someone who wanted this whole crazy world broken apart so that he could analyze the pieces.

Someone like Sy.

But no.

After Charles finished extolling the merits of his peaceful kingdom of slumber, or whatever he was trying to explain, I politely told him he’d given me a lot to think about, and that I’d be sure to return.

And I got out of there and headed home.

I sat in the stairwell that they used to bring the contestants up from their quarters to the studio. I wasn’t sure if privacy was exactly what I was looking for, though it was hardly what I got.

“Great job!”

I looked up at the man patting my shoulder. It was Ed. He held up a thumb before turning back to the line of people behind him. I shifted over to accommodate the audience members as they made their way to the floor below. The woman, Valerie, brought up the end. Once she had passed, I was alone again in the dim glow of the bare light bulb hanging above.

I got up. Walked into the studio. The place was empty.

I crouched down and peered under the risers. It was too dark to see anything, but I suspected that if Nora was in there she’d say something.

Up in the booth, I got on my knees and turned off the reel-to-reel machine. After I carried Sy’s homemade tape deck down from the booth, I put it and a video monitor onto a rolling cart and took everything up the elevator to Sy’s penthouse apartment.

The sun had just set and the surrounding lights of the city came in beautifully from every direction I looked. The floor of the penthouse was a dark stained wood. I rolled the cart along, occasionally slowing on the area rugs scattered about. I arrived at one of the clusters of sofas and chairs where the lone light in the room shone. Sy sat with his feet up on an ottoman watching me.

“Oh, dear,” he said. “Please don’t let Saligia know that I forgot to lock the elevator. She’s hyper-vigilant these days.”

He looked on with curiosity as I parked the cart in the center of the conversation pit, locked the wheels, and used an extension cord to provide power to both the tape machine and the video monitor.

“You do that so well,” said Sy. “Let me guess, you were in the AV club in high school.”

“I was.”

“Thanks for turning off my tape machine. I’d completely forgotten. But there was no reason to bring it up to me.”

“I have something to show you.” I turned on the monitor. It crackled with a slight static charge and the screen began to glow. “That is, if your kludged together contraption works.”

“Oh, I can assure you, it does.” Sy sat up. Intrigued. “Something to show me, eh? Well, show away.” 

“Saligia and that woman, Rose,” I said. “I think they both know.”

“They both know what?”

“You saw them talking together after the show, right?”

“Yeah. I assumed they were talking about you.”

“Me? No. They were talking about Hal.”

“Hal? No.” Sy shook his head like explaining something to a child. “No one talks about Hal. The man is as devoid of sex appeal as a turnip.”

“Good lord, Sy.” I rewound the tape. “Were you not watching on the monitor? Or looking when that woman, Susan, was pushed through Door Number One?”

“No, but her scream was pitch-perfect.”

I cued the tape.

“Here’s what made her scream.”

I let the tape roll to show Rose opening the door and escorting Susan inside. Susan tottered and looked down. Just as she screamed, I paused the tape.

“Does that lump at her feet look familiar?”

Sy didn’t need my prompting. He was already leaning forward, hands on his knees.

“Puffy down vest,” he muttered, “and the unkempt beard.” Sy’s eyes burned like he was watching a murder mystery. “It’s Hal!”

“Yep.”

“Maybe he got drunk and passed out in there?”

“Sy, the man’s dead,” I said. “And my money’s on murder.”

It seemed that we had slipped into some surreal scene where we were discussing a very disturbing incident with comedic banter. But, then again, Sy had a habit of making the normal abnormal, and the uncommon common.

“Dead?” He shook his head. “That would be thrilling, Morris, but if you hadn’t noticed, that sort of thing doesn’t happen anymore.”

“So your reaction is that he’s sleeping it off?” I asked. “For three days? Does that explain the smell lingering around the studio after that door was opened?”

“There was a whiff of decomposition,” Sy said softly. He leaned in closer to the monitor screen. “And he is in an awkward position.”

“Awkward? Sy, the man’s head is facing backward. His eyes are bugged open.”

“Can’t argue with video evidence,” Sy said, grinning. “Can we?”

“I thought we were done with death since the Changes.”

“This is so exciting,” Sy said. “We have a mystery!”

“So,” I said slowly. “I’m guess Hal wasn’t what you’d call a close friend?”

There was a rattling of bottles back towards the kitchen. Sy looked around.

“Sal!” Sy exclaimed. “I was wondering where you were hiding.”

She pulled her head out of the refrigerator.

“Let’s put our mystery on hold,” Sy whispered to me. He stood up and turned off the video monitor. Then he shouted out for Saligia to hear.

“The three of us need to head out for a nightcap!” Sy turned to me. “There’s this wonderful bar next to the Alamo. Teddy Roosevelt used to go there to get sloshed.”

“You could maybe go without me,” Saligia said, ignoring me.

“You know I can’t do that.” Sy crossed his arms and frowned melodramatically.

“Fine.” Saligia closed the refrigerator. She looked over at me. “We can’t keep running from each other, can we?”

“Then it’s a date!” Sy clapped his hands.

