“I’m calling from inside the house!”, said the voice. Just then, the operator broke in on the conversation.

“He’s calling from inside the house!” alerted the operator, who had until recently been the trainee.

But i wasnt’ convinced. I conducted a room by room search, many times walking past a man on a cell phone in the hallway, tall and strong with big mits that could K.O. a dinosaur. BUt i just played it cool…

Meanwhile, back in the novel…

Meanwhile, back at the University of Toronto….

Meanwhile, in this very paragraph, I sprung back as (name deleted) bounded to his feet, pushing off the Nerd like he were a lamentable lack of foresight, stringlamping him brightly, in string. All tied up, the nerd felt sudden shame, and the two of us were locked in mental suction again.

Why are you attacking me? I probed.

Quiet! Quiet!

This was getting me nowhere. Fortunately, the suit of mine had secrets yet unrevealed.

“Tyra, this is your suit speaking. I have detected that you are in an interesting situation. Do you mind if i watch?”

At last the suit’s true nature was revealed, at least as pertained to this interesting situation. A voyeur.

“By all means. I am basically just watching, myself. I have no idea how this will turn out. It’s like i can see my body from the outside, and i just sort of dissociate.”

It was a cleverly worded ruse. i wasn’t dissociating at all, I was deserpately searching for some solution to what was likely to become a pummeling.

If you won’t tell my why you’re trying to kill me, at least tell me where you dissapeared to back at the hospital.

No.

He was good. real good. I didn’t expect to have a chance matching wits with someone with 90 billion years of self help books advantage over me. Dammit! The shame-link was waning, the Nerd was regaining his composure, and i could sense another onslaught of inexplicable murder. I had to do the only thing i knew how to do. I asked my clothes to teleport me away. He agreed, but then reneged on the agreement moments later. I didnt’ want to press the issue, because it would make things awkward between us.

I pointed my arm at (name deleted), desperate, and bluffed.

“I have the ability to murder you, right now. This suit contains powers beyond your wildest imagination. More powerful even than your Ixtx!”

“Who is doing the talking here? You or your suit?”

“Me, obviously. It’s my mouth moving!”

“Irrelevant! I’ve seen this deception many times. YOU have to die, you dont’ understand! I have to kill you. It’s the only way!”

“only way? Why?! ”

“I’m sorry,” he said, then, producing an egg from i know not where, he pressed it hard against his chest, breaking the shell and releasing its liquid meat onto the front of his chest.

“Chestmate!” he said. It was a brilliant move, and i had walked right into it. in the game of weird futuristic chess, chestmate was the most powerful of all the egg gambits. If only my suit’s deterministic engine were functioning, it would tell me whether i was to escape alive, or dead. But it wasn’t forcing the issue, no conclusion was forthcoming, and our strange and futuristic dispute was without conclusion. Dammit.

“Look. You chestmated me. I conceed that point.” My only power now, the suit abstaining, was my ability to charm. Instinct drove me on more than anything else, and my scrawny body, within its not quite top end jeans, was flexing a variety of muscles in anxiety. But while i was charming, another man, a nerd, was preparing for his own solution to the deadlock. “I think that your move was at once brilliant and original. Certainly, i did not see it coming, and concurrently, did not hear it coming. A rueful combination.” that was it, his guard was beginning to drop, his egoistic lethargon was forming, the 12 sided polygon of conceit that all men of his era were forced to have foisted upon them for no practical reason. “In fact, i think, if i were to do everything differently, i woudl still walk directly into that one. Actually, my legs were so fooled, they themselves would carry me into basically any scneario you created, without my wanting them to.” That’s it, just a moment longer.

BLAMBARELL! A tae kwon do addled fist blambarelled its way into the face of (name deleted). “Totally forgive me, michael j fox.”

“Chestmake,” i intoned. You had to admit, Chestmake was better than Chestmate, by a factor of K.

And with that fateful phrase, another of my suit’s secrets was revealed.

“Chestmaker activated,” it squeeped. I lost control of my limbs, the suit controlling my motions. LIke a dangling marionette i was hoisted this way and that, an altogther unpleasant combionation of feelings flooding my stuff.

