Chapter 27

Chapter 27: Mondieu

It was almost time. The inspector checked his timepiece: a quarter to one in the afternoon. The inspector turned around and began walking with a swift pace back towards the information tower. Only Turners was present when the inspector arrived.

                “How is everything, Turners?”

                “Looking fine, Inspector Mondieu. I’ll be finished and ready here in a moment,” Turners replied, shoulder-deep in a pile of machinery half-way up the ramp.

                “Very good. I’ll hold off until you arrive,” the inspector replied. The inspector continued the rest of the way up onto the roof of the information tower. The fountain appeared to have been unaffected by the other blasts throughout the city: probably the criminal hadn’t found it as simple placing an explosive in this particular location. Interesting note, indeed.

                The rooftop was fifty paces wide and nearly square, and even with the fountain, there should be more than enough room. The trapdoor opened up behind the inspector, and Seth hopped up onto the roof. The inspector’s brow furrowed and he checked his timepiece again. Seth was more than punctual: still wasn’t even one yet.

                “Seth, a little early, aren’t you?” Mondieu asked, surprised at Seth’s huffing pace.

                “Sir, I have something that maybe you should see,” Seth replied, panting for breath as he hurriedly walked over to where the inspector stood near the edge of the tower roof.  Seth was holding a small notebook, and he proffered it to the inspector.

                “What is this?” the inspector asked, turning it over and opening the notebook to the first page.

                “Last night, I started on a trail realized there might be some information you did not know about the beginning of our city. I described everything I remembered into this notebook. I’m not certain any of it will be helpful, or if you might already know most of it, but just in case.”

                The inspector pored over the notebook while Seth caught his breath, reading the quickly scrawled notes written in nigh illegible handwriting. In a rush, then. It was harder to lie in a hurry like that, unless everything was planned beforehand. However, the inspector would not put it past Seth – especially not now.

                The history was interesting, however, and there were a few facts that the inspector was not aware of up until this point.

                “Why wasn’t I told any of these things before?” the inspector asked Seth with an accusatory glance.

                Seth shrugged, crouching against the rooftop with a stabilizing hand set on the low wall surrounding the rooftop. “I didn’t know it was relevant. I only just thought of it today,” Seth replied.

                “I thought you hadn’t lived here your whole life,” the inspector said. “How old were you to remember this?”

                Seth didn’t answer, but just started out over the city.  Another scrambling noise interrupted them as another figure hopped up onto the roof. Simon Temple: again, another early comer, though not so early. Only a few minutes until one, now.

                “Inspector, Seth.” Simon nodded at each. “Looks like it isn’t just the inspector I’m meeting up here. What are you playing at, Mondieu?”

                Seth gave the inspector searching stare. “Welcome, Simon Temple. All will become clear shortly, I hope, if we are patient.”

                Another head popped through the opening, Evelyn, who reached down to help another climb up the ladder onto the top of the tower. Simon hurried over and helped pull the Doctor onto the roof.

                “There you are, Doctor,” Simon said, steadying the doctor and handing him his cane which he had brought with him today.

                “Ah, thank you lad. I’m none so young as once I was,” the Doctor replied, and winked. “So, Inspector, it seems this is more of a party than I originally realized. Have you, then, stopped the last crime? Or has it already happened?”

                “Doctor Evatt and Evelyn, thank you for coming. I expect that you’ll know soon enough, what everything is about.”

                The Doctor just nodded and leaned on Evelyn for support, who said nothing.

                A few minutes later, five minutes after one, another group arrived. Apparently, the issued notices to meet atop the information tower were not kept secret, and someone had suspected that the inspector was not meeting with them individually. A crowd of twenty or more people poured onto the roof of the information tower, including DuMont and Vespars, who merely nodded at the inspector when they arrived, and Pavloh. After the last of these popped up onto the rooftop, another hasty scrambling came from below, and Marie hopped up onto the rooftop, dragging up a hefty bag and a couple of notebooks, and wearing the inspector’s own cloak.

                She hurried over to the inspector’s side and dropped the bags near his feet, and smiled brightly. “Inspector, apparently this meeting isn’t as private as I suspected. I’d hoped for something a little more… romantic,” she said coquettishly, and beamed.

                Mondieu grumbled to himself something to the effect of, “you’ll see” and Marie laughed.

                “Not even a:  ‘it’s good to see you, Marie?’ or an explanation of what is happening here?”

                Another figure poked through the trapdoor opening onto the roof.

                “How many people are coming up here?” asked Marie. “Will the building hold? Is this the final crime? This building collapsing beneath us?”

                What if it was? Have I set us all up for death? If it was, though, the villain probably would not arrive. And there still were a few people who had not come yet.

                The latest figure, several figures, were The Bear, his wife, and the Librarian. The Bear walked over and clasped hands with the inspector. “I figured this wasn’t a private gathering, and invited my wife as well. I hope that is fine with you, Mondieu.”

                “Very well, Fredrik. Thank you for coming,” Mondieu replied. It was almost ten past the hour when the last two arrived: Robinson and the Postman himself.  Neither said a word to the inspector, but simply merged with the standing crowd, all staring at the inspector expectantly.

                That means that only Turners, of the people I invited, has not come through. Mondieu checked his timepiece for perhaps the hundredth time that hour, and saw it was just past ten after.

                “Welcome, everyone. I’m glad you could all make it. Right now you are wondering why I invited you all here, though there are many here who were not, in fact, invited. The answer is, that we are here to discover our criminal.”

                Mondieu paused as a quiet murmur passed through the crowd.

                “Now, I have reason to believe-” the inspector began, and was interrupted by a loud clanking from the trapdoor and yelling.

                “Inspector! Emergency, Inspector Mondieu!”

                Turners crawled through the trapdoor onto the roof and everyone turned to look at Turners.

                “What is it, Turners? What’s wrong?” the inspector asked, his brow furrowing. Was this the final crime? Was it now?

                “Inspector, sir. All of the computers failed. All of the computers are dead,” Turners, said, falling to a kneel, anguish clear across his face. Here was a tired man. This is not our criminal.

                “What do you mean by ‘dead’, Turners?”

                “I mean dead, caput, finished. They won’t even turn on, and everything is broken, everything is turned off. The city is finished.”

                A loud crack of sound whipped across town like thunder, deafening and continuing into a low, ugly rumble. “What the hell?” the inspector said, hurrying over to the building’s edge.

                Everyone followed the inspector, and it was then that they witnessed the final crime, Garden’s coup de gras, the killing grace. A web of cracks split the arboretum’s glass exterior, networking throughout the structure until the entirety was veined with tiny fractures. A bright glow licked at the bottoms of the glass, and smoke poured from each tiny fissure. Sounds of snapping glass flooded over them, like icy limbs of trees snapping, like ceramic rain smashing over cobblestones. Waves of smoke lifted from the tortured structure, blown east over the tower with the stench of sulfur and ash and decay.

                A loud explosion sounded out behind them, and the inspector turned and saw another cloud of smoke rising from the weather controller, and a number of smaller explosions riddled the town around them, tearing up old buildings and wrecking the marketplace.

                “How many must die for this!” the inspector screamed, but his voice was lost in the destruction.

                The explosions slowed around town until the sounds of cracking glass were the final sound, and yells from those atop the tower, screaming and crying. Was this the end? Was this the fire?

                At least, it seemed the structure could suffer no more, and with an explosive mushroom of a cloud, it the glass shattered in a horrific splash of noise and the tower collapsed, revealing the fires beneath the dome. The trees were ghosts, like naked, charred hands grasping up from the soils of a graveyard, lit only by the ghost-candles of flames, for there was nothing left to burn – except the tree of life. On it blazed, though already its dying moments were seen. It seemed, somehow, to reach higher in its last moments, as though saying, why have you forsaken me?

                Perhaps it was simply air escaping between its voluminous branches, or the whistling of smoke past smoldering leaves, but the tree screamed its final breaths of life and knowledge.

