The Never Ending Tails
Epilogue: Burning the Man

A large sea of dust and sand was surrounded by rocky black hills. Metersabove the desert, a helicopter flew toward the south west border where apentagon delimited what has come to be known as Black Rock City, a temporarytown confined in the Black Rock Desert of Nevada. Aboard the chopper, thepassenger was looking down at the scene amazed by the geometry of the ephemeraltown where he was summoned. As they were coming closer, he could noticeslightly curved rectangles forming streets in the shape of an incomplete ringwithin the pentagon. The structure contained a circle at the base of the ring,one at the center and one that would connect with the circle if it wascomplete. All three were connected by many lines. The passenger felt like theplace was some sort of massive magic seal, fueled by the passion of thehundreds who attended its annual event: “theBurning Man”.

The Helicopter landed in the smallmunicipal airport; it was more of a succession of dirt roads reserved to theattendees who came to the event aboard aerial vehicles. The passenger took offhis helmet revealing lightly curly white locks of hair that massively coveredhis head stopping at his neck. He swapped his leather jacket for a white vesthe put on top of his T-shirt; He also changed his sneakers for a solid pair ofboots. He put on a pair of goggles to protect his golden eyes from the dust,the sand and the intense rays of the sun before finally stepping out of thechopper.

Grabbing his overly stuffed campingbag, he thanked the Helicopter’s pilot. He quickly noticed a huge cluster ofmulticolored bikes with a sign saying: “Adopt a bike!” He chose one of thebicycles, or it rather chose him and rode toward Black Rock City. On his way,he saw countless other bikers dressed in all kinds of extravagant manners andspotting vivid colors, each of them filled to the brim with unique accessories.He also noticed all sorts of other vehicles, from camping cars, to trucks, toanimal shaped rides, to houses on wheels and many more bizarre mobilestructures. He felt a strange sense of serenity in the surrounding chaos, untilearthbound thoughts pushed him off his little bubble of peace. He didn’t cometo Black Rock City because he just felt like it, he was asked to come followinga series of events that were still fresh in his memory.

He remembered the five year longdepression far too well, the feeling of pointlessness that made every day likethe next one, the last hope to use his skills that turned into the sourrealization that his skills weren’t needed, not by the people he targeted.

It all came to an end with a callfrom Erica Silverstone, a mysterious acquaintance who popped in his virtuallife from time to time. While on the phone, she told him about the ArcadiaCorporation and a new project of theirs he might be interested in.

She stayed vague about it, and so were the employees of the firm when hegot to their Diamond city outlet the following day. They passed him through aseries of scans and tests, but they never explained what they were looking for.Whatever it was, they seemed to have found it as they were very satisfied whenthey informed him that he was 96.9% compatible.

According to them, only seven other people on the planet exceeded the90% compatibility threshold. They put him on video call directly with AlexisMakarov, the CEO of the company who asked him to join the Arcadia Corporation.

“If you accept to work with us, youwill be one of the very few people to experiment something truly unique anddecisive for our whole world. It is not a job for the faint of heart, but withyour numbers, I doubt you are one of those. If you decide to join us, I willpersonally explain to you the purpose of our new project, initiate you to ourwork of line if you will.” He remembered the CEO telling him.

He was tired of the sickeningroutine that his life had become at the time and decided to accept AlexisMakarov’s proposition.

“Very well. Liviano Iskatel, youwill officially start the 10th September, but your initiation willbe held from the fifth to the seventh of the same month. During those threedays, we will tell you all you need to know to operate as one of us.” Alexistold him then.

At the end of August, he received acall from the Arcadia Corporation; they told him that everything was put inplace to get him to the location of his initiation: the Burning Man festival atBlack Rock City.

The young man stopped in his trackbraking just seconds before crashing in a considerably large yacht; the kindyou wouldn’t expect to replace in the desert. Liviano was so lost in his memoriesthat he failed to notice the ship braking in front of him. Riding around it, hestopped to take a better look. He noticed that the mastodon was technically acar as six giant wheels were at the origin of its mobility on the sandy plane;he also noticed the ‘captain’ and ‘crew’ of this fish out of water who were infact a group of young women and men dressed in accessorized sailors outfit andlaughing while spraying each other with what he assumed was champagne.

