Invisible Threads--Chapter 30

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

CHAPTER THIRTY

"Gary, it's time to get to stage." The tablet-bearer had placed her hand on his shoulder. She gave it a slight squeeze as she let go. Gary had no idea if that meant anything.

He stood and Cherie stood with him. The camera was filming. She reached up her hands like a child wanting to be picked up and he leaned down and embraced her.

He held it longer than normal and whispered into her ear, "Will you be here when I'm done?"

"Probably not."

He nodded, released her, and began to step away.

She grabbed his arm. "Good luck."

He nodded again and followed the staffer to the stage.

***

Mercurio waited in the wings and wished that Maggie were with him but it was tax season and she was working through their receipts. They had discussed his costume and had decided against his normal performance tuxedo. It might make the stage visually confusing and hurt the young magician's chances. And, also, a simple suit seemed more appropriate. He and Maggie had gone out and bought a nice off-the-rack grey suit; it required minimal altering and was ready in time for the taping. They matched it with a blue and grey diagonally striped tie. Very neutral. Very quiet. Very background.

Gary arrived in the wings on the other side of the stage and watched as the crew finished prepping the stage and getting the various large items pulled out and arranged. A forklift was used for the anvil and the safe while two electric golf carts were used to push the vintage 50's automobile into position. Finally, everything was in place, the crew cleared the stage, and music started. Fisher touched Gary's shoulder. "You're up." She then left for the parking lot where he was going to send the three items.

This audience had seen none of Gary's previous performances live but had just finished watching the videos and been prepped by an announcer. A loud round of applause greeted him as he found his mark and turned to the judges. For the first time, nerves were not a problem. Knowing that he was going to lose had his mind already focusing on what he was going to try next. This performance was just something he had to get out of the way before he could get back to work. It had been a distraction and taken up far too much of his time, anyway.

The fact that Cherie would no longer be around was pushed to the back of his thoughts.

Bob Standifer spoke: "Did you see Jim Harriman's performance?"

"Yes. It was very good."

"But you're going to be better."

"Cherie told me that I'm probably going to lose."

"But what do you think?"

"I don't know. I've become pretty comfortable thinking what she tells me to think."

Danny jumped in: "It sounds like you have all the makings of a long and successful marriage."

Bob took back over: "Well, Gary, you have said from the beginning that what you do is not an illusion and not a trick. That it is science."

"That is correct."

"Then would you mind if we stationed someone on stage with you? A subject matter expert on the art of illusion?"

Gary thought about this. It was good. Maybe someone - an expert - proclaiming that what he did was impossible would help. The brief glimmer of hope hit up against the wall of depression that he was trying to stave off. After what he had demonstrated, they still didn't believe him. They thought it was illusion. It didn't matter.

"That's fine."

"Then may we introduce to you Mercurio il Magnifico, the Craftsman of Magic."

Gary recognized the name from the telephone. He had wanted to buy Gary's trick. An elderly man stepped from the far wing and onto the stage. He was small in stature and extended his hand. Gary took it and gave it a brief shake.

Bob was speaking again. "Have you two ever met?"

The older man did not speak, so Gary answered: "He called me on the telephone and offered to pay me to teach him how to do what I do."

"Did he offer you a lot of money?"

"He never mentioned an amount. I told him it was impossible."

"Did he tell you that he had been hired by Superstar to study your performances and see what he could figure out?"

"I'm not sure. I think so."

Mercurio began to speak in a soft Italian accent. The transition was seamless, rehearsed. "I was retained by Superstar after the Nashville auditions to study this young man's performances and to see if I could determine how the illusions were done. My curiosity remains unsated. Superstar gave me the opportunity to be out on stage and watch this final performance from any vantage point which I choose. I look forward to seeing what I can see."

Gary did not remember the man having an Italian accent.

Lindsey who normally sat quietly at the judge's table except for during the judging phase had lines: "For the audience and the viewers at home. Mercurio has been a professional magician and illusionist for 40 years. He has performed all over the world and in nearly every major casino and magic club in the United States. He is considered one of the premier illusionists in show business."

Mercurio bowed slightly and touched his forehead as if doffing a hat.

"Cut," Al's voice boomed in over the sound system from the booth. "They're having some sound problems out in the parking lot. It'll be just a minute. Everybody hold your places.

Mercurio didn't move his feet but leaned slightly toward Gary. "Hey Gary. I'm sorry about this."

"Sorry about what?"

"Springing this on you."

"It's no problem."

"Hey. Is there any place that you specifically want me to not look?"