                Broken limbs surrounding – whose limbs? Each leaf let off a ghost, like a tiny soul, and each fruit dreamed its own death. A host of shadowed figures surrounded the tree, silent, smoky wisps of phantom people whose faces were the eternal void of a night without stars. With their hammers and nails they built, and the tree blossomed, and the city sprung up out of the dust and ashes of the land. The collective mass of ashen ghosts breathed, and the dust of the valley transformed into a city, with the tree its heart, and a tower its soul. Now, it melted, fell back as all things do into dust, into dust once more, and a city without heart is no city at all.

                The black figures disappeared, floating off into the sky like chaff or blackened sparks from a once bright fire.

                The inspector reeled from the vision and saw the tree in the last throes of life. He backed away slowly from the ledge and turned around. Everyone was staring wide eyed at the center still, shock written clearly on their faces, and Garden was quiet.

                Down below, near the city gates, another loud noise screamed into the city as police forces arrived, and the inspector heaved a sigh of relief. It was over, but there was still time for justice.

                “Is it the end,” someone whispered beside him. “Is it the end of paradise?

                Her rash hand in evil hour

Forth reaching to the fruit, she plucked, she eat:

Earth felt the wound, and Nature from her seat,

Sighing through all her works, gave signs of woe

That all was lost.

”

                The inspector turned and saw that the speaker was Robinson, and gave him an inquisitive look.

                “Ladies and gentlemen, this is the end, perhaps, or an end. But not just for this once fair city, but for our criminal as well. Justice will be served for this atrocity, and our villain will not escape it, though our criminal thinks he has won, and wrought his vengeance, or act of destruction for whatever cause.

                “Already, the police have arrived, and no one leaves this tower until the villain is caught.” The inspector glanced around at his audience, in tears and stricken at the loss of their fair city. Was anyone not sad? Were any hearts not broken? Surely the villain’s emotions were merely a farce, unless one can destroy and still love that which he breaks. Could it be?

                “But how do you know the villain is even atop this tower?” Seth asked, glanced around at the crowd surrounding him.

                “There are a lot of things I know, and many will be revealed shortly. First, however, I want to give our criminal a chance, an opportunity to turn himself in.” Mondieu glanced out over the crowd as an awkward stillness and numbness from the sights of the day settled over the group.

                “Very well. I must say, ladies and gentlemen, that this investigation has not been easy for me. How does an investigator, new upon a town, track down a murderer in an entire city without the advanced tools that civilization has gifted us? Once again, we are borne back into a Sherlockian era, though I am certainly no Sherlock.

                “But I do believe that our villain is here, upon this very rooftop. Why, you ask? Well, throughout my investigation, our villain displayed an understanding of the current status of each move that I made. This implied a close proximity, closer perhaps that could be gleaned from simple observation without interacting with the investigation itself.”

                “Is that not a simple supposition, Mondieu?” Vespars piped up. “What if you are mistaken?”

                Whispers ran through the present crowd and Mondieu held up a hand to silence them. “Ah, but I am not wrong. The first murder threw me off the most out of all of the crimes, but it told me a fact that I overlooked for too long. You see, I couldn’t imagine a series of murders where the victims themselves were irrelevant, or nearly irrelevant.

                “In this circumstance, the criminal did not, perhaps, pick out his victims as particular faces, or targets of a vendetta or secret violent inclination. No, it seems that Addam and Lilya were an unlucky couple who managed to fit most conveniently with our criminals diabolical motif: anti-creation. This, too, I missed.” The inspector paced back and forth, and saw that he had nabbed their attention, and only the breeze and smell of ash moved atop the information tower.

                “The second crime, too, baffled me. How could something that seemed so random, so inadvertent, be a murder? How could our villain have masterminded something that would, under any other circumstances, be merely a mistake? I’m not certain whether our villain intended there to be any deaths, on this particular day. Much of our villains motive remains unclear to me, yet this crime was the most confusing of them all, and the most telling, I think, in the end.

                “The third crime was odd, for I was, and I think maybe many of us, were expecting another murder. So completely broadsided were we that the flight of birds and the death of the fish came as complete surprise, and we had not even considered sabotage and terrorism as pieces in the repertoire of our criminal. This is the first crime where the subtleties of our villain started becoming more clear: there was a theme. Also, our villain overplayed his hand, perhaps, in giving a clue with regards to the central thematic element of his grand play: the tree.” The inspector glanced around at his crowd, gauging their reactions so far. Below, the police were rounding up people and barricading the city, preventing anyone from escaping. As yet, they had not approached the tower, though it seemed like they had brought a helicopter.

                “Our next crimes were strange, because though we tried to prevent our criminal, at each juncture he was one step ahead: the information tower virus, the weather controller, the explosions, and finally now: the destruction of the tree. However, these hours were not spent idly. Quickly, several of us caught onto the villain’s symbolic reversal of creation, an anti-creation, and endeavored to anticipate his next movements.

                “Last night, with the destruction of the city nigh, I discovered a couple more interesting pieces of information, previously unknown to me, but first I must return to a previous date as explanation. Nearly forty years ago, this town was construction on the bones of an empty hillside, as a new city to herald in an Edenic Garden, a perfect paradise of weather and living things in harmony.

                “The tree was its heart, the centerpiece of an idyllic monumental city. However, not everyone was pleased with the introduction of the tree into the city. It was justified as a scientific achievement that surpassed all previous accomplishments: the tree of life, they called it, though its antagonists named it the tree of knowledge, for it would bring about the fall of the city, the end of paradise.”

                Several members of the crowd shuffled impatiently. Time to get to the point, then. Justice can be patient, though, and what is our criminal thinking just now? The longer this dragged in, the most tense he hoped the villain would get, until something slipped. Don’t play your hand too quickly, Mondieu, justice must be served in time.

                “But not everyone was against the tree, and it brings about longevity, making ages difficult to discern in Garden. If you first started eating the fruit at fifty, you might continue appearing as age fifty for many more years, and certainly would look no older than sixty even now. Seth, how old are you?”

                “Fifty-five, sir,” Seth replied quietly.

                “And you, the post boy?”

                “Forty-seven, sir.” Quite a bit older than I suspected.

                “You see? It is difficult to tell, for if I didn’t know better, I might have guessed that Seth here was in his mid-twenties, not yet twenty and five, and he is already fifty years of age. And our humble doctor, how old was he when this town began? And Robinson? What I realized is that an element of time had crept in, and it grew increasingly important.

                “Yesterday, when discussing the history of this city, I asked how I might know who had eaten of the tree, and who had not. The answer was, ‘you shall know them by their fruits’. What was meant, I think, is that age is a telling factor. How old is the person, and how long have they lived in Garden? Suddenly, the entire investigation shifted from a stalking of a murderer, into an analysis of time.

                “How had our villain had enough time to write a virus for the computers, build bombs for the weather controller, destroy the entire arboretum, understand enough about the systems to poison the water, and devise the mechanisms for murders, and murders that symbolized a very particular series of anti-creative actions, leading towards the fall of Garden? How, and when?

                “It became clear to me that our villain could not be altogether new in town, however criminal some of these newer personas seemed. Either they were new in town, and innocent, or they had somehow been in town longer than they said, and kept hidden. So a couple of our esteemed party suddenly seemed less guilty of a sudden. DuMont and Simon, by their own admission, were new in town.  Unless, of course, they were lying.

                “But then comes the motive. What reason could our villain possibly have for committing such atrocities? Especially if he was from outside of this city? You see, having lived outside of this city myself, I don’t know of anyone who possesses an opinion one way or the other about Garden. In fact, knowledge of the city is incredibly limited, and I suspect hidden in some way from the general public. So if DuMont and Simon Temple are indeed from outside of this city, what reason could they have for such specific targeting and the destruction of the city, and what time could they have for the planning of such an event? How could they gain such an understanding of the city having visited here so briefly?

