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“Have you ever seen the Yellow Sign?”
So asked the ghastly apparition of a man, sat before us in the “reception” area of Penrose Office, which was in fact the living room. Diane and I took the couch, there was the sizable faux-wood coffee table that served as our desk, and in front of it was the “guest chair”, the cheapest and most uncomfortable piece of furniture in the building. I had picked it out myself.
And how it fit him. This man radiated discomfort. A fellow of about twenty-five, or so I estimated; gaunt and bony, sallow-faced, eyes recessed into his skull as if they had attempted retreat from something, a blankness about his smile and gaze of one who either did not know where he was, or did not care. There was a boyishness to him, he could possibly be described as “handsome”; his innate features and attire painted a picture of a man who had been spared hard labor for all his life, yet they were betrayed, by the neglect of his likely once softly flowing blond hair, by the stretching of his skin over bone that would not have been visible had he eaten even once a day, by the great dark circles about his eyes that suggested the forgoing of sleep, or possibly, the repeated, violent removal from it by the unspeakable terrors that found us vulnerable in the night.
Diane fixed him with her signature gaze, furrowed brow, head tilted slightly downwards, leaned in; a predator lying in ambush, a coiled spring of savagery restrained through great will. As if at any moment she would abandon the mask of civility and tear into his flesh bare-handed in rabid frenzy.
...Or so was the image she hoped to convey. Once you had seen this visual trick played out time and time again, it grew laughable; here she goes again, putting on her “killing face.” It was, in essence, much like a small animal that stood on its hind legs and stretched its arms skyward, as if to imply that it had somehow grown more powerful by doing so. Such deception worked wonders on base and foolish creatures that lacked the capacity to see past simple sight and sound. So it worked quite well on humans.
“Have you ever seen the Yellow Sign?!”
“I heard you the first time!” She barked. I wasn’t sure of the purpose of the charade in this particular situation. This man had clearly been subjected to some horror far beyond that of a tall woman with piercing eyes who liked to play at interrogation. I often preferred to seep into the background and allow her to take charge of conversations with others, intervening only when I saw her floundering, or when I spotted a weakness in our interlocutor. I was, it seemed, naturally invisible. Something that existed in the periphery. A frequently advantageous position.
Now, I drew his attention to me. I told him to assume that we had not; requested an elaboration on what or who it was he spoke of, or why it was that he needed us to handle it.
At this, his insouciant grin widened, as did his eyes. Even more so than they had been. He slurred out words in a disjointed manner, now high-pitched, then low and heavy, as though barreling between emotions; once, I thought he was on the verge of tears. He’d fall silent for a moment, then cry out as if arriving at an epiphany, then descend into a casual tone. I, personally, had no suspicions of substance abuse; but found mania or some other mental affliction to be likely. A matter quite familiar to me. Something had ravaged this man’s mind as it passed by. I knew this.
...Maybe. Diane liked to tell me that I “jumped to conclusions.” Maybe he was just a garden-variety raving lunatic, and nothing more. Maybe.
He said that the “Yellow Sign” was a “Color” -curiously omitting the word “Fixer”- that he hoped we could find, one that had disappeared and “left him”; at the stating of his rank, I firmly, but politely, suggested that if he wanted us to face a Color in combat, he could take his business elsewhere. This clearly confused him, he clarified that the “Yellow Sign” was a “good friend”, that he would “never hurt anything”, that he “wanted to help us.”
“Us?”
“Yes! Everyone, all of us, everything!”
He made it clear, in a brief stretch of lucidity, that we would only be required as sort of “private investigators”, and that he would be paying us more than enough for our time; as he had “sold everything”. He was currently homeless, in fact. To evidence this, he laid a cheque upon the table, with my name on it. But, not his. No signature. He pleaded that we understand, that he could only do this once and would therefore pay upon the completion of the task.
The amount may not have been staggering, it could even be called pocket-change by those who had never seen less than six-digits in their bank account, but it was, indeed, more than enough for an Office of our caliber.
Diane ordered him to step outside a moment, so we could consider his offer. Up he rose, strange grin remaining glued to his face, swiping the cheque with a cat-like motion, and shambled off to the door. He walked in this laborious, forceful way; like he had to drag his own body along. There was a surprising strength and robustness there, despite his diminished frame.
“We can’t take his money.”
Oh dear, here was the exact sentence I predicted would come out of her mouth as soon as the door shut.
I made it explicitly clear that it was not our business what he wished to do with his money, that we were nowhere close to a position where we could deny sums of this magnitude out of some sense of “obligation”, that such an amount, alone, could keep our lights on for, at the very least, four months.
“But, he said he was homeless!”
“And so will we be, if we keep pretending to be a charity.”
Much like I had grown accustomed to Diane’s (or rather, Penrose, such was her family name and the name she went by publicly, because she thought “Diane” was an “old lady name”) masquerade of power and authority, I had also become familiar with the living mass of anxiety and trepidation that hid beneath it. She wilted like a sad little neglected flower upon hearing my rebuttal. The expression of a savage hound had become little more than that of a scolded puppy.
“What do you think he’s going to do with that money, if he doesn’t give it to us? Just look at him. How he spoke. Do you honestly believe he’ll take this and check himself into a “psychological healing facility” in M Corp. or some such? No. He’ll just find someone else to do the job.”
