There is a place.
It is a crossroads. A giant “X” slashed through the flesh of the Earth that marks the very spot where the universe will meet its end.
Cheshire Bridge and LaVista, the most evil intersection of all time.
And I have to pass through it on the way to my favorite coffee shop. Daddy needs his lattes!
Ever since I moved to Atlanta, I have been fascinated with this intersection. At first glance, there is nothing out of the ordinary about it. Four lanes on the north, west and south ends, three lanes on the east end. Lights that rotate not perfectly in sync, but hey, this is Atlanta. None of the lights make any sense. There’s something different about this intersection though. Traffic seems to converge at this point in a way that will create tremendous traffic jams in every direction, backing up cars for almost miles. It’s as if cars are magnetically drawn towards its center, and then pushed away with an opposite charge.
Through my experiences as a private investigative journalist, I have become an expert in both quantum physics and the occult. This intersection, from the very first time I passed through it after waiting an hour behind a stupid Ford Probe, exuded a dark energy that shook me down to my immortal soul and the indestructible atomic matter of which I am composed. That is too say, I was stirred, both spiritually, and scientifically.
Eff this, I thought. I needs me some cups of joe.
I immediately began an investigation of the intersection, right after I drank six cups of coffee and peed as many times.
I began by storming dramatically into the DMV.
I arrived at some big ass building downtown, where Google told me I’d be able to find the DMV. I began kicking down doors in the building willy nilly and screaming “Dee Em Veeeeeeee!”
The first sixteen doors I kicked down were indeed not the DMV. It was a rather large building. Finally I came to a door that actually had those letters on the door, and man, I mustered every ounce of leg I had for that kick. The business end of my foot took it right off its four-barrel hinges. I surfed in on the door as it slid across the room, scattering patrons. The people in there were all like, “Huh?” I stood up really slowly, as if in slow motion. I thought about how sweet the whole thing would have looked in slow-motion, because everything looks sweeter in slow motion. I should know. I prefer pretty much any movie scene without dialogue to be in slow motion.
“Who the hell is in charge here?!” I was jacked up on caffeine. Like, crazy, batshit blood-shot eyes, veins streaking across my neck and forehead like highways on an atlas. But still very handsome. Really, very.
“Sir, you’ll have to wait in the line,” some bald bespectacled wiener behind a counter said as he motioned at a series of waist-high pylons connected by retractable nylon, um, line thingies. I looked from the line thingies back to him, and growled in my favorite growling tone.
“I don’t wait in lines, poindexter. I cross them.”
I looked around at everybody else there, to see how they reacting to that cold-blooded zinger I had dropped on this nerd. Most of them just pretended to ignore me. I thought maybe they hadn’t heard me.
“I cross them,” I repeated a little bit louder. “Lines. I cross lines.”
“If there’s a problem with your license or your vehicle’s registration, be courteous and wait in the line like everyone else.”
I raised my hand at slow-motion speed and pointed at him.
“Look, Phil,” I sneered, reading the plastic triangular name plate that sat in front of him on the counter. “I need information about a certain intersection. Now you’re going to answer my questions, or I will Phil you… with pain.”
Phil flipped the sign over, so instead of saying “Phil” it said “Closed.”
“I’m on break, Julia,” he said to his colleague. He walked into the back room, loosening his tie along the way.
“Pff, Department of Motor Vehicles,” I said loudly, looking around at everyone else in the room once again. “More like Department of… Moron…Vuh.. Vee.. Vulture…Vill… Variables.”
Julia giggled. Ah. I thought perhaps I should be approaching this with a different approach. I lowered my angry left eyebrow and elevated my charming right eyebrow, and sashayed over to her counter top. She was cute, in a pre-transformation-Rachel-Lee-Cook-from-She’s-All-That kind of way. She avoided my gaze as I arrived with a pirouette. She tried to stay focused on a Bobblehead on the counter, an owl wearing a graduation cap. I gave the owl’s head a little tap and it started nodding. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Eventually she peered away from the Bobblehead and up above the rims of her glasses, like my eyes were tractor beams, tractor beams the color of stormy weather on the high seas.