                “We set traps, and the first night, the Doctor and Evelyn stepped blindly into our waiting arms. Only this morning, I discovered that Evelyn and the Doctor were vehemently against the tree in its younger days. Could they still be so? Evelyn spoke a mighty speech against the introduction of the tree, and probably each has refused to consume the trees fruits since that fateful day, have you not, Evatt and Evelyn?”

                Evelyn shifted in her stance, looking uncomfortable, but defiant, and Evatt looked a little glum, and tired.

                “It is true, what you say, Mondieu,” the Doctor replied. “We both were, and are still, against the introduction of the tree to the city of Garden, and have avoided eating any of its fruit. That’s why we grow old and frail, though our friends may seem young.”

                “But we are not your murderers!” Evelyn burst out, and then turned red, and the Doctor put his arm around her shoulder comfortingly.

                “As you say, of course, Evelyn. We’ve already seen that Seth has partaken of the fruit, and by his age, I can see that Robinson has as well, though not, perhaps, consistently. And Pavloh, you have avoided the fruit as well, I see? Yes, of course you have. And then there is the innkeeper, a young boy at the creation of this city, but now an older, revered innkeeper. I take it that you have not eaten much of the fruit yourself, have you?”

                The pulled his wife nearer him and said, “It’s an atrocity, it is, a Babel as Evelyn once said. The ego of man is too great sometimes, and it will spell our doom. Hell, it already has.”

                Mondieu nodded before turning to the next victim of interrogation. “And Marie? How long have you been in town? Clearly you have partaken of the fruit as well, yes?”

                Marie blushed. “Actually, I’ve only eaten the fruit for testing, and I’ve lived in this city less than five years, certainly. I honestly have no political position on the tree or in adverse, to be honest. I’m only here to study.”

                “As you say,” the inspector sad, nodding, and Marie frowned. “And Vespars? What of you? You say that you’ve only lived here a few years, and no one has corrected you – even Seth who’s clearly been here his whole live. What say you about the tree?”

                “It is a tree to me, no more no less,” replied Vespars with a shrug. “I’ve eaten the fruit now and again, but claim no partisanship regarding its existence.”

                “Very well. But there are other variables, you see. Our villain had to have technological expertise, and experience creating bombs, and impeccable timing. In addition, I suspect out villain had to be known around town, such that his being in unusual areas would not cause any notice - like a mechanic or a doctor, perhaps.

                “Who gets around to everywhere without anyone noticing? That was a question that riddled my brain for quite some time. Someone with the expertise necessary to accomplish each of these crimes, the motive, whatever that may be, the time to prepare, and the ability to be inconspicuous in a number of places.”

                It was almost time to lay down some of his trump cards. Was the crowd ready? Was the villain primed?

                “But everything came back to the second crime: the murder of Horten. Why this crime, you ask? Well, this crime didn’t quite fit. On the sixth day of creation, both man and animals are created, out of dust he created man and woman. But it almost seems like Horten and his wife were killed inadvertently. What if our mysterious villain had no intention of killing anyone in this particular incident? What if he, or she, simply wished to symbolize the animals death? And how did the villain exact this, whether or not  the murders were intended?

                “Was there a signal that the animals were trained to? A high pitched whistle, perhaps, or a motion from the crowd? But there is something even stranger. When we examined the specimens initially, the Doctor claimed there was no poison, which bothered me. That meant that someone had to sneak into the pens at night and train the wolves, no mean task for anyone, or the wolves had gone feral on their own. Unfortunately, for our villain’s mastermind plot to have any merit, there must have been a trigger, or a crime, and not just a random happenstance. It was no accident, then, that the wolves attacked, whether or not Horten was the intended target. “

                Mondieu snuck a quick peak around: nothing yet. The finale was upon them.

                “But then I learned the last piece of information, the piece that brought everything together for me. I discussed with Marie what she was actually doing in this city, and she said experimenting on the tree itself. Of course, this is no crime, as anyone is free to investigate or interact with the tree however they like, but Marie did so in a secretive fashion. Why? Because she wanted to know if another could be made.

                “When the tree was first constructed in the outside world, they tried making duplicates, or cloning the tree, or even getting it to reproduce, to no avail. For whatever reason, any new copies of the tree simply would not grow: it was sterile and a miracle. Marie came thinking likewise. Our villain, worried that the ego of man might return again to the world at large, and more atrocities might occur, realized that the time had come to destroy everything, to end the tree because it could wreak its terrible knowledge and evils upon the rest of man.

                “Marie came with her own equipment, equipment vastly more intricate than any found here in Garden. So it was no surprise that the Doctor’s investigation missed what Marie’s quickly discerned: poison. It was not some secret training, or some signal set in the crowd: the wolves were poisoned, and set to go feral. Whether or not Horten had arrived, the wolves were going to tear each other apart, reverted to an animalistic rabidity, a violent, primal rage.

                “But who would have the motive? Who would have the experience? Someone who wanted the tree destroyed, and who always wanted it destroyed, and knew that the time had finally come. Our criminal started storing up supplies and building bombs in a secret place; he or she started planning, intricately, everything necessary, using knowledge of the tree and creation to prepare a devilish plot. Who, and why, you ask? Because this had to stop, it just couldn’t continue any longer could it?”

                The inspector paused, glancing around at his silent audience, enraptured in the tension of the story and moment. There was a fire in their glance, having just seen the destruction of their city. He might have to tame that crowd, or they might lynch whoever he pointed at first, whether or not they had actually committed any crime, or simply throw them from the building.

                “But justice is coming, and the police are, even now, ready to bring this person to justice. They will serve their time as due punishment for their crimes. When we are done here today, our criminal will be safely behind bars, and together, we can work to rebuild the homes of those who lost.”

                It wasn’t great, but it would have to do. The fire was still there, but it was tempered, as if they were frightened of impeding the law, even though if they worked as a mob, there was nothing the law could really do to all of them. It would be a justice served, of a sort.

                “So, putting it all together, who is it? Our is our grand villain, the destroyer of towns and peoples? Feeling pretty good, right now, are they? Someone with a secret place to construct bombs, a motive, the allotted time”

                “It was you, wasn’t it?” a voice screamed. “Why?”

                “Why indeed, Doctor Evatt?” Mondieu asked, his voice dark, wolfish in tone.

                A low roar filled the top of the information tower, as everyone was shocked into discussion.

                “The Doctor?”

                “Impossible! Doctor Evatt would never!”

                “Why? The Doctor has been nothing but kind for everyone!”

                The inspector watched as the Doctor took off his thick-rimmed glasses and rubbed at them tiredly.

                “But you did do it, didn’t you Doctor?” The inspector said in a low tone, and the crowd hushed. “You were the only one seeing all of your friends die, getting sick every day because they didn’t eat of the tree. In fact, almost all of the house visits that you made to help sick patients consisted of those whom you loved. Garden was perfect for everyone else but you.” Evelyn’s stare was the angriest the inspector had ever seen. She was perhaps the most shocked – too shocked?

                “And you were always against the tree, weren’t you, Doctor? Ever since the beginning. Never quite as outspoken about your beliefs as Eve, here, but of the same opinion. And you used to be a chemist, didn’t you? That’s what Seth here says. More than enough experience with chemistry to create your own explosive devices, and you knew, somehow, that the computers would fail at this time, didn’t you? Everything was intricately planned, was it not?”

                The Doctor sighed. “I never intended to get away with it. I didn’t intend for Addam and Lilya to die, in all actuality. The blood drained too fast – I’d only hoped that they be found comatose beneath the trees, as a sign. And Horten’s, too, was an accident. The wolves might have just torn each other apart without him, but he loved those wolves, and saw them acting strangely.

                “You think that justice is awaiting me? No, justice has already come for me. But I could not let such an atrocity leave this city, and its time was finished. It is finished. For you see, though you have caught me, Mondieu, I have won.”

