Not even a day has Graham been in Talos, but he’s already discovered the planet’s name and structure – Graham finds Marcus and procures a map, and faints when he sees that none of the maps show Earth, but all show Talos. As of right now, his “mission” is to find out why he was sent to Talos, or how he came about to be in Talos, because he believes that will show him how to return to Earth. However, a we know, he will run into the authorities along the way… even if what he might at first thing is a utopian society, he’ll soon begin to experience the seeds of civil unrest and martial law that hold him in Talos. So, not only will it become his mission to leave, but he’ll be forced to flee and attempt to escape, and… well, I won’t ruin more for you. That’s pretty much a summary of the next several days, perhaps the next week entirely!

Word Count: 16,748

Graham felt the blister on his finger. Within minutes it puffed up like a painful balloon, and it begged to be popped – but Graham wasn’t about to irritate a second-degree burn. He wanted to shut off the bulb and see its insides – as it was, there was some strange gas floating around inside it blocking everything but its brightest components, two coils of wire that crossed over each other at a ninety degree angle. He couldn’t tell if the glass encapsulating the gas was thick or thin, he couldn’t see the port to which it connected to its base; the device was astoundingly bright, and without the translucent gas within the bulb it would easily be blindingly bright.

Graham stood up. “Well then, I suppose I have no choice but to find Marcus. Though without a map it might be hard to find this mapmaker. If you could give me a lift, I’d appreciate it. Got a car around here?”

Vanessa stopped and looked at the floor. “No automobile runs off of the paved roads, so we can’t have one out here. We have a horse and buggy, but not many people like to ride those anymore, and with the ash storms that come every few hours transportation is difficult without losing your lungs. I was surprised that your and your hiker friends made it here.”

Graham couldn’t believe that she bought the hiker charade, or that there had really been a group of hikers that had wandered by conveniently, but he couldn’t let them know the truth – that he’d never heard of any of these countries, and was frightened by the strange clothing, accents, and culture that he had thus far witnessed. He looked at the fireplace across the cabin – a fire burned brightly in an enclave surrounded by brass and brass piping, and it simply gleamed, but he wished that it didn’t, because then he might have a lead on his location. As it stood, he still had no idea where he was – Alteria? The Oceanic Confederacy? It all meant nothing. These were not real countries. Someone’s pulling my leg, Graham thought.

The tables were steel with brass lining, the floor was magnificent shining tile, the countertops matched the tables, but their clothing and mannerisms didn’t match any of it. Graham feared that his experience in Curie’s writing room had driven him insane; perhaps, even now, he was actually in a coma, in some hospital in the real world. Even if this was true, Graham had nobody to sit nearby him, to talk to him, to try and get him to wake up. He was stuck in this strange place, for better or worse.

Finally, Vanessa’s mother handed him a decorative compass, carved with intricate floral patterns and made of recently polished brass. “Take this, and travel northwest. You’ll reach a village called Gorom; there someone will assist you in finding Marcus. Gorom is a large village. So long as you keep walking, you’ll have no trouble finding it.” She placed some food in his lab, mostly bread and cheese, and told him to get going.

He thanked the woman for her hospitality and exited the household. An ash storm was happening; Graham choked on the particles of soot that flew by – from the looks of it, the ash was coming from the east. He suspected that there was a large factory out there spewing the soot, but east wasn’t his destination. He held the compass close to his face and began walking uphill, northwest. After a few hundred meters the ash began to die down, and he could see that its fall cut off abruptly at a line, creating a natural border between the ashen ground and the clean ground. The entire area behind him became an ash forest; the trees that he had originally landed between were soaked in ash, leaves became ash, and the once sparkling cabin became a mess of soot and black smears.

He wiped his compass on the ground to clean the glass cover of soot, and watched the grass turn black. A tear rolled down his cheek, but he couldn’t determine why, but something about his situation made him inextricably sad, even though he was separated from no one and not on good terms with his family. Perhaps it was the compass that refused to work properly, or perhaps it was the glimpse of a black ocean beyond the ashen forest that he saw in the reflection of the compass’s brass backing. He wiped the tear away and journeyed on; several kilometers was a while away, and he hadn’t been told explicitly how many “several” was. For all he knew he could travel fifty kilometers, only to find nothing and be forced to double back in the other direction.

