The True Story of the Vortex. The Transcendence Files. Fragment.

My muscles were aching pleasantly after the knife-throwing workout as I was sitting in the bus on my way home. I was lost in thought. I did not dare ask Lena about Rob’s letters she promised to upload onto my mentabook, yet I was bursting with impatience. Rob going 4,000 years back in Terra time… of course, I knew about his adventures involving time-traveling to the past ages of Earth, but it still sounded like fantasy to me.

I got off the bus and walked the small distance from the stop to Rob’s house where I have been living after his departure. The twilight was chilly, covering the city and the river with a sheer violet veil. I stopped in front of the house… and tensed. My hand reached out for the knives, but I knew I would better muster myself for wielding The Weapons of Mind, Sarol Hannas. With a sixth sense, I could feel Vortexian presence. Someone broke into my home, but was it friend or foe?

Just in case, I unsheathed one of my three knives and approached the door stealthily. My nostrils flared.

Spawn.

Well, you won’t know what’s hit you, I thought as I felt the rage building up in me. I kicked the half-open door with my right foot.

‘What the hell are you doing here?’ I snarled.

There were three Emissaries, and I was already experienced enough to see that two of them were D’Rakols in heavy Guises imitating human faces, covering their black scales and hairless skulls. But as they saw me, their black irises started dilating to the point where they covered the entire eyeball, and the pupils shone red. They were standing up, on each side of… a warlord.

The only warlord I ever met was K’Ramol, and trust me, it was more than enough to realize that this kind of Spawn should be avoided at all cost. Yet the tall person clad in an elegant black suit was not Lord K’Ramol.

As he got up – he was sitting on my couch as if he were in his own parlor, the bastard! – and gave me a cold smile, I could see he was tall and thin, yet for all that something about his posture hinted at great physical strength. His eyes were a pale, icy blue, his skin a dead off-white fish-belly tone with a hint of scaly structure barely visible to the human eye.

Yet I was no mere Human. I was the creator of the Vortex, and these were my subjects. From the dark side, yes, but my own nevertheless.

Three middle fingers on the handle, thumb on direct opposite side, pinkie hanging off. I grasped the knife and asked, ‘Who are you?’

‘Lord K’Rizhut.’ He did not waste words on false polite formulas as K’Ramol would have done. ‘Put down that knife. You do not presume you can attack the three of us with that pitiful bit of metal, do you?’

‘Actually, I do presume I can wipe the floor with you,’ I hissed as I thrust my left shoulder forward.

‘Oh yes, you are a wielder of Sarol Hannas, I know,’ he sneered. ‘Yet there is a shield against every weapon…’

‘What do you want?’ I interrupted.

‘Please sit down. We are here to negotiate.’

The Spawn had the nerve to invite me to sit down in my own home! I did not change my poise.

‘Negotiate what?’

‘Your involvement in the upcoming war.’

Oh dear.

‘I thought you are always at war with Luminites…’

‘It does not concern the Children of Light. I am talking about the invasion of KADE to Terra. We need you to act as mediator between us and the Human governments. We do want to establish our rule here – even with one sun, Earth is an incredibly rich resource for us, and we do not want to shed too much blood of our future slaves.’

I felt the skin on my neck and arms crawl. Future slaves?

‘But if you, a Human woman,’ Lord K’Rizhut continued calmly, ‘will help us negotiate a peaceful surrender, you will be able to save millions of lives…’

‘Only to make them your slaves, your… human batteries!’ I exclaimed, outraged. ‘I’ll see you in the thirteenth hell before I agree!’

‘Trust me,’ said K’Rizhut with a sneer that made my blood freeze in my veins, ‘the Thirteenth Hell will seem a picnic to you after we are done with the conquest. My people is not what you’d call merciful when it comes to war. I am sure most Humans will agree to play the role of our… ah… batteries in exchange for, say, a sapphire slab from the walls of Wilvarin… which we will conquer next, what with new energy units from Humans… you must understand that merciless slaughter is not in our interests, and thus our interests coincide.’