                “Why, Evatt! Why!” Evelyn shouted, punched her fists against the Doctor’s chest, and collapsing against him. “Why?”

                The Doctor pressed her to him, holding her lightly, and using her to hold himself up. A couple of policemen that the inspector had not seen arrive detached themselves from the rear of the crowd and came up behind the Doctor, lightly holding onto his arms and nodding at the inspector.

                “I had to, Evelyn. And you had to see what sort of man I am, and that I had to do this myself,” the Doctor replied.

                The policemen escorted the Doctor off, leaving Eve standing on the edge of the roof, tears pouring down her face.

                “Well, inspector. You caught the villain. Do you feel victorious?” Marie asked, sidling up near the inspector.

                “I don’t know, Marie. I feel tired.”

               

Chapter 26

Chapter 26
Garden
Morning

The morning dawned, as it always did, though still mostly hidden in Garden. There were not many to see it, if any, and Seth Lord was not one of them.
The sun rose, not visible save as that which is a by product of all mornings such as this; a knowledge that no matter how dark it still was outside, you must still wake and face the dark day.
Seth, however, had not woken.
He lay, fully clothed on his sofa. He posture looked most uncomfortable, as his face was pushed into a cushion, and a little lower than the rest of his body.
He had markedly drooled a little during the night; there was a small pool under his cheek which seemed to originate from his open and whistling mouth.
He woke without preamble or warning. His manner of such was to leverage himself into a sitting position and survey, quite blindly, the surrounding area.
He gazed around himself, without noting anything for a while, before his eyes came slightly more into focus and he could cogently understand what was going on around him.
Seth first noticed the state of his room. It was exactly as he had left it the previous night.
The second thing was that of the clock in his room. He saw it, gestured violently and started to hurriedly change into his nominal uniform.
He was late and he didn't know what he could do about it now.
As he shoved his arms into his sweater, his absent gaze fell on something that had not been there the night before. There was a large notebook, and it was covered in names and poorly written sentences.
That's when he remembered his rather desparate ramblings of the night before.
It had been like a waking nightmare, he remembered. He had felt the rage of the storm that lay dormant in his head; It was no longer outside, in the midst of Garden's scenery. It had possessed him and brought to a fevered end where he had collapsed on his sofa after his mind had been brought peace by his frantic scribbles on his notepad.
He walked slowly over to it, tension held in every meagre step, and stopped in front of the table where it lay. He reached one hand out, mercifully not shaking and held the notebook up to read.  He could not, for some reason or other, read it very well at all. The words were erratically put together and most outrageously spelled, but the theme was that of a meandering pen held in the hands of an over-eager infant and not that of a sharpened intellect at its most subtle ways.
Seth dropped the paper in disgust and started to walk away, his mind already on what lay ahead in the day.
That's when he remembered the second part of what had transpired last night: he had come to the decision to make his own path towards solving these crimes. He had had a number of ideas last night and he most definitely remembered writing them all down.
That's when he remembered that he also had been very tired, and that his note-taking last night must have resulted in the most random of ways, the notebook of gibberish he had found.
***No matter, ***he thought to himself, ***a start is a start...is a start.***
He finished dressing for he knew he must soon go out, but he didn't know where yet.
He sat back on the sofa and leaned back a little.
He also had had a vision of some sort, but this was not as important as trying to remember what the next part of his plan was.
He looked at the notebook again, and this time he noticed a phrase that was underlined.

***What about the answers that a couched safely in the past?*** He didn't attach any meaning to this at first, but as he read more of the random phrases the rest of the notebook contained, his mind kept returning to this one.
***What would Garden's past have to do with anything of this?*** He thought to himself finally. ***I was there....most of us were.....And I definitely don't remember anything about crimes like this. ***
He forced his mind back to his ramblings of the night before, but something kept snagging in his memory: the feeling that he had come upon a new, unsearched avenue the night before that might lead to a solution.
He shook his head, hoping to clear it from the streaky cobwebs that seemed entangled, but it didn't help except to throw in even more relief his long held memories of all those years ago.

***They were young then, not just young looking. Their minds were free from the tyranny of the past, and that's why they had been able to do it.
They weren't even sure what they had done, they just knew the end result had been an edenic community named Garden that featured a tree that could keep them younger for much longer.
Their courage had taken them to new heights, they had cried, we shall never have bear the responsibility of carrying a mortal load any longer. However, Seth remembered those who had held back from joining in the celebrations.
He himself had been one of those celebrating; he had felt more alive in those moments than he remembered ever being.
It was a very heady feeling, he remembered most clearly, the idea the community of Garden was actually going to happen. Most of the original denizens had joined in with the newcomers, but some had been apprehensive of the idea of meddling with the pattern of life. Their argument was that this was some attempt at a new creation; something that should be out of Man's hands.
Seth smiled as he remembered scoffing at those words all so long ago. The City, none-withstanding any complaints, had become the new community of Garden with all of its original citizens.
No one had moved away due to the change, but some had refused to partake of the Tree's fruit. Seth also had laughed at that; he could not understand at the time, turning away from something that would extend your life and give you something that had never been given before in this fashion, more time on the earth allotted to those who wanted it.
Some of the nay-sayers had grudgingly accepted the changes, and had partaken, but it was not many.
He remembered Pavloh refusing. He had said it was out of his hands to do anything more than accept the fate already graciously given to him. As far as Seth knew, he still hadn't partaken of the fruit. Pavloh didn't look that old yet, but he must be Seth knew. It had been a long time ago that Garden had been given the gift of the Tree.
Robinson was another who had been there at the time, but he was one who gladly accepted the change. Seth remembered that he had been all for it, but had asked some curious questions about the Tree and its fruit at the time. He had wanted to breed it and make more trees. When he learned that the Tree was barren, he had not dispaired at all. In fact, he had taken a job as butler with the local chemist and had done some experiements with him to determine more of what they could of the tree.
***************we should go back and change what the doctor describes himself as*******
Seth smiled, for he would wager that Robinson was still doing just that.
He also remembered Horten had been fairly hard to convince of the goodness of the change in Garden. Horton had not that it natural, and the forbodings in his mind were strong indeed. After a while though, he had worn down and accepted the change. It was much later though, and he had grown older, while those who had accepted faster, had not aged as much.
Seth thought it had been cruel at the time, watching Horten and his wife grow older, while he remained looking and feeling the same age. Seth regretted the time it had taken him to accept the Tree and what it offered, but he was still glad Horten had eventually done it. Seth felt more confident as the years went on that he had made the right choice in accepting the Tree's gift immediately. He had had his doubts over the years, but as more had accepted it, he had grown more confident.
A couple of the citizens that had shaken his confidence most in the past, had been Evelyn and the Doctor. Neither had fully accepted the Tree, either when Garden first had changed or any of the time since. He knew that Evelyn had been very set against the change at the time; her emotionally volatile speeches to the citizens had nearly reversed what eventually happened. When the City was changed anyway, she stayed. She had claimed that no one could force her out of her own city. He knew she loved Garden still, regardless of what she felt for the changes.
He remembered the Doctor had been against the Tree and those who supported it. He had claimed that his knowledge as a chemist and Doctor had not ever given him confidence in what the Tree promised. He claimed these were empty promises, taken on the flight of dreams and fools. He agreed with Pavloh at the time that the fate reserved for us was not be gainsaid, except in the case of systematic treatment, such as the sundry offerings he could prescribe.
Seth had thought that very convenient at the time, but he had not said anything.
He tried to stay out of most of those discussions, they had usually ended in shouting or dead silence, and he disliked the quality of both of those outcomes usually he found.
There had been a movement, a few years after Garden was changed, he remembered. Evelyn had led a group of concerned citizens into the idea that they should get the Tree taken away. She and her group had been vehementally opposed, but she had persisted.
That's when he remembered it.
It had been a small thing then; the sort of something said once, and then forgotten by everyone in the moment due to it being fairly normal in its use.
It had been a meeting of the Elders and the City Council. They had discussed whatever it was they did before allowing an open floor, and then Evelyn had gotten up to speak.
He remembered the speech fully now, he wondered how he could have ever forgotten it.

