Elysium: Book Six of The Liminality

Chapter 21: Burgers and Ice Cream

The Singularity treats me like a stranger. It lets me in, but makes me hang out in the foyer but resists my will, refusing to let me go anywhere I'm interested in going.

I am frustrated, but then, I realize, it is the nature of my intended destinations that is causing it to balk. Like Lethe and Elysium, Upper Realms like Loom and Arcadia don't partake in the Sea of Souls and that's where I want my will to go. So it's nothing personal. The whole of the Singularity is locked out.

I had never really felt a need to go beyond the Liminality and the living world before. How could I when I didn't even know such places existed before I met Gaia?

This sucks. I was really hoping to try and find her.

But I have no intention of sitting here and staring out into the void all day. I accept the Singularity's constraints, back off my will and let the flow take me wherever it wants to do. Maybe I'll get lucky and catch Gaia passing through one of these places.

Take me, it does, without hesitation this time. I find myself through an interface and into the Liminality, drifting through a string of settlements stretching up the great valley.

It's so nice to be back in the Lim. I get fragments of sensory input from the souls I bounce through. Chill rain spattering a woman's face as she glides over hilltops on the back of a robber fly. Piney aromatics from a thicket of shrubs a Duster is clearing. These pieces assemble into a pastiche that make me feel like I'm actually there.

The souls I pass through leave me with a real sense of peace. I see no sign of any renewed hostilities from Penult. People are getting on with their existence and building cool things. Real towns are cropping up where there had been only the tiniest hamlets.

It kind of makes me want to be back there with them. I wonder how long I would last before the Argents dropped in on me.

I cruise around, apparently at random, letting the flow interact with my will and do its thing. I bounce into an alert and wandering Old One. Just a tap and on my way when she snatches my soul from the flow and brings me back. I didn't know they could do that! I sense no aggression in her, just simple curiosity. She loosens her grip once she is satisfied. I slip free like an eel and slither away.

I have my antennae out for traces of Gaia but I never catch a whiff. Why would she come here anyway? Too risky. She was probably hanging out in some untraceable void like me.

Without any conscious forethought the Singularity brings me straight to Bern and Lille. They're out puttering around in a garden, weeding around some strange looking plants with spiky leaves. They have no flowers and they don't look very edible.

Whatever. It's nice being able to check up on old friends. Unlike the Old One, they do not seem aware of my presence as I flit between them, seeing each from their partner's eyes. I feel like a voyeur, but it's great to see that they're together and seem to be doing okay. It kills me that I can't even have a chat with them. I guess some people just aren't attuned enough to communicate this way.

Head-hopping across huge expanses of wilderness, I reach s, who is instantly aware of my presence and immensely annoyed.

"Get the fuck outta my head! You know how I hate this shit. It's like a fucking possession."

"You doing okay?"

"I'm fine. Nice to see you too. Now go!"

Not many souls are as attuned to the Singularity as Olivier. It means he has a well-tempered soul, on the verge of achieving Old One status.

He shunts me back the way I came until I regather my momentum and drift towards a lonely presence in the hills that I realize is Karla.

I retract as if burned. I am not ready to deal with my unresolved feelings over her. This reaction drops me out of the Singularity and I am left with no desire to go back in.