by James Robinson
~ 2700 words
TIMESCALE: PRETTY FAR OUT
Behold the Pocket Infinium in all of its nested glory. Or, rather, behold the interior of the Pocket Infinium, where the real action happens.
It should probably be mentioned that it’s not exactly an interior we’re beholding, at least not in the literal sense. It is more the idea of an interior—the contours of a collective dream.
Now, within the vaguely ideated interior of the Pocket Infinium, behold the Seam. It is a region of particular importance. Indeed, it is best considered as a meta-layer, a path through which one can find all other places. Through the Seam, you may find your way to any pocket—including the ineffable center. It also the mechanism through which you can warp the timescales of life.
Head out along the Seam, and your time will speed up. Head inward along the Seam, in the direction of the Central Pocket, and your time will slow. Why the relativity, you wonder? It is certainly for reasons—most likely good ones. If this answer does not satisfy you, you may head in and ask CP directly.
The Seam is functionally a planar construct, off of which countless pockets branch—an expansive, enclosed, flattish land with a plethora of nooks and crannies. Its flatness is woven from a tangle of linear paths, not all of which connect to each other. Above the ceiling there exists only hells. Below the floor there is nothing.
The Seam can perhaps best be visualized as an intricately textured circle extending without bound. Or, perhaps, an intricately textured square that extends without bound. Or, if it pleases you, a decagon.
It does indeed have a verifiable center, where the Central Pocket resides, though there is no true border to its edges. How can something have a center if it doesn’t have proper limits, you wonder? Best not to worry about it here.
The clockwise direction around the Seam—if this were a clock, which it is not—is colloquially known as round. The opposite direction is known as antiround. This means one can travel inward-round, outward-antiround, or whatever combination tickles your fancy.
Does it go on forever? Well. Not exactly forever, though you’d be forgiven for thinking it did. In realer terms, there is simply as much of it as anyone is willing to see.
This expansiveness, along with the Seam’s sometimes confusing directionality, is why demigods all have compasses. Non-demigods, alas, have to do their own homework.
While the Seam is by no means safe, it is generally more egalitarian than many pockets. Neither raw deific power nor complex weapons transfer well, though good old fashioned trickery is still effective. Bludgeoning works just fine.
This is good news if you are one of the Infinium’s lesser creatures. Bad news if you enjoy imposing your mighty will. The Seam is meant for travel, not habitation, though some still attempt to make it their home. Sometimes, it is far too easy to slip into a pocket that you really wish you hadn’t.
Our story begins in this very same Seam, with two particular persons making their way through it. While neither person was important, both would be quite consequential. At least, that is, where a few particular demigods were concerned. As the pair of them moseyed along the path to all things, their pace remained cautious but crisp. The larger of these persons was a humanoid woman—notable only for the black-and-white patterns composing her skin. The monochrome hues made her look like something between a zebra and a checkerboard, if you mixed such things with the static from an old-time TV. The patterns swirled when you looked at them, and also when you didn’t. This included her eyes, which were mesmeric and abstract. The sweep of her cloak replicated each pattern in turn.
The other person traveling with her was a bright red crab, perched semi-precariously on top of her shoulder. He did not wear any clothes, but he did wear a satchel. Its faded brown material had clearly seen better days.
He was a fidgety fellow, as far as crabs go. His eyes darted back and forth on their stalks. His claws clacked a staccato rhythm. He continued reshuffling his legs on his perch, while also letting out a steady stream of mutterings. This combination prompted a feeling of mild annoyance in the woman, who considered silence to be the best sound of all.
The woman and the crab journeyed through a section of the Seam that looked quite a lot like an art gallery. It had loud wooden floors and walls of soft beige. The walls themselves stretched up high until they warped overhead into a comparably beige ceiling. Now and then, hanging down in irregular intervals, golden chandeliers would provide tasteful beams of light.
The traveling pair hugged the right side of the Seam—right, that is, in relation to the direction they were traveling, which the woman desperately hoped was inward. The other side, the ‘left’ side, was some distance away. While this particular path was narrow enough that they could see across its full width, it would still be a chore to cross.
This particular layer’s most eye-catching feature was the paintings, of course. They really dominated the space, often stretching high enough to curve with the ceiling above. All the enormous frames were hung crooked to perfection, their surfaces coated with the cracking-est of varnish.
The paintings themselves were fine, the woman supposed, though they didn’t make much sense. Her gaze passed over pastel landscapes of vibrant purple and nauseous green, mechanical totems and mysterious obelisks, puzzlebox mountains alongside caves glittering with glowsticks. These fuzzy settings were all populated by thin crowds of monochrome characters, all in various states of revelry or undress.
