Virtual Eternity (the Serialized Novel) Episode 44 - The Den of Curcio Part One

This is Episode 44 of the serialized version of the novel, Virtual Eternity: An Epic 90s Retro Florida Techo-Pro-Life Love Story and Conversion Journey. These 52 episodes are presented here free for you every Friday. You can buy the paperback version from Mike Church’s Crusade Channel Store or at  Amazon.

Or you can start reading at the Table of Contents: here

Chapter 6: Power over Death – in the Next World

The Den of Curcio Part One

In which Jonathan’s new convictions about TRUTH are challenged by the modern temptation to hold the notion of universal salvation, which allows us to easily reject our fear of eternal separation from God

This was indeed like my tower in the south. I bought two sodas and two pastries from a vending machine, found a set of empty cubicles, and ate at one of the desks. I tapped a keyboard, and a computer lit up. The clock read: Friday, March 29, 4:12 a.m. The beast had expelled me perfectly. Had I waited another minute, the dockworker would have searched the truck and detected me.

This place was the source of the helmet’s images. Now to breach Curcio’s shield. What would be his security measures? Where would I encounter it? The hallways and elevators might have sensors to alert guards. I crept down a dark hallway toward a green exit sign. Stairs. Up now, up, slowly rising within the building, to him. My feet plodded on the pinging concrete. The steps chimed as I shook the metal within them. For nine stories, I went up. The top floor. This was Curcio’s level. At this height, within these walls, within this ceiling and floor, he waited. I opened the stairwell door to another floor with cubicles. Other laborers worked here during the day. An early riser could enter without alarms, but a monitored camera might notice me, since I had not checked in at the front guard desk. Vents blared and puffed their heat from the furnace lungs. This spoiled the silence but concealed my shuffling. I saw lights near the elevators in the center shaft of the building. A camera faced me from the alcove. It pointed at me and blinked a red light. Did it see me? Did they care? Silence. Beyond the elevators, another long hallway with cubicles should have been before me. Instead, the hallway was covered by Curcio’s door, a steel slab, locked by two combination bolts.

“Ping, ping!”

The elevator. I pressed against the wall. Elevator doors slid. Guards? Early workers? Leave, now. Next to me, I felt a door, a storage closet. I went through and gently shut it. Guards? Did they hear the door close? They would know I could only hide here. I looked for an escape.

The ceiling. Of course! All rooms are accessible through the ceiling in buildings. No locked door is ever secure, right?

Steps shuffled outside the room. Up, now. There, up the shelves. And a water pipe. Up. My grip propelled me upward. Light! The door opened! Someone peaked in, but I held, high above, one push from breaching the ceiling. Someone tapped the floor.

“Humph.”

The door shut and darkness returned.

I slid the slate covering the latticework ceiling and pushed it up. Above the room now, I covered the hole. I crawled with ducts and conduits for the distance I imagined might take me over Curcio’s door. The ceiling wavered below me. I stopped. It would hold. “Crack!” Too much noise? Can that guard hear me? I paralyzed myself for a long time. I was close. I might even be above Curcio now. Go forward to him. I crawled. I was surely over the door now. “Click.” The ceiling fracturing? On my right, a red light blinked. The other end of its invisible ray fell on my chest in a dot. I moved ahead. “Click.” I crawled on. Another red light. A camera.

I reached down to the lattice, pulled up the rectangle cover, and slid it. Below, I could see nothing. I dropped. I waited to hit the floor but only fell faster. There! I rolled. Darkness. Silence. Another hallway. Go in the same direction, forward. I felt walls on both sides. Was Curcio ahead or behind? I continued against the cinder block wall that guided me. Where were the guards? Surely they had discovered me. They would send me to prison. I slithered forward in blindness.

“‘You great star, you deep eye of happiness!’”

Lights!

“What?” My eyes throbbed. “Who’s there?”

“You’re going the wrong direction, Jonathan. I’m this way.”

“Curcio?” I turned and squinted.

“Yes, I am Anthony Curcio.” He held out his hand.

In reflex, as my eyes still ached, I grasped the palm of my objective, the result of weeks crawling northwestward. I blinked, but Curcio’s bearded face was still unclear to me, like a parent viewed by a newborn.

“You know my name?”

“Come, Jonathan, walk with me,” Curcio said. “We have much to discuss. Morning approaches, but for me the great star has already arrived.”

“What do you mean?”

“Come.”

Curcio was expansive. His waist barely fit through the hall. His height must have exceeded six and-a-half feet. His hair flowed behind him. Part of it was neatly combed. The rest of it curled and twisted. The strands were independent of the others, like snakes.

Curcio ducked through a door without unbarring the lock. “You are a true skeptic, my friend,” he said. “I expected your arrival. I unlocked all the doors and turned off my security. You did not need to crawl up there.”

We entered his lair. Curcio turned to the door, then clicked three bolts across and spun two dials.

