House Of Avenues (Episode Sixteen)

After their usual romp of bedroom athleticisms one of another laying winded but a distance of thought Alicia could tell that "Something's wrong..."
"Got this feeling..." He answered "'This whole situation... the Cameron girl... something doesn't sit right with me."
"What doesn't sit right?"
"I never liked these "saviour" myths, too deterministic in my opinion."
"And what do you plan on doing about it?" She ran long delicate fingers curling the fur on his chest.
"Lucid dreaming. I'll talk to the guy who started this whole thing."
"Not a bad idea..."
"Wont be easy though, Parsons knows his stuff... can't say he has any reason to hide from me though."
"And if he does?"
Cecil shrugged, not having an answer for that.
"What's going on up there?" She let a finger twist a lock of his hair.
"I'll let you know when I wake up." He said with a smooch on her cheek.
...............~~~~over the childhood memories of some neighborhood corresponding pastiche of big red balloons and candydragons the crocked maps from way up there criss crossing sections of streetways he looks down not letting go waiting for his ship to come by landing in the back yard taking entrance to his MoonVessel silver rocket the fireworks sparklers and ladyfingers and especially bottles whistling up...up...and away... the milky star of galaxies centrifugal forced against the chair lift off proceeds the countdown 10.9.8.7.6.5.4.3.2.1......the kids dance their tricycle circles into his stratosphere goggles and all the clipping claws of Scorpio and look at the Leo jaws bristling tail a ball of flame warily anticipating. The Moon landing darksides but where else but HIS crater the preparative gestures and counting his down the wooly scarf and flight jacket drawn the correct portions and geomancies the speculation of weightless movement and sluggish dream motor functions he calls out HIS aethers...."++<**^**.:.**^**49**^**.:.**^**>++" the time can go long but short it wouldn't matter for years or minutes but the waiting never seemed that long to take forever.... ~ok, Cecil... now how do you get me here.~ ~Jack...all respect and all to those concerned i can't see this for what someone may be a little worthwhile... i can't be sure when the motivates HER?~ ~Then I'll just tell you, without further ado...~ And Jack Parsons let him in on the big secret..... but we'd rather hear the origin of The Philadelphia Man...Right?

October 28 1943. Philadelphia.
Drizzly chills speck the port the dreary slab of monochromatic sky warily swoll and charged with an anticipating frizzle the dock fills with officers and lab coats mucking about with studious clip boards. The ship waited, floating just far enough away from the dock, like it had always been there, like it had always done this and nobody should seem surprised even with the coils and wiring sprouting from the upper region of the hull, the ship simply waited to do whatever the wondrous invention could pull off. Standing at attention Corporal Johnson greets Admiral Bradley Orwell, and his assistant.
"Welcome Admiral Orwell, we think you'll find everything right and ready." Johnson had that lap-dog sparkle eager to please.
"I'm glad to find you so enthusiastic about the outcome of our laborious endeavours, Corporal Johnson, because Pope Bartholomew's imminent arrival is only hours away." The Admiral peered down from a hawkish nose and impressed nobility of his thin cheeks and pointed chin.
"I'll make sure we double...even triple check the equipment..."
"Wise choice, one does not want to infuriate the pontiff." Corporal Johnson wiped his forehead in agreement, saluting before he ferreted off. Minutes later a bright eyed young man in a lab coat approached the Admiral. "What is it?" He said not taking his eyes off the ship.
"We were wondering when the evacuation of the ship will start, the test should be ready as soon as his eminence arrives."
"Evacuate it? Why would we want to do something like that?"
"Well, we really don't know what's going to happen."
"And one could surmise that as being our reason for not evacuating the vessel."
"But...there could be side effects..."
"Once again, you have pointed out an excellent basis for keeping the soldiers on the ship." The Admiral looked at him aloof and unmoved by his protestations. "I think it would be in your best interest to make sure the equipment is running smoothly." The little man cringed away averting the scold.

