Fugitives of Chaos

My face was turning red; I could feel the heat in my cheeks. "The part about she and I being lesbian lovers is true, of course. But I don't make her pretend to be you before the nightly spanking sessions. She pretends to be Quentin, I play you, and we act out what everyone knows you English schoolboys do at night in your dorm rooms!" And I stomped off toward the wet bar.

Colin said, "Actually, I'm Irish."

Quentin said softly, "What does she think we do at night? I mean, aside from listening to Victor tell you to shut up and go to bed."

"I don't know, loverboy. Maybe she noticed the missing hamsters."

"The missing what?"

"Never mind. I told you how to improve. According to your theory, you understand my power better than I do— hey—!"

"What?"

"I should understand Amelia better than she does. I mean, if this all goes in a circle around the diagram."

"Try doing what you do when you shut her powers off, but do it in reverse."

"What about me, Big Q, my guru, mojo macho master of the mystic arts, necromancer of naughty gnosticism?"

"What about you? You are a babbling dunderhead. The great Oz has spoken."

"Thank you, mystic master. Seriously, did you have a real idea how to improve my powers? I do not want to have to jump on Boggin's face every time I want to turn back into a bird."

"Amelia told you exactly the wrong thing to do. One hundred eighty degrees wrong. You have to learn to meditate, to relax, and to let the spiritual energy flow through you and inspire you. You must be like a crystal window. Your own thoughts and desires cloud the window. The real you, your oversoul, stands in the light beyond it."

This little bit of nonsense seemed to impress Colin deeply. He looked at Quentin with awe and wonder on his face. Since I had never seen that expression on Colin's face before, I assumed he was just suffering from a bit of upset stomach.

5.

Vanity was still sitting. She breathed more. Victor was still monitoring her pulse. He did not look bored. I do not think he has any circuits in his brain that do the "bored" function. Maybe he had them removed.

I drew up a chair and sat down. I had three bottles of beer in hand, which had come out of the automatic wet bar that came as part of the room. Colin looked interested, and I passed them around.

I called across the salon. "Victor? I couldn't find the fork screw. Whatever that thingie is called… bottle opener. Would you… ?"

Quentin said, "I think these twist off."

But it was too late. Victor, without looking up, waved his hand in our direction. Bottle caps sprang away from bottle necks with a loud noise and hovered in the air.

"Never tried this before," said Colin. He and Quentin clinked bottles, and both quaffed.

"Blech," said Colin. "It's gone bad."

Quentin was puckering and licking his lips. "Is it supposed to taste that way?"

I also took a sip, and put the beer in the same category as the coffee I had had earlier that day. Why do adults drink foul-tasting stuff? I said, "It's not champagne, that's for sure."

Colin said, "This is our first night of freedom. Let's get some champagne!"

"There's the phone," Quentin said, reaching up to pluck the three hovering bottle caps, one after another, from the air. "You just call, a guy named Miguel brings it. Oh, and you hide in the closet, because you're not supposed to be in here. We did not buy a ticket for you."

Colin said, "Oh, come on. Hide in the closet?"

"Aha!" I said. "You will be the master of hiding! I have a present for you, Colin! Victor? Where did Vanity put it? The ring?"

Victor plucked the ring out of Vanity's pocket and tossed it across the room to me.

I held it out to Colin. "This is for you," I said.

'This is all so sudden," he said, sniffing. "I—I don't know what to say. Of course I will many you, but you will have to give up other women…"

"No, you moron!"

"Shouldn't you be kneeling?"

I proffered the ring to Quentin. "You give it to him."

Quentin waved it away. "And run the risk of another round of English schoolboy jokes? Not me. No.

No, thank you."

I said in anger to Colin, "It's a magic ring!"

"Of course. I expected that. What's it do?"

"Turns you invisible!"

"I expected that. Of course. Does it inevitably corrupt the ring-bearer?"

Quentin said, "It's from Plato. It's a symbol of absolute power corrupting absolutely."

"And I am getting this fine, fine gift of corruption, why, again, exactly?"

Quentin said, "Dwarfs make less noise when they fall than giants. You know, less distance to the muck.

So when the word 'corruption' popped up in conversation, the name 'Colin' sprang up on our lips almost of its own accord!"

I said, "It will protect you from Miss Daw's magic. No more being flung off cliffs. You'll be the strongest person in our group. It won't really corrupt you."

"I'll be the strongest person in the group… ?"

"Yes," I said.

"And it won't corrupt me… ?"

"One never knows."

"Will I be able to command the Nibelungs with it?"

"Do you want it, or not?"

"You are sure about the 'no corruption' thing, right?"

"Do you want me to stuff this up your nose?"

"No. Give it here! It already seems very precious to me, yessss… Precioussss… Is anyone hungry for fisssssh or is it jusssst me?"

"Will you stop fooling around?"

"Ach! They hates us, my precious! Nasty elfish blondes!"

1.

Colin slipped the ring on his finger. "Well? Am I invisible yet? I want to know when I can start taking off my clothes."

Quentin said, "The clothes turn invisible, too."

"Yeah, but I get to walk around in the buff, with no one staring. I can pick my nose, scratch my bum, you know…"

"Um, well. In cold weather, you can put on clothes, and your socks will no longer need to match,"

Quentin said.

"What about things I pick up? What if I just lean against something, and pretend I am picking it up? If I turn a laser beam invisible, can I make it harmless? What about radio waves? Am I also stealthed to radar? Can I blind an enemy by making his retinas invisible?"

I looked impressed. Actually, I thought they were good questions. Smarter than I expected Colin to ask.

Maybe he had been hanging out with Victor more than I noticed.

Quentin said, "I would guess it relates to objects directly related to identifying you, such as clothing or footprints. When you turn the collet of the ring toward your hand, you see, that acts as a symbol of the hiding of your seal, or, in other words, your public or outer self."

"Ah! I see! It is all clear!… Except…"

"Except…"

"What the heck is a collet?"

"That thing there."

"Aha! On—! Off—! On—! Off—!" Colin twisted the ring on his finger, round and round. He vanished and reappeared, vanished and reappeared.

I noticed that something other than being permeable to photons must be creating the effect. Not only did his clothing vanish, but the seat cushion where he sat was not depressed, or did not look depressed, when he was unseen.

Colin flickered and reappeared. "I am trying to get it exactly halfway between turned in and turned out, to see if I can make only my left disappear. Here! Watch this." He vanished. "Tell me when you see the beer turn into urine. Ready?"

When he picked up the beer bottle, I was expecting to see a floating beer bottle, like in every version of the movie The Invisible Man I had ever seen. Instead, I saw the bottle, I knew it could not float by itself, saw the fingers, and traced the line of his arm back up to his face. His features were dark and clouded with shadows, as if light were avoiding him.

I stuck out my tongue and waved at him. "There is a limit on what you can do," I said. "If you attract attention, people can see through the illusion you're casting."