the gilded spectrum transit [a serial] chapter 2

We stood across from each other in the den, a half-moon tacked onto the side of our cabin made entirely of glasson. If you haven’t heard of glasson yet, you will. It’s one of the materials newly created and used in this phase. It’s malleable — you can push it out at spots or draw it in; it’s 1-sided transparent when it’s commanded to be; and it boasts of the capability to refract sunlight to whatever frequency your work or mood requires.

Everybody loves it.

I don’t sell the stuff, but I should.

I’m telling you to nudge you to get to know your way around the electromagnetic spectrum.

If you wanna hang, that is.

He narrowed his eyes into my thoughts and dared me to make the line-up. It’s a game we play within the game we play. He knows I love to be in charge, but I pretend to be unsure of myself for 3 to 5 seconds before pouncing. You know, for sport and fashion.

“Ok,” I grinned and rolled out the light pattern mid-air between us. “Here’s what we have on deck today: Two locomotives and an underground.” I pointed to irregular lines in the glistening weave. “And lunch outdoors, please. In the snow.”

‘Locomotive’ and ‘underground’ have new meanings now, ‘lunch’ the same. ‘Locomotive’ and ‘underground’ describe rare, one-time pathways between planes. Some are special-ordered inward — loco’s. Some are accidental — streamer’s. The rest are randomly occurring and amazingly valuable outward pathways, unders.

We aren’t the transit authority, though we have been granted authority over this band of transit.

We’re sort of like growers, curators, guardians.

It’s an open market system and opportunists like us track and tackle the pathways we want to influence.

By the way, what’s coming in and out isn’t in human form.

Yet.