Sick Buildings (part 2 of 3)

There were mirages out on the Salt Sea the next morning, shimmering on the periphery like sea grass, taunting effigies of what once was, what might have been.
By the time I made it out to the terraces, the regulars had already taken their customary positions. I found Martin and Dendrick relaxing in deck chairs, arranged like pensioners, their eyes glued to the horizon as if the vision that had been threatening to reveal itself all morning was only now beginning to take shape. I wondered what it was that kept them there, hour after hour, hooded and robed against the sun, their eyes hidden behind U.V. goggles. There was more than a hint of obsession there, more than a suggestion that the Salt Sea had become the source of their problems rather than any kind of answer to them.
On the Western side of the house the outer wall coalesced to form a battlement, a campanile, open at the top, containing a small patch of grass and a few dusty olive trees. I found Nina inside, watching the desert, and for a moment I wondered if she too had become enraptured by the possibilities that such an accident of ecology presented.
“I found your arboretum last night,” I said, “a wonderful touch.”
If I was expecting some kind of confirmation I was to be disappointed. Her face remained worryingly blank. Worse, her expression took on hints of scepticism, a suspicion perhaps that I had begun to succumb to Coatl Calli’s charms.
“What arboretum?” she said, giving a convincing act of surprise tempered by excitement.
“Your botanical garden on the top floor, off gallery three.”
Nina’s frown remained untouched. So it was to be a game them, an act to keep me guessing.
“The room off gallery three is empty. It has been since I took the place on.” She took a notebook from beneath her djelleba and began scribbling.
“You must tell me about what you saw, how it happened.”
I gave her an account of what I remembered, told her about the sound that had led me upstairs, decided to neglect the part about Amunet, hoping perhaps that she would betray knowledge of that herself.
“You recognise why this is important,” she said, “Usually the visions occur out in the pan. Very rarely do we have one inside the house.”
I took a moment to collect my thoughts, realised that insisting that it had been more than a vision would only play into her hands, would only convince her that had been taken in completely.
“This represents the beginning,” she continued, “your beginning, this place starting to affect your awareness.”
It sounded too good to be true, sounded too much like the new age nonsense that permeated the tourist boutiques along the coast. She had to have been preparing this. Whatever script she was following had been too well rehearsed to allow her to give me the truth. I wondered if this was how it was with all her guests, wondered whether these little psychological games were the reason people found themselves ensnared by the place.
“It was too real.” I muttered, realised as soon as I had said it that it made me sound too much the naïve student, realised that I was out of my depth.
“You must keep a record. Note down anything you notice. Speak to me if it happens again.”
I assured her that I would, used that as an excuse to leave her to her deceptions, made my way from the terrace, already building a deception of my own.

It was several hours before I got a chance to put my plan into effect. Nina insisted that Freya and Marla take me on a tour of the villa’s outer reaches, an obvious attempt to keep me from inspecting the wind galleries or an innocent diversion, I couldn’t be sure. Eventually a quiet moment presented itself in which I could make my excuses and sneak away.
I retraced my steps back up the stairs, anxious to draw a line beneath the previous night’s excursion, tried to ignore the tiny grain of doubt that whispered subtle uncertainties, the growing belief that the whole thing had been a dream. I was tempted to fall back on the conclusion that I had been sleepwalking, a worrying proposition but not an entirely impossible one.
At the top of the stairs, I turned left into gallery three, found it deserted, made my way around the torus until I was directly behind the stairwell. I could see now that the older galleries were made of stone, constructed in segments that gave the impression of being inside an enormous seashell.
I found the door, tried it once, found it locked of course. From the gap beneath, something came to me, a slight breeze, a shifting of molecules in an enclosed space.