"What a delight that you have finally enriched us with your august company." Admiral Orwell had a vinegary way with words. Pope Bartholomew V in full regal gowns of white and gold trim, obsidian staff of the Maltese cross his thinned birdy face and incisive sallow eyes absorbing the scene. "We should commence the operation the last of our men are off the Eldridge by now." He stressed the word "our" clearly omitting the ship's crew from this inclusive.
"You can be a tedious man, Orwell, I hope this will not end up being a waste of time and resources, we have a war to get on with, why invest in such nonsense? We don't need to turn battleships invisible, not when we know who will win..."
"...Perhaps you don't see the future applications of this technology..."
"I see the applications clear enough, though I would venture to say that we still have some time before we can really control it, I think the results of this experiment are unpredictable at best."
"...And we will not know for sure unless we test it."
"Point conceded. Carry on."

Private Percy Ruggles mopping a hallway routinely, crew-cutted and squeaky clean, his curiosity got the best of him about the comings and goings and suited officials and the scurrying labcoats always hunched over clipboards checking and re-checking the gizmos and gadgets now secured to the U.S.S Eldridge, "So-uh-Hey Duncan, what do suppose they're doin' with all this crazy stuff?"
Duncan, langling and goofy shrugged. "Don't know, probably a weapons test, something Top Secret no doubt, or they wouldn't be makin' all the hub-bub."
"Sheesh, I hope it gets this war over with, I'd like to get home to my girl, Sally." He leaned on the mop flittering his eyelids remembering fondly Sally's curls and curves, and that coy smile after their first kiss.
"Don't we all." Duncan agreed, walking away. Not seconds later came the announcement that the test would commence in 20 minutes and all scientific personnel were to evacuate, a sense of unease collected around Private Ruggles, he mopped a little harder to force it out of his mind................that siren noise ~which must be them starting their test, I guess...~ but he felt a queazy inner ear, a mild ring of vibrations and the the whining piercing he swore that it sounded from the rivets and walls themselves the mild panic but he kept himself together, he dropped the mop wanting to go up on deck, a claustrophobia running along his nerves but it only got louder outside, the other men lurching and nauseous something like double vision something like voices the dark resplendent pasts of other them other presents the tinny radio voices like untranslatable squawks from hypertime the other places orthogonally disposed. A dull florescence fogged around the ship pulsed and twirled its hungry smoke encompassing the deck the residual options of the places between spaces and the verging dimensions some screams some men tears love in all the beauty because they saw too much saw how the organisms perfect and infinite and some wanting to outrun cephalopodic transients gurgling Private Percy Ruggles horrified, men running through solid walls, callings of barbarous names an echoing transmission these words these pronunciations that no man could possibly fit in his larynx the notes and copulations seen wriggling up in the corners he tries to stop Duncan from jumping overboard to no avail and keeps running wants to get back under deck nothing works now nothing remains the corridors malignant catacombs for cocooning trilobites an indecent fate for the brave soldiers. Private Ruggles shoots down the hallways makes a blind grope for the first door he thinks might be opened......
AND HE SEES ALL/SPACE/TIME.
FLATTENED HE SEES ALL OF HIM ALL HIS
CONTINUITY/////\\\\\ON A 1-D SCREEN WE/ALL ANNELIDS BORING
INTO TIME/SPACE///\\\HE NEVER HAD EYES TO CLOSE/NEVER HAD
ANY WAY OF NEVER PERCEIVING THIS/\NEVER COULD HAVE
ANYTHING WAY OR CANT MAKE HIMSELF BE HE HAS NEVER BEEN
JUST DONE/\FLUX AND CHANGE AND NOW BUT NO DEFINITE CAUSE
FROM BEFORE THESE FLICKERED SECONDS HE CANT REMEMBER
THERE NEVER WAS THERE NEVER IS WE NEVER ARE///////||||||\\\\\\
......but he somehow finds himself under a bed, head down and weeping, he didn't want to remember what he saw but the indelible moment scarred and now he feared himself dead, if dead meant anything, he couldn't be sure, not after that, but now two polished shoes clipped into the room and suddenly a face, well kept and kindly, the gentleman offered a queer look. "My my, however did you get under my bed? That wont do at all." He offered a hand, Private Ruggles couldn't bring himself to take it. "Come now, I wont hurt you... My name is Con Yoleb, and you have somehow found your way to the House Of Avenues."
Some time later after Con finally coaxed Private Percy Ruggles out from under the bed, they sat with hot tea the frightened soldier wrapped in a blanket, telling Mr. Yoleb of his ordeal.
"I'd say you've been shunted from what we call the Time/Space Gameboard, somehow you managed to get back, but you will never be the same, a harrowing initiation indeed, though, I would guess it will give you some advantages."
"I saw things... some of the men... they didn't look right....the shapes of their bodies...changed..."
"Not surprising, who knows what could come of this."
"I don't know what I'm gonna do..."
"You're welcome to stay here.... we could figure out what your...ordeal...has done to you, if anything, and maybe find out what T.H.E.Y. have gotten up to."
"T.H.E.Y.?"
"Those who wish to rule this world, and take our freedoms..."
"The Nazis?"
"Yes...and some more, clandestine groups...."

