The Watcher Awakens
by David A. Hewitt
In the dark, across the rugged, rock-strewn ground of the desert ravine, Lyandra fled. In the dark they pursued her. Heart pounding, legs burning, eyes straining, she ran. Behind her came footsteps, the hoofbeats of camels, and farther back, the menacing rumble of the Range Rover carrying the ruthless North Korean Han Jong Ho.
Out of the dark, suddenly a cliff wall loomed: a dead end to a box canyon. Trapped but undaunted, Lyandra grasped for handholds, scrabbling up a bluff so steep it would be perilous even in full daylight, let alone in the blind night. By luck, by instinct, by Providence she ascended—until a hand caught her ankle. She was yanked down, landed hard. Hunkered down with her back to the wall, a flashlight beam assailed her eyes; voices accosted her in a babel of Middle Eastern tongues, Korean, and accented English. Then, around the last bend came the Range Rover, headlights illuminating the scene with an unholy glare. Han Jong Ho, evil archaeologist and master torturer, stepped out with a smile and said—
shwok shwok shwok shwok shwok shwok shwok shwok shwok
“Cut!” The voice of the director, Velarski, broke through, and the moment’s tension evaporated into the desert night.
shwok shwok shwok shwok shwok shwok shwok shwok shwok
“Tommy, I think that baffle on the Chrono-synchro-visualizer shook loose again,” Velarski called out. “Everybody else, let’s take fifteen. Hydrate, my precious persons, hydrate!”
Tessa—who until seconds before had been Lyandra, whip-smart/book-smart/street-smart archaeological ass-kicker in size XS Lululemon activewear and three-inch heels—sprawled out on the landing mat, at the foot of the rock face she’d tumbled from for the sixth take. She stared wearily at the dark-haired writer/director. In the artificial lights, the scar zigzagging down Velarski’s forehead glowed an uncanny pinkish brown. Velarski, in turn, stared fecklessly at the gadget that Tommy, whiz-kid engineer, was fiddling with.
Life is short, art is long, thought Tessa. But bloody hell—shooting in this godforsaken desert, with its godforsaken heat and chill nights and abundance of loose stones, life might be even shorter. Tessa found herself, too, gazing distantly at the so-called 5-D Chrono-synchro-visualizer—whose purpose was entirely unclear to Tessa, and perhaps even to Velarski and to the engineer himself. It looked something like an old-time gramophone wired with coils into a jack-in-the-box. When Tommy switched it on again, tentatively, it began to whirl…
shwok shwok shwok shwok shwok shwok shwok shwok shwok
and Tessa recoiled: it was beyond annoying, tripping a domino train of thoughts on whether working in motion pictures was worth it, whether life was worth it, whether human existence on Earth, even, was worth it.
Bugger, I need to get out of this desert.
Parjistan, Southwest Asia: Two Years Earlier
A strategic bribe—security personnel in Parjistan didn’t earn much—had gotten Velarski into the ziggurat compound at night. A previous fistful of cash had scored a quarter ounce of what his contact extolled as “Annapurna-grade hashish, sprinkled with indigo lotus essential oils.” Velarski had left his driver and followed the guard around the fenced perimeter. As the fellow unpadlocked the rear gate chain, Velarski vaped two hits of the Annapurna/Indigo. Leaving the guard, he approached the ziggurat at a contemplative pace.
He made three circumambulations, pausing each time at the Great Stair’s foot to draw in another burning lungful. By the second circuit, a Numinous Presence began to tickle his consciousness: a Power. By the third circuit, that Power had lain itself down as a bridge between Being and Ultrabeing, tingeing the desert night with a humming, deeper-than-purple wavelength. The ziggurat, always to his left, grew to transcend the illusory limits of architecture and gravity until, as he halted at the stairs after the third revolution, the structure had become, was, Mt. Meru, Universal Center and wellspring of cosmic consciousness.
Velarski—or the Being and Oneness that had been Velarski, and was still wearing Velarski’s moccasins—began the long ascent. With each step, the pinnacle seemed higher, the surrounding desert more infinite. The Ultimate Being, which had begun as a thrumming in his sacrum, was expanding to suffuse his entire body. Step by tall step: Vastness; Depth; Interdimensionality. A couple of times he slipped and tumbled, hard, onto the stones in the dark, but what of it? At one landing, pausing to partake of the Lotus Breath, he sensed something clouding his vision. Putting his fingertips to his eye, then to his forehead, he discovered blood—the pulsing lifeblood of the cosmos—streaming from a wound. Yet this gash, too, was as it must be: one with the Great Unity.
As he surmounted the apex, he knew he stood at both the peak and the root of all things; the Presence now encompassed all his body and soul and the universe. He raised his eyes, ears, and astral body to take in the stars, the whole galaxy, and up and down his spine the Presence whisper-rumbled, in harmony with all the distant nebulae and dark matter, a name:
Khimtumsakka.
***
The next morning’s crash laid Velarski low in his hotel room. A glance in the mirror while urinating revealed a laceration like a forking branch, crusted umber-purple, above and through his left eyebrow. But throughout that day of slumber, headache-nausea, bottled water, and finally at 8 pm espresso and croissants from room service, the vision never dimmed. The film began to coalesce, scene by scene.
During three near-sleepless days and nights, seeking medical care never entered his mind. Velarski finally left the hotel suite, with a completed script saved on his laptop and backed up to a USB drive tucked into a waist-pouch—the cloud couldn’t be trusted with this. The film, he now knew, must be produced and released in Chronovision 5-D, for only thus could the Great Message be conveyed to the spiritually blind and deaf.
The title of the script was The Watcher Awakens.
A strategic bribe—security personnel in Parjistan didn’t earn much—had gotten Velarski into the ziggurat compound at night. A previous fistful of cash had scored a quarter ounce of what his contact extolled as “Annapurna-grade hashish, sprinkled with indigo lotus essential oils.” Velarski had left his driver and followed the guard around the fenced perimeter. As the fellow unpadlocked the rear gate chain, Velarski vaped two hits of the Annapurna/Indigo. Leaving the guard, he approached the ziggurat at a contemplative pace.
He made three circumambulations, pausing each time at the Great Stair’s foot to draw in another burning lungful. By the second circuit, a Numinous Presence began to tickle his consciousness: a Power. By the third circuit, that Power had lain itself down as a bridge between Being and Ultrabeing, tingeing the desert night with a humming, deeper-than-purple wavelength. The ziggurat, always to his left, grew to transcend the illusory limits of architecture and gravity until, as he halted at the stairs after the third revolution, the structure had become, was, Mt. Meru, Universal Center and wellspring of cosmic consciousness.
Velarski—or the Being and Oneness that had been Velarski, and was still wearing Velarski’s moccasins—began the long ascent. With each step, the pinnacle seemed higher, the surrounding desert more infinite. The Ultimate Being, which had begun as a thrumming in his sacrum, was expanding to suffuse his entire body. Step by tall step: Vastness; Depth; Interdimensionality. A couple of times he slipped and tumbled, hard, onto the stones in the dark, but what of it? At one landing, pausing to partake of the Lotus Breath, he sensed something clouding his vision. Putting his fingertips to his eye, then to his forehead, he discovered blood—the pulsing lifeblood of the cosmos—streaming from a wound. Yet this gash, too, was as it must be: one with the Great Unity.
As he surmounted the apex, he knew he stood at both the peak and the root of all things; the Presence now encompassed all his body and soul and the universe. He raised his eyes, ears, and astral body to take in the stars, the whole galaxy, and up and down his spine the Presence whisper-rumbled, in harmony with all the distant nebulae and dark matter, a name:
Khimtumsakka.
The next morning’s crash laid Velarski low in his hotel room. A glance in the mirror while urinating revealed a laceration like a forking branch, crusted umber-purple, above and through his left eyebrow. But throughout that day of slumber, headache-nausea, bottled water, and finally at 8 pm espresso and croissants from room service, the vision never dimmed. The film began to coalesce, scene by scene.
During three near-sleepless days and nights, seeking medical care never entered his mind. Velarski finally left the hotel suite, with a completed script saved on his laptop and backed up to a USB drive tucked into a waist-pouch—the cloud couldn’t be trusted with this. The film, he now knew, must be produced and released in Chronovision 5-D, for only thus could the Great Message be conveyed to the spiritually blind and deaf.
The title of the script was The Watcher Awakens.
Hollywood, USA, North America
“All right, my wild and willing wunderkinds, that’s a wrap for today.” Velarski’s voice rang with an overtired, frazzled energy. Here, on the studio sound stage, Velarski’s pale complexion, sideburns, and soul patch carried an artistic air that hadn’t registered under the desert sun. Budgets being tight, the location shoot had been crammed into a frenetic day-and-night two weeks, and Tessa had somehow survived the intolerable hurry-up-and-wait pace in the desert heat. Conditions back in L.A. on the studio lot were markedly different.
As the cast and crew began to disperse, Velarski’s voice halted them: “I appreciate all your patience, with the technical delays. As I’ve mentioned, there are other advantages to filming in Chronovision 5-D with a 182 quanta-per-frame polarizing extrapolation rate, but ultimately what we’re talking about, the crux, is ending one cosmic era, and ushering in the new epoch of Khimtumsakka.”
