The Mediator Pattern Read online

  “You’re not Reg.” Marcus grumbled into the man’s chest. “Where’s the girl with the attitude? I’ve been— ”

  Marcus stopped. He realized that what he was about to say would help him no more than it would make sense. More than that, Marcus’s cognitive echoes, as Avant called them, began to flow and Marcus recollected in a flash that Reg had not once been the same, a fact that only further solidified Marcus’s suspicion about his particular existence.

  “I am Reg. Follow me,” huffed the man.

  If nothing else, at least Reg’s disdain was consistent, Marcus thought.

  The giant turned and headed into the hallway toward the east. Reg filled the hall. His head barely missed the sprinklers above, and his shoulders spread from wall to wall.

  Marcus silently followed.

  Reg led Marcus through the same wall and into the same corridor as he had followed his guide’s female counterpart before. The walls beamed with silvery streaks of electricity that skated along the glass plates of its construction. Marcus saw the direction from which they emerged and at their source, spotted his target.

  Unfortunately for Marcus, there was Reg. He was never in any shape to take on a man of Reg’s stature, not once in his life. He considered all the time he could have spent learning to fight, all the practice he’d have acquired. Maybe a grappling class or two would have benefited him right now. After all, didn’t he have a world to free? Marcus wondered how much of a punch he could deliver and how deep into Reg’s thick skull it would penetrate. Then he pictured his own knuckles shattering against the Goliath.

  Reg looked back over his shoulder, glaring as if he had heard Marcus sizing him up inside his head. Reg’s barrel chest expanded, then his nostrils flared and his chest shrank as he exhaled loudly at Marcus.

  “Through here,” he said and vanished beyond a door.

  As Marcus considered his physical ability, and mentally examined his poor health and equally lacking training and stamina, it occurred to him that he didn’t have to overtake this monster. He wasn’t even on the right side of things yet.

  With a smile playing on his lips, Marcus calmly followed Reg into the examination room. On his way into the cramped room, Marcus began to undress. By the time he had reached the scanning table, he was in his underwear.

  Marcus noticed that Reg was bending his knees to fit in the room. The room attached to the meat locker was substantially smaller this time around, and Marcus knew it had everything to do with relative perception and his present host.

  “Those too,” Reg motioned toward Marcus’s briefs, his giant hand swatting through the air.

  “Let’s get this over with,” Marcus muttered as he removed his remaining garment.

  There, cold and naked, Marcus once again began to consider his surroundings. If Reg is different, what else can change? He asked himself, to which he had no reply. Even with all of his experience from his previous visits, Marcus couldn’t predict what would happen next, and that frightened him. His cocky smile faded.

  A shiver ran down Marcus’s spine as he entered the meat locker.

  Once Marcus was situated in the center of the room and the fluorescent lights had reached peak amplitude, the walls dithered and as before, were replaced by the intricate machinery of the BelisCo factory. The massive automated tools stamped, pulled, and welded pieces of metal, shaping and constructing, belting out a symphony of shrieks and cries over the consistent drumming of hammering steel.

  Marcus was clothed, standing on the catwalk above the machines. He recognized the flowing sleeves upon his arms, and was startled to discover the gaudy number of clanging bracelets upon his wrists. Upon further inspection of his clothing, he discovered the neon orange polish upon his talon-like toenails beneath the flowing drapery of his pants.

  As Marcus was transported to the air above the delivery bays, he ran his hand across his lips, confirming his suspicion. While standing in the clean-room amongst the engineers in full-body suits, Marcus stared intently at the silver streak across the back of his hand. And as the walls separated toward infinity and his senses vanished from him, Marcus felt his stomach wrench and heave as its contents entered his throat.

  Marcus blacked out.

  A putrid stench permeated Marcus’s nostrils as he returned to consciousness. His brain was heavy and dull. Confusion had become a physical sensation, manifested in the distance between breaths and the void between thoughts.

  Marcus strained to open his eyes. He knew something had gone wrong, terribly wrong, but he couldn’t say what. His mind whirled and spun, wobbling through blurry memory after blurry memory, stumbling to discover some profound meaning in the distribution of similar instances, to no avail.