Luckily, that didn’t happen. He followed the compass northwest faithfully, noticing several landmarks that indicated the direction of Gorom. The sky cleared up behind him, and from the top of the mountain he was surprised to have climbed on his own, he could see the tiny cabin bellowing steam and smoke from the fire, and noticed that the mounds of ash had since blown away into the sea several hundred meters away, where they clumped together and sank to the bottom of the ocean. Yet, amidst this pleasant vista was a dark omen, another cloud of ash floating overseas on the horizon. Whatever the ash was, it was coming from across the ocean, and that it came at regular intervals meant something manmade must have been producing it. From his position there was nothing he could do, so he trudged down the other side of the mountain.

It took several more hours for him to reach Gorom, during which he rested in the thick grass and enjoyed the warmth of the incredibly close sun. The sun was considerably larger than he remembered it being the other day. In fact, the entire season was changed – no longer was it on the brink of winter, but it appeared to be full-blown summer. Trees had full, green foliage, flowers were in bloom everywhere he walked, untamed grass made its mark all across the land in thick droves. He was only able to find the village by its miraculous sparkle; whomever the architect was that designed the buildings in this area clearly had a special attachment to shiny objects. Pondering this, Graham couldn’t recall a soul in human history who didn’t.

On approaching the village he noticed that a large wall blocked it off, and there was no way for him to enter except through a very large security gate. In front of the gate were two guards clad in grey armor of which the likes Graham had never seen in his life. They carried awkward and ancient looking guns, and stood in perpetual stillness until he approached them requesting to enter the city.

“Identification?” one guard asked.

“I have none. I’ve come to find Marcus – he’s a cartographer, do you know him by any chance?” Graham asked.

“Never heard of him. If you don’t have identification, we can’t let you into the city. Show us some sort of district pass, personal registration card, or midnight pass. Anything in your wallet will do nicely, but we must verify that you’re a member of the Confederacy. This is neutral territory.”

“Yes, you see, about that,” Graham began, “I’m quite lost. I was travelling with a large group of hikers, fell off a cliff and lost consciousness. I don’t know where I am, and a nice woman and her daughter Vanessa told me to travel here – this is Gorom, right?”

“Border patrol sent you here?” The other guard said. “Alright, this is what I will do for you, only because you seem to be telling the truth. I’ll broadgraph border patrol. It’ll take a while, but wait here. Hey, watch him while I’m gone – make sure he doesn’t run off anywhere.”

“Yes, sir,” said the other guard, clearly a subordinate of the one running off to make the call. But Graham hadn’t the slightest idea what a broadgraph was, and ended up waiting over half an hour twiddling his thumbs and pondering what sort of border patrol that woman and her daughter could have been doing back there. Vanessa had mentioned that they were paid to live there – were they really a normal family? For the first time, Graham wondered if there was a father in this picture, if the family was split apart by this border patrol business.

Then the guard in charge returned. He looked at Graham and kept his face still. “You were not lying. I’m impressed.” He motioned to the other guard. “Open the gate for him.”

“Yes, sir.” The guard rushed to what appeared to be a nearby control panel, and pulled a large level on the panel. A few seconds after this act gears around the gate began to turn, prying the open with great force. Graham caught his first glimpse of the walled village through this open gate, and with enthusiasm and hope he stepped onto the cobblestone roads of Gorom. Plenty of people were out and traversing Gorom’s many roads, and Graham made witness to several decrepit automobiles that looked at least a century old. The sidewalks were made of concrete, but lined with the same brass that seemed to cover everything else. There was a building on every corner lined with pipes that spewed steam and waste; gears turned and churned out products that Gorom’s inhabitants readily consumed without inhibition. The village’s people lived contently this way.