My eyes narrowed. So they would attack the Vortex next? For the first time in eight thousand years, after the Skydwellers cast out the KADE planet out of the Vortex, there will be a full-fledged war instead of small raids and skirmishes?

‘My answer is no, Lord K’Rizhut,’ I said officially.

‘Did you think well? After all, we the dwellers of KADE are your children as well. By your will we live in semidarkness on meager energy units we are able to steal or capture from outside the Vortex… did you know our children are born smooth-skinned and grow scales only because they don’t have enough energy units to feed their systems?’

I felt my eyes widen. ‘No,’ I said quietly, ‘I did not know that.’

‘Of course. Your Luminite friends just told you we were the bad guys, down to the last woman and child,’ Lord K’Rizhut sighed. ‘For eight thousand years, we pay for our mistakes.’

‘It was not a mistake. It was a thousand years of slavery for the Luminites before the Skydwellers’ Last Battle. Your souls are dark, my lord. So why do you crave light so much? To turn it into money,’ I finished with a scoff. “Energy units are money in the Vortex…’

‘Not only money,’ he interrupted. ‘E-units are our lifeblood, our source of existence...’

‘And now you want to strip my home world of its lifeblood? And you want me to play on your side in this?’ I shook my head. ‘You must be mad. This conversation is over. Leave, or else I will make you leave.’

One of the D’Rakols hissed and I saw his Guise melt, uncovering the black scaly monster underneath. ‘Listen to the mighty warlord, Human.’

‘It will be over when I will have you convinced… by force if necessary.’

It was so outrageous I laughed. ‘Do you think it is so easy to capture me?’

‘Not easy at all,’ came a voice from the entrance door.

It was a familiar voice. Familiar but somewhat new to my ear, its silvery notes having given way to velvet and thunder. I felt a shudder ripple through my entire body. It couldn’t be. It was a dream.

I turned sharply, forgetting about the enemy in front of me, and saw a blue-white energy lance shining bright in the meager gray light. It was larger, thicker than before, with multiple forks and ramifications… one helluva energy lance! Its light obscured the face of its wielder, but I already knew who it was. My heart was fluttering with exultation and unbearable joy. He was back, and at the right moment as usual.

‘Hello Rob,’ I said casually. ‘So nice of you to join the party.’

I put out my right arm and summoned my own energy blade, one of the Sarol Hannas that only I, the Goddess of the Vortex, could wield. It was an opalescent beam of light, sharp at the end, protruding out of my palm. Of course, it was only visible to Vortexians and to me, as it was a mere creation of my imagination, but as past events proved, I could use it to a tangible effect. Like killing Spawn.

‘My Goddess,’ came Rob’s reply from behind the blue-and-white energy beam. ‘Shall we proceed to liquidating them?’

He did not have time to respond. K’Rizhut cried something in a language unknown to me, took out of his pocket something that looked horribly like blood in a large glass vial, threw its contents into the air, and to my horror, a Link opened right in the middle of my living room. Yet it was not the familiar frame shining blue. Its borders were a horrible blood-red, a lighter red film stretched inside it. The three men stepped through it, and in the blink of an eye both the Spawn and the Link vanished.

‘Whoa,’ I exhaled, turning to face Rob. ‘What was this?’

‘I don’t know. But it’s obvious they wanted to drag you through this… portal. It’s not a Link. Links open only…’

‘… in the mountains where the air is rarefied, I know,’ I added. ‘How was this possible? And… what are you doing here?’

Rob finally extinguished his blue-white energy lance and I could see him properly. And as I beheld him, I gasped.

He seemed even taller than he was, his body rippling with muscles visible even through his clothes. His hair was shorter than before and he was sporting a close-cropped well-groomed beard. Only his eyes remained unchanged – bright blue, blazing with bloodlust… and obvious desire for me.

Before I could spew out more questions, he approached me and held me in his arms. I threw my arms up to hug his neck and drowned in the blueness of his eyes.

‘Is that a way to welcome home a warrior? With “what are you doing here?”’ he whispered in my ear as he was squeezing me harder and harder in his powerful arms. The contact of his beard with my cheek made my entire body erupt in pleasure.

