Birdhouse In Your Soul, a self-contained story

Birdhouse In Your Soul

The Parodiopolis-Gothametropolis subway system stands as a marvel of modern public transportation, whisking citygoers from one side of the sprawling metropolitan area to the other with remarkable efficiency and cleanliness. (Barring, of course, those terminals in the wrong neighborhoods of GMY… which unfortunately consisted of most of them. And of course the stoppages during cataclysmic super-villain attacks, which happen almost regularly enough to be worked into the train schedule anyway.)

So it was somewhat disconcerting that, with a groan and a shudder, and the subway car came to a grinding halt amid the squeal of air-brakes. Rather, more disconcerting was the fact that the shuddering didn’t stop with the car.

“Well, that can’t be good” Visionary noted with concern, seated on one of the hard plastic chairs bolted into the marvel of modern public transportation. He looked around the car of the train to see his fellow passengers looking up from their newspapers and books and glancing about uneasily. A large group of schoolchildren, obviously just coming back from the annual “spiffy’s No Longer Mayor!” parade, picked up on the adult’s apprehension and hushed their excited chatter.

“It’s probably nothing” Fleabot noted from his shoulder. “A little tectonic plate shift, or something.”

“Yes. Right.” Visionary agreed. He wasn’t a huge fan of being crowded into these metal tubes to begin with. He had an inherit dislike of being put into a tube of any size really… no good ever came of it. But still, money was definitely tight, and it usually smelled better down here than on the average crosstown bus. Plus, after a while, one began to take the gropes during rush hour as a compliment. “Almost definitely probably not the Yurt on a rampage above us…”

“The Yurt’s on a rampage?” a tourist with the camera around his neck asked suddenly, turning around to face them.

“What about the Yurt?” an elderly lady hollered from the seat across from him.

“This guy says the Yurt is tearing up midtown!”

“Well, no…” Visionary began hastily. “I really didn’t. I only sort of suggested…”

“What’s a Yurt?” a little girl asked.

“He’s a big ugly rocky thing… only not orange and he doesn’t wear blue swimming trunks!” a little boy answered. “My brother says the government tried to recruit him to a super team, but he went crazy and escaped and ate people and stomped things while trying to find his girlfriend and have sex…”

“That’s not…” Visionary tried again.

“And then after they had beaten him, Hatman kicked him. And he may have called him “French”.”

“That didn’t happen!” Visionary assured them. “Hatman doesn’t kick people when they’re down, the Yurt’s not a cannibal, he was never recruited to a government superteam…!”

“You hope” Fleabot whispered. One could never quite tell with Epitome.

“…and he’s Russian! I think. Anyway, I’m sure he’s not French. He’s actually kind of nice, when he’s not trying to… you know… squish you.” He gave everyone his most commanding glance. “And there’s no evidence that he’s tearing up midtown, so everybody should just calm down! Okay? Any more questions?”

“What’s sex?” the little girl asked.

“Er…” Visionary responded, losing some of his commanding momentum.

“And how would you know any of this?” the tourist in front of him demanded. “What makes you such an expert?”

“Well… I’m in the Lair Legion” Visionary explained reassuringly.

The whole subway car just stared at him.

“I am, dammit! I’ve been on TV plenty of times! I was just in that Transworld Challenge thing last year!”

“Ima Leshionair too!” slurred a drunk man lying down in the back of the train. “I’m only ona subway ‘caush my Lairjetsh in the Lairshhop…”

“He’s just kidding” Visionary noted, hoping that it wasn’t actually Space Ghost back there. “But I’m in the LL. Really. Why else would I have a mechanical flea on my shoulder?”

“Why would you have a mechanical flea on your shoulder either way?” a man in a tweed hat countered.

“Are you kidding me?” the little boy called out. “Because it’s cool!”

“He has a point” Fleabot noted to Visionary.

“Look, my name is Visionary, I’m a member of the Lair Legion, so I have a lot of experience in these things. And I can tell you that we’re all perfectly safe and sound, and we should just sit here and wait for the train to start up again. The Yurt is not attacking the city!”

There was a muffled roar of “Yurt crush annoying flag man!” and then the tunnel above them shook violently.

“Yeah…” Visionary noted before Fleabot could say anything. “Even I saw that one coming.”

Another thunderous collision sounded through the concrete surrounding them, and the lights in the subway tunnel flickered and went out, plunging them all into complete blackness.