"Citizens of Garden, hear me now please!" She had started, and it was her tone that had made everone take instant notice of what was to come. It was both pleading and ringed in command. Her next words though was the root that really took hold Seth thought.
"I do not claim that I do not wonder at this Gift. How could I not? It is a gracious and bountiful giving, something I would normally be beholden to receive. About ***this*** gift, I am not though, and I will tell you why."
She paused and tried to catch everyones' eyes in turn.
"If I were to offer you a gift of life, in a life threatening situation, I think you would be foolish to not accept. This is not that case. If this was a case of a trade, my life for yours, I would gladly accept and trade in full honour. This is not that case. "
She paused again.
"This is a case of human folly dabbling in what we do not know, with repercussions we cannot possibly guess at, and no real sense of what boundaries are in place now."
She paused again, but it was shorte this time; and when she started again, it was even more forceful.
"Do any of you know why this gift is here? How it came to be here in Garden? I do not think so, or else there would be none of those tests currently being taken on the Tree as we speak, and there would be another of these Trees. This is a human tower of strength, what tower of this kind has not fallen eventually?"
She paused and then went on a little more slowly, her voice a little less commanding and a little more entreating.
"A Babel was once created, with the same sort of intentions I see now in play here in Garden. I cannot help but doubt in these indeavors now, how could I not? Just because the promise is great, does not mean the result will be.....Imagine if I were to promise I would grant everyone a wish, with no strings attached as it were. Just becaused I promised it, doesn't mean I would follow through. Even if I was able to, who knows what the possible result is of having our wishes answered? I for one do not, and I would not be looking forward to that eventuality."
She paused and once again tried to catch everyones' eyes.
"In conclusion, I am against this Tree and the changes to Garden. Evatt and I," She indicated the much younger Doctor sitting next to her at the table, "will not be accepting these changes in the ways we know how. I am not going to partake of the Tree and neither will he. We will continue to live in Garden and maintain our normal lifestyles. I hope that we will live to see ourselves proven wrong, but I don't think we will. I would rather die, and face that unknown, rather than see Garden come to the ruin of Babel. I would rather the Tree withered and died, rather than we die in quiet contemplation of the supposed blessed gifts it has given us. I hope you will soon see it as we do."
She sat down to a perfect silence in the meeting rooms.

He withdrew out of the recollection suddenly. He wished he had thought of those words of Evelyn's before. They seemed strangely prophetic in their far reaching implications of what lay in the present day.
His hands grew cold and clammy as he contemplated if he had just solved the mystery, or added to it.
***Could Evelyn be the fiend of Garden? The one who committed the crimes of murder and wanton destruction?***
He didn't know the answer to any of those questions, but Seth knew he had to find out today, the last day of the uncreation.

"By now the sun was crossing the horizon
of the meridian whose highest point
covers Jerusalem; and from the Ganges,

night, circling opposite the sun, was moving
together with the Scales that, when the length
of dark defeats the day, desert night's hands;

so that, above the shore that I had reached,
the fair Aurora's white and scarlet cheeks
were, as Aurora aged, becoming orange."

~Dante

Chapter 25

Chapter 25: Mondieu

Half a league, half a league,

 Half a league onward,

All in the valley of Death

 Rode the six hundred.

"Forward, the Light Brigade!

"Charge for the guns!" he said:

Into the valley of Death

 Rode the six hundred.

~ Alfred, Lord Tennyson – The Charge of the Light Brigade

The final morning dawned with pink cirrus clouds like crushed, melted marbles on the horizon, and a peach-pie sky greeted the inspector that morning. He had not slept, perhaps could not have. All night, he’d plotted a web of details, graphing them into a creative loom following the anti-creation and before: the life of Garden.

                Marie’s comment had revealed one of the last pieces of this puzzle, save the motivation. Why? Why had the villain committed the crime, and why now? Originally, he’d wondered why here, but that was obvious, now.

                The inspector rifled through his things and found a razor, and trimmed the stubble lining his cheeks. He washed his face and cleaned up, toweling himself off and putting on a light eau de cologne. He wrapped his cloak about his shoulders and snatched up his notebook. The crime could happen at any time, so I’ll have to be quick.

Mondieu checked his timepiece. Just after sunrise, so I should have a few hours before the crime. The last clue was not helpful in determining the last of the crimes. The inspector pulled out the Bible in the drawer of his nightstand.

In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness.

                The beginning, the creation of everything: was this a destruction of the city? Or a darkness of some sort? It was tricky, since a good number of things were created here: heavens, earth, day, night, light, darkness, the universe itself. Any one of these could be symbolically construed a number of different ways. But something had to be done.

                The inspector finished cleaning up and tucked his notebook into his coat pocket. He hurried down the stairs, grabbed a quit bite of bread and some coffee, and charged out into the light. His first stop was the post office. Last evening, he’d pulled out a map and marked the location according to The Bear. The post office was a small residential estate in the southwestern region of town, transformed from a large home into a workshop for receiving and sending mail. It didn’t seem like they did much business, as most of the mail was internal and the city was not large enough to warrant sending mail most of the time. But they had boy manning the desk when Mondieu entered, and it was not the postman that had delivered the inspector his mail each day. So there are at least two employees who work here.

                The boy glanced up as the inspector approached. He wore the same outfit as the other postman, though he was, if anything, even younger – perhaps not even twenty. His cheeks were bright and red, and his hair so bleached-blond it was almost white.

                “Good day, sir,” the boy said cheerily as the inspector entered. “What can I do for you today?”

                “Is the other postman not here?” the inspector asked.

                “He’s out delivering the mail, sir. He generally does that while I sit here and organize. Do you have any mail you want delivered?” the boy replied.

                So maybe there were only two workers then. “Actually, I have a much more important task, and I cannot trust anyone else to perform it for me. It is a matter of utmost urgency, and it must be done with all haste.”

                The boy’s eyes widened with each word the inspector said.

                “I need you to run to the nearest town – you should write this down,” the inspector said, pulling over a piece of paper and a pen for the boy, whose surprise was ever mounting. “I need you to run to the nearest town, and find the police station, which you will probably need to ask someone about, and ask the police inspector there to send as many men as he can spare to this city – and to do so immediately. If possible, I want men here within five hours. Are you with me so far?”

                The boy nodded almost imperceptibly, but had written everything down faithfully.

                “And tell them to bring me a communication device of some sort: a phone device, a walkie-talkie – hell, a helicopter, whatever he can spare. Got that?”

                The boy nodded once more.

                “And tell him to bring medics as well. I’m not certain if we’ll have injured, but better to be safe than dead. Do you know how to reach the nearest city?”

                No response.

                “It’s east of here, about an hour by horse. Hopefully you can ride a horse, otherwise this might be a miserable day for you. Find a horse as fast as possible, or just take one, I don’t care. Do you understand how urgent this is?”

                The boy nodded sharply.

                “I don’t believe you do, because if you did, you would be gone.” The inspector darkly chuckled as the young man tossed a knapsack over his shoulder, threw his notepad in, and hurried out of the building. Mondieu soon followed the boy out of the post office building, out east towards the information tower.

                Still no sign of any crime, but if previous crimes were any indication, this one would occur before midday. More people roamed the streets this morning than some of the mornings previous. Maybe they were realizing they could not surrender completely to the cold; the fight to survive began now. Turners was, as always, in the information tower.

                “Good morning, Mondieu,” Turners said cheerfully.

                Mondieu was almost surprised by the brightness of this response. “The day where the city may, according to our criminal, be destroyed – and you say ‘good morning’ so blithely?”