“Lookin’ for a driver?” I said in a smoldering baritone.
She giggled again.
“Listen doll,” I flicked the bobblehead again, a shit-eating grin on my face. “I’m looking for some information. I’m a private investigative journalist.”
“What does that mean?”
“I don’t really know.” I stared off into space for a few moments. “What can you tell me about the intersection at Cheshire Bridge and LaVista?”
The expression on her face went from enamored to terrified as I spoke those four words. Cheshire Bridge and LaVista. She turned her plastic sign from “Julia” to “Closed.”
“I’m sorry. I really shouldn’t be talking to you.”
“Sure you can,” I said soothingly. “Look, why don’t you and I mosey on over to Gladys and Ron’s for some chicken and waffles?”
“That sounds wonderful, I’m just… I’m sorry, I can’t talk about that intersection.”
She walked into the back room where Phil had gone and shut the door. I leaned over the counter and peered through the glass window of the door, and saw Phil scolding poor Julia. He caught my gaze and pulled a blind over the window. I turned around and saw the 13 people who had been waiting their glowering at me. I felt sheepish.
“How about you guys? Down for some chicken and waffles?”
***
I got back to my apartment after having treated my 13 new friends to chicken and waffles. I patted my stomach with satisfaction. Damn, Gladys.
I sat down behind my desk and propped my feet up on the tabletop. My phone rang.
“Bailey here.”
“Keep driving,” a woman’s voice said. “You’re on the right road.”
I tried to trace the call. Which basically involved looking around me to see if the person calling me was in the room with me. She wasn’t. I lost the trace.
“And which road would that be?”
“The road that will lead you to the secret behind Cheshire Bridge and LaVista.”
I wasn’t sure if she was speaking figuratively or literally.
“But they’re perpendicular. How could one road lead to both of them?”
“Every road in Atlanta intersects at some point. Like parts of a conspiracy. It’s all connected. One big mess. Like a bunch of crossed wires. Untangle the wires, and you’ll figure it out. Just don’t get shocked in the process.”
“Who are you? You’re mixing a lot of metaphors.”
She hung up. The next day I got an envelope in the mail. In it was a note, and a seven-figure check from some shadowy organization called the Olympus Foundation.
The note said:
Here’s a little scratch to fund your research. Keep following the trail of breadcrumbs down the concrete river of wires to the source of the crossroads of the lines on the…
I stopped reading.
I thought about just cashing that bitch and running off to somewhere sunny and sandy and seafoody. But I was compelled. I had an itch, and it needed to be scratched. So I scratched the hairy part of my stomach just below my navel and decided to continue my investigation.
Using the money from the Olympus Foundation, I set up a state-of-the-art surveillance system to keep tabs on the intersection, with lots of different science machines that took readings and diagnostics. Along with all the scientific equipment, I set up another kind of state-of-the-art system. A state-of-the-dark-arts system. A gigantic parchment map of the surrounding area of Cheshire Bridge and LaVista, inked in human blood, with an obelisk of pure obsidian set dead in the center of the intersection, for the purpose of focusing and channeling any spiritual turbulence. I got a goat too, just in case I felt like making a sacrifice or cheese. I hired my friend Greg who lives in my apartment complex to monitor all of the equipment 24 hours a day while I sort of hung out and ate chips. He never sleeps anyway.
“Any unusual readings?” I asked Greg though bites of chips. Greg looked at all the monitors and gauges and the needles that go side-to-side on the rolling paper thing.
“Nope.”
“Any spiritual turbulence?” He looked at the obelisk and the goat.
“Nope.”
The goat bleated. It knows something, I thought.
“How long have we been taking readings now?”
“Like, three months now, or something.” He looked tired. His eyes were barely open.