There were many occasions in which I’d be forced to squash some ridiculous fantasy that had taken Diane. She was someone who would fall for the simplest verbal sleight-of-hand, take people at their word, at face value, in good faith. An “honorable” trait, perhaps, but one that would lead to your being found disemboweled in an alleyway within a week. It was likely her appearance that allowed her to avoid this fate so long; she was blessed with an aspect that warned of great violence, far more violence than she could ever be capable of.
Now was one such occasion.
We would be taking the job.
--
White on white on white. How the Hana loved this barren aesthetic. Sat in their literal ivory towers, coated white as if to say, “I am not bloodstained.” An architectural absolution of guilt. Isolating themselves from the blackened and rusted and rotten. From the unsightly masses.
“Number 17!”
My cue. I had arrived to the Hana Association District 11 Fixer Registration Office (try saying that three times as fast) early in the morning, to avoid a line. Not that such a thing was entirely possible, really. They give you these little tickets with a number on them, indicating your position in the line. Then, you are free to sit down in one of many -unsurprisingly- white benches, and contemplate what sort of error in judgement brought you to this moment.
I stepped up to the counter, and faced the clerk who looked as though they fantasized of clocking out even as the day had just begun.
“License, please.”
Here was the small laminated card that contained the only “valuable” information concerning my being in existence.
“Johanna K. Algernon
Grade: 8
Signed under: Penrose Office
Age: 22
Height: 5’8/172cm
Weight: 108 Ibs/48 kg
Hair: Black
Eyes: Brown
-”
Et cetera. To boil down an entire human being -to count myself among them for this purpose- into a series of numbers and categories. Perhaps it was the reasonable thing to do. Perhaps humans were just a series of electric shocks flowing through meat. Flesh automata animated by neurotransmitters. Remain on topic.
“Everything checks out. How may I help you today, Ms. Algernon?”
You could begin by not using that name.
“I want to view your files on a Fixer known as The Yellow Sign.”
There was a rule that, after a certain period of inactivity, usually ten years and, usually, following the Fixer in question’s untimely expiration, their files would be made publicly available; as an attempt at “transparency”. Of course, this “transparency” relied on authority acting in good faith. They would like you to ignore the fact that they could simply not reveal whatever they wished to keep secret, and there was exactly nothing the common-folk could do to change that.
It was a long shot, seeing as I had yet to determine that this supposed Color Fixer even existed; that he was not a product of a diseased imagination. I had certainly never heard of him, and I kept quite up-to-date on the comings and goings of the City’s mercenary butchers and clowns.
There was a long, blank pause. Then an “Oh!” accompanying an expression of realization on the clerk’s face. He went and reached for one drawer of one cabinet of countless, containing countless folders of countless files, all filled with the bureaucratic dilution of the human soul. “Soul.” What was that supposed to be? What did people mean when they spoke the word “soul”? What did I mean? It’s difficult to outright strike-down the notion of some ‘metaphysical’ aspect to human existence; the idea that we are moved by some unseen supernatural force or quantity; there’s also the “materialistic” view of the word, that the “soul” was nothing more than-
“Here you go, ma’am.”
Ah. So he did exist.
And the reason I had no knowledge of him, the reason the clerk did not recognize the name at once, was because he had been missing for forty years.
The files could be said to be exhaustively detailed, yet only with regard to what he had done, and not who he was. Long bullet-point lists of all the battles he had participated in, at least those the Hana were aware of, categorized by the Grade he possessed at the time; A dissection of his ‘signature weapon’, a striking golden ‘gunblade’ about the length of my arm fingertip-to-shoulder, black wave-like motifs applied liberally over its surface, with the exception of the cylinder, which was tinted a lighter yellow, and supported high-explosive, incendiary, and armor-piercing rounds. Largely irrelevant information in this case, though I found it somewhat curious, as I, too, carried a revolver and knife, a sort of ‘divorced gunblade’ you could say.
Though, needless to say, mine were of incomparably lower quality.
The attached photograph showed “Hal Zahred”, as I learned his name had been. A man of about thirty; must have been less than thirty-six for that was the age he had been when he had alighted from existence, or whatever it was that befell him, at least according to the records. Vivid yellow eyes, yellow hair, flowing yellow coat; was he aware of the existence of other colors? What was so irresistible about the hue of pus and urine?
He had been ratified as a Color only after a visit to U Corp., even though he had passed qualification for the title beforehand. He crossed the Great Lake as a Grade 1, and returned as, “The Yellow Sign.” The details of this trip were sparse; no indication as to where he went exactly, or why.
More helpful to me was the list of known associates, and places of residence. Well, place. It seemed he lived in the same home-turned-office for his entire career. How humble.
He had, as was natural for any Fixer of this caliber, dozens of names listed as connections. After a laborious gauntlet of cross-reference, I determined that all but one name belonged to those who were either located beyond my reach, or too busy carrying out decomposition to give satisfying interviews. That one name, the one living lead, being this “Berthold” fellow; once a Grade 2 Fixer, now retired. He had supposedly been a friend of Hal’s, and he still lived here, in District 11.
I had many reservations about the idea of trying to coax useful information out of a doddering geriatric, especially regarding events that occurred when he must’ve had twice as many teeth and his joints didn’t creak so loudly; but so shall it be done. Firstly, however, I was to pay a visit to this house of Hal’s, or at least the address on which it was located at that time.