                Turners merely smiled at this. “Someone has to keep cheerful, with people like you around, Mondieu. But there is good news.”

                “What sort of good news?” Mondieu asked warily.

                “The water is all fixed up, and we called in some scientists who are excited to interact with the weather control device, and hopefully bring it back to life. A group is working on storing food so we can last a while on what we have, and get word out to neighboring cities for help.”

                The inspector’s eyes widened in surprise. They were fighting better than he thought. He realized he kept imagining this as a war zone. Was it not? And now, ordered back into a valley of death he charged. Was victory possible? “That’s great news. How is the information tower holding up?”

                “Shabby and she’s seen better days, but she’s still purty, if you squint a little,” Turners replied with a broad grin.

                “You mean if you shut your eyes entirely,” the inspector replied wryly, staring around at the soggy floor and broken machinery covering the central area of the tower’s floor level. “What about the water? How did you fix the pipes?”

                “I closed off all of the valves leading toward fountains, and that seemed to fix our problem. Our criminal targeted only those for his explosive purposes, for whatever reason. There is also a heating system in the water mechanism that should encourage our plants to grow again, and prevent the pipes from freezing if the weather ever drops too low.”

                There is always hope. “Perfect. I’ll leave you to your work. Very good, Turners. I may have need of you shortly.”

                Turners gave a cheeky salute and turned back to his work, and Mondieu left the information tower, heading just east to the police station. Seth was gone, but both Vespars and DuMont were in the station at the time.

                “Gentlemen,” Mondieu nodded to each as he entered. He sat down on Seth’s desk and faced them. “So, what did you discover about the menagerie? Was there anyone present there that morning? Vespars?”

                Vespars shifted in his stance, leaning against the wall beside the door and grinding his teeth. “Nothing that I could find, inspector. Seems like nights at the menagerie are pretty silent. Even the feeders don’t come until the morning, which is why the crowd was gathered there in the first place: watching the feeding of the wolves. It’s not uncommon. I’ve done it myself a few times.”

                “So you found nothing?” the inspector asked with an accusatory stare.

                “Nothing, inspector,” Vespars replied, unmoved.

                “And you, DuMont? Did you also find nothing?” moving his glance over to DuMont, who was sitting down with his legs wide spread, looking as if he owned the room, fearing nothing.

                “Actually, I may have. I talked with someone who says that the Doctor and Robinson met with someone that very morning, perhaps even Horten. They didn’t say what their topic of conversation was, but it could be important. The night before, some people thought they heard the wolves howling, but none investigated.”

                “That’s it?” asked the inspector. “Who did you find this out from?”

                “A source who wishes to remain anonymous,” DuMont replied blankly.

                DuMont was impossible to read. What sort of person was this? Why was he here? Escaping from something? “You know I could have you arrested for simply withholding information?”

                “And who would arrest me? Vespars? I don’t think so,” DuMont replied.

                He was doubly thankful he was calling in those police now, in case things got… interesting. “Very good, gentlemen. You’ll both likely be needed fairly soon. Do you know where Seth is at this time?”

                Both of them shrugged.

                “Very well. I’ll be seeing both of you gentlemen fairly soon. Good day.” The inspector passed out of the building and back into the midmorning sunlight. Should he try and see Pavloh, and see if he could glean any more information? Or Marie? He hadn’t seen Marie since last night, when he had left rather abruptly. He’d be seeing her pretty soon anyway he suspected.

                Mondieu headed towards the center of town, staring at the arboretum as he approached. Magnificent, wasn’t it? It still never ceased to amaze him, this glass dome in a city of crystal and life. The plants and trees growing up against the buildings looked the worse for wear, but a primal majesty still hung over town, an edenic magnificence. It was good, he felt.

                A dark figure approached him, and the inspector frowned, not recognizing him at first, until the figure drew within a few paces and stopped.

                “Robinson?” the inspector asked, seeing the man up close for the first time.

                “The very same, Mondieu. I needed to speak with you.”

                “About what?” Now his curiosity was piqued. Why would Robinson need to speak with him? Right now he was suspect number one.

                “About the past, actually. I suspect by now you know that the city once housed two factions: those who gratefully accepted the tree, the weather controller, and all of the blessings that each brought; and those who despised this all as an egotistical folly, a second babel. It was only a matter of time, they said, before this city would get what it deserved.”

                “Yes, I’d heard that-” the inspector began, until Robinson glared at him with a dark stare.

                “Don’t interrupt me, Mondieu. Well, those factions are still alive, though not in the same capacity as they once were. The feelings are numbed, distant, rubbed into a medium throughout the long years. But there are those still who yearn for the tree’s destruction.” Robinson paused here, as though he was waiting for the inspector to acknowledge what he had said.

                “Yes, I had heard as much. I was looking for someone along those lines of motivation.”

                “But what you didn’t know, inspector, was that this presentiment exists outside of these walls as well. There are some scientists, some political people in the know who still remember the beginning of this city. Mainly scientists, politicians, and activists – all the same, they exist. And their opinions are no less fiery for their distance from this city. You would do well to keep that in mind. Be that as it may, the danger in the city is great, from within.”

                “But how do I find the person who wants this all destroyed? How do I know who is against the tree, and who isn’t?”

                “You shall know them by their fruits,” Robinson replied, and pulled his cowl over his face. “I’ll be seeing you, Mondieu. God speed.”

                Robinson disappeared as quickly as he’d arrived.

                You shall know them by their fruits? What did that mean? The inspector walked around the arboretum, digesting Robinson’s strange words. Was it? Could it be? The final pieces of the mirror were all situating, and he realized he might have arranged them incorrectly after all. The problem with such puzzles is they have no sense of direction until they are finished – a mirror reflects just the same whether the mirror is held upside-down or not. But slowly, through a great and magnificent struggle, the problems were becoming clear.

                The inspector checked his timepiece. It was already almost noon, and still no sign of the crime? When would it come? What if there was no final crime? The criminal may consider the city destroyed enough as it was. What had that last clue meant, after all?

                Mondieu patted his cloak for his pack of cigarettes, and pulled out the pack. The light was shining against the sloped edge of the arboretum, a beautiful day, full of creative energy and life.  He tossed his cigarettes into the grass. I don’t need those anymore. It is time to solve this crime.