It took about half an hour. Saligia had to go up a ladder to her “penthouse above the penthouse” to get dressed for a night out. I was about to explain that it was just a bar, then I remembered who I was with. It all came back. Silverio and Saligia both had a compulsion to dress for any and every occasion.

###

When we finally made it to the street, I was in my normal jeans and leather jacket, but Sy had put on a bright yellow sport coat with horizontal pink stripes. And Saligia had on some sort of black velvet backless gown with violet mesh opera gloves that reached to her biceps. I had forgotten how I always felt shabby when we’d all three go out.

“Oh, this feels nice,” Sy said as he got in the middle and linked his arms with ours.

I’d learned not to fight Sy on these occasions. It was best to play along, he was no fun to be around when he pouted.

We made our way along the darkened streets of downtown San Antonio. As the city was practically car-free we literally walked in the middle of the street.

“Oh, by the way,” Sy said, turning his head toward Saligia. “Someone murdered Hal.”

“I know,” was her short response.

Sy came to an abrupt strop. And since Saligia and I were still arm-linked, we had to stop as well.

Sy loved to blurt out the unexpected so as to cause deliberate awkward moments. Only on the rare occasion did he fail to get a rise out of his intended victim. However, when that happened, such as it had with Sal, he became the one pushed into the awkward state as he tried to regain his composure.

That was when it occurred to me that we were all behaving strangely. I mean, someone we knew had been murdered. Were we finally succumbing to the malaise so common with people in the post-Changes world? No. It wasn’t that we were indifferent or unconcerned. In fact, we were quite engaged with the matter at hand. Not detached, no. Though more than a bit cavalier…which, I’d admit, wasn’t something one should be proud of when talking about a deceased co-worker, but then the three of us weren’t, strictly speaking, normal people.

I turned my head to look at Sy. I realized I was looking forward to that drink, and this standing in the middle of the street wasn’t getting us closer to a bar.

However, Sy’s attention was focused on Saligia.

“Just when were you going to tell me?” he finally demanded of her.

“You mean about Hal?”

“Of course.”

“After I had a drink,” she said. “Or three. And then I was going to tell you about Hal and who killed him.”

“You’ve already cracked the case?” Sy tightly gripped my arm, as I assumed he was with Saligia’s. It appeared he had regained his composure. “Do tell!”

“I still need that drink,” she said. “Let’s get to the bar.”

Sy turned to me.

“Do you know the culprit?”

I shook my head.

“Ah,” Sy said with a satisfied chuckle. He continued walking, pulling us along. “What a great detective team you two make. Morris with his evidence-based presentation, and the Great Saligia Jones with her gift of second sight.”

“You made fun of me wanting to put that lock on the elevator,” Saligia said softly. “We could have been murdered in our sleep.”

“I am a notoriously light sleeper,” Sy said, although I knew that not to be true. “And do you think for a second that some maniac would be able to get past me to make his way up to your humble home?” Sy laughed softly. Then he took in a deep lungful of air and looked at the sky. “It is the perfect night for a walk. The three of us together again. Hey, do the two of you remember that night in Juarez when we snuck up to the roof of the Mercado Cuauhtémoc to fly kites under the full moon?”

I tried to get Sy back to the present.

“So, what’s up with this whole show?” I asked.

“Serpientes?”

“Yes.”

“That’s a vague question. What do you mean by what’s up? Are you having  trouble understanding the rules? Morris! It’s a children’s game. Or are you talking about the deeper epistemological significance?”

“I mean those creepy contestants kept locked up on the 28th floor? The magical closets you cram them into. All that. I mean, Silverio Moreno, what have you gotten yourself into?”

Sy gave me a sly smile as we walked into sight of the Alamo.

“Morris, that’s a tall order. I will give you the standard Saligia Jones response.”

“Which is?”

“I need a drink or three first,” he said gleefully.

“Amen to that,” Saligia said.

As we crossed the plaza, Sy noticed Charlemagne DeWinter and his food cart.

“We should definitely grab some falafel later,” he said. Then, “Hey, is that man wearing what I think he’s wearing?” He slipped his arms from ours and rushed over to the falafel cart.

Sy and Charlemagne were exchanging pleasantries as Saligia and I hurried to catch up. There was an awkwardness hanging in the air between the two of us that could only be mediated by Sy’s presence. I hoped we could somehow get past that.

When we reached the cart, Charlemagne gave me a surreptitious sign, acknowledging, I presume, the recognition of a fellow member of the All Seeing Eye Society.

I turned my attention to the menu. Some food would be nice. But Sy shook his head.

“Drinks first.” And he began pulling us across the street. “The vendor told me he got his fez at Penner’s. Did you know they have a whole line of them in every color. With or without tassels. In the basement. But you have to ask.”

A fez would not have helped me at the moment, but still, maybe a decent jacket and proper trousers.

“I feel underdressed,” I muttered.

“What?” Sy laughed. “Nonsense. That rugged look of yours always gets people’s attention. You’re so clueless—you probably didn’t even notice the falafel vendor winking at you.”

“Oh, he noticed,” Saligia said.

What did she mean by that?

“Besides,” Sy said as he steered us toward the side entrance to the Menger Hotel, “of the three of us, you’re the most appropriately dressed. This is a very masculine establishment.”