‘I already figured out the answer – you are here to save my ass as usual,’ I responded in a whisper.

‘No. I am back because I can no longer pretend I can live without you, Gate.’ And he kissed me.

The pleasure was bewildering, sweeping through me like a hurricane. I moaned against his lips, as the energy emanating from his skin was conquering my senses. He was back. My love returned to me.

‘Immortality is worth nothing without you, my love,’ he whispered in my ear as we broke the kiss. I stared into his eyes, elated, my insides squirming with desire.

‘I want you, Nolementar mine. Here, now,’ I replied in a hoarse whisper, barely recognizing my own voice. We tore at each other’s clothes. He stepped behind me to cup my breasts and kiss the nape of my neck. I shuddered with the first attack of supreme pleasure, and cried out his name.

We made love right there in the middle of the living room, on the white fluffy carpet, taking each other to the summit again and again, rediscovering the way our bodies reacted to each other. The danger – after all, the Emissaries could reopen a portal in our living room again at any time – made it even more intense. All that time, my eyes were open. I was drinking him in hungrily, afraid to close my eyes, still fearing to believe the reality of it all, and the blue fire in his eyes was burning its way straight into the depths of my soul…

‘I never stopped thinking about you,’ he said finally, as we were cooling down in each other arms. My head was on his chest, and I was listening to his heart beating in unison with my own. ‘All these eighteen months, you were always on my mind…’

I blushed. How could I tell him I was thinking about him, too, even when I was in bed with Austin, drunk like a skunk? Deep shame was taking over me. How could I tell him? I could not bear the mere idea of the fire in his blue eyes turning into ice. I could not lose him again, this time because of my own stupidity and weakness.

‘I never hoped you would return,’ I said finally.

‘I know. That is why I do not hold anything against you, nor do I blame you for anything,’ he replied, and I realized he knew about Austin and me.

‘I am yours. Only yours.’

‘I know, Anarinya nin…’ he said, and he kissed me again.

‘What does it mean?’ I asked, as we both broke the kiss, gasping for air.

‘My little sun.’ And he got up, gloriously beautiful in his nudity. I started at him, feeling renewed desire pooling up again in the pit of my stomach, but he took my hand and pulled me to my feet.

‘Come on. We can’t stay here.’

‘What? Why?’ There were no thoughts in my head, just burning desire to drag him to the bedroom and do it all over again.

‘It’s not safe.’ His hands were running up and down my naked back, making my skin crawl with sparks of glorious desire. ‘If the Emissaries could open a link here in our living room, they can do it again at any moment. Get dressed.’

I pouted. ‘I want…’

‘I want you, too,’ he interrupted. ‘But we need to get out of here.’

‘Where are we going?’ I asked, my nerves burning with disappointment. ‘And how is this possible, a Link in the middle of our house?’

‘I don’t know,’ Rob answered, frowning in frustration. ‘Unless they discovered new technomagy for traveling in the mosaic time structure, this is unexplainable.’ He was already dressed by now in his black jeans, navy blue shirt and leather jacket. ‘Come on. Although I enjoy looking at you in the altogether,’ – and we both smiled as he remembered this old adage of ours – ‘we need to get going.’

‘Did you notice the Link borders were shining red instead of blue?’ I asked, as I fumbled with the clasp of my bra. His fingers covered mine and he clasped it into place deftly. New waves of desire washed through me. If I felt so aroused as he was dressing me, what would I feel when he would undress me again?

‘I did. I believe there is some sort of blood technomagy involved,’ he replied. ‘Damn. If they killed a Human for this…’

‘I should have stopped them from escaping through this Link,’ I said bitterly. ‘I shouldn’t have even talked to them, but use Sarol Hannas and just wipe the floor with them.’

He embraced me and held my head to his chest. ‘Don’t blame yourself, love. You against a warlord and two high-level D’Rakols? I’m glad you didn’t make the first move – I shudder to think of what would have happened if…’

‘You still don’t see me as a warrior,’ I interrupted peevishly. ‘I could have wiped the floor with them, it’s just… they are my children, too. My own dark side.’

