Invisible Threads--Chapter 24

Writer's Note: Please read the previous chapters and prologue of Invisible Threads before reading this.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

Now that everyone was back to work and Natalie could put a number to the overtime they would be paying, things were calming down. Al had called the hospital and checked on Lacy who was lucid and fine and being held overnight for observation. She was even able to speak on the phone - although she seemed to be raving.

"My parents are on their way from Minneapolis! To do what?! I don't know. But they'll be here. There was no stopping them."

Al wasn't really listening as her eyes followed the lines on her computer screen and her fingers typed in the background. "I'll stop by a little later when everything is under control here. But don't stay up. If the doctors say 'sleep', then sleep. If I get there and find you resting, that will be fine with me."

"The doctors say that they'll be releasing me mid-morning, so I'll be in to work right after lunch. Is that okay?"

Al's fingers stopped. "No. We want you to rest and follow doctor's orders for at least two days. After that, if you have a note from the doctor, then we'll welcome you back to work. You will, of course, be paid for the days."

"You're condemning me to two days in a dark hotel room with my parents."

"Every life has its tribulations. Now get some rest and I'll see you later tonight."

"Okay. Thanks."

Al hit 'End' as she turned to the three people who were lined up at the door to the booth waiting to ask her questions.

***

Cherie finished the phone call with Shannon and put her phone down on the bed next to her.

"Call has been moved from 9:00 in the morning to Noon. Apparently, there was a bomb scare at the theater and they lost a lot of time."

Gary was pleased that she was initiating conversation, "Was there a bomb?"

"No. Work stopped for a while but everything is okay now."

When he looked up, Cherie had scooched up to the head of the bed and was leaning her back against the wall with her knees drawn up against her chest. She was staring at him. Her changing positions probably meant something. He awaited further developments.

Thankfully, she started talking: "You and I are very different people. And I admit that I forced you to go out with me today. But you would have forced me to sit in this hotel room all day."

"No. I wanted to stay here. You could have gone where you wished."

"Alone. That's worse than not going at all."

With that statement, Gary realized Cherie would never understand what he did for fun. But he kept the thought to himself.

Cherie continued, "So, I am sorry I got so mad at you for just being you."

There might be an insult buried in there somewhere but Gary didn't try to figure it out. He knew his part. One party had apologized. So, he now had to return an apology. This was easy enough as he had gone a little overboard on the complaining. He gambled and tried for humor.

"And I'm sorry that I was such a whiny little bitch."

Cherie immediately began to laugh. "Say what now?"

He tried not to smile at his own joke but it was rare for Gary to succeed at deliberately making someone laugh. It felt good.

She swung her legs over the side of the bed. "You mentioned something about dinner. That is, if you're at a good stopping point."

He shut his laptop. "I wasn't getting anything done, anyway. I was too worried about you being mad at me."

She stood and turned to face him. "Sorry."

He tried to think of something else funny to say but came up with nothing. "It's not your fault."

And then Gary felt the anomaly. Like at the casino, he was not looking into the extraverse and could see nothing, but he knew that it was coming at him at high speed just like in the dream. But he wasn't asleep. Was he?

He asked Cherie, "Am I awake?"

And then the terror. The feeling was like the dream but he wasn't seeing anything. And he was conscious. He knew it. Unbidden, the threads appeared and the outline of the anomaly was in the corner of the room next to the window. Gary stared at it with his mouth making silent chewing motions. The anomaly was looking right at him. Staring him down. And it was huge. Far bigger than the room yet fitting in the room. It was engulfing him.

He could hear Cherie's voice: "Uh-h-h-h-h Gary? Are you okay?"

The anomaly gave no indication that it heard or was aware of Cherie. He felt its attention fully on him. He wanted to scream or to run. But running wasn't an option. He wouldn't leave Cherie here alone with it.

"Ch... Ch... Ch..." The words would not form in his mouth.

"Gary?"

Three words. He could do three words. "Cherie, get out!"

"What? Why?"

How could she understand? He had told her nothing. She needed to understand. She needed to know why she should run. Get away. But to explain it, too many words were needed. There was no way that he could get out that many words.

She was wide-eyed. Staring at him. "Gary, you're scaring the shit out of me."

The anomaly began to move. The movement was not deliberate or forceful. It was just moving. Toward Cherie.

Gary screamed. "No!"

He jumped onto the bed and turned, positioning himself between it and Cherie.

He screamed again. "No!"

It didn't work any better the second time. The anomaly kept moving. Now toward him and Cherie. Gary's heart was pounding. But he was the only thing between it and her. She could not defend herself against something she couldn't see and knew nothing about. He had to protect her.

