The Geomancer's Compass (8 page)

“Oh, you'd be surprised at what ends up in a database.” The avatar's tone turned breezy. “But you downloaded a virtual tour of the
lo p'an
, Miranda. Don't you want to take it?”

“I guess,” I said. “Wait a minute. How did you know I was going to download this tour? I didn't even know there was a
feng shui
channel before tonight.”

“We have our ways,” replied the avatar. “Now.” Stepping back and turning slightly away from me, it extended its arms out wide. “What we appear to be standing on is a 3-D model of a geomancer's compass, much enlarged. An ordinary compass aligns with the magnetic pole to determine directions or bearings in the physical realm. A geomancer's compass, on the other hand, is used to select a place to live, in agricultural planning, and to align the dead. The idea is to use the laws of heaven and earth to maximize
chi
. Do you follow me?”

“Sort of,” I muttered. “You know this is all bogus, don't you? Utter hooey.”

“I most certainly do not,” it said crisply. “There are other differences between a
lo p'an
and an ordinary compass.” It pointed to the words carved into the concentric rings. “Take these
feng shui
formulas embedded on the Heaven Dial, for example. You won't find these on an ordinary compass.”

“Formulas for what?”

“Various things.” It began pointing out the different formulas. “This one has to do with the eight main life aspirations. That one there, Flying Stars, that's a time and space system. And this … this formula focuses on the interaction between a particular element – water, wood, fire, earth, or metal – ruling the front door of a building and the elements ruling the birth dates of its occupants.”

Suddenly, as if a switch had been thrown on, the metal surface on which we were standing began to rotate slowly in a clockwise direction, like a merry-go-round. I staggered a little, then struggled to regain my balance, not easy in a virtual environment. “What's going on?”

“We are standing on the Heaven Dial. Underneath this dial is the Earth Plate. The Heaven Dial rotates freely on the Earth Plate. Look out!”

I jumped just in time to miss tripping over a taut red velvet rope that stretched from one side of the compass to the other, eight inches above the surface. “What's that?”

“That's the Heaven Center Cross Line. It crosses the Earth Plate and Heaven Dial at a ninety-degree angle.”

The compass was picking up speed.

“Can you stop this thing?” I complained. “I'm dizzy.” I sank down onto my knees, then pitched forward onto my hands.

“I'm trying to demonstrate how the
lo p'an
works,” the avatar objected.

“And I'm about to heave chocolate cupcakes and fruit punch all over your precious compass!”

The avatar sighed. “All right.” It hoisted its cane into the air. There was a clicking sound and the compass slowed, then lurched to a grinding stop.

I rolled over onto my back and laid my hands over my forehead. Both were clammy. My heart was racing and my stomach was a swamp with attitude. “Remember, I've got I-spex on,” I gasped. “CanBoard hasn't worked out the registration error yet. Balance is an issue.”

“Now I remember,” said the avatar. “You were the one with the weak stomach.”

It was true. Most children's parties when I was a kid ended up with me in the bathroom heaving up cake, and no car trip or airplane flight was complete without its upchucks. On the plus side, my dodgy stomach made it possible for me to focus on my studies without the usual socially generated, alcohol-fueled events that were beginning to distract many of my peers. A mixed blessing, I guess you'd say.

“I seem to remember you throwing up on me once, didn't you?” noted the avatar.

I flushed. “When I was like
five
.”

“On my birthday. If I'm not mistaken, you managed to hit the cake as well. That was memorable.”

“You were jiggling me on your knee,” I retorted. “I had candy coming out my ears. What did you expect?” I rolled carefully onto my left side and slowly up to a seated position. Then I got onto my hands and knees, steadying myself before standing gingerly, adjusting my I-spex, and taking deep breaths in an attempt to settle my stomach.

“Are you all right?”

“Yes. Just, let's take things easy, OK? No spinning and jumping.”

The avatar seemed disappointed. “That animation took hours.”

“Well, sorry, but I'm not an avatar and I'm not dead. I have a stomach and a head and, right now, neither of them can handle the round-and-round-we-go part.”

“If you insist. Now, where was I?”

“Oh, I don't know,” I said vaguely. “Dials, plates …”

“Rings,” said the avatar. “There are eighteen of them in this particular compass – it varies – but only three are critical to our enterprise. Now, listen up, Miranda. They are the Twenty-Four Directions Circle, the Earlier Heaven Circle, and the Later Heaven Circle …”

Boring!

“This one is the Twenty-Four Directions Circle; it describes the realm of the earth and the energy that flows in it. This is the Earlier Heaven Circle; it describes the realm of the underlying permanence of the Tao, the principles or laws of existence that do not change. And this one –”

I held up my hand. “Hold on. You lost me. I don't have a clue what you're talking about. Grandfather?
Grandfather
?” My field of vision had begun to crackle with dropouts, and the audio was fading in and out. My I-spex were losing their charge. “You're cutting out,” I said, as my eye screens went black.

“Being eaten by a shark is a painful death,” I heard the avatar say in a faint voice, as if its owner was tumbling down a well away from me. “That's what they say-ay-ay-ay-ay.”