  As his eyes adjusted to his brilliant surroundings, Marcus realized he had no idea where he was or what had brought him here. A dismal colorless Light flooded the room. The walls were colored in a rust-red with framed paintings intermittently distributed high upon its face. A plaster white Jupiter held his lightning bolt over head as his beveled eyes stared down on Marcus. All around the room stood various amalgamations of man and beast. To his left, a group of hyenas with human hands crouched over a small child with feathers for skin. On his right was a hog-goat-human mutation carrying a sword and the severed head of a man.

  “Hello, Marcus Metiline,” sang a voice from out of sight. “You are so narrow-minded to have thought me blind to your attempts,” oscillated the singsong voice.

  A pair of silver lips bordered by a thick beard appeared before Marcus. “I know what you’re up to.” The lips moved out of sync with the words.

  Suddenly, Marcus was yanked to his feet. Once upright, he twisted around to see an enormous man in navy blue standing behind him, his arms folded tight against his massive chest.

  Realizing he was trapped, Marcus spun back around to face the bearded, silver-lipped man. The man leaned casually against a hoof-legged desk, twirling a book of matches in one hand. He ripped a match from the book with his talon-like fingers and ignited its flame. He twisted the stick in his hand as the flame danced and flickered about. Five matches remained.

  The man pursed his lips and exhaled, extinguishing the fire. He lit another match, and inhaled the sulfuric smoke as he spoke to the flame, “Such a clever catalyst for a smoker. A book of matches.”

  He blew out the match and lit another. Three matches remained. The silver lipped man smothered the flame between his forefinger and thumb and lit another.

  “You can’t stop this,” cooed the eccentric stranger.

  Marcus could hear the muscle-head behind him chuckling beneath his breath. He could feel the sticky, warm air on the back of his neck as the man snorted and laughed.

  The man before Marcus let the match fall to the floor and removed another from its binding. Two matches remained.

  The phosphoric, sulfur smoke had coagulated in the center of the room, assaulting Marcus’s respiratory system. The pungent fumes inundated his senses as his mind continued to reel around its disconnected pivot. Shadows of memories darted through Marcus’s subconscious. Each image vanished as quickly as it arrived; leaving only insoluble fragments suspended in the soup-like substance that was once Marcus’s brain.

  The man broke another match from the book and said, “See you again soon, Mr. Metiline.”

  Drool ran down Marcus’s chin as he struggled to stay on his feet.

  The head of the match sparked into ignition as the silver-lipped man struck it against the matchbook. The flame froze. Its reaching tendrils retreated into a glassy, orange and red sphere. The room moved toward the frozen ball of flame. The two men swelled before Marcus and then flipped inside out, their internal organs briefly visible, and then vanished, guts and all. The walls jerked and contracted as they kneeled toward Marcus, spilling their asbestos innards onto the carpet in violent gasps and gags. The multitude of statues stretched upward, distributing their attributes along the bent, vomiting walls.

  As the room choked on its contents
, pushing and pulling them about, Marcus felt himself carried away. The dismal light gradually diminished to a single fractured band surrounded by an expanse of deep oily blackness. Detached from inertia and gravity, the spiraling oil moved effortlessly across Marcus’s vision, eagerly consuming the remaining shimmers of light. Its slimy insatiable skin seemed guided by crooked, invisible, glass gears. The blackness gnashed and whirred as it finished off the light and began gulping at the remains of Marcus’s sensations.

  Then it stopped. Once all else was gone, the swirling black oil ceased in its evolution and the grinding of broken glass and hum of disjointed machinery was replaced by the faint shrill of a digital alarm clock in the distance.

  Harsh rays of light jabbed at Marcus as he found his way from the jumbled mess of sheets and stopped the screaming alarm clock atop the cardboard box beside his twin bed.

  Chapter XI

  Marcus Metiline, pulling a mashed cigarette from a crumpled pack on the floor, rose groggily to his feet and shuffled toward the bathroom adjoined to his room. Reaching the doorway, he stood and watched himself in the mirror as he straightened the cigarette and brought it to his lips. He patted his pants for a light. From his right pocket he pulled a matchbook. Seven matches remained.

  Marcus Metiline ripped a match from the book and lit it. Fire illuminated his reflection as he began inhaling deeply on the smoke.