The anomaly towered over him on the bed and he reached out to try and hold it back. His hands touched nothing. It stopped for a moment as if in response to the attempted contact but then began to slowly move again.

Gary jumped from the bed and reached out toward Cherie. The sudden movement made her turn away so she was facing away from him as his arms enfolded her around the shoulders and upper chest. He held her tight and looked over his right shoulder at the anomaly...

...that was no longer there.

Cherie was squirming in his grasp and the squirming included a firm elbow into his ribs. He let go.

"What the hell is wrong with you?!" Her face was red and her eyes wide. She pushed away.

He tried to read her facial expressions. The normal anger was there but there was something else he couldn't fathom. He didn't have the energy to try and figure it out. He, too, backed away which put him against the wall next to the bed. It felt cool and hard and comforting. His knees buckled and he slid down to the floor.

Seeing Gary slump down was not in Cherie's playbook. She was stymied.

She didn't move toward him but asked, "Are you okay?"

He looked up and nodded. "I'm okay now."

"You weren't okay before?"

"There's something I need to tell you."

It felt wrong to be sitting on the floor as he began the explanation. He didn't want to be looking up at her. So, he stood. Cherie took a half step back as he rose and wore another odd look on her face. This distracted him for a moment as he tried to use the lessons learned from his therapists to figure it out. Was it fear? What was her perspective? He had suddenly acted strange, jumped on the bed, and grabbed her. She was afraid of him. Perfectly logical.

"I'm sorry about all that."

Her catchphrase came at him again, "What the hell, Gary?!" Her voice was trembling slightly and short of its usual strength.

"I was..." He was starting the explanation in the middle. "I was protecting you."

Her lost vocal strength was short-lived. She found it again with a vengeance. "From WHAT?!" She punctuated the question by reclaiming the half step. Her chin jutted up and there was fire in her eyes. He recognized this easily. Fury. That was an improvement.

"I need to tell you something." He chose to sit at the head of the bed as far from her as possible.

She took another step forward and sat at the foot. "Go on."

He had known for days that this conversation needed to happen. He had also known that it would suck. But it had to start. "There is something in the extraverse. I don't know what it is. But it appears to be acting in a sentient manner."

Cherie's mouth dropped open. Things were not getting less confusing. "There is something in the extraverse? Can you be more specific?"

"Not really. I can't actually see it."

"Then how do you know it's there?"

"I can see where it is. It's shape or outline. But I can't really see it."

"Is it dangerous?"

"I don't know. It hasn't actually hurt anyone that I know of."

"That you know of..." She seemed to chew these words as she thought. "Do you think it might be dangerous?"

"I don't know but it scares me. No. It terrifies me."

"How long have you been seeing it?"

He thought for a moment, remembering the date. "Since Sunday February 4th."

"You mean March 4th."

"No. February 4th. It was when I was showing you the helmet in my lab. I couldn't see it very well then."

"How many times have you seen it?" Her voice was now calm, professional. It worried him. He sensed the storm building.

"Five or six."

"How many times has it been in the same room as me?"

Gary counted in his head. "With tonight? Three."

"And you think it's sentient?"

"It's acting in a sentient manner. In the casino, it went straight to that Harriman guy. As if trying to point him out to me."

"In the casino...? When you saw Harriman, you were also seeing this thing?"

"Yes."

"And it pointed Harriman out to you?"

"It seemed like it."

Cherie sat very still - her face frozen on Gary's. He noticed that her eyes seemed to moisten with tears; the surface tension meniscus forming along the lower lid. He didn't understand. Tears were the result of one or more of three things. There did not appear to be anything in her eyes. The other options were happiness or sadness. Neither of which made sense. He had given her information - astonishing information - but simple factual information. Tears were an inappropriate and bewildering response.

As he watched, the welling of tears receded, without any spilling down her cheek. He wondered momentarily about this. Where did the liquid go? Were tear ducts two-way? While mildly interesting, the question was irrelevant to the topic at hand. He dismissed it.

She apparently was not going to speak so he did: "Do you believe me?"

In contrast to the tearing up, her voice remained stony calm. "Do I believe it's real? I don't know. It's pretty crazy. Do I believe that you believe it? Yes."

The familiar anger arose within Gary at the phrase Do I believe that you believe it? He had heard it many times from condescending therapists and family members. She was calling him crazy. Telling him not to trust his own senses.

He focused on the words of one of the less-annoying therapists. Listen to the actual words people say. Don't interpret. Respond only to their actual words.