Papers ruined the order of the massive room. He had a bed, a table, a dozen monitors, and keyboards. Uneaten food littered nearly all horizontal surfaces, except in the tidy eastern half of the room. A dozen easels with canvas and wood sheets braced against them stood in the messy western half. In one corner were busts of clay. He had a slab of marble with slices in it. Several women’s negligées and underwear pairs draped off hooks near the twin bed in the corner. Open books covered the floor, far from the array of tall bookshelves in the ordered half. He also had three large windows facing east, south, and west. In the east, gray started puncturing the night.

Primary in the room was a computer that blocked almost the entire northern wall. It held more information than I could imagine.

“Let’s sit, my friend,” Curcio said. “Ah, you admire my rendering engine. It was once the most efficient machine on the planet. Of course, that was four years ago. Few rival it, still. This is the source of all you fear, my friend.”

“All that I fear? You think I fear Magic Theater?”

“You’re afraid it’ll shatter your fragile new theology, no doubt. It has tested you before, but differently. You hope for its demise, yes?” His eyes never blinked when he spoke. They fixed on mine. His mane waggled from the movement of his mouth. I had heard Curcio at last.

“You’re quieter than I anticipated, Jonathan.”

“How do you know me? Wait, you were expecting me?”

“Oh yes, Jonathan. I’ve monitored you. I know you and your talents. I can discover much over this network. Ultimately, the network will allow us to know about everyone like this. I know your loves, your successes, and your failures. I selected you to deliver all this to the herd.”

“You picked me?”

“Yes.” Both his hands tied his hair back, then it fell again on its own. “Only a star may deliver it. This work is very important. I am in the rare position of being able to transmit my art to six or seven billion people. Michelangelo never reached that many, living and dead combined. Buddha never reached that many. Your Christ never reached that many. I’ll ensure they never do. I’ll inform nearly every present and future soul. I’ll determine their lives.”

“Why’d you select me?”

“In actuality, you have chosen me. You are the great star. You are the great young cynic. First, your performance in my worlds enthused me. Then I discovered how you deceived the system. You rejected the images. You are one of the few. You are a lion, defiant of all. And then, despite your cynicism, you delivered my message to the public. I now must persuade you to join me and to believe in me. You are the keystone of my power.”

He rose and rose, towering over me. At a small propane warmer, he filled his white mug with steaming water. My brown-pink vial throbbed against my chest. I watched. The water lapped over the sides of the cup onto the floor.

“Do you see?” Curcio said. “See the cup overflowing. Is it not wonderful how it flows out? It carries our reflection everywhere.” The water trickled to a drain.

“Yes, Jonathan, I knew of your approach.” He floated a tea bag in the mug. “I, of course, could have stopped it. I tried before, but you overcame my appeals.”

“What appeals?”

“The first appeal was Mr. Cambridge, of course.” Curcio smiled. His yellow teeth glittered. “You may not have realized the power you’d have wielded over hundreds of millions, hanging on your whims. But you refused that route. When that happened, I engaged the second appeal. I arranged to exile you. But you beat back the magnificent young female.”

“You sent Paula? Thanks for finally sending someone born in the seventies. Did you finance her?”

“In a way,” he said. He boomed a laugh and sat down. “She is extremely rich of her own means. You may not have realized the power you’d have wielded over the world, your every craving met plushly. Paula is wealthier than even she realizes. She now awakens, nude on a beach, watching the rising Caribbean sun, maybe with some appreciative young tourist. I was notified of her purchase of an oceanside house yesterday. I knew you had extensive relations with her, and I deduced that her marriage was a delusion. So, I simply facilitated the loss of her husband. She was very enthusiastic about making you accept a life of pleasure. When I discovered you hesitated even for a moment, I ensured your situation in our project was canceled. I still expected your visit. You deserve great accolades for continuing.”

“Did you send Mason to me?”

“No,” Curcio said. “But sometimes the world provides the distraction. I needed her and her people to acquaint you with the knowledge that enables what I will offer you.”

“Did you also send the utopian, to help teach me about that knowledge?”

“Who?”

“The man whose commune I visited in Iowa.”

“No, I’m not aware of that,” he said. “I would not waste my time with a utopia. That must have been coincidence. Sometimes the distraction comes from within yourself. For example, during your journey here, maybe even this week, surely you were close to giving up this trip, to return to health and safety.”

“Yes.”

Curcio sat against a square chair in front of the massive blinking computer. Mechanical arms twisted in and out of honeycombs. Data moved from chip to chip, from disk to disk, and from cable to cable.

“Now the last appeal, from me,” he said. “I knew you sought me, and you know why. It is surely the main reason for your resilience. Great men are prodded by other great men. ‘You great star, you deep eye of happiness, what would your happiness be had you not those for whom to shine?’”

“Yes, you’re right.”

“I must induce you to join me in directing the world. I have, with your help, laid the foundation for influencing the world as no other artist ever could. I cannot accomplish this without your allegiance. I fear your opposition as much as your ambivalence. But you cannot oppose me. I despise not having good enemies. I am lonely. I debauch myself with women and men, yes, but I require a deeper love. Too often I have spoken only to my own soul. You are also an artist. Unite with me to influence the world.”

Next week: Episode 45 - The Den of Curcio Part Two

Copyright © 2022 Christopher Rogers.

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