‘Yes, my Goddess,’ said Rob, and I could hear notes of the old reverence in his voice. ‘You did the right thing. Now let’s go.’

As I went out to the porch, I expected to see the familiar black car with Sy in the driver’s seat, but it wasn’t there. Instead, a huge black motorcycle was parked on the driveway.

‘Damn, I only have one helmet,’ said Rob. ‘O.K., come here.’ He took the helmet and placed it on my head. Then he mounted the motorcycle and, rummaging in his pocked, put on a pair of Ray Bans.

‘Maybe you should wear it, you’re driving,’ I replied, climbing on the passenger seat and hugging his muscular torso.

He turned, breaking the embrace gently, and stared deeply into my eyes. ‘Please, love. Don’t you know by now that protecting you is one of my strongest instincts?’

‘Don’t you know I feel the same about you?’

He lifted the visor, kissed me briefly, then lowered it back in place. ‘Hold on tight, little sun. We’re going to a safe place… where I will make love to you all night.’ And the engine roared in the chilly dusk.

Lakeshore Avenue zoomed past quickly, and we flew to the highway smoothly. I was holding him from behind, the speed thrilling me, and felt alive. For the first time in eighteen months, I felt truly alive. He was here. He was here with me.

Chum Unleashed: TSV-Conception Files

Dear Agent,

Title: THE TRUE STORY OF THE VORTEX. THE CONCEPTION FILES.

Genre: Paranormal romance.

Word count: ~159,000 words.

Tagline. All stories are true.

PROTASIS.

Node. Agata "Gate" Carson, the queen of undecided color on the story's chessboard, finds it easier and easier to choose between the "black" and the "white":

----- KADE warlords' badassery and trigger-happy attempts to "influence the influencer",
or
----- Rob Nolementar and his fellow Luminites, whose agenda is even more selfish,

... as the need to choose throws her into a charmingly lethal vortex of causes and consequences.

(X) Major psychological setback punctuating the hard decisions Query Shark loves so much/ (Y) Luuuv as primordial choice-determining factor.  Pick one. Or both.

X. A caring and decent soul's struggle of self-preservation vs. impartiality - "Luminites and KADE Emissaries are all my own, Rob, but you are protecting me from them!"

Y. Rob Nolementar is her lover. They are quite crazy about each other, too.

Aside. Yeah, you always find it kinda easy to choose sides... when both are asking for the same favor, but only one will obviously whack you afterwards so you won't change your mind.

Whoa! Cruxes.

Whom will Gate help to win in the Last War?
Will she understand KADE and their dire need for change, which, in theory, can justify any means?
Will she favor her Luminite protectors?
Will she change the future of the Vortex or keep the status quo?

Foreword i.e. potential back cover text i.e. extract from the potential series' promo

"The Sol Vortex as the "true" story of a clash between the real and the imaginary, the objective and the subjective, the physical and the metaphysical - in short, between reality and virtuality, is bound to enrich our literature and philosophy.

"I am sure the outreach of this story will take us to the next level in the vortex of our lives, taking us beyond pure pastime. Its motto, All stories are true, will become, for want of better words, truer than ever." Oleg Vorobiov, SEO Analyst and Sol Vortex beta reader

Intro quotes to support the case.

"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." Arthur C. Clarke.

"Technology has replaced God in the Western mind." John Clute, John Grant.

EPITASIS.

Parties. Hoopla aficionados all.

Heroes. Crazy quilts of smartassity, romanticism, and vice-ridden humanness.

Sidekicks. His is as "soft" as a whore's heart. Hers - a whore, period. Both female.

Villains/decision-makers. KADE warlords, Luminanime elitists, and neutral Avguri.

Fifth column. Pheairras - the smartest people in the book. They choose to be big shark in the cold dark rather than small fish in the warm pish. And keep residence in the good Vortex clusters while working for the bad one, in line with any regular yuppie dream. 

Aloof and therefore a-hole-ish balance-keepers: The Skydwellers and the Shadow Emperor.

Sources of conflict.