  Marcus exhaled, tearing through the dense tendrils of smoke as he approached the pedestal sink. Amongst the dim rays of light scrawling the shadows on his face, the glow of his cigarette accentuated his round cheeks, deep eye sockets and four day stubble with each drag. He rested his elbows heavily against the sink as he examined the freshly healed scar over his eye. He struggled to remember what brawl he had gotten into and on which night. It had been a long time since Marcus had been blackout drunk, but even so, he could not conceive of his wound’s origin. He groaned. Marcus wasn’t an old man, but he wasn’t young anymore either.

  He inspected himself in the mirror as he burned through his cigarette. He straightened his collar, and tucked in his shirt. Then he mashed the smoldering butt in the sink and pulled his brown coat from the bathroom door. As he exited the bathroom, Marcus pulled on his one-size-too-small coat and rolled up his sleeves. He moved toward the bed, bending to retrieve his crumpled pack of smokes off the floor.

  A ringing and humming initiated behind him—the telltale sound of a message from the corporation’s standard issue fax machine. The clunky device sat half-cocked on his small writing desk.

  Marcus had been expecting this message. This meant his assignment was to begin soon.

  Standing at the fax machine, a boxy, metal device with paper sticking out from one end and a telephone and dial pad upon its face, he removed another cigarette from his pack and lit it, this time from the box of strike-anywhere matches on the desk. The machine began pulling the paper into itself, feasting on the wood pulp. The buzzing of teeny machine parts could be heard coming from within its hull. The bottom end began to eject the once blank paper with clear, well-defined, typeset letters upon it. Marcus snatched the paper from the device greedily.

  After inspecting the note, Marcus Metiline crumpled it and tossed it on the floor. He took deep successive drags off his cigarette as he made his way across the room to the cabinet in the corner. He reached in and removed a small device a little larger than his hand. Fixed to one end of the device was a cumbersome wheel of glossy paper.

  Civilian portable fax machine, Marcus thought to himself. “What will they come up with next?” he asked aloud to no one.

  Marcus attached the porta-fax machine to his belt, snatched up a spare roll of the glossy paper, threw it in his briefcase and left the apartment, latching the door behind him.

  He shuffled down the long cramped hallway, passing unit after unit of apartments. Reaching the exit, he swung open the heavy steel door and descended two flights of concrete stairs, those stairs that always seem to be just a little taller than they should be. He wondered what a child would do faced with these stairs, crawl maybe? He quickly discarded the thought replacing it with the relief that his apartment complex is an adult-only facility; no one under the age of 21 is allowed on the premises.

  Still, he thought, damn these stairs.

  He tossed his cigarette in the bronze butt-bucket at the base and fiddled with his keys as he began unlocking the three internal deadbolts on the large cage-like door between him and the street.

  Once through the gate and on the sidewalk, Marcus stopped, slouching as he fished his cigarettes out of his pocket. Once again he patted his pants in search of his matches. Finding both, he lit the cigarette and puffed away at it. Five matches remained.

  People in suits flooded the sidewalk, moving quickly on their way. A lady in a smart woman’s pant suit waved away Metiline’s smoke as she passed, sneering at him in distaste. Marcus shrugged indifferently. After all, his neighborhood wasn’t one of those smoke-free zones. In fact, he purchased the apartment specifically for that reason—that and the age requirement.

  Marcus pushed his way to the edge of the sidewalk and waved his hand, signaling an approaching taxi. Silently, the taxi transport halted at the curb before Marcus. His reflection gleamed back at him on the tinted passenger-side window and then gradually disappeared, being replaced by the vehicle’s interior and an old, gray-haired driver with his knobby fingers grasped tightly around the steering wheel.

  “No smoking in here, Marcus. It’s bad for things,” the cab driver said almost too quickly to decipher.

  The cigarette in Marcus’s mouth lost its appeal. The smoke tasted dry and stale, ashy and bitter. He let it fall from his lips and to the ground, quickly stamping it out beneath his foot.

  “How do you know my name?” Marcus inquired as he leaned in the window.

  “Get in,” the driver said, “You’ve made a mess of things.”