The woman eyed the figures with distaste. Any respectable entity of such black-and-white contrasts should elicit a sense of cryptic dread. And yet, the figures in question clearly did not represent her nor her brethren. She did not like feeling counterfeited.
The pair traveled in a straightish line as they moseyed down the semi-crooked hall. Neither were demigods, and therefore neither had compasses. Fortunately, the crab-person—known as CeCe to himself—knew a thing or two about knowing his way around.
“Yep,” said CeCe. “Right enough, all right. I can tell for certain we might be close.”
“Is that so?” This was uttered by the dangerous-looking woman with the cloak and contrasting hues, whose name—at least according to her—was Zo. She frowned as she surveyed their vicinity. While frowning was often her natural state, this current frown went even deeper. She was not one for feeling fear, but she could still feel uncertainty, and the paintings were starting to make her feel just that. These crooked frames contained images as idyllic as they were off-putting. Plus far too many grayscale eyeballs, frozen in dubious states of sanity.
“I’m guessing these are the entrances?” Zo said, gesturing. “These are how we get inside?”
“Entrances?” repeated CeCe. “Oh, you mean the big framed bits. No, no, someone must have been trying to class this section up. The actual pockets will be more subtle. Misplaced reflections. Cracks in the floor. Anything with a lid on it. Speaking of which, steer clear of any vending machines.”
“You mean unless it’s the entrance …”
“Huh? No, trust me, I know this entrance. It’s not a vending machine, I can tell you that much.”
“What is it then?”
“I’ll know it when I see it.”
Zo’s frown deepened, but she said nothing. Even here, at the functional beginning of their journey, she had already gone several thresholds past her comfort zone. For better or worse, CeCe was her guide. If he could not find them a path, then she herself had no chance.
Wooden slats of indeterminable length creaked. Zo knew this wasn’t her doing, as her steps were genuinely silent. Perhaps this floor had been instructed to creak. Objects would do as they were instructed, after all, unless instructed otherwise. Persons too, more often than not. Unless you really drove one crazy.
Zo spotted the column long before they came to it, but she still found the dimensions of it strange—like a stalagmite made of plaster. The higher it went the skinnier it got, stopping right before it reached the ceiling. Sprouting from the ‘column’ near eye level was an outcrop of slick obsidian molded into the shape of a street sign. Its smooth surface flashed with a neon-orange image shaped like a humanoid hand.
“Well would you look at that,” said CeCe. “It’s a timeslow. Your first one, I reckon?”
“Yes,” said Zo. As they walked past the column, she felt the change. It was almost imperceptible, and yet she sensed something fundamental had shifted. “Is it going to tell us how much it’s slowing?”
“Erm, not really,” said CeCe. “The mystery’s part of the charm, or something. But whatever the magnitude, these will help us overall. The more timeslows they pass before we do, the slower they’ll go relative to us. It’s the only reason we have an actual chance of catching up.”
“And this is the right direction?”
“Of course!” said CeCe, clacking his claws. “I’ve been all across the Seam. Things change, but rarely so much you can’t find them.”
“Mm,” said Zo, continuing to survey their surroundings with suspicion. She hated how the wooden echoes seemed to oscillate. “I’m surprised it’s so empty.”
“It’s not,” said CeCe. “That’s just part of the shimmer.”
Zo turned her head towards CeCe’s perch, shooting him an unquestionably questioning look.
Finally, he noticed. “Oh, right, and by that I mean—hm.” His claws clicked. “So, um, you see how the light settles weird?”
She did see. Normally, she also had the ability to sense such gradients as well, but her powers had gone wonky upon entering the Seam.
“If we took a hard left and made for the other side,” continued CeCe, “then we’d see folks materialize as we went.”
“Why?”
“Oh, you know how the gods do things. This way we have plenty of open room to walk and explore, but also plenty of chances for things to sneak up on us.”
Zo stared directly at him, which required craning her neck. “But why?”
CeCe sighed. “Studies show.”
It was then that Zo saw a bright flash of red in the corner of her vision. In an instant, her blades were in her hands—twin absences that split the air. One blade was the color of the darkest black, the other the blankest white.
“Oh my,” said CeCe. “No need for that. It’s just a frazzle.”
“A what?” said Zo, staring at the misshapen blob as it lurched its way past her. It appeared to be made from a multitude of strawberries that were mushed and fused together, melding into juicy unity before fracturing into seed-flecked fractals, creating what looked like a cross between an octopus and a coagulated smoothy. It was not large, but neither was it small. As it moved, various clusters of berries rotted and renewed. New viny pseudopods sprouted with each forward roll.
