Rachel Cantor - A Highly Unlikely Scenario, or a Neetsa Pizza Employee's Guide to Saving the World

You haven’t lost your Special Gift! You have a destiny, Isaac said so! You only have to choose it!

Maybe this is my destiny, to find Roger Bacon! He could teach me — I’d belong here, then.

Leonard didn’t want to remind her that the pilgrim’s journey was a treacherous one, and there was no guarantee she’d find her idol, much less convince him to teach her. Instead, he took her hands and said, It isn’t your destiny, my treasure, it isn’t. Isaac said nothing about your staying always in the past.

Who is this Isaac? Sally said. Does he care one whit about me? One day I’m reading the Voynich, the fate of the Latter-Day Baconians in my hands, the next day I’m humiliated, my powers gone, forced to run away. A fugitive, all because of this Isaac! Now I’m in Rome, chasing a man who’s probably a murderer, hungry, tired, alone, with no clean undergarments …

Not alone, Leonard said, wrapping her again in his arms, but he wasn’t sure she heard.

So many things

Look, he said, retrieving the shimmering letter from his underarm pocket, wanting to show her a wonder, so she might be heartened. I got this from Abulafia.

The letter seemed to float in Leonard’s hand. It was black in color, but contained all colors, just as its hum contained all music.

Sally didn’t even look.

Let’s get a move on, she said, and walked ahead.

Sally not come home? Leonard’s health meter was buzzing. He closed his eyes, practiced a five-second Pythagorean meditation to calm his heart. Then he found himself drawing all his attention together and forming it into a sphere, and then into a perfect ray, and focusing it on the letter — instantly, the world around him blurred and drifted, and in the letter he saw so many things. So many it could have been all the things in the world: his mother on the day she died, fish stewing in Froga’s blandreth, pilgrims swarming a shrine, Abulafia juggling letters, a police caravan, a jujuberry bush, Sally forty years from that moment wearing a general’s round orange cap and dandling a baby on her knee, her grandson — Leonard’s grandson? His granddaughter? He blinked and saw the world as it was just then out of the corner of his eye, and the images were gone.

His own voice

The island just ahead was tightly encircled by grain smashers and fisher camps, and inhabited too by regular folk, which mystified Leonard and Sally, who knew that in a well-ordered society, islands belong to the Leader, lest food chains engage in battle for them. Most of the foot traffic, most of the carts, and, importantly, most of the fish were heading left, away from the island, into lanes surrounded by a mass of buildings. Leonard and Sally followed a fish cart pulled by a man who seemed to know where he was going, past some houses, a few gardens, some shops and towers.

Look! Sally said.

Women were walking in their direction toting small baskets of fish. The smell was unmistakable. And there, in an open square, fisherpeople! Selling all manner of fish on marble slabs balanced on the beheaded tops of ancient columns. Women crowded the fisherpeople, who shouted the unique attractions of their shad, while starveling cats braided themselves around the women’s feet, braving pointed boots in hopes of a fish head or tail. But when the fisherpeople cut off a head it went into a basket behind them, which they promptly covered. The cats remained optimistic, however: What choice had they?

Which made Leonard think of Medusa, the neighborly cat: how she would rejoice if she were here! Medusa, who might never really know Sally …

Signs? Sally prompted. Wonders?

Leonard half nodded.

I’m not sure you’re really trying, Sally said.

What do you expect? he half shouted. You’d rather stay in this crazy place than come home with me. You don’t care one jujuberry about me!

Wait! Sally said. What’s that? Listen!

Everyone’s always telling me to listen! Leonard shouted. I’m tired of listening! Why doesn’t anyone ever listen to—

Leonard was no longer shouting because Sally had covered his mouth.

Listen, she said.

Leonard listened. What he heard was his very own voice.

Leonard hears his own voice

This is what he heard:

I WANT TO SPEAK TO ROGER BACON THROUGH THE BRAZEN HEAD PLEASE.

Followed by a loud voice: BRAZEN HEAD? SOUNDS LIKE IDOLATRY! I SHOULD LIKE TO HARM THIS ROGER BACON, FOR EXAMPLE WITH A HEAD CRUSHER!

Sally smacked him hard in the arm.

That’s you talking to the Brazen Head! Wait — you spoke with Roger Bacon?

Shh, he said.

What did he say? Did he talk about the Voynich? What did he say?

Sally!

And there was Leonard’s voice again, broadcast as if through one of the Leader’s mobile shout machines: WHAT IS A CATHAR?

CATHARS? boomed that loud voice. CATHARS BE THE VERY WORST FORM OF HERETIC! FELLOW CITIZENS, COME! JOIN ME! LET US CAPTURE SOME HERETICS! WE CAN INQUISIT THEM, THEN ALIENATE THEIR LIMBS!

Which shout was followed by a murderous ululation — coming from just around the corner!

Run! Sally suggested, so they did.

Stone-bakers

Leonard couldn’t say how they ended up there, in a dark road, where their eyes watered from noxious fumes and dust. Inside gloomy shops, one after the other, tired-looking men surrounded by bits of ancient rock tended gigantic ovens, where, it seemed, they were cooking stone.

Stone-bakers. The world was full of wonders!

They rested against the arcades.

It was the navigator watch, Leonard said, still puffing. Saying back what I’d said to it. The Inquisitor has the watch.

Obviously.

You’re not really mad that I spoke with Roger Bacon. What did you think I did?

Sally shook her head. She seemed close to tears.

Maybe I’m mad that it never occurred to me, okay? I should have thought of that!

Leonard shrugged and realized that if Isaac’s plan was to be complete, the Brazen Head would have to shut down, or at least shut down its connection to Bacon, lest someone, maybe even Sally here, call him and reverse Leonard’s good work. This saddened him.

You didn’t think of it because it was too obvious. Your mind is more subtle than that.

Sally considered this.

Yes, she said, maybe. So what next?

Leonard had no idea. If the navigator watch was talking to the man with the loud boots, it wouldn’t just be Leonard’s voice and interests it would share — Leonard had been cammed, so they’d also have his face, with or without his ebullient hair.

What else had he asked the Brazen Head? Besides library hours and caravan schedules. He’d asked about Sue & Susheela. He’d asked about Milione, and Isaac. If Dwane were at the other end, he’d suspect that Sally was with him, and know that she’d asked about the pope. He also knew about Sally’s Abulafianism.

Wait, he said, how come Dwane isn’t frozen?

He’s not real, Sally said. He’s an early model of the Brazen Head, more successful than Sue & Susheela, but still.

Dwane isn’t real and he wants to lead the Baconians?

He thinks he’s real.

I thought Dwane created Sue & Susheela.

It’s complicated.

Leonard’s health meter started to vibrate. Yes, Dwane knew about Leonard and Sally, but he also knew about Felix! Felix was always asking questions of the Brazen Head. If Dwane knew about Felix, then the man with the loud boots knew about Felix, and everything Felix was interested in: avoidance of compost-heap violence, the Talmud, who knows what else! If Dwane still thought Felix was a neo-Maoist traitor spy, it could be Felix the loud-booted man was after, not them!

The navigator watch is our sign, Leonard said. The watch will lead us to Felix.