Michael laughed. “Stop staring down at your bellybutton, Gabriel. The answer’s right in front of you.”
Gabriel opened his eyes. His jaw dropped in amazement. He saw a shimmering, monolithic shape a few yards ahead of them. The figure seemed surreal, too dreamlike to possibly exist. It was incandescent, luminescent, and glowing white, the whitest of whites, like a flowing stream of the purest milk in the universe, spiraling down from the sky on an enormous train track. A track? No. It was a gravity-defying river in space that corkscrewed down through the sky and met the skin of the ocean in a long, sweeping arc. There, it joined with the water, creating the moonlit trail across the ocean that Gabriel had always been so inexplicably drawn to. That unreachable white line in the distance, he’d found its endpoint. He’d found the pot of gold, the conduit, the place where the moon held hands with the earth.
The skyward passage had no legs to support it, no structure, and no grounding. It didn’t need any of that. Its glowing surface simply flowed from the sky, continuously, without beginning or end. Its surface constantly vibrated with coils of energy that, even from that distance, sent warm electrical tingles across his skin. Gabriel gazed up at it in awe.
It looked like the biggest toy marble set he’d ever seen. Except marbles start at the top, and they go down. He and the slugs were at the bottom. That meant that, somehow, they were about to go up.
The slugs came to a stop and bowed their heads, lowering their faces to the ocean in humble reverence. Then, their antennas rose, and they swam toward the point where the ocean merged with the lighted path. Gabriel gripped Michael’s antennas nervously as they slipped onto the white road’s glowing surface.
“What is it?” Gabriel asked.
“A road,” Michael answered. “Or I should say the road.”
Chapter 50:
Atmosphere
As the slug infantry merged onto the white road, everything became lighter. Staring straight at the road’s milky surface was like staring into an LED light, except the light didn’t hurt his eyes.
Hearing the murmurs and cheerful sounds of the slugs, Gabriel detected a growing sense of excitement among their ranks. The slugs sank into the surface a little but still floated atop its opaque base. On both sides, there was a short lip, a subtle barrier to prevent anyone from falling off. As the glowing passage changed textures, became less ocean and more light, Gabriel felt an odd sense of cool warmth inside him.
He looked forward and saw that the road was in a constant state of flowing movement. Suspended in midair, it continually bent and curved in new directions. Ahead, the mystical pathway seemed to shoot vertically into the sky and then dip downward before becoming a roller-coaster-like series of loops and curves. The road was about eight feet wide, and the initial slope was quite steep. Gabriel didn’t understand where the propulsion was going to come from to get them up to the top.
“Fasten your seatbelts!” Michael called.
The entire mass of slugs began to slide forward, slowly at first, but they quickly picked up speed. Wind blasted Gabriel’s back, and he realized that was what would push them up the impossibly vertical hill. The gust became stronger, propelling them to the first big peak.
At the top, Gabriel looked back and saw that the ocean was nearly a quarter mile beneath them. he took a deep breath and faced front again, peering down into the terrifying drop ahead. He’d always been a thrill seeker, but he wasn’t ready. He was too old, too decrepit, too—
They shot forward like a cannonball, hurtling down the glowing path. They plummeted back to the ocean, then in the most dramatic jerking motion he had ever experienced, they swung skyward, their velocity growing faster with every dip.
“Holy—!”
The next plunge was much deeper. Gabriel gripped Michael’s antennas desperately, even as the giant slug shook with excited laughter. Oh God, oh God, oh God.
Whooooosh!
The road shot upward again, right past a flock of flapping seagulls, and Gabriel realized that the path was bent to the will of its passengers. It was a giant glowing rollercoaster controlled by those who rode it.
Maybe I can control it. With a grin, Gabriel squeezed Michael’s antennas.
Whoooosh!
The rollercoaster plummeted, spun upside down, then tore upward. The path turned in a spiraling curve, and he focused on manipulating the road to his specification. In his mind, he had created an imperfect Möbius strip in the sky, defining the shape of his rollercoaster.
As the next upward sweep approached, he raised his hands like a kid in an amusement park. “Whooooo!”
Michael, Raphael, and the other slugs shouted out with him. The white road whipped them around another turn and rapidly pitched them upward then sideways. Gabriel laughed, hugging Michael’s sides with his thighs, though the road seemed to hold its own unique kind of gravity.
“Now you’re getting it!” Albino hollered. “Keep it up!”
