The Church Notorious

Subdivision IV

Although the whole of this life were said to be nothing but a dream and the physical world nothing but a phantasm, I should call this dream or phantasm real enough, if, using reason well, we were never deceived by it.”

G. Wilhelm Leibniz

“So you see? Right here,” Professor M. Blight Früdenhockner stooped and pointed at a scalar readout, “we see clearly that the hypothesis outweighs the postulate.” His companion, the former Irene Maria Tafoya, a student of Logic at the Institute for Advanced Intuitive Research, itself a legend among the various schools of philosophical thought, peered with half-closed eyes, squinting to see the indicator being pointed to.
“By at least a milligram as well,” the young lady agreed. She straightened, smoothed her skirts and nodded her approval.
“I would not have thought so Herr Professor. Is it the ink do you suppose?”
“That coupled with the greater number of words I imagine.”
Irene peered at the Professor through heavy lids, puffy perhaps from the traditional lack of sleep of which students were so fond, glanced at the clock and smiled shyly.
“Do you happen to know which time it is Herr Professor?”
Früdenhockner shook his head with a phlegmy wheeze, coughed and muttered something under his breath.
“No my dear, I do not. Yesterday we were definitely in the Long Count mode, but the Modalities have changed again. I simply can’t keep track any more.”
“Oh well,” she mused, “I’m sure it doesn’t matter.” With her long, deeply umber hair held back with gold combs excavated from the latest dig at the Rueben Site she reminded him of his youngest daughter, lost to the vagaries of the Vectorless Time Modes for—how long had it been now? Several years at least—perhaps as many as twelve if one counted in the Andean Tradition, and he felt a moment of sadness pass over him, bringing a shiver to his old flesh.
“It might matter last week lass,” he said, “or it might not. We’ll see eh?” He offered a weak smile, the best he could do under the sudden influence of familial melancholy.
She sat on the floor and gathered her skirts around her, pulled her knees up close to her chest and began to doodle in the dust. Cobalt light fell in neat rows from the glass above and behind them, patterning the floor and benches with delightfully complex organic tessellations, a phenomenon of the sub-text in the window itself, a work by Eberhart and Gliss dating from at least two years hence.
“Are you returning to the dig Herr Professor?” She asked out of politeness but with a vague notion as well that she might be offered a ride. The trail up the mountain was fraught with unpleasant possibilities, including but not limited to; several varieties of predators, maniacal acolytes of the Professors arch-nemesis, the renowned Doctor Richard Philodendron (who only recently had attempted to take his rivals life by inaction of the most heinous kind) unmarried men, at least one village into which people wandered and never came out, and a branch of the Church Notorious.
“I am. May I give you a lift?”
“That would be perfect!” She gushed (to be sure he knew she was grateful) “I’ll just pop home and change into my work clothes.” She bounded up in strict defiance of gravity and was out the door so fast Herr Professor felt the breeze of it swinging open.
“Oh well,” he muttered to himself as he realized he’d been outwitted by a female again, “May as well go find some supper.”

