Infernum

Alex and Hope had been scouring the hillside for the better half of the day when Alex finally looked over to Hope and said, “This is pointless; we don’t even know what we are looking for.”

“We can’t give up yet, Alex, just keep looking,” Hope said adamantly.

“I’m not saying we need to give up … just that we need some help,” Alex suggested.

“And just exactly who do you suppose could help us? Everyone I know is on Caelo, and we can’t ask any of them,” Hope said in a condescending tone.

“Well, we could ask my friend Beau. He’s kind of an amateur cryptozoologist,” Alex offered.

“A crypto-what?” Hope asked.

“He studies and looks for mythical creatures; he might have an idea of how to look for this thing.”

“Alex, we have to keep this a secret. If anyone finds out you have an ánimam, we both die,” Hope reiterated.

“You mean if anyone from Caelo finds out. Beau doesn’t even know Caelo exists let alone how to contact them. And besides, he is my best friend,” Alex remarked. Hope was hesitant to seek aid from anyone, but she figured an extra set of eyes couldn’t hurt her desperate search. “Look, Hope, I will keep it nondescript and I won’t mention the ánimam, or Caelo, or that you are an alien. He would just freak out anyway,” Alex said to reassure her.

“If you think he could help, I guess we could go talk to him. But I don’t expect much, and, besides, you know a cryptozoologist is not a real thing right,” Hope said.

“Ya, I know,” Alex replied. “Just don’t tell Beau that,” he added.

He summoned his ribbons and opened a porthole leading to his driveway in front of his house.

“I still can’t get over how cool this is,” he said. “How do these things know where to take me? I know they are connected to my brain, but how do they know exactly where to go?” He stepped through his ribbons’ porthole.

Hope followed him through the porthole and looked around.

“Isn’t this your house, Alex? I thought we were going to Beau’s house,” she asked, baffled by Alex’s destination.

“We are, Hope, I just thought it might be better to drive there. A porthole might give us away if we dropped in unexpectedly,” he said confidently.

“Now that you mention it, that’s probably a good idea,” she replied.

“Seriously though, how does this thing know where to take me? I asked it, but I could not understand what it was talking about,” Alex asked with mild curiosity.

Hope laughed out loud. “In simple terms, you would understand… I’m not sure I can,” she said, still laughing.

“Just try me, Hope. I might surprise you.”

Hope collected herself and thought on it for a moment.

“Basically, Alex, each star, planet, moon, and every other celestial body has its own unique gravity signature. No two are the same, so each one has its own unique reading, like fingerprints. Your ánimam detects and uses that information to locate itself and to calculate where you want to go in relation.” Hope put it as simply as she could.

“So it’s like how the police use triangulation to figure out where a cell phone is… Got it,” Alex said proudly.

“Something like that,” Hope replied, not knowing what Alex was talking about.

Alex ran inside his house quickly and grabbed his keys, and then a few moments later, he and Hope were on their way to Beau’s house.

“I have always been fascinated with primitive technology. To make internal combustion powered personal transport that you actually ride in, we just don’t think like that on Caelo,” Hope said to Alex as they drove down Sunnyside Road toward town.

“It is a shame our primitive technology is killing our planet though. It would be nice to find an alternative,” Alex said, embarrassed to be talking about fossil fuels.

“I wouldn’t worry about it too much, Alex, based on your planet’s level of technology I would say that you are on the precipice of something better,” Hope said hesitantly but optimistically.

“Well, that’s a relief I guess,” he replied.

***

Twenty minutes later, they pulled up in front of Beau’s house, located on Orlo Drive, this single-story house looked the same as almost every other house on the street. Beau’s house looked so much like the other houses on the road known locally as C.O. Row; if it wasn’t for the color, light grey with a dark grey roof, no one could tell them apart except for the numbers. Many people had stumbled into the wrong house drunk coming home from the local Indian casino nearby in this housing track.

“This looks more like my home, Alex, except the houses look different,” Hope said as she got out of the passenger side of Alex’s truck.

As Alex got out of his truck Beau came running outside to greet him. “Alex! You have to help me man,” Beau said, gasping for breath.

Alex closed the truck door and began to get defensive. “What’s the matter, Beau?” he asked disquietly.

“It’s those two girls from the bar. I brought them home the other night, and now I can’t get them to leave! It’s been days, man. I don’t know what to do,” Beau said in a panic.

“The girls from the bar, you mean the honey twins?” Alex asked

“Ya!” Beau replied, embarrassed by the whole thing.

Alex began to laugh hysterically. He grabbed his stomach as he bent over in laughter.