Bending the road with his mind, Gabriel created infinity symbols in the night sky. He made zigzags and winding whirlpools with terrifyingly vertical pitches terminating in sweeping curves back up to the atmosphere. Left, right, down, up, inside-out, upside-down. Gabriel quickly realized that on that shimmering road, the laws of gravity were merely another tool to play with. In the end, the path would take them to the Sky Amoeba, but the curves were his to define.
As they wrapped around an especially long curve, Gabriel looked down and saw the maelstrom. From that dizzying height, the wide area looked smaller than his hand. The ocean stretched out in an eternal blue expanse. The golden lights of streetlamps, porch lights, and zooming headlights dotted the jagged black shoreline. People, miniature and doll-like, raced down the beach and bodysurfed the waves. After a minute of searching, Gabriel spotted Bright New Day. He waved at his former place of residence, cackling with pleasure.
Shwoooosh!
They broke through the cloud cover, the cool moisture forming droplets of water on his arms. Their shadows sketched long outlines over the clouds. Striding atop the world, they discovered the dawn of a breathtaking sunrise. They’d broken free from the night, and the waking sky above the clouds was painted in shades of gold, pink, and crimson.
The slugs began slowing, but Gabriel saw that the road continued far above the clouds, pushing up through the Earth’s atmosphere and into outer space. He wanted to keep going.
“Is everything okay?” Gabriel asked.
“Yep,” Michael answered. “We’re here at the halfway point. We’re not going all the way to the end of the road, not yet. Let’s jump outta here.”
“Pardon?” Gabriel looked around at the clouds, the sky, and the sun. Where are we supposed to jump out?
The road flowed downward, meeting with the clouds. Michael and the slugs followed it then leapt directly onto the surface of a cloud as if it were snowy ground instead of a mass of aerosols. Okay, so we’re walking on clouds now. Sure. After the shimmering roller-coaster ride he’d just been on, Gabriel wasn’t going to argue.
Michael stopped and lowered his back so that Gabriel could climb off. Gabriel hesitated, looking down at the fluffy white surface. Men don’t walk on clouds.
“You’re okay. Just climb down,” Michael said.
Gabriel lowered one foot, certain that he’d step right through and fall back to the earth. The surface was solid, though a bit feathery, kind of like stepping into snow. Through a misty break in the cloud between his feet, he could see that the dark maelstrom was directly beneath them, many miles below but still there, its evil eyes watching them.
When he looked up, he was startled by the sight of an obsidian scythe attached to a handle of chalk-white bones. Victor Calaca stood there, a lanky scarecrow shrouded in his robe of black empty space. Gabriel respectfully nodded at Victor.
Victor returned the gesture, the corner of his thin lips curving upward into a smile. His familiar bugged-out eyes glowed with unusual whiteness. “Delighted that you could make it, my friend.”
Gabriel wanted to reply, but all he could manage was another weak nod. Victor’s smile widened but not enough to reveal teeth. Calaca stood next to Michael, patting the great slug’s muscular back.
“Okay, Gabriel,” Michael said. “Up to you, now.”
Gabriel hobbled forward, while Victor and the slugs stood back. He wasn’t sure why he walked that way. He simply felt that it was what he was meant to do, providing his legs didn’t fail him.
He came to two slightly elevated circles in the fluffy white cloud surface. One circle was labeled SCHIST in transparent letters, and the other one was labeled SCHISTLING. Between the two circles was another break in the cloud cover.
Gabriel heard the low murmur of thunder in the distance. He looked toward the sun, wondering if it was actually the Sky Amoeba. But that didn’t make sense, unless the Sky Amoeba was going to somehow appear from the sun. Yes, perhaps that was the setup. The Sky Amoeba would come from the sun, or maybe be sitting on it like a throne, and Gabriel and the Schistlings would stand trial on the circles before the judge.
“So what happens when the Sky Amoeba appears?” Gabriel called back to the slugs. “What exactly will he do?”
“He shall watch,” Victor said.
“He’ll listen,” Michael added.
“And it is he who has allowed this scene to transpire,” Raphael said. “But, Gabriel, do not be lulled into any false sense of security, for the fate of this trial will be decided between you and the Schist Ex Machina. That is how the Sky Amoeba has created things, and so it must be. That is the gift and curse of conscious beings: we must all choose our own fates. The Sky Amoeba’s role is merely to present the choice then give us the freedom to decide upon our actions. This is the negotiation that we have previously spoken of, and the Sky Amoeba has permitted this negotiation to occur.”
“And this so-called trial is to negotiate what, exactly?”
