Marked: 15

Chapter Fifteen

I've never personally been to the junkyard before. From what I've overhead through students gossipping at other desks during Mr. Gladly's class, it's a cheap place to find parts for virtually anything mechanical if one has the time and interest. And doesn't mind wandering through a creepy maze of junk cars, piled electronics, ancient appliances, and vintage household furniture.

The walk is surprisingly pleasant; in broad daylight I find myself feeling less exposed and vulnerable than I normally would. Sticking to main streets helps; a few looks down side streets in the area make me glad of the choice. The district has a lot of vancancies in the businesses, although the ones on Longview Boulevard-- the particular main street I'm following North to get to the junkyard-- seem to be hanging on well enough. I get a couple odd looks and one or two that are flat out hostile. I check to make sure my wig is still on, but no, I guess I just piss them off for some reason. High school was demonstration enough that some people don't need a reason or even an excuse to hate someone, just opportunity and line of sight. I just hurry on towards my destination while avoiding eye contact.

A few more streets and I finally come up to Industrial Road. By this point in the city, I'd wager only a fifty percent chance of any given business being open, here, and indigents are everywhere. I take pains to not make it obvious as I check to make sure my haversack is secure beneath my hoodie; it's right where it belongs. Less then two blocks and I'm standing in front of the Industrial Center Junkyard.

It doesn't look particularly central to anywhere, unless it counts to say it's as close to the middle of nowhere as something can be, while still technically being inside city limits. It definitely has the industrial part covered, though. Cars, trucks, buses, and even a mostly rusted out backhoe are prominently visible from the chainlink fence topped with barbwire that surrounds the huge lot. Junk is piled up in places, with dryers, old fridges, metal business desks, file cabinets, and random threadbare or stripped down furniture stacked sloppily where someone bothered to attempt to stack them anywhere at all.

Presiding over this kingdom of detritus is a boyish looking man in a a smudged and oil spotted blue and grey jumpsuit. He's not very tall, and has rakish, dirty blonde hair. The deep lines on his face make him look prematurely wrinkled rather than old. As I walk up to the building serving as the only entrance not involving sharp metal and possibly security guards, he's in the process of walking out of a unisex bathroom, still drying his hands with a paper towel. I feel a moment of sincere gratitude that he at least washed his hands. At least, I hope he did, rather than just rinsing them.

And now I just grossed myself out. Give him the benefit of the doubt-- but don't shake his hand. "Hi! I've never done this before, what do I... do?"

"Depends. What're you lookin' for?" he returns in a youthful voice, one in keeping with his features.

"Right now, I'm just looking around. I overheard from classmates that you can get cheap repair parts here, so I just wanted a look."

He shrugs. "Five dollar entry fee, and what you pick out is thirty cents a pound. Up to you to move anything you decide you want, though."

Five dollars to test out my power? I... GUESS it's worth it. Not too crazy about spending a third of what money I have left, though. "Alright. But I'm just looking right now. Can I like, pay the fee next time if I find something I want today?"

"Five dollars fee a visit," he insists flatly. "This isn't the Boardwalk and I got my own bills to pay. Nothin' against you, kid, but if I bend the rules for one person, next thing you know everyone's trying to play me to get out of it. And my momma didn't raise a sucker."

Reluctantly, I pull out five bucks. "Where do I pay at? And do I get a receipt?"

"In here." He resumes his walk to the door marked 'Employee Only' and I note with humor that the plural is missing. I find it even funnier to realize that the mechanical cash register he uses to ring me up is probably older than my grandparents. He tears off the receipt, passes it to me through the door. "Here you go. Thanks and I hope you find what you're looking for. And not just cause it means I get paid again."

He gestures towards the back door past his little office, and I oblige by going through it.

The junkyard feels like its own separate world from the inside. Within two turns I can't see any street. Within a few more, I'm only semi sure of which way I came in. I make a concerted effort to try and get to a part with only metal and dirt to worry about in case there's fire or something.

So when I focus on that new power, it's almost anticlimactic when I see a shimmering, flat plane appear in mid air, about twice as tall as it is wide. It's eight or nine feet tall, and attempting to poke it with a stick encounters no resistance.

Maybe it's a variable force field? Maybe I can tell it to become solid and not let something pass through it? I try to focus on it, tell it to not let the stick pass through it. Again, poking it with the stick meets no resistance. Throwing the stick just ends up with the stick bouncing off a washing machine behind it.

Can I make it disappear? Thinking about it disappearing makes it seemingly vanish, and trying to make it come back brings it back. But I can't move it, and I can feel it still there. I also feel I can shut the whole thing down immediately if I want. But what IS it?

