Humans are running, lavender room.
Hoverin’ liquid, move over moon for my space monkey. Sign of the time-time
The song ends and after several speechless moments the cryptographer finally suggests, “It seems clear the ‘church chimes’
working the docks out at Port Justine with the small round monocle in his hand
are the key.”
“What about the lavender room?” the young transcriber asks, immediately mortified by her temerity. Several of the men around the table glare at her. “Well it’s a good question,” Wang says, then asks her, “Do you have a hard copy?” and the grateful young woman hands him a copy of the transcription. He begins to rise from his seat and everyone else begins to rise with him when Tapshaw says, “There’s something else.”
“Oh yes.”
“The other matter I mentioned.”
“Yes.” Wang looks at his watch; it’s almost eleven. “It can’t wait?”
“If you don’t mind. Particularly given this transmission.”
“All right.”
Everyone sits again. “This is Professor Stafford,” Tapshaw says.
“Professor.”
“Sir.” Stafford the geologist momentarily hesitates. “I’ll try to be as brief as possible.”
“I would appreciate it.”
“One night,” he begins, “about nine years ago, there was … a strange geological disturbance in the area.”
“I was under the impression the whole last sixteen years had been a strange geological disturbance.”
“Well, yes sir,” the geologist says, “but this was unique even by recent standards.”
“You don’t have to call me sir.” Sometimes he can’t help it
“Uh,” the geologist looks around at the others, confused, “OK. As you know, after the lake first began to appear — as you say, sixteen years ago — within those first few years it rose very
through which could be seen the lake, who watched me climb the billboard
quickly, completely flooding most of the basin and some of the outlying valleys. After that, over the next five years or so the lake rose more slowly.”
“May I interrupt?” Wang asks.
“Of course.”
“Am I correct no one’s ever established the reason for the lake in the first place?”
“No, sir. I mean, that’s correct, sir.”
Sighing heavily, Wang continues. “Or where it comes from.”
“Well, we know where it comes from.”
“The hole in the bottom.”
“Yes.”
“But beyond that, no one’s ever established why a hole appeared in the city and a lake came up through it.”
“That’s correct.”
“All right.”
“One night nine years ago, the lake rose three feet — there feet and two inches by precise calculations — and feel again to exactly the level it had been, all within a matter of minutes. No one has ever accounted for it.”
Wang pointedly looks at his watch and back at the professor.
“Then for eight years,” the geologist continues, “up until fourteen months ago, the lake didn’t move at all. Not so much as an inch. By what we’ve been able to determine it didn’t rise or fall, it maintained exactly its same level — there weren’t even the usual signs of water evaporation, seepage, displacement by natural erosion of the shoreline, any of the things that would account for the normal life of a lake.”
“Well, it wouldn’t seem to be your normal sort of lake.”
“No, sir.”
where I might lie in the red wind and gaze on a sky menstruating in tandem
“You said up until fourteen months ago.”
“Yes, sir.”
“What happened fourteen months ago?”
“The lake began to drain.”
“It began to drain?”
“Yes.”
Wang scratches his neck. “Do lakes drain?”
“Not like this. It’s not your normal sort of lake, sir.”
“I think I just said that.”
“Yes, sir. They don’t drain like this one is draining,” the geologist goes on. “This one is draining the way it rose.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning it’s going back where it came from.”
“But we don’t know where it came from.”
“Well, no.”
“So…?”
“I mean it’s returning to its source,” the geologist explains.
“The source?”
“I mean it’s going back down the hole.”
Silence around the table. Wang finally says, “Back down the hole.”
“Yes.”
“And this began fourteen months ago.”
“That’s correct.”
“This is Wilson,” Tapshaw indicates another officer on his right, “in intelligence. Our operation up in Oxnard sent him down a few days ago at my request.”
“Really?” says Wang. “Did you and I talk about this?”
“No.”
“You requested this transfer on your own initiative?”
“‘On my own initiative’?” the officer says, standing. “Yes, I certainly did.”
with my own blood, and the third vision being the strange presence of a young
“Well then,” Wang says after a moment.
Everyone is tense. “Wilson,” Tapshaw finally continues, “has a particular sort of expertise, having to do with theological cult phenomenology, that I thought—”
“Theological what?” Before the other man can answer Wang says, “Never mind. Go on.”
“Sir,” Wilson the theological cult phenomenologist begins, “have you heard of the Order of the Red?”
“Some sort of theological cult phenomenon?” says Wang.
“A religion,” nods Wilson, “of several hundred followers. They set up their church nine or ten years ago out on one of the old hotel-islands in the West Hollywood part of the lagoon and then seem to have dispersed, moving inland fourteen months ago.”
“Just as the lake started going down. That’s what you’re getting at, right?”
“And I should add, sir, before anyone knew the lake was draining, sir.”
“I have a feeling,” Wang says to Tapshaw, “you’re going to point out this was also about the time the broadcasts began.”
Tapshaw holds a small bundle wrapped in leather. He opens it and places a small object in the middle of the table.
~ ~ ~
For a while everyone sitting around the table stares at it. Something about the moment strikes Wang as absurd but he reminds himself that, more and more, he has that reaction to
woman about my own age, tiny with long straight gold hair almost to her
everything. When he reaches for the object, he’s aware of the way the other people at the table surreptitiously regard his other hand, so that when the young transcriber works up the nerve to ask, “What is it?” for a moment everyone is shocked before realizing she’s referring to the object Wang holds up to her.
“A religious icon,” Tapshaw answers after a moment.
“It looks like a toy,” she says.
“Is it a monkey?” someone says.
“In a red space suit,” says Wang.
“To try and make a long story short—” Wilson begins.
“It’s a little late for that, but go ahead.”
“—the founders of the Order of the Red claimed to have had a vision, which they called the Epiphany of Saint Kristin, nine years ago on the morning after the lake rose and fell those several feet, during the inexplicable geological event that Professor Stafford referred to.”