The first building that caught Graham’s eye was what appeared to be a simple candy shop, but on the inside was anything but. Large and complex contraptions had been built from gears, switches and pipes; they were homebrew candy producing machines, built as a spectacle and as an assembly line. Graham marveled at this magical joint effort between marketing and engineering, then realized that he had no money and could not reward the store’s owner with hard earned bills. From this he migrated to several other buildings, all which he inspected with utmost curiosity, consistently asking people if they knew a certain Marcus the cartographer – but nobody had ever heard of such a man. Graham began to think that asking people on the street was not such a wise idea, and so he asked at a building more location-oriented; through various efforts, he managed to make his way to one of several local post offices. Atop this post office was written, in large, gleaming text: “GOROM POSTAL SERVICE, 2ND DISTRICT”, with the subtext “Delivering within Gorom and to the Alteria outlands.”

A postman was sitting at the service desk, waiting to receive packages inside, twisting his gargantuan mustache around a finger to match. “Excuse me,” graham said, hoping not to interrupt the man’s important mustache activities, “would you happen to have a map of the area, or know where I could find the cartographer Marcus?”

“Marcus, eh? “ the postman said, removing his finger from the facial hair. “Yes, I know that man. One of our staff members regularly delivers parchment to his doorstep.”

“Could you tell me where he lives?”

“Heavens no! Customer-postman confidentiality,” the man said staunchly. When he lifted his chin to speak, his mustache seemed to rise up over his nose. Graham had to prevent himself from laughing.

“…of course,” Graham said with a muffled voice, recalling his confidentiality agreement with Curie over the lock. “Well then, how can I find him?” Graham thought of another simple lie to explain his existence. “I’m a tourist, you see. This is my first visit to, well, wherever this is, and I’d like to have a map handy. To speed the travel, you know.”

“Ah, yes, well… Marco’s business has been especially active since Gorom got its hands on a thousand name-brand automobiles from the mainland to sell. If you’re looking for an old-fashioned hand-drawn map you might be out of luck, I’m afraid.”

“Oh, no, anything will do – in fact, I’d prefer a printed map. I didn’t know anybody hand-drew maps anymore.”

“They’re becoming far and wide in between, I’m afraid. A tragedy, says I!” Clearly this postman doubled as an actor, for he spoke with great tenor and enthusiasm about such a droll topic.

Graham leaned closer to him, “Listen, if you keep it under wraps and give me, say, a business card, I won’t tell a soul about it. Just let me know where he lives so I can get my information and get out of here. Please, I beg you.” At this point Graham’s voice was almost a whisper, afraid that security cameras or other high technology might be capturing the moment that would inevitably cost the man his job. The postman eventually gave in and procured the address and a long ring of business cards and, while this was happening, Graham looked around for security measures. Although he couldn’t find any cameras, he did find that the entire room seemed to have no security systems at all – it was just a single room with wood flooring, a steel and brass table like he’d seen everywhere else with some exquisite, expensive pens for marking envelopes, and the postman, alone, at his station. The lack of technology in this country was beginning to startle Graham. Perhaps, he thought, he’d been transported against his will to a third world country, or a country whose citizens were in a fit of mass delusion, because this was no way to create a modern-day establishment. The candy store, as well, for all its novelty, was behind the times – something like Curie’s lock was not incredibly technology, yet it dwarfed everything he’d seen since he’d woken up. He left the post office feeling confused and a little disoriented, but not discouraged that he could find out where he truly was. And once he knew where he was, he would know how far he was from his home – and how to leave this place and get back where he belonged.

The address was across town, the postman told him. There was a trolley that ran across town every half hour, but Graham was not wearing a watch, and as he’d already established hadn’t the money to purchase a new watch from a nearby store, of which he’d seen many. The postman pointed out what the trolley stations looked like, even though they were rather hard to miss, and Graham simply waited until the golden vehicle reared itself around the corner and screeched to a halt in front of the stop. He showed the business card to the driver, an elderly man who remarked, “Ah, another one for Marcus? That man will be filthy rich before I die. Sit yourself down, I’ll take you there.”