Okay. So far, none of my powers have been destructive. Let's operate under the assumption that this isn't going to hurt me. Maybe it has a different effect on living things than it does on inanimate objects. My energy restoring ability does, after all. And the clothes ability, what Naxylotriam called the Clothier's Closet-- I love the alliteration of it-- needs to affect something that serves as a door or curtain or something that opens. Maybe this is similarly limited.

Still, I hem and haw about what to do, before I decide to test it with a finger, just in case I'm wrong about the 'not harmful' part. Namely, my left ring finger. It's not like it's ever going to have a ring on it anyway. Awkwardly, I fold my other fingers beneath my left thumb, and the tendon on the knuckle protests a bit, but I slowly touch the vertical plane of shimmering.

... No pain. Nothing unpleasant. I feel nothing different, actually. Cautiously, I push my hand through it. Don't feel a thing. Maybe it's a portal of some kind? No, I threw the stick completely through it. Except I was thinking it was a barrier that could be toggled on or off, and demanded nothing go through it. Maybe that was a mistake?

Okay. Things can go through this portal now, if it IS a portal of some kind. I decree it. And making any kind of decree, even a purely mental one, makes me feel absolutely foolish, but I'm gonna do it anyway. So decreed!

Still, I'm not completely reckless. I stand back, and throw the stick through the vertical plane.

I don't hear a sound.

Walking around it, I don't see the stick. Okay, maybe there's something to this idea. Wait! Is this like the haversack? Is this a place for me to store things? Oh, that would be so useful! Excitedly, I stand to the side of it, and reach through the plane-- and my hand doesn't come out the other side.

And... it's warmer inside the whatever it is than it is out here. I try mentally calling for the stick to my hand, but unlike the haversack, nothing jumps to my grasp. Hm. Okay. So not quite like the haversack, then. I look around. Still nobody around. Alright then. Time for a leap of faith. I take a deep breath, and step into the shimmer.

I don't really know what I'd been expecting to find. A non dimensional place where lost socks and missing earrings go, perhaps. Or maybe the place where cats go when you're not looking at them. Instead, I find myself in a huge front hall, with rich, red carpeted floors, a grand staircase going to an indoor balcony. And a stick on the floor. Candelabras adorn the posts at both the top and bottom of the stairs, the walls on both ground and upper floor, a grand chandelier hangs over the foyer, and central to the view before me, on the upper balcony wall past the staircase, a large stained glass window depicting a castle on a hilltop.

From this side of the doorway, I can see into the junkyard just fine. Nobody out there. I'm probably okay for a while; security is likely to be patrolling the perimeter, not the inside. Still, I concentrate on making the doorway invisible again and not letting anybody come in. If I make my guess right, nobody will know it's here, even if they're standing right on it.

And the thing is, I know this room. This is almost directly from Gone With the Wind. It's exactly the way I remember it. What's not the way I remember it is the ghostly looking people in modern tuxedos standing about watching me. Which begs the question: what is this?

And, as I sniff the air, what is [I]that[/I]?

The ghostly staff people remain motionless, watching me, as I follow my nose towards the delicious smells. The aromas are coming from the direction of a door to the right of the staircase, and I turn the handle of the elegant looking door. Despite its old appearance, it barely makes a sound as it opens, and behind it, is a room that definitely doesn't come from Gone With the Wind: a large banquet hall. Table settings adorn each of the seats at the central table, the center of which is decorated with sprays of flowers and faux candles. The walls are plain white with fairly modern lamps rather than the Civil War stylings of the entryway, and I recognize this, too. This was a place where Dad took Mom and I when I was seven or eight, a dinner for something to do with the Dockworkers Union.

Following the smells to a side door, I open it-- and I see a kitchen from a TV cooking show, with food of all kinds in large serving platters. Tureens of soups, plates of sliced fruits and vegetables, wicker bowls filled with bread sticks, rolls, muffins, and loaves. One large platter has artfully arrayed several large fillets of salmon, some kind of whitefish, and a dark meat fish I don't recognize, with fresh sprigs of dill, circular slices of lemons, limes, and oranges, and a drizzle of a pale herb sauce in a perfect cross hatch pattern.

The variety of foodstuff is stunning. There must be enough food here for more than a hundred people. Maybe two hundred.

"This is... crazy," I mutter to myself. Heedless of the serving utensils, I pick up a slice of apple from a fruit tray, and a slice of an indeterminate variety of cheese from the same. The apple slice is crisp and sweet and delicious in the exact way that so called red delicious apples definitely are not. The cheese is flavorful and sharp, and like no cheese I've ever eaten before. I take a bread stick, biting into it. Garlic and herbs have been baked into it, and it's still warm.

