Chapter 3 of Metagopolis

Chapter 3

An enthusiastic mustache and a pair of wide-open crazy eyes invaded Gregor’s vision.

“We are going to glean what afflicts you,” the hearty voice said. “Oh yes...oh yes oh yes oh yes. Notice, Gregor Townsend — if that is who you truly are — those four ‘Oh yes’es. What could that mean, exactly? Does it have to mean something? Everything means something. The question is, however, how much does the underlying meaning actually matter? These questions must be answered, and that is what I do. I will help you in your quest free of charge.”

Gregor was at first quite startled, and then thoroughly nonplussed.

“I’m sorry...I don’t — ”

“You don’t recognize me?”

“N — ”

“Not even a little bit?”

“I — ”

“A smidgen?”

“ — ”

“A hair? One of your white hairs? You don’t recognize me even in the slightest?”

“No, I do not.”

“Then right-o, young man! My detecting skills have finally hit their stride. Clooney. Detective Daniel Clayton Clooney. I detect. I analyze. I solve. That is what I do.”

Detective Daniel Clayton Clooney wore a long, buttoned-up overcoat and a pair of dirty brown boots. His eyes were small, and changed color in differing degrees of light. His eyebrows matched his mustache; big bushy things that were either threateningly intense or unexpectedly disarming, depending on his mentality at any given time. Unkempt black hair adorned his very animated face. He was the kind of man whose mouth flung spittle with every other word. It made Gregor blink a lot and feel very uncomfortable.

He put his hand on Gregor’s back as if they were old friends and started leading him through the throngs. Macata jumped down from Gregor’s back and navigated the forest of feet, only straying from Gregor’s shoes long enough to sate his feline curiosity on various random smells and things.

“Notice, Gregor Townsend, how here, in the markets, there are no decorations for the festival. No posters or banners or statues or games for the little ones. All the Vanos stuff is way up over there, in the central town square and beyond.” He motioned in a northerly direction.

“The what stuff?”

“Vanos. The Great Bird. The point of this whole town. The purpose of this place and its people.”

“I’m sorry, I don’t understand.”

“Oh, I am getting ahead of myself. Vanos, the Great Bird, blessed with four wings, a veritable god among men. Or a god among birds, really. Saved humanity by taking a man and woman from a plagued continent to a plague-free continent. Many celebrate the damned myth still, though as you can see there aren’t any of the outward showings of festivity here, down in the markets. Just plain and simple bartering. But notice the crowds! Notice the commerce, the trading, the business! And take note of this, young Townsend: they aren’t this busy at any other time of the year! The town uses Vanos to promote its own economic growth. So they have all the decorations and nice things in their own nice little places, but no one cares down here in the markets. The decorations don’t matter except for garnish. The garnish of the Great Bird. Unnecessary for the most part, unnecessary for economic growth, unnecessary for wealth and riches! Do you see what I mean about the town? It exists to continue its existence. And not only to do that, but to flourish! To expand its boundaries and to enlarge the wallet! And you can see how it does. That is the reason for this town: to compound itself. It works for the holiday. Vanos is the point of this town. All of these, the shops and stalls, your hardware store, all the vendors and all the soliciting that goes on down here — "

“Wait wait. My hardware store?”

“Yes, the one you work in. It too abuses the concept of growth. That Tom Basket is a nice enough fellow, but still nothing matters to him more than sales. Which would not be a terrible crime; people have to eat and people have to build, but that is what drives their life. That is why they exist. Material things! Some of us, though, know different things. Some of us understand that there is more. The call, Gregor, the call. The call to attain something greater, some other higher purpose, or at the very least something higher than making money and growing economically. I myself have not had much opportunity to go elsewhere, and so I stay here, honing my deduction skills and growing ever sharper, day by day. That is my purpose.”

Given the subject matter, these words made a great impression on Gregor Townsend, and he stood there contemplatively for some time. It was in that twinkling moment that something inside Gregor... changed.

“Thank the sky for them, though, huh?” Clooney went on. “Without all those characters who do real work for a living and don’t really care about the finer things in life, we wouldn’t have those finer things at all. Being an intellectually honest analyst, I must admit this.”

