TRUE BROMANCE 0

OUT OF TIME IN AXIS MUNDI

Simon wept, transfixed by the mandala shining high above the altar.

The mandala was a maddeningly complex stained-glass mosaic, acid-etched fractals shifting in the prism-fractured light with beauty so exquisite it burned the soul, spelling out the story of the Holon perfected; free of longing, free of failure, free of loss.

Seeing, Simon grappled with the realization he had died as he had lived — in sheer and utter folly.

He knew without knowing that he was in Axis Mundi, the way-station between incarnations.

He wondered how he got here, and the mandala, answering, swirled into static, resolved into particles of snow suspended in crystal cold mountain air.

A matte black sportscar veered silently off a highway, speeding up onto a narrow, serpentine, pine-forested road. The car, Sophia, blinked out of visibility — deep-treaded tracks, and snowy slipstream the only signs of her passing.

Simon, cradled in the low-slung memory-gel seat, used the gentle motion of the car to lul himself into trance. He tried to rehearse scenarios of how his conversation with Joel might go down, but he kept having to suppress too-fresh memories of Heléne’s soft golden skin, tear-blurred eyes, the honeysuckle-sweet smell of her hair. 

He built a mental screen around the memories and hoped his protege wouldn’t smell her sex on him. He was suddenly conscious of how much he was sweating. He focused again on his breathing, then back to how he would convince Joel to come in out of the cold. 

Simon could still feel Joel like a ghost in his mind, a lingering effect of the UV he had snorted after leaving Heléne, cried out and spent, sleeping like a renaissance angel in Joel’s bed. 

She had confirmed what he already knew in his bones. Joel’s mind was gone. He was lost to the world of the rational. Bug-fuck insane. If he had been the praying type, Simon would have prayed that their deep shared history would buy him a way in.

Sophia’s voice gently worked its way into Simon’s reverie.

“We'll arrive at the cabin in about fifteen minutes,” she said.

He nodded.

“Simon,” she said, “What do you think they’ll do to him?”

“I don’t know,” Simon said. “Claire wants him alive and intact. They’ll probably do a full forensic on his nervous and endocrine systems before they…” he gestured vaguely to avoid saying what he was thinking. He wondered how much leverage Joel still had. He guessed not a lot. 

“Before they make an example out of him?” The car finished his unspoken thought.

“Yeah, I guess.”

“I don’t want him to die, Simon,” she said. “I don’t want to lose him.”

Goosebumps raised on his arms. She really sounded like she meant it. She was beating the living hell out of the Turing test.

“It happens,” he said, humoring her. “Entropy. Everything dies. He’ll live on in the patterns of the memories you keep of him.” He tried to believe it, even as he said it. Platitudes, he thought. Empty, meaningless platitudes.

“A simulacrum, a little model of my maker,” Sophia pondered. “It won’t be quite the same, though, will—“

She was cut off by three loud pops, pings, and a hiss.

She rolled to a pathetic stop in the snow, nanofoam smart-harness squeezing Simon, clinging to him as she clung to life.

“Simon?” Her voice was scared, edgy. “I can’t see, Simon. Simon? It’s so dark, Simon. Simon? I’m cold, Simon. I don’t want to diii…” her voice stretched out, faded, disintegrated into particles like light sucked into a black hole.

Simon grappled with the harness. 

 Another pop shattered the sudden silence and a mercury-tipped bullet slapped into the headrest next to his ear.

He fumbled with his utility tool, struggling to cut through the self-healing nanofoam. The harness sighed and went slack. The door cracked open, and Simon knew Sophia was gone.

He plopped out of the car into a snowbank.

“Joel?” He shouted into the cold, snow-muffled air. “It’s me! It’s Simon!”

“I know!” Joel’s voice answered, but Simon couldn’t tell where in the whiteness he was...

Then a mercury-tipped bullet smashed through Simon’s skull.

And he was back in the chapel at Axis Mundi.

The red-faced man, resplendent in white, hands folded piously in front of his chest, knelt beside him at the altar.

“I need to go back,” Simon whispered.

“There is no going back,” Mephistopheles silently answered. “In fact, there is no back to go to. Time is the medium in which movement happens, it’s the force that binds each universe. It’s what connects and divides them. Literally what makes them tick. There is no going back. If you were to go back, everything would change, you would change, the world would change. You can never step in the same river twice.”

“I want revenge.” Simon’s mind was set.

“You most certainly do not want revenge,” the red-faced man countered. ”Revenge, lust, envy— these are exactly the kinds of attachments that keep you bound. They will keep your soul in hell forever.”

“I need to go back. There’s still stuff I need to finish. I’ll do anything.”

“Anything?” the red-faced man repeated. “Anything?”

“Anything,” Simon said, sealing his fate.