“The rich kids are here to ‘occupy’the burning man, that’s what they say to justify their presence, but I’m prettysure they are just here to have fun and commune like everyone else.” The wordswere uttered from behind Liviano. He turned around to see if the person whosaid that was addressing him. He found a young women, probably in themid-twenties, riding a green bicycle and clearly looking at him; she had thatdistinct 60s’ hippie look: red headband tightly embracing her long straightsand blond hair, round sunglasses like the ones John Lennon used to wear, dream-catcherpendant with multicolored feathers, rainbow spiral top, flare jeans, and sandals.

“Not your first burning man?”Liviano asked.

“That is correct, I come herewhenever I can. This place is completely disconnected from the rest, it is itsown little world, and everything here has this tendency to be constantlysurreal! Finding you for instance! I thought it would take me the whole day,but here you are! Ain’t that surreal Liviano?” She responded.

“Wait! You know me?” Liviano askedsurprise by the mention of his name.

The Young woman smiled beforeresponding, “I do! Even though we haven’t been formally introduced yet… I amRachel Mikayume! Burner, modern shaman, and employee at the ArcadiaCorporation! I volunteered to welcome you and guide you through the festivaland toward the first step of your initiation!”

Liviano look at Rachel who seemedvery satisfied by her statement, taking a moment to digest what she just toldhim.

“It’s nice to meet you Rachel! Myname is Liviano Iskatel, but you already know that. As you volunteered to guideme, I assume you are also involved in the same mystery project I was asked tointegrate the Arcadia Corp for. I understand the initiation is designed toenlighten me about it, but can’t you give me a little hint of what I’m gettinginvolved in... Please?”

“Haha, nice try! If I tell you,Alexis won’t stop bugging me about it for god knows how long. He really wantsyou to discover it in the right moment; the boss is a sucker for theatricals,so just relax Liviano. You are at the burning man! In the middle of a communityof highly creative and free spirited people! Take a deep breath, chill, andenjoy the ride! Now common, follow me if you want to see some pretty uniquestuff!”

The two rode their bikes through thechaos of chimera vehicles and toward the temporary town. On their way they rodeunder giant yellow and green cellophane flowers, one of many giant artsculptures that were created for the event. They made it through the vast arrayof artistic displays, some of which were giant letter forming words such as ‘Free’,‘Love’ and ‘Believe’. Passing by the giant wooden “faces of the lovers”, theyentered the streets of the town made up of tents, RVs and other ephemeral roofsthe burners used as shelter. They made aquick stop by a giant RV with the Arcadia Corporation Logo spread on all of thesurface of its two flanks; they dropped their bikes and Liviano’s bike, ate aprotein bar each, and took some water with them before getting back to thechaos of the town’s streets.

As they walked, the density ofthe people around them rose and so did the outlandishness of the burners’outfits and activities. The two ended up next to a gigantic wire dome that manyburners around seemed to diverge toward. Loud cheering and intense metal musicwas coming from the structure leading Liviano to believe that whatever washappening inside would be epic. He didn’t have to wait long to discover whatwas going on inside the dome as Rachel lead him toward the crowded entrance ofthe structure.

“If we’re lucky, we might see Daalgo at it!” Rachel said grabbing Liviano’s hand and rushing him through thecrowd. For a moment, Liviano felt like he was going to be flattened by the massof people they were navigating through, but he didn’t have to wait long enoughto be free from the squeezing. He was surprised to see that it was way lesspacked once inside, and he quickly understood why. Most of the burners that gotin climbed the large wires of the dome to take a better look at the scene andstay away from the flames that surrounded it. In the middle, two people were suspendedmid-air by large elastic cables. The two, a woman and a man were tanglingaround in incredible bounds thanks to the elasticity of their harnesses.

“What are they doing?” Liviano askedRachel.

“It’s Daal’s turn! I forgot tomention, but he is also from the Arcadia Corporation and part of the mysteryproject as you like to call it. So Daal and the other participant both startthe game with five feathers placed on their arms, legs, and head. The goal isto leap toward the other participant and take their feathers. The first personto take all the other’s feathers win the game! Looks like Daal already scored apoint!”