..."Cute story.. the strange case of Private Percy Ruggles..." Cecil used Mr. Philadelphia's real name with gleeful relish tossing an apple then polishing it on his Bullit turtleneck. "How 'bout this one, a bunch of holier than thou douchebags get together and choose some poor girl at random, simply because she has red hair and green eyes and therefore has some resemblance to an actress-slash-occultress that just happened to be involved with another famous magician... They combed the orphanages looking for a kid who would have close enough physical features told her adoptive parents some story about her being the "Moonchild" that Jack & Marjorie created... why did they do this? They put together a scheme that if the so-called "bad guys" thought this girl had some special powers, than T.H.E.Y. would be forced into making a move letting us have control of the game. Nice strategy, I admire it....except for one thing, putting her life in danger..." Cecil nodded at Cameron, the group appropriately aghast confused and hanging on to his every word. "...You gave her no choice in the matter, you destroyed their lives..." Now he acknowledged Moira and Alan. "...Their home, for no good reason..."
"No good reason?" Con heaved himself out of his chair. "Things have come to todder on such a dangerous and precarious ledge we had to do something..."
"Well, maybe that something should've included giving people a choice about their part in this game, you've ruined her life, no matter what, T.H.E.Y. will be after her now..." He looked at the family, the fuming pot of hellfire that he could see under Moira's skin, "...and you will be the one to deal with this, not me, why? because I quit. Fuck this house, and fuck you."
"You know if you walk away, you wont regain your memories." The Philadelphia Man came up to him toe to toe, lighting a cigarette, Cecil snatched it out of his mouth and extinguished it under his pointed toe shoe.
"You know what, I don't care, memories give us identity, and I like this current one, so I'll walk away from whatever I don't remember and from this house. Give it to her..." He nodded to Alicia "...She deserves it, she'll put it to good use..." He turned again to Cameron, Moira, and Alan. "I can't say how sorry I feel, words can't have enough impact for what I wish I could express, all this for nothing but some game these guys wanna play..." He grabbed The Philadelphia Man by his shirt and pulled him in front "...Look! See that family, their lives will never be sane, they'll have to hide, and run for who knows how long." Mr. Philadelphia could not maintain eye contact. "That said, I'll be leaving now..."
He reached for the door, Johanna shot up and ran over to him, they held each other, he put his hands on her wet freckled cheeks pushing springs of hair from her forehead searching her eyes and each other's souls looking in from all their shared experience the heights and hells they got through, each gasp and fickle stubborn regret how their trajectory brought them wrunged and fleeting to this stupid goddamn moment and why not, what did they have to lose, they kissed, closing in on their temperament and colossal brevity she looked up at him "Babycat... where will you go?" and he bent close to her and whispered in her ear where she could find him and dragging his hand along her thin porcelain arm letting their fingers tangle together as he opened the door and left.
END OF SEASON ONE