Sick Buildings (part 1 of 3)

Anyone approaching from the East would have been forgiven in mistaking the house for a mirage. Nestling against the old Fossil Town of Nobody’s Home, on the shores of the Salt Sea, Coatl Calli, with its weird angles and eccentric geometry could easily have been taken for a heat prank, an apparition that danced with the light and came out of the blinding glare like a promise. The area bestowed that impression of the mystical upon almost everything within its reach. Ancient and sun-dried Nobody’s Home, with its hints of an old fairground, its rocket-rides and skelters ruined and fallen in upon themselves. The Salt Sea, that calcified snow-scape, all shimmering contours and dry stone odours of the desert, beautiful yet dangerous, oh so dangerous with patches of caustic spoil, left behind when the sun evaporated the water to nothing.
And finally, Coatl Calli itself, a white, Mediterranean ziggurat, reminiscent of a flattened out Mayan pyramid, buttressed on all sides by a Ha-Ha, topped with tiled terraces and domes of Venetian blue. Once a hotel, it was now a holistic retreat, a place for those who, like myself, came here seeking answers to questions that had been buried for too long. It was said that the revelations experienced out here could not be matched for their acuteness, that those who spent time on the terraces, staring out into that blinding salt-pan, rarely went away dissatisfied. That so many interpreted those revelations as religious experiences was neither here nor there. I had visions of my own to place, and Nina Matterson’s reputation as a psychologist preceded her.

On the day that she finally showed me around, Coatl Calli had been becalmed, enveloped by a lethargy that had come barrelling out of the desert only to wrap itself around all the wrong corners.
“You should come here when there’s a storm building,” she said, leading me up the limestone staircases that led to the roof casements, “The building has a voice. You would swear blind that it had a life of its own.”
Higher up, the canted walls formed circular galleries, wind chambers, perforated with vents, chimneys and embrasures, catchers designed to channel and condense the moisture rich airstreams that came out of the salt pan, extract the moisture and kinetic energy, translate it into something useful.
At the top of the stairs, we emerged into wind gallery number two. The murmur of the desert haunted the doughnut-shaped cavern, filled the vaulted attic spaces with undulating waves of sound.
“It was good of you to come,” she said finally, “I was as stunned as anybody when I heard.”
“I’m not a curiosity, Nina.” I said, “I’d much rather we treated this weekend as a standard consultation.”
She appeared momentarily taken aback. “Of course, of course. It’s not my intention to make you feel studied. I’m honoured that you accepted my offer of help.”
She scrutinised me with that green gaze, still reeling no doubt from what I had told her; about the Watchman reserve, about the towers and their strange attempt at communication, about those alien things that I had carried around for months.
She was taller than I remembered, elegant in a way that was only exemplified by the one-piece smock that she wore, a tribal garment inlayed around the neck with gold ornamentation and coloured stones.
“I won’t lie,” she said. “I’m familiar with most abnormalities of the human mind, but what you’re saying represents something else, something I doubt many have come across.”
“You have experience in handling difficult cases.” I said, “Nobody else has your level of insight.”
“Maybe, but what you’ve told me would make you a special case. You’ve been the recipient of a communication package that was never intended for human comprehension, been programmed, primed, honoured if that’s the correct word. It’s not the act that worries me; it’s what they left behind. Are you capable of extrapolating meaning?”
I shook my head, “I’ve been used merely as a repository. The towers were desperate. I suspect that they knew what a death on the reserve would bring.”
“Can you describe the information that was actually imparted?”
I recalled that afternoon, told her of my lonely walk over to the South Spire, of the only portion of the message that I could readily recall: the mandala, the circle divided by three, spinning in the warm darkness behind my eyes. It meant something. That, if anything, was the abiding impression that I had, a buoy that I found myself clinging to.
“I remember being aware of several voices,” I said, “although they’re too insubstantial to draw conclusions from.”
“Forgive me if my questioning seems impertinent, but have you entertained the possibility that what you experienced was a random transmission, some kind of unforeseen biological process perhaps? Maybe you’ve been looking for patterns where there are none.”
I shook my head, “It was no accident that the towers spoke when they did. We connected, just for a second, but there was definitely a correlation. They touched my mind. Whatever they had to say, it was intended for me, or at least for the next person to venture close enough.”
“And there was one attempt before you that resulted in death?”
“I was lucky. You read the report?”
“Of course, every word, twice, just to make myself believe what I was reading.”