"No. I need you to look hard. I need you to prove that what I do can't possibly be an illusion. If you can do that, then maybe this won't all be wasted."

It was an odd answer but this was an odd young man.

Al's voice returned to the sound system: "Okay, we're all set. Lindsey, say your last line to cue Bob. Ready. Action."

Lindsey started immediately, "He is considered one of the premier illusionists in show business."

Bob followed: "Gary, the stage is yours. Good luck."

Since he was going to lose, the voters in the audience no longer mattered. Nor did the judges. Gary had an audience of one. He turned and delivered his opening directly to Mercurio. As he spoke, he focused into the extraverse.

"To this point, I have been..."

The threads appeared running throughout the theater and again the anomaly stood next to Gary on the stage. Between him and Mercurio. The terror hit him again but he had been through this just yesterday and he gritted his teeth and waited a moment for it to pass. The anomaly did not fly away this time, it just disappeared.

Mercurio whispered, "Did you feel that?"

"Feel what?" Gary couldn't volunteer any information. He needed the data to be uncompromised.

"I don't know. It was like I was afraid. I was suddenly afraid. But just for a few seconds and then it went away."

Al's voice came over the loudspeaker: "Gary, is everything okay?"

Gary nodded.

Al finished, "Then please take your place and let's get started.

He found the mark on the stage and Mercurio stepped up next to him. Neither made any effort to speak with the other. Unprompted, the threads filled Gary's vision and again the anomaly reappeared on the stage and towered over the two men. Stretching out both of its arms, one reached toward Gary and the other toward Mercurio. Gary wanted to step forward and push Mercurio out of the way, but he was frozen by the fear. All he could do was watch as the monstrous hands reached toward both him and the older man.

And then into Gary.

And into Mercurio.

Gary had steeled himself and expected the terror that filled his mind and ravaged his nervous system. The rictus of pain and fear that was frozen onto Mercurio's face showed he had been caught unprepared. But there was something else. Without effort, Gary sensed along the threads leading from the other man and felt not only his mass and physical properties but also connections. Like threads, but permanent. There were small ones and large ones but two were so intense they radically overshadowed the others.

One was to a woman. And Gary could see her sitting at a desk and working on a computer. He knew exactly where she was. Just a few miles from here. This was Mercurio's wife. The other connection went to the same place, but it was not to the woman but to the place itself. His home. The threads themselves looked straight as all the others but they were connected. In Mercurio's extraverse, he was tethered to his wife and his home.

These paths were clear and open. Gary could see it. Without knowing how he understood, he understood that this pathway was always open. It was safe. Safe to travel. Always.

And then the anomaly was gone. But the pathways remained.

And Gary knew that he could safely transport a human.

"Cut!" Al's voice again echoed through the sound system as Robin, from stage crew, ran onto the stage. "Are you two okay?"

Mercurio spoke first because Gary was still processing, "I'm not sure. I think I just had some kind of a seizure." He reached down and grabbed his crotch. "At least I didn't wet myself. No telling how that didn't happen. Wow! What a thing!"

"Do you need to sit down?"

Gary broke in, "Mercurio, do you really want to experience what I do?"

While Mercurio felt his years, his youthful curiosity took lead. "What are you proposing?"

"I can teleport you."

Robin gestured frantically for a camera. The intern was at the bottom of the org chart but she knew a conversation that needed to be on tape when she heard one. The stringer camera zoomed in as a camera person bolted up from the audience.

Mercurio was wary. "Why don't you teleport yourself?"

"Because it's not safe."

"So, you're going to do it to me?!"

"It's safe for you."

"Just me?"

"Only you."

"Why only me?"

The words came from nowhere: "Because I am sending you to where you belong."

The sentence opened a door in Gary's mind. Everything existed everywhere at once but there was a single location in the universe where it belonged. And that location was relative and based on the interaction between the individual and others. It was simultaneously absolute and relative. Fresnel, Young, Einstein, Schrodinger, and Hawking were all completely right and completely wrong.

Gary finished: "At your home with your wife."

Mercurio stared at him for a moment and then a big smile spread across his face. "I'm in."

The words Because I am sending you to where you belong echoed in Al's mind. She could hear those words on television commercials and lead-ins. If this worked, they could edit this footage into a commercial catchphrase that all by itself could bring in millions of ad revenue. No one had pulled this trick off since David Copperfield. This was gold.

She barked into her headset, "Robin! This is Al. Ask him what he needs to make this happen. We are going to give him whatever it takes."