And what could anyone say to that?
***
By the time Tessa had de-costumed, it was near 11 pm. She stepped out of Studio 22’s door into the breezy November night, and began trudging toward her car, four blocks away. Behind her, a horn sounded twice—hwee-hweep!—and she turned to see a golf cart approaching. Driving it was a fit-looking Black woman, who pulled up, passenger side to Tessa.
“A ride to your car, ma’am?” To be ma’am-ed in L.A.… the driver wore a studio security uniform and a reassuring smile. Fatigue prevailed, and Tessa felt herself plop onto the vinyl passenger seat.
“It’s Lot C,” she said, and off they went.
“Oh, that’s a lovely accent! Are you from Australia?”
“New Zealand, actually. From down under Down Under.”
“Oh, neat. So, long day on set?”
“Uh huh.”
At the next corner they turned right—the wrong way, but when Tessa opened her mouth, the woman said, “This time of night it’s restricted traffic patterns.”
Fair enough. As they buzzed along, Tessa rebuffed the woman’s breezy conversation attempts: Weather. L.A. traffic.
Then came a third: “So you’re filming Anton Velarski’s new movie, right? The horror thriller?”
To brush off this more personal overture would’ve been beyond rude. “That’s it, yeah.”
“The Watcher Awakens, right? Sounds awfully scary. Me, I don’t go in for all that ancient evil, occult stuff. Must be frightening to shoot!”
Tessa stole a glance. The guard was fastidiously uniformed, with bobbed, straightened hair.
“Yeah, nah—not scary, exactly. It’s my first leading role, first major role of any sort, so I’m nervous and on edge pretty much nonstop, but… surrounded by equipment, script supervisors, makeup artists, you never forget you’re on a set. So it’s not exactly scary.” Although—and this part Tessa kept to herself—there is something about the sound of that infernal 5-D whatsit machinery…
“Oh. That makes sense.” The guard made quick, sidelong eye contact. “But to me, it seems wiser to keep my distance from the demons-and-devils stuff, even if it’s so-called entertainment.”
Ah—a religious one. Now Tessa regretted engaging. That’s how they get you.
A lull. The ride seemed too long, but Tessa’s sense of direction was always iffy. Just as the silence was growing awkward, they turned a corner, and she spotted her solitary Volt.
“It’s that over there, the vaguely green one.” Not hard to point out in the deserted nighttime lot.
But the last stretch took longer than it ought to, because the guard slowed the cart to a crawl.
“You know, I read about this project, the story and the technology, in the trades.” She lowered her voice. “Chronovision 5-D. That sure is... something.”
Tessa gripped the roof-support pole. “The technical side of it doesn’t interest me much. I’d love to get into writing or directing someday, but the last thing I’d do is ask Velarski about his whizmagigs. If you knew him, you’d understand.”
“I’ve seen him at work. He is intense. Especially with this project: intense on a whole different level.” They halted behind Tessa’s car, and rude or no, she shifted to go as the guard was still talking. A firm grip on her arm stopped her.
“I have to—” Tessa began, but the guard faced her, fingers pressing into her bicep with both urgency and warmth.
“Let me lay my cards on the table. I believe this movie is dangerous. A movie about a god from the ancient world is bad enough: all those pagan gods with all their different names are really just—well, you know. But the fact that the director had a vision from this supposed god, about not only the story but a new technology too? The phrase ‘nothing good will come of it’ barely scratches the surface.” Even more than the hand, the woman’s eyes now pinned Tessa in place.
“Listen, clearly you’re concerned, and I trust it’s coming from a good-hearted place, but—”
“Ms. Taylor. Tessa. My name is Letitia Hobbins. Know this: Protecting people from danger, of whatever sort, is my job, and I hold it as a solemn responsibility. I’m assigned to your set some of the time, or otherwise, if you need me, I’m mainly in the gatehouse.”
When Letitia Hobbins offered her number and social media handle, Tessa put them in her phone. Letitia released her.
“If you feel uncomfortable, or get the sense something is just wrong, you call right away. Don’t hesitate.”
You rarely saw this in Kiwiland, this level of… conviction. One nation, under God, in—invincible, was it? Too weary to think, Tessa slid into her car.
***
Beginning the next morning, a series of setbacks followed, too frequent to be coincidence. First it was electrical issues; but on a movie set, too many people know electricity too well for amateur hijinks to cause much holdup.
Then came the rats. First thing one morning, a grip, an unfortunate lad who happened to be phobic, heard—then spotted—the first of them, and uncorked a startled wail. Two more sightings soon followed. The rat Tessa actually saw, pattering across the flagstone set floor, had a flecked cinnamon coat and seemed cavalier about dodging the agitated humans, as though perhaps the product of a pet shop upbringing, rather than the mean streets. At any rate, Studio 22 shut down while pest control did what pest control does.
Tessa spent that midday alternately lounging and pacing around her one-bedroom (which had its own vermin issues), phone in hand even on the loo, waiting for the call.
she texted to her Aunt Georgie in Auckland, where it was far too early to be pestering her. She kept her suspicions about Letitia Hobbins quiet, but by 12:30 Tessa was frustration-dusting every horizontal surface in the flat.
she texted, then regretted it. Poor Georgie, a single mum trying to get a teenaged son ready for school and herself for work, didn’t need this drama.
They ended up shooting from 3 pm, after the all-clear, till 1 am to make up lost time. Next morning Tessa was back in her makeup chair at 7:00, swigging a cappuccino with two espresso doses. Three hours later they were deep into a love scene between Tessa’s character Lyandra and the lead, her edgy, countercultural partner-in-archaeology Argon Cragripper, played by edgy and countercultural up-and-comer Gaskin Strain, née Gerald Stimpleton. The scene was set in a secret underground storeroom where Argon and Lyandra were now trapped as (so the script said) armed henchmen led by their archrival, North Korean evil archaeologist/world-class torture authority Han Jong Ho, prowled the compound above. For atmosphere, water dripped endlessly into the tomblike storeroom from above—in a desert?
They’d shot the kiss thirteen or fourteen times, Argon laying Lyandra back onto a stone table, scattering clay vessels of what would be inestimable archaeological significance onto the floor in their wrinkle-fingered, soggy-assed passion. It was cold, too—the crew wore jumpers, some even wool caps or gloves—so that Argon and Lyandra would huddle together, inevitably leading to sex; so their impassioned breathing would steam; and so that Tessa would provide, through her drenched tank top, the proper cinematic amount of nippage.
The whirring 5-D whatsit suddenly let out a shriek—like a feedback squeal, yet with an uncanny undertone, as though the machinery could feel the feedback and was groaning in agony.
“Cut!” Velarski called, raising a Thintek-gloved hand. He peeked from behind the camera but didn’t approach, not wanting to get dripped on. He showed no sign of having heard the shriek. “Passion, remember passion—but a transcendent passion, because you’re in an antechamber of Khimtumsakka’s temple, the font and source of the purest form of love in the universe. Look into my eyes.” Though it was dark, Tessa did see something in his wide-eyed stare, an intensity that registered more as off the rails than transcendent.
“It’s real, right? Not theater, not Method; real. Are you feeling it?”
And just as Tessa was nodding—how else could you respond?—the fire alarm went off.
Outside the studio, Tessa mingled with the cast while evading Velarski. It turned out to be an adjoining building, Studio 29, where the alarm had been triggered. The So-Cal sky had clouded over, even threatening rain, when she spied Letitia Hobbins skirting the fringes of the cluster. Tessa ambled at a calculated heading, reaching crowd’s edge as Letitia was about to turn a corner.
“So,” Tessa hailed, casually but too loudly to ignore. “Fire in Studio 29? Scary stuff, yeah?”
Letitia turned her head. “I’ve got duties in these situations, so I can’t really—”
“Of course, of course. You must be swamped, considering how heaps of stuff keeps going wrong with our shoot. Almost like a mummy’s curse—did they do mummies in ancient Parjistan? My character would know that. At any rate, be safe. Don’t do anything that exposes you... to danger, I mean.”
Letitia smiled. “Being cautious comes with the business.” She pointed at her security badge and walked away.
***
The following day went uninterrupted, praise Jesus, though she did spy Letitia standing by as on-set security. That evening Velarski asked Tessa and Gaskin Strain to sit in on dailies. She didn’t know the biz well, having previously worked only as an extra and in commercials since being drawn to L.A. by the entertainment supermagnet two years prior. But she’d never heard of mere actors (who weren’t pulling EP credits) being invited to watch dailies.
The screening room was compact, even claustrophobic, seating maybe 35 in four rows. Tessa was tucked into the third row’s left-hand aisle seat, with the Director of Photography, Cal Everson, to her right, sandwiched between herself and Gaskin Strain. After nearly an hour’s wait, Velarski came bustling in, through the rear entrance and down the stairs to stand in front of the screen.
“I am so, so glad you could all join me tonight,” he said, wringing his hands. “First, let me express, to you each individually and to the group as a collective unity within the greater whole and unity of humankind, that I love you. In the professional world, how often do we hear that?