Liviano paid a closer attention tothe arena. The aforementioned Daal looked like a mountain of muscles whichgreatly contrasted with the slender figure of the woman he was facing. The twoopponent’s movement were precise, fast, and elegant. They never crashed intoeach other, but as they were leaping closer to each other, they plucked morefeathers from each other. Shockingly, Daal lost while his opponents had twofeathers to spare. The two were cheered in a wave of excitement and lowereddown to the scene where the fire was temporarily put off. They got out of theirharnesses leaving their spots for the next contestants in line.

As soon as he got out of the scene, Daal noticed Rachel waving at him,and walked toward the two. As he wascoming closer, Liviano was finally able to take a good look at this newcoworker of his. The man was very tall, a hulking mass of muscles, but his facewas peaceful and relaxed like a friendly Buddhist monk.

“You pulled off some amazing moves out there Daal!” Rachel said, “Youcould have won though, and shown Liviano how awesome you are!”

“My opponent was better, can’t deny that,” Daal said before turning towardsLiviano, “It’s nice to meet you Liviano, I heard you are the newest member ofour team…”

“Don’t spoil the surprise Daal!” Rachel stopped him.

“My pleasure Daal,” Liviano said to his future teammate before askingRachel, “Are you also part of this team?”

“Well, yes! But you will know all about it a little bit later. Commonguys, we are at the burning man for Shiva’s sake! Let’s move! There is so muchmore we need to see and do!”

The three left the wire dome wandering deeper in the layers of the town,stopping here and there for a look at the strange patchwork of improbablecompositions, the fields of human figures made of wooden frames, the man andthe temple to be burnt at the end.

But some people could never wait, because some people feel that whatthey want comes before anything else. So was the case of a man who walked byRachel, Daal and Liviano. The man waswearing a red rubber suit and a gas mask and Liviano could swear that themetallic cylindrical contraption he wore on his back was a flamethrower; he hadseen enough videos of people fooling around with those on the internet torecognize it. The rubber clothed fellow was heading straight to the giantwooden figure of “the man” in the middle of the town’s broken circle. Livianoimmediately got the intention of the man behind the gas mask, and nobody aroundseemed to notice or care. He started thinking very fast, ‘The man must bestopped, but tackling him might lead to the flamethrower going off, injuringcountless happy burners. I need to replace a way to paralyze his progressionwithout causing any incident, but how?’

Rachel put her hand on Liviano’s shoulder interrupting the rush ofworried thoughts he was having. She smiled at him then nodded, before lookingat Daal who nodded in return. Liviano’s companions headed toward the man movingaround the burners to stay in his blind spot. When they were close enough, Daalsprinted toward the targeted fellow and leaped on him firmly deadlocking himagainst the ground. Rachel quickly approached the paralyzed culprit; using aretractable pocket knife, she cut the straps linking the man to hisflamethrower and took the object far away from him.

“You, my friend, are coming with me.” Daal said to the man with a calmsmile before forcing him up on his feet, holding his hands behind his back, andleading him away from the scene.

“Way to go reading my thoughts!” Liviano said impressed. “But I guessyou guys noticed him before I did. I see that The Arcadia Corporation doesn’tfool around when it comes to physically training its employees.”

“With our line of work, you must be ready for anything! And there isnothing wrong with training your body. At the end of the day, it is the onlything you can truly rely on. Good job spotting him though! I have a feeling wecan truly rely on you once the work starts.”

“This job we are doing isn’t the typical white collar gig, is it?”

“Still trying to make me spill the beans. Well I’m gonna answer thisone: it is and it isn’t!”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“You’ll understand in due time! Now common, we should join Daal at thesecurity post of the festival and bring this dragon breath container to them!”

“For a modern shaman, sometimes you sound like a D&D dungeoncrawler.”

Rachel laughed at the remark before answering, “Fantasy is at theessence of any Shaman’s narrative! And just to rectify, I spent my fair shareof time role playing online during high school, but table RPGs eww.”

“You don’t know what you were missing.”

“Neither do you! Now let’s move or we’ll be at it until dawn!”