I was about to thank the clerk for his time and return all the paper I had, somewhat carelessly, scattered about the place, when I noticed a… peculiarity, in the photograph. Hal’s pupils had narrowed. I was sure of this, he had eyes like an owl, I saw them clearly upon initial viewing; but now they were mere pinpricks.
“...Can you take a look at this?”
“It’s the standard portrait-and-profile.”
“The eyes. Do they look… different, to you?”
“What?”
I was suddenly struck with an idea. I placed the paper down again, and hovered my hand over the photograph, blocking the bright -white, of course- ceiling light from Hal’s sight.
His pupils dilated.
“Are you seeing this…?”
I restrained myself from shoving the file into the clerk’s face and simply gestured.
“...Yes, it’s the Yellow Sign’s image. Ma’am, I don’t mean to be rude, but you’ve been here for twenty minutes now and there are quite a few people waiting their turn. Please conclude your business.”
There was nothing to be done except to leave and dismiss what I had seen as another of my “visions”. I have seen them since childhood, or possibly birth. I was well aware, now, that they were to be suppressed, that I must not be quick to react lest I draw undesirable attention. They were… caused by a disturbance in brain chemistry, or perhaps excess electricity in the brain; or so I had read in a tome of “neuro-psychology”. There was no reason to doubt the veracity of these claims. No real reason.
Yet, I could not shake the feeling that all attempts at analysis of the human mind were little more than grasps at straws, shots in the dark, ventures of mental cartographers mapping out psycho-landscapes that they could not possibly hope to traverse in their entirety, infinite vistas of thought and feeling wrought and molded like clay, clay sourced from the many sights and sounds and shapes-
Irrelevant. The address. That was my destination.
--
It was at the end of Leng Street, a place that gave the impression of a hamlet that had mysteriously found itself within the heart of metropolitan District 11; a place of wood and buildings that housed multiple generations and dirt paths lined with stones and grass, a place where the air carried the smell of sawdust and pastry, a place where everyone knew everyone and old ladies whiled away their time on looms. I greeted one such old lady on my way, hoping to dredge up some memory of my quarry. Surely she would remember, though she looked to have been contemporary with the formation of the stone itself.
“Do you recall anything of the man who lived in that house?”
I pointed towards the two-story mahogany-wood building, a structure that embodied the word “rustic” and must have emanated the smell of forests; it was Hal’s Office, once it had been little more than a shack, then mutated, grew alongside him, for he refused to abandon it for a high-rise or mansion or wherever it was that Color Fixers liked to dwell.
“Oh, that Hal boy!”
There are two types of old-folk, I find. The ornery type, who shun interaction and prefer to cocoon themselves in solitude, likely until their body is discovered due to the unbearable stench of one who is left to rot for there are none left who care to check if they still drew breath; and the other, who only grow more lively with age, who wait until anyone at all prompts them to speak so they may ambush the fool with unending stories of times long past, regaling with details of their lives and their children’s lives and their children’s children’s lives, details that the latter two persons likely shared in confidence. The former were more tolerable. The latter, were useful.
She told me that of course she remembered him, the boy with the bright eyes and the bright coat which had in fact been crafted by these very hands upon this very loom, in exchange for no currency but rather, his regular visitations accompanied by cups of tea, which he had adhered to until the month of his disappearance, or so she said.
I asked if she knew what had become of the house, if it had acquired a new resident perhaps. She said no, that he had not been a tenant but rather the owner of that plot of land, and that it had remained undisturbed since the day of his vanishing; the people had viewed it as a sort of resting-place, and the powers that be had little interest in this corner of the District and made no moves upon it, whatever may be their reason, so the building had no reason to fear demolishment or ‘restoration’ into a storehouse for brand-name shoes.
She began to speak of Hal again, and how he liked his tea with two spoonfuls of sugar, and how he reminded her of her son, now middle-aged but then a youth who aspired to Fixer fame and watched the bright-eyed man rise through the ranks with haste and poked and prodded at him for tales of supposed Fixer heroism, and how the boy never took the path of the sword but instead became a floor manager in the local branch of the famous O-Negative Superstore which was in fact several kilometers away, which was not really a bad job to have but isn’t it strange to remain in the same role for 20 years? And-
I was forced to cut her off rather abruptly lest I be subjected to any more of this drivel. I thanked her anyway, and set off towards the target of this current adventure.
It was large enough to be seen from the opposite end of the street, yet not so large that it towered over the quaint little homes beside. The make and architecture suggested wealth, yet not the decadence and condescension that came with it. This was someplace that belonged to a man who far outpaced his meek and simple neighbours and feared the innate isolation, the othering that such a thing demanded, yet did not forget the human insistence on ‘keeping up appearances’: a Color Fixer could not be seen living in a run-down hut amongst the riff-raff, now, could he?
The front door, behind a set of pillars that held up a sort of balcony on the second floor, was barred with nothing more than a padlock. Of course, no one would be mad enough to break into a Color Fixer’s house, so what further protection did it need?
“Click on one… Two is binding- Click. Nothing on three…”
Lockpicking was a skill I offered to teach Diane, even making sure to show that it was simple and could be done with little more than a couple hair-pins. My demonstration slid over her brain like water over glass, or it must have, as she gave me that look; said nothing, but gave me that look that said “This is something street-scum do.” She thinks she can hide it.