“But that’s what this project is all about. From the film itself through the ancillaries, this is about a revolution in love. The fabulous scenes we’ve been shooting, the viral marketing campaign, the shooting diary/poetry companion volume I’ll release on opening day, even The Watcher Awakens video game, which will set a new gold standard for immersive VR—every facet is built on a foundational echelon of love and awakening.
“And from whence does this love and awakening derive? From the story, from our cast’s incomparable performances,” at this he nodded toward Tessa and Gaskin, “and above all from the spirit of Khimtumsakka. But as to how these will all be delivered to audiences, that hinges on the bleeding-edge technology of Chronovision 5-D.”
Velarski looked up in near reverence at the projection booth; his unkempt grooming and failure to blink evoked John the Baptist, his flair for the big reveal Tony Stark. “As with any new technology, there are hiccups and hurdles.” Odd combination, Tessa thought. “I wish we had a rough cut of the full film, but you’re all aware of delays; today we’ll screen only the two scenes that have been fully converted.
“Chronovision 5-D is so named because, unlike the gimmick that is 3-D—which as it deepens the visual field seems to render characters paper-thin—this innovation enables a depth of vision that demolishes the limitations of what we call time.”
Tessa had been tuning in and out, wanting to text piss-takes to Georgie but knowing that in these close quarters she’d be seen. Now, though, Letitia Hobbins’ misgivings reverberated: Chronovision 5-D. That sure is... something. Nonbeliever and cynic that she was, Tessa felt wedged between Velarski’s ravings and Letitia’s churchiness, between a hack and a hard place. With Velarski winding up to a climax, she rolled and shook out her shoulders, inadvertently bumping the D.P., Cal.
“Thus,” Velarski concluded, “Chronovision 5-D is what will allow the message of Khimtumsakka, dormant for millennia, to infuse our troubled world with its sacred seed, as though the intervening centuries never happened.”
He bowed, a monkish/yogic genuflection, and took his seat, in the back row.
The house lights dimmed.
“Chronovisors on!” Velarski called from behind. Tessa raised the arc-shaped headpiece she’d almost forgotten she was holding and, feeling like a Star Trek cosplayer, suspended it across her eyes. Not the usual grade-H plastic 3-D specs. It didn’t seem to be plastic at all, in fact, though she couldn’t place what the material might be.
What flickered onscreen first was that waterlogged love scene. It had turned out pretty decently. Argon—Gaskin—looked incredible shirtless on the big screen, pecs and abs like geographical features deserving of names; and she herself, though she’d felt anything but sexy while shooting, looked pretty bloody toned too.
Yet as the scene played, she started to feel… different. It wasn’t the headache she’d sometimes gotten from cheap 3-D. Rather, the feeling began in the pit of her guts, so that she began to question that evening’s sashimi. But it wasn’t intestinal distress. More a low-frequency vibration in the bowels, as if shaken by excessive bass at a concert, though the soundtrack wasn’t bass-heavy. The scene progressed: Gaskin laid her down on the slab. The sensation spread to what might have been her kidneys and liver.
As the two rooted in the dripping storeroom onscreen, it was starting to vibrate through her skeletal structure (!) as well, from tailbone to fingertips to the peak of her skull—when she felt her right hand being grasped. The Director of Photography’s hand was clutching hers on the armrest. Ordinarily she would’ve taken this for early-stage “Weinstein fuckery,” as she and her gal-pals called it. But her instincts didn’t say sexual advance; the timing was uncanny, just as she herself was overwhelmed by the vibrating resonance. And the feel of his grasp was more what a mate might do as a roller coaster edged over the peak of a towering drop-off. She retained enough sense, though, to extricate her hand, into her lap.
The scene changed. This one they’d filmed earlier than the other, she recalled forcibly, fighting to keep a hold on the real world. Now she—Lyandra—and Argon stood at the entrance to Khimtumsakka’s Tomb. They had brought the Key of Akkad, a bronze chain-link bracelet that had to be folded together, puzzle-style, into key form: supposedly the first bronze artifact ever crafted by human hands. The Tomb entrance was not in the Great Ziggurat, but rather concealed, long forgotten, beneath the Pearl Palace, where the President of Parjistan resided.
After infiltrating the Palace’s subterranean levels, Argon and Lyandra were poised to open the Tomb, which required two left hands, and thus two people, simultaneously turning the intricate key. In the flicker of a dying torch—flashlight, to the Yanks—they twisted the key into its hole.
The sensation thrumming through Tessa’s body now invaded her eyes, her ears, her nose; all her senses seemed to vibrate as well. The nearest thing she’d ever felt was from psilocybin mushrooms on a beach in Thailand, but even that hadn’t been so total. The seat, the seatback, the theater, everything faded, till all that existed was the Key, and the Portal—more real now than when they’d filmed the scene.
The Key turned; she was Lyandra, but she was also the lock, and the Key; she was all. This feeling threatened to dislodge her very existence, as though she were flying through the roller coaster’s turns, dives, and corkscrews with no harness.
The Portal opened. Inside was darkness, deeper than Eternity.
The torch snuffed it, and all went black.
The blackness became a scream. Lyandra—Lyandra is me, I am… Am I?—felt the sound ululating from her core. But then the pure dark was replaced by a blank white screen, and lights. The screaming was not her own, she realized: turning, she saw the D.P. leaning over onto Argon—Gaskin—pashing, maybe with tongue? A real lovefest, she first thought, but the scream was coming from there. Others in the dimly lit room were wailing, some covering eyes with forearms, cowering against the seat back in front of them or even balling themselves into the narrow leg-space, shrieking or moaning or babbling…
The D.P. came up for breath with blood smeared around his mouth, dribbling from between his lips and dripping from his chin. She—Tessa, that’s me, Tessa—leapt away, into the aisle and back, into the legs of Velarski, who was standing by the door, frozen but for his visionary’s eyes darting over the pandemonium.
Somebody crashed through the door from outside, a silhouette, elbowing Velarski aside and surveying the room. Letitia Hobbins. Then Cal Everson went in for another bite as Gaskin Strain tried to bench-press him off, pitting super-fit actor’s physique against feral cannibalistic ferocity. Letitia shoved Tessa aside and yanked Everson away by the scruff of his sport jacket. Aided by three others, including Tessa, all shaking off their hypnoidal state, Letitia dragged the D.P. to the sloping aisle floor and pinned his limbs until he stopped snapping his blood-drenched jaws and teeth at them.
Letitia’s text came late next afternoon. They weren’t shooting today, what with the Director of Photography sedated, in restraints, and under round-the-clock surveillance. But around 10 am a message had come from Velarski asking cast and crew to meet at Studio 22, to talk through what had happened. Tessa would’ve preferred an entire day off, because WTF, and also, seriously, what the absolute fuck? But she went. Once all were assembled, excepting the aforementioned Everson—and the bitten Gaskin—they “talked it through.” Most were still unsteady—you could hear it in their voices. Tessa herself was hands-shakingly perturbed by flashbacks to the biting and the blood, but there was also a deeper something, an echo of last night’s nerve-buggering.
As the conversation lulled, Velarski, who’d been silent, rose to his feet.
“I think we must all acknowledge the power of what we experienced last night,” he said, eyes trained on the floor. “I know this has left some a little rattled, but it’s clear to me, having experienced a similar manifestation myself at… well, let me speak a little to what all this means, and why it matters, and why the only way is forward.” Now his gaze—and his head—flitted about, butterfly-like but still not looking up. “When it comes down to it, it’s all about history—or prehistory. You see, the last era of Khimtumsakka, predating the Assyrian or even Egyptian hegemonies, before history had begun to be written, was humankind’s greatest age of peace and spiritual awakening.”
Tessa, to her own surprise, found herself interrupting. “So if it’s pre-history, how do you know that’s true, about the era of peace, eh?”
Velarski’s gaze snapped into focus, fixated hotly, uncomfortably, on her. Oh, Christ—now I’ve stepped in it.
“That’s what I’m trying to explain,” he said. “You see, there’s so-called historical knowledge—writings on papyrus, hieroglyphics, cuneiform shop receipts, all of which is either utterly mundane or rulers’ propaganda. But then there’s spiritual knowing… Well, what first sparked my interest in all this may seem ironic: the Divinities and Demonlords sourcebook, playing Caverns and Chimeras as a teenager. Yet the real truth about Khimtumsakka came to me via a first-person, unfiltered revelation. You’ll all be able to read about this in the film’s companion photobook, soon to be available in 5-D ultra-spectrum full color. But what’s clear now, here, now, is that the message, the disruptive, transformational message… it’s coming through. We all felt it.” He drew in a deep but quivering breath. “The problem is the technology. I’ve approved overtime for our tech geniuses, to work night and day until this glitch is fixed, and Chronovision 5-D can accurately impart the true spirit of… Khim… tum… sakka… which I know from my core will bring profound and globe-spanning peace.”
A few hours later, sipping a vodka and seltzer on her balcony as the sun dipped toward a vanishing point down her street, Tessa read and re-read Letitia’s message, mulling things over. Then she responded:
The reply came immediately:
But the show must go on. They were already three quarters through filming, so during two frantic weeks of script revisions and searching for a new D.P., post-production visual and sound crews were going full tilt, with deadlines looming. Tessa spent those two weeks doing auditions and some writing of her own until shooting resumed. Gaskin Strain didn’t return, but rewrites allowed Argon’s remaining scenes to be CG’ed, or shot from behind or in darkness using a stand-in.