The trolley was a slow-moving vehicle that reminded Graham of the open tour busses used to show tourists around famous cities and the hotspot locations within them. However the trolley in Gorom was, to say the least, the most complete vehicle Graham had seen thus far in his visit – every other car looked like a prototype Packard, and he’d sworn he’d seen a Model T in the mix. Why these men and women agreed to drive this ancient technology, he couldn’t imagine – Graham couldn’t even think of third world nations forced to ride around in literal artifacts of history.

Ten minutes later, the trolley screeched again and stopped, and the elderly driver yelled out the address corresponding to Marcus’s business. With much enthusiasm Graham existed the trolley and rushed into the store, where he saw countless maps filling shelf upon shelf upon shelf. The room was the first he’d seen whose interior was entirely wood, which gave it the effect of looking even older than it was – how old that was, Graham could not decipher. The maps themselves were brand new. He saw several people inside the store unfolding maps without asking, and began unraveling the cartographer’s work for himself, remembering that he was penniless and destitute.

What he saw was a world clearly not Earth.

Rather, it was an old-fashioned hand-drawn map, with clear inaccuracies, of a land that intricate, embroidered, bold and centered text at the top labeled “TALOS.”

Fictional, Graham said to himself. This guy is good at his work, but I need a real map. But every map that Graham unfolded showed the same world of Talos, or cross sections of Talos, or individual countries within Talos. One of the maps displayed Talos trade routes, both by sea and by land. And, just like that, Graham’s head began to spin. His hands shook, his eyes wandered. With sweat running down his brow, he took hold of the nearest world map of Talos he could find and looked to see if he could locate Alteria.

It was there.

He moved his finger over Alteria and traced it along until he came across a sub-drawing of a city called Gorom, in the southeast corner of the Alterian continent, marked off in its own territory called “Oceanic Confederacy.” Feeling woozy, he looked to see if there was a land to the east of Alteria, across the sea, and there was – a country called Lanford. No longer could he keep his eyes on the map; he was so disillusioned by the thought that he might no longer be on Earth that he passed out.

A splash of water awoke him minutes later. It looked like a store clerk had heard him collapse with the map. Looking the store clerk in the face, and holding his forehead tightly with his left hand, he asked, “Where am I?”

“You are in my shop,” the clerk said with a thick accent whose origin origin bounced between British and Irish.

“Are you Marcus?” Graham asked, out of breath.

“Yes, I am. Now, let me help you get up. Hold my hand.” He gripped Marcus’s hand and wobbled his way to stability thereafter. Only after he was stable did he panic and start looking for the map, which had disappeared. “Don’t worry,” Marcus said, “I took it from you and put it back on the shelf before I poured the water on you. You are not from around here, are you sir?”

“You could say that,” Graham said. “Are those maps real?” Graham pointed to the shelf full of Talos world maps.

“Most certainly not! I take my work very seriously, sir. My maps are the most accurate you will find in all of the Confederacy.” Marcus proudly grabbed one of his maps and began to open it up, eager to show Graham the intense level of detail present in them.

But Graham had heard enough – he began shouting at Marcus, “Is this some kind of joke?” However, Marcus’s response, consisting of silence and a bewildered facial expression, convinced Graham otherwise, and he calmed down. After a brief moment of silence, Graham spoke once more.

“What planet am I on?”

“Excuse me?” said Marcus, placing his precious map back on the nearby shelf.

“What planet am I on?” Graham repeated, with urgency.

“Um… you are on Talos, sir. Talos is the only planet you can be on. Are you alright?”

Graham felt suddenly ill. Something had happened back in Curie’s writing room, something strange and inexplicable, and that the explanation, which would explain the lock, the typewriter, the darkness – even the voices he’d heard and the numbness he’d felt just moments after – was hidden somewhere in this other world of Talos. “I’m, I’m fine,” Graham said, and at this moment he forged a vow within the confines of his mind to find his way home, no matter what the cost. For there was a reason why he had come to Talos, and although he did not yet know it, he knew that once he unearthed this reason, so to would he the path back to Earth.