Out of the Black - Lee Doty [49]
Ping was having a real problem staying angry with these people. As he watched Ahmed bug out with the music he couldn't completely suppress his grin.
Then something shifted.
Ping stumbled slightly and Rae put a hand on his shoulder to steady him. He'd broken through the surface from the murky depths of confusion and up into forgotten clarity. The air in the dank little room tasted sweet. As he looked back over the day since he had left these two this morning, it seemed as if he had been sleepwalking. Now he saw things more clearly- of course he still had no idea what he was seeing more clearly... but it was clearer.
"What...?" He said mostly to himself.
"Welcome to the real world, Neo." Ahmed said, switching off the music.
"Huh?"
"Never mind. Look, that cloud of fog that just lifted was an Obscuring. I Cast you so that those keys from my coffee table would occupy a significant portion of your unconscious mind, disrupting your focus and making you susceptible to manipulation. That part was mostly for show... I coulda' Obscured you without the keys, but then they might not have caught on as quickly. They might have tortured you to death before they realized they didn't have to. Besides, it gave you something to do with your hands eh?"
Maybe he could stay angry with this guy after all. Ping was willing to give it the old college try. "Cast me?" Ping said, focusing on the anger management.
"Oh, here we go..." Ahmed ran his fingers through his hair.
"Cast me? Like in a play?"
"Nope. Like in a spell."
"Uh-huh, sure."
"Well, it's not exactly magic like chicken blood and pentagrams, but..."
"Ah, so now you're a wee Leprechaun eh? When'd I get a peep at yer wee pot o' gold?"
Ahmed looked frustrated. Not to worry though, he probably had a spell or potion to fix that.
"Explain the keys then." Ahmed folded his arms.
"Drugged my cornflakes. Some kind of mind control device attached to your computer." He knew it wasn't true, but he had to say something.
"Explain this." Rae said from behind him.
He turned around and barely held his mouth closed. She was beautiful again. Every line and curve was in its ultimate proportion and position. The most amazing part was that if he tried hard, he could still see the acne scars, could still see every asymmetry as it had appeared when he'd seen her on the fourth floor. But now her imperfections were the capstone in her beauty. This wasn't makeup or a hologram, she didn't look different- he was looking at her differently. There was a confidence in her eyes that was intoxicating.
He was speechless. As he watched, she put her hands behind her neck and unclasped a small black-on-silver cameo necklace. As her hands came down with the necklace, subtle changes appeared in her countenance. Proportions didn't change, but grew somehow less ingratiating to his eye. Imperfections unknitted themselves from the lattice of her beauty, drawing and distracting his eye. Her visual symphony devolved into a trio of tin whistles.
"Was that cornflakes?" she said with a smile that brought back the memory of her beauty. With a shock, Ping realized she was still beautiful; bright eyes and a quick smile illuminated the beauty of a warrior's spirit. After she realized that Ping was skipping his turn in the conversational flow, she held out the cameo. "Ok, let's play 'Find the Hoax'."
Ping took the necklace and examined it closely. The cameo looked familiar... it took him a few seconds to realize that the ebony silhouetted profile on the silvery background was Rae's. He looked up at her. "Turn to the left." She obliged, smiling. Yep.
"He gave you this?" His eyes shifted to Ahmed briefly. She nodded. "And you don't have a problem with that?"
She knew what he was talking about. "Boy did I!" she laughed.
"She said it was like buying her plastic surgery for our anniversary." Ahmed said. "I was lucky she wasn't wearing her gun."
"But eventually I understood."
"Understood what?" Ping asked.
"That it doesn't change how I see her." Ahmed paused for emphasis. "It just makes everyone