A new currency.

[LMNO]

Yeah, buddy!

[Eater of Clowns]

Phew.

I was afraid that after all that buildup the comedy would be lost and I'd be chased off. 

I think this arc has another part or two to go before I move onto another.

[minuspace]

It was the automation that really did it.  Sold as a system of convenience, it took a while to realize that any short-term benefits would be outweighed by yet indeterminate future costs. Of course the automation meant that I could visit on my own time, facilitating payment, if only that.

There had been a glitch in my transaction, the Veil did not register my deposit and prompted me again for a coin, and again, before finally returning zero.  It thinks I still have to "insert-coin".  The problem was deeper than I could imagine.

The teller could not recognize that it had made an error, and it would rather consider flying into the sky as a harpie contending with dragons, than admit the possibility of being at fault.  You can count on that.

Obstinancy was programmed into the system to enhance  the authority with which it is percieved and credited.  Unfortunately, the disposition was entirely ungrounded.  The Veil only "acted as if" it knew what was going on, meanwhile, it was less than oblivious.

Obstinancy served to bully people into compliance, without reason.  Factoring the possibility of being in error could have a deliterious effect on the Veil's capacity to collect.  The Veil was always right, categorically.  Calculation was therefore made redundant.  Cha-ching.

What the Veil did not know was that its being there was predicated on a very consistent flow of liquid to keep the reflecting pool flush.  Anything interupting or getting in the way of this constant replenishment would lower the level, exposing the edges and destroying the Veil's illusory claim to infinity.

So it was done.  The pool evaporated, the ruse revealed.

People now come from all over to take a picture with the Naked Teller.  One gentleman in particular has developed a keen interest in the relic.  It's been said people can hear him whispering things into the Veil when he thinks they are alone.  Many think he's crazy; I, unfortunately, do not.  I know better now.  

[Eater of Clowns]

The words hadn't faded from the reflecting pool nor the salt of the altar work its way into the pores of the rock when I started running.

Sound was itself again. Heavy, reckless, desperate footfalls slapped against the floor, alternating with the thuds of my one still shod foot, a rhythm of panic. My bare foot bled more with the raw repeated scrapes against the floor and all the little rock shards and salt dust. I imagined a trail of red and white behind me, a mad wake for the mad flight from the mad hall, blood and salt, salt and blood, briefly I had been a god in this cave. A god of blood and salt.

Now, though, I was a man. Small and weak, the brief successes against the guardians and against the trap were nothing. The thought seed was nothing. The Necronomicoin was nothing. I barely knew Lara, certainly couldn't trust her, and was a long way from befriending her, but the Debt Collector was a nasty thing. Bathroom stall graffiti did not need to prompt me to know that it had to be kept away from people.
I was more tired than I imagined. My legs burned. Below the earth I was still at altitude and I couldn't breathe enough.

The cave changed as I ran. The stone was natural and then it was not, cut and carved and scarred, pulled up from the mountain. I ran for days. With the Necronomicoin gone I was no longer anchored in time as it stretched itself taught and relaxed and sent the figures dancing on its edge sprawling and trying to stay balanced. So the cave spread on, dark and forever.

I grew lightheaded. I was back in Massachusetts and I wasn't running alone. There were six of us, our winter training team, on a cold Sunday morning through the snow covered roads of Dartmouth, at times two together and then single file as cars passed, laughing against the short breaths and frozen air. But when I turned to talk to Chris he was not there, just empty cave.

Far ahead the faint track lights of the Catedral appeared as stars. I could see the café. It was still closed but people moved around the tables and set chairs down around them. I couldn't pick Lara out from them. As the lights grew brighter they burst into each other, glaring in eyes unadjusted, a sensory flood, a new pain.

"Lara," I croaked. My voice was raw from bellowing at the third guardian. Café workers looked up at the sound. One of them gasped quietly. My bloodied visage would call that sort of attention unless I exited the old mine fast. "Lara," I said again.

Slowly my surroundings came into focus. No tourists were around but the stalls and shops were being shifted about by early morning workers arriving and setting up for business. I stumbled around them, every other step agony.