1. The warlords are basically O.K. So what if they want to play the queen in order to tweak the fates to their own benefit? Everybody wants a place in the sun, let alone in a world where the sunlight waves are convertible to currency due to the Sol Vortex biotech and bionics.
2. The elite cluster disagrees. Also has different views re: whacking.
3. The Avguri play both sides against the middle.
4. The balance-keepers do not fix unbroken things as a matter of principle, but they love to assert their awesomeness. For both, they use methods from stupid to dangerous, which makes you wonder how they managed to climb so high with so few IQ points.
5. Etc.

What the blazes is the Vortex? The seven-suns astral-physical energy production system Gate invented. It is populated with conflicting social clusters, and she's kinda their Goddess. Bit of a chieftain figure, with all ensuing snafu, but she won't find out she's their creator - or, rather, creatress - until Chapter 5.

What the blazes is that supposed to mean? The Vortex is objective reality in Devachan.

Smartypants alert. (Yes, I know the difference between Knowitallian and English.) Argument pro magical realism element: Devachan is a real thing. Or so H.P. Blavatsky has us believe. You can find Devachan on Wiki the Magically Real Free Encyclopedia, so the answer to #isthatathing is "yes".

In Sanskrit, Deva means "god" and chan means "dwelling". In a word, Devachan is virtual reality created by powers at various levels of cosmogony. Vladimir Vernadsky has a related concept, "noosphere", the mind sphere of Earth similar to biosphere or troposphere. Sigmund Freud would call it "yearning of Earth's superego". But Devachan sounds best.

What people think. Sy-fy nerds call it parallel reality. But Devachan is much more than a figment of sex-deprived imaginations, to which RealLife is no more than a server Error 404. Not to mention actual science, which, to the mass reader, is greater fantastics than Daenerys' bleedin' dragons.

Gate has her own name for it. "Dreamdwell". She also calls the Vortex simply "The Vortex", because she is musical, and to her ear, solvortex sounds like the name of a toilet-cleaning spray brand.

What's the book gotta do with it? In Devachan, all the stories of all the authors are tangible objective reality, from Eddur to Gospel to Atlas Shrugged to Grand Theft Auto. The only way to keep them real, should the author pass into posterity i.e. croak, is to have someone else think about it.

And? And Gate must write a bestselling "true story" of the Vortex, namely, 'The Skydwellers' Last Battle'. If she manages, that fragile balance of forces will remain stable for a while. If she won't manage to stay alive, either before or after other Human minds start feeding the story with their imaginations... well, that is a different tale. And if either side contracts another writer to do their bidding, then... that is yet another "true story".

Cause-and-consequence dance. Just like Jack Lemmon tangoing as Daphne, consequence leads.

After Gate started dating Rob, she is:

• - losing her mind and a couple of Choo stilettos in Prague

  as she is lured into a basement by a bogey of her own making, whereupon Rob and an incognito red-gold energy beam wielder barely manage to tug her out of trouble;

• - getting her leg bones crushed and forearm burned

as she goes to the loo in a pub in Montreal and meets Ursi, a Pheairra who almost succeeds murdering her, which makes the whole chieftain thing sink in;

• - risking to grill all her friends in a minivan barbecue

 as they are attacked by a horde or KADE Emissaries on the highway to Mont-Tremblant ski resort and she finds out that her roommate Lena is Lenatireya Norui from Cluster 4;

• - becoming very good at running

as she bribes her way out of her kidnapper's lair with her Ring of Togetherness and goes hobo for a month in the (non) romantic Paris;

• - losing her mind again

as she watches Ursi whack her friend and mentor Archer, a Luminite Seer expat turned French stockbroker;

• - getting infuriated

as she learns unsavory things about the tenants of her Vortex - about Team KADE and Team LuAn both - e.g. they were spying on her all her life from Caisteal Cairn to Mont-Royal Park;

• - and - the worst! - turning professional writer

as she gets little possibility to enjoy the Greek islands paradise because she must ensure the story sourcing the energy of more minds and imaginations to support the Sol Vortex.

The point where this query becomes a synopsis.

------------------->>>>>>>>>>>>>.<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<--------- that's the blighter.

CATASTROPHE.

