Omnimage Read online

  Omnimage

  Infinite Potential

  Simon Archer

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Author’s Note

  1

  “Hey, Jerry!” My boss’s cheery voice poked into my eardrum from the phone I held to my ear. “Jer-Bear! Jera-Mera! Jere-My-Oh-My-a! The Thorne-meister! Thorne-dog! Mr. Thorne-y! ‘Oh, me so Thorne-y!’ Haha, I’m just kidding around. Hey! It’s the Rick-ster! Haha! I was just wondering, you know, if you know when that vertical stabilizer for Burgman is going to--*click*”

  I ended the voicemail playback, making sure to turn it off completely. He’d called me while I was driving home, after the fourth ten-hour day this week that wasn’t stopping tomorrow. We were in the best-case scenario right now, with yet another question that could have been answered by looking at the email I sent him, or the report in his mailbox, or the text I sent him after I filed the report to provide redundancy, or when I fucking told him in person, all redundancy implemented to avoid this exact situation of him calling me when I wasn’t at work. My body couldn’t muster the pep to be thankful that he didn’t call me back into the office today. It wouldn’t have been the first time, and it was bound to happen sometime this week, which wasn’t nearly close to being over. Shit, it killed me that it was only…

  What day was it today? Tuesday? Wednesday? God, they were all blurred together this week. I’d just gotten home from work and slammed my apartment door shut with all the enthusiasm of a slug. I was ready to crash and burn like the Hindenburg. Stick a fork in me because I was done. I was so tired that I could have ridden a hungry horse… wait a minute… that doesn’t make any sense. Jesus, I was so tired, I was mixing up my metaphors.

  The day was pretty typical, like any other day of the week. I worked for an aerospace company that made airplane parts. Specifically, I was in sales and distribution, which meant that I was the messenger people shot when I had to deliver all kinds of bad news every day. This company wants their custom electronics in a week, even though it takes nearly two to make them off the shoddy design sketches and descriptions they gave us to work with. That generous timeframe was only if we didn’t have broken manufacturing machines, ‘sick’ workers every day, overtime workers every week that our company sends home early to shave every penny off the budget, and one thousand other projects to deal with that are also behind since a few months ago. We salary employees were exempt from being released from our workday, so we had the distinguished privilege to stay as long as it took to pretend that we’d made a dent in anything. Hurray.

  Every day, week after week, month after month, more customer emails demanded more expensive airplane parts that they were never happy with, while half of my coworkers didn’t show up to do their jobs, and the other half stuck with them along with their own. Guess who had to negotiate between everyone to make sure it all worked out smoothly, which it never did, and who was blamed when it all burst into flames, which it always did?

  Apparently, impossible tasks and psychotic breakdowns were just company policy.

  If someone had asked me to describe any details about today, I couldn’t have told anyone a single thing. I remembered things happening, but I wouldn’t know if it happened this day, or yesterday, or the week before, or the month before. Everything was becoming one never-ending cesspool of computer screens, unnecessary meetings, angry emails, angrier bosses, and bullshit of the highest order.

  Whatever, I was home, in this broom closet of a master bedroom where my mountain of laundry was waiting for me to move to the chair at the home desk I swear was made for gnomes. I could strip down, get in my pajamas, and just enjoy the rest of my day before I had to leave the house in six hours to go back to work tomorrow. I moved over to my bed, slowly unbuttoning the shirt that I only now realized was off center by two buttons. I’m sure that I looked really professional all day. I blamed the three six-day workweeks of ten-hour days in a row for that oversight.

  And no one told me anything all day. Or was that what Carole meant by that comment about “getting my life straightened out” that she threw at me during lunch? Goddamnit, Carole needed to learn to say what she actually meant, that passive-aggressive bitch. Did she even say that today? Or was today that ‘surprise’ drug test? If she said it on another day than today, that was an even bitchier thing for her to do. I swear, if she talked about her spoiled brat of a kid one more time, I was going to stab her in the neck.

  Yeah, I was tired, irate, and mostly kidding right now. But that wouldn’t always be the case if she kept pressing her luck.