So it was that Tessa stood made-up and costumed, facing cameras both regular and 5-D, paired with an actor who from the rear was Gaskin Strain’s spitting image, ready to shoot again.
And that’s when the bomb threat came in.
***
Tessa agreed to hear Letitia out one last time over dinner that evening—Letitia’s treat. As they were being seated at Mandragora, a New Agey fusion restaurant Tessa had wanted to try, Letitia eyed the quirky décor and fidgeted. To Tessa’s surprise, she did order a cocktail, a raspberry hard seltzer to Tessa’s organic mojito. The restaurant was empty—who eats out at 6 pm in L.A.? When the waiter left, Letitia leapt right in. “Cannibalism, Ms. Taylor. Tessa. A movie that causes cannibalism in viewers doesn’t strike you as worrisome?”
Tessa’s entire body tensed up. “No, I agree, cannibalism is almost never okay—”
“Almost never?” Letitia’s eyebrows jutted forward.
It was Tessa’s turn to fidget. “I mean, there was that soccer team plane-wrecked in the Andes, or the Terror—”
“We’re talking about a screening room in Los Angeles, not a ship icebound in the Arctic!”
Tessa scanned, desperately, for the waiter. Mojito, mojito, where are you, mojito?
Letitia sighed. “Can we please start by admitting that one, face-biting is off-the-charts abnormal, and two, it was this motion picture that provoked said biting?”
The drinks arrived, gloriously. Tessa gulped a mouthful.
“All right. No argument with the first of those, or I guess the second. But.”
“But…” Letitia stirred the drink distrustfully with her straw.
“Look, you have a career, this job—thanks for buying dinner, by the way—but I’m just getting started. I mean, acting, I moved 10,000 kilometers and two hemispheres from home to pursue this. It’s my dream job. It’s everyone’s dream job—Californication and all that.”
Letitia’s face hardened. “And what will it profit a… well, a woman, if she should gain the whole world but forfeit her soul?” She sipped gingerly, then locked her eyes back on Tessa’s. “Or more to the point, possibly thousands, millions of souls? It’s still possible, it has to be, to stop this train, but my options are running out. I’m pretty sure they’re watching me. Now more than ever, you could be—”
“But Velarski says—”
“Come on, Tessa. Velarski? You’re a smart girl; do you really believe his New Age Last Spoonbender mumbo-jumbo?”
The waiter drifted in. Tessa ordered a legume salad, dressing on the side, and Letitia the Ethical Grilled Cheese on rye with French fries.
“All right.” Tessa massaged a fistful of hair between her fingers. “No, I don’t believe this film will usher in an everlasting Pax Tinseltownia. But I also don’t reckon the project is cursed, or possessed, or that either of those are even a thing. Technical difficulties are a thing—like how strobing lights can trigger seizures, or—”
“Tessa.” Letitia shook her head.
“Above all, I reckon that out of everyone who dreams it, one in a million lands a leading role in a Hollywood production. And for women, the age window to claw out a place in the industry is ridiculously narrow. That is what I believe, and care about, much more than the theological ramifications of a horror movie.”
This stalemate held through the rest of their frigidly civil, brief dinner. When they parted, on the sidewalk outside, Tessa said,
“So this is the end of all this?”
“That’s what I promised. You won’t hear another word from me about it.” As Tessa set off toward her car, Letitia called out, “Unless you change your mind.”
***
The next morning, en route to the studio, Tessa’s phone buzzed. Stopped dead in traffic, she picked it up. A text from her agent:
“All right, my wild and willing wunderkinds, that’s a wrap for today.” Velarski’s voice rang with an overtired, frazzled energy. Here, on the studio sound stage, Velarski’s pale complexion, sideburns, and soul patch carried an artistic air that hadn’t registered under the desert sun. Budgets being tight, the location shoot had been crammed into a frenetic day-and-night two weeks, and Tessa had somehow survived the intolerable hurry-up-and-wait pace in the desert heat. Conditions back in L.A. on the studio lot were markedly different.
As the cast and crew began to disperse, Velarski’s voice halted them: “I appreciate all your patience, with the technical delays. As I’ve mentioned, there are other advantages to filming in Chronovision 5-D with a 182 quanta-per-frame polarizing extrapolation rate, but ultimately what we’re talking about, the crux, is ending one cosmic era, and ushering in the new epoch of Khimtumsakka.”
And what could anyone say to that?
By the time Tessa had de-costumed, it was near 11 pm. She stepped out of Studio 22’s door into the breezy November night, and began trudging toward her car, four blocks away. Behind her, a horn sounded twice—hwee-hweep!—and she turned to see a golf cart approaching. Driving it was a fit-looking Black woman, who pulled up, passenger side to Tessa.
“A ride to your car, ma’am?” To be ma’am-ed in L.A.… the driver wore a studio security uniform and a reassuring smile. Fatigue prevailed, and Tessa felt herself plop onto the vinyl passenger seat.
“It’s Lot C,” she said, and off they went.
“Oh, that’s a lovely accent! Are you from Australia?”
“New Zealand, actually. From down under Down Under.”
“Oh, neat. So, long day on set?”
“Uh huh.”
At the next corner they turned right—the wrong way, but when Tessa opened her mouth, the woman said, “This time of night it’s restricted traffic patterns.”
Fair enough. As they buzzed along, Tessa rebuffed the woman’s breezy conversation attempts: Weather. L.A. traffic.
Then came a third: “So you’re filming Anton Velarski’s new movie, right? The horror thriller?”
To brush off this more personal overture would’ve been beyond rude. “That’s it, yeah.”
“The Watcher Awakens, right? Sounds awfully scary. Me, I don’t go in for all that ancient evil, occult stuff. Must be frightening to shoot!”
Tessa stole a glance. The guard was fastidiously uniformed, with bobbed, straightened hair.
“Yeah, nah—not scary, exactly. It’s my first leading role, first major role of any sort, so I’m nervous and on edge pretty much nonstop, but… surrounded by equipment, script supervisors, makeup artists, you never forget you’re on a set. So it’s not exactly scary.” Although—and this part Tessa kept to herself—there is something about the sound of that infernal 5-D whatsit machinery…
“Oh. That makes sense.” The guard made quick, sidelong eye contact. “But to me, it seems wiser to keep my distance from the demons-and-devils stuff, even if it’s so-called entertainment.”
Ah—a religious one. Now Tessa regretted engaging. That’s how they get you.
A lull. The ride seemed too long, but Tessa’s sense of direction was always iffy. Just as the silence was growing awkward, they turned a corner, and she spotted her solitary Volt.
“It’s that over there, the vaguely green one.” Not hard to point out in the deserted nighttime lot.
But the last stretch took longer than it ought to, because the guard slowed the cart to a crawl.
“You know, I read about this project, the story and the technology, in the trades.” She lowered her voice. “Chronovision 5-D. That sure is... something.”
Tessa gripped the roof-support pole. “The technical side of it doesn’t interest me much. I’d love to get into writing or directing someday, but the last thing I’d do is ask Velarski about his whizmagigs. If you knew him, you’d understand.”
“I’ve seen him at work. He is intense. Especially with this project: intense on a whole different level.” They halted behind Tessa’s car, and rude or no, she shifted to go as the guard was still talking. A firm grip on her arm stopped her.
“I have to—” Tessa began, but the guard faced her, fingers pressing into her bicep with both urgency and warmth.
“Let me lay my cards on the table. I believe this movie is dangerous. A movie about a god from the ancient world is bad enough: all those pagan gods with all their different names are really just—well, you know. But the fact that the director had a vision from this supposed god, about not only the story but a new technology too? The phrase ‘nothing good will come of it’ barely scratches the surface.” Even more than the hand, the woman’s eyes now pinned Tessa in place.
“Listen, clearly you’re concerned, and I trust it’s coming from a good-hearted place, but—”
“Ms. Taylor. Tessa. My name is Letitia Hobbins. Know this: Protecting people from danger, of whatever sort, is my job, and I hold it as a solemn responsibility. I’m assigned to your set some of the time, or otherwise, if you need me, I’m mainly in the gatehouse.”
When Letitia Hobbins offered her number and social media handle, Tessa put them in her phone. Letitia released her.
“If you feel uncomfortable, or get the sense something is just wrong, you call right away. Don’t hesitate.”
You rarely saw this in Kiwiland, this level of… conviction. One nation, under God, in—invincible, was it? Too weary to think, Tessa slid into her car.
Beginning the next morning, a series of setbacks followed, too frequent to be coincidence. First it was electrical issues; but on a movie set, too many people know electricity too well for amateur hijinks to cause much holdup.
Then came the rats. First thing one morning, a grip, an unfortunate lad who happened to be phobic, heard—then spotted—the first of them, and uncorked a startled wail. Two more sightings soon followed. The rat Tessa actually saw, pattering across the flagstone set floor, had a flecked cinnamon coat and seemed cavalier about dodging the agitated humans, as though perhaps the product of a pet shop upbringing, rather than the mean streets. At any rate, Studio 22 shut down while pest control did what pest control does.