"Lara."

There was no sign of her by the souvenir stands, not in the café or the restrooms. She was not in any alcoves in the cathedral proper nor in the chorus stands. I could not see her in any of the long, dark corridors of the stations of the cross. Not Lara, and not the Debt Collector.

"Lara."

[minuspace]

Awesome, and also heart rending (I'm leaving that errant emoticon for security reasons)

[LMNO]

This is really good, EoC.

[Eater of Clowns]

It was the day after, looking back on it now. It was the day after that things started going poorly for Mark.
Back in the old man's apartment, Mark was calmer than he should have been. Johnson had been lost in the maw of the mattress and his partner, shortly after, lost his mind. Still, though, Mark kept it together. He just went over to Robowski's, had a drink, and made vigorous love to his wife without mentioning the day's peculiar events.

He was making coffee that morning, his wife already off to her nursing job, when he finally determined that he actually didn't mind a world with Necronomicoin. When it really came down to it, it made as much sense as the dollar. More even, since it was backed by something tangible. It might even get those gold standard freaks to salivate with that kind of security.

Then there was the simple fact that, spiritually, Mark felt as though a puzzle piece long missing from the world were now back in place. In every man, so far as he could tell, there was a lost something that he attempted to fill with one thing or another. For some it was religion, for others sex or maybe music. For Mark it was Karen. He knew that from the day he met her. But that hole in your self has a slow leak. The alcohol, the love, the money, whatever you filed it with emptied out with time. If you were lucky it filled back up again, but it was never sealed shut.

The Great Veil, and everything beyond it, shut the hole in you for good. Everyone walked around knowing something was wrong, something was missing, and now Mark knew what it was. Finding out he was a part of that larger thing brought him peace, even with all the nightmares that came from the other side of it.

On the day it went bad he was contemplating this over his breakfast. He went to work, which was deserted. Half of the department was on mental health leave. The officers that saw Johnson disappear were pulled from duty en masse by the crisis counselor when they unanimously agreed that Johnson never existed. They had it easy compared to Sid.

Mike's partner did stop screaming eventually, and it was at that point that Mike understood it was possible to choke on one's own scream. Sid screamed until he choked and then he vomited fiercely and lay catatonic next to the puddle of it for some time, staring off at nothing. Or, Mike figured, staring through the Great Veil and into nothing. Just as suddenly, he stood up from the floor, wiped his mouth, and walked off without a word. Nobody had heard from him since.

Mike found all of this out that first day back at the office. Elmira called him into the conference room, briefed him on the sleepless night she'd just spent trying to hold her department together, and told Mike the news that marked where things started going poorly for him.
She told him that he was in charge of the case.

[Eater of Clowns]

I was going for a different writing voice with the shifted perspective but I'm going to have to revisit this one and expand on it a bit.

This week has been a hectic one for writing and I just needed to get this part finished to not feel like I'm slacking.

[minuspace]

It was the day after, looking back on it now. It was the day after that things started going poorly for Mark.
Back in the old man's apartment, Mark was calmer than he should have been. Johnson had been lost in the maw of the mattress and his partner, shortly after, lost his mind. Still, though, Mark kept it together. He just went over to Robowski's, had a drink, and made vigorous love to his wife without mentioning the day's peculiar events.

He was making coffee that morning, his wife already off to her nursing job, when he finally determined that he actually didn't mind a world with Necronomicoin. When it really came down to it, it made as much sense as the dollar. More even, since it was backed by something tangible. It might even get those gold standard freaks to salivate with that kind of security.

Then there was the simple fact that, spiritually, Mark felt as though a puzzle piece long missing from the world were now back in place. In every man, so far as he could tell, there was a lost something that he attempted to fill with one thing or another. For some it was religion, for others sex or maybe music. For Mark it was Karen. He knew that from the day he met her. But that hole in your self has a slow leak. The alcohol, the love, the money, whatever you filed it with emptied out with time. If you were lucky it filled back up again, but it was never sealed shut.