So the door made way for me, and out wafted the stench of stale air and dust that I expected, alongside… something else I couldn’t place. I was greeted by the reception area; far more worthy of the title than the make-do Penrose one. Cushioned chairs surrounded a large table of thick glass bearing an assortment of magazines and an ash-tray, and they were, in turn, surrounded by bookshelves filled to the brim, that lined the walls, containing material suitable for all from children to those who read nothing but self-help. To the left was the kitchen -it was a sort of ‘open-concept’- in which Hal probably cooked for his guests free of charge; he struck me as the sort of man who would work a soup kitchen. There is much suspicion about those who try so desperately to display altruism- what are they hiding?
All surfaces marinated in dust, yet there was no ‘mess’, and I could pick up no rot. Nearly all furniture, items and assorted junk appeared neatly in their place; and there was evidently no food or other perishables anywhere in the building. Hal must not have left in a hurry, and, if it was true that none had stepped foot here since the day of that leaving, he must have arranged all this himself. Why remove all the contents of your fridge before an outing? Why empty every pantry, every trash bin? What did he foresee?
Up the darkened flight of stairs I went, in search of his personal quarters, where surely would hide some manner of journal or the like; how convenient would it be if all missing persons left behind comprehensive accounts of their every move and intention in writing.
Here it was, door closed yet unlocked, the bedroom of our errant Fixer. The inside was rather unremarkable. Hardwood floor that must have once shined under ceiling light that I hoped was not also yellow, a simple twin-sized bed, made, pillow neatly centered; a couple more bookshelves that had been cruelly separated from their downstairs companions, and contained texts that hinted towards the interests of this Hal; travel guides, historical accounts, collections of myths and fairy-tales, ancient religious scriptures combined with contemporary analyses, tomes detailing various occult practices of dubious authenticity, treatises of philosophy and science of ages past; yet little in the way of modern-day textbooks. It seemed he favoured the adventurous, if rather heavy-handed and impassioned, methods of the scholars of old, over the clinical even-keel of today.
What was most interesting, however, was the desk on the west-side wall, and the strange lock-box upon it. Roughly fifty centimeters in length, pitch-black, a sharp rectangular shape, over its surface ran myriad lines and circles surrounding diamond shapes, shining yellow as if no dust had dimmed them, up and down they went, running across a dial that was front-and-center, turned clockwise so that it disrupted the harmony of what I had come to realize was a star-chart.
Once, I submerged myself in the images of the stars, depictions of the infinite cosmic seas that hovered above us. I found them in books of cosmology and astronomy, for no stars could be seen over the City, not in this District or in all Districts, with the exception of District 21, vast stretches of uninhabited water-surface mitigated light-pollution, and allowed one to look up and be looked down on by the great blackness above littered with countless burning eyes or burning dancers upon the universal stage; I’m getting off track. Hal has visited the Lake, I had learned, so he likely witnessed the sight in person, at one point.
I was fortunately spared the trial of exhuming particular images from memories of my adolescence. There was no need to recall the proper shape of a constellation in order to unlock the mechanism, simply turning the dial counter-clockwise did the job. It was quite pitiful as far as security apparatuses went. The order of the stars was restored and a click sounded out, and the cover opened, to reveal a singular notebook interred within, white and binding what must have been several hundred pages; a word, handwritten in black pen on the cover.
“TOTENINSEL”
Skimming through its contents, I surmised that it was written by Hal himself, and was a sort of diary; The first hundred or so pages were dedicated to logs of daily life aboard a ship traversing the Great Lake, written with that insufferably excited tone heard commonly in the speech of those who believed all others held as much interest in their hobbies and pastimes as they did. The target of his voyage was the eponymous “Toteninsel”, or “Isle of the Dead”, somewhere supposedly located at the very edge of the Great Lake, where the borders between City and Outskirts blurred. He writes little of it in the initial quarter or so, but it’s clear that he was quite taken by the place, or the idea of it. Strange and frightening rumors shrouded all mention of the Isle, or so he says.
The tone of child-like wonder dissipates with the passage of time, and the drawing nearer of the apparently quite dreadful sea-tumor Hal is increasingly less thrilled by, and the harrowing conditions that the ship must endure in order to arrive there. Red skies and black shores, he says.
Then, there is lengthy description of Hal’s travails upon the Isle, as he navigates harsh landscapes and does battle with so-called ‘indescribable’ things that he, regardless, attempts to describe, and monsters and witches and dancers and dragons, oh my!
It was here that I felt confident in dismissing the whole thing as fantasy, a work of fiction, a contrivance of lurid tales at sea with an, admittedly, significant degree of verisimilitude. Was it not reasonable to assume that a man whose home doubled as a moderately-sized library would also be compelled to take up the pen himself?
...The latter half of the text threw my theory into disarray, however. There is an abrupt leap after an entry in which Hal writes that he believes he has arrived at the heart of the Isle, the next entry picking up seemingly at-sea, again, on the return trip. There is a significant gap in time, and Hal makes no attempt to fill it; instead, the next few hundred pages are a mixture of dream journal, diary, and what can only be described as scripture. Hal writes at great length regarding almost every topic that may be relevant to human existence, beginning the page with a question followed by an answer followed by a rambling monologue of his opinion on the matter, a sort of catechism and doctrine and exegesis all in one stream of borderline incoherence.