Until that moment, Robin had not known that Al knew her name. She turned to Gary, "What do you need?"

Gary looked at Mercurio. "Can you get your wife on a video call?"

"Sure. We use Facetime all the time."

Gary looked back at Robin. "Can you pick up his Facetime and broadcast it on your screen?" He pointed up at one of the large screens around the stage.

Al turned around, and spoke to the Technical Director: "Can you make that happen, Ted?"

"No problem. It'll take sixty seconds."

"Do it." Back into her microphone: "Robin, get it set up. You have five minutes." She turned in the other direction to her copy editor. "Samantha, get me some copy for Brenda that explains all this. She hasn't spoken much today. You have three minutes."

Samantha smiled. "That's two more than you normally give me. No problem."

Cherie, like everyone else in the audience, was confused. Something seemed to be wrong. Gary looked out of place. There was a small group of people gathered around him. He was speaking to them and they were listening. It was like he was giving orders. It was out of her control now. This was completely in Gary's hands. That either meant disaster or that something amazing was about to happen.

The stage was a flurry of activity with techies running every which way. They kept looking up at the screen and then an older woman standing in a kitchen appeared briefly on the screen. And then the screen went blank. Cherie had to admit, with all of the conflicting emotions going on in her mind right now, she was entertained.

After a few minutes, the Director's voice came over the sound system: "Places."

Gary made his way again to his taped X.

Mercurio rejoined him. "Does anybody but you know what's about to happen?"

"I'm not sure I know."

"You need to work on being reassuring."

"I'm not good at things like that."

"Good to know."

Al's voice came in over the intercom: "Action."

Brenda began speaking from the judge's table. "Okay. Well that just happened and I have been tasked with explaining it. Fat chance of that but here goes. A few minutes ago, as Gary was about to start his act, we had some glitches which made everything stop. Then, when we were about to get restarted, something else happened that I am at a complete loss to understand. The audience here saw what I saw but for those of you watching at home, a video is posted to the website. I would recommend it. And now, Gary, the stage is yours."

The audience was rapt as Gary began to speak. "Okay. I don't have a script anymore since everything changed. My original intent was to transport three very large and heavy things from the stage to the parking lot without any curtains to obstruct the audience's view. They would be able to watch the exact moment when the objects disappeared from the stage and see on video when they appeared - again in the open - in the parking lot. I had the show find these three very heavy things and I had a script that Cherie had written which was very good and I was going to send them one at a time into the parking lot. I believe Ms. Tyndall is out there now."

A view of Fisher standing out in a cordoned off area of the parking lot appeared on the large screen. "What have you people been doing in there? You have me out here in the hot sun? I am wilting like the delicate flower that I am."

Danny spoke from the judge's table. "A wilted you beats me on my best day."

"I'd argue with you, Danny, but that's just true."

The audience laughed on cue.

Gary began speaking again. "Like I said. I was supposed to dramatically send these items one at a time but now that we are doing more, I am going to send them all at once. Mercurio, you're supposed to verify what I'm doing. Stand wherever you wish."

"Can I get in the car?"

"When I move it, you'll drop to the ground."

"It's a convertible. I'll stand in it."

"Wait. Wait. I'm coming, too." It was Bob getting up from the judge's table. The other three judges were following suit.

Gary looked down and decided to improvise. "Ms. Blair. Please go ahead and pick two or three people at random from the audience to come with you."

She grabbed three young women. They all came up and surrounded the anvil, the safe, and the car. Mercurio stood in the backseat of the convertible. Two staffers were on either side of it to catch him.

Gary started down the stairs to the judge's table. "Mr. Standifer, please confirm that I never saw any of these objects before I set foot on the stage."

Bob's voice came from behind the safe: "Confirmed."

"And please confirm that I have never touched them at all."

"Confirmed."

"And lastly, please confirm that the three red flags on the stage are on top of the three trap doors."

"Confirmed."

"Ms. Connelly, please say anything that comes to mind."

She was on stage trying to strike a funny pose next to the safe. "Anything?"

"Indulge yourself."

"Superkalafragiliscusescpealidoeshuchs."

"Ms. Tyndall could you please repeat what Ms. Connelly just said?"

"I'm not a big Mary Poppins fan but superkalafragiliscusescpealidoeshuchs."

"Thank you."

Gary stepped down from the stage as he was speaking and stood behind the judges' table just in front of the audience. "There will be no flash of light. There will be no explosion. You are welcome to look wherever you want to look. There are no curtains. I will count down, so you know exactly when to look. This. Is not. An illusion. Is everybody ready?"