  Eh, whatever, it didn’t matter as of this moment. Here I was, in my bathroom, getting ready to enjoy what little time I had as I glared at myself in the mirror. My curly, unyielding mini mop of hair was not my concern, and neither were these alarmingly saggy bags under my eyes. That couldn’t have been healthy.

  BUT! I didn’t need to look presentable for anyone for the next six hours. I was in my comfiest pajamas with the faded stripes, some T-shirt I was sure I’d worn a few times this week, judging by the food stains. I drifted to the living room, magnetizing myself to the indent on the couch I’d grown to love.

  As I fell down on my bed-away-from-bed, I turned on a random episode of Scrubs, one of the three TV shows I watched nowadays. Were there other TV shows I liked? Probably, but I wouldn’t have known. Nothing I did ever put me in the mood for something else. I’d basically memorized them by now, but it didn’t matter since I wasn’t actually watching it for the sake of watching it anymore. It was background noise for me while I shuffled through three different websites on my laptop and snarfed down some ‘surprise’ pizza snacks.

  They were ‘surprise’ pizza snacks because my microwave heated things about as evenly as a teeter-totter with a bear sitting on one end, so some of them were still frozen solid or like putting a lump of freshly hot coal right on my tongue. I never knew what I was going to get, and it was the most exciting part of my day so far. Either way, a real man powered through it, and I was no exception.

  No regrets.

  Hey, I was in my own house, and I could make it as much of a stye as I wanted, as long as I cleaned up if anyone ever visited. To that point, I couldn’t have expressed how glad I was that no one ever visited my home. Well, no one was ever going to just ‘pop in’ on me or anything. For starters, this wasn’t the seventies or the Stone Age. People texted each other like respectable adults with technology, and that was only to meet up at a bar on the weekends somewhere to forget that the previous week ever even happened.

  As appealing as it sounded to become an alcoholic, my coworkers would not have been so respectable, and they were the closest things I had to friends at the moment. Although, ‘friends’ might not have been as accurate as ‘ear cheese graters,’ which was why none of them knew where I lived. And it was going to stay that way for as long as I had breath in my body. God only knew what “Shut-up” Shawn would have done if he found that out. We were in neighboring cubicles, and I’m certain that, in total hours within five feet proximity, I spent more time with him than with my own mother, and I g
rew up with her. He definitely spat more sounds at my face than my whole family had ever done combined, that was for sure.

  Speaking of, my family was in another state, which I was more than happy with. Not that I didn’t love them, but they were a little much to handle. Minnesota did strange things to people. Their hometown values weren’t… ready… for a city like New York. As much as I tried, I couldn’t push off their offers to visit me for much longer with the reliable “Dad hates parking but refuses to fly in a plane, and it’s a nightmare here!” excuse for much longer. Eventually, Mom was going to wear the man down. It was only a matter of time before he got on a metal bird and defied gravity. Yeah, he was that kind of ‘old-fashioned.” Don’t ask me how that happened.

  But for now, it was just me, myself, and I, with no one else, in my wonderful shrine devoted to my complete lack of movement. Ergo, this sanctified and holy place was, and always would have been as long as I was in it, a judgment-free zone.

  “YOU HAVE BEEN JUDGED WORTHY OF MAGIC!” some home invader’s voice shouted right in my ears, having somehow just possibly read my mind.

  My brain, in response, told every muscle in my body to convulse at once. My laptop jumped away from me like it had just realized it was alive, flying over my coffee table and off the other side. I, on the other hand, slammed my offhand into that coffee table in what must have been the weirdest configuration of bones and ligaments it’d ever contorted itself into.

  As I stretched it back out, wincing a bit, I looked around to find that there was no home invader in my house. I was still all alone. Looking around, I touched a few things and, against my better judgment, turned my phone I’d left on the coffee table back on to check the time twice. Alright, same time both times, and I could read the words consistently. I wasn’t dreaming, but I didn’t know if that thought was comforting or not yet. If this wasn’t a dream, then I was losing my grip on reality.

  “JEREMIAH OF THE HOUSE OF THORNE, WILL YOU ACCEPT THIS GREAT RESPONSIBILITY?” the voice shouted again. Though I couldn’t find a discernable source for it, the accent had me guessing it was going to be at a Renaissance Fair. One that somehow allowed voice modulators. “BE FOREWARNED. THIS BURDEN IS ONE THAT VERY FEW ARE CAPABLE OF FULFILLING!”