Tessa spent that midday alternately lounging and pacing around her one-bedroom (which had its own vermin issues), phone in hand even on the loo, waiting for the call.
Bloody rats!!!
she texted to her Aunt Georgie in Auckland, where it was far too early to be pestering her. She kept her suspicions about Letitia Hobbins quiet, but by 12:30 Tessa was frustration-dusting every horizontal surface in the flat.
My big break in a studio feature!!! If this gets derailed by delays…
she texted, then regretted it. Poor Georgie, a single mum trying to get a teenaged son ready for school and herself for work, didn’t need this drama.
They ended up shooting from 3 pm, after the all-clear, till 1 am to make up lost time. Next morning Tessa was back in her makeup chair at 7:00, swigging a cappuccino with two espresso doses. Three hours later they were deep into a love scene between Tessa’s character Lyandra and the lead, her edgy, countercultural partner-in-archaeology Argon Cragripper, played by edgy and countercultural up-and-comer Gaskin Strain, née Gerald Stimpleton. The scene was set in a secret underground storeroom where Argon and Lyandra were now trapped as (so the script said) armed henchmen led by their archrival, North Korean evil archaeologist/world-class torture authority Han Jong Ho, prowled the compound above. For atmosphere, water dripped endlessly into the tomblike storeroom from above—in a desert?
They’d shot the kiss thirteen or fourteen times, Argon laying Lyandra back onto a stone table, scattering clay vessels of what would be inestimable archaeological significance onto the floor in their wrinkle-fingered, soggy-assed passion. It was cold, too—the crew wore jumpers, some even wool caps or gloves—so that Argon and Lyandra would huddle together, inevitably leading to sex; so their impassioned breathing would steam; and so that Tessa would provide, through her drenched tank top, the proper cinematic amount of nippage.
The whirring 5-D whatsit suddenly let out a shriek—like a feedback squeal, yet with an uncanny undertone, as though the machinery could feel the feedback and was groaning in agony.
“Cut!” Velarski called, raising a Thintek-gloved hand. He peeked from behind the camera but didn’t approach, not wanting to get dripped on. He showed no sign of having heard the shriek. “Passion, remember passion—but a transcendent passion, because you’re in an antechamber of Khimtumsakka’s temple, the font and source of the purest form of love in the universe. Look into my eyes.” Though it was dark, Tessa did see something in his wide-eyed stare, an intensity that registered more as off the rails than transcendent.
“It’s real, right? Not theater, not Method; real. Are you feeling it?”
And just as Tessa was nodding—how else could you respond?—the fire alarm went off.
Outside the studio, Tessa mingled with the cast while evading Velarski. It turned out to be an adjoining building, Studio 29, where the alarm had been triggered. The So-Cal sky had clouded over, even threatening rain, when she spied Letitia Hobbins skirting the fringes of the cluster. Tessa ambled at a calculated heading, reaching crowd’s edge as Letitia was about to turn a corner.
“So,” Tessa hailed, casually but too loudly to ignore. “Fire in Studio 29? Scary stuff, yeah?”
Letitia turned her head. “I’ve got duties in these situations, so I can’t really—”
“Of course, of course. You must be swamped, considering how heaps of stuff keeps going wrong with our shoot. Almost like a mummy’s curse—did they do mummies in ancient Parjistan? My character would know that. At any rate, be safe. Don’t do anything that exposes you... to danger, I mean.”
Letitia smiled. “Being cautious comes with the business.” She pointed at her security badge and walked away.
The following day went uninterrupted, praise Jesus, though she did spy Letitia standing by as on-set security. That evening Velarski asked Tessa and Gaskin Strain to sit in on dailies. She didn’t know the biz well, having previously worked only as an extra and in commercials since being drawn to L.A. by the entertainment supermagnet two years prior. But she’d never heard of mere actors (who weren’t pulling EP credits) being invited to watch dailies.
The screening room was compact, even claustrophobic, seating maybe 35 in four rows. Tessa was tucked into the third row’s left-hand aisle seat, with the Director of Photography, Cal Everson, to her right, sandwiched between herself and Gaskin Strain. After nearly an hour’s wait, Velarski came bustling in, through the rear entrance and down the stairs to stand in front of the screen.
“I am so, so glad you could all join me tonight,” he said, wringing his hands. “First, let me express, to you each individually and to the group as a collective unity within the greater whole and unity of humankind, that I love you. In the professional world, how often do we hear that?
“But that’s what this project is all about. From the film itself through the ancillaries, this is about a revolution in love. The fabulous scenes we’ve been shooting, the viral marketing campaign, the shooting diary/poetry companion volume I’ll release on opening day, even The Watcher Awakens video game, which will set a new gold standard for immersive VR—every facet is built on a foundational echelon of love and awakening.
“And from whence does this love and awakening derive? From the story, from our cast’s incomparable performances,” at this he nodded toward Tessa and Gaskin, “and above all from the spirit of Khimtumsakka. But as to how these will all be delivered to audiences, that hinges on the bleeding-edge technology of Chronovision 5-D.”
Velarski looked up in near reverence at the projection booth; his unkempt grooming and failure to blink evoked John the Baptist, his flair for the big reveal Tony Stark. “As with any new technology, there are hiccups and hurdles.” Odd combination, Tessa thought. “I wish we had a rough cut of the full film, but you’re all aware of delays; today we’ll screen only the two scenes that have been fully converted.
“Chronovision 5-D is so named because, unlike the gimmick that is 3-D—which as it deepens the visual field seems to render characters paper-thin—this innovation enables a depth of vision that demolishes the limitations of what we call time.”
Tessa had been tuning in and out, wanting to text piss-takes to Georgie but knowing that in these close quarters she’d be seen. Now, though, Letitia Hobbins’ misgivings reverberated: Chronovision 5-D. That sure is... something. Nonbeliever and cynic that she was, Tessa felt wedged between Velarski’s ravings and Letitia’s churchiness, between a hack and a hard place. With Velarski winding up to a climax, she rolled and shook out her shoulders, inadvertently bumping the D.P., Cal.
“Thus,” Velarski concluded, “Chronovision 5-D is what will allow the message of Khimtumsakka, dormant for millennia, to infuse our troubled world with its sacred seed, as though the intervening centuries never happened.”
He bowed, a monkish/yogic genuflection, and took his seat, in the back row.
The house lights dimmed.
“Chronovisors on!” Velarski called from behind. Tessa raised the arc-shaped headpiece she’d almost forgotten she was holding and, feeling like a Star Trek cosplayer, suspended it across her eyes. Not the usual grade-H plastic 3-D specs. It didn’t seem to be plastic at all, in fact, though she couldn’t place what the material might be.
What flickered onscreen first was that waterlogged love scene. It had turned out pretty decently. Argon—Gaskin—looked incredible shirtless on the big screen, pecs and abs like geographical features deserving of names; and she herself, though she’d felt anything but sexy while shooting, looked pretty bloody toned too.
Yet as the scene played, she started to feel… different. It wasn’t the headache she’d sometimes gotten from cheap 3-D. Rather, the feeling began in the pit of her guts, so that she began to question that evening’s sashimi. But it wasn’t intestinal distress. More a low-frequency vibration in the bowels, as if shaken by excessive bass at a concert, though the soundtrack wasn’t bass-heavy. The scene progressed: Gaskin laid her down on the slab. The sensation spread to what might have been her kidneys and liver.
As the two rooted in the dripping storeroom onscreen, it was starting to vibrate through her skeletal structure (!) as well, from tailbone to fingertips to the peak of her skull—when she felt her right hand being grasped. The Director of Photography’s hand was clutching hers on the armrest. Ordinarily she would’ve taken this for early-stage “Weinstein fuckery,” as she and her gal-pals called it. But her instincts didn’t say sexual advance; the timing was uncanny, just as she herself was overwhelmed by the vibrating resonance. And the feel of his grasp was more what a mate might do as a roller coaster edged over the peak of a towering drop-off. She retained enough sense, though, to extricate her hand, into her lap.
The scene changed. This one they’d filmed earlier than the other, she recalled forcibly, fighting to keep a hold on the real world. Now she—Lyandra—and Argon stood at the entrance to Khimtumsakka’s Tomb. They had brought the Key of Akkad, a bronze chain-link bracelet that had to be folded together, puzzle-style, into key form: supposedly the first bronze artifact ever crafted by human hands. The Tomb entrance was not in the Great Ziggurat, but rather concealed, long forgotten, beneath the Pearl Palace, where the President of Parjistan resided.
After infiltrating the Palace’s subterranean levels, Argon and Lyandra were poised to open the Tomb, which required two left hands, and thus two people, simultaneously turning the intricate key. In the flicker of a dying torch—flashlight, to the Yanks—they twisted the key into its hole.
The sensation thrumming through Tessa’s body now invaded her eyes, her ears, her nose; all her senses seemed to vibrate as well. The nearest thing she’d ever felt was from psilocybin mushrooms on a beach in Thailand, but even that hadn’t been so total. The seat, the seatback, the theater, everything faded, till all that existed was the Key, and the Portal—more real now than when they’d filmed the scene.