Gregor waited until he was sure Clooney was done before speaking.

“Okay, Mr. Clooney, uh, sir...I really have no idea who you are, or even at this point who I am, and while I appreciate what you’re saying, I don’t think you’re really following through on that analysis business of yours. I thought you were going to help me find who I was. I would really like to start figuring out this life that I was apparently living before I lost my memory, and I can’t — ”

“I’m sorry, Mr. Townsend! Good heavens, we walked two paces and I was already off on another of my tangents. That’s what the detective does, though. Detect. Analyze. Solve. Look at every single thing from every possible perspective. The analyst’s mind will go where it pleases. But sometimes, I agree, it needs to be restrained.

“Now obviously the mission with you here is to bring you back to your senses. Although I would wonder what for. All you have to go back to is the hardware store. Aha!”

He took out a small pad of paper from one coat pocket and a pen from another and jotted something down, presumably the rhyme he had stumbled upon. This reminded Gregor of his own writing materials in the satchel hanging from his shoulder.

“Well then, Gregor,” said Clooney, tucking away his things, “Let’s get you going on this recovery process.”

“I do have a question, though.”

“Fire away.”

“How did you know — how did you know to come talk to me? What about me did you analyze — ”

“I first saw it in your movements,” Clooney answered, cutting Gregor off. “The way you were so shocked at the existence of Legole. The cat helping you get out of Legole’s path. A cat I haven’t seen before. Also in your hair. Your white hair is unusually messy today. And in your eyes. Detached, wondrous. You looked lost. It all happened very rapidly, and I acted on instinct. Now, explain your dilemma a bit further, please.”

“There really isn’t much to tell. I woke up this morning without any memory.”

“None?”

“Nothing.”

“No memory. What about memory of memory?”

The dream world came to Gregor’s mind. A dream he couldn’t remember one whit of, except for the process of awakening and trying to keep it from slipping through his figurative fingers.

“I remember having a dream. But I don’t know what happened in it.”

“Then we shall have to determine who you are, Gregor Townsend. I know who you were; I had spoken with you on occasion in yesterdays past, but I think it should be crystal clear that today is not yesterday. Today I’ll help as much as I can in the retrieval of your yesterdays, but you are going to have to make up the tomorrows yourself.”

They stopped by a shop called Vognettle’s Battle Wares. A big bald man stood behind the counter. Clooney pushed Gregor forward and presented him as if displaying a product he was trying to sell.

“Who do you think this young man is, Mr. Vognettle? What do you see in him? Check his eyes,” he said sagely. “Those are the most important.”

“I see Gregor Townsend,” said the man in a mean voice and a matching expression. “The white-haired kid. What of it, Clooney? Clooney loony?”

“Now there’s a man who does not know subtlety,” Clooney said, leaning in close to Gregor as if he were giving him valuable advice. “Best leave him out of our journey.”

The reference to his hair made Gregor glance around self-consciously. No one else in the entire crowd had hair like his.

The detective guided Gregor to a spot just a few yards away from a fruit seller, who was surrounded on three sides by carts and baskets full of apples, bananas, and cherries.

“Observe these times, Gregor. This fruit, that man....notice his hawk-like eyes over all of his produce. The eyes are the most important. Small, beady brown eyes. Hovering over, constant vigilance; the fruit is his and he will not let it be stolen. His hands, look at his hands: if not dealing directly with a customer then they are floating over the fruit. Almost like an extra pair of eyes, standing guard. Now, let’s see if we can shake things up a bit.”

He turned left and right, looking for something. Or someone.

“Ah, here we are. Perfect timing.” He reached out his hand to touch the shoulder of a small but belligerent-looking boy passing right by them. “Nicholas Halladio, stay here a moment.”

“My name’s Nick, Clooney,” snapped the boy.

Clooney knelt on one knee to speak at the boy’s level. “Nicholas, I want to make a deal with you. I will give you three coins —”

“What kind of coins are they?”

“Unimportant. I will give you three coins if you manage to snatch an apple without getting caught.” He indicated the barrel full of apples on the far side of the stand.

“Is the apple mine afterward?”

“Also unimportant. But yes.”

The boy went immediately about this business, and ducked into the crowd.

