The Blue Scene Manual - Foreword

  A point is a carved ounce of meaning. A line is a cut. To draw is to devour. For this reason, ethical artists borrow.

  You will learn to borrow the stability of the earth, the mobility of the wind; the impossibility of structure.

  But first, you must overcome the Black Scene in your mind’s eye.

  This method is unsuitable for the following practitioners:

  – One who is prone to delusions.

  – One who drinks, though smoking is fine.

  – One who is pregnant, or giving birth, or gestating. (Come back later?)

  – Four in Ten who cannot drive to all manner of place.

  – Eight in Ten who eat that which they do not understand.

  – One whose eyes have already glazed over.

  Thank you, and please look away if you believe you are unsuitable.

  The department store was still wrong inside.

  One more try?

  Again, Milo counted square linoleum floor tiles between him and the automatic door. Step by step, all the way until it rolled open, sending a gust of wind fluttering the envelope he clenched. My excuse: if anyone asks, I’m an old friend of the manager with a birthday card.

  This span is eleven tiles long.

  He poked his head outside, saw that the storefront wall was flatly perpendicular to his path— or at least close enough that he’d need a straightedge to find anything but a 90° angle.

  Milo walked backward eleven spaces, then turned to the left.

  He walked to the employee break room. Made sure his feet remained on the same row of tile.

  Milo turned to the door on his right, fumbling for the key, and unlocked the door. Beneath his dress shoes there sat a seam where one tiled floor had been poorly connected to another, identical tiled floor. Stepping over the half-cut pattern and into the break room, he again counted the panels that stretched in front of him.

  Eighteen tiles long. It should be well into the parking lot by now.

  Milo had known about this feature for over five years. When the department store quiet-fired him last month, he made sure to copy his key before returning it. Just in case he ever wanted to show a friend something cool in the area.

  Milo exhaled a shaky sigh.

  It’s here, then. The closest Anomaly I could defeat, and the best fit in general… remains at my old workplace.

  He stepped up to the microwave and brushed the dust from its face. 2:12. He’d spent over ten minutes verifying the Anomaly’s presence with no interruptions. The aisles were half-deserted.

  Now he would have to absorb the Anomaly in less than twenty.

  Milo wasted no time. He aligned himself in the center of the additional space. Four tiles away from three walls. He shut his eyes and materialized his Sympathy in front of him.

  Sympathy took the form of a plain white door, wooden, paint fading, peeling at the seams. He placed his fingers on the handle. Take me to the Anomaly.

  The door opened into a warehouse like a concrete tomb. Scaffolding cast eerie shadows. No windows. His Sympathy whispered to him that all surfaces inside counted as walls, even the ceiling and floor.

  Milo slipped the envelope into his pocket—one of several upon his cargo pants—then stepped inside.

  He dematerialized his Sympathy.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

  The structure began to howl over his intrusion. Metal shelves shook with rage, indignation. The concrete floor beneath him boiled with cracks.

  A cardboard box bolted across the crumbling floor to stand before Milo. It shuddered, then burst open.

  Milo recoiled.

  The Anomaly resembled a wire-frame stick insect. Protrusions on its head had black eyes like burnt-out lightbulbs. Four-fingered sharp rebar claws hung from its thin frame. He knew at once its nature was violent.

  “Don’t you recognize me, sport?” Milo asked. “We worked together for years.”

  It chittered and tilted its head, sizing him up. Then it lunged.

  Milo couldn’t read its movements. He only felt the wind rushing toward his head. Sympathy manifested; there was a sound like darts driving into a board of wood.

  A door stood in front of Milo as he skipped back to get some distance. He pulled his hands from his pockets.

  Until he touched the handle, it would remain inert, opening to nowhere. Nothing but a slab of wood. Therefore, he couldn’t count on it as a shield for more than one blow.

  If the Anomaly had opposable thumbs, he’d be even more worried.