“My, so much more time has passed than I would have expected. Want the chip dust at the bottom of this bag?”
“Yeah, man. Yeah.”
“What’s going on at the intersection right now?”
“They’re doing some construction at the southeast corner. Looks like they’re covering a pothole with one of those steal sheets. Traffic is backed up approximately 130 cars in every direction.”
“Bah! Typical. Construction, huh?” I slapped my hands together to get the chip dust off of them. “I think it’s high time that I go undercover.”
“Wow, man. That sounds awesome.”
“Yes,” I agreed as I handed him the empty bag of chips. “Yes it does.”
I ran down to my apartment from Greg’s, because all of our equipment was set up at his place. I opened a bottle of wine and parked myself in front of my disguise station. Over the next four hours I transformed myself into a into a grizzled and yet extremely handsome construction worker. I draped myself in denim and secured it with a perfectly accessorized tool belt, which included actual tools and also a few scientific instruments. I smeared dirt all over my sinewy biceps, and put on a sweet combo of hardhat, aviator sunglasses and magic talisman. And Greg gave me his actual mustache.
I basically looked like this.
Greg called our friend Landen to come pick me up and then drop me at the intersection, because he had left some beers at Greg’s place, and he lives right at Cheshire and LaVista, so it was totally on his way back. While we sat and drank the beers and smoked our pipes, Greg fixed up Landen and me with wrist communicators and earpieces so we could all stay in contact. They agreed that my disguise was totally rad-ass.
I got in the back of Landen’s Suburban and we began to make our way towards the intersection. It was only about a mile away but it took about a half hour to get there. Eventually, about ten cars ahead of us we saw the light go green.
“Okay, you’re approaching the drop point,” Greg’s voice came in over our earpieces.
“Approaching drop point,” Landen repeated. The back hatch of the Suburban opened up.
“Jump in 5, 4, 3, 2…” He pulled some sort of lever, and the dome lights changed from red to green. “One! Later dude!”
“Thanks for the ride, bro!” I said as I jumped out of the back of the truck.
I rolled across the pavement pretty, actually really, hard. I got to my feet and saw all of the construction workers in orange vests looking at me, they’re expressions a mixture of mild surprise and indifference.
“Who’s in charge here?” I barked, straightening Greg’s mustache under my nose.
“I am,” said the foreman. “Who are you? Where’s your vest?”
“Why, in the garment bag with the rest of my tuxedo of course! We’re not exactly going to see a live performance of the award winning Broadway musical Les Miserables by Alain Boublil and Claude Michel-Shönberg, are we? We’re working construction here! Save the waistcoats for more formal occasions, right?“
The foreman just stared at me blankly for a few moments, so I tasered him.
“This man needs an ambulance! He’s having a heart attack!”
The other construction workers gathered round to help the foreman. While they were distracted, I went over and looked into the pothole. But it wasn’t a pothole at all. It was a manhole, disguised as a pothole.
“Greg,” I spoke into my wrist communicator. “Can you bring up the scematics for Atlanta’s underground tunnel system?”
“Sure, dude. Yeah. Absolutely.”
“I love your enthusiasm. Okay, I’m goin’ in.”
I hooked a carabiner that was attached to a length of steel cable onto the passed out foreman’s belt while none of the other guys were looking. He had a good hundred pounds on me, and he wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon, so he could easily support my weight while I repelled down the open shaft. I really tasered the shit out of him.
I must have descended over a hundred feet before I hit the bottom. The ground wasn’t metal. It was stone. Cobble stone.
“Alright Greg, I’m in.”
“Cool man. There should be an opening maybe like a few meters in front of you.”
“You know I don’t know how to use the metric system.”
“Not far at all. Just look around.”