Like Pinocchio, he wondered if he would ever be a real human being - something more than a loop of memorized reactions programmed into him by a series of therapists. But he followed the programming and went through her words. She was staking a middle ground between what was believable and what was unbelievable. He joined her silence as the anger died down.

She continued, "I mean, lately I've gotten used to believing the unbelievable. That you could see some alternate dimension or void or cyberspace that no one else could see. But I've seen proof of that in my reality. I've seen the things you can do like it's a reflection or a shadow of what you see..."

"Like a quasi-crystal."

"I don't know what that means. So, shut up. But a monster lurking in there? Possibly stalking people? Possibly dangerous. That's next level. Our script has just jumped the shark. It's a lot to take in."

Here her voice dropped. Gary understood that she was underscoring her next words so he paid close attention. "Here's what I do know. You believe that I have been in the room with something that might be dangerous three times. But you never told me." She paused to let these words sink in, knowing that it took Gary time to catch up.

When his eyes brightened in understanding, she continued, "To believe that I was in possible danger and give me no warning? If it was hatred, then maybe I could deal with it. But it's not. It's indifference. I'm not sure that I can handle that level of indifference."

She stopped to give him a chance to speak. Gary tried to say something to explain that he was not indifferent. That she had become a part of his life and he preferred it that way. Maybe not romantically... or maybe it was? Yes? No? Yes? No? His face reddened as he mentally batted this query back and forth. Whatever the answer was to that question, she... fit. His life was better. His brain scrambled trying to find these words and nothing came. The moment was lost.

Her eyes briefly glistened again and she seemed to force it back. "I've promised you and a lot of other people that I would make you into an act that could win this competition and I'm going to see that through. But once the competition is over, I'm going to get my stuff from your apartment and go home and resume my life. You have given me a hell of a resume builder and I'll always be thankful for that."

She turned and went into the bathroom. The conversation was over.

***

For some reason, being away from the theater was a signal to Al's body to let her know how exhausted it was. She dragged into the main hospital lobby in the late evening. The visit was deliberately timed to be late to avoid meeting Lacy's parents. The thought of trying to make small talk with people she barely knew when there were so many problems flying around in her head was daunting. Al didn't like many people, but she liked Lacy. This, in itself, was discomforting. But talking with the young woman's parents was unfathomable.

What could she really say? Would they understand that she saw Lacy as a prot- the first assistant that she had in years that seemed capable of really making something of herself? Or would they look at her with blame. Asking why she had not protected their little girl. And what was the answer to that? Why had she sent a young woman alone into the forgotten nooks and crannies of a theater complex? Whichever it was, she would certainly say something stupid and she didn't like looking stupid.

She made it with ten minutes remaining in visiting hours, even after taking the time to swipe her credit card in the machine in the main lobby and retrieve some wilting flowers in a plastic vase. Getting Lacy's room number was no problem and she was able to find the floor and the room without needing assistance.

Her luck held and Lacy was alone and asleep so the interminable required conversation about nothing was avoided. Placing the flowers on the window sill, she stopped for a minute and looked down at the young woman as it seemed the thing to do. When did they start being so young? The rite of passage where she had felt old for the first time was years in the rearview mirror as the leagues of baby-faced interns and assistants paraded through her life. But it still resonated when she paused and thought about it.

She stopped and listened to all of the beeps and looked at the indecipherable numbers on all of the machines. They all seemed calm and there were no warning claxons or lights going off. She could report that she had seen Lacy and Lacy was well.

She went back to work.

***

Gary had been sitting on the edge of the bed looking at the bathroom door since Cherie had gone in four hours earlier. He had internally battled back and forth between knocking on the door and trying to get her to come out versus giving her some space. His bladder was now making that decision for him.

He stood and crept to the door, listening for any sound from within. There was no snoring, so she was probably also awake. He tapped at the door.

"What?"

"I need to use the restroom." He felt like a school child asking permission.

The door opened and she slipped past him without a word.

He went inside, closed the door, and did his business. Now, he hesitated about coming out. He didn't have his laptop or his phone with him, so an extended period in the bathroom would be boredom hell.

He opened the door and saw her form on the bed. She was pushed as tightly against the edge as possible. He listened again for her breathing and she was still not sleeping.

Was she maximizing the distance between herself and him due to fear from his grabbing her or anger due to his keeping an important fact from her? Probably both, but, since all options were his fault, he took his pillow and the spare musty smelling blanket from the closet and retired to the chaise longue. Through the rest of the night, he proved that it was impossible to find a comfortable position on that piece of furniture. At some point, he managed to sleep.