The Hunt: Symbiosys Page 2
Neilson believed himself to still be dreaming. “How can you communicate with me from beyond... from the other universe? Lorne had accomplished communication through a dream with Veronica, his mother-in-law, but only through an open Gateway! Do you mean to say that there's an open Gateway!?”
“Howard!” Michael's voice thundered across the Necropolis and faintly echoed back. He immediately fell silent. He scanned the horizons. The storm had reached the Necropolis. Michael seemed in fear of some unseen presence. The six shadowy figures still danced about and whispered to themselves. But now they seemed to be remaining closer to one another.
“Howard,” he began again, this time in a lowered tone. “I'm not in the Prison-Universe. We aren't. We're here, on your Earth. In the here and now! There is no Gateway opened... not yet. Howard, this is not a dream!”
A bolt of lightning shot across the sky. Richardson stopped and listened to something Neilson could not possibly hear. Then he continued:
“Howard, remember our conversation? Lorne was working on a method of opening the Gateway without summoning Nyarlathotep? That was how he originally became trapped in the Prison-Universe! He's still free and his father-in-law, Henri Francois, is still trapped. It's only a matter of time now until he attempts to reopen the Gateway! He knows the music -”
A deafening peal of thunder rippled across the sky. Richardson cowered down into himself. He was terribly scared of something.
“Michael!” Neilson commenced, “How... but, I thought you were absorbed into Lorne's multimind. How... how can you, I mean just you, reach me?”
Richardson's eyes were now overflowing with panic. “Howard, the Lorne-facet of this multimind is sleeping. He had receded for the time being. He knows of our concerns! Of how we considered him a potential threat. Of our plans to imprison him as well! He knows them because I know them! I'm part of His mind now! He's trying to hide! He's searching for his wife, Marie -” Richardson winced, cutting himself short.
“Why?! What's wrong with L-” began Neilson when another deafening explosion of thunder ripped through his dream-scape Necropolis! Michael Richardson's body tensed and his face broke into a visage of silent agony! His back arched well beyond what a man's should and his head began to turn and twist! The back of his head came forward to reveal a second face! That of an old woman!
The aged woman's countenance sneered as the wrinkled face turned into liquid flesh! It shifted form into that or Lorne S. Gibbons!!
Lorne's lips peeled back and a single word boomed out: “NO!!”
Howard's dream-scape shattered! The stormy Necropolis disintegrated into fragments, into nothingness.
Neilson jolted straight upright in bed! Sweat poured down his face and he shook with terror!
He quickly regained his nerves, shook the nightmare off, even though he knew that it was not just a nightmare. Richardson had tried to reach him!
His cell phone was ringing. Did that wake him up? What time was it? He quickly checked who was calling at this hour. Timothy Paupst. He cancelled the call. He had no time to speak with Timothy right now. He needed to speak with a Dr. Francisco Velazquez in Rio de Janeiro, an associate Neilson had known for some years.
He needed information on Senor Juan Emilio Sanchez-Vasquez!
* * *
New York City,
January 14th, 1993
Nana Thompson lived off the Jamaica Bay in Brooklyn. Her home was less than seventeen miles from the United Nations Headquarters on 1st Avenue.
It had been two weeks since Lorne had entered Nana Thompson's body. It had been a long and painstaking two weeks.
Lorne's multimind psyche had been crippled from his assault upon the Otto-Symbiot six and a half months ago. He knew he would recuperate, but how long? He had to find his wife. He had to begin searching!
He was at the point now where he could barely move this 85-year old body, let alone attempt to use the alien-facet's powers. When the Richardson-facet had reached out in Lorne's sleep, the drain was enormous! And this was simple dream-telepathy. This weakness bothered Lorne, but not so much as Neilson's dream itself did. Although the Richardson-facet had entered Howard's nightmare, it was only the image of Michael that he had control over. The rest was Neilson's.
Lorne had wondered the same questions that Howard did in his nightmare. Was this Necropolis the future? Except Lorne had more answers than Neilson did. Where Neilson couldn't imagine how the Gateway could again be opened, Lorne knew exactly how! For he had found a slight alteration in the Music that would open the Gate-sphere without attracting Nyarlathotep's attention.
Could Neilson's dream have been a precognition? Lorne knew there would be risks. He had never played the new piece; he couldn't yet. He hadn't dared in his damaged state. Not to mention that Nana Thompson's hands were too old and too shaky. It would be some time before the new musical piece could be attempted. He would have to wait until Nana Thompson's body died... again.
Lorne knew it wouldn't be long. It seemed to be a pattern. The alien-facet of his multimind could repair the physical body, but never quite correctly or thoroughly. Senor Sanchez-Vasquez's body lasted for only three days before it suffered another heart-attack. Mr. Samuel lasted three months, but Lorne had felt the deterioration. The alien-facet just couldn't hold it. Or maybe it needed to mature more? Lorne hoped so. This body-jumping would never do.
