Hell in a Dry Place

[Doktor Howl]

I like weird. Love the story.

[Don Coyote]

I have no idea what is going on, but I ache to find out.

[Doktor Howl]

I have no idea what is going on, but I ache to find out.

Unlike LOBB, I know precisely what I have in mind, this time.   

[Doktor Howl]

Part 7

"So tell me, you Russian freak", I asked, "What are we to do about our young lady?"

Ivan raised his head off the bar.  "Marie?"

"How many other young ladies are we responsible for?"

"Well, it's very simple.  I have filed the paperwork, and asked for funding to conduct more tests on her."

"You'll never get the funding, not these days."

"I know.  And thus our temporary orders stand.  Marie will fly at night and only at night until the paperwork unsnarls.  Which should be about 5 years after she retires."

I laughed out loud.  "You sneaky Russian bastard."

"You say that as if it were a bad thing."

Still laughing, I slid off my bar stool.  "Come on then, we have to go to work."

We staggered out to my Studebaker, and poured ourselves inside.  On the dashboard was another note, wrapped around something.  I took it, and found the note was wrapped around a key.  The note read "Hotel Congress, room 309".

I showed it to Ivan, who laughed.  "Someone is having you on.  The Hotel congress doesn't have a 3rd floor anymore, other than a loft.  The third floor was destroyed in 1934."

"Remember the last note?  It said something about 'it happening on the 3rd floor'."

"Shall we go now, or shall we do our job?"

"Work first.  Then we'll go look into this."

We drove down to the distillery...Which, to the eyes of police and revenuers, looked like a candy store that didn't do much business.  We'd place the orders for the bootleg whiskey, then there'd be time for this hotel nonsense.  As we pulled up to the candy store, I took my heater out and made sure it was loaded.  You can't be too careful in this line of work.

I was also sweating like a pig.  The man that invents air conditioning for automobiles will be a very rich man, indeed. 

But when we got out of the car, there she was.  Man Next was strolling down the sidewalk towards us.

"Just what do you think you're doing, gentlemen?"

"Ordering some bootleg hootch, of course.  How about you?"

She seemed impatient.  "You dumbasses.  You aren't gangsters."

"Ouch", I said.

"That hurts", Ivan added, "I feel like my professional standards have been called into question."

"Why the hell can't you guys remember?"

"Remember what?"

"Who you are, you idiots!"

"Well, we are in Hell.  I imagine memories would fade after a time."

"You are NOT in Hell!  Wake up!  I've been trying to tell you this for months, but you make it so hard!"

"Then were are we?"

"You are in cracked time.  You are stuck between...Oh, shit."

She shimmered in the desert heat, then sort of folded up, and winked out of existence.

"Well, that is something we do not see every day", Ivan said.

"Tucson."

"You make an excellent point.  In any case, I think perhaps we should go to the hotel now, rather than later.  Something isn't right."

I shrugged, and got back in the Plymouth.  We drove over to the Hotel Congress, humming a Glenn Miller tune. We walked inside, and up the stairs to the loft that is the sole remaining portion of the 3rd floor.

In the loft, however, we found a set of frosted glass double doors in the West wall.  An odd place for that, because there's nothing on the other side of the wall but roof.  I opened the door...And saw a long hallway, much like the second floor, with rooms on either side.  From one of the rooms, outdated Jazz music was playing.

I looked at Ivan.

"What do we have to lose?", he asked. 

We walked down to room 309.  I caught a faint whiff of smoke.  Not like cigarettes or even wood burning; it was a very unpleasant, though faint, acrid odor.

I unlocked the door and pulled my heater out, and then opened the door.

To be continued.

[LMNO]

I love the UN-explicitness of the chapters, how the cracked time has been implied up until now.

[Doktor Howl]

I'm having a lot of fun with that.  How their jobs, their cars, their clothes, etc, change every time they turn around.

[Doktor Howl]

Part 8

The room was a disaster area.  The bed and dresser were smashed flat by some sort of metal capsule that filled most of the room.  Wisps of smoke were coming out of it where the capsule had breached.  It looked more or less like a rather crumpled metal egg.  Standing next to it was the lady in the space suit, which was plugged into the capsule by some sort of cable harness.

She turned to face us.  "Oh, thank God.  You've finally arrived!"

We took the scene in.

"What the hell IS all of this?", I asked.

"We crashed.  I've been waiting for help ever since...I tried to call for help but my brainmail is down.  I knew if I was going to get any help, it would have to be from people in your time."

"Our time?  Is that a time machine?"

"It was.  We crashed, and sustained catastrophic damage.  The explosion reached at least my time, because the backup team hasn't come looking for us."

A voice behind us:  "This explains a great deal."  I turned to see Man Next standing behind us.

"Who's this 'we'?", I asked.

She gestured to the other side of the capsule.  I edged around it, and looked into a canopy.  It looked like the cockpit of a modern fighter jet.  The rear seat was empty...And in the front seat sat another suit, with it's visor smashed in.  A mummified face stared back at me.

"Rob's suit was damaged in the accident.  All the years caught up to him at once."  The woman started sobbing.