“Okay… Nobody panic…” Visionary advised rationally.

“We’re all gonna die!” the little boy yelled, causing the passengers to explode into chaos.

“Well, this is going to be a long afternoon” Fleabot noted.

“I said, Nobody Panic, Dammit!!! Or so help me I’ll turn this car around and hose down this entire crowd with flame retardant foam!!!!” the frazzled Legionnaire yelled.

“Whoa” the tiny insectoid blinked in surprise as everyone stopped what they were doing. “I guess raising Kerry actually has some benefits after all.”

“Tell that to my homeowners insurance agent” Visionary grumbled as he stood up. He pulled out his Lair Legion Comm Card and flicked the viewscreen on, which provided a dim light to illuminate much of the interior. “You… put out that cigarette lighter… If there’s a gas leak, we don’t want to be blown sky-high. And you…” he noted to the man in the tweed hat, “Quit trying to pry open the doors. When the power comes on, that rail out there will become electrified… And the city maintenance crews aren’t paid enough to scrape your charred remains off the walls.”

Fleabot coughed gently. “Actually, the city maintenance crew makes substantially more than you ever have.”

“You’re not helping” the Regular observed, though he did make a mental note to see if maybe they were hiring. Although they might expect him to know how to fix something, which was admittedly not his strong suit. “Now, we’re all going to sit here and wait patiently until the transit authority gets the train moving or tells us what to do, okay?”

“But…” the tourist began nervously. “What if, um… one of the kids… yeah, the kids… What if one of them has this phobia of being locked in a cold, dark concrete and steel tomb with no air… and, and… the walls are constantly pressing in on them remorselessly as the river leaks into the tunnels and drowns us all in a tidal wave of crashing surf and twisting metals?! HUH? WHAT THEN???”

The elderly woman reached across the aisle in the dim glow of the cabin and slapped him soundly.

“There. Thank you” Visionary approved as the man blinked in shock. “You’re officially deputized into the temporary Lair Legion Subway Patrol, ms…?”

“Muriel Bottomswallop. Do I get a code name?”

“You have to slap at least three people in the call of duty before you get that” Fleabot observed. “Five before you can wear the costume.”

She snorted. “As if my own hose didn’t bunch up on me enough.”

“We honestly didn’t need that mental image” the guy in the tweed hat drawled.

Muriel eyed him for any opportunity to reach her quota.

“Okay, so…” Visionary said hesitantly. “We’re all going to just relax and be calm, right? Nothing to worry about.” The sounds of the Yurt-fight had already faded in the distance, and the rumbling of the tunnel had diminished.

“What about the ghouls?” the mouthy little boy asked.

“Ghouls?”

“My brother says there are ghouls living under the city, and that they only come out in the dark and that they eat peoples brains for knowledge.”

The teacher leading the children’s field trip rolled her eyes. “Oh, come now Billy. You’re older brother is pulling your leg… Ghouls under the city… Tell them how ridiculous that is, Mr. Visionary.”

“Er…” Visionary began hesitantly.

“My god… it’s true, isn’t it?!” the tourist demanded in a high voice. “Brain eating, humanoid, underground dwellers! It’s… It’s…” he quickly quieted down and settled back into his seat when Muriel perked up at his agitation.

“Well, sort of…” the Legionnaire admitted. He noted the children were looking increasingly frightened as they huddled together in the dim light. “But the ones I met were all very, very friendly! Honest! I even spent the evening with a nice girl ghoul, and I obviously lived to tell about it.”

“Did she want to eat you?” one of the little girls asked.

“Yes Vizh…” Hallie’s voice echoed as her face appeared on the comm. card’s display. “Did she want to eat you?”

Visionary fervently hoped there wasn’t enough light cast by the small device to illuminate his blush. “Er… Hi Hallie… what’s, um… What’s going on? We’re stuck in a subway car between the Carrington district and Shelton…”

She shook her head and let him off the hook. “Yes… the grid’s down over half the city. The Yurt just appeared out of nowhere and started tearing things up… don’t worry, though… Hatty’s got a team out there dealing with things, and the dust-up’s moved well west of where you’re at. Is everything alright down there? Do you need any help?”

“Any chance things will start moving again soon?”

She focused elsewhere as she checked. “Hard to say… could be minutes, could be hours from the first reports coming in.”