  A frustrated clicking sound spun up behind the door. Metronome-like at first, then faster, faster, until it was a dull fanblade whir. Milo’s eyes widened.

  Something punched his Sympathy off its hinges. Milo’s ears rang with blood. The door bowed inwards and exploded.

  His Sympathy dematerialized before its splinters could strike Milo. There stood the Anomaly, clawed fist extended. One of its fingers crumbled into iron dust.

  That was more than just an alien physique. This Anomaly… I figured its power was spatial, but maybe it’s more like stockpiling. If only I could bait it into doing that attack where I can see what-

  Milo tasted blood from the backlash of his damaged Sympathy and it made him focus. Right now, nothing stood between him and deadly metal that had shattered his durable Sympathy like a chainsaw. He didn’t want to know what it could do to human flesh.

  Milo ran for cover.

  The Anomaly cocked its head. A cruel light flickered in its eye, bathing the room in cold fluorescence.

  Also, if the door gets too battered to open again, there’s no way I’m getting out of here alive!

  He dove behind some scaffolding. The stickbug scuttled after him as he desperately kept a thin pole between them. Its steps faltered as it turned.

  It’s fast in a straight line, but only then!

  The Anomaly chittered in frustration. Its claw twisted at the wrist joint, 30 degrees, with a click.

  Oh no. It really is stockpiling its strength. Have I wasted my potential by assuming I had access to a spatial Anomaly that no other magician knew of?

  No, beyond potential, aren’t I going to die?

  Click click click. The fist spun faster and faster, and Milo didn’t dare leave the cover of the pole. But the tension in the Anomaly’s wrists was only getting more intense, and soon it would punch right through his cover. Damn it. Every surface is a wall, but that doesn’t-

  Every surface is a wall. In every direction?

  His life flashed before his eyes and he squinted past it in search of any solution. Three weeks ago, he had been given The Blue Scene Manual by a broker. Half a week later, in pursuit of a power that would allow him to traverse space at will, he’d settled on the foundational shape for his Sympathy: a door.

  Sympathy was how a magician interfaced with the Anomalies and other magicians around them. Part icon, part object.

  Extensive training had taught him how to ‘disjoint’ the door, materializing it somewhere it did not belong—such as in the center of a room. Still, his Sympathy always formed parallel to a wall.

  One last image floated in front of his mind; one deeply familiar to anyone who was even passingly familiar with video games.

  Clickclickclick.

  Milo leapt as high as he could. Before he could fall, his Sympathy caught him.

  Sideways. Floating in the air as a platform. Parallel to a wall that was, in fact, the floor.

  Clckclckccccchhh!

  The Anomaly punched through the scaffolding pillar and nearly into the wall behind it. Its entire left fist shattered into dust.

  The warehouse they were in belonged to both of them; a halfway point between the nature of the Anomaly and the metaphysique of Milo’s Sympathy. It had inherited his incomplete door’s one advantage: durability. There were now hairline fractures running through the anomaly’s entire body.

  It should be weak enough now.

  His door vanished beneath him. Milo fell through the air as the Anomaly turned with hate in its eyes. He was falling, he knew. A sitting duck. Before the wind came, before the spark of hate ignited into a blazing charge…

  His Sympathy appeared. And Milo grasped the doorknob.

  Take the Anomaly into me.

  He flung his gate open and the beast charged into it. Into a domain that was wholly Milo’s own. Then he shut the door to let it digest.

  Cracks spiderwebbed along every surface. The partial space created by his soul's intersection with the anomaly was collapsing. It shattered like a nightmare and Milo tumbled onto the break room floor.

  He stood up. Checked the microwave.

  2:25.

  He chuckled. I was worried for nothing. That fight went fast.

  Something hit the floor.

  When he turned around a young woman was staring at him with a coffee cup no longer in her grasp. Her mocha spilled over pristine white linoleum.

  “You,” she said slowly. “Are not supposed to be here.”