At 13:00, feeling restless with the heat, I took a walk around the perimeter of the house, surrendered to the sense that Coatl Calli had become a nagging space that refused to be filled, like the swim bladder of a fish perhaps, that vital part that kept it upright. The afternoon lull had provided an excuse for siesta, but I felt no such compulsion, still troubled as I was by the night before, by the impression that Nina had been less than straightforward. Despite her persuasiveness, I was not yet willing to abandon all rationality and embrace the house as Shaman, as dream theatre. Instead, making sure nobody was following, I made my way up to the roof-space, found an out of the way system terminal.
Using a knife to unscrew the access panel, I plugged in my comm and ran a system diagnostic. There were no obvious signs of energy drain, nothing that would have indicated the presence of an arboretum, no spikes in power usage emanating from gallery three. Whatever was feeding the place had to be drawn from the Solar Snares.
Finally I gave up, resorted instead to a manual search, started with the walkways that surrounded gallery three, found no sign of the glass roof that I had glimpsed the night before. I moved down to the lower balconies, hoping that a change in perspective might offer something new, but to no avail. The house confounded at every angle, conspired with the sunlight to keep hidden what it contained.
Frustrated, I tried to ignore the swells of heat that came in off the pan like rollers, let my gaze wander, followed the sweep of the bay until it ended in a low range of hills that jutted into the Salt Sea like an elbow in the ribs. The pan was ablaze. Sheets of quicksilver fire enveloped the house, anointed everything with a mercurial edge, the impossible lightness of a hallucination.
I took out my pockets lenses, scanned the horizon, heard the whine of the optics as they span to accommodate the shift in brightness. The desert basin presented me with dunes diminishing, one curve gently folding into the next. I followed with the optics, took in the extent of the tribal battlements, the desiccated remains of several Fossil Towns lining the promontory, found the shattered remains of several tribal sun platforms among the gradients, concrete vaults, locked and sealed against scrutiny, caught hints of movement at the limits of my vision. There were Flash Harries out there, spinners designed to catch the sunlight, flashing like strobes. I rubbed my eyes, felt the tiredness take hold, looked again. Something else caught my attention, a gentle, almost languorous movement, an orange pennant, a single tribal Snapper mounted on a pole on the further-most platform. It was the design that made my heart freeze, caused a gasp to escape my lips, a mandala, too perfect to have been accidental.
As if on cue a deep, rasping cry went up from somewhere beyond the first line of ruins, a voice that pierced the stillness. More joined in, building a wolf note, a crescendo that rattled off the gradients like thrown gravel. The wind rose, played tricks among the debris. My vision swam, caused the horizon to shimmer. The perspective seethed like a fairground ride, made me feel nauseous. I felt my heart race, snatched by a feathery lightness, tasted blood in my mouth, saw the sun pulsate and grow to fill my vision.

“You went out in the midday sun without a coolant suit. Have you any idea how hot the roof spaces get? Couple that with the fact that you haven’t taken in any liquid since this morning and I’m not surprised you had a vision. The heat can play tricks, but most prefer to gain their insights from the terraces.”
I had to admire Nina’s eloquence, the grace with which she expressed disapproval at my foolishness.
I sat in the main plaza, reclining in the shade of a large parasol. Siesta had emptied the house, made it silent save for the creaking of Sun Snares, slowly revolving in the heat. Nothing moved. The house had become a freeze frame, a scale model, sandwiched between blue sky and white pan. Above, the galleries pulled magic out of thin air, sang harmonies with every gust. I closed my eyes, saw lights flash against the darkness, the remnants of mild heat stroke perhaps.
Had I been wrong? Was it that simple? It was an obvious conclusion to draw and one that I was almost willing to accept. The vision had occurred in the early afternoon after-all, precisely when most revelations at Coatl Calli were said to occur. But I had heard sound, and that was something I could not ignore.
“What you need to ask yourself,” Nina continued, “is what would the flag represent? Is it a metaphor, a stand-in for something else? Is it perhaps, something to do with the mandala?”
I shook my head, experienced a residual nausea. In retelling the story there had been an element of authentication, something that confirmed that it hadn’t just been a heat-induced delusion. I had left out the detail of course, still hoping that Nina would betray herself with some unguarded comment, a slip of the tongue that would divulge all I needed to know.
