Christa Faust - Fringe The Zodiac Paradox

“Far out,” Roscoe said. “We need to knock off a piece of that action.”

Chick grabbed the syringe and started to fill it from the vial while the other laughing musicians kept Nina back.

“Chick, don’t...” she began, but it was too late. He squirted the dose directly into his mouth.

Nina threw up her hands, disgusted, as Chick passed the vial to Roscoe.

“Don’t be so uptight, Nina,” Roscoe said, dosing himself. “You need to loosen up. Live a little. Share the wealth.” He went from person to person, dosing the rest of the band like a mama bird feeding her chicks.

“Okay, look,” Nina said. “We’re conducting a scientific experiment here.”

“My kinda science,” Alex said, opening his mouth wide to receive the chemical sacrament.

“Just shut up and listen,” she snapped.

The band members settled down, like unruly kids brought to heel by a feared teacher.

“Since you’ve already helped yourselves,” she continued. “The least you can do is help us in return. Right?”

“Help you how?” Iggy asked.

“The experiment,” she said, “is in telepathy and shared experience. My two colleges are attempting to sync minds using a combination of the hallucinogenic compound you just ingested, and enhanced biofeedback technology.”

“Far out, man,” Dave said. “What do you need from us?”

“Why don’t you guys lie down in the circle here,” she suggested. “And see if any of you are able connect your minds with them. The image that I want you to picture in your minds is a gateway, like a portal in the air. Okay?”

Brilliant, Walter thought from within the depths of his trip.

She’s brilliant, Bell’s mind echoed inside Walter’s head. Brilliant and ruthless.

If the musicians were on the trip with them, linked in and working in synch, would it not naturally strengthen and enhance the gate? It might even allow the gate to stay stable, and open even longer. And while Walter had never even considered involving anyone else in their experiment, due to the risks involved, Nina didn’t bat an eye. She just saw an opportunity to take advantage of an unexpected situation, and took it.

Walter could feel Bell’s mind reaching out to her again, drawn to her like a moth to a flame. A flame like her red hair, falling coquettishly around her face like shimmering waves of liquid autumn.

Walter shook his head, feeling himself drawn to Nina, as well. But they needed her on the outside, now more than ever. They needed to stay focused, and so did she. Especially with this sudden and unexpected influx of unknown individuals.

Belly, he said, or thought, or just imagined that he thought. Focus! He reached out to Bell with his mind, calling him back into the loop of their own intimate connection. Reluctantly, Bell allowed his attention to be turned away from Nina and back to the task at hand.

The band members settled into a rough ring around the biofeedback machine, heads toward the center. At first they were snickering and goofing around, but as the acid started to kick in, they all settled down and grew quiet.

Roscoe’s mind opened itself to Walter first, revealing an intricate, endless Fibonacci spiral, like a transparent nautilus, each tiny chamber haunted by a treasured fragment of music. Then Chick and Alex joined the psychic orchestra, light and dark twins blown like autumn leaves on the wind of Roscoe’s music. Then Dave, a quiet, soulful presence defined by simple pleasures like sunshine and a girl’s laughter and pancakes and memories of a childhood dog. Then Iggy, his strong, comforting thoughts as regular and steady as his drum beats, creating order out of the tripping chaos.

And Walter, feeling like a conductor, poised with baton held high above the orchestra pit.

“Now,” he said. Or maybe he just thought it.

And the gate opened.

* * *

Allan peered down through the skylight of the warehouse at the tremulous shimmer that had boiled to life like steam from a kettle in the middle of the circle of musicians. He had seen that light before, on the same night he had first seen the two hippies from Reiden Lake. The same night the pigs and their dogs had chased him into the water. The same night he had tumbled through the strange gateway and found himself in another world that was so like, and yet so unlike, his own.

He had always wondered what had opened the gate that brought him to this world, but he had never been able to formulate any kind of concrete theory. It had all happened too quickly, and in the middle of such chaos, that he hadn’t been able to objectively observe the phenomenon.

He’d turned the mystery over in his mind during his idle hours, and had even considered the possibility that it might have been his own desperate desire to escape that had somehow opened up a hole between worlds, and granted him his wish.

But here was a much more convincing explanation. He had just seen the entire assemblage take acid and arrange themselves in a circle around this weird machine, to participate in some sort of communal trip. And out of that trip had risen the shimmer.

It must have been the same at Reiden Lake. He was tripping, and those kids must have been tripping, too, linking the three of them into a mutual experience that had opened a hole in the fabric between their worlds, and allowed him to fall through.

Allan’s heart clenched like a fist in his chest as it all became clear. Those two seemingly harmless, bumbling idiots had come to San Francisco not just to stop him, but to send him back to the world of his birth.

He stood and stepped back from the skylight. This could not happen. He could not allow it to happen.

As he drew his gun and turned back to the edge of the roof, he paused. There was smoke in the air. And the sound of screaming.

22

The trip was breaking up, fading fast. Above them, the shimmering gate was dissipating as well, its long, reaching tendrils breaking into watery fragments that spun away into misty nothingness.

Roscoe sat up beside Walter on the Persian carpet and looked up at the skylight.

“Oh... wow, man,” he said. “That thing, it was... wow... I think I got enough material out of that trip for an entire concept album. We need to jam. Right now, while the juices are still flowing!”

Roscoe leapt to his feet and staggered over to the piano. Walter blinked and looked up—he had been completely focused on Bell, trying to hold open the connection for as long as possible.

In the background, he registered sounds from outside, but they were too far away for him to identify their nature.

“B-flat,” Roscoe said, fingers playing over the keys with a funky little riff.

Walter ignored the ecstatic singer and looked over at Nina, who still stood by with her handgun and stopwatch, just outside of the circle.

“How long?” he asked. “How long was it open.”

She checked the watch.

“Thirty-seven seconds,” she said. “Maybe thirty-eight.”

Iggy the drummer sat up, scratching his beard and wearing a dreamy expression. Beside him Chick Spivy was suddenly reanimated by the sound of Roscoe’s playing, and responded by rolling over and unlatching his guitar case.

“That’s it, man,” he said, unwrapping a length of cord and plugging into the wall of amps. He prodded the prone base player with the toe of a battered Frye boot. “Come on, Davey! Get in on this.”

A blast of wailing sound hit Walter like a tidal wave as Chick strummed out a set of heavy power chords.

“Alone I was only able to open the gate for a few seconds,” Walter hollered, gesturing wildly at Bell and shouting at the top of his lungs to be heard over the music. “And together, you and I kept it open for what, ten seconds? Fifteen?”