Musings

Argent looked up from his book as a shadow blocked his light. He sat as usual, under his favorite tree on the Quera College lawn waiting for his next class to start. In front of him stood an unfamiliar man in a gray suit with a hat on and a case in one hand. 

“Hello, Argent. My name is Agent Poe; I’m with the Muses. Do you have a few minutes to spare?” 

Argent glanced at his tablet screen.

“I have an hour until my next class. How can I help you?” 

“You’re scheduled for an interview.”

“I am?” Argent frowned. Had he missed something? 

Agent Poe stuck his hand out to help Argent up and he accepted, setting his book aside.

The moment Argent’s hand touched Poe's, the world around him began to spin and flash. He tried to pull away, but Poe’s grip was firm and unrelenting. Colors and sound whirled around them in a cacophony of chaos with no up and no down. 

Argent was understandably disturbed.

Poe dropped his hand immediately as the pandemonium ended, just as abruptly as it began and Argent jumped to his feet, looking around.

They weren’t on the lawn anymore, or even in Dome Quera. They stood in a sparsely decorated waiting area with only one door but completely encircled with wide windows and a heartstopping view. Argent’s mouth dropped open and he approached the closest window slowly. 

He was in space. Distant stars lit up a breathtaking view of scattered planets and colorful gaseous clouds. Great whale-like creatures floated playfully between bright ships with full sails and Argent even thought he glimpsed an actual dragon circling an asteroid field. 

Poe cleared his throat after a while and Argent whirled back to face the man. 

“What-” 

Poe held up one finger, stopping Argent’s flow of questions before they even started. He gestured to a low table on which sat a glass of water and a small bottle. 

“If you would be so kind as to consume the temporary nanites, all of your questions will be answered.” 

Argent approached the table and picked up the bottle suspiciously. One small pill rattled around the glass bottom. 

“All my questions?”

“Every one of them.”

That was enough for Argent. He shrugged and downed the pill with the water, then looked at Poe. 

“How-” A sharp pain lanced momentarily through Argent’s inner ear and suddenly he knew. 

He was in subspace - the place between all worlds - where gods and monsters, ideas and abstract thought each existed simultaneously and were ruled over by the Muses. In the infinity of universes that exist, where all possibilities were explored and lived out, there were a number worlds where his life was a story created for the entertainment of others. He was here for an interview with one of the Muses who was overseeing those worlds. She was gathering basic information to get the authors started and had -

Poe cleared his throat again. 

“If you’ve got the basic idea down then may I suggest we go? The Muse is waiting and there is too much information within the nanites for you to process all at once.”

Argent nodded, still reeling. Poe led him to the door and held it open for him, then closed it behind him without following. 

This room was vastly different from the one he’d just left. Where the waiting room was small and held little more than seating and a table, this room was massive and covered in bookshelves with all manner of odds, ends, dioramas, displays, and most of all: books. The shelves themselves seemed to grow like wood out of the floor and twist or curve to suit their own whimsey. Some of them had actual leafy branches growing from them and flowering vines were draped artistically across every surface they could reach. 

Argent had the distinct feeling that this place was alive and watching his every move with rampant curiosity. 

“Ah, there you are.” A voice that both raged like a storm and whispered like silk grabbed Argent’s attention, and he followed the sound up a set of stairs, down a banister, and around three active beehives until he found the speaker. 

She was lounging gracefully across one wing of a Cessna 172 that had been painted to look like blue marble, and she wore a flowing diamond silk gown that grazed the floor even from the top of the plane. Her hair was a starlight waterfall over her shoulders, and the eyes that now bored into him were violet coals, burning brightly in a face that had every possible feature and none at all. 

“Here I am…” 

“So tell me, Argent Acheel.”

“What would you like to know?”

She slid off of the plane wing and landed barefoot in front of him. He had to look up to meet her eyes. She reached out one hand and grasped his chin gently, her touch both burning hot and freezing cold.

“Everything.”

So he did. 

He told her that he was the result of hundreds of years of scientific gene research combining aquatic animal DNA with human DNA. He told her that he was one of thousands produced this way, and that they called themselves Merrans. They live under the ocean of a dead planet in a vast network of domed cities. Oceania. He described to her the rigorous training and education that all Merrans went through as children to become strong and useful citizens. He told her how fond he was of Tek and Carson, the bio-engineer couple who basically raised him. That aside from his best friends in the whole world, Luna and Doro, they were the only other people he would trust with his life. He told her how proud he was when he was accepted as an Emergency Responder, and how hard the work was. He told her that being in the water with Luna and Doro was his truest happiness.That their friendship and trust was what he valued more than anything under the surface. That rescuing others with them had only strengthened his ideals of compassion and honor. He spoke about the fear that kept him up at night; the idea of losing his loved ones because of his own actions. That he might not be enough. That he might be weak. He described irritation when others were self-centered, or when they made assumptions without communication. He told her that his glass was always full because he had so much to be grateful for.

But no words left his mouth. 

“More,” her voice was the buzzing of summer bees and the roar of a hurricane.

His most frequent indulgence was real paper notebooks that he used for notes and thoughts that he needed to keep straight. He hates the shows that Luna and Doro watch regularly, but he watches them anyways so he can keep up with their conversations. He misses living with Tek and Carson in the Hydrodome, but he wouldn’t give up his home in the Quera Dome to go back. He hates riding the trains because the sound hurts his ears. He wishes people would stop pairing him with Luna as a couple when they were the closest thing to siblings that a Merran could ever have. He wants to shake this constant feeling that he’s missing something, or that something is terribly wrong. He hopes that when he retires from the emergency team and his contract to Oceania is fulfilled he will have finished his education and can teach. He hopes -

“Enough. Thank you, Argent.” She spoke as a solitary woodpecker and two million cicadas.

She smiled at him gently and he fell in love. She dropped her hand and turned away and his heart shattered into a million pieces, scattered amongst the tree roots and fallen leaves. 

“By necessity our time is limited. You are already feeling the effects of my presence, but you are strong, Argent Acheel.” 

She turned back to him and her movement sent ripples of heat and small pink bubbles through the room.

“I will give you this advice before you return, as my gratitude for your story: trust yourself, even in the darkest hours when you believe you deserve no trust. Now go, with my blessing and with the attention of those whose lives will be forever changed by yours.” Her words echoed through his mind as the baying of wolves and the cries of soaring eagles. 

He blinked slowly, trying to remember the advice she’d just said. When he blinked again the mirage-like room was gone and he was back under his favorite tree at Quora College. His book sat on the grass beside him and he frowned. Had he fallen asleep? He’d dreamt… Well, he couldn’t remember the dream, only that it was strange and vibrant. 

He flipped his book open again and dismissed the odd dream entirely. He’d never put much stock into dreams and that wasn’t about to change.

Somewhere in another universe, a young woman wakes from a dream with a story she knows the world needs to hear. It’s about a young Merran named Argent, who lives in an underwater society called Oceania. She’s thinking of calling her story Curiosity…