I found the opening. I walked through a doorway into a huge dome-shaped chamber, like a giant stone igloo with beautiful murals painted all over the curvature of the walls. I began circling around the room. In the center, there was a massive crack in the cobblestone ground. There were workers surrounding the crack, decked out in yellow jumpsuits and wearing goggles over their eyes. They were milling around the crack, which was emitting what I can only describe as dark light. All around the crack there were things that looked sort of like solar panels set up, I can only assume to absorb the dark light. I quickly ducked behind some crates so I wouldn’t bee spotted.
“Dark light?” Asked Greg. “I don’t think I have to tell you that that doesn’t really make sense, man.”
“Yeah, it sounds pretty awesome though.”
“Landen?” Greg and I both said at the same time.
“Oh yeah, hey guys. I never took out my earpiece. I hope that’s cool.”
“Totally,” I said, “It’s like color commentary. Right on.”
“Are you guys hungry? We should get some food later.”
“I am very hungry,” said Greg. The chip dust was most likely insufficient to satiate him.
“We should go to the food court at the mall and get some pretzel dogs,” I said. “But first I’m gonna crack this case. Standby, Greg. I’m gonna take some readings.”
I pulled a scientific instrument that took various scientific readings out of one of the holsters on my tool belt. I took the magic talisman from around my neck and tied it to the antennae of the instrument.
“Whoa, hey man,” said Greg, a tremor of fear in his voice, “These readings are like, way off the charts. That place is crazy concentrated with chronometric tachyon particles.”
Tachyons. Of course.
“There’s uh, something else,” said Greg. “There are storm clouds swirling around the obelisk, and tiny little bolts of lightning coming out of them. It’s crazy.”
Miniature Lightning. Of course.
“What’s the goat doing?” I asked.
“I think it’s scared, but it’s looking at a tiny storm surrounding an obsidian obelisk, so I’m just going to take that as normal goat behavior. Should I sacrifice it?”
“Hold off on that. But keep a knife handy just in case.”
“Who are you?! How did you get down here?!” It was one of the workers in yellow jump suit and goggles.
“Oh, hey,” I said. “Yeah, uh, I work for MARTA. We’re thinking about building a new line that runs Northeast/Southwest.” Hot damn, I’m quick on my feet with bullshit.
“Lord knows Atlanta could use a MARTA at Cheshire and LaVista. Traffic up there is a biiiiiiiiiiiiitch.” I drew out the word “bitch” really long and said it in a really funny high voice. He was not with me.
“This looks like the perfect spot for an underground station. These murals on the walls are lovely. What are those, Greek?”
While he was looking at the walls I tasered him. But by then all the other guys had noticed and began converging on me.
“Dude, what are you gonna do?” said Greg.
“Bailey is in a really tight spot here,” chimed in Landen with the color commentary. “He’s outnumbered, six to one, bad guys are coming at him from both sides, and the only way out is through a tachyon field.”
Then I got a dumb idea. I ran straight for the tachyon field. I entered the fountain of dark light, and suddenly felt every atom in the surrounding space slow down. Inside the tachyon field, time elapsed at what I calculated to be approximately a quarter of the speed of regular time. It was like moving through peanut butter.
My plan had worked. The guys in yellow jumpsuits stupidly followed me into the tachyon field. And now we were fighting on my terms- in slow-motion. I’d seen enough slow-motion fight scenes in movies to know exactly what to do. Extremely slowly but surely and dramatically I beat the shit out of every single one of them. It was particularly awesome with the last guy because when I roundhouse kicked him, he floated in slow-motion towards the edge of the tachyon field, and when he came out of it he flew at regular speed and hit the wall. Amazing. I walked out of field in slow motion with a grimace on my face, so I imagine it looked really badass.
“What just happened?” Asked Landen.
“Yeah, we lost contact with you there for a second.”
“Aw man. You guys. You guys should have seen that. Aw man, it was… so rad. Really could have used some color commentary–.”
I felt a sharp pain on the back of my head, and everything went black.