  “Look, I have no idea who the hell this is,” I answered the scary, cosplaying ghost in my house, looking around for anything that might have my personal information written on it, “but I am not buying anything or giving you any routing numbers, or card numbers, or anything like that. I’m not interested in the lottery I never entered in or the vacation I never signed up for. I’m not, uh, looking for, um, male enhancement pills? What other scams am I forgetting?”

  “I OFFER NONE OF THESE THINGS TO YOU, JEREMIAH THORNE!” the voice insisted. “ONLY THE OPPORTUNITY TO TAKE YOUR PLACE IN LEGEND AND MYTH! THIS IS A SACRED CHARGE VERY FEW HAVE BEEN CALLED INTO FROM YOUR WORLD! YOU WILL HAVE POWERS LIKE YOU’VE NEVER KNOWN, AND YOU WILL EXECUTE THE DIVINE WILL OF THE AURUM PHOENIX!”

  “Okay, settle down, buddy,” I told the voice in my walls, “My neighbors probably already think I sound crazy enough as it is, talking to the voice in the walls. I don’t need to add ‘joined the new local cult that’s going to be suspected in the bombing of a nearby orphanage’ that I’m sure you want me to sign up for.”

  “THE ORDER OF THE GOLDEN FEATHER IS NO CULT, JEREMIAH!” The voice had become upset by my offensive accusation. “WE ARE THE KEEPERS OF PEACE AND HARMONY IN THE WORLD OF NEO CEISSEIN, SWORN TO PROTECT ALL LIFE THAT EXISTS WITHIN ITS LANDS FROM THOSE THAT SEEK TO SUBJUGATE IT TO DARKNESS AND DEATH!”

  “OOOooooh!” The gears started clicking in my head as I started checking the edges and corners of my house for tampering. “You’re a LARPing group! Look, guys, just put some ads on the web if you’re looking for recruits for your war against… the forces of evil, or whatever. Hell, even Facebook probably could get you some more people. Breaking into people’s houses and planting weird ghost voice bugs is not the way to make people want to join up.”

  “WE ARE NOT THIS ‘LAR-PING’ GROUP THAT YOU SPEAK OF, WHOEVER THEY ARE!” the voice denied my claim. “WE ARE A SANCTIFIED--”

  “Sure, yeah, I bet,” I chuckled as I continued my search, “it’s totally a real thing. I can get behind the commitment, but there are certain lines you just don’t cross, like breaking into my house while I’m out for the day just to scare me into joining your little ‘Theater in the Park But Also Dungeons and Dragons’ group.”

  “WE ARE NOT IN YOUR HOUSE!” The spooky voice kept up its charade like the speaker had a revolver up to his head on the other end of this ghost call. “WE ARE NOT EVEN WITHIN YOUR MORTAL REALM! PLEASE, WE URGE YOU TO CONSIDER HELPING US! OUR CAUSE NEEDS EVERY ABLE BODY TO GIVE US THE GREATEST CHANCE OF SURVIVAL!”

  “Man, whatever this voice modulator toy you’ve got is really something,” I said, ignoring the voice and its craziness. I just needed them to leave me alone, so I could enjoy the next five hours before I had to take a glorified power nap and head back to work. “No matter where I am, I can’t tell where the sound is coming from. How much did you pay for it?”

  “THIS IS NO PARLOR TRICK!” Once again, the voice stuck to its guns. “I SWEAR TO YOU, IN THE NAME OF THE AURUM PHOENIX HIMSELF, I AM NOT YOUR ENEMY, AND ALL WILL BE MADE CLEAR IF ONLY YOU AGREE TO HELP US! I AM EXERTING GREAT PORTIONS OF MY MAGIC TO MAINTAIN THIS CONNECTION WITH YOUR REALM! WE CANNOT AFFORD TO WASTE ANY MORE TIME HERE! ARE YOU WITH US OR NOT?”