“Or no,” said Clooney as an afterthought. “Would it be his? The apple.... Gregor, tell me what you think.”

“I’m not sure — ”

“Would that imply relativity then? That the apple would be his if he stole it. I suppose by nature it is relative... If there is more than one opinion, more than one judgment, then, by logic and by Vanos, it would be a relative situation.”

Clooney drifted away, lost in thought. Gregor took the time to think back on Clooney’s words of purpose, of the existence of this town, and the words of his own awakening. He found them still repeating in the back of his mind, but much more softly now, like simmering cider.

Gregor only half-watched as the clever boy handed over one coin to the seller and picked up an apple at the same time. It took him a moment before he realized what he saw. The boy then drew back into the crowd for a moment before popping up right next to Gregor and Clooney.

“I have reached a conclusion,” stated the detective out of his stupor, looking down at Nicholas. “The apple would be yours.”

“Of course it’s mine. See?” He tossed it in the air and caught it again. “I want my three coins.”

“I’ll give them to you out of my good nature and intellectual honesty,” said Clooney.

He reached into his pocket, withdrew three of the same kind of coin the boy had paid one of to the fruit-seller, and dropped them one at a time into the boy’s open, waiting hand. Gregor, smiling, noted the boy’s cleverness but Clooney remained unaware.

“So how does that help me regain my mind, Mr. Clooney?” Gregor asked after Nicholas had run off.

“It helps you thus: that boy learned from his father those tricks of the trade we just witnessed. Slyness. Subtlety. Thievery.”

“And cleverness,” Gregor added.

“No doubt. So we can tell who that boy is and what he will one day become by looking at his parents. He will look like his father and act like his father. You wonder who you are. You wonder why you are here. Look to your progenitors, Gregor Townsend. It is they who you will be like, and thus who you are.”

“Progenitors?”

“Parents. Ancestors. Your heritage. Kittens grow up to be cats, and pups into dogs.” At this moment, Macata leaped up onto Gregor’s shoulder. “The offspring of a cat will always grow up to be a cat. You want to find your source? You want to know who you are? Look to your parents.”

“I wasn’t aware I had parents to look for. Don’t I live alone?”

“Well yes. I suppose you do.”

The conversation stalled for a moment. Gregor broke the silence.

“What are the coins?”

“Money,” said the detective.

“I sort of figured that out on my own.”

“Oh, yes. I had forgotten about your forgetfulness. Anyway, those coins were rences. Five rences make up a lontai. Twenty lontais make a namenah. A hundred namenahs is a cenamenah. To put it in perspective, one rence could buy one apple.”

They walked on, Clooney still oblivious to what little Nicholas Halladio had done, despite his own words. They stopped at a little shop selling jewelry.

“And here, Gregor, we see a perfectly practical object lesson,” he said, opening the door for him.

“May I help you find something?” said the round and small jeweler behind the counter.

“No, we’re just looking,” said Clooney as he picked up a navy blue bracelet and showed it to Gregor.

The jeweler eyed them something fierce, Clooney in particular. He seemed, for whatever reason, to be on the verge of throwing them out of the store.

“See this ornament,” Clooney said, “decorated with this stone, this particular precious stone. To use the system of currency we just established, it’s worth about six or seven namenahs.”

“It’s worth — fifteen namenahs by my judgment, at least” said the jeweler in a blustery, upset, offended manner.

Clooney let forth a laugh. “No, I’m fairly certain this is worth seven. Eight is the highest I, or anybody else, would ever go.”

The jeweler’s face began to turn red, not in embarrassment but in a kind of barely-restrained rage.

Clooney continued on without care. “What makes it interesting, Gregor Townsend, is this gem. A sapphire suffused with zultaire, which is of course mined from the quarry on Mt. Oniz, just a few miles away to the east. You saw it on your way here. The quarry was originally for ordinary minerals, but just a few years ago they found zultaire in abundance underneath the mountain, and they’ve been mining underground ever since. This kind of gem was once most valuable, most precious. Now everybody has them, and what was once unique and beautiful has now become common and even vulgar to many’s tastes. To mine, certainly.”

