See, I hadn't forgotten about Pierre's cat!
35
Molly—
One upon a time there were three bears. They lived, ate salmon and berries, and died. The end.
What?
-made her way to the Haitian National Library, and remembered that—
Honestly, what were you expecting?
-it was here that she first encountered M. Minuit and his devilish ways, and this made her somewhat anxious. But she fought through the memories, and gazed up at the sky. There weren’t any clouds, just like every other day. As always, they were sucked out of the sky, the colossal energy contained within drained and strained so that every day could be lovely and sunny and relentlessly hot and bright and and she entered through the revolving doors of the polygonal building—
They say that a bear can slam a revolving door. Wouldn’t that be a sight to see?
-and into the main lobby of the library. On the left was the main reception desk, while straight ahead were a vast labyrinth of aisles, full to the brim with books. A metal staircase led to the upper floors, which also had lots of books. It was a library, so this was only to be expected.
It was in the direction of the reception desk that Molly headed, where she purchased a card that gave her half an hour of computer time. The computers were a short walk—
What do you mean, who are they? They are just...they.
-and were in a separate room. Molly slid the card into the slot, and as the computer logged in she took the crumpled slip of paper out of her pocket. She had never heard of a grid-site called Parasol.hti, but then again there were lots of things she’s never heard of. Like scarce weekends. Or the society for creative etymology.
But of course, no one had heard of the latter, because it didn’t exist. And scarce weekends? What is that? Some kind of clue? Ha! As if! I wouldn’t do that. More like scarce villains in league with Miss Luna Ricce, but...oops, too soon. Never mind me, nothing to see here, moving along...
The computer had stopped doing whatever it was doing, and so Molly brought up a grid browser and typed in the code into the place where you type the codes in. The page that came up was...
“It’s the Simulation,” Molly gasped. Or at least, a screenshot from Toussaint’s Simulation, underneath a large title that read ‘The Divided Man,’ followed in smaller letters by, ‘Warning: may cause headaches, hallucinations, erectile dysfunction and death.’ Well I only need to worry about two of those, hopefully, Molly thought with a silent laugh.
Molly tried to remember back to Havana. In her own timeline it had only been a few days, yet still it seemed like a distant memory. Yes, of course, Toussaint had mentioned how his colleague Professor Ibsen had got his students to write up reports of their experiences with the Simulation and post them online. Maybe this was something similar? It was by a poster calling himself or herself ‘gardien327481’, and even before she had finished reading the first post, Molly was lost. What’s all this about a boulder who can talk to God? she thought, completely bewildered. This doesn’t seem to have much to do with the Simulation at all!
Nonetheless—
It was a beautiful day. It was raining.
I felt alive, for once.
-she spent the next half an hour reading, until her card ran out and the screen went blank. She blinked, as if coming out a trance, and wiped her eyes. It had been the most confusing half an hour of her life. It was presented as some kind of story, with the main character being an utter lunatic called Polly. “What a loony”, Molly said to herself while pressing her eardrums in order to block out the voices.
And then there had been an entire discussion about the constant repetition of the number 27. ‘Obviously’, one person had said, ‘the number 27 refers to the Book of Revelation, as it is the 27th book of the New Testament. Luna Ricce is the Antichrist, and it documents the coming of the End of Days.’ Others had been sceptical, while gardien327481 remained frustratingly vague. There was also something about the sun being evil and lots of random references to Greek mythology, and a guy rather ludicrously called Ivan le Terribile.
Molly was tempted to dismiss it as silly nonsense, if it wasn’t for one thing. In one update, the words, ‘Go to the Yucatan, enter the black stones’ had appeared, amid a paragraph of gibberish. Also, someone had pointed her towards this...story for a reason. It must be significant, somehow, but she couldn't make head nor tail of any of it.
She didn’t see any reason to pay for any more Grid access, so she left the computer terminal and decided to head for home. On the way to exit she passed by a couple of payphones, and happened to—
Know that we are good. You will miss us when we’re gone.
-overhear a man on one of the phones say the name ‘Pierre le Grand.’ Of course! That was his name! She stopped in her tracks, and waited for the man to finish his phone call. A few moments later he turned, and found himself face to face with Molly, who smiled meekly.
“Uh, hi. Sorry, this is going to sound really weird, but do know Pierre le Grand? It’s just i couldn’t help overhearing...”
The man threw his hands up in the air, and grabbed her shoulders. “Yes! Oh, please tell me you know where he is?”
Molly cringed, and shook her head. “No. Damn! I was hoping you did. I’m Molly, by the way,” she said, holding out her hand. The man took it, and shook it warmly.
“I’m Stephan. Stephan Neumarche. This is the absolute last time I do a favour for that guy! He asks me to look after his cat...apparently he was going swanning off to Havana or somewhere with some woman he barely knew, but he said he’d be back within a couple of days. Over a month later, and I’m still having to feed that blasted cat, and buy its food,” Here he made a face, “and clean out its litter. It’s not cheap to buy that stuff, you know!”
Molly frowned, and regarded him strangely. “No, I’m sure it’s not. But what about Pierre? Aren’t you worried?”
“Well yeah, I suppose. But honestly, that guy is always disappearing and reappearing. He’s like a solitary fairy—you know how you have two kinds of faries, trooping and solitary. The trooping fairies all live together, and form a unit of sorts, while the solitary fairies live by themselves, and are loners I suppose. I read about it in
Secret Worlds. Apparently, this guy talked to a fairy and it told him all this! You might be thinking that he was obviously a nutcase, but he had a certificate
proving he was sane! Well, now Pierre is like a solitary...what?”
He had noticed that Molly’s attention had been stolen by something else. Stephan twisted his head, and saw what she had seen. On the floor was a copy of the Port-au-Prince Post. Molly picked it up, and Stephan laughed.
“Oh, that Selena Eryx is everywhere these days. I swear she looks familiar somehow...”
On the front of the newspaper was a large picture of a beaming Miss Eryx, with the headline underneath, ‘Selena Eryx appointed Minister for Business and Industry.”
Molly read it several times, and shook her head in disbelief. “She’s been appointed to the
cabinet?
How??”
Stephan shrugged. “Yeah, it’s a crazy world. Anyway, you wanna get a coffee or something?”
Molly tossed the newspaper aside and sighed. “Sure, why not, if you're a friend of Pierre.”
“Excellent. Just as long as you’re not a nutcase or anything.”
Molly smiled sweetly, flashing her pearly teeth. “Me, a nutcase? Perish the thought!”
You’re special. If you can’t truly hear anymore, you’ll never fulfil your destiny. Mollllly...