“Can you describe it, the colour, the markings?”
“It was orange,” I said, “a tribal snapper.”
“You’re certain?”
“Yes.”
“Ok, so you saw and heard something. You’re convinced of its authenticity.”
I nodded.
“Yet the fact that it vanished when you drew close would suggest that what you saw was less than substantial. The description you’ve given me tallies with what others have reported.”
“The flags are a common mirage?”
“No. What I mean is that what you’ve described, bears all the hallmarks of a hallucination.”
“But the sound.”
“The pan channels and condenses all sorts of noise. The whole area is an auditory void.”
I sat back, looked across the piazza at the hills beyond the house, tried to draw meaning from the view, saw only contradictions. Coatl Calli had coaxed forth the vision, yet it was I who had made it real, made it something more than it was.
“You need to accept that the flag was nothing more than a manifestation of your state of mind,” Nina continued, “a product of what you’re carrying.”
I was beginning to recognise how easy it would be to become ensnared by semantics, to find myself as one more hapless customer, returning year upon year, chasing that ever-elusive repetition.
“Let’s turn our attentions to the mandala,” Nina said, “Can you describe it for me?”
“It starts as a Lotus flower. Then folds in upon itself. The petals gradually contract to form a circle.”
“Are there any emotions associated with it, any fear, excitement?”
“Nothing other than what I’ve already told you. The only thing I feel is frustration, but I fail to see…”
“You must try to remain patient. You’re close to uncovering an answer here.”
I shook my head, “I don’t know what to make of it.”
“As with the flag, absolute truths are meaningless. What you believe is what matters. You were about to describe the circle in detail.”
“Divided by three.”
“Yes?”
“It’s an abstract form. How could I possibly…”
“But it is familiar? It is something you recognise?”
I thought for a moment. Something new slotted into place. “Yes.”
“Could you draw it?”
“I’ve tried, but I find it impossible. Whatever I produce is somehow unsatisfactory. The detail is in the angles. I can’t get them right.”
“And the detail is important to you?”
I frowned, “Yes.”
“Is it important to the understanding of the message?”
“Yes.”
“And you regard it as something that is yours.”
“Of course.”
“Something that you can rely upon perhaps?”
“Yes, yes. It’s a key.” Another revelation. I felt a shiver beneath the skin.
“Because you want it to be, or because it is?”
“Damn it, because it is.”
Nina sat back, appeared to relax.
“So you’ve been given a message by a tribal life experiment, a message that takes the form of a mandala. The Lotus flower is simply the carrier, a recognisable image with which to trigger the main stage. Tell me, quickly now, what does the circle represent?”
“What? The division of Society.”
I sat wide eyed, stunned at what had just happened, by how quickly it had occurred.
“The division of society.” Nina whispered.
I was dumbfounded, too shocked to be able to process what had just happened. Even as a random connection, the effect was astonishing. The hint of a smile from Nina however, made it more than that, turned it into something expected, something foreseen.
I got up, walked to the edge of the terrace like a sleepwalker, stared out at the pan as if it was the only thing that still made sense. Heat hazes hid the gradients, reduced the sun platforms to indistinct shapes, shimmering forms conjured from a dream. I tried to find a vector that would allow a clear view, tried to imagine that what I had seen earlier had been some kind of natural phenomenon, a moment of confabulation, a simulacrum, not what I had taken it for. The moment eluded me. The heat conspired against the eyes, hid the true meaning of what lay out there amongst the brakes.
Nina joined me at the wall.
“You were meant to know this,” she said, and I heard the sincerity in her voice.
“There are two possibilities here. Either the circle, the mandala and everything that goes with it is from you, your mind arriving at these things by itself.”
“Or?”
“Or this is what the Towers intended, either to harm you or change you in some way. Your eventual deciphering of the message was a factor that was anticipated, an end result.”