The jeweler turned ever redder and his breathing became tense and short, puffing in and out, his blood pressure indubitably rising.

“But if you were to cross the sea, in any direction, to whatever land you so chose, and carried with you a sack full of these, it would profit you much. Sir,” Clooney said, turning to the jeweler, holding the bracelet. “May I suggest seeking employment across the sea? Over on the Ganothran continent, perhaps, or even Metagopolis, for instance — ”

Macata suddenly hissed at Clooney, interrupting him and making all three stare silently downwards. Seconds passed before Clooney brought them back by finishing his sentence.

“ — you could make a fine living. Much better than here.”

“No,” huffed the jeweler, red in the face, eyes bugged, and his whole person flustered with fury. “You may not suggest anything of the sort.”

Clooney set the bracelet down on the counter and once again put his arm around Gregor’s shoulders in a fatherly manner. “The stubbornness of some people is staggering,” he said as they walked out. “I give some business advice and get thrown out. How’s that for justice?”

Gregor tried to throw an apologetic look behind him at the jeweler, but the door swung shut too soon. A reasonable distance away, Daniel Clayton Clooney faced eastward and pointed.

“That is Mt. Oniz,” he said.

The image of Mt. Oniz, once a quarry, now a mine, struck Gregor and burned into his empty memory. No, it did not look familiar, but he was sure he would not forget it very soon. The greater part of the quarry was on the opposite side of the mountain, looking like a grand staircase of stone. But at the very top it curled partway around the summit, giving the inhabitants of Middleton a brief view of the silver-colored core of the mountain. From where Gregor and Clooney stood it dominated the landscape like a great behemoth craning its neck around to watch over the town.

“They are using tools and technology from lands across the sea to mine it. Very advanced. It helped make Middleton what it is. Which isn’t much, not yet, but with huge amounts of potential. On its way to much growth.

“And over there,” he said, pushing Gregor around and pointing westward, “is Mt. Oblaid. No mines, no quarries. Left in its natural state. Now it is merely a pleasant hike. Farmer Ajay’s vineyard is over there. A nice little tourist attraction. He makes green wine.”

A rather ordinary but pleasant mountain covered in trees. Much bigger than Oniz but much less visually striking.

“I find it interesting,” Gregor said, indicating Oniz with a jerk of his head, “that so much violence could lead to so much progress.”

“Violence! Who said anything about violence?”

At that moment they heard a loud BOOM from the distant quarry.

“Ah, violence to stone and ear,” said Clooney, nodding his head in understanding. “And I suppose yes, there have been a few injuries...and one or two deaths....”

“Then would you say it has been worth it?”

“Well, if one were to calculate how much better off the great majority of the town is, and that nothing worthwhile is ever without risk, even to life and limb, and to say that the greatest victories are the ones fought the fiercest, with the greatest rewards upon winning and the most hellish consequences upon losing...then sure, I would agree that it was worth it.”

A short pause as both contemplated.

“But there is more I think!” said Clooney with a start. “That mountain is being carved out, like a statue that was once a block of stone. The path to progress is paved with pain.”

They had reached the far end of the markets and were now rounding the path back to the point at which they had first met.

“So have I helped at all, Mr. Townsend?”

“Well, I don’t think we’ve ‘gleaned what afflicts me’. But you have given me a lot to think about in the meantime. And who knows, maybe it will lead to — ”

“Then we’re not finished. We must glean. We must!”

Clooney stopped a passing woman.

“Do you know who this young man is?” he asked with a heretofore unseen zeal that more matched a revolutionary than a poor, greasy literary detective.

“Sure, Danny, that’s Gregor from Tom Basket’s you’ve got there. I think Tom’s been asking about you...” she said to Gregor. And then, in somewhat of a whisper, “You’re a good boy to humor the detective. He’ll let up soon enough, you’ll see.”

Clooney, not having heard the aside, pulled Gregor in something of an overenthusiastic way over to a small group of conversing old men, all sitting on logs or stumps in the shade of a large tree off the main path. Like Clooney and Gregor, these men had apparently nothing better to do with their time than talk. Clooney, leaving Gregor slightly behind him, entered their circle without a word, and stared intensely at each of the men in turn as they spoke. All of them noticed the intrusion (and the intense glares), but did not show it (excepting, of course, the current speaker’s slight faltering of words, which was immediately followed by his quick hop back onto his train of thought). Otherwise, they didn’t react much to Clooney’s presence. The detective, following their conversation with both eyes and ears, did not breathe a word — not until one man used the phrase “worlds without end.”