He runs the gamut, from the matters of wealth and ownership, to diet, to murder and robbery, to the treatment of others, to the treatment of animals, to the existence of objective morality and the creation of the universe. Punctuating this impromptu theory-of-everything are recollections of dreams, in which Hal, stumped by some age-old problem or other, consults a formless entity in his sleep; a “great golden God”, that he refers to only by title: “The King.”
It was this “King”, it seemed, that incited this religious frenzy in Hal. There is absolutely no mention of such a being before the end of the entries set upon the Isle, so then, was this what Hal encountered? The thing that lurked inside the missing pages, inside the chronological gap?
Or. More plausibly, it was the name that Hal gave to a piece of his shattered mind, after whatever horror had befallen him upon the black rock, beneath red skies. No one in this world is blessed with an invincible psyche, not even the City’s apex specimens.
The sun was crawling up the horizon, and I was feeling the onset of a migraine. This was certainly not suitable reading for one choking on dust while trespassing. If what the old woman said about the status Hal held among the people of this street was true, then I would best be gone before they awoke. I wasn’t in the mood to be lynched today. And I will be taking this.
I quickly flipped to the final page of writing. There, would most likely be a clue as to where he went, at the end. It was almost entirely blank with the exception of three words:
“I must return.”
--
“Can I help you?”
I stood waiting, on the sidewalk at the edge of Berthold’s property. He was there, in the garden, with a hose, watering a crowd of flowers, none yellow.
“I’d like to ask you about the Yellow Sign.”
“Hal?! Is he alive?!”
A mixture of confusion, surprise and fear crossed the elderly fellow’s face, before being replaced with a barely-concealed crushing disappointment when I responded that I did not know. Unfortunately, I was quite adept at sensing the changing of emotion in others.
Berthold lived in a simple house on a simple road, located in the western side of the District. One house among many. This was not a man who wished to draw attention to himself. Whatever fear I had regarding his condition was vanquished at the moment I locked eyes with his; for a man well within his twilight years, there was an intensity to his gaze that could not be found in that of the average senior citizen, those who often looked about aimlessly, wide-eyed, as if that would somehow counterbalance the deterioration of the organ.
It was something I saw in the faces of experienced Fixers. A look that was at once relaxed and casual, yet closely observant; as if they were analyzing all aspects of your being as you stood before them, or even during conversation. One can never be sure of intent, in the City. At any moment, even the most trusted companion could flash their once-hidden dagger. Constant assessment of your surroundings, and those that surrounded you, was vital to survival. The toll it took on your mind, notwithstanding. Likely how this one has lived so long.
He invited me inside. His dwelling was rather minimalistic, grey walls and floors, white shelves, dining table with four chairs though I doubt three were ever used. Curiously, the shelves bore the occasional “knick-knack”, there was a small marble statue of a feline, a somewhat cheap-looking wooden model-ship, a little red teddy bear with a… bowtie. Among other things. Noticing my slight bafflement at the scene, he clarified that these were assorted objects that Hal had given him; things that the Color Fixer had acquired or been, using the word liberally, rewarded, on his travels.
We took seats and, after revealing my identity and brushing aside his question of why a Grade 8 would be pursuing this matter, I prompted him to speak of Hal; tell me what he recalled.
“Never stopped. Always on to something. ‘Hey, old man!’ he’d say, we were only a few years apart, then he’d tell me about a trip he was planning to who-knows-where. Said he wanted to see every corner of the City. Said that, adventurin’ wasn’t a thing anymore, people knew the world, mapped the world already. He didn’t like that. Wanted to have been around in that time when people didn’t know what was around any corner.”
“Knew all kinds of things, weird things; you’d ask him if he knew how to change a tire and he’d shrug, but ask him about the Sangun or something, and he’d give you the whole story like he knew it off the top of his head. Always sticking his nose in some book or other, pages gone yellow, lookin’ like it was written back when people used quills and ink. Obsessed with that sorta stuff. Stuck around me, ‘cause I was the only one who let him ramble. Hours, sometimes. All crazy-talk, far as I’m concerned. But he liked it.”
“One day, he tells me he’s going to the Great Lake. The far end. I tell him he’s lost his damn mind. Says, he’s clashed with Blades of the East. Drank with Sottocapos. Blew a hole in a Second Kindred. Water ain’t gonna do him in. Couldn’t argue with that, really. Couldn’t argue with him at all.”
“I think it was months after. He came back. Came back… off. Unsteady. Barely talked, and when he did, it was to ask some strange question; like ‘do you believe in God?’ or, ‘what do you think is mankind’s biggest flaw?’ Sometimes he’d walk up to you with that, not even a ‘hello’ first. What the fuck are you supposed to say to that? ‘Scuse me. Swearin’ all right with you?”
“Speak freely.”
“Right. Just askin’, ‘cause kids these days don’t talk like we used to. Anyway. Sometimes, I’d catch a glimpse of him hunched over his book. One book, now; always carried it around. Sweat on his brow. Looking like he was trying to solve a hundred equations in his head, at the same time. This was when he got that thing that gets all Fixers salivating. His pick of the rainbow. Says he’s going to be ‘The Yellow Sign.’ I ask him what the hell happened to ‘The Golden Gun.’ Says there’s ‘bigger things’, now. Bigger things. Kept using that phrase.”