"When did this happen?"

"In your terms, 79 years ago.  January 21st, 1934.  It lit the building on fire."

"Ah, the mysterious Hotel Congress fire", Ivan said, "That led to the capture of John Dillinger and his gang."

"It did more than that", the woman said, "It changed history, it split the universe in half."

"What do you mean?", asked Ivan.

"When Dillinger was caught, as best as I can tell, somehow events he would have influenced caused some very major differences in history.  Your second world war wasn't averted, as it was in my reality.  But the universe hates a paradox, so it 'repaired' itself by splitting into two timelines...And the explosion went back in time as well as forward, so there's no telling what actual events differed."

"We suspected as much", Man Next said.

"NOW who is 'we'", I almost shouted.

"You and Ivan and myself, and the rest of the team", Man Next replied.

"What are you talking about?"

"I've been trying to tell you this for months", Man Next replied, "You aren't gangsters or military psychiatrists or any of that other garbage.  You are physicists."

"We are?"  Ivan seemed stunned.

"Yes, you are.  You volunteered to enter the zone, knowing you'd get stuck.  We didn't expect history to overwrite you every few hours."  She turned to the woman in the spacesuit.  "And how does this split in the universe explain the zone?"

"For a few dozen kilometers in every direction, you have a zone between the two realities", the woman said, "Where the 'damage' so to speak, is shunted from each reality.  This is why bizarre phenomena occur here."

"And the zone is permanent?"

"Unless it is repaired", the woman said.  "If I have enough help, I think I can make the two realities collapse into one steady state, a single time line."

"What happens to the other timeline?" Man Next asked.

"They will sort of merge together.  Nobody will even notice...Except here in Tucson."

"What happens here?"

"You cease existing.  Tucson will never have existed.  It sounds awful, but the truth is that nobody here, not you or your friend, actually exists.  Your lady friend there will of course exist, because she isn't actually here"

"I feel like I exist.  And what do you mean she's not here?  She's right in front of us."

"No, I'm not", Man Next said, "What you are seeing is a projection of a forcefield modeled on me.  It's why I never stay...The equipment is brand new, and we're having heat issues that shut it down."

"So, we do not exist?  And our new friend Marie?"

"Also not real.  Sorry."

"But you can fix this?"

"Not for you.  But the universe will be put right."

"I think I can help", Ivan interjected.

"You can?", the woman asked, looking hopeful.

"Yes."  Ivan drew his pistol and fired into the control panel of the time capsule repeatedly.  There was a squeal and a hiss.  The woman in the space suit opened her mouth as if to say something, and then mummified right in front of our eyes, in perhaps 3 seconds.

"What the hell have you done?", Man Next screamed.

"Well, it seems that I do in fact exist", Ivan said, "And that our traveller friend was the dream."

Man Next began to shimmer again, and disappeared as she started to speak.  Heat problems again, I suppose.

Ivan and I walked back to the stairs, the frosted glass door vanishing as we closed it.  We headed down to my souped up Chevy Nova, and got in.  We had a deal to close on a hot new band, and we were going to be late.  I fired the beast up, and we drove into the darkness, another perfect night in Hell.

End

[EK WAFFLR]

My god, I love this.

[Doktor Howl]

My god, I love this.

Nobody has yet figured out where the fighter pilot scene came from.



I thought it was obvious.

[EK WAFFLR]

Haha. I have NO idea.

[Doktor Howl]

Haha. I have NO idea.

Lady Gaga (referenced her in that chapter) wrote a song called Dance in the Dark that was recorded on The Fame Monster album.  My wife listens to it, she thinks "decent pop".  I listened to it and thought of a female fighter pilot who only flies/fights at night, so her boyfriend won't see her doing it, in case she screws up.

My head is kind of weird like that.

[EK WAFFLR]

Haha. I have NO idea.

Lady Gaga (referenced her in that chapter) wrote a song called Dance in the Dark that was recorded on The Fame Monster album.  My wife listens to it, she thinks "decent pop".  I listened to it and thought of a female fighter pilot who only flies/fights at night, so her boyfriend won't see her doing it, in case she screws up.

My head is kind of weird like that.

That's brilliant!

[Doktor Howl]

Haha. I have NO idea.

Lady Gaga (referenced her in that chapter) wrote a song called Dance in the Dark that was recorded on The Fame Monster album.  My wife listens to it, she thinks "decent pop".  I listened to it and thought of a female fighter pilot who only flies/fights at night, so her boyfriend won't see her doing it, in case she screws up.

My head is kind of weird like that.

That's brilliant!

I was just reading an interview about it, and she was talking about having sex with the lights off.

That interpretation strikes me as kind of prosaic, know what I mean?  Everyday.  Boring.  Hell.

[Anna Mae Bollocks]

Yours is better.

"Cracked time" sounds like my mp3 player. Now I'm going to think of this every time it goes from a recent show download to Billie Holiday.

Dok: Makes your electronics all spooky and shit. 

[LMNO]

Great ending, Dok.  Great story in general.

Thanks for writing it.