TWO MONTHS LATER
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“This cave dwelling will protect us from the phantoms for some time,” Venkar intoned.
A lone candle separated the two of them, illuminating the dark interior of the cave. A slow dripping echoed from the far recesses, but all was so silent that Nickel felt he could hear the very flickering of the thin candle. Or perhaps it was just his mind supplanting noise onto the silence.
Nickel scoffed in exasperation. “I’m too distracted!” he complained.
“You attach yourself to your thoughts,” Venkar said.
“What do you mean?” Nickel shouted in frustration. “I want to focus, but I—”
“That’s where you must stop,” Venkar interrupted.
“Stop focusing?”
“Stop wanting to focus,” Venkar said. “Just let it be.”
Nickel opened his eyes and sighed. “When I was in my hovercraft, I felt my focus was being pulled every which way by all the screens I was surrounded with.”
“Then how will you be ready for Hedonim?” Venkar asked.
Nickel started to respond but closed his mouth, sighing. He wanted to ask, How will I be?
“Your spiritual training begins with your attention. The Thraíha have given you a strong foundation in will. Now you must recognize that it is not the screens identifying with your mind, but your mind identifying with them.”
“But the Ether is designed to—”
“Of course it is,” Venkar said. “But all phenomena begin as subtle vibrations that manifest as gross thoughts of the mind. Let go of the desire. Become the background space against which all things flow, mere waves in the ocean of consciousness.”
“Focus on the breath and let all pass as ephemeral,” Venkar continued. “Go outside.”
“What?”
“Go outside the cave,” he said. “Go to the other end.”
“Why?”
“Practice,” Venkar said.
“Venkar,” Nickel said, “I can only spend so much time practicing. We have to get to Hedonim!”
“If only we observe the present, appreciate all that is there, we see we have all the tools within us. I may tell you of them, but you must recognize them in yourself.”
Nickel stared at him.
“Go,” Venkar said.
Nickel suppressed a sigh. “Okay,” he said, standing up and walking past Venkar.
He made his way through the narrow passages of jagged rock, struggling to fit between them. The deeper he went, cramping his shoulders and bowing his head to pass, the brighter the cavern became. Inlets of blue light flickered through the cavern walls, illuminating droplets of water beading and falling from the ceiling.
A strange clacking noise echoed, growing louder, merging with a distant roaring sound—like a waterfall, but something else entirely.
What did Venkar want me to see? Nickel winced as he hit his head against a protruding boulder wedged into the roof. A phantom? Nickel staggered to a halt. The moment he froze, vertigo swept through him, pulling him forward through the cavern. His vision blurred, and he stumbled through the rest of the passage.
The blue light outside grew brighter, coating the rock walls in a glowing luminescence, seeping into their crevices like liquid. The roaring sound became deafening.
Nickel smacked into the cave wall, his entire body jolting from the impact. The vertigo was unstoppable, yanking every fiber of his being toward the cave’s exit. His feet scrambled beneath him, unable to resist the force, until he stumbled out of the cave entrance, crashing to his knees before the gargantuan, glowing skyscrapers of Hedonim.
Nickel wailed in horror, his hands trembling, wanting to cover his eyes but finding himself unable to. He was back in the hovercraft, but worse. Instead of falling out of the Ether into the canyons, he felt like he was falling out of the canyons into the Ether—like never before.
Nickel gasped, his body frozen in place. The city rose before him, a glowing dam of artifice, a wall of towering constructions shaped in oblong, curving, spiraling, and rectangular forms. They emerged from massive block-like structures where ghostly phantoms of human beings—avatars of the unseen, undying emblems of digital entertainment, of hedonism—frolicked endlessly, uniform and spawning without end, like a hive of ants creeping from the ground.
Holograms and holograms galore. The physical merged with the digital. The digital became physical. All in one. An endless digital sphere, threatening to subsume and consume reality—to become reality. Nickel whimpered, unable to take control of his body. He felt eternally cursed to a life where the digital Ether was so alluring it would always subsume his existence, becoming the only reality—while reality itself, with its myriad burdens, traumas, and misgivings, lurked to haunt him. How could he withhold the Ether from that?
A giant holographic statue was projected atop a skyscraper rooftop, held in place by a field of lasers encircling the base. It was of a nude woman, with dark, empty eyes, languishing over a city Nickel feared and desired all at once.
The sight began to pulse, sending rays of light into the sky. The city was an entity giving birth to pleasure and allure over and over again. It could swallow him whole at any moment. The images of the buildings and lights began to flicker and pulsate, growing larger in size and hazier—just as they had in Nickel’s visions of the singing sorceress. But was this a vision? Or was it the light effects of the city itself making the buildings flicker and pulsate?
Nickel moaned but bit down on his lip. He closed his eyes. Inhaled deeply. Cool air tickled the insides of his nostrils. Warm air blew out. Icicles grew, freezing along the caverns of his nose. A rising sun melted them in a hot bath.
Hedonim. City. My life. Mom. Dad. Bullies. Regret. Mistakes. Kythria.
Breathe in.
Steve’s gone.
Breathe out.
I might never see Farrul again.
Breathe in.
Did I screw up our friendship?
Breathe out.
Will I make it through Hedonim?
Breathe in.
I feel better.
Breathe out.
I’m okay.
Breathe in.
Nickel opened his eyes, feeling that the churning of his mind was quieter than before. His thoughts were mere flashes against the sun of his mind. And Hedonim was no longer ebbing as it had been before, made stiller by his meditation. He closed his eyes again.
Breathe in.
Breathe out.
Breathe in.
THE END OF
2200 BLUES
to be continued in Book Two
G.R. Nanda 