The Key turned; she was Lyandra, but she was also the lock, and the Key; she was all. This feeling threatened to dislodge her very existence, as though she were flying through the roller coaster’s turns, dives, and corkscrews with no harness.
The Portal opened. Inside was darkness, deeper than Eternity.
The torch snuffed it, and all went black.
The blackness became a scream. Lyandra—Lyandra is me, I am… Am I?—felt the sound ululating from her core. But then the pure dark was replaced by a blank white screen, and lights. The screaming was not her own, she realized: turning, she saw the D.P. leaning over onto Argon—Gaskin—pashing, maybe with tongue? A real lovefest, she first thought, but the scream was coming from there. Others in the dimly lit room were wailing, some covering eyes with forearms, cowering against the seat back in front of them or even balling themselves into the narrow leg-space, shrieking or moaning or babbling…
The D.P. came up for breath with blood smeared around his mouth, dribbling from between his lips and dripping from his chin. She—Tessa, that’s me, Tessa—leapt away, into the aisle and back, into the legs of Velarski, who was standing by the door, frozen but for his visionary’s eyes darting over the pandemonium.
Somebody crashed through the door from outside, a silhouette, elbowing Velarski aside and surveying the room. Letitia Hobbins. Then Cal Everson went in for another bite as Gaskin Strain tried to bench-press him off, pitting super-fit actor’s physique against feral cannibalistic ferocity. Letitia shoved Tessa aside and yanked Everson away by the scruff of his sport jacket. Aided by three others, including Tessa, all shaking off their hypnoidal state, Letitia dragged the D.P. to the sloping aisle floor and pinned his limbs until he stopped snapping his blood-drenched jaws and teeth at them.
***
So you’re with me now, yes? Your help could make all the difference.
Letitia’s text came late next afternoon. They weren’t shooting today, what with the Director of Photography sedated, in restraints, and under round-the-clock surveillance. But around 10 am a message had come from Velarski asking cast and crew to meet at Studio 22, to talk through what had happened. Tessa would’ve preferred an entire day off, because WTF, and also, seriously, what the absolute fuck? But she went. Once all were assembled, excepting the aforementioned Everson—and the bitten Gaskin—they “talked it through.” Most were still unsteady—you could hear it in their voices. Tessa herself was hands-shakingly perturbed by flashbacks to the biting and the blood, but there was also a deeper something, an echo of last night’s nerve-buggering.
As the conversation lulled, Velarski, who’d been silent, rose to his feet.
“I think we must all acknowledge the power of what we experienced last night,” he said, eyes trained on the floor. “I know this has left some a little rattled, but it’s clear to me, having experienced a similar manifestation myself at… well, let me speak a little to what all this means, and why it matters, and why the only way is forward.” Now his gaze—and his head—flitted about, butterfly-like but still not looking up. “When it comes down to it, it’s all about history—or prehistory. You see, the last era of Khimtumsakka, predating the Assyrian or even Egyptian hegemonies, before history had begun to be written, was humankind’s greatest age of peace and spiritual awakening.”
Tessa, to her own surprise, found herself interrupting. “So if it’s pre-history, how do you know that’s true, about the era of peace, eh?”
Velarski’s gaze snapped into focus, fixated hotly, uncomfortably, on her. Oh, Christ—now I’ve stepped in it.
“That’s what I’m trying to explain,” he said. “You see, there’s so-called historical knowledge—writings on papyrus, hieroglyphics, cuneiform shop receipts, all of which is either utterly mundane or rulers’ propaganda. But then there’s spiritual knowing… Well, what first sparked my interest in all this may seem ironic: the Divinities and Demonlords sourcebook, playing Caverns and Chimeras as a teenager. Yet the real truth about Khimtumsakka came to me via a first-person, unfiltered revelation. You’ll all be able to read about this in the film’s companion photobook, soon to be available in 5-D ultra-spectrum full color. But what’s clear now, here, now, is that the message, the disruptive, transformational message… it’s coming through. We all felt it.” He drew in a deep but quivering breath. “The problem is the technology. I’ve approved overtime for our tech geniuses, to work night and day until this glitch is fixed, and Chronovision 5-D can accurately impart the true spirit of… Khim… tum… sakka… which I know from my core will bring profound and globe-spanning peace.”
A few hours later, sipping a vodka and seltzer on her balcony as the sun dipped toward a vanishing point down her street, Tessa read and re-read Letitia’s message, mulling things over. Then she responded:
What happened yesterday was deeply disturbing but I have to trust that the tech challenges will get resolved
Something, the universe, god, fate, karma, brought me this shot at a major motion picture, and I need to ride this roller coaster out wherever it may lead
p.s. all respect for your quick thinking and action last night, you are a warrior goddess straight out of wakanda or themyscira ♥ ☺ ♥
The reply came immediately:
. . . . .
***
But the show must go on. They were already three quarters through filming, so during two frantic weeks of script revisions and searching for a new D.P., post-production visual and sound crews were going full tilt, with deadlines looming. Tessa spent those two weeks doing auditions and some writing of her own until shooting resumed. Gaskin Strain didn’t return, but rewrites allowed Argon’s remaining scenes to be CG’ed, or shot from behind or in darkness using a stand-in.
So it was that Tessa stood made-up and costumed, facing cameras both regular and 5-D, paired with an actor who from the rear was Gaskin Strain’s spitting image, ready to shoot again.
And that’s when the bomb threat came in.
Tessa agreed to hear Letitia out one last time over dinner that evening—Letitia’s treat. As they were being seated at Mandragora, a New Agey fusion restaurant Tessa had wanted to try, Letitia eyed the quirky décor and fidgeted. To Tessa’s surprise, she did order a cocktail, a raspberry hard seltzer to Tessa’s organic mojito. The restaurant was empty—who eats out at 6 pm in L.A.? When the waiter left, Letitia leapt right in. “Cannibalism, Ms. Taylor. Tessa. A movie that causes cannibalism in viewers doesn’t strike you as worrisome?”
Tessa’s entire body tensed up. “No, I agree, cannibalism is almost never okay—”
“Almost never?” Letitia’s eyebrows jutted forward.
It was Tessa’s turn to fidget. “I mean, there was that soccer team plane-wrecked in the Andes, or the Terror—”
“We’re talking about a screening room in Los Angeles, not a ship icebound in the Arctic!”
Tessa scanned, desperately, for the waiter. Mojito, mojito, where are you, mojito?
Letitia sighed. “Can we please start by admitting that one, face-biting is off-the-charts abnormal, and two, it was this motion picture that provoked said biting?”
The drinks arrived, gloriously. Tessa gulped a mouthful.
“All right. No argument with the first of those, or I guess the second. But.”
“But…” Letitia stirred the drink distrustfully with her straw.
“Look, you have a career, this job—thanks for buying dinner, by the way—but I’m just getting started. I mean, acting, I moved 10,000 kilometers and two hemispheres from home to pursue this. It’s my dream job. It’s everyone’s dream job—Californication and all that.”
Letitia’s face hardened. “And what will it profit a… well, a woman, if she should gain the whole world but forfeit her soul?” She sipped gingerly, then locked her eyes back on Tessa’s. “Or more to the point, possibly thousands, millions of souls? It’s still possible, it has to be, to stop this train, but my options are running out. I’m pretty sure they’re watching me. Now more than ever, you could be—”
“But Velarski says—”
“Come on, Tessa. Velarski? You’re a smart girl; do you really believe his New Age Last Spoonbender mumbo-jumbo?”
The waiter drifted in. Tessa ordered a legume salad, dressing on the side, and Letitia the Ethical Grilled Cheese on rye with French fries.
“All right.” Tessa massaged a fistful of hair between her fingers. “No, I don’t believe this film will usher in an everlasting Pax Tinseltownia. But I also don’t reckon the project is cursed, or possessed, or that either of those are even a thing. Technical difficulties are a thing—like how strobing lights can trigger seizures, or—”
“Tessa.” Letitia shook her head.
“Above all, I reckon that out of everyone who dreams it, one in a million lands a leading role in a Hollywood production. And for women, the age window to claw out a place in the industry is ridiculously narrow. That is what I believe, and care about, much more than the theological ramifications of a horror movie.”
This stalemate held through the rest of their frigidly civil, brief dinner. When they parted, on the sidewalk outside, Tessa said,
“So this is the end of all this?”
“That’s what I promised. You won’t hear another word from me about it.” As Tessa set off toward her car, Letitia called out, “Unless you change your mind.”
The next morning, en route to the studio, Tessa’s phone buzzed. Stopped dead in traffic, she picked it up. A text from her agent:
YOU GOT IT!!! The Jane Austen thing, I mean—Katarina Klepson, the “it” director right now!!
Tessa’s heart pounded. She glanced around—vehicle still deadlocked, like the Terror. She thumbed
You’re sure?
The reply came immediately; so this was how agents worked when you were somebody.
Contract printed and waiting. Got time today?
And suddenly the world—Tessa Taylor’s world—had entered a new epoch. For the next fifteen minutes, exiting the highway, surface roads to the studio, through the gate and to Lot C, her mind raced through the ramifications.