Hope stepped out of the truck and ran around the truck to check on him, she thought he was convulsing. Alex collected himself just long enough to make introductions.

“Beau, this is Hope… Hope, this is my good friend Beau,” he said as formally as he could and then began to chuckle again.

“It’s not funny, man, I’m serious,” Beau declared.

Alex pulled himself together and stood upright. “Don’t worry about it, Beau, I’ll handle it. I’ll be right back, Hope.” He began walking toward Beau’s front door. He went inside the house leaving Beau and Hope alone in the driveway. After a few awkward moments, Hope caught Beau staring at her butt.

“What are you doing?” she asked defensively.

“You have a nice ass, Hope, what brings it to these parts?” Beau asked nonchalantly.

***

Meanwhile back inside Beau’s house, Alex watched as the honey twins quickly grabbed their things and ran out the back door as fast as their thick, short legs could carry them.

Just as the back door slammed shut, Alex heard a crash in the front room. He ran to the sound and saw Hope and Beau break through the front door. Hope, ribbons at full draw, had Beau by the throat as she slammed him against the living room wall. “I’m going to kill him!” she shouted sincerely to Alex.

Alex ran over to her. “Hope! Put him down,” he pleaded.

“I will not, I’m going to kill this little worm!” she said with a fire in her eyes.

Alex looked up at Beau, who was being held halfway up the wall by Hope’s ribbons.

“Beau, what did you do?” he shouted.

“Nothing,” Beau gurgled as best as he could.

“Did you use the ass line again? You know this always happens,” Alex elucidated.

“Please put him down, Hope, I’m sure he didn’t mean it, he never does,” Alex pleaded to her again. Hope loosened the tension slightly and looked over at Alex.

“C’mon, Hope, his eyes are rolling into the back of his head now. He’s just really bad around women, I swear,” Alex told her calmly. Hope lowered Beau to the ground then retracted her ribbons. Staring at Alex, she said, “He better not do it again or I will end him. Understand?”

“Don’t worry, he’ll be good … won’t you, Beau?” Alex said looking down at Beau, who was now sitting on the floor.

Beau held up three fingers on his right hand. “Scouts honor,” he said, staring up at Hope, petrified.

Hope turned around and walked back toward the front door still pissed off.

“Are you okay, Beau?” Alex asked in a concerned voice.

Beau was sitting on his living room floor freaking out as he looked to Alex. “No, I most certainly am not okay… She has tentacles, man. In what world is mother fucking tentacles coming out of someone’s mother fucking back okay?” Beau continued to freak out.

“It’s okay, Beau, I know,” Alex told him.

Beau looked over at him with a confused face. “What do you mean, you know? She has tentacles, man, that’s not right,” he babbled.

“They are not tentacles, Beau… They are a kind of weapon thing, like Dr. Octopus,” Alex explained as austerely as he could.

Beau started collecting himself as best he could as he stood up and changed the subject to keep from freaking out further.

“So Alex… How did you get Amber and Fawn to leave so quickly?” he asked.

“Oh was that their names? Easy … I just told them your wife was on her way over here with a shotgun,” Alex said rather proudly.

“But I’m not married,” Beau said with a confused look on his face.

“I know that … but they don’t, do they?” Alex began to laugh and Beau, although still freaked out, chuckled a little.

Beau looked over at Hope then back at Alex. “What the fuck is going on here, man? What have you gotten yourself into?” he asked.

Alex looked over at Hope. “I guess the cat is out of the bag,” he said plainly.

Hope looked at him and nodded her head.

“Tell him,” she said, giving permission to Alex.

“Tell him what?” Beau asked.

“Okay Beau, here is the skinny of it... Hope is human, but she is not exactly from around here. The things coming out of her back are a weapon, and I have one too. I got us both in trouble, serious life-threatening trouble, by having it. And now we need your help to find something so we can fix it.”

Beau stared into oblivion for a long time; then, snapping out of his gaze, he looked at Alex. “So, is she your girlfriend or not?” he asked.

“Wait … what?” Alex said in response. “This is serious, Beau, will you help us?”

Beau grinned at Alex slightly.

“Of course I’ll help, man. You know I am your best bud. I am surprised you thought you had to ask though. Just one thing, Alex…”

“Ya?” Alex replied.

“You got those things in you right now?” he asked.

“Well, yes, they are kind of a permanent thing. But hey, there are a lot of plusses with them,” Alex replied.

“Like what?” Beau asked.

“They can change shapes, shoot lightning out of them and they can open wormholes through space and stuff,” Alex said proudly.

“Really?” Beau asked.