Once Nana Thompson died he would have to hope his metempsychosis would bring him to a body capable of extremely high dexterous manipulations. He needed to play the violin again! Only then could he even begin to imagine opening the Gateway. But he would still have to regenerate his damaged psyche.
Lorne had wanted to find Marie, before searching for his father-in-law. But Neilson's nightmare bothered him. Could the Necropolis have been a warning? A glimpse of a possible future?
* * *
New York City,
January 19th, 1993,
(5 days later)
The bus driver sat on the street curb with his face in his hands, opening weeping. The damp snow and slush was slowly seeping up into his pants.
There was a crowd gathered and a pair of NYPD officers kept them back. A third police officer knelt beside the bus driver, attempting to console him. “There was nothing you could have done,” he said to the weeping man. “We have numerous witnesses. They all – everybody - tells me the same thing.”
The middle-aged bus driver continued sobbing. The police officer put his hand on the man's shoulder, and looked up. An ambulance had arrived. Its lights were flashing but its sirens were silent.
The old woman was covered by a blanket but still under the transit bus. “Mrs. Thompson was dead,” the police officer thought. “Suicide.” He repeated the bus driver's statement in his mind. “The old woman just stepped right out in front of me! There was no time! There was nothing I could do! It's like she was suicidal!”
Little could the police officer or the bus driver have known. It was anything but suicide. Far from it. It was an attempt at a new life. A new life for Lorne S. Gibbons...
Chapter 2: Buried
It felt exactly like Teleportation! His multimind expanding across all the heavens! He was everywhere! His psyche permeated everything!
Lorne now understood his lack of powers in Nana Thompson's body. The body was old and deteriorating! He wasn't as crippled as he had thought. Only trapped.
He was, once again, a Universal-Consciousness. Where was his mind? It wasn't anywhere. It was everywhere! He was no longer physical. He was metaphysical now – pure thought! Seven minds, but all functioning as one, all metaphysical. Beyond the laws of Physics. He didn't have to be in any one place in space in this Universal-Consciousness State. He was in every point in space at once!
Lorne concentrated, began remote viewing the cosmos. Galaxies and Nebulae spiraled and rolled past! Stars and planets rushed by at mind-breaking speeds – for he was not restricted to physical speeds or limitations! And eventually the blue planet, his home, Earth. B
ut where to choose on Earth?
The alien-facet had obviously grown in power. He could hear its languageless thoughts whispering in his subconscious. The last two times metempsychosis occurred Lorne had absolutely no recollection of it. He didn't have the choice. It just happened.
Did he actually have a choice now, he wondered?
Through metaphysical eyes he viewed the blue globe. He saw all of its billions of lives teaming across the surface! Tiny golden points of light, each and every one; beautiful! He had never imagined the planet carried and supported so much of it. He simply hovered in his incorporeal state, watching. The myriad golden lights flowed and ebbed! They danced the Dance of Life. In the waxing and waning of the golden ocean of life, some lights flickered and went out – deaths. He witnessed new lights spark up and flash into existence and add to the glowing ocean! Newborns! It was mesmerizing...
...then something caught his metaphysical eye; his mind's eye, so to speak. A singular blinding point of light. It could have been easy to miss in the multitudes except for its brightness and its colour! It wasn't golden. It wasn't really any colour. It was a chromatic of scintillating colours! It was the only one on the planet! The only one!
“Marie,” he thought. It had to be!
Lorne focused on the point...
Massao Yokomoto... Tokyo... Japan.... died? Yes... died, January 12th... was hit by a car.
The memories seeped into his mind. They were coming to Lorne. He had entered Massao Yokomoto's body. The man had died when he was struck by a car downtown.... in Tokyo...
Massao Yokomoto was... twenty-nine years old. A janitor. The state paid for his burial... Yokomoto had no family...
No sooner had the memories filtered into Lorne's multimind as the horror was realized!
Lorne opened his eyes. Darkness. Utter blackness. He couldn't tell if Massao's eyes were open or closed! Was he blind, he questioned?
No, the Massao-facet answered, he was not.
Lorne slowly began to feel the restraints of gravity working as sensation returned to his new body. He felt his heart beating... again. His flesh felt cold and clammy. His joints ached.
As his senses became sharper he became aware of the fact that he was laying on his back. He immediately tried to sit up, only to thump his head against a hard panel. He raised his hand to feel this strange surface. Wood. And only inches above his head. His eyes bulged in the darkness but could see nothing. He raised his legs only to have his knees hit the same surface.
