peyton Sorenson 4

Peyton Sorenson

The lights hung low in the concrete arches of the aquatic streets of Venice making them near indistinguishable due to the rain that poured down like sheets from an unrelenting opaque sky. The bar at the Hotel Yorba was crowded and near closing time. Peyton Sorenson, the bar keep had just called a water taxi, a vaporetto, for one of her regular patrons, Stanley.

Stanley came to see Peyton once or twice a week. He worked for a special division of the military that tracked the trajectories of high velocity weapons in the upper atmosphere and was stationed in the Deep South Pacific Ocean most of the time in a island chain called the Marshal Islands. His Island was named The Kwajalein Atoll and he affectionately called it “The Catchers Mitt” because this is where weapons of all kinds were caught and data was recorded for official use by the military and The Solomon Corporation which is better known as Solomon United.

They had a special relationship that no one on the outside quite understood. He always brought her a brown paper sack that was stained all the way through with heavy cooking grease. Rolled up in the bag were two of the most toxic Hunan wanton’s Saint Mark’s Square could produce, Peyton’s favorite. Also in the bag were half a dozen fortune cookies that all had the same thing inscribed on them vertically on the inside; the number (thirty three).

Peyton smiled at Stan as she always did and accepted the bag as she turned to see a familiar face walking her direction.

Siren walked into the bar and sat next to Stanley and ordered an extra dirty electric Skye martini stirred.

“Excuse me sir is this seat taken?”, said Siren softly to Stanley with no pretense trapped in her voice.

“No ma’am she is all yours.” spoke Stan like a Texas gentleman as he stepped casually away.

“Stan, I’ll see you next week.” Replied Peyton and he was gone without a response. Like a ghost.

“Siren you seem to keep lock step with the algorithmic dance of the rain patterns. They whispered to me you’d be coming this way soon.” Said Peyton.

“How is Stanley doing? Does he still commute from Nepal? Kathmandu is it? An odd ball that Stan.” Siren replied.

“Let me just clean up a little here and we can be on our way. I have a few things I want to show you. It has been ages….”

With the flip of a light switch behind the cleaned bar glasses and ash trays there was a loud pop but by the way both Siren and Peyton composed themselves they were fully expecting it. The room went pitch black.

The crowd faded as quickly as did the lights. Nothingness was swallowed up in nothingness. Nirvana reeked of Nirvana. Movement began to occur subtle at first and then more obvious. Siren felt herself loosing consciousness and did not understand why because alcohol had no effect on her system as far as intoxication is concerned.

She felt her body shutting down systematically one system at a time. First she lost control of her hands because she could not reach for her revolver. Second she lost control of her ocular system because she could not scan to take pictures of her surrounding for when the lights came back on. Each system one be one shut down and in the end only one remained to insure her vitals kept her alive. Siren was helpless and obviously not in under the care of Dr. Feinburg.

Several hours passed in this suspended state of amniotic being were Siren could only speculate as to what was happening to her. She felt sedated. She felt movement. She was confused

When Siren Finally came to she was in an immaculately constructed recovery room designed by Peyton especially for Siren who was by her side with a doctor standing to Peyton’s immediate right. The space was decorated with scattered light sculpted and bent around odd angels and curves that broke up a space embedded with holographic depth at every glance. A massive collection of glass books made itself the frontispiece of an underground libraric Mecca of obtuse esoteric knowledge.

Sculpted glass from the Island of Burano littered the place like frozen water tongues anxious to speak their stories into existence. The room itself appeared much larger on the inside than it did on the outside. Its design lent itself to the notion that much like the inner core of Siren’s interior life there was much more refined a nature than the cavalier life of a solitary calloused assassin.

The surroundings seemed to be a natural extension of her inner make up but she hid this make up well. Peyton among very few others in this world knew her, and Peyton, Siren trusted with her mortal spark.

Siren looked up on the bookshelf and began to laser focus in to check her diagnostics and run various tests to see if she was functioning normally again. She was anxious to find out what had happened from the time she had entered the bar in Venice until now. While running an ocular diagnostic scan she saw tiny nanotech bots crawling along the glass bookshelves eating all the microscopic detritus in the room to make things a (stately) spotless. These tiny machines existed with a singular purpose; they were the gravediggers of the infinitesimal dead.

The floor to ceiling widows in the room overlooked a small but immaculate garden that housed at its center a most peculiar statue of a muscular man covered in blackened scale like skin made from medium sized dark translucent microchips that were connected by spiraling glass tubes. The figure had matching black wings razor like that cut the suns rays from the sky casting perfect prisms that danced across the multiplicity of glass that was abundant in the surrounding rooms of the complex.

A second figure also had larger grotesquely shaped organic tubes that were connected to various places on his back that ended in large connecting nodes that appeared to be the scar tissues from an ancient incarceration. The black male winged figure rested his head in the arms of an equally beautiful nude female figure that seemed to be saying I forgive you. She also had wings but hers were markedly different. They were light and organic and seemed to float with the passing air. Her hair was white but not from age. It was white from an authority she carried.

Peyton touched Siren softly on the right arm and said.

“Siren, are you comfortable? Is there anything that you require?”

“I need to rest a while longer and continue to run further diagnostics on my systems. Can you wheel my bed closer to the window and open one of them just slightly?” said a frail but strengthening Siren.

From the center of this circular pristinely manicured garden flowed various arrangements of vibrant colors and shapes that tangled one's sense of smell into a tight seductive labyrinth. The place captivated all the senses simultaneously and seemed to be yet a further fitting extension of Siren’s internal persona. Peyton had certainly prepared well for Siren’s arrival as she had always done in the past. This was her softer extension. Siren thought it was a strange choice of habitation considering the failure and recent reprimands from Dr Feinburg. She though surely her visit wit Peyton would be a further study in disciplinary action.