***
A douse of icy water shocked me awake. I was tied to a chair in a dark room. Judging by the smell of the air I was still underground. I shook the water off of my head and blinked a few times to get my eyes back into focus. I saw a stout figure in front of me. Slowly as my eyes adjusted to the darkness, I began to make out glasses and a stupid bald head.
“You.”
“Me,” said Phil.
“What the hell’s a DMV stooge doing underground? Don’t you belong on the surface, behind a counter, projecting your self-loathing towards the meek and the innocent?
“I don’t actually work for the DMV. I’m only undercover. Now, Mr. Bailey, you are going to answer some of my questions.”
“But you didn’t answer any of mine before. You went on break. As it happens, I’m on my break right now. Is there a vending machine nearby? I want some chips.”
“How did you know that MARTA was planning to expand?”
This was an interesting turn.
“I didn’t. I do now though. Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhh snap.” I drew out the word “Oh” and said it in that really funny high voice. This clearly got right under Phil’s skin.
“Hey, hey, hey, don’t beat yourself up about it man, I’m just giving you a hard time. You must feel like a complete dumbass, sure. But that stuff I said about MARTA before, really I just pulled that out of my thin air, but how were you supposed to know that? it was only natural for you to assume that I actually knew something. So look, why don’t you just tell me the whole sinister plan. I mean, look at me. I’m tied up. There’s probably armed guards outside the door. I’m clearly not going anywhere. So, just tell me exactly what’s going on and then you can kill me.”
He pondered this proposal for a second.
“Very well,” he said.
“Alright! Okay, sinister plan. Go.”
“A few months ago while excavating a new tunnel, we came across the chamber you were in before. When we began digging up the floor, a huge pocket of energy was released. Our MARTA scientists identified it as a fountain of tachyon particles. Highly unstable, but containable.”
“Come on, MARTA doesn’t have scientists.”
“Yes we… just… shut up! Stop interrupting. We began to harness the chronometric energy. It opened up technological possibilities that we never would have dreamed of before! We began developing trains driven by tachyon accelerators. Imagine. Trains, powered by time. Late would be a thing of the past.”
I had to admit to myself that it sounded pretty kick ass. One time on my way to the airport the train stopped at College Park station for like a half hour for pretty much no reason. But still.
“You’re meddling with powers that you cannot possibly comprehend. You’re not containing the tachyon field. Everyday you keep that crack open that field is getting bigger. That’s what’s causing all the traffic jams at Cheshire Bridge and LaVista. Cars are driving through a time warp.”
“Don’t you get it? That’s the point. The more traffic there is, the more people will want to ride MARTA trains, which will always be on time. Meanwhile, I’m in control of the DMV, which can make even the sanest person want to give up driving forever.”
“Shit. That makes sense.”
“That crack in that chamber spewing tachyons is solving both our problems at once. God, I love that crack.”
I thought about making a joke about butt cracks. Meh.
“You have no idea what the source of that power is. There’s something evil down there. And when it gets loose, you’re going to be sorry.”
“The only evil thing down here that you have to worry about… is me.”
He pulled out a gun.
“Whoa cool, is that a Luger?” There was blood caked on the butt of the gun. “Aw man, you pistol whipped me with a Luger, didn’t you?!”
“Shh! So, it seems I am the one that is going to Phil you with pain. And lead.”
“Hey, watch closely as I flagrantly roll my eyes.” I put my whole head and neck into it, removing any inkling of subtlety as I rolled both eyes a full 360 degrees over a period of about five seconds. I punctuated it by adding, “You suck.”
He cocked the gun dramatically, and then his attention moved to somewhere behind me.
“You!” He said in terror at whatever was behind me. And then everything went black. Again.
***
I woke up on the top deck of the parking structure at my apartment complex. I picked myself up off the concrete, and turned to see a girl leaning over the edge, looking out at the Midtown skyline.
“Hello, Mr. Bailey,” she said without turning.
“Hello, Julia.” She still didn’t turn around. “Or shall I call you by your real name? Pallas Athena, Goddess of wisdom, war and strategy.”