I was, suddenly, acutely aware of the presence of that very book in my bag.
“Things kind of… dissolved, between us, then. Nothing on my part, he just didn’t show up anymore. Kept to himself. Over on that little grass patch with the old folks and the salt of the earth. It was… the last time I ever saw him, when he came to tell me that he’d be going back. Back to that place on the Lake. I protested, of course, but he just kept saying, ‘I must return. I must return.’ I never convinced him not to do something. Not once.”
“...But, maybe I should’ve tried a little harder, then.”
So there was a second trip.
“What then?”
“Then he went. Well, I’m sure he did. Never gave any details.”
“And…?”
“And, he died on the water. There’s only two possibilities, here. He’s set up shop on some island in the middle of fucking nowhere and never thought to tell a single soul, which, let me tell you, is impossible; or, he’s dead. Which one do you think it is?”
“...I see. You say that so bluntly.”
“...I’m sorry, alright. Shouldn’t have gotten worked up like that. But he’s dead. I made my peace with that, took maybe two years after. ‘Least, I had made my peace until you came along and damn near gave me a heart attack.”
“How is it possible to… make peace?” This had nothing to do with the investigation. But…
“There’s no magic bullet. It’s just a matter of not dwelling on every twist of the knife that life deals you. And… the garden. It’s the garden, for me.”
“What of it?”
“See, I’ve got no interest in botany. Not really. And I’m sure as hell not a farmer. I keep it because… there’s something about taking care of something, seeing it grow because of you. Gives you a reason to keep going. Makes you feel like, you added something to the world. Contributed. Instead of… taking away. I think it’s why folks pop out kids. Wasn’t cut out for that myself, though. But I get it, seein’ your little buddy run around, for someone in this line of work… that’s absolution.”
There wasn’t much more to say, now. I thanked him for his time and made to leave.
“Lady.”
I stopped.
“...Don’t forget to take care of your garden.”
--
On the walk to the Penrose Office building, I spotted, a couple blocks away, our client; pacing back and forth and whistling a tune unfamiliar to me. Visible also, closer by, was Diane, having returned from some shoddy security-guard work. She was tapping her spear on the concrete, impatient. We had seen him, he had not seen us.
She was, in fact, awaiting my arrival; saying that I “had a way” with the particular species of client that this fellow belonged to. We approached the man and he, finally noticing our presence, stretched his arms out in a gesture of welcome, and smiled in that rather disquieting manner of his.
“Have you seen the Yellow Sign?!”
I replied, now as a fact, that I had not; but I had, however, seen his home. At this, he produced a sort of child-like squeal and declared that he would be glad to make his “pilgrimage” there, if I were to be his shepherd, and that Diane could accompany us as well. I ignored her sideways glance and assured him that, yes, I would be more than willing to bring him there. In truth, I was heading there tomorrow either way. I had no leads now, besides the utterly absurd idea of setting out over the Great Lake myself; and my visitation to Hal’s abode had been admittedly hasty. It was entirely possible that I missed something, or more. Seven eyes would serve far better than two.
By way of public transport, we would arrive at Leng Street by night; it was currently well into the evening. Suitable timing. We sat three beside, Diane making sure to place herself between me and our client, which I found rather patronizing and uncalled-for; “Erich”, who had finally revealed his name after a bizarrely long pause which cast much doubt over the authenticity of it, sat twiddling his thumbs in a somewhat comical way, as if he was putting on a show of boredom, smiling, teeth white and visible.
--
Here we were, and Erich strolled inside, flinging the door which I had left closed but unlocked open with his hand like one swats aside a curtain before stepping onto the stage; his coat trailing behind, the color of ash. We followed.
“I don’t like this…”
Already, a complaint from Diane. I had conveniently forgotten to mention that the door was very much locked forty-eight or so hours ago. She was a ‘good citizen’, law-abiding; if she were to stumble upon a wallet on the road containing an astonishing sum, she would hand it over to the ‘proper authorities’. Proper authorities. Another delusion.
Erich left no stone unturned, scanned every nook and cranny like he was the investigator now. There was a solemnity to him, now, standing straight, one arm behind his back as the other took up a book or picture-frame or other item, turning it this way and that. His smile was absent, now. It was as though he walked through a museum dedicated to some atrocity, where it would be considered ‘impolite’ to gawk and make exclamations of awe at the displays.
Up to the second floor we went, though I was not, and hadn’t been before, sure of what we were looking for, exactly. The building’s design was a sort of stunted L-shape; the stairs ended at the second floor, but past a door, one could walk out onto a spacious balcony, which served as the ceiling of the first floor. And so Erich did, and there was a piano here, black and worn down by the elements yet bearing little dust for the wind must have blown it away. The only reason I can imagine for placing this outside, was that so Hal may serenade the people with his playing. It must have been a sort of community occasion. Beyond me.
Erich set a finger, gently, on the first key, then dragged his entire hand over the set, left to right, producing cacophonous noise.
“What the hell are you doing?! It’s the middle of the night!” Shouted Diane. I was glad that she, at least, grasped the circumstances of our being here.
“Not quite right.” Disappointment marked his reply. I hadn’t heard him so monotone before.
Thankfully, he quit the piano and went, and stood at the edge of the roof, arms outstretched, grasping the railing, leaning forward; the image of a monarch addressing a gathered crowd of subjects, that were not there.