As one the audience cried out, "Yes!"

Gary focused and the threads appeared. The anomaly was nowhere to be seen. He followed threads from the three objects and found ones that intersected Fisher. He then located others that landed 10 feet or so away from her.

"Three"

"Two"

"One"

And the three items disappeared from the stage. The two stage crew members caught Mercurio with no damage, and several of the others that had been leaning against the anvil and the safe staggered with Lindsey falling to the floor from her four-inch heels. She was unhurt.

Cherie stood and applauded with the rest of the audience. Almost everything he had said had been straight from the script but he was rushing. The fast pace of his words was totally unlike him and was giving a sense of tension to the performance. It was working. He was still Gary and he was still acting like Gary but it was like Gary on speed.

"Holy shit!" The voice was Fisher's.

In his rush, Gary had surrounded her with the items and the car had appeared three feet from her right leg. She jumped away from the car and bumped into the safe. At which point, she had regained her composure. You didn't get to be three-time WNBA champion by getting rattled under pressure.

She looked straight into the camera, "Well. Here they are. Maybe a little closer than I would have liked, Ga-a-a-ary."

"Sorry. But I have time constraints."

In the booth, Al was talking to herself: "No you don't you son of a bitch. This is gold-plated platinum. Now just finish it for me."

Gary was still in the audience behind the judge's table and raised his voice to be heard above the audience applause: "Mercurio, can you come down here?"

Mercurio shrugged off the offered assistance of the stage crew (He was sixty-two for God's sake, not ninety) and headed to the audience level.

Gary continued: "And while you're coming down. Please confirm again that we are not working together and that you were actually hired to prove that my performances are illusion rather than science."

"We are definitely not working together and I was hired to confirm the nature of your act."

"And you believe what I do to be illusion?"

"It has to be, doesn't it?"

"No. It doesn't. Please call your wife."

Within a few seconds, Maggie's face appeared on the large screen with Mercurio's in a small inset to the lower left. She was standing in their kitchen. Gary looked up at the screen. "Are you able to see me?"

She spoke down from the screen and Gary could also hear her on Mercurio's phone. "No. I am just seeing my husband."

Mercurio handed Gary his phone and Gary stopped looking up at the screen and focused on the smaller version of her on the phone. He could also see himself on the inset.

"Have we ever met?"

"No."

"I am about to teleport your husband from this theater to your house. How far is your house from the theater?"

"I don't know, five miles. Maybe ten."

Since sensing the connection between Mercurio and his home, Gary knew the answer to the millimeter but it was within the range she gave, so he left it alone.

"In the last few minutes, I have been describing this to your husband and he has been talking about an illusion performed by David Copperfield some years ago called The Portal. Are you familiar with it?"

"Of course."

"Do you know how it was done?"

"No. But like everyone in our profession, I have my guesses."

"I've been told that it's bad form to discuss such things, so I would like to ask you to list some things that I would need to do to prove to you that this is not an illusion."

She thought for a moment, "First show me a 360-degree view of the theater from where you are standing including up and down. Then I would need to go outside and show your audience a 360-degree view of our neighborhood so they can confirm I'm not standing in a small set on a sound studio next to the hotel. And then, you would have to make my husband disappear right in front of everybody. No curtains. If you do all that, then you will have out-Copperfielded Copperfield."

Gary spun around and showed her the entire theater and then handed the phone to an audience member to say hello. The audience then watched as Maggie went out into their front yard and showed them the house and the neighborhood and the sky and the ground.

Gary then looked at Mercurio. "Do you mind being touched?"

Mercurio shrugged, "I'm not a huge fan but if it needs to happen it needs to happen."

"Please stand somewhere that the audience can reach out and touch you."

Gary hit the button on the phone that reversed the view and pointed it at Mercurio with several people gripping handfuls of his new suit. On the big screen above, Maggie winced. It was dry clean only.

Gary pointed the phone back at himself. "Okay... ma'am. I'm sorry. I forgot to ask your name."

"It's Maggie."

"Okay Maggie. Please point your phone at the front door of your house. Get as close as you would like but don't stand on the stoop itself. He will actually be appearing right there. Please don't be frightened."

"Kiddo, I've been sawed in half more times than you can count. I'm just glad to see someone using my husband as the guinea pig for a change."

Mercurio had never done the saw-a-woman-in-half trick but it was a good line. Maggie could always think well on her feet.

A cameraman ran down with Al yelling in his ear to get in position to be able to see where Mercurio was standing and the large screen in the same shot. Up in the booth she was muttering obscenities under her breath. Did she have to think of everything?