Chapter 24 - The Rebellion of Seth Strikes Back

Chapter 24
Garden
Late Evening







The Yard tended to be empty at this time of day; empty that is except for Seth. He was still there, as he always was now.
He sat at his desk and floundered in his thoughts.He felt lost and not a little unsure about what to do next.
The Inspector had asked him to look up on Robinson, the Doctor's butler, but then the Doctor and Evelyn had asked him to look up old Garden and its history. They all had the same idea: to solve the crimes that had rocked the City these past few days.
He wasn't sure what to do.
He was due off of his shift at the Yard in a little while, and he knew he must decide by then. He fidgited at his desk, thinking of the three people that had asked him to do different things.
The Inspector was his superior, this was sure and stable territory. Yet, the Doctor and Evelyn knew Garden and had smart, capable heads on their shoulders. They had figured out, about the same time as the Inspector, that these crimes were based on a perverse view of the seven days of creation.
He also found himself giving them a lot of credit for the effort they had put in so far. The effort was dangerous and could have ended terribly, but it hadn't yet.
He found himself grinning when he thought of them, and suddenly he was sure what he was going to do.
He was not even sure why, he couldn't have said even if had wanted to explain it.
***What was it though? *** He asked himself. *** It was not that he distrusted the Inspector and his task, but he wasn't from Garden, and Seth found out that it mattered. ***
The small bell at the back tolled, and almost at the same time, in a simultaneous display of coherence, Seth stood up at the same time. He grabbed his small knapsack and walked out of the door, passing DuMont who was to taking his place at the Yard that night.
He headed directly south when he got out, his apartment was not that far away in that direction.
He wondered what he would do to complete his task given him.  The normal history was fairly well known, but what lay behind that mask of the ordinary?
He intended to find out.
The later afternoon's fog was slowly disappearing; it almost seemed to be fighting to stay around till evening. The sun, though hidden, seemed to shine brightly and through the cloud cover, a few rays escaped.
He whistled as he walked, and just like his reason to choose the Doctor's and Evelyn's task rather than Mondieu's, he was not able to say why he whistled. He had not done so since this whole business started, and why he should do so now, was a complete mystery to him. *** I wonder if it is because I have something to do that might have a bearing on solving the case, rather than just reacting to everything that happens afterward? *** He shook his head, it was useless to think about.
He approached his apartment, and walked up his steps slowly. He had stopped whistling and felt a strain to do something, anything besides walk in his front door.
His strides got shorter and shorter, and his walk much slower as approached his door. He fumbled with the knob for a second, and then he was over the threshold.
The scene inside burst on him as if it were a firework that had gone off the moment he had walked in.
It was much darker than it should have been, something associated with dark, dank places that never saw the sun's rays.
He was rooted to his doorway, he couldn't move. He wondered detachedly if it was due to the darkness itself or some fear of the unknown that strove to keep him in place.
The living room was a maze of crisscrossing lines and shadows from the small light allowed from the slightly open doorway.
There were irregular masses and lines that had not been there before. Illogical turnings and branches, his living room was a maze of something that crossed and threaded itself all around.
He could even smell something richly aromatic and earthy, of what he was not sure, but it reminded him of the darkness he saw now in his living room.
Seth found he could move his arm a little and gripped the jam to give himself extra strength to find his way inside.
He moved one foot slowly and then another. He was a little inside now, completely free of the doorway.
It was still the same, perhaps worse, as he went farther into his apartment.
He wondered if this had something to do with the most recent crime. The flooding of the City could have done something to his apartment; could have changed the features and texture entirely.
He shook his head to clear it. He was about halfway inside now, seemingly having to wade through his own living room. It didn't feel as if there was anything strange about his apartment, rather, it felt as if his own legs opposed the motion and had to be forced to do so.
Now that he was further in, he could hear a steady noise, almost a beat the seemed to reverberate within the walls.
BEAT
He just stood there, now he was completely rooted to the spot. He could not, as hard as he tried, to move anywhere.
BEAT
The living room pulsed slightly, with the noise. It was not an extreme movement in any way, rather the pulse of a gently sleeping room.
BEAT
He felt it now, rather than heard it. The room was the sound now, it was all around him. He was inside the drum that created the beat.
BEAT
The room pulsed slightly on that beat, the vibrations stirring and legato. He could feel the vibration growing in frequency and amplitude within himself. The wave grew till it expanded out from him and into the room.
He couldn't se it, but it was there, he could feel it still. There was no lag now, the pulse was constant at some frequency. He found he could move his hand again, and he reached out to feel it.
His hand vibrated and shook slightly, in tandem and resonant with the wave.
He withdrew his hand slowly.
He suddenly knew what this was.
BEAT
He was no longer there, in the strangeness of his own living room anymore; he stood in front of Garden's main entrance. Mondieu stood next to him.
They were clad in the guise as travelers.
****insert Pilgrim's Progress reference**********
Mondieu wore a brown cloak that trailed long into the dust. It was threadbare and worn and matched much the state of his shapeless hat.
Seth's trappings were much the same, except that he carried a large, heavy looking bag on his back.
They were standing outside the City, on a small hill on the main road that led into Garden. They could see most of the City laid out before them like a chessboard. There was the Dome in the center, rising tall and proud in its own sparkling, sun drenched on glass way.
The IT Tower stood a distance away, also clearly visible to their eyes. The City looked intact and whole, but it almost seeemd to shiver in crouching menace, but, in this dream, Seth was not surprised. He wondered at that briefly, but turning to Mondieu, it seemed he was not either.
"The City...." Mondieu said, in response to Seth's glance. "It is troubled.... I do not think it is anything I can investigate without losing focus." He shook his head as if to clear it.
Mondeiu clearly was not himself, but Seth again, found himself unsurprised. It seemed that everything was according to his own plan and interpretation in his vision.
"I need to do something... Garden is in trouble!" Seth found himself saying without a thought about it. "I can do something to help."
"Help? We all need something lad, do you think you can help everyone and everything?" Mondieu asked wearily.
Seth could only shake his head.
"There you are. We should go." Mondieu turned and started to walk away. Seth again, found himself in the familiar ground of unable to move.
"I can't...." He hesitated here; it seemed that this was the crux of it all and all the more difficult to put into words because of it. "I would not know what to do besides help Garden, Mondieu."
"How can you help them Seth? Look at what you would bring into Garden with you!" Mondieu cried, pointing with his walking stick to what lay on Seth's back.
Seth turned his head to try to see what lay in his bag he carried, but he could not seem to see any of the contents no matter how he twisted. He tried to shrug the straps off his shoulders, but his paltry, weak motions seemed to have little effect on them.
"Stop trying lad," Mondieu said, "It's no use."
Seth didn't say or ask anything, but Mondieu seemed to know what was on his mind.
"I don't know what's in there exactly, I just know I have one of my own lad. It's hidden deep, but I can still feel it as if it were a millstone around my neck."
"Inspector, I have to try." Seth tried to project some confidence and assurance into his voice, but he wasn't sure he had succeeded.
"You can't win with that weight around on your back. It's just...you can't lad, why try?" Mondieu said, resignedly, still leaning on his stick.
"Because I can't do anything else!" Replied Seth heatedly, his own stable temper rising.
Mondieu just looked at him, his lean and lined face showing a measure of concern in his eyes and the cornering of his mouth.
"I can't help you in there, you know? It is something beyond....me innit?"
"Inspector, it's all right." Seth surprised himself by even believing this as he said it.
"You must be careful lad, what you bring in, you must also face." Mondeiu said urgently changing his tack, as Seth, who found he could walk by this time, started to walk forward on the road into Garden.
"Doesn't matter to me. I will face what I must face. Would've happened anyway sooner or later." Seth grimaced in concentration as his legs seemed unwilling to obey his command to keep walking.
"Lad, just be careful. Garden needs help for many reasons, and you may come up short."
This was the last thing Seth heard, as he made his solitary way on the road, into the City.

Leaving this mental tableau, with a wrenching lurch, Seth found himself standing in the front room of his abode.
It lay completely in its normal untidy state of books lying everywhere, slipshod and under foot in most cases. There was a lamp lit, but he didn't remember lighting it.
He walked over to the sofa and sank deeply into it, his head in his hands.
This vision had completely unnerved him. He felt wretchedly naked and vulnerable.
He had merely walked into his apartment and, rather than walking into his living room as he had expected, he had walked into the subterranean root structure of the Tree. It had pulsed with life and had been around him and a part of him, but still he felt as if it was not a natural thing that it sprang from inside him. He didn't know how to put that thought into words, but it was an alien thought, something strange to his way of thinking and that was enough for him.
The next vision had transported him outside the City with Mondieu as a companion.
This one had not been as dark or frightening, but still he found himself dreading the thought of what it might portend, both for Garden and himself.
Mondieu had not been the Inspector that Seth knew in reality. In the vision, he had been disquietingly broken and detached in character. He had been unable or unwilling to help Seth, and this is perhaps what Seth thought the most disquieting of all. Mondeiu as anything but the Inspector he had come to Garden as, was something Seth couldn't even contemplate.
After a few more silent moments, he raised his head from his hands. With a determined look on his face, he got up and began to pace around the room. It was not a large room, and before long, he had worn a nice little path in the carpet.
From time to time, he would gesture or come to a stop, but these were only pauses in the routine. He would invariably start to walk again, his face almost contorted in rough thought.
Many steps later, he stopped and once again sank into the sofa.  He reached around to the end table and pulled out his small tobacco pouch.
He rolled a cigarette slowly, not looking at all at what he was doing. The result was a soggy mess that he tried to light unsuccessfully a number of times.
Swearing under his breath, he rolled another, this time much more carefully. He lit it and puffed contentedly.
With the ash drifting around him, he pulled his notebook close and started to write.
Some time later he was done.
He had also come to a decision. If he was going to catch this fiend in the act, he would have to assume that anybody in Garden had the potential to be guilty. This caused him some angst thinking about it,  but he assuaged this by remembering his duty to Garden.
Seth went to sleep a few minutes after this and fell asleep immediately.
His notebook lay open on the little desk next to his bed.
It read as a series of lists.
In the first column was a a series of names that went from Mondieu to Pavloh and everyone Seth knew in between. In the next column was a question mark or some hastily scrawled, barely legible word. The column was labeled, 'Motive.'  The next column was titled, 'To Find Out.'
He had put under the latter column: Garden's history, origins of the Tree, scientific research done, reasons for Garden's existence, Garden's original inhabitants and Mondieu's backstory.
Seth slept easily, his breathing even and fine. He slept the sleep of the just, for he was sure the next day he would get much closer to the answer to the riddle of what behind Garden's secret.