“Do you believe in God?”
Abruptly, he asked. “...No.”
“What do you think is mankind’s biggest flaw?”
“Hey, what are these questions? Can you get a grip already? We haven’t found anything yet, and I don’t want to be here any longer than I have to.” Here comes Diane, attempting her typical strategy of verbal bulldozing.
Whether he acquiesced or not, I wasn’t sure, but back inside we went, and into the bedroom, where all eyes were caught by the black and yellow lock-box, still wide open. I clarified that it looked no different when I had first arrived here.
“Is that so?” He asked, with an almost condescending tone that I didn’t care for at all.
“Yes.” What it was that compelled me to lie, I didn’t know. I have no love for situations in which I have to rely on “gut-feeling”, but I felt that he should not know of the book, nor see it, that whatever it was that made up these two forces, they should not meet, or… What?
Apparently, he was satisfied by my assurance, or perhaps didn’t care to press further. Down we went, again, to the first floor, rather aimless at this point. Finally, after much meandering and useless up-turning of every pot and shelf and cushion, Erich cried out, exclaimed that he had found something.
There he was, knees and one hand on the ground, the other lifting the carpet that was beside the chairs of the reception area, revealing a hatch, or trapdoor of sorts. The way it jutted out of the floor, it was not possible that I had missed this, hadn’t noticed the contours of it below the carpet, but now he had, and his smile had returned to him. He opened it up and crawled inside head-first the moment the gap widened enough. Diane and I exchanged glances. I couldn’t say what she saw in mine, but in hers, I saw the powerful desire to exit this place and make no mention of it again.
So we followed him. Down the hatch was a staircase, inside a long, long yet narrow tunnel of black stone, that must have been hewn out of the earth; the stone was raw, greyed and whitened in parts, it was of natural make, not human. There was only enough space for two on a single step, so Erich took point; he likely would have regardless.
We descended, and descended, and our flashlights, or rather Diane’s and mine as he had brought none, became ineffective, darkness swallowed them. I made no mention of what was becoming obvious, that this could not have been constructed, that there was no conceivable way that Hal or even a full team of workers could have excavated all of this, that surely the old woman would have mentioned an elaborate effort such as this, and where would all the stone have gone, anyway? Where would the equipment required have been?
Erich, now rejuvenated, spoke incessantly. He spoke of what humans ought to do, or so he believed, spoke of dreams and how he had seen the Yellow Sign in them, and stars and glowing gold, spoke of the sky and how it had been made empty by human hands that had obscured what should be seen there, spoke of other things. He muttered under his breath. I did not stop him. I did not question him on how he knew Hal though the latter disappeared decades before his birth. I did not question him on what he said on the roof or why he chose those exact words. I did not question him on how he knew my name and signed that cheque with it even though the Office only advertised itself with Diane’s and was named after her, for I wished to remain obscured, and could only be found in official paperwork. I did not question the glistening of his eyes.
I would not interrupt this, would not disturb whatever sequence of events was playing out, for I, or some deep part of my mind, wished so much to see whatever was at the end of this vast and dark flight of stairs that dug impossibly into the earth. So let him speak as he wishes.
Diane had suddenly developed an interest in her cuff-links, fiddling with them, twisting them between her fingers; when not doing so, she would crack each knuckle individually, one-by-one, as she shot glances at me, then Erich, then back to me. Beads of sweat on her face despite the falling temperature. Eyes widened. I could only imagine the simmering paranoia beneath her tense frame, like she held the seams of her flesh taut lest she be undone. There was the gaze of Fixers who were silently assessing whoever stood before them, and then there was the gaze of Fixers who knew, in some yet indiscernible way, that something was deeply wrong.
I was torturing her with this. I wasn’t under any illusions as to that fact. She was silent, refused to protest, because she saw my confidence and didn’t wish to go against me. Just a little longer now, so hold on. There are bigger things than you and I, Diane.
There was no sound but the clacking of shoes on stone and the endless volleys of Erich’s speech. Then, from the bottom of the stairs rose another sound, a voice, a deep baritone humming that was made large and all-encompassing, either because it echoed off the narrow tunnel or perhaps, because it was produced by the rattling of gigantic vocal-chords. At this, Diane startled, producing a sound akin to that of a small animal being crushed. Erich seemed to welcome the hum, though it seemed also to trigger an itching within him, as he scratched, in repetition, the top of his forehead, then his jawline, tracing across it with a finger.
It was too late to turn back now.
Here, past the final step, was a door. Shining black, yellow lines. Another star-chart. A recreation of the lock-box far above. How long had we been descending? I couldn’t say.
Gently, Erich pushes it open, great anticipation in his movement. Out we all step, onto a dirt path amidst looming trees. Above, a vast emptiness, a darkness that suggested a distant cavern ceiling. Wood and foliage obscured all but the path before us. I had no idea as to the size of this cavity in the Earth.
Mere minutes of walking and we are at an open area, a sort of clearing surrounded in circular fashion by trees, the path ending at masses of grass and sunflowers and marigolds that all turned to face the figure stood center amid them.