An explanation of how the blazes the two worlds connect. 

Links are a sort of manholes in the fabric of reality. Only they're not portals, like, bing-bang-boom, I'm in Star Trek, drinking lite beer on Enterprise with Mr. Spock! They are all located in deserted or mountainous areas where human presence is sparse, the risk of human-triggered disasters is low, and the air is unpolluted.

The Links, just like hyperlinks on the Internets, are access points to new information, not doorways to heaven.

What do they access? Links are entrances to and exits from a complex four-dimensional structure (3-D + time) similar to a massive honeycomb and called mosaic time structure covering Earth like yet another sphere. Links are cells with broken or breakable caps. People move through the structure pretty much like bees move through a honeycomb.

Earth knows it all about particular Link vicinities, like places of power Castaneda described... or, say, the Shambhala in Tibet, where Jesus allegedly spent His silent or lost years.

All this stays firmly in the much-ridiculed domain of the paranormal and the esoteric, which is not surprising in view of many failures to think outside the "a portal is a door" box... or to apply tech methods to non-tech ideas, for that matter.

Earthlings have no idea it must be a Link. They think it's a place, a pocket in the fabric of reality, a hidden cave... They spawn miscellaneous B.S. theories, and after an expedition to Annapurna with whores and blackjack, write long-ass books about their search of the arcane. What they are ignorant of is the first rule of the transarcane: the speaker does not know, the knower does not speak.

All in all, there are seven Links connecting the Vortex to Earth, and numerous others, at which point let me mention

One important side effect.

All the doohickeys, bugaboos, whangdoodles from our favorite stories periodically sneak through Links to visit Earthlings,

a. -- inspiring myths, legends, and beliefs from Allah to Valhalla;
b. -- creating temporal mess, cause-and-consequence mess, just plain mess;
c. -- reincarnating as new humans if they're tired of Immortality, Inc.;
d. -- taking over the world - I mean cats;
e. -- making Freud giggle in Devachan: Stephenie sleeps - Edward slips. Nuff said.
f. -- making psychiatrists filthy rich - imagine an innocent curious alien crawling through a Link into a schizoid insomniac's bedroom in Roswell, NM. Ka-Jung!
g. -- being pretty much the answer to inane questions like "what inspired you to invent Quidditch, Ms. Rowling?"

Also, if you want to travel hither and thither between Devachan and Earth, you better have a lot of experience navigating in the mosaic time structure like Rob. And make sure to be armed with the mathematical formulas his father, the current Keeper of the Links, invented for easier navigation... and disclosed to an Avgur at a drunken party.

Final steps to the apex.

Gatie dots the "i" as she lounges on an Aegean sea beach. She:

--> understands why Lenatireya hates fiction; -->
--> finishes"The Skydwellers' Last Battle" , -->
-------> while Rob, having bought a fictional small press in advance, publishes it
-------> under the name Diana Whitcomb to avoid copycats, because Gate's legal name is
-------> Agata Diana Carolina Whitcomb-Carson. Also,
--> Gate tries Sarol Hannas weapons on random KADE Spawn , -->
--> engages in hot-pursuit-avec-butt-kicking in the Carpathians Link vicinity, -->
--> subjects Warlord K'Ramol & Co to dire punishment and political disgrace, -->
--> has them dispatched back to the Vortex as Rob opens a portal aka Link, -->
--> where they'll escalate the conflict to a feces-hitting-the-ventilator state, -->
--> but she'll think about it tomorrow - she's kissing Rob on the verge of -->

Culmination. Lovers separation alert!

Denouement. Finally.

>> Rob is all for staying and trading longevity, title, power, and other trifles for love,

>> because he is a romantic hero, but

>> his love can't Transcend,

>> and Rob is bound to snuff it

>> pretty soon if he stays,

because when you're used to living in the light of the Seven, Earth's own little Sol is like a torchlight to you; no amount of sex and drama can prevent you from turning up your toes in this kind of situation, so

>> they sit down and talk,

and, incidentally, we find out why Lord K'Ramol was so calm and smug while delivering the standard last "you will pay for this" words, this cute little detail meaning that

>> KADE – the Kee-Axe Dark Empire – wants to colonize Earth <<

>> but never mind; she

>>loves him too much
>> to let him stay. 