“Whoso beset him round
With dismal stories
Do but themselves confound;
His strength the more is.” 
― Bunyan

chapter 24 unfinished

Chapter 24
Garden
Late Evening







The Yard tended to be empty at this time of day; empty that is except for Seth. He was still there, as he always was now.
He sat at his desk and floundered in his thoughts.He felt lost and not a little unsure about what to do next.
The Inspector had asked him to look up on Robinson, the Doctor's butler, but then the Doctor and Evelyn had asked him to look up old Garden and its history. They all had the same idea: to solve the crimes that had rocked the City these past few days.
He wasn't sure what to do.
He was due off of his shift at the Yard in a little while, and he knew he must decide by then. He fidgited at his desk, thinking of the three people that had asked him to do different things.
The Inspector was his superior, this was sure and stable territory. Yet, the Doctor and Evelyn knew Garden and had smart, capable heads on their shoulders. They had figured out, about the same time as the Inspector, that these crimes were based on a perverse view of the seven days of creation.
He also found himself giving them a lot of credit for the effort they had put in so far. The effort was dangerous and could have ended terribly, but it hadn't yet.
He found himself grinning when he thought of them, and suddenly he was sure what he was going to do.
He was not even sure why, he couldn't have said even if had wanted to explain it.
***What was it though? *** He asked himself. *** It was not that he distrusted the Inspector and his task, but he wasn't from Garden, and Seth found out that it mattered. ***
The small bell at the back tolled, and almost at the same time, in a simultaneous display of coherence, Seth stood up at the same time. He grabbed his small knapsack and walked out of the door, passing DuMont who was to taking his place at the Yard that night.
He headed directly south when he got out, his apartment was not that far away in that direction.
He wondered what he would do to complete his task given him.  The normal history was fairly well known, but what lay behind that mask of the ordinary?
He intended to find out.
The later afternoon's fog was slowly disappearing; it almost seemed to be fighting to stay around till evening. The sun, though hidden, seemed to shine brightly and through the cloud cover, a few rays escaped.
He whistled as he walked, and just like his reason to choose the Doctor's and Evelyn's task rather than Mondieu's, he was not able to say why he whistled. He had not done so since this whole business started, and why he should do so now, was a complete mystery to him. *** I wonder if it is because I have something to do that might have a bearing on solving the case, rather than just reacting to everything that happens afterward? *** He shook his head, it was useless to think about.
He approached his apartment, and walked up his steps slowly. He had stopped whistling and felt a strain to do something, anything besides walk in his front door.
His strides got shorter and shorter, and his walk much slower as approached his door. He fumbled with the knob for a second, and then he was over the threshold.
The scene inside burst on him as if it were a firework that had gone off the moment he had walked in.
It was much darker than it should have been, something associated with dark, dank places that never saw the sun's rays.
He was rooted to his doorway, he couldn't move. He wondered detachedly if it was due to the darkness itself or some fear of the unknown that strove to keep him in place.
The living room was a maze of crisscrossing lines and shadows from the small light allowed from the slightly open doorway.
There were irregular masses and lines that had not been there before. Illogical turnings and branches, his living room was a maze of something that crossed and threaded itself all around.
He could even smell something richly aromatic and earthy, of what he was not sure, but it reminded him of the darkness he saw now in his living room.
Seth found he could move his arm a little and gripped the jam to give himself extra strength to find his way inside.
He moved one foot slowly and then another. He was a little inside now, completely free of the doorway.
It was still the same, perhaps worse, as he went farther into his apartment.
He wondered if this had something to do with the most recent crime. The flooding of the City could have done something to his apartment; could have changed the features and texture entirely.
He shook his head to clear it. He was about halfway inside now, seemingly having to wade through his own living room. It didn't feel as if there was anything strange about his apartment, rather, it felt as if his own legs opposed the motion and had to be forced to do so.
Now that he was further in, he could hear a steady noise, almost a beat the seemed to reverberate within the walls.
BEAT
He just stood there, now he was completely rooted to the spot. He could not, as hard as he tried, to move anywhere.
BEAT
The living room pulsed slightly, with the noise. It was not an extreme movement in any way, rather the pulse of a gently sleeping room.
BEAT
He felt it now, rather than heard it. The room was the sound now, it was all around him. He was inside the drum that created the beat.
BEAT
The room pulsed slightly on that beat, the vibrations stirring and legato. He could feel the vibration growing in frequency and amplitude within himself. The wave grew till it expanded out from him and into the room.
He couldn't se it, but it was there, he could feel it still. There was no lag now, the pulse was constant at some frequency. He found he could move his hand again, and he reached out to feel it.
His hand vibrated and shook slightly, in tandem and resonant with the wave.
He withdrew his hand slowly.
He suddenly knew what this was.
BEAT
He was no longer there, in the strangeness of his own living room anymore; he stood in front of Garden's main entrance. Mondieu stood next to him.
They were clad in the guise as travelers.
****insert Pilgrim's Progress reference**********
Mondieu wore a brown cloak that trailed long into the dust. It was threadbare and worn and matched much the state of his shapeless hat.
Seth's trappings were much the same, except that he carried a large, heavy looking bag on his back.
They were standing outside the City, on a small hill on the main road that led into Garden. They could see most of the City laid out before them like a chessboard. There was the Dome in the center, rising tall and proud in its own sparkling, sun drenched on glass way.
The IT Tower stood a distance away, also clearly visible to their eyes. The City looked intact and whole, but it almost seemed to shiver in crouching menace, but, in this dream, Seth was not surprised. He wondered at that briefly, but turning to Mondieu, it seemed he was not either.
"The City...." Mondieu said, in response to Seth's glance. "It is troubled.... I do not think it is anything I can investigate without losing focus." He shook his head as if to clear it.
Mondeiu clearly was not himself, but Seth again, found himself unsurprised. It seemed that everything was according to his own plan and interpretation in his vision.
"I need to do something... Garden is in trouble!" Seth found himself saying without a thought about it. "I can do something to help."
"Help? We all need something lad, do you think you can help everyone and everything?" Mondieu asked wearily.
Seth could only shake his head.
"There you are. We should go." Mondieu turned and started to walk away. Seth again, found himself in the familiar ground of unable to move.
"I can't...." He hesitated here; it seemed that this was the crux of it all and all the more difficult to put into words because of it.
"





//Seth will finish the vision in his room and use that to start his investigation
//maybe that will include a late visit to Marie? Or Marie comes to visit him?
//I don't know that Seth will discover anything tonight, but he will just be studying from his own history books of Garden
// He will not reveal anything to Mondieu tomorrow, he will just be on edge the whole time