We moved closer to one of the catcher vents, looked out over the desert. The gallery offered a near panoramic view of the Salt Sea. The gently rolling plains caught the light and changed it in subtle ways, shaped it into something harsh, something to be cast back towards the house.
“I’m not sure that there’s much I can physically do to help.” She said, “I would try hypnosis, were it not for the fact that I‘d be afraid of triggering something, or worse, erasing it altogether. We can try any number of meditation techniques, but with invasive procedures off limits, we don’t have a lot of options.”
“Just being here is a start.” I said. I didn’t tell her that this was the place I had been seeking, that time away from Babel, from the rigours of Government, was probably all it would take. She saw it anyway. I should have expected that a psychologist of Nina’s proficiency would have had no trouble in seeing through my reserve.
Nina grinned, “Perhaps whatever is inside of you will make its way out. This place can help with that, open you up in ways that you may not have been expecting. It might help to make a note of any dreams you may have, along with anything else.”
She didn’t say it, didn’t draw my attention to the waking visions and hallucinations that were experienced here, didn’t have to make it explicit that reality was not always what it appeared to be, that this place was still not fully understood.

I spent the remainder of the morning on the terraces, admiring the pan, studying the interplay between gradient and sky, hoping against hope that the Salt Sea would reveal something that I might recognise. I spotted only mirages out amongst the brakes, maddening and meaningless, the infuriating distractions of the desert.
By midday the lassitude subsided. A furnace wind swept in to spin the wind catchers, give voice to the galleries, flimsy with its illusions of coolness. Sunlight embellished every perspective, gave an impression of impossible weightlessness.
Meals were taken in the main plaza, beneath the shade of several large flags that were more akin to the sails of a ship, a wonderful illusion given Coatl Calli’s location.
Approaching I heard voices, saw two men and two women, sitting around a large table. I found Nina waiting for me there.
“This is Freya Clanelle.” she said, introducing me to a tall and dark skinned woman with almond eyes, obviously hailing from one of the Sargasso mats. Her short-sleeved dress exposed sinewy, clan tattoos that ran the entire length of her arms before meeting each other in a luxurious tangle at her collarbone.
Her sister Marla sat at her side, the fairer of the two, slightly shorter but otherwise almost indistinguishable. She bowed her head in the islander fashion and smiled knowingly, as though welcoming an old friend.
“Dendrick Mailer is our resident territorial assessor.” Nina continued.
An urbane and cultured looking man stood to shake my hand. He was probably in his mid-forties, his relatively smart appearance belied by features that were lined with patterns of age, that told the story of a man who had spent a lifetime in the desert.
The fourth member of Nina’s little party introduced himself.
“Martin Phelps,” he said, “Water Trader.” His voice possessed the kernel of an accent - Norwegian or Dutch perhaps, highly polished and hard like a stone.
Conversation was light. It soon became clear that we were a rag-tag group, thrown together by chance and circumstance, that on any other day we would have passed each other by without a second glance. It was perhaps inevitable that with so little to bind us together, our banter soon began to focus more on our surroundings: the house, the Salt Sea, the Fossiltowns that embellished the bay.
Dendrick reeled off their names as though reciting a list of former lovers. Flow-My-Tears, You-Can’t-Be-Serious, Just-Like-Home, the remnants of settlements burdened with monikers that spoke only of contempt for the Unions.
“Those to the South are all Type 3 or 4s.” he said, “No further commercial value.”
“Would the tribes see them that way?” I said.
It was Martin who answered.
“The tribes will always find value in those things that others take an interest in. Land thievery is, after-all, their particular speciality.”
It was the ease with which it had escaped his lips that shocked me. Anti-Union sentiment was all too often heard in the coastal towns, but out here, where the limits of Government influence were thrown into stark relief by hostile geography, things were usually different. I had to remind myself that this was a contrived situation, that we were a loose conglomeration at best, far removed from our usual environments.
Dendrick pressed on. “If you’re thinking of heading out there, you should go South. The towns to the North are all under Claim. They inter their dead in them.”
I saw Martin’s face twist in obvious disgust from the corner of my eye.
“You can see the totems from the roof,” Marla added, “You can even hear he Bullroarers when the wind is in the right direction,”
“Any contact?” I said.
I heard Martin grumble something unintelligible, couldn’t help but begin to build up a picture of the people I found myself with. When the meal came to its natural conclusion I was thankful of the opportunity to slip away.