>>cue tearjerking

>>goodbye

>>forever!

Epilogue.

~~~ After several months in a "hell-on-wheels" training camp, Rob must go on the Mayan Calendar mission avec sidekick Lena and new characters.

Sample text.

--- sample text ---  from Chapter 1 "Three Women in a Flat"

Conception. Off the Hook. Fragment

‘No way!’ Rosemary was beyond herself with excitement and incredulous bewilderment. ‘No effing way! That total HOTTIE Rob Florin performing at… at your OFFICE! Gosh, this is the first time I’m jealous of your job, Gatie… The T’s. Do you have any idea how big they are?’

‘Actually, no, I don’t,’ I said, arranging a bouquet of dahlias in a thin tall vase.

I traced the sparkling facets with my fingers and sighed. It was a sparkling night, too. That Saturday night when we talked for a couple of hours without noticing anything or anyone around. I for one didn’t.

I also had no idea how big a celebrity he was, until now when Rose, red in the face, was positively bursting with excitement at this news.

‘No, I mean… well,’ she said, taking the lighter flame to her cigarette with trembling hands. I paused to look at her.

‘Rose, are you OK?’

‘No, I mean, Baristacrat is great, of course, but it’s no Madison Square Garden, and it’s just one big mystery, and I’ll never forgive you for not inviting me last Saturday…’

‘I told you already,’ I said, exasperated. ‘I had no idea who they were!’

‘Still won’t,’ said Rosemary. ‘Forgive you. To think I’d miss such a thing… being in one room with Rob. Arrgh,’ she groaned.

‘Did they really perform at the Madison?’ I asked, interested.

‘He – they – are about to. Before embarking on a world tour, in April or something like that.’ She inhaled deeply. ‘You’d know that if you didn’t shun TV like the plague, and knew all the hot bands like a regular gal.’

‘I hate TV,’ I said. ‘And I thought we all agreed I was not a normal girl.’

‘I said “regular”, not “normal”,’ answered my friend, twisting one of her black ringlets around the index finger of her cigarette-free hand.

‘How unusual of you,’ I retorted sarcastically.

‘Gatie, you are normal, but you have very weird habits for a twenty-first century person. Sometimes it’s hard to tell whether you come from a past age or a very future one.’

‘You can’t say “very future”, it doesn’t have comparative degrees,’ I corrected her absentmindedly.

‘Oh, shut up,’ said Rosemary with emphasis, then continued, rather inconsequentially, ‘now tell me, tell me everything… what's he like?’

‘Surprisingly smart, for a pop singer.’

‘Oh God,’ she roared. ‘Typical you. Do me a favor, OK? Rethink your male priorities.’

I shrugged. My dahlias were still unsatisfactorily arranged, so I started over.

‘Come on. Tell me. Is he really as gorgeous as in his videos?’

‘Better,’ I sighed. ‘Although I’ve never seen his videos, so I can’t talk.’

‘Never? Why, you’re in for a treat.’

She rushed away to get her laptop, while I plucked at the petals of a discarded purple dahlia. He'll call me, he'll call me not... Yeah. He's probably too busy with sex and rock-and roll, drugs being something we both disapproved of, as I found out that sparkling Saturday night. Yeah...

The bitter mix of dahlia scent matched my mood.

Rose dashed back into the kitchen, her laptop under her arm. ‘Look,’ she said as she typed ‘The Trespassers Out of Looking-Glass’ in the YouTube search bar.

And there he was, with his band on the backdrop, not doing much, just singing, propped on a high stool, his long legs stretched relaxedly, his usual garage glamour look firmly in place, minus the sunglasses.

The camera could not convey the way his blue eyes shined. He smiled, it seemed to me, a little ironically, as if amused with his own simplicity and aloofness causing such mayhem in girls’ (and some boys’) hearts all over the world.

But the scenes in-between band shots…

‘Wow,’ I breathed out. ‘It’s beautiful.’

The video storyline was about that very Alice and her adventures in the wonderland of Harlem, done in anime style. Yet it had such expressiveness, such finesse of color and emotion I would never expect to find in the anime genre.