“God dammit! This is exactly what i was trying to avoid!” shouted (name deleted).

“I wasn’t consciously trying to avoid this, but i can imagine that a large part of my unconscious was tied up in trying to avoid being trapped inside a machine suit going haywire,” i commisserated.

“Chestmaker phase 1 active. Potentiation of chest, actuality field dispersed. Groatal splurples splurping at optimal efficiency.” The suit’s calm voice unnerved me, as what was going on was clearly not calm. Brilliant light shattered the night sky, luminous the suit raised into the air, myself within it, streaks of deafing eye-sound blaring in all directions. My floating body resembled a puffer fish, a million needles of bright white casting into the sky, an urchin of rays, no less terrified than an urchin of clays (dont’ ask, clay urchins are little cowards).

“Farts! I was trying to avoid this!”

“Why?” I shouted down to him.

“I dont’ want to say, i’m not comfortable opening up to people!”

“You may have an anxiety disorder!”

“That’s what people say, but i think its okay to be private!”

I didnt’ ahve time to answer, as the spirally beams of energetic photons coalesced into a single broad shaft, pointing towards the heart of the city. Growing above that heart were large arched structures, like tusks. No, ribs. The city was growing ribs, a hundred stories high. They urgently grew towards one another, like reunited lovers made of bone. Then between them a webbing appeared. Flesh! As the network of veins blazed into existence, a shroud of skin came down like a tarp on some old junk. But before the flesh had completed its coating, i saw what could only be lungs. They could not be anything but lungs.

Greater and greater the volume of the forming chest grew, and on its top, large glands appered with ducts, and fat deposits. At the tip of the ducts, which grew together stems of plants towards a pinprick of light, they formed a pink protruberance. As the flesh grew around, the protuberance grew darker, standing erect above the mound like a keep above a motte. Breasts. titanic breasts. Proportionally, the equivalent of maybe a D, or double D. Not disproportionate, unbalancing the figure, but certainly noticable and arousing.

“Hold on kids, it’s going to be a bumpy ride…” (that was me who said that)

to be continued…

Somehow, the suit had saved me, in a flash I had seen the world around me dissolve into an ambigious cloud. Swirls of color filled my vision and sense not unlike being asked to help your friend move from one house to another flooded my body. Why had (name deleted) decided to kill me? Did it have something to do with my confidence?

As it had vanished, the world combined, braids of color and sensation weaving themselves into a great cable of continuity, and I saw again that I was in Toronto, in that damned field where i had been shot. in fact, there was (name deleted), holding a gun, pointing it directly at me, but now he was many meters away. No, there was a whif of smoke in front of him… that must have been me. I had teleported only a few meters away. And still in the path of –

The bullet tore through not only my jeans, but also the jeans of The Suit, high end studded preworn denim marvels, not the jean machine house brand pants I slipped myself into on a dare. Both were ruined now.

“WTF!?” shouted the stupid nerd, shamed no longer as his slack trance had been whipped out of him by the sharp shock of the grizzly act played out in front of him. Imagine, being dumped. that would be horrible. Even worse is when you’re a dumb nerd, and then someone much more confident in some really decent, not high end, but decent, jeans gets shot into after a genuinely breathtaking teleportation.

Focusing on the nerd, i realized that i was still in link with (name deleted), both of us gaining power from our abuse of the nerd. My suit must still be functioning, still siphoning off self esteem atoms into its long and moist bladder. Thank god.

“CALL ALL THE POLICE YOU CAN FIND” i shouted. “IF YOU KNOW ANY POLICE, GIVE THEM A SHOUT!”.

The nerd was apparently one of those lung nerds, because he bellowed out a “hyap” and roundhouse kicked (name deleted) in the face.