Sense and Sensibility, directed by Katarina Klepson, straight-up Oscar bait… holy shit… need to get there today, sign before they can change their minds… as soon as we wrap shooting on… on The Watcher Awakens… this so-called 5-D horror show, that everyone will see me in, just before… shit.
As she pulled into her parking space, her thoughts were moving in a no-good, very-bad direction. The direct deposits had already cleared. Now if this Velarski thing were never to see the light of day…
Tessa grabbed up her phone. She meant to text Letitia, but in her haste accidentally typed Letitia’s name into the search bar, which she was about to close when the autofill menu dropped down. What popped up was,
Letitia Hobbins Arrested
No.
But yes. The news brief said that last night—after their dinner—Letitia had been apprehended during a break-in at the studio where she was employed. Police reported that Ms. Hobbins’ possible involvement with other suspicious incidents had already been under investigation.
Trying to sabotage production or post-production, with an inquiry underway and Tessa signed on for worldwide fame, was out of the question. She did, however, speed to the county lockup that evening—after signing the new contract—to bail Letitia out. It could’ve been me too, if word about the Jane Austen had come a day earlier. She arrived in time to wait on a hard plastic chair, trying to sort out her feelings, as two church friends posted Letitia’s bond.
Upon her release, though, after thanking these friends profusely, Letitia waved to Tessa. She looked weary as she politely declined her friends’ offers and asked Tessa for a ride.
Driving her home, after a long silence Tessa spoke.
“I’m sorry, Letitia. I was wrong. We both know this thing’s dangerous, and I should’ve helped you. I will, going forward, if there’s a discreet way.”
Letitia stared straight ahead; oncoming headlights glowed upon her face. “That’s because you got another role and now you want to make this one disappear.”
“How did you—”
“Working at a studio, you hear things. But still, the Lord moves in mysterious ways. I’m just glad you’re willing to step up—especially since I now can’t get within shouting distance of anything related to this project.” She pursed her lips. “So the premiere is in two weeks—Gunderman’s Japanese Theater, no less. I dread to think what could happen if the movie does play.”
Tessa’s hands tightened on the wheel. “One school of thought,” she ventured, “would be to let it run, let what happens happen—I could beg off, myself, as traumatized or something—and allow that smaller, contained horror to prevent the much greater horror of a full-on worldwide release.”
“That is one school of thought,” said Letitia. “But it’s not a school I want to attend. To treat human beings as pawns that can be sacrificed, to maybe serve a greater good: not a game I’m willing to play.”
Tessa nodded, braking for a yellow light.
Letitia faced her. “If we can save minds or souls, or lives, from being lost, we have to try. Once we’ve done our level best at that, we’ll turn to whatever’s next.”
And anyhow, Tessa thought, a batshit bloodbath of a premiere would soak the movie’s name in infamy, and with it the names of everyone involved. If that can be prevented… but all she said was,
“Reckon you’re right.”
The premiere was scheduled for 8 pm on November 14th. The publicity was only mid-level release scale, the studio hedging its bets over delays, but Velarski had fought hard for Gunderman’s. Everything was coming down to the wire: round-the-clock shooting, post-production sound and visual effects; even delivery of the Chronovisor goggles from China had turned into a real nail-biter.
Tessa arrived four hours early at Gunderman’s, dressed in camisole, jeans and sneakers. The theater was still closed, but polite knocking on those doors embossed with gilded, turbulent waves—followed by determined banging—finally got an answer. One door peeked open, and a man looked out: Asian-American, sporting a gray-streaked dark goatee beneath round-rimmed glasses, mild annoyance masked by a professional smile. He wore a black graphic tee reading,
LIKES TITANIC UNIRONICALLY
with an arrow pointing up at his face. Behind him, a vacuum cleaner whined.
“There’s a premiere tonight, so no tours, sorry!” He moved to close the door.
“I’m in the movie! I mean, the premiere. Tessa Taylor.” She offered a hand.
The man smiled and shook hands, but his head remained cocked. “Ah—you did look familiar. Pleasure to meet you! So, what can I do for you?”
“This may sound bizarre, but it’s a social anxiety thing. I’ve never premiered a movie—that is, never had a leading role, never done the whole… everything. Rather than drink to quell my nerves, which seemed like a bad idea, I decided to pop by and, you know, get the lay of the land?”
His smile melted from formal to genuine. “Ah, uh-huh. I get it. They’re cleaning and setting up, but you’re welcome to come in.” He held the door wide. “Ah—no fricking manners, look at me. I’m Danh. Danh Nguyen. I’m head projectionist.”
Tessa stepped inside. She gazed admiringly at the red décor, the iconic gowns and leather jackets enshrined in cases, and the soaring faux-temple interior above while around her, a cohort vacuumed and polished. Above all, as she meandered, she appraised this Mr. Nguyen.
“Wow—a hell of a place.”
He nodded. “I could give you a quick tour; I’m still waiting on the digital cinema package—the movie—to arrive anyhow.”
So he showed her around: the historic foyer, the stately concessions counters, the storied popcorn machines, then into the cavernous auditorium, with its Niagara-sized red curtain. When she felt she’d stood looking impressed for long enough, Tessa said,
“You know, I once worked as a projectionist, back in Auckland. I’ve been a film geek from a young age.” This much was true. Projection had been her second job, after popcorn-slinging, and fourteen months there had spun mild show-biz dreams into full-on obsession. “Any chance I could have a peek at the booth? I mean, Gunderman’s—fucking legendary! And no, I’m not trying to hit on you,” she added, with a flirty/not-flirty smile.
Up the stairs they went. In the scheme of things, head projectionist wasn’t an awe-inspiring title, but head projectionist at Gunderman’s Japanese Theater? In its low-key way, this was more impressive than onscreen stardom, so capricious in who bubbled to the top. How does one rise to such a rarefied height? she wanted to ask, but she remained tongue-tied up the stairs, down a corridor, and into the Holy of Projectionist Holies.
The booth had a split-level configuration, with metal stairs leading down to the IMAX projectors or up to the digital and film ones. Sitting in this upper room, sandwiched between the server that stored the films and two—two??—state-of-the-art digital projectors, Danh Nguyen rhapsodized about the booth’s history and technologies. He knew everything. Tessa needed to stall for time, but she faked nothing. It was all fascinating; he was fascinating.
At her prompting, he recounted how he’d cut his teeth: lying about his age to land his first projectionist job at fourteen, to help his immigrant parents pay the bills; learning maintenance and repair by trial and error at that shitty second-run theater, with its endless malfunctions; building a one-man projector repair business to help cover trade school, then a double major in electrical engineering and film; through all this, paying his dues, at one point working as both projectionist and manager of one theater while pulling part-time matinée shifts at another. All while finishing uni.
“The great thing is, movies were all I cared about. I never wanted a day off to catch a movie, or Netflix and chill, because I was catching all the movies anyway, and getting paid for it. How can you beat that?”
A phone in Danh’s pocket buzzed. “Excuse me,” he said, took a quick call, and hung up. “Well, the DCP just arrived! Only three hours and seventeen minutes to upload to the server before showtime—sheesh! So, I have to take delivery now…”
This was the moment.
“Umm, listen, would it be too much to ask to let me hang out a bit longer? I mean, to be alone here and pretend to do what you do? At Gunderman’s? A coup for my film geek bucket list?”
Danh furrowed his brow, hesitated. “I would have to ask you not to touch the equipment. Please.”
“An eminently reasonable request,” she answered. Danh stood and eyed her, waiting for something more. But finally he nodded, turned, and jogged down the steps and out the door.
A digital projector has fewer moving parts than a film projector. It is also not nearly so straightforward to fix. Tessa had never attempted any repairs in her stint as a teen projectionist, but she had gotten a look inside for a sense of what parts did what. First she plucked a mini-screwdriver from her handbag. The door was behind her. By swiveling her head she could see it, but would likely get no warning from footsteps approaching on the hallway carpet. She unscrewed and opened the casing, exposing the projector’s innards. With a small adjustable wrench, she loosened two hex nuts to disconnect the liquid-cooling fan—something that, although unlikely, could (?) conceivably occur through wear and tear.
Tessa glanced at the door again, strained her ears. Then she fumbled once more in her bag to pull out a gunmetal windproof butane lighter. Igniting it, she compulsively pivoted her gaze back and forth, from her handiwork to the door. She directed the intense little flame cone—hot pink, bitches!—at one of the DMDs, the digital micromirror devices. The sheer transgression of vandalizing such expensive tech was a rush, hypnotic, watching the pink flame liquefy the invisibly tiny array of micromirrors. When she remembered to listen again, she tensed up—a vacuum in the corridor, now. Not only would footsteps be inaudible, she might not even hear Danh open the door.
Shit.
She leaned in, moved the flame cone to a second DMD, and glared. Melt, damn you, melt!! 4,000-watt bulb or no, in a perfect world nobody would believe Danh, the consummate professional, would run a projector with a failed fan until vital parts melted—and even such a hot bulb wouldn’t scorch the DMDs this horribly. She slammed the casing shut—one down—screwed it closed, and sprang over to the second projector. Between sweaty fingers, the mini-screwdriver slipped, fell to the floor, and rolled beneath the server cabinet, into which any minute now Danh would begin loading the digital file. Tessa floor-dived and groped for the screwdriver.