Visionary noted the increasing agitation on the faces of the children, not to mention the other passengers, at this news. He brought the card up close to his face for more privacy. “Yeah, we could use some help.”

“I can see if Hatty can spare anybody…”

“Actually…” Visionary interrupted her. “I was hoping you might be willing to make an appearance. In person.”

“Me?” she asked hesitantly. “What can I do?”

He looked around the faces of the worried commuters. “Make an entrance” he suggested.

“What’s happening out there?” the tourist (Bob Yokum, from Wannadobe Flats, Minnesota, as they had all learned) groaned for the third time. “We’ve been down here for hours.”

“Oh, for heaven’s…” Muriel muttered, checking her watch. “It’s been all of twenty minutes.”

“How long can that card keep casting light?” the teacher (Kathy Feldson, of the second grade class down at PS 103) asked, obviously just as much on edge as the group of frightened elementary schoolers crowding around her.

Visionary considered it. “Well, I think the halflife on the battery is supposed to be something like ten thousand years” he stated. “So I’m guessing somewhere under that. Give or take a bit.”

“Great” the Minnesota native moaned. “We’ll be well lit when the archeologists find our bones.”

“Keep going, Bob…” Fleabot grumbled. “Two more and Muriel gets to fly a Lairjet.”

Thankfully, Visionary finally heard a faint tapping at the glass of the car doors behind him. “Everybody calm down” he advised as he casually worked to pull them apart behind his back. When they had opened a fraction of an inch, some small, bee sized objects squeezed through.

“Sorry” Hallie’s voice whispered in his ear. “I needed to set up some special drones, and to let Mumphrey know I was heading out. Asil said they had things under control.” She made the sound of a deep breath in anticipation, despite currently not having lungs. “Just give me my cue…”

Visionary nodded and approached the children, who still huddled around their teacher miserably. He tried to come up with a good angle. “How many of you believe in magic and fairies?” he asked.

“I do!” Billy quickly responded. “My brother says that fairies run the Willow nightclub, and if you cross them they’ll…mmmph!”

“Yes, well… let’s forget fairies…” Visionary muttered with his hand firmly clamped over Billy’s mouth. So much for the whole Disney program. May as well go with the truth… “Okay, so how many of you know what a hologram is?”

“I… have one on my folder” a little girl answered, pulling it out from her backpack. It was red with the name “Suzi” written at the top, and it had a shimmering sticker stuck to the cover.

“Yes… that’s right” Visionary said, smiling at her. “They’re neat, aren’t they? They’re colorful and very pretty… and they have a lot more depth and life than a regular sticker, don’t they?”

She nodded, holding the folder close to her.

“Well, I happen to have a friend who’s a hologram herself. A living hologram… not just a sticker. Would you like to meet her?”

Suzi nodded again, though with some apprehension, regarding the man in front of her as if he were one of those deranged, subway dwelling, folder-coveting madmen that Billy’s brother must have told her about.

Visionary just smiled in return and stood up, glancing around above him. “Well… let’s see if she’s here…”

There was a blink as the comm. card screen suddenly went out, but before anyone could react with undo panic, they noticed that the interior was now being lit by an unidentifiable green glow. Tiny, but growing pinpricks of light were slowly weaving their way through the car, swirling and weaving like leaves caught in the eddies of a stream. They ducked and weaved around people’s bewildered faces, and playfully danced out of the way when the children reached to grab them.

Visionary slowly made his way back to his seat with a smile. He doubted many even noticed that the hollow and unfriendly hum of the subway tunnel had given way to the sound of crickets chirping and frogs croaking subtly in the background. The pinpricks of light had grown larger, and now were the size of Christmas tree bulbs. These spots began to meet up with each other and began dancing… spinning and twirling around in colorful combinations of reds and yellows, shifting to blues and green and then everything in-between as they paired off, separated, and spun off into new combinations.

Muriel was the first to notice that the entire cabin had faded out around them, and that they seemed to be seated in a clearing in a forest, with tall trees stretching out above them at the edges of the illumination of the dancing lights. The lights themselves had almost taken on full shapes… Visionary could never be quite sure if they had formed tiny figures or not, as every time he thought he caught the graceful movement of an arm, or the deft pattern of complex footwork, they had twirled away and something else at the edges of his vision would tease him.