  Marcus was intrigued, compelled even. He opened the back door and seated himself, placing his briefcase on the floor between his feet. As soon as the door was shut, the heavy thud of the locks sounded, sealing him in.

  Unease urged Marcus to inspect the license embedded in the dash. He leaned forward; this driver was not the man pictured.

  Without warning, Marcus was jerked backward as the transport accelerated. The taxi veered in and out of traffic as it sped fluidly down the boulevard.

  “You’ve gotten off track.” The old man spoke as fast as he drove.

  The vehicle continued to gain speed. Marcus’s knuckles lost color as he dug his ten fingers into the contours of his armrest.

  “My name is Avant. Doctor Avant,” the driver introduced himself as he jerked the wheel, lifting the passenger-side tires off the ground and narrowly avoiding a group of fax-line response community workers.

  Marcus heard the chime of the auto-mechanisms engaging. The vehicle corrected, placing its wheels firmly on the ground and then returning control to the speeding doctor.

  Moments later, Marcus Metiline saw a vacant lot fast approaching. It was situated unevenly between towering housing complexes and surrounded by a drooping chain-link fence. Its gray soil looked charred.

  As they came closer, Marcus saw vines of frayed steel cables reaching up from the ground in coordinated patches. No other plant life grew within the confines of the fence. Even the rays of the glowing sun seemingly curved around the plot of land, leaving it dark, gloomy, shadowed and dead.

  The transport came to a sudden stop directly before the lot.

  Avant looked over his shoulder and stared intently at Marcus.

  After a long pause, he said, “We’ve met before, Marcus.”

  Chapter XII

  After a long silence, and well after the carbon dioxide in the vehicle had exceeded comfortable levels, Avant unlocked the doors. Marcus stumbled from the transport, leaning against its body as he gasped heavily at the fresh air. The rush of oxygen was euphoric, almost.

  Avant made his way around the vehicle to Ma
rcus. “I have found, at least for me, that a sudden rush of oxygen aids in the reconstruction of neuro-synapses… or in your case, creation, since these synapses don’t exist here. Yet,” he said with confidence.

  Gravely, he added, “And right now it is of utmost importance that we do everything we can for you to remember... to know.”

  Avant was right. Marcus’s mind began to reel, compounding specters of experience and sensation at an exponential rate. Memories flooded his mind at random, presenting themselves vividly then retreating from his cognitive grasp like oil in water. Quickly, his mental capacity reached equilibrium and his expression turned from one of intrigue to one of boredom.

  “Hello, Avant,” Marcus said flatly.

  “Does the name Cafe Diem mean anything to you?” Avant asked greedily, as if Marcus had been wasting his time.

  Marcus responded dryly, “That’s clever. Like 'seize the day.'”

  Avant wasn’t fazed by Marcus’s jest. He nimbly retorted, “Beyond that, Marcus. Think hard. Close your eyes.”

  Standing on the sidewalk between the taxi transport and the barren, dead lot, Marcus closed his eyes tight, sealing his mind in darkness. He focused his thoughts, and as he did the near silence of the empty street was gradually replaced with the sound of conversation. He could hear orders being placed for coffee, discussions on the weather, and talks about cannabis cigarettes. Then the sweet smell of tobacco and cannabis permeated Marcus’s senses. The clanging of the chain-link fence flexing in the wind was replaced by the clicking and clacking of dozens of pairs of hard-soled shoes and the occasional screech of wooden chair legs against linoleum. Soon he was entirely inundated by the sounds and smells. Marcus opened his eyes.

  Before him, the flaccid chain-link fence warped and blended until its cross-hatched links had pressed themselves into plate-glass doors. The doors positioned themselves vertically and parallel to one another as the blackened topsoil swirled upward from the lot. The plant-like cables sprouted steely fingers that rode upon the swirls of black dirt as they joined in a towering vortex. The particulate storm lunged for the doors and held them in its grasp. Timber planks appeared from nowhere and arranged themselves into a cubic frame. Veins of gray soot climbed along the beams and morphed and spread into sheets of white plaster. The canvassing cables disappeared amongst the coagulating walls as the tendrils of debris solidified, taking on the attributes of a building’s facade. Marcus watched as chairs and tables unfolded from thin air and the words Cafe Diem wrote themselves in red neon above the glass doors.