(7.1) Outhouse and Home

Chapter 7, Part 1

Tom’s place was a quiet little shack just outside the city limits, at least that’s what I’d been told. When I pulled into the driveway, I didn’t see a shack. The entire lot was completely empty. I got out of the tourist-mobile and walked to the edge of the road, double-checking the address on the mailbox. Sure enough it was the right address.

When I turned back to get my phone out of the car, I found it gone, seemingly replaced with an outhouse. As I approached to investigate, I gathered up my will just in case some mean guard-thing decided to rear its generally ugly head and try to kill me.

After a few minutes of walking around the thing, I decided to take the only course of action available to me. I opened the door.

My nostrils immediately regretted the actions of my hands as I was assaulted by a smell that couldn’t under any circumstance come from a human body. When I closed the door, I finally saw the clue to getting to see Tom. A message appeared to be carved into the door;

Speak the name of your creator, lest you be undone

I stared at it for a second, before finally looking into the air and speaking my answer.

“God?”

A moment passed with me staring into the sky before finally looking back at the message and noticing that it had changed.

Not that one. Your other creator.

“Oh…” I said, feeling only slightly moronic. “Samuel Lasher.”

I stood there for a few seconds, wondering what I was supposed to do when the door swung open. I held my breath preemptively, expecting to be assaulted once again by the foul stench. Instead I was greeted by the sight of an older man sitting a good 500 feet away in the middle of a laboratory that would make even the maddest of scientists sane with jealousy.

“Well,” I said, admiring the ridiculous amount of floating beakers as I walked closer to him. “This looks a lot smaller from the outside.”

He looked up at me through a set of glasses that made his eyes appear to take up over half of his head. “I use bright colors and arrange the furniture against the walls to take better advantage of the space while simultaneously making the room appear larger.”

“Wow, a simple ‘I use Feng Shui’ would have sufficed.” I said.

“That would have been a lie, I don’t follow Feng Shui. I simply chose the best layout to compliment the space requirements for my-”

“Well that’s very intriguing Tom,” I interrupted. “But I’m not really here to discuss your furniture, I’m here to discuss my targets.”

“Targets? Oh! Yes, lets see,” he said holding out a hand and speaking a few words, “Kristalo Okulo.” A crystal ball then appeared in his outstretched hand, the image it held was the default “smokey mist” that you see on all the movie-balls.

“What language was that? I don’t think I’ve heard that before,” I asked.

“It’s Esperanto, the universal language, now be quiet I need to concentrate,” he said. He was waving his hands over the ball with his eyes closed. I watched in silence for a few seconds, taking notice of the fact that his forehead was beginning to ripple. Eventually, the ripple opened, revealing the eye that coined his nickname.

Eventually the smoke coalesced into the image of the heroes. For whatever reason, they seemed to be sitting at a table, all of them looking in the same direction. It wasn’t long before a woman stepped into view and stepped out, almost as if she was pacing.

“That’s them,” I said, leaning in for a closer look. “Where are they?”

“Well, if I’m reading them right,” he said “And I always do. They’re on Park Avenue and Lailani Street.”

“Well that shouldn’t be too hard to find.”

“There’s a catch though… They’re about 5 miles underground.”

“Fuck.”