I spent the early part of the afternoon relaxing, drinking in the easy rhythms of the house. There were no visions to be had and nobody tried to force them. Afternoons were set aside for siesta, for loosening up in the face of an approaching evening. Instead of retiring to my room, however, I spent several hours exploring the house. I started at the roof casements, with their Solar Catheters, their Willy Willies and Sun Snares, then proceeded down through the salons, the conservatories and dormitories, found the library, finally discovered the water-basement, the dark and silent, artesian pool, housed within an immense concrete crypt. Freya was there, sitting with her legs over the edge, dangling them in the water.
“You handled Martin well.” She said as I sat beside her.
“Ignorance like that is easy to ignore.”
“He craves attention. He’s like a child in that respect. There’s a rumour his parents were Claimed. It’s a malicious lie I would imagine, put out to undermine his reputation. The Unions ceased slave trading over a century ago.” She laughed, “I shouldn’t be talking about him like this. It’s impolite.”
She looked at me then and smiled.
“I know how they talk about Coatl Calli in the towns,” she continued, “I know those of the coast don’t understand this place.”
I was vaguely aware that she was making an assumption about me, comparing me against some kind of coastal archetype perhaps.
“I came here at Nina’s invitation,” I said, “I accepted because her reputation precedes her.”
“But surely it must cause a certain amount unease that you can’t bracket this place, can’t put an easy label on it?”
“Any label would only be a reflection of the person doing the labelling,” I said, “There are those in Babel who think that the properties of this place are a natural by-product of the Salt Sea, a patch of uncovered spoil perhaps, wind bourn and aerolised? Or landscape, a rare congruence, something that penetrates the psyche and directs it down new and spectacular avenues?”
Freya shook her head, “It runs deeper than that. Coatl Calli is not some cheap Mirage Resort, set up for the benediction of well-heeled tourists. It is different for everyone. No two of its visions are alike.”
“Maybe, but nothing that is witnessed here is ever corroborated by others. You’re explaining this place in terms that make sense to you. What you experience is internal, a response thrown out amongst the dunes to take its chances. We are almost programmed to see patterns in randomness. The heat hazes and eddies out on the pan are perhaps the best example of complete unpredictability I can think of.”
Talking like this, I realised that I had needed an explanation, a foundation upon which to rest anything that would come during my stay. Freya however, remained unconvinced.
“Coatl Calli speaks of creation,” she said, “The sand blowing up against the walls at night, the wind rising, shaping the gradients. You wake in the morning and the desert has changed. First light reveals a new world.”
“But it’s a world that still conforms to all known physical standards.” I said, “The change is superficial.”
Freya shook her head again. I got the distinct feeling that this was an argument I would not be winning. I left the water-basement a little later, feeling mildly annoyed at Freya’s almost wilful blindness.

I spent the evening alone, deliberately putting some distance between myself and those who I was increasingly beginning to see as trapped here, those who had begun to interpret the symptoms of their madness as indicators of something else, who had begun to be led by them.
Evening fell over the pan, leaving a thin band of orange in the West. I tried to remember why I was here, pictured the mandala spinning like an Incan calendar, like an assembly of synchronised swimmers, felt the familiar tug at the darkened recesses of my mind.

At 02:30 something woke me. I lay still, realised that the wind had risen, heard the galleries doing their best to defuse its conspiracies.
I listened as the house settled, found the space of the darkened room unsettling, had to admit that something in it made me nervous. The wind rose on haunches of salt and sand, prepared itself for another assault and beneath it all there was something else, a submarine echo, a transmitted resonance, ghostly like whale song.
‘The water basement’, I thought, but it hadn’t come from below. It was a heartbeat, a biological rhythm. Behind the plaintive cry of the galleries, the stinging hiss of sand, I recognised branches creaking, the shuffle of a forest, an elderly conversation of trees in the wind.
I made my way up to the wind galleries, walked around the do-nut shaped corridor until I was on the opposite side to the stairwell. Streaks of moonlight stabbed the buttresses but did nothing to illuminate the true forms of what hid there.
Something shifted. The gale blew and beneath the echoes of its presence came the sound of trees, watery and elusive, restless like wind chimes. At the far end of the corridor, a door began to rattle, a loose-leaf tremor, a response. I took hold of the handle, felt the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end, and pushed.