  I stopped searching for the voice box device in the wall I was inspecting, sighing as I leaned against it and let my arm drop. Maybe I should have been more upset that someone tried to break into my house. That was a serious violation of my privacy, and now I was going to have to change my locks. But they didn’t take anything if they did break in, just planted this ridiculously sophisticated bug in my house to ‘enhance the experience’ of their little recruitment project. Who would even have the money to make something like this? Was it in my ear? I literally just cleaned those. How were they getting this voice in my head?

  Maybe I should have considered playing around with their little game. I mean, what was the harm? It wasn’t like they could have done anything tonight. Tomorrow’s problem could just have been tomorrow’s problem. I’d still have had my night to myself and gotten my minimum hours of sleep before work, and we could all have reevaluated this whole mess at a time that wasn’t right now.

  Work wasn’t giving me a lot of time right now, but who knows? If they were flexible or willing to have someone come in just once a month-ish, I could have gotten my mandatory social time in so people would stop calling me a ‘loner.’ Just because I enjoyed my time alone more than the average person didn’t mean that I wasn’t willing to spend some time with people who weren’t going to ask me about something inane, like ‘mortgages’ or ‘house equity’ or ‘how do you feel about that weather, Jerry-Berry? Jer-inator? Jer-onimo? Haha, sure is a scorcher today, huh?’

  Oh, God, I needed to get away from that office. Far away. As far as possible. Even if it was just my imagination and a bunch of sweaty guys in foam armor. As long as it felt like it was going to last forever.

  “If I just say ‘yes’ to this shit,” I relented finally, “will you stop bothering me about it, or ‘lose the connection to this realm,’ or whatever it was you said?”

  “I WILL NO LONGER NEED THIS CONNECTION,” the voice answered, “YOU WILL BE HERE IN OUR REALM, AND WE CAN MEET MORE FORMALLY.”

  “Perfect.” I bowed down as low as I could, half out of theatrical flair and half because I had yet to decompress from work yet. Still, that didn’t stop me from breaking out my best Shakespearian accent and silliest English diction. “Good sir Ghost, O He That Haunteth Mine Walls This Night And Disturbeth Mine Rest, I hereby, by dreadful pain of death, accepteth thy daring summons to adventure and intrigue. Thou mayest count upon mine succor in all matters pertaining to thy valiant quest.” I looked up from my bowing stature. “Was that too much? Are you
guys not that kind of LARP group?”

  “IF ALL OF THAT MEANS THAT YOU AGREE TO HELP, THEN IT IS MORE THAN ENOUGH,” my personal poltergeist replied, “IT IS WITH SINCEREST GRATITUDE THAT I THANK YOU FOR INDULGING SUCH A SELFISH REQUEST FROM US. WE CANNOT REPAY THIS KINDNESS WITH ONE THOUSAND YEARS OF SERVICE TO YOU.”

  “Whatever, don’t make it weird,” I pulled myself back up, “I’m sure that your, um, Neo Ceissein, um, place, realm, thingy will be just fine. Now, if we’re done here, I’d like--”

  2

  The apartment had disappeared. In its place, thousands of blinding lights flashed before my eyes, my head was spinning around, along with my body, and I was being flipped around and around in an endless space of chaotic colors and shapes. Like a carnival ride designed by Satan’s personal funhouse, the insane sensations that bombarded me carved deeper into my mind, twisting every part of my body as I traveled through its warping cosmic madness.

  And then it vanished, like nothing had even happened… except for the fact that I was somewhere completely different from my apartment. I couldn’t make out a single detail on anything about the space. All the insane colors from before had been replaced by a void of white nothing. I wasn’t anywhere. There wasn’t even a floor beneath my feet, as far as I could tell. This place was nowhere near my apartment in New York, if anywhere at all.

  Before I had the chance to freak out, I was recemented in my rational senses by the sight of other people in this same place with me. Dozens of people were here with me. Based on the clothes, ethnicities, and general styles of clothes, we had a garden variety of human cultures from all over the world here. It looked like one of those cultural diversity photos that companies like my work would use to pretend that they were just as diverse. There was an elderly Asian lady in a kimono, and an Arabic woman in a hijab, an Indian man in a white robe that must have just been plucked from a wedding, a couple of guys in suits, a naked white guy, a Native American in a T-shirt and jeans, like, holy shit, it was a lot of people. I wouldn’t have been surprised if everyone here could have represented a different national flag.