“Worlds without end?” Clooney said in a strangely accusatory voice, as if he were chief prosecutor in a criminal trial. “What do you mean by that in your context, sir?”

“I mean the idea of lives,” said the man impatiently. “We are all each centers of perception, sense perception, and the viewpoint we see the world from is us, ourselves. Each of us is in a wholly different world from the other. The act of murder is to snuff out one of these worlds. Without a ‘me’ there is nothing. By ‘worlds without end’ is meant the idea of little worlds being created every day, and that we have the capacity to continue life on forever. Every time a child is born, a whole new world is created. And if one were to kill a person, and in so doing destroy a perceiver, you also destroy a world. A world that could have created more worlds. Worlds without end.”

“But that only holds true,” interjected one of the circle, “if every one of those centers of perception actually perceived.”

“What do you mean?” said another. Soon many were speaking.

“What I mean is this: How do we know that everybody else is as human as we are? What if, say, I was the only real being, and the rest are just soulless props?”

“Just random organic matter that could or could not have its own center of perception.”

“That’s a fairly egotistic philosophy.”

“Just an idea, and an interesting one.”

“Not to mention frightening. In that case, the only world that exists would be that which we perceive from moment to moment.”

“So it’s not whether the tree, falling alone in the forest, makes a sound, but if the tree exists at all, if there is nobody there to see it.”

“Do things only exist if they are perceived?”

“There’s no way to prove or disprove that idea. If we ever tried to measure such a thing it would be instantly self-defeating.”

Clooney pulled Gregor back to the path.

“Those men are totally pointless,” he said. “Their words are totally pointless. No, Gregor, you need something more material to go on. Come, let’s talk to this gentle lady here...”

As Clooney interrogated the poor woman, Gregor stood distantly to the side, pondering over everything he had seen and heard in the last few minutes with Daniel Clayton Clooney. As his ears heard the noise and bartering all around him, and as his eyes observed the frenzied peoples and their busy, self-continuing ways, he remembered the Awakening Words. At first they spoke softly to him, but as they repeated, it gradually grew to the power of thunder.

Gregor Townsend exists for a wise and glorious purpose.

And with that, Gregor knew that he was not and never would be a true part of this town. This was not where he belonged.

“Useless, again, useless!” Clooney cried in his energetic way, departing from the woman and again wrenching Gregor along by the arm. “These people can’t help us with anything. Who needs them! They know nothing. Funnily enough, the same goes for you. That was, most indubitably, another object lesson. And that’s proof that you belong here! They know nothing and you know nothing. Have we found a solution at last? Ah, here we are. We have finally found where you belong.”

The turtle-like structure of Tom Basket’s Hardware Emporium stood before them.

“And so we arrive! Here is your place. Where you shall make your money and earn your bread.”

Gregor sighed with resigned regret at the sight of the bastion of his former self. But an incidental question popped up in his mind.

“Mr. Clooney,” Gregor said, “How do you make YOUR living?”

Clooney smiled. “Why, my boy, I beg. It is my place in the world to ask questions that nobody else does — ”

“Nor anyone else cares about,” interjected a passerby.

“Lovely,” said Clooney, looking a little tired.

“I have to ask, though...why did you try to help me so much?”

Clooney smiled sadly and gave a helpless shrug.

“You were the only one who listened to me before,” he said.

“Oh. I’m — I’m sorry. But, um, just one more question, then. What’s that dark thing up there in the sky?” Gregor pointed up at what he had called the black cloud. Clooney followed the direction his finger was pointing.

“A mountain, of course!” said the detective, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

Gregor just stared at him, feeling a bit uncomfortable.

“Okay, thanks...” he said wearily as he walked away from Clooney into Tom Basket’s Hardware Emporium. He sighed, discouragement on his face. He had become even more confused than when he had first woken up. Nothing had been gleaned at all.