Finally, the dance of the lights grew to a crescendo, and they overlapped and merged as they melded together, adding to each other to form new colors and shapes and flashes of scenes. There was now a maelstrom of color and movement and shape captivating the attention of every single passenger, and within the light seemed to be a myriad of images flowing together. Fleeting impressions of an entire encyclopedia’s worth of comforting images, all no more fully formed than ink blots, but tantalizingly recognizable to Visionary’s imagination at least.

The lights coalesced into a graceful, pure white figure at the center of the group of onlookers, and as she finished the moves of the dance the pure light suddenly fell from her form, hitting the ground of the clearing and scattering like thousands of diamonds spilled onto a marble floor.

“Wow” Visionary and Fleabot whispered in unison, mouths agape.

The pretty young woman at the center of attention opened her eyes and breathed deeply, before bending down to offer her emerald hued hand to little Suzi. “Hello” she said warmly, shaking hands with a smile as she pushed her glasses back up the bridge of her nose. “My name’s Hallie.”

“Anything else you can remember?” the softly glowing A.I. was asking.

Muriel’s eyes squeezed shut even tighter in the effort to think back. “There was an old wooden fence…” she noted, nodding to herself. “Running from the front of the house to the side of the garage. With pealing white paint. My father always wanted my older brother to strip it and repaint it, but he always managed to weasel out of it somehow.”

“Okay” Hallie answered, with a smile towards Vizh. “Open your eyes and tell me how I did…”

Muriel’s eyelids flickered open and she saw what the others had watched form around them all bit by bit with every voiced recollection. An incredibly convincing sun shone down out of a crisp blue sky upon the huge rolling fields. A two story farmhouse loomed on a hilltop, with a white fence running down to an old garage next to a sprawling oak tree. The children were already speculating on whether one could climb a holographic tree or not. “Oh…” Muriel noted with a catch in her voice. “…my.”

“The archives in the Wonder, Iowa public library had some pictures of the house taken in 1911” the holographic woman explained. “And some simple satellite photos provided the topography. I had to guess on the barn, though…”

“The tree is smaller than I remember…” the elderly woman answered softly. “Or maybe I’m just bigger. I haven’t seen this place since my parents died when I was 13 years old…”

There was a shudder and a buzz, and the gathering in a field in the heartland was interrupted by the hiss of the air brakes releasing as the subway car began to move again. With an apologetic frown, Hallie let the image around them dissolve back into the mundane and cramped transit car, now once again lit by the buzzing fluorescent lights. “Everyone had better take their seats...” she noted. “We’ll be arriving at Off Central Park station in a few minutes.”

The crowd winced in the harsh light, despite it being considerably dimmer than the mock sunlight that had been streaming down on them. Reluctantly, the adults went back to their seats and gathered their things, sitting down as many tried to recapture that disaffected urban Parodiopolis demeanor that announced to the world “I’ve seen just about everything, and I’m Not Impressed.” The children, however, kept their eyes glued to the smiling holographic woman, who shot them a tight smile that wrinkled the bridge of her nose and winked at them, before taking a seat next to Vizh and Fleabot.

“Hallie…” Visionary began, still in awe. “That was absolutely amazing!”

“It’s what you wanted, right?” she asked nervously. “That was my first public performance of that composition… I’ve been working on it for a while… with some help from Dancer with the motion capture of the movements.” She played with her hands as she calmed down from the performance. “Of course, when it’s done there’ll be more… I won’t have to fill up time getting image suggestions from the audience…”

“You kept these people enthralled for over three hours, with no food, water or bathrooms!” Fleabot noted. “Although, I think some of the boys took advantage of at least one artificial tree, so watch for slippery floors on exiting this thing.” He shook his tiny head. “Still… I had no idea you could do anything like that!”

She was blushing a deeper olive at the attention. “Well, I needed to bring some extra, pre-programmed drones to fill out enough of a field matrix to cover the entire subway car…” she said modestly. “And that needed way too much processing power to pull off without some serious strain. But I’ve been working on expanding myself, visually.”

Visionary beamed at her in admiration. “Hallie, that was nothing short of a work of art!”

“You… really think so?” she asked, her eyes gleaming.

“Dear, I’ve seen more than you’d believe…” Muriel chimed in from across the aisle. “And I’ve never seen anything quite so lovely as that. Thank you.”