“Just a frazzle,” repeated CeCe. “Harmless, I promise.”
She stayed in her defensive stance, maintaining a tense grip on her blades.
CeCe chuckled in her ear while the frazzle slurped by them. “See, if a pocket doesn’t have enough structure or action, it can deteriorate into sedentary soupiness. Let that soup sit for too long, and frazzles might form. Objects and rules fuse and replicate until something new gets made. Not quite persons intelligence-wise, but they’re savants at slipping through places. They love drifting in and out of the Seam. Kind of like tumbleweeds, except with insatiable appetites.”
She shot him a glance. “Harmless, hm?”
“This one is! As far as fruit go, strawberries are quite mellow.” CeCe paused to scratch at his carapace. “So long as you stay out of their way.”
Zo exhaled, watching the strawberry frazzle roll and squelch its way past, leaving behind a faint trail of red ooze in the woodgrain grooves of the floor.
Her blades melted back into the patterns of her body. “Lovely.”
“Say,” said CeCe. “Are you going to do that with every acquaintance we come across? If so, this trek might take a while.”
Zo stared at the ground. “Back in my own pocket, one was either an ally or a foe. Such is the way of my people.”
“What did you call yourselves again? The Nothingers? The Nullaroos?”
“The Nihil.”
“Right, right, love it. Well, folks out here will probably fight you if you try them, but most just want to be on their way. “
Zo’s jaw clenched as her patterns swirled menacingly. “Better to harm a potential friend than to spare a potential enemy.”
“Huh,” said CeCe. “Is it?”
Zo shrugged, then resumed her gliding trudge.
For a time after that, she found their pace refreshingly quiet. No more mutterings from CeCe, no more wayward frazzles. Their path still looked like a misproportioned art gallery, but the air felt like it had taken on a new weight. It felt stuffy. Claustrophobic, despite the hall’s expansiveness. The floor also seemed more worn, and the paintings more weathered. The ambiance had turned from beige to gray. Zo, personally, did not mind.
They were passing by a particularly garish painting—shadowy figures dancing through fog while a multitude of lasers flashed overhead—when CeCe hissed, “Landmark!”
Zo’s blades sprouted once more. “Is it dangerous?”
“No, it’s … I was just saying I know where we are.”
“Oh.” She restored her blades. “Then why did you say it like that?”
“I suppose I was just excited about remembering.”
Zo exhaled. “So this is it?” she asked, gesturing to the revelers.
“Not the painting itself. But it means we’re close.”
Zo felt a slight tickle as CeCe scurried down her cloak. Muttering up a storm, he began darting side to side across the wooden floor.
Until, eventually, the muttering stopped. The only sound remaining was the pitter patter of chitinous legs. Then …
“Haha!” exclaimed CeCe. He began hopping back and forth. “That’s right! I did it! I’m still the same old scoundrel!”
“You found it?” asked Zo.
“I sure did! Right, um. So there’s a bit of a defense on this. A little trick. You can’t get in if you’re too needy.”
She eyed him. “What?”
“You just can’t be too desperate to get in, otherwise it won’t let you.”
Zo thought on this. “I understand, but—you said this pocket is where we’ll find the informant.”
“Almost certainly, yes.”
Zo stared at him. “So I do need to get in.”
“Sure, but just think about how you’ll be totally at peace with either outcome.”
“There will be no peace. Not today. Not ever. Not until I am victorious or dead.”
“Okay, sure, but think about it. In the big grand scheme of things, you’d probably still be fine.”
“I would not be fine. This path of vengeance I walk, along with the faintest hope that I succeed in my rescue, are my sole reasons for living.”
“Right, well, maybe just desire vengeance a little bit less?”
She glared at CeCe, eyes swirling.
“Okay, um. How about you try meditating or something?”
“What is … meditating?”
“You know, just take some breaths, try to clear your mind.”
“Oh.” Zo paused. “You wish for me to … contemplate the voidblank.”
CeCe nervously clacked his claws. “Sure, sure, that sounds close. Think you can manage some contemplation right now?”
“Indeed,” said Zo.
“Great so …” he trailed off as he watched her eyes begin flickering between pure black and pure white. “Wow, you really had that locked and loaded. Okay, follow me now …” He tugged at the corner of her cloak. “There’s one particular knot of wood we need to hit, so just step right on top of me, obviously not until after I’m gone of course … hehe, alright, easy does it …”
Zo, her eyes still wide and flickering, looked towards the spot CeCe approached. “Why does that wood-node look like a crab?” she asked.
“Oh, it’s nothing to do with me,” said CeCe. “That’s just the Death Shack’s logo.”
“Ah,” said Zo.
They slipped through the knot.