The Great Veil, and everything beyond it, shut the hole in you for good. Everyone walked around knowing something was wrong, something was missing, and now Mark knew what it was. Finding out he was a part of that larger thing brought him peace, even with all the nightmares that came from the other side of it.

On the day it went bad he was contemplating this over his breakfast. He went to work, which was deserted. Half of the department was on mental health leave. The officers that saw Johnson disappear were pulled from duty en masse by the crisis counselor when they unanimously agreed that Johnson never existed. They had it easy compared to Sid.

Mike's partner did stop screaming eventually, and it was at that point that Mike understood it was possible to choke on one's own scream. Sid screamed until he choked and then he vomited fiercely and lay catatonic next to the puddle of it for some time, staring off at nothing. Or, Mike figured, staring through the Great Veil and into nothing. Just as suddenly, he stood up from the floor, wiped his mouth, and walked off without a word. Nobody had heard from him since.

Mike found all of this out that first day back at the office. Elmira called him into the conference room, briefed him on the sleepless night she'd just spent trying to hold her department together, and told Mike the news that marked where things started going poorly for him.
She told him that he was in charge of the case.

May I be so bold?
"In lieu of a bidet"
---
[and sources say that Mike blamed Sid of stealing his wallet, resulting, somehow, in that hole in the floor.  Now, I bet he told you how he got that watch?  The one with the cracked face?]

[ just vomiting to prime the pump, got more reading to do before some buffoonery todAy ]

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

I like it, because it has an air of resigned fatalism.

[Eater of Clowns]

Mike was in the apartment, staring into the mattress. He'd been leading the case for a week. Elmira's instructions, back in the conference room on the day it all went bad, were simply to solve the Necronomicoin problem. In response to that, Mike looked her in the eye and nodded almost imperceptibly, then he stood and left.

As soon as he got to his car, he locked his jaw in a silent yell while gripping the steering wheel. Solve the Necronomicoin problem. Only barely able to process everything that was going on, he drove back to the old man's apartment. He sent the officer keeping an eye on the place out for coffee and told him to stay away until he called him back. He'd been sitting in the apartment, staring at the mattress for the entire week since.

This was not Mike's intention. He first took out his notebook and a pen and started scribbling down a few thoughts on the scene of the...crime? He still wasn't sure. Nobody was sure, was the problem. For all he knew, there was no problem. Maybe the Necronomicoin was supposed to work this way. He'd come to the apartment again to identify the problem, but he'd been staying ever since that first day just to figure out if there actually was a problem at all.

Writing down the scene proved impossible. Every sentence he began with a description of the portal ended with a twisted, hateful expression of every thought he held dear. He'd tried it a number of times before finally giving up in disgust after his vile condemnation of his own wife.

After that he tried drawing the thing. He started with the outline of the mattress. His nose started feeling strange, almost like he was about to sneeze and couldn't quite get it moving. When he moved on to the border of the portal, a drip came from his nostril and fell onto the page. The bright red splash of blood stained the notebook and ruined the drawing. Mike gave up on drawing it, too.

So he'd been staring into it since then. For eight hours a day he stared into the mattress, went home, spent time with Karen and had a good night's sleep. Then he came back and stared into the mattress again.

In another era he used to interview people accused of fraud. He wasn't particularly good at it, not like Sid, who had that preternatural ability to make the interviewee think he knew everything, everything there was to know about them. About the package of crackers they'd stolen as a kid and about that one day at work they clogged the toilet and didn't tell anyone. Now Sid actually did know those things. But Mike never did and nobody ever believed that he had. It always amazed him, though, how cooperative the white collar world would be when faced with words like 'tax evasion' and 'prison.'

Mike thought of these sessions with the hole like those interviews. It embedded in an old man's worn mattress, he sitting in an easy chair in the corner, and the two engaged in a probing of wills. He knew he was badly outclassed, hopelessly outclassed, but the strangest thing kept happening. For every fraction of second that he looked beyond the Great Veil, Mike very acutely, very specifically, did not lose his mind.

It was the damnedest thing.

[Eater of Clowns]

I like it, because it has an air of resigned fatalism.