“I thought it was really neat…” Bob the tourist supplied, turning around to speak to the shining young woman. “Except for that part with the swirling lights… I get vertigo, you see… But if you want to know if it was art, then you should ask this guy.” He held up a copy of the Daily Trombone’s arts section, with a picture of noted syndicated art critic Marcel Perrault above his column.

Visionary blinked. “Why him?”

Bob pointed to the doors of the car. “Because that’s him getting off the train right now, isn’t it?”

He looked. Sure enough, the man with the tweed hat did seem to be the same one pictured in the paper.

Hallie went pale. “Should I…?”

Fleabot shrugged. “I don’t know when you’ll get another chance. And he did just catch the exhibition.”

Visionary gave her hand a squeeze and nodded to her. With a very visible gulp, the young woman blinked her image across the car to catch the man’s attention before he got away. Visionary managed to sit still for all of five seconds before getting to his feet and casually making his way over in order to better overhear.

“…was wondering what you thought of the work I displayed…” Hallie was saying, with her hands clasped together nervously.

The man looked distracted. “Yes, very entertaining…” he answered, shifting his satchel to his other hand and tucking his paper under his arm. “Computer animation is always a bit soulless, but the masses do seem to love it. Did wonders for crowd control here, certainly.” He checked his watch and frowned disapprovingly at the time then looked back up to her. “You’d make a lovely theme park attraction, I’m sure” he noted with a nod as the car door slid shut between them with finality.

Visionary’s face drained of color as he observed Hallie’s unmoving form, standing in front of the closed doors. He decided he was lucky the car had moved on… Even so, he had to resist the urge to grab the emergency stop cable so he could get out, go back, and force noted syndicated art critic Marcel Perrault to lick the third rail from Union Street to the Snyder Hollow terminal… no matter what the transit maintenance crew made after taxes. Instead, he released his clenched fists, gently laid a hand on his friends shoulder, and swallowed thickly. “Stuck up, tweedy little weasel… What does he know?” Visionary asked with a dry mouth.

“Well, he has won two Pulitzers…” Bob noted awkwardly from behind them.

Muriel reached over and slapped him soundly across the back of his head with her bag.

“Keep this up, and I’m making you Chairman.” Fleabot told her with gruff approval.

“Hallie…” Visionary tried again, reaching around the woman to hug her to him. She reached up and held onto his arm, though made no move to turn and face them. “What you did here today… That meant something. You took people who were trapped in a miserable, frightening situation, and took them somewhere else entirely, saving them from a rotten experience. Don’t let some knee-jerk reaction by some stuck up critic take that away from you…” he gave her a gentle squeeze. “You’re made of sterner stuff, after all.”

She sighed and leaned back into him, rubbing his arm. “Yeah” she admitted with a deep breath to release the tension in her body. “And I really don’t want you to sic Dream on me with a lecture on the importance of pop entertainment in society.” She sniffed once, then straightened her shoulders. “I’ll be okay.”

The car began to slow down as they pulled into the next stop, and Ms. Feldson gathered up her tired elementary school class. “Well, this is our stop” she announced with a great deal of relief. “Kids, thank the nice man and his friends for all of their help.”

“Thank you, nice man… thank you Hallie” they all managed in some semblance of unison.

“It’s Visionary, actually…” the legionnaire reminded them. “I was on TV…”

One by one the children filed out past the two of them with smiles for the holographic woman. “Just wait ‘til I tell my older brother about this!” Billy exclaimed gleefully as he hopped down.

Suzi paused in front of the sentient computer program and looked up at her while clutching her folder. “When I grow up, I want to be just like you” she declared.

“Oh, don’t be silly, child” the teacher noted with distraction as she herded the last of the other children off the plastic seats of the car and to the door. “You can’t grow up to be like her. She’s not real. You want to grow up to be the person who programmed her.”

Visionary felt his face flush as a scowl crawled across it, but before he could respond, the glowing woman shook her head and knelt down face to face with Suzi.

“I think that, with our dreams of what we could be…” Hallie said softly, helping her tuck her folder back into her backpack and zipping it up, “…maybe we’re allowed to be silly. You think?”

The little girl smiled and nodded before running off to join the rest of her class.

Post By Visionary, with apologies to those waiting for a chapter in one of the ongoing stories instead. Sun Sep 04, 2005 at 12:50:39 am EDT	Subject Birdhouse In Your Soul, a self-contained story

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