Chapter twenty-four

Dion wasn’t ready to leave Dex’ body there, shutdown and crashed as he was, so we elected to postpone our visit to the library. He wanted to perform some sort of funeral rites, and I allowed it; after all, I was permitted to do the same for my lovely spider. I guess he intended to salvage the head of the Solomon unit because he placed the rest of the body by-itself on his surfboard and, lowering it into the water with a rope, he began to pray. I wasn’t really the spiritual type, but I went along with it all. If there was a God, he had to have created this place too (even if it only existed in my dreams).

“Dear Jesus,” Dion said, “please accept Dex’ remains into your great mysterious fold. Though he began as a robot, I believe the spirit within him is real, thus for this artificial body I perform these rites. Just as a human body no longer possesses a spirit after death, we will give this body the respect we would give to one of our own.” Maybe he would, but I couldn’t care any less about robotic bodies right now. “When the time is right, we ask that you would allow Dex’ spirit to live again, so that his directive might be to serve humanity as he did before, as you will it, O Lord, in your name we pray, Amen.” I let an “Amen” stumble out of my mouth so that he would think I was listening carefully.

Then he reached over the side of the ship and, relying upon inertia, he yanked the rope, allowing Dex’ heavy body to slide off the plank and down to Davy Jones’ locker. Good riddance, I thought to myself. Dex’ robot body belonged with all the other rubbish out there, and I would’ve chucked his head out there too, were it not for the respect that I held for Dion. I mean, the guy had character. Who else would pray for a dead robot?

Finally, Dion turned to me. He looked a great deal like I did after I found Queenie dead; the once-bright world had turned black to his eye. He couldn’t smile the smile that I had grown used to, and he couldn’t really look at me; when he did look my way, he just faced me somberly and soberly, as if to ask, “Why?” with every sidelong glance that he dealt me.

“Let’s go,” he said. Leading the way, I paged the lift.

“Ding!” When we got on board, I pressed the big fat L on the elevator’s alphabet interface.

“You could’ve done something else, Chris,” Dion said, all-too-serious.

“Apparently not,” I said. “Dex told me about the book you read, about how I engaged calypsus and doomed us both. And my name’s Lester, remember?”

“That’s not exactly what happened in the story. And I’m going to call you Chris.”

“So what happens?”

“The character named Dion climbs up on the ship just after you induce calypsus. Then the Magic of Song begins to pour out of the Solomon Decksetter model, hurting both of our ears.”

“But that’s not what the robotics book said. That book said that we’d be safe: only those who used magic would be fucked.”

Dion said these next sentences way-too-calmly: “You use magic. I use magic. Hence, we’d be screwed.” It took a moment for it to set in, but he had to be right. I was reading minds, making things disappear and reappear, and we had both conjured things right out of the sky. I should have figured out the dream then, that all of it was false, but again, I couldn’t. It all just seemed way too real. And Dion was right about one thing: Quipzux would have put us out of commission.

“The story continues with Dion and Chris singing a two-part harmony to counteract the musical anti-spell. We then sing two-dozen songs that we both happened to know the words to, and eventually we arrive in the city of Carthago. Then the story ends, pretty much.”

“See, I prevented that!” I exclaimed. “Our ears didn’t have to suffer, and we didn’t have to sing that stupid music.”

“It’s not stupid music, man,” Dion said.

“Why, what the hell is it?” I remembered how both the book and Neddy said that the music of Quipzux was classical music that I might recognize. Classical music...with words?

Dion explained: “Every song within the musical playlist of calypsus is a Beatles’ song.”

“Holy shit! I love the Beatles.”

“I know you do; you know a good deal of the lyrics. I read the story, remember?”

“So why the Beatles?”

“Because I know the music. I knew that I had to have a way to counteract the effects of calypsus, in the event that it was ever used against me. I know the order of the songs that would’ve played, even all of the places where you’d blow it and forget the words.”

“Dude, I know all the songs, and I wouldn’t fuck up,” I said proudly.

“Well, you don’t know them as well as I do, according to the tale. I had to keep you on track. But if you didn’t know them at all, we both would’ve died.”

“So I prevented our suffering by getting rid of the problem! Don’t you see? This outcome is much better!”

“No it isn’t, man,” Dion said. “In Mystery Thesis, you and I arrive in Carthago with people of magic just waiting for us. The calypsus overcomes them, but not us. Therefore, calypsus saves us, in the end. Now we’re screwed as soon as we arrive.” The elevator was taking a good deal of time, as though it knew we had to get all of our complaints out before we arrived at the Library. “You said you have a plan though, and I’m ready to hear it.”

“I do,” I said. “It’ll work, too.”

“It’s getting hard to trust you, Chris.”

“Lester,” I corrected him again.

“In the other story, we trust each other fully. Sure, you were kind of a jerk still, but I knew you’d be there for me. In that story, you tripped calypsus by accident – not on purpose. In that story, it wasn’t your fault, just a product of your magic in the presence of a robot. And then, we ended up helping each other get through the aural intensity of those anti-magic songs. In that story, we trusted each other whole-heartedly.” He stopped, still avoiding my gaze a little. “I don’t know if I can do that now, man.”

The elevator had arrived with a “Ding” but I hardly heard it. In the moments before the doors parted, he spoke very softly. He could’ve been speaking to me, but it was almost as though he we’re just saying it to himself.

“We were supposed to be friends...”