Hal. Or what must have been him, he, it, wore the same face and the same yellow coat, now far longer and tattered at the edges, hood pulled over his, its, head. He was facing us, as if prepared for our arrival; it did not speak or move or make any expression, only stood there as we did too, in a moment bereft of all noise and motion excepting that of the deep humming which was all around us. He was blurred at the edges, I looked at him and couldn’t define him, not in much detail, but I could see his face and his eyes, vivid yellow eyes which glowed and were transparent, in a way, showing something beyond them, within them, that emitted light. Not light, too mundane a word. Bright unbearable reality.
Erich’s expression contorted at the sight of the figure, like the even farther widening of his smile and eyes pained him, tears forming at the corners; he clawed, now, at the edges of his face, and ran forward shouting “Thank you! Thank you!”, whether it was to us that he was grateful, or to Hal or whatever stood there, I could not tell. He was before it now and grasped it by the arms and began… vocalizing, not singing, sounded like singing, noise that was recognizable as not produced by a human throat, like the howling of wolves or croaking of crows.
This sound must have triggered something, began something, like Erich was the key to a lock of some mechanism that was now coming to life. He rang out and Diane collapsed, kept off the ground only by the strength of her arms, as if gravity had tripled for her; she shrieked in pain, the sound of a mind invaded by a madness new and foreign to it. While I, was still, and silent.
Her scream must have been the third instrument, after the hum and Erich’s twisting of the throat, and at its introduction, all was drowned in absolute darkness, for but a moment, like the curtains falling on the first act of a play, and now the second was to come, heralded by the playing of faraway piano keys, now quite right.
First, I looked up and saw that above was a great and infinite sky, the cosmic sea that I had envisioned before and that Hal must have seen over the water, it was exactly as depicted upon the lock-box and the door, bright yellow lines that reached yellow circles around yellow diamonds that burned and crackled; then, I looked forward and saw that there were no longer trees or grass or flowers or a ground or anything but outlines, silhouettes, yellow shapes that resembled human forms, there was Erich and Hal who were now floating above, Erich’s hands still grasping the sleeves of the thing, his body was all obscured in shadow and could only be made out by outline, yet his face was entirely yellow, opaque yellow, a sphere.
Then, I looked around and saw dozens, hundreds of other outlines, long-limbed and looming, some close and some distant, all yellow, all now lending their voices to the choir that had formed of thin air, Diane’s voice having transformed now and joining them, staccato and baritone and tenor and sotto voce all together now, harmonizing, and there was great beauty to the sound, elegant and joyful and dreadful and awe-inspiring at once, and it disgusted me.
The mind was a fortress, a sanctuary from this world, the only thing that one could be said to own in this landscape of deprivation and destitution. Only I could walk its halls, decayed as they may be. I was the master of my domain, not Hal’s golden God or whatever crawling chaos or horror prowled this earth, and I will not allow it to be violated, I will not be expelled from the territory over which I am Lord and owner!
I reached, hastily and with shaking hands, in the dark, for my bag and took out the revolver, the dull grey metal and thin barrel invisible in the pitch-black; I had to rely on touch. Two bullets. The cylinder held two bullets. It was all I could afford. The Workshop may have been generous, excessively so, but they too could not afford hand-outs of any larger scale. No matter. One would have to be enough. Please.
I took aim, no iron-sights could aid me here. Erich. I had to kill Erich. Firing at the thing in front of him was impossible. I had to believe that he was the crux of this, a centerpiece of the orchestra that it would not survive without. Thankfully, his head had made itself clear and bright. Take aim at the yellow and fire. An ear-splitting, shattering noise. All was silent and dark.
--
There is the sky.
The sky of the City. It was sunrise, light blue overhead. Blurry.
I must be lying down, facing up.
“An—”
A shape enters my vision, black and red.
“—na”
It’s awfully quiet, and somewhat cold here.
“A-n-”
What was that irritating droning sound?
“An—!”
…
“Anna! Anna! Are you okay?! Talk to me!”
Sound and clear vision rush into me like a horrible wave. It was the sensation of living. Dreadful. I was on the ground, outside that house that I was well past sick of. Diane was over me, shaking me a little too violently. Does she think me a can of spray-paint? I made some noise of affirmation and up I was taken and held by the shoulder like I was some invalid octogenarian.
She looked awful, eyes bloodshot and red about the lids, hair a mess. I imagine I looked more-or-less the same. She spewed words of gratitude and relief and such; I slipped out of her grip and rushed inside, kicking aside the carpet. Nothing. No hatch. Smooth wooden floor.
She came in after me. I began ranting, words unclear, I hadn’t fully awoken yet. It was a Distortion, must have been, a powerful one, subtle, it was Erich the whole time and now he was dead, I killed him to stop the ritual. Ritual? No. There are no fiends toiling surreptitiously beneath the earth to unravel humanity, there are no Gods, no monsters, all nonsense; all fairy-tales told by mothers to frighten their children into sleeping before midnight. It was a Distortion, I had read of them, reports of them that began circulating after that long and strange period in which light covered the world. Erich was a Distortion, and that staircase and the grove and the figures, they were all him, all manifestations of his diseased mind, and he was our client and now he was gone and we would receive no payment, all of that was for naught, we had wasted our time and exposed ourselves to what must have been great danger, sat beside and spoke to a madman who could have killed us at any moment and for nothing, and how would we keep the Office doors open now? And-
“I don’t care about any of that!”
Silence.
“...I’m just glad you’re okay.”
...You child. What the hell did that matter?!