‘See?’ said Rose, looking at the screen dreamily.

‘Yeah,’ I answered, dreamy myself, then shook my head, realizing how goofy we probably looked.
‘At least it’s not Hentai.’

Rose giggled. ‘He’s too classy for Hentai.’

‘Look, they actually don’t have those big bug eyes I hate so much in anime.’

‘Forget anime, you nerd! You had this totally amazing man at arm’s length and all you can say he’s smart. Hell, everyone knows that,’ she added, hitting the “pause” button. ‘I mean, listen to his lyrics, they’re actually his, and you surely know what I mean.’

I did. Those songs were no moon and June stuff.

She’s a superstar of triple X

Shot by no one in the labyrinth of Harlem

Dirty angel living to the max

Called “you bitch” but never called “my darling”

‘Why is he in town, anyway?’ asked Rose, her eyes on the screen.

‘Came to perform at Bookends, obviously, why else?’ I said acidly. ‘In fact, he told me he actually lives here. Well, of course, where he really lives is hotel rooms, with touring and stuff, but his place is here. Île Bizard, no more no less.’

Rose whistled.

‘What, did you expect him to be poor?’

‘No, but… I wonder why he even bothered buying a house here…’

‘I didn’t ask. But he told me he does a lot of Hollywood, too, so… well… it is really weird. Just as you said. The T’s performing at a little arty café. Highly unlikely.’

She nodded thoughtfully.

And then I said, surprising myself in the first place: ‘Can you hit replay, please? I just…’

‘Oh, come on!’ laughed Rosemary. ‘He’s got you, I can see that. And who can blame you? He’s walking sex.’

‘And you’re a hetaera.’

‘Whooo?’

‘Ancient Greek for priestess of love for sale.’

‘For sale my ass,’ snorted Rose.

‘What an unconventional sentence structure for you.  And you missed the verb.’

‘Oh, one of these days...’

‘Hit that PLAY button already!’

She snickered and hit the “replay” button. This time, watching him intently, I noticed an unusual tattoo on the right side, at the base of his neck, just above his collarbone.

He wore a black shirt and denim jeans in the video. And right in the next scene… the signature scarf was back in place.

I wondered why. Why hide such an item from the general public?

As for the tattoo, it was weird. Obviously a signifier; it meant something. But it wasn't a hieroglyph, or a rune, or a Celtic symbol. It had elements of all three, probably, but it mostly reminded me of the crisscrossing lines and dots on a computer wafer. It looked kind of cool, actually. Why was he hiding it?

Rosemary sighed lustfully, and I flinched out of my reverie. He was a dream, he was. It was then when I realized why people fall in love with TV faces.

They’re all real people at the end of the day, actually.

‘So, what else did you talk about?’ Rose asked, getting up to put a new pot of coffee on the stove. ‘I mean, how did you make it through the conversation, you being… well, you? I am as far from shy as ever a person can be, but I think I’d freaking lose it in the situation… just stay there and gape. Probably with side effects like unfocused eyes and minor drooling.’

‘Must say, we started quite unusually,’ I admitted. ‘I bullied him.’

‘You WHAT?’

So I told her the story. About the drunk Orc, me being unusually nervous and irritable, with no obvious reason, and finally, getting to talk to him as if we were ancientest friends.

Rose listened without a single interruption, sipping her coffee, then said, ‘You like him. Maybe even acquired a crush on him, I daresay.’

‘I didn’t!’ I said indignantly. ‘I’m not thirteen years old, for heaven’s sake! To fall in love with a celebrity? Moi? Just because he turned out to have a brain?’

***

This is a fragment of my previous novel, "Conception". It was published under the title "The True Story of the Vortex. The Conception Files" a couple of years ago, but I am back to rewriting it... every time the deliciously imperfect characters of "Caelin" tire me, I am back to the snarky but romantic Gate and Rob, Rose, Lena, my beloved villain Lord K'Ramol and my other children of the SunVortex. Enjoy!