Thanks! After a second go I'm enjoying Mike's perspective a little more. It's more simplistic than J.'s narrative and so it's WAY easier to write.

J:  In a furious moment, my arm came alight with flame. It scorched through scant layers of clothes and flesh singed. Panicked, horrified, I awaited burning death in that awful moment.

Mike: My arm is on fire. That's interesting.

Edit: Lucifer, yeah! Thank you, you're right it is much better without that line.

[LMNO]

Mike very acutely, very specifically, did not lose his mind.

It was the damnedest thing.

Loved that bit.

[Eater of Clowns]

It was the sixth day of interrogation. What he would later come to know as Interrogation Round One. His phone rang. It was Elmira.

"Hello, El," he said.

An insane, malevolent screech responded. This was not Elmira's voice. Her fury was much colder and much more nightmarish. Mike glared at the mattress maw and quickly ducked out of the bedroom.

"El?" he said.

"Mike, hi, how goes the investigation?"

He looked back into the old man's room and concentrated on the lie. Then he made it not a lie. "It's not easy, El. It's not easy but I think it's going somewhere."

"Excellent," Elmira said. She was barely listening. "Hey, Mike? Something's come up."

"What've you got for me?"

"It's Sid."

Sid. The crafty old bastard resurfaced. Mike was resigned to the fact that Sid would never be the same again. Rock solid of a partner as he'd been, some minds were not meant to know was beyond the Great Veil. Sid's ambition had always been one of understanding. He was such a good investigator in part because of his dogged need to find out why people did what they did. Maybe that was the difference with how the portal affected each of them. Sid sought knowledge and received it, too much of it, maybe even all of it. Mike just accepted it.

"Is he dead?" he asked.

"No, no but he was spotted. You remember Dom Carrasquillo? Up at the Providence office?"

"Yeah, of course, how is he?"

"Dom doesn't fucking matter, Mike," Elmira said.

"Dom probably disagrees," he said. If he was going to be a smartass, now was the time to get away with it. Events were unfolding too large for it to matter.

His boss ignored him. "Dom saw Sid in Prospect Park. You know it? Little one over on Pratt Street. He said Sid was standing on top of the wrought iron fence by that statue, preaching."

"Preaching?"

"Preaching."

"Preaching what? I think he's Catholic, but he's one of those Easter-and-Christmas kind of Catholics," Mike said.

"Dom said he couldn't quite make it out. He tried talking to him, asking him about the Warwick office and his family, but Sid never responded. Kept hearing things like 'Favorable Exchange Rates' and 'Securely Backed Currency.' Oh, and something about a Thought Seed."

"He's preaching the Necronomicoin."

"It sounds like it."

"What happened to Sid from there?"

"Well like I said, Dom couldn't talk to him so he tried calling Providence P-D. When they got there they asked him to come down. Sid looked at them, said 'sure,' and calmly got down and walked away."

A week ago, Mike might have said something like 'that's weird,' or 'I wonder what happened,' one of those pointless conversational phrases that people respond with just to have something to say. Instead he chose another one, a more appropriate one.

"Yep," he said.

"Mike," Elmira began, "I'm not going to tell you to go try to find Sid."

"But you want me to go find Sid."

"Yes."

Mike sighed. He peeked back into the old man's bedroom again to look at the portal. It peeked back like only a sentient unfathomable dimension can. Mike decided that he liked it better than most people. Certainly more than Sid. He had a certain affection and respect for the man as a co-worker and partner, but he couldn't say he liked him.

"Alright," he said, "under one condition."

"Is the condition that if you don't do it, I'll drive down to Cranston, find you in Saldacci's apartment, and throw you into the abyss myself?"

"I was going to ask for mileage reimbursement," he paused. "But El? Don't come to the old man's place." He stood in the doorway with his back to the bedroom, facing the hall. From behind him there was the radiant presence of the tear in the Great Veil. "Please. Don't ever come."

[minuspace]

The history of future beats spilled fire from his ears: 
http://panchronos.com/OM/Media/VEGA%20VOCAL%20SYN.mp3