“MICHAEL J FOX, YOU ARE NOT TO SHOOT ANYONE ANY LONGER, BRO! SPIN CITY WAS NOT A BAD SHOW, UNTIL CHARLIE SHEEN WAS CAST AS YOUR REPLACEMENT! I DON’T WATCH 2 AND A HALF MEN, HOWEVER, I HEARD THE OTHER GUY, DUCKIE, JUST GOT AN EMMY FOR IT. MY MOM LIKES IT, AND THAT PRECLUDES THE POSSIBILITY THAT I WOULD LIKE IT. THOUGH SHE DID LIKE ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT. THAT WAS A GOOD SHOW. NOW LAY ON THE GROUND OR I WILL SNAP KICK YOU.”

The capslock was palpable between them. The shame evapourated, and the authoritative training of what can only be described as Tae Kwon Do took over. The shamelink was broken, and my suit’s guzzling days concluded with a lovely regret sunset, my battery now vaguely full. Like, full, to capacity, but, like, what capacty? Full capacity? Obviously, but, in a vague way?

The healing secretions of my suit permeated my wound, as calm taupe music played on the qualm disturber. i could feel my qualms aggitating, in a taupy-beige way, how calming. My calm qualms where just that, qualmy calm taupes. Taupe Misers in the grand Land of the Grope Wisers, a kind of whiskey that was grabby, used to procure for themsleves some really rigid taupes. These were nothing like that, these were really more beige.

Erectly i stood, and towards the crumpled body of one Michael J Fox lookalike i strode. The nerd’s face resolved under the dim light of the lamp. his face was a circus of features, his hair a relaxed car of touselment, and his shirt was the shirt equivalent of automation in the early 1960s. A shirt with many far reaching sociological consequences, to say the least. His small stature was augmented by apparently taught and rarely revealed potency, strength, and his taught musculature was suspended from rigid calcified bones, an endo skeleton, like a rack from which to hang fibrous organs of varying construction and to varying degrees “gross”, in that liberal sort of way that university students tended to have their organs suspended. Ahh, without an experience yet, but it was clear that as the world contributed to his experience folio his leanings would shift to the right, and his organ arrangement would become much more conservative. I guess because when you’re older, you have more to lose, and pragmatism dictated the organisation of function of some of your glands and ducts. He was not so old though, by my calculation he had not yet reached the permeation age, his normal (read white) skin was still without any indications of having been in a drive-by.

“I dont’ know how to thank you, ” i admitted, regretfully. “I’m sorry. I was never taught the appropriate method.”

“Never mind about that. What i need to know right now, doctor, is are you hurt?”

“Doctorly, sir, I can admit that I am not hurt, without losing face. The bullet you saw pass through me was probably just a construct of society to create a false dichotomy between those who have been shot, and those who have not. really, i think shootings exist on a continuum. Who is society to define who has and has not been shot? There are shades of gray.”

He gave his assent by standing still and saying nothing. Classic.

“So, I better doctor my way around now. I’m going to just doctor about for a while.”

The white coat i wore should obfuscate and personal thoughts he might have. he looked the type to merely acquiesce at the sight of such a coat as mine. It was the white that made it so, i wrote on a card, and read aloud to myself. He didn’t understand, but that’s the way it works. People just dont’ understand genius during its lifetime. Time to stroll, anyway. But (name deleted) had other plans. And they were like most plans: not revealed to you because no one wants you to show up.

to be continued…

Shame. Shame. I had to find someone to shame. The suit’s power was running low, and if it ran out in its present invisible state, it would be stuck invisible forever. IT was not entirely a terrible proespect, but it meant that people would probably never understand how it was i was able to do all the marvellous things i could do, as they could not see the apparent explanation of the suit. Needless to say, taking credit for the work of a funny sci fi type suit was essentially one of the worst Sharms.

I scanned the waiting-room for anyone presenting signs of even minor shame. Numb faces and bored bodies slumped in uncomfortable chairs, ocasionally reaching up to distract a nurse long enough to find out where some loved one was on the Ronson-Hildegaard Wellness-Sickness scale. “Like, mondo a 4.8,” one of the nurses intoned. Poor bastard. No shame here. The nurses seemed totally inured to their own laziness and lack of quality customer service; making them embarassed for their shoddy work was unlikely. Think, man, think. What would a normal man of the past, such as yourself, do that would make them feel ashamed?

my answer came in, escorted by two copofficers, urban blue-men, soldiers of the local constabulary. “We utterly ravaged this bro while he throttled up the rage-jets to extreme Gs. He’s gotta get mega checked out, doctoroids.” Moments later, a rolling flatty came in with a lady all over its face. She was practicing blood spurting i guess. but the suit knew better. “she’s been injured by the captured man, the captured man.” Guilt?