What greeted me was totally unexpected. The room was cool, even more so than the gallery outside, larger too, so large in fact that I could not make out where it ended. In the hard to define spaces where the room gave way to shadows, a glass roof allowed hints of moonlight reflections, suggestions of knives drawn in vendetta, wet and slick with the night. Like a pattern suddenly resolving, an indefinable element of darkness took on the shape of trees, the primeval tangle of Rhododendrons.
It was a botanical garden, tenebrous and night shrouded, hidden from outside view by the geometry of the roof spaces, fed probably, by the galleries themselves. I wondered why Nina hadn’t revealed this before, decided that it was obviously a secret retreat, a space for favoured guests.
The trees sighed and shifted. I took a step forward, felt the mist from the moisture sprayers coat my face, heard the whine of a chameleon suit as its systems gently recalibrated, felt my heart race as a small patch of darkness before me took on the recognisable shape of a person.
“I wondered when you’d find this place.” The figure said.
She was a young woman, lithe and incredibly athletic, possessing all the grace of a leopard or a panther. I noticed the gold headband that marked her out as a Neophyte. The ink stain tattoo that climbed the left side of her face said the same.
“Surely I was meant to?” I said, “How does Nina do it? Let me guess. The sound must be channelled through the coolant pipes, directed towards different areas of the house. Is this a game she often plays, a parlour trick, a neat distraction? She knew I would eventually stumble upon this.”
The woman shook her head, unravelled herself from where she had been sitting. The chameleon suit reflected the moonlight in odd ways, reminded me of the pool that waited below.
“Of course. It’s usually locked. That’s a prerequisite for a secret room, that it should only be accessible at given times, preferably at night, when the thrill of discovery means so much more.”
“Are you Nina’s trump card? Has she planned this? Are you a part of her mystery play?””
“Let’s keep to the game shall we, Sam? Let’s just loose ourselves in the magic just for this night. The time for explanations can wait.”
It was no surprise that she knew my name. Nothing could have surprised me in that moment. There was an air of unreality about this meeting, a sense of ambiguity that went beyond the fatigue of the small hours.
“What shall I call you?” I said, “I’m allowed your name, surely?”
“You may call me Amunet,”
It was almost certainly a false name. I couldn’t ignore the reference to the ancient Egyptian 'Amun', meaning 'the hidden’, ‘the invisible’, an association that could only be deliberate.
”It is not by chance that I am here,” she continued.
I hardly expected anything else. This was a novelty after-all, a foible, which was why what she said next shocked me.
“Everything happens for a reason: a death on a remote life reserve, a government investigation, a bio-researcher straying too close to an outlaw bio-form. Nothing happens in a total vacuum.”
“What?” I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. The sudden introduction of something that was so familiar into what had been up until that moment, a light-hearted encounter was jarring.
A smile was the only response, yet not one that conveyed any kind of answer, more an infuriating expression of secrecy, of explanations that would only be withheld.
“They knew?” I whispered.
“Suspected, only suspected.”
“A deliberate act?”
“Possibly.” She was being intentionally vague, “or an experiment, a testing of limits.”
I wondered who this strange woman was, why she had chosen to bring me here. That was what she had done after-all, summoned me as surely as calling my name aloud.
“Is this meant to stimulate some sort of reaction?”
“Would I have made such an admission if it was?”
“Possibly, unless the disclosure of such a valuable truth was some sort of an attempt to point me in the wrong direction, set me loose and watch me stumble like a fool.”
She smiled again and this time there was something more to it, an understanding perhaps.
“Some would be dismayed at such paranoia.”
“And some would recognise it as a conclusion that could only be realised through experience.”
“Not all tribes tow the Unionist line. Some interests drive a wedge between even the most solid of allies.”
“And where does this leave me? What could I possibly gain from cooperation?”
“Understanding. It is imperative that you resolve the message for what it is, imperative that you act as an interpreter.”
“For Nina?”
“For Nina. For yourself.”
I couldn’t take in what she was telling me, found it difficult to draw the random strings together. Questions came to me. I already knew the answers and yet I knew nothing, was so far from knowing anything that the effect of her words was like a hammer blow to my heart, a playground taunt, something offered only to be snatched away.
This was wrong. The whole situation seemed far too contrived. I turned away, unable to have a resolution look me in the eye and still elude me, yet that too seemed unnatural, turned back again, ready to face her down, ready to force an answer if need me, found the arboretum empty. She had gone, exasperatingly dissolved into shadow, blown to powders upon the night.