He took a deep breath. Smelt stale air and earth. Moist earth!
“Good God!” he half whispered. He was buried! He was in a coffin!
Although his limbs were still stiff they were galvanized into action with panic! His fists pounded against the lid and his legs and knees beat frantically... but all to no avail.
It may have been minutes or hours until the panicked madness passed and he lay quiet. His knuckles and knees were sore. His hands were torn open. His knees felt scraped and bruised.
He began hyperventilating. He had to think! Just calm down and think! He ran through the situation: He was buried alive... underground. Could he break the coffin lid and dig his way up? Unlikely. He could feel his ripped fingers throbbing and swelling right now and he hadn't even dented the lid. Then it came to him as the last remnants of his madness left. Teleportation! It was so simple!
He had done it before, hadn't he? Before the confrontation with the Nyarlathotep-symbiot. He had been severely crippled since then. Could he still teleport? Eventually his psyche would heal... but he'd be quite dead by then. He would suffocate first!
As the panic and madness began to rise again, he calmed himself. No, he told himself. He would not suffocate. He had to relax. He had to concentrate on the teleportation... to just relax... and... concentrate.
Nothing. His multimind was too weak! He would suffocate! He would gag on his own poisonous breath! His panic returned only momentarily. It abated to reason. He wasn't concentrating enough. He was still upset, tense. Yes, he would have to calm down and try again.
But it became apparent that the alien-facet within his multimind simply could not yet achieve teleportation. It was too wounded. As this fact became undeniably realized, panic once again took control. Lorne beat at the lid with bruised and flayed fists and his legs kicked and flailed... but all for nothing.
For what seemed like hours he struggled and fought and wept until exhaustion triumphed over the panic. He wept in the inky blackness. Hopelessly frustrated, he knew not what to do.
“Richardson!” he gurgled out from phlegm filled lungs. “Richardson!” It was a call, a command. He was summoning the Richardson-facet up from the depths of his multimind. Conjuring the man's memories. He knew the answer to his salvation lied within the Richardson-facet's mind! For it was Michael Richardson who communicated to Professor Neilson through a dream! It was Richardson who had somehow reached out of Lorne's sleeping multimind to warn Neilson, and if Richardson could do it, then so could Lorne!
He knew he was in Tokyo – or on the city's outskirts at least – possibly Yanaka Cemetery a Japanese voice added – and he knew that Marie, his wife, was in Tokyo as well. He would reach out to her! Summon her to his aid. To dig him out!
* * *
Marie Gibbons nightmared. Strange nightmares! For it was not only her mind that dreamed, but that of Shantigra Takahara's as well! The two women both nightmared together. Each adding to the other's worst fears, heightening the deeply rooted fears and anxieties each woman possessed. An insane mesh...
She walked through a city. Once tall high-rises and skyscrapers lay fallen and smashed. They were covered with a thick skin-like coating of putrid black earth. A holocaustic world. The actual name was there... in her mind. This, all this aftermath, all this destruction, all of it, had a name: Necropolis.
The skies overhead were uniform gray. Cold and empty. No longer beautiful because there was nobody left to admire it. Why should it make itself beautiful? There was no one left. Ah, but there was some one left. She was left. Why wouldn't the sky show her its beauty? Or maybe it couldn't.
The Gray Sky began to weep. It realized there was somebody to admire it... but it was not permitted. It was given a task by its master: To be a silent sentinel over this Necropolis. To watch for life. To report should it become aware of any life. Any life whatsoever!
But the Gray Sky wanted to please Marie. It simply wasn't allowed. So it wept. A light drizzle. It made the atmosphere all the more silent. The rain seemed to blanket sounds. To deaden the deadened silence. Or possibly to conceal something else?
Yes, Marie heard it. It was so faint, but definitely audible! It was a fleshly, sopping sound, but very mechanical in its rhythm.
The skin of blackened soil that covered the wasted city began to show warts. Great putrid blisters in the hundreds! All growing before her horrified eyes.
A decomposed head thrust itself up through its grave, its blind dead eyes swiveling in their sockets. The dead were coming! They were exhuming themselves in all their multitudes!
Everywhere she looked there were undead rising! Putrid, rotten bodies clawed and fought for freedom, their bloated bodies shining and glistening wetly as the rain fell.
The first corpse was free. But what was that?! Its lower torso was made of rusted metal! Mechanical!
The Shantigra-facet shuddered. They were all composed of metal. Some brand new and shiny chrome coloured. Others were rusted clean through, showing their disintegrating organic pieces! But all were composed of both human and robot! Cyborgs! The Shantigra-facet knew! It was her worst nightmare! What if her hopes and dreams would all one day lead to this! Walking dead! Cyborgs! Undead creatures kept alive through mechanical means!!