The professors vehicle, a hybrid concoction of his own design, ran on the collected effluence of finer eating establishments. Raw waste was placed into a hopper which fed directly into an autoclave where heat and pressure were applied. Früdenhockner was very tight-lipped about the source of his heat which seemed to be inexhaustible, and more than one curious and perceptive passenger noted the possibility of running the vehicle on the heat itself since it was in bountiful supply but the Professor assured one and all it would not be efficient to do so.
In any event, the mixture was slowly and steadily reduced to a light oil perfect for combustion in the rotary engine. He believed four moving parts should be plenty for any internal combustion device and took every opportunity to ridicule, in a good-natured way, those with less efficient designs.
“This is an odd vehicle Professor, did you build it?” Irene was toying with her hair, easily the most striking aspect of her physicality, practicing for the future when she would begin courting.
“I did, yes. It is a variation on the Wenkle engine. I have added a few features of my own which allow it to be extremely efficient and more powerful than one might think.”
“Well it is certainly smooth,” she said, flattering the old man. It was always a good idea, in her opinion, to leave a good impression with people in case a situation might arise, vis-à-vis the vagaries of life, because of which she might find herself in need of aid of one kind or another. In some circles Irene Maria Tafoya had a bit of a reputation as a brilliant theorist adept at seeing several pages ahead in difficult computations and this gift often seemed to bleed over into other aspects of her life, such as planning ahead.
“Thank you my dear. I designed the suspension from a fluid dynamics standpoint. Bit of trail and error I’m afraid but it seems to’ave turned out well.”
Just as he said this the vehicle began to slow and list toward a small track to the left of their present course.
“Professor?” Irene whispered, just a little uncertain of his intentions.
“A side trip is all. Shouldn’t be more’n a minute. I need to drop a parcel off at the local laboratory.”
“But isn’t this the way to . . .”
“Alchemika, yes. Only be a moment, I promise. Just pop in and right back out.”
“But . . .”
“Oh, don’t worry about those old stories Miss Tafoya. There is no such thing as an A-Temporal location.”
“Just the same I think you might have mentioned a detour.” Her complexion had gone from a European pale to well past pasty, although she was trying to hide it from him as best she could. “I do have a class this evening.”
“Won’t be late I promise,” Früdenhockner reassured her with his version of a fatherly tone.
They drove under an ancient-looking stone arch of curious workmanship, as if an infinite number of monkeys had been given hammers and chisels and at some point in the past had managed to accidentally put together a rather stout arched gate, crenellated top, dedicatory verse, keystone and all.
As the vehicle went under Irene felt an unusual sensation, as if her stomach had momentarily found itself outside her body and turned inside out, but it passed as quickly as it came and she shrugged it off to her monthlies.
A double row of quaint homes lined the humble avenue, patriarchal trees reaching twenty meters before their spreading branches began to form a cover over the little hollow, bellow which neat gardens, tilled and cultivated with unusual precision and what appeared to be a reference to the Zodiac, made a verdant patchwork of various shades of green from Sherwood to Kelly. No people were about but the professor seemed not to care. He stopped in front of a thatched cottage, also stone, with timbers holding up the roof and smoke curling in an inviting pillar from one of four tall chimney’s, stepped down from the vehicle, grabbed a parcel about the size of a bread box (wrapped in oiled paper of some kind) and waddled through the open door.
Irene looked around, preferring to stay inside the automobile, and wrinkled her nose with just the most fetching little pout, disappointed that no one was around to appreciate it, wondering where that awful stench might be coming from. Stenches, she corrected herself. A glance at the still-open door which lead into darkness solved the mystery. Oily mists of hues invoking the imagination pertaining to sepulchral dreams were writhing out from the interior of the cottage, which, as she studied it, seemed now more like a rather large factory-sort-of-structure attached to an extra-traditional abode at the front.
“Oh my,” she said and brought one dainty hand to her lips. “Professor!” She called but found no answer accompanying the noxious fumes. After a few moments, as the acrid tendrils of smoke began to fade somewhat, she determined to exit the carriage and search for her chaperone. She stepped down onto the earth which only a moment ago had seemed moist to the point of swampy but which now appeared parched, cracking as she put weight on her foot. She reached back to grab her handbag and started at the sight of the professors transportation. When had it become a carriage? And why hadn’t she noticed the fine Sorrel hitched to the traces?
She had been afraid of this. Obviously there were such things as A-Temporal locations and she had been tricked into one. She stepped to the waiting portal and peered inside, hoping to see Früdenhockner or someone similar, but could make out only what appeared to be a reception desk which was, at the moment, unoccupied. Gathering her courage, she stepped inside and up to the desk. A bright looking young woman came around the corner at just that moment and noticing Irene, smiled apologetically, and slid into her odd-looking chair.
“So sorry miss. I skipped out to the Loo for a moment. Didn’t mean to leave you standing.” The young woman (at least ten years younger than herself Irene guessed) wore a white shirt held together with some kind of unusual fastener, a round bit of ivory or glass, and trousers which, although acceptable in polite society under very carefully controlled circumstances, were hardly appropriate for the office. Her
hair was shorter than most boys and seemed broken in some odd way, sticking up like cacti-thorns as if more brittle than the usual mane.
Loo? Oh . . . yes, the Brits used that word when referring to the water closet.
“Quite alright, thank you. I was wondering, might you be able to tell me where the professors’ got to?”
“M. Blight?” The young woman verified.
“The very one,” Irene answered, smiling as if they were long lost friends.
“I’m afraid he’s slipped out the back miss . . . ?” she let her perfect eyebrows lift slightly in a gesture approved for subtle questioning.
“Tafoya,” Irene announced, “Irene Maria Tafoya, the former,” and offered her own small upward turn of the lips.
“The mathematician?” The girl fairly gushed, her overly made-up eyes gone round as a half-dollar.
Irene blushed. She was not used to being recognized. “I suppose,” she admitted. “Professor brought me here and then just left me?”
“He does it pretty regular,” the girl said as she nodded. “It’s how he keeps people from asking questions about the Church Notorious.”
“What has he to do with such a place?” It was almost shocking to hear someone speak of the Church so openly.
“Oh, he’s an Operative there. Has been for years. Believe me, you’re not the first to be left here in Alchemika.”
“Professor Früdenhockner? An Operative for the Church Notorious? I don’t believe it!”
The girl smiled, bobbing her head back and forth, which, had she been wearing any, would have made pigtails do a little dance, and said, “that’s what everybody says. I guess he’s pretty good.”
“Do you think he’d mind if I borrowed his conveyance? I have a class up at the labs tonight and I fear I might be late.”
“He won’t mind . . . but I doubt you’ll make the class. Can’t get there from here right now.”
“Why not?”
“We’ve been displaced again,” the short-haired receptionist told her.
Irene looked around, an expression of concern, tinged with a hint of worry appearing on her face like dew on a lawn.
“Oh bother!” She said, and pouted.