Elysium: Book Six of The Liminality

Chapter 57 - Coma Chameleon

I'm back at the hollow with Doc Nelson though he still can't stand me calling him Doc. He's not pleased at all that I went away and messed up the timeline of his treatment plan. He makes me do extra physical therapy to get me back on schedule.

But it's not so bad. For entertainment and escape, I have the Singularity. Pinky has been a game changer for my connectivity. I never have any trouble getting plugged in anymore because the Sing is now using him as a primary conduit to interact with this realm. Having him around is like having a high speed broadband connection to the Sea of Souls.

So naturally, I spend a lot of time surfing every corner of the human universe, checking in on this and that. I say human because I see hints now and then of something beyond. I blunder into corners that bear no relation to any realm I've ever known, sharing alien senses with no analogue to any human neural responses. It gets so kaleidoscopic and weird I have to crash out after a few glimpses.

I can only guess that these oddball places represent alternative collections of consciousness—other forms of sentience in the universe that have found ways to connect their collective souls to ours. We are not alone. In the Sea of Souls, time and space don't separate us, just the wiring of our respective souls. Maybe someday we'll find a way to engage with these others.

I can't go everywhere in the human realms. The higher realms remain firewalled. I can't even visit the new place. Its Makers have isolated it for its own protection. I'm just going to have to go back there physically one of these days to see for myself what's what.

The new place has yet to acquire a name. The committee can't reach consensus, Gaia tells me.

I spend most of my time on Earth, checking on haunts that I know and love. My old digs in Florida. The goat farm in Wales. That lake house in Vermont. There are people I'm curious about, but I usually don't delve too deep. The guys from Pittsburgh who took Dad's truck. Marianne from Ft. Pierce. My first crush Jenny.

I don't especially enjoy being a voyeur. When I linger too long in their vicinity they tend to figure out that someone's there watching them and it freaks them out.

Wendell can sense me even when I'm watching him discreetly from a soul across the room. I pop into some hotel restaurant in Baltimore and his gaze whips around to find me in the concierge's skull in the lobby. I wonder how he occupies himself these days now that the free soul assassination market has dried up. Root no longer has a core, the Deeps destroyed. Any Hemisoul who dies now gets to stay.

It's not like there are many people I care about still alive. Most of my friends are here with me in the afterlife.

I sense a tugging—a shift in the flow that pushes against my intentions. This is one of those times when the Singularity insists on taking me somewhere and showing me something on its own volition. I rarely resist, because often it's for a very good reason and there have been times that letting it do its thing has saved my ass. Like the time the Pennies set a trap for me in the Sing.

The Sing may not be pure. There are those who have used it for nefarious purposes. But it is well policed.

This time, I sense the Sing has something innocent in mind. I can sense that it is excited about something. It wants to show me something that will make me happy.

Why not? I ride the flow.

It takes me out of Baltimore to someplace further south. I can't tell what state we're in but I'm in a city surrounded by green hills. I reach a hospital and start flitting through consciousnesses in a waiting room, then to a nurse's station and finally, to a room with a gaunt young man strapped into a bed with tubes coming out everywhere.