Gary was trying to come up with what to say next. The script had run out long ago. This was an experiment. Treat it like one.

"Please. We are going to need to observe what is about to happen with all of our senses. I will need to record the results not only of what we see but of what we hear, smell, feel, and even taste. What you are about to see has never before been done in a controlled environment."

There were two rows of stage lights in this theater with the second above the balcony so he still couldn't see anything when he checked to see if Cherie was in her seat. He hoped she was.

"So please. Everyone quiet."

The audience settled down and silence fell over the theater.

Gary spoke in bated breath, and the camera was close enough to pick it up: "Are you ready, Mercurio?"

"Bring it."

Gary felt very relaxed. It was all set up like an experiment with lots of observers. This is what he had come for. He counted down again.

"Three"

"Two"

"One"

And Mercurio was gone. A yip from the large screen behind him made Gary look up at it. Maggie had made the yipping sound but kept her phone steady. Mercurio was standing on their front stoop.

The audience reaction was immediate but one man a little older than Gary jumped up and stepped forward. "Ask him to reach into his pocket."

Gary understood, this was one of the people that had been holding onto Mercurio. He had obviously surreptitiously dropped something into the old magician's pocket. It was a good idea. He should have thought of it himself.

Gary spoke into the phone, "Mercurio?"

"I can see your mouth moving but I can't hear you above the background noise."

Several interns began motioning for the audience to quiet.

"Mercurio, can you hear me now?"

"Yes. That's better."

"Someone from the audience just asked if you could check your pockets. I think he may have dropped something into it."

Mercurio fished around in his jacket pocket and came out with a roll of breath mints. He held them up. "Thank you. Are you trying to tell me something?"

Gary turned to the audience member. "Was that what you put in his pocket?"

The guy was nodding. "Yeah, that's them. That's exactly what I dropped in there."

Gary's heart was pounding in his chest and his throat was suddenly dry. The words that he needed to say formed in his mind and he knew that they were dramatic, like something Cherie would have written. On the screen, he and the audience watched as Mercurio stepped off his front stoop and went over and hugged his wife. She kept her phone out at arm's length and showed the two of them and the neighborhood around them.

The audience began to applaud but stopped when Gary shouted at the top of his lungs: "Mercurio!"

Everything stopped and Gary's voice dropped, his voice hoarse. "Are. You. Home?"

"Yes. This is completely impossible. It cannot be an illusion. I am home."

Jim Harriman stared at the monitor as the ovation shook the walls of the building. Every eye and all of the cameras in the room were on him. He ignored them as he mentally compared his final performance to Richardson's. He tried to convince himself that all was not lost and the vote could go either way. He failed.

Al could never remember actually high-fiving anybody above the age of seven in her entire life but she was slapping palms all around. She even embraced Natalie.

Now, back to business. Al leaned forward on her desk and spoke into her headset: "Okay, everybody, as soon as the audience calms down, let's keep the judge's comments minimal and then get Gary off so we can get through the voting. Home stretch. No speeches, Danny!"

The audience quieted and began sitting back in their seats and Gary was ushered back up on stage where faced the judges one last time. This part always seemed an unnecessary waste of time to him, but he would get through it.

Danny was set to speak first. He was known for long, melodramatic speeches. This time, he said nothing but just rose to his feet and started clapping. The other judges followed suit and then the audience returned to their feet. The focus of all of this attention made Gary uncomfortable and he blushed until it died, and he was able to exit the stage.

In the booth, Al spoke again into her headset: "Danny, you magnificent bastard, that was beautiful. I take back half the things I've ever said about you."

She could see him smile in response on the monitor.

Cherie was on her feet with the rest of the audience, crying. Not just crying but boo-hooing. Bawling. Big crocodile tears streaming down her face. The dumbass had pulled it off. When Gary left the stage, she turned and gathered her things. She would have plenty of time to go to the room and get her stuff during the voting and results portions of the show. She also needed to take a bathroom break. It was going to be a long drive.

Gary was grabbed by a staffer and taken backstage for the usual scene with Cherie, but she wasn't there.

The staffer turned to Gary. "Should we wait?"

Gary shook his head. The camera filmed the question, the headshake, and several seconds of Gary looking forlorn. The staffer then put on her biggest smile and grabbed Gary by the hand which none of them had ever done before. She began pulling him forward.

"Let's head back to the green room! I'm sure everyone is going to want to talk about what you just did. I know I do! That was awesome!"