Yeah. That’s right. Didn’t see that coming, did you? This time she turned. She was much more beautiful this time, in a post-transformation-Rachel-Lee-Cook-from-She’s-All-That kind of way. I bowed.
“How did you figure it out?”
“It was simple, really. As soon as I descended into that pit and entered that chamber, I could sense the evil coming out of that crack. I knew whatever they had stumbled upon was no Earthly energy. Then I noticed the Greek murals on the walls. It was easy from there. The murals depicted the story of the Olympians defeating the Titans and imprisoning them in Tartarus. Correct me if I’m wrong, but that chamber is the gateway to Tartarus, directly above the prison of Kronos, Lord of Time.”
Yeah. That’s right. Kronos. Lord of Time.
“Very clever indeed.”
“Once I realized that it was Kronos’ power that was the source of the tachyon field, I thought back to the name on the check, the Olympus Foundation. And it all made sense.”
“And me? How did you know I was Athena.”
“Why, the Owl Bobblehead on your desk at the DMV of course. The owl is your symbol.”
“Yeah. I know. Seriously though? Just the Bobblehead? That’s pretty thin.”
“Well that, and cute girls don’t work at the DMV. So what were you doing there anyway?”
“I was in disguise. Waiting for you. To guide you.”
“Cryptic. So, I figure you guys can seal off that crack to Kronos’ cage right?”
“The crack cannot be sealed. It is only the beginning. It has been forseen. Cheshire Bridge and LaVista is the nexus point of the entire universe. At a certain point in time, the planets and the galaxies will align, and Kronos will be released from his prison. This is inevitable.”
“Whoa. When’s that?”
“Exactly 873 years from this day.”
I stared at her blankly for a few seconds.
“Eight hundred years.”
“And 73 days.”
“Okay. So, there’s nothing anyone can do to stop it, and the only way it’s going to effect me is that traffic going to get steadily worse. Do I have that right?”
“Yup.”
“So then… why do I care?”
“We needed you to expose what MARTA was doing.”
“Why?”
“Because.” She said it somewhat sheepishly, for a Goddess. “It’s not cool. You must tell the world this story.”
“You know that practically nobody reads my blog. And the ones that do rarely get past the first paragraph. If I tell this story, I can pretty much guarantee that hardly anyone will make it to the end.”
“Perhaps. But those that do will believe you.”
“That’s debatable.” She glared at me. “Alright fine, I’ll ‘tell the world this story.’”
She smiled.
“Okay, bye.” Then she turned into an owl and flew away.
***
“So the reason that traffic is so bad there is because buried beneath the intersection is an ancient monster that controls time?” Landen said as he dipped his pretzel dog in some mustard.
“Yup. Pretty unbelievable, huh?”
“Yes. Very. Completely absurd and unbelievable. Wow.”
“I can’t believe you guessed that the girl at the DMV was Athena just based off of an owl Bobblehead,” said Greg, feeding a pretzel dog to the goat. “That’s pretty thin.” The goat bleated in agreement.
“I know,” I said. I didn’t really have anything else to say.
“And saying you worked for MARTA, and it turned out that they were behind the whole thing,” opined Greg, still not having taken a bite of his pretzel dog.
“Yeah,” said Landen, “That’s like, astronomical chances. Crazy.”
“Yes. I agree,” I said getting a little annoyed. “How about these pretzel dogs? I mean, yum.”
“There’s just one thing I don’t get,” said Greg.
“I know what you’re going to say!” I snapped. “Why would Tartarus be located under Atlanta and not beneath Greece. I know it doesn’t make any sense, okay?! None of it makes sense!”
“Actually I was just going to ask how they get the hot dog inside the pretzel.”
Greg, Landen, the goat and I looked at each other for a tense moment, then at our pretzel dogs, and burst into laughter. We ordered another round. Figured we might as well stick around the food court until rush hour was over.
The Ring-a-Ding Kid 