And there it was – the void. Nothing for my senses to grapple with – no color, no sound or sense of touch. I told myself that I was not floundering in nothingness, which was what it felt like, but suspended in a kind of air lock between reality and virtual reality. Even now, after years of operating in VR environments, a kind of terror wells up in me – the brain finds a sudden lack of sensation difficult to reconcile with conscious thought, and it panics. This happens to everyone, I told myself, just hold on and it will be over.

Then there was a click and the dead hum of the empty channel. All I could say was, thank the Celestial Worthy of Numinous Treasure.

I
peeled off my I-spex and squeezed my eyes shut. I rubbed them hard, then opened them. When I had logged onto the virtual tour, I had been seated at my workstation. Now I stood in the approximate center of the large open area assigned to interns during the summer. Darkness had begun to seep into the big room; all that was left of the flaming sunset was a coral-edged horizon. I checked my watch. It was going on nine o'clock. Then my phone rang. Without checking the call display, I answered it. And instantly regretted it. It was Brian.
Groan
.

“Randi,” he greeted me. “Cuz.”

I winced. I hated being called Randi and he knew it. “Hi, Bri,” I countered. Problem was, he didn't mind being called Bri. In fact, he kind of liked it.

“Long time, no hear.” Why did he always sound so cheerful? It was massively irritating.

“What do you mean? I saw you at A-Ma's funeral.”

“Seeing is not hanging out with.”

I was glad the webcam was turned off, so he couldn't see my face go scarlet. He was right, of course. I had made a point of avoiding him at the funeral. It would have been too weird hanging out with him and not saying anything about what A-Ma had told me, all the while knowing that we would be going on this fool's errand to Moose Jaw in a couple of weeks.

“Yeah, well,” I said, “I had a lot on my mind.”

“I guess there's not much we have in common, now that you're like a one-woman brain trust and I'm an illiterate gardener.”

“Hey, you're a dyslexic
bonsai
master, not an illiterate gardener,” I corrected him. “There's a difference.”

“No there isn't.” He was joking and he wasn't. Brian had always been supersensitive about being dyslexic. How not? The Chinese-Canadian community placed an insanely strong emphasis on education; most of the kids we grew up with would go on to become professionals – lawyers, doctors, scientists, or accountants. Not Brian. So understandably he had a bit of a self-esteem issue, which would have made me feel sorry for him if his relentless cheerfulness hadn't annoyed me so much. Brian needed to take a few sadness lessons. Seriously. He was way too enthusiastic about everything. “But that's not what I'm calling about,” he continued. “I'm calling about this romantic trip for two that you and your pathetic
loser cousin – now, who would that be? Oh yes, that would be me – are supposedly taking to Moose Jaw. Like, tomorrow.”

“What? Did Mom just tell you?”

“Tonight. An hour ago. You mean you've known about this all along?”

I remembered back to A-Ma's funeral, when I had asked Mom if Brian knew about the “family curse” and our “mission,” and she had said, “Not yet. You know how he is, Miranda. We thought it best to wait.” She had waited, all right.

“Yeah, well, since just before A-Ma died. And it's not a romantic trip. It's just … a trip.”

“Whew,” joked Brian, “that's a relief. I am your first cousin, after all. A romantic trip would be a little awkward.”

“Don't be disgusting.”

“Not that you're not perfectly attractive. If you like freakishly small nerd girls.”

“Shut up.”

“Shut up, yourself. No, on second thought, don't shut up. Tell me why we're going to Moose Jaw.”

How much did he know? Anything? “What did Mom tell you?”

“
Nada, niente, rien
. In case you don't know, that's Spanish, Italian, and French for ‘nothing.' She said you'd fill me in. So fill me in.”

Nothing? I'd fill him in? I had to explain this wacked scheme to Brian myself? Nice work, Mom!

“I'll tell you tomorrow.”

“What? Randi, no. Tell me now.”

“When we meet up in Regina. And don't call me Randi.”

“Now you're making me really curious.”

“Tomorrow.”

“No no no no no, Randi. Come on. Please. Tell me. I'm going to die of curiosity.”

“No, you're not.” I hung up. Two seconds later, my cell rang. I checked caller ID. Of course it was Brian. I turned the ringer off. I couldn't deal with him tonight; it would be bad enough tomorrow.

The virtual tour had left me with ringing ears and a headache. I closed my eyes and massaged my temples. Brian was so going to need to be managed. The prospect exhausted me.

I went onto the net, keyed in the words “Moose Jaw,” and downloaded as much geo-coded data on the town and its environs as I could fit onto my flash drive – land registry, infrastructure data, information on landfill, the Global Subterranean Survey, and general Geographic Information System stuff. I logged off, strapped on my Zypad – a touch screen computer on an armband – and liberated an extra pair of I-spex from the storage room. Each intern had received one complimentary set, so technically I was stealing the extra set, but I knew they had a huge number of them in inventory. One set wouldn't be missed. Then I turned off my
desk lamp and, picking my way through the whirring clean-o-bots that overran the glassy tower at sunset, headed for the elevator and the empty dorm.

W
e spotted it from miles away. It was hard not to, given its ginormity and the fact that the farmland on either side of the Trans-Canada between Regina and Moose Jaw is flatter than flat, the very definition of flat – I mean, if you grew up in Saskatchewan, you could be forgiven for thinking that the world was flat because, really, why would it ever occur to you that it wasn't?