I walked over to the two police misters and introduced myself cordially, bowing and curtsying. “How do? My name is Ms. Tyra Banks, and i want to shame your captive so that I can.. err…” I needed a plausible excuse; these men had no concept of deterministic time suits, set aside form the recent Spielberg film “Deterministic Time Suit Friends”, apparently quite a jolly romp. “I need to shame him in order to fill certain ambiguous power packs. Certain FUTURISTIC power packs.”

From my cell in the mental illness prison, in the west wing of the hospital, I was able to reevaluate my strategy. Apparently, officers of the law did not like power packs. Nuts to them. Still, now myself an inmate, my mood began its meteoric rise into sadness. One might even say, its Mesotoric Rise, the great rise of Mesotor’s mood. The mood that makes us sad, though not sadness. It’s an external mood, one we feel in the faces of other people, and allow ourselves to feel nothing. that way, everyone’s face is messed up. It’s a win win win win win win win situation.

“Hey guys of the hospital. It’s me, i’m in here. I was just thinking about how nice it would be to be let out of here.” The approach of a burly endoctored fellow proved that my strategems-bulb was full to “le maxe” with noble strategems, contained with in the strati-gems of the ruby raspberry i wore around my neck. What a lovely gift! Love had its benefits. i was in love, if i didnt’ mentoin that. In love with my ruby raspberry, in which i placed my strati-gems. Did i not mention that?

As the doctor came into the cell, i reminded him that he was under oath, and then that he was hypnotized. Whether or not he believed me is irrelevant, because he believed my fist when it said that it had hit him in the face. Belief is a funny thing, it can LITERALLY change you rbody. if you believe you dont’ ahve cancer, then the cancer doesn’t kill you, instead, it takes out a lot of loans and ruins your credit. but that’s better than dying. In this case, the doctor was convinced he had been punched upon a face, not just any face, his face. All because my first told him so, in fist-speak. Of course, fists speak by every so roughly rapping upon a face, so again, it was a win^6 situation. It was even a f(x)=2x^3 situation. “Line around” i said, to the function i was contemplating.

Scooping out my body from the inside of the cell, i sauntered jauntily through the halls, using my jaunters to saunt about, in a most casual and unsuspicious way. Perhaps it was my sauntiness that didn’t arouse suspicion, or perhaps it was the magic coat i took from the sleeping doctor in my former cell. Ah, at last, a nice white coat, with the power to tame the minds of even the great scrutinizers of the Outer Outer Outer Hebrides, in space (the outer outer Hebrides were the ones in the Earth’s core, whence, a few millenia from now, the Lava-Boys would launch their devastating PR campaign against the Rubik’s Empire (yes, an empire that was basically unsolvable, even by the Will Smith armada!)).

“Grant me your leave!” i entreated the doctors. And they genearlly granted it, as a kind of silent consensus. With that leave i begin my exit from the clutches of this primitive medical drome, sauntily jauntering my way doorwise, considering the dissapearance of old (name deleted), the friend i have in the world. Though, not technically in the world anymore. I guess he’s my only friend not in the world. Scooping out the main way, i heard a noisy boy shouting his noisy boy shouts. “Stop, one of the mental patients has blown the roost! He’s like, waaaay escaping!”

“i’m not that guy!” I shouted into a police, and then walked by, chuffed to the core with my declamation of my former life as a mental patient. i was a changed man, and awarded myself a trophy. But when a police began to say “hey what? What a minute!” i jumped into what can only be described as a room. And there, before me, sat someone I was to recognize for the rest of my life.

“Hey, buddy, what happened to you? did they give you those new clothes?” He asked, gaseously.

“Who cares about my clothes,” I replied in this room with him, “I just cant’ believe you are here. they think you’ve vanished. i should have known you’d be okay.”

< >

to be continued….