"I could charge a fortune to run dinners out of this," I observe into the quiet. A pitcher of something pale and milky turns out to be kefir, tart and textured and flavored with some kind of berry that's not blackberry, raspberry, or blueberry. I confess that I go a little overboard tasting everything. A nibble here, a spoonful there, and before I've tried even half of the things I'm already quite full. A couple of the various pitchers are definitely filled with alcoholic beverages. I don't do more than sip those; I still need to walk back to the church after all, and I don't want to show up there smelling like booze.

The church! Oh, wow, what time even is it? I check my phone and am only mildly surprised to see the "No Signal" message at the top. The clock says eleven; I've been in here at least a half hour. And as much as I want to explore the place more I probably better check to make sure the junkyard is still empty and the junkyard guy hasn't started looking for me.

The junkyard guy is out there with a pair of skinheads. He gestures up high, and I have to crutch down to see where he's pointing past the frame of the door. I wish I'd checked before, because he's pointing at a light pole in the yard, and between the lights I can see a security camera. Oh this is [i]not[/i] good. He didn't look like an Empire sympathizer- and Empire territory is supposed to be way on the south end of the city! I'd have expected to run into ABB before Empire here. And the onlky thing I can think of that would be of interest to the Empire here, with junkyard guy standing around where my doorway is, would be me, as crazy as that sounds. I can't even imagine what they want with me. I've never done anything to the Empire... except... oh crap. DAD is with them.

That's why the Empire is here. Dad's trying to find me. What do I do?

Don't panic. My powers last for hours, and as nerve wracking as this is, if I hide in here they're going to think I'm gone eventually. And this is my own fault, I should have at least looked for cameras. Stupid, stupid! This is bad.

Then things get worse; a man in medieval armor comes around a pile of junk. A really long spear is slung access his back. And since I'm pretty sure there's no reason for a Renaissance cosplayer to show up at a junkyard, I'm guessing he's probably a cape. An Empire cape.

I know a little about the local cape scene-- mostly Protectorate-- and I know about a few of the big name villains, like Lung, Kaiser, and Faultline. I don't think this is Kaiser, although I know he wears armor. I seem to remember him having something to do with swords, not spears. The cape says something to junkyard guy, who replies back. I really wish I could read lips right now.

As far as I can tell, I have two choices: I can give myself up to them, or I can hide out in here and hope they go away. They clearly don't know where the doorway is, and by the looks of things, don't even know I'm still here. For whatever value of here this is.

The minions and the clothes each lasted six or so hours last time I ran them to the end of their duration, but each of them seemed to be lasting longer each time I used them. So I can hope that this lasts at least six hours also. Is that long enough for them to leave so I can slip out of here? I have no idea. I hope so.

At least I've got plenty to eat.

---

Within an hour, I've done enough experimentation to determine that there are thirty of the ghostly tuxedo guys, and they seem to be, except for visibility, functionally identical to my minions. It also seems that I can change the interior of this place to my preferences. I settled on something less ostentatious than the manor from Gone WIth the Wind; the interior walls are hardwood, with large vaulted ceiling beams, and a simple, one story layout that covers, frankly, an almost obscene amount of space. It finally stops letting me add rooms to it by the time I add the thirtieth hotel room, in addition to this foyer, the kitchens, and the original banquet hall it had. Increasing room sizes reduces the number of rooms I can add. The next time I do this, I'm bringing a tape measure so I can see if the total square footage is consistent.

Also within an hour, the Empire guys are gone. Still, with that security camera, the moment I step out of here, he's gonna know, and he'll be able to stop me from getting away. I'll have to wait til after hours, then try to get away over the fence. With all that in mind, I decide to take a nap in one of those hotel class rooms.

I walk down the hall, handing off my phone to one of the ghost butlers, and, on a whim, cannibalize four other hotel rooms to expand my chosen room into a luxury style suite, with a full bathroom, kitchenette, jacuzzi, and an enormous, king sized canopy bed. The bathtub is almost jacuzzi sized itself, and within minutes I'm soaking in the most ridiculous bubble bath of my life. Part of me feels a bit of guilt over the indulgence, but I ask myself, when am I ever going to get a chance to do something like this again?

[I] Every day of the rest of my life,[/I] a thought replies unwantedly. And isn't that a worrying thought? And that thought haunts me enough that even in that big, comfortable bed later I have trouble falling asleep.