I said nothing, still reeling from the implications, thought instead of what Amunet had said. ‘An experiment.’ Those were the words that she had used. Was that it perhaps, a test, a planned introduction of an unsuspecting subject into a high level communications net? The conclusion was startling in its ramifications. It didn’t bare thinking about.

With all the secrets and enigmas that it promised, the night couldn’t come quickly enough. It was with a sense of the inevitable that I woke again slightly after 03:00, heard the wind sigh and stir, and for a moment something in that submarine pressure seemed to call my name. It was when it did it again that I knew that it wasn’t the wind that had woken me but something else.
I made my way up to gallery three, found the door unlocked as if in expectation of my presence. The arboretum was there, moving with lazy indolence in the night breeze. A damp perfume spiced the night, gave shape to the wind chill.
“I was beginning to think that you would never come.”
“Amunet.” I whispered.
She stepped from the shadows, already undeniably real, undeniably substantial.
“I was beginning to think this place was a lie.”
A smile told me that this was a shifting reality at best, that there were no easy answers to hear.
“The truth is whatever you interpret it as,” she said.
“Freya said something similar. Are you working together? Is that what this is about, an overly elaborate game? Would you go to such lengths?”
“For you? Yes. Surely you would expect nothing less?”
“I’m starting to wonder how far you would go.”
“Things are not as you expect Sam.”
“That may be so, but I have suspicions about how far you’ve already gone.”
Her face remained blank. I watched her, studied her for any sign of emotion, saw only the face of a well-trained professional.
“Perhaps this will convince you.”
She held up her right arm, pulled back the sleeve of her suit to expose the fine curve of her elbow. I saw it then, illuminated in the moonlight like a charm, a talisman that she had been forced to carry; the patch of skin, raised like a welt, the birthmark in the shape of a crescent moon; the logo of her Life House.
I starred at it incredulously.
“You’re artificial,” I muttered, “a Construct.”
The absence of any reaction was the only confirmation I needed. I gathered my thoughts, realised that I would have to be quick, that this situation could only be temporary.
“You said that my presence at the reserve was part of an experiment.”
“Only a possibility, only rumour and innuendo.”
All things that the tribes excelled in, I thought, all part of the rich tapestry of misinformation, of miscommunication and downright lie.
“What was the intention, to provoke a communications network between a high level Construct and a human subject?”
Amunet nodded, although the ambiguity of it told me that even now, the truth would be something that I would have to interpret.
“It worked.” I said, “But what were they trying to say? Tell me that at least?”
“Meaning has proven elusive, even to me. That is why a transfer was attempted, why you were chosen as a recipient.”
“A recipient? Should I be honoured?” I realised something then, something that made me shudder, cast a row ofhot needles down my spine.
“The experiment had already killed one man.” I hissed, “That’s why Hatton was given access. That’s why the reserve Caretakers went against years of convention and granted right of entry. ”
If she had said too much she made a monumental effort to hide it.
“I am not here to condone, Sam, merely to encourage, to assist. There are other interests at work, groups who would kill to get their hands on what you contain. That you must realise.”
“You said you were working to upset their plans. How?”
“By being the instigator, the prime mover, the influence you need.”
“They required an empty vessel,” I muttered, “somebody who wouldn’t raise tribal suspicion if the experiment failed a second time, an expendable asset.”
The mercilessness of it shouldn’t have surprised me, yet all I could feel was anger at their calculations, at their cold rationality. A man’s life had been casually discarded. The revelations I had hoped for here had taken on a sinister element, made me question how desperately I sought answers.
I took my comm from my pocket, “This has gone far enough.”
“What are you doing?”
“Calling Nina.”
“That won’t help.”
“We’ll see.”
“Then you leave me only one choice.”
She did it then, so quickly that I was aware of what she had done only after it had happened, brought her hand up, blew through her clenched fist discharging a breath of fine powder that enveloped me. I knew what it was, smelled the intoxicant as it entered my lungs, heard the blood-pulse build in my ears as it invaded my skull and reverberated off the things it found there like sonar, a clamour that could only grow louder, racing, racing, racing…