“Yaaaaa,” Alex replied with some swagger.

“Dude… That’s fucking awesome!” Beau said excitedly.

“Ya I know right,” Alex replied.

“Can I see ’em?” Beau excitedly asked.

Alex called out his ribbons for Beau to see then they began to chuckle and carry on about all the things they could do with Alex’s newfound abilities when Hope interrupted them.

“Uh hum!” She cleared her throat loudly. “If you boys are quite finished,” she said to the two morons acting like children in front of her.

“Oh right,” Alex said to her.

“Beau, the reason we came to you is I thought you might be able to help us find something,” he said to Beau, discontinuing his childish chuckle.

“Sure thing, Alex, what are you looking for?” Beau replied obligingly.

“It’s called a daemon, it’s a large beast made of molten lava covered with a suit of rock armor. And it is about 30 feet tall,” Alex said as he waited for Beau to either freak out or laugh at him.

“About 30 feet tall you say?” Beau said as his face lit up with eagerness.

“Ya, that’s right,” Alex replied.

“Well … it sounds to me as though you got yourself either an Elemental or a Golem. It seems too small to be a Titan, and I am pretty sure Elementals don’t wear armor of any type. So Ya, I would go with Golem. Fascinating creatures Golems are, did you know the most famous was made by Rabbi Loew in the 16th century to defend the Jews of Prague from a pogrom,” Beau stated arrogantly.

“It amazes me how you do that, Beau,” Alex said. “But legends aside, how would we track one?”

“Just like anything else I suppose… Take what you know about it, figure out its motivation and go from there,” Beau said plainly.

Alex looked over at Hope and gestured for her to answer.

“Well, it is big, and the other one did mention something about going back,” she recalled.

“Go back where, Hope?” Beau asked.

“The Infernum I assume. It seems they have developed a dependency on it over the last few millennia,” she replied.

“I take it from its Latin translation that the Infernum is underground,” Beau inferred.

Hope looked over at him with wide eyes.

“Yes, that is correct. But how did you know that?” she asked.

“That’s easy…The word Infernum in Latin literally means Hell. And everyone knows that Hell is underground,” Beau replied nonchalantly. “So the question is; how would a 30-foot tall rock beast get into Hell?”

“I don’t know … dig?” Alex replied.

“No, daemons can’t dig that deep. It would need a hole like the one it came out of to get back in or a porthole. But it is too big now to return that way … and portholes are not a daemon thing,” Hope stated.

“What about lava? Can it traverse through molten rock?” Beau asked.

“Yes, they can swim through lava, no problem…Why?” Hope asked curiously.

“Well, if I was a giant rock beast capable of swimming through lava and I wanted to get into the center of the Earth, I would find an active volcano. Then I could just jump in and swim down,” Beau said.

“You know what? I think you’re right, Beau, but what volcano? There must be thousands on a planet of this size,” Hope stated.

Beau thought on it for a second and then, as if he was struck by lightning, his face lit up with an idea.

“Follow me!” he shouted to Alex and Hope as he began walking toward the back room.

***

“Bear with me here,” Beau said as he sat down at his computer. “You said the daemon was big, right?” he asked.

“Yes, really big,” Alex replied.

“Well … a few years ago, they had the idea to use ground sensors in China to try to find the Yeti. They never found it, but the idea is solid,” Beau said to Alex as he opened the internet and began to type in the search bar.

“How does that help us?” Hope asked Beau superciliously.

“Well, it’s the same idea… The daemon is big so it shakes the ground when it walks. All we have to do is find the seismic data for this area and look for a pattern,” Beau said pretentiously. “And there we go,” he said as he found the website for the California Department of seismic research. “This is how the news knows where an earthquake took place. You see, there.” He pointed out a map on the screen showing all the seismic data for the area. After looking at the map for a few minutes, sure enough, a pattern emerged. Small tremors spaced only a few seconds apart were recorded by the sensors.

“There!” Alex shouted as he recognized the pattern.

“Look, it seems to be headed northeast, straight for Mt. Lassen,” Beau observed. “And if this data is correct, it is almost there. You guys better hurry if you want to catch it,” he added.

“Oh my God, thank you, Beau! I owe you big time for this,” Alex said with gratitude.

Hope started to walk out of the room and Alex was quick to follow. But just as he got to the door Beau called to him

“Hey, Alex,” he said.

Alex stopped and looked back at Beau.

“Ya Beau,” he answered.

“You better tap that ass, man, or I will,” Beau informed Alex with a big grin on his smug face.

“You’re unbelievable, man,” Alex replied as he exited the room.