Finding it at last, she scooped it up and, returning to the projector, wiped hand sweat onto her jeans. After what seemed forever, the casing opened. Tessa’s heart thudded, her breath trembled as she re-commenced melting, distributing the mayhem a little differently. She peered over the two projectors at the door. “Melt!!!” she heard herself hissing aloud. Not one but two world-class projectors suffering similar meltdowns in one afternoon, and just before a premiere? So. Freaking. Not. Believable. Yet the public, people who weren’t Danh Nguyen, would sooner believe in a supernaturally cursed film production than in a Hollywood starlet vandal. Or so she hoped.
The vacuum sounded very, very close. Danh would be back any second. Tessa watched the last DMD melt, rammed the blistering-hot lighter back into her bag. Just outside the door now. She fumbled for the mini-screwdriver. Screwed the casing shut with dripping hands. The door opened, half a flight down, and a dark-haired cleaning woman poked her head into the booth. Tessa palmed the screwdriver against her thigh and grinned. She turned away, slid the screwdriver into her bag, and as she strode down the steps, smiled again at the woman.
The carpeted corridor was empty; Tessa took the opposite direction at a half run and was ecstatic to find another stairway down. She slinked through the foyer, and gapped it out the front door, without encountering Danh. A block down, Letitia pulled up to the curb, as planned, to get her home before the makeup artist arrived.
The red carpet was a new experience, but entering the theater, Tessa felt as though she’d never left, though she now looked bloody glamorous—a movie star, not at all the sort who’d willfully sabotage a projector. Crossing the foyer, she caught sight of Velarski behind James Dean’s glass-encased jacket, red-faced and cursing into his phone—trying, maybe, to secure another projector. She glided into the auditorium and was guided down by a traditionally dressed, fawning usher. The very picture of glamour and grace, she eased into her seat, though she did keep her head tilted to watch for Velarski.
He hadn’t yet entered when, right on time, the towering curtains hummed open, the house lights dimmed, and the screen lit up. A chill spread through Tessa. Words appeared, in flawless resolution:
The Making of The Watcher Awakens
and the Advent of Chronovision 5-D
A Featurette
Tessa gritted her teeth. Did they have a spare projector? Borrow one? Buy one? Those things cost tens of thousands of dollars, and they’re not just sitting on store shelves. Or… Something clicked: an intuition; a certainty. He fixed them. That fucking wizard, Danh, best of the best, eating, sleeping, and breathing film projection: he somehow bloody fixed one of them.
She scarcely heard a word of the featurette, as her gaze darted about. A full house. So many teeth, so many necks, so much potential for face-biting, strangling, or God knows what. Her heart pounded. Bugger, bugger, bugger. In the climate-controlled theater, sweat trickled down her neck, down her back. She clenched the slick armrests, testing whether they could be torn loose to use as weapons.
Yet through all this, a nagging feeling told her she was forgetting something. The featurette’s next title materialized:
Chronovision 5-D
And Velarski’s talking head appeared, explaining the revolutionary technology. Then realization dawned.
No chronovisors.
They hadn’t distributed them. Relief washed over Tessa, but a guarded relief. Perhaps they were waiting until just before the feature began?
The featurette ended—and the house lights brightened. At last Velarski, in the flesh, entered the auditorium. Dressed in black jeans, black sport coat, and plain black tee, he thumped his way down, down, avoiding eye contact. He plodded up the steps to the wide stage, where a mic was handed to him.
“Good evening, and thank you so, so much for coming. This project has been the most significant of my career by far. Thus, it pains me beyond measure to deliver unfortunate news.” He pressed the back of his fist to his mouth, suppressing tears. “We were unable… to secure delivery of 5-D Chronovisors. Therefore, we must with heavy heart cancel tonight’s premiere. We are, however, determined—determined!—to secure them in time for the scheduled worldwide release, two weeks from today. Thank you again, and my humblest, deepest apologies.”
Tessa let out the most relieved breath of her entire life. Letitia would surely call this a miracle.
She’d made her way through the grumbling crowd to the exit when, behind her, somebody pointedly cleared his throat. She turned.
Danh Nguyen.
He won’t grab me or call me out, not here—but the look on his face stopped her short nonetheless. It wasn’t anger, nor questioning, but something in his canted brow, in his deep brown projectionist’s eyes that had seen, through film, all the reveals, all the secret motives unmasked. So when he gestured with his head she followed to a quiet alcove, beside a hanging scroll painted with a garish dragon. Danh gazed into her eyes and waited. Tessa waited right back, surprisingly at ease. I could do this all night.
“That bucket list fantasy was a pipe dream,” Danh blurted. “You have a lot to learn about the dos and don’ts of digital projectors.”
“Maybe I do and maybe I don’t.”
Danh grunted. “If you’re interested, I could explain just how delicate a digital micromirror device is—and maybe you could explain some things to me too—over lunch?”
Tessa continued gazing into his eyes. It was something she might get used to. “Your family’s Vietnamese, yeah? Know any place to get good phở?”
“Of course. But after the day I’ve had? You’re buying.”
Tessa couldn’t argue with that.
The lunch date with Danh was a cracker, a subsequent dinner equally great. A week later, she introduced Danh to Letitia. The three were talking, laughing, and tucking into their dinners at Mandragora as outside the panoramic windows, the L.A. evening dimmed into night.
“Narwhal horn and other endangered animal parts, even traces of human bones.” Letitia shook her head. “Why—or how—they’d use those to make 5-D goggles Lord knows, but Customs was all over that shipment. That, plus the biting incident—the studio is yanking the film entirely, to muffle the uproar.”
Danh, who’d heard the broad strokes previously, narrowed his eyes. “Wow.”
“So Khimtumsakka has carked it.” Tessa raised her glass for a toast. “To disasters averted and brighter days ahead.”
Her phone buzzed.
Georgie?
A series of distraught texts: Georgie’s teenaged son Logan had tried to murder her with a grilling fork, and she’d had to lock herself in her car and give him a hard knock with the bumper to get away.
As Tessa texted frantically, others’ phones began buzzing too, until the restaurant sounded like a swarm of murder hornets. Tessa, Danh, and Letitia now fell into their phones’ news feeds. Though Velarski’s magnum opus lay on cinema’s rubbish heap, it turned out the company who’d licensed the video game had successfully manifested his vision as “Chronovision VR.” Viral marketing had made The Watcher Awakens the largest release in gaming history. Hundreds of millions of copies had sold worldwide, with a similar number pirated.
The incidents had begun hours after release, and were crescendoing now, as hardcore gamers completed their playthroughs—Cousin Logan among them. Bitings were a mere prelude. A considerable number of hardcore gamers are also firearms enthusiasts, with small arsenals at hand. Vehicles can be weapons of destruction too—as, for example, the Toyota hybrid that now smashed, spinning, through Mandragora’s plate windows, missing Danh by only a foot and mowing down three tables’ worth of diners to a cacophony of shrieks. The driver’s door opened and the owner emerged. Bloodied, with an arm and foot shattered by the crash, he snarled and scooped up a steak knife from the floor, and with a hot flame of malice in his eye, limped toward their table.
Letitia drew a pistol from somewhere, and taking a well-practiced stance, fired three times into his chest, dropping him to the floor; in the enclosed space, the reports were deafening.
The dike of civility, law, and sanity had been breached. In addition to guns and vehicles, for those with a craft-minded and murderous bent, DIY explosives recipes are readily found. And incisive minds know that our world and everything in it—banking, power grids, water supplies, even nuclear reactors—are networked, and thus within reach of the technologically gifted and irredeemably deranged.
Letitia Hobbins: firearms owner and experienced security professional; Danh Nguyen: virtuoso of things mechanical and technological; Tessa Taylor: Hollywood almost-“it” girl with eight weeks’ intensive free-weight, cardio, and Tang Soo Do training under her belt and a stew of abject terror now roiling in her guts. The three exchanged a silent look and emerged through where the picture window had been onto a street of screeching tires, gunshots, fires, explosions, smoke, and screams—a high-octane movie trailer of a world, utterly bereft of sense or sensibility, one that would last much, much longer than two minutes.
The new epoch of Khimtumsakka had begun.
David A. Hewitt was born in Germany, grew up near Chicago, and spent eight years in Japan, studying classical martial arts and growing up some more. A graduate of the University of Southern Maine’s Stonecoast MFA program in Popular Fiction, he currently teaches English for the Community College of Baltimore County, but has at various times worked as a Japanese-English translator, a martial arts instructor, a middle school teacher, a cabinetmaker’s assistant, a pizza/subs/beer delivery guy, and a pet shop boy. His hobbies include skiing, meditation, disc golf, and tabletop RPGs. His stories have appeared in Metaphorosis, Underland Arcana, Metastellar, and as a selection in the Amazing Stories: Best of 2023 anthology. His novelette “The Great Wall of America” is available as a standalone book from Mithila Press.
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“The Watcher Awakens” by David A. Hewitt. Copyright © 2025 by David A. Hewitt.
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