The two walked to the security post. The security guards already calledthe police of the neighboring town of Reno and sent a chopper to take the manand his flamethrower under their custody.

“You did well Liviano.” Daal said to the young man. “You have goodreflexes, but if you want to make a difference you should start to seriouslytrain. I’ll coach you anytime you want, you’ll be able to handle situations farmore serious than this lone Looney on your own.”

“I…Okay, sure!” Liviano responded hesitating a little, he wasn’t sure ifhe could keep up with his teammate due to the difference in physical condition,but he could use some help as fitness and other body building activities alwaysbewildered him, “Why not, I’m sure I’ll be a mountain of muscles too in notime!” he laughed nervously as he realized he might have pissed off Daal withhis remark.

Daal exploded in laughter taking a few minutes to get back some of hiscomposure, “You are a funny one Liviano, I will train you until you reach peakefficiency, how much muscle mass you get will be up to you.”

“Your conversation is starting to reek testosterone, training is beingin sync with your body, not growing muscle tissues like a production chain in afactory! I’ll train you too just to make sure your brain is not replaced withbiceps” Rachel said reacting to the two guys’ conversation.

“Don’t get mad Rachel. You know that my training is not just that.”

“I know Daal! I just want to train him too to be honest!”

“You guys are really serious about this!” Liviano remarked, “Must besome pretty intense field work we are doing with the Arcadia.”

An unfamiliar yet mesmerizing voice rose behind Liviano and hiscompanions, “Don’t get the wrong idea about the job. Our project within theArcadia enable us to go where no one else in this world is.”

“Oh hey Sonata!” Rachel said addressing the new individual. Livianoturned around to take a look at this mysterious person which everythingindicated was yet another fellow teammate in the mystery project of the ArcadiaCorporation. He felt a strange jolt as his golden eyes crossed the acid greenones of the young woman. She was the embodiment of grace and radiated a strangeand yet seductive calm confidence heightened by a faint smile on her perfectface framed by half long locks of light brown oak hair.

“Hey Rachel, Alexis called for you and Daal.I’ll take it from here with Liviano.” Sonata said.

“Okay! Common Daal, let’s go seewhat the boss want. We’ll see you guys later!”

As the two were leaving, Daalbriefly spoke to Sonata, “Go easy on him.”

“Don’t worry,” Sonata responded holdingLiviano’s arm, “I’ll be gentle in making him see the light.”

Liviano couldn’t move or think. Hedidn’t know what to think other than that he was feeling pretty good about thissudden body contact. He looked at Sonata at his side trying to figure out alittle bit what kind of person this new teammate of his was.

“Look at you blushing! Don’t tell meyou never had anyone holding your arm before.” Sonata said with a faintlaughter.

“What? No! I... I mean, I don’t haveto tell you those kind of things… Sonata right? It’s nice meeting you…”

“Let’s skip the boring introductionsshall we? You know my name, I know yours yadi yadi yada, boring. I am not herefor formalities my dear Liviano, but to get you one step closer to burning theman you formerly were.”

“Is the Arcadia a cult?” Livianoasked. “Because if it’s the case, I’d rather just go back to being a part timeassistant clerk.”

Sonata laughed at his remark thensaid, “Oh we are nothing like a cult, what we do is pure science. Science sopure in fact it pushes the limits of what a human being is capable of experiencingthrough the biological machine we were provided at birth. Let’s walk for abit:”

The two left the security post;Sonata still holding Liviano’s arm.

“How much longer do I need to waitbefore you people tell me what this is project is about?” Liviano asked.

“Not much longer, in a way, at eachstep we are taking, you are learning more without even knowing it.”

“So far I know it is a scientificexperiment involving a team of highly trained people and pushing the limits ofhuman perception, what I don’t get is why it is so hush-hush? Is it unethicalor dangerous?”

“Anything is questionably unethical,the simple fact of being alive causes so much consequences that arequestionable, and the same goes for danger; no one knows when death can strike afterall.”

“Why the burning man? Why thisplace?”

“There are a few reasons behind thelocation. For starter Alexis like it here, but it is more than that. Theburning man is a hive for people with alternative ways of perceiving the world,a place where so many different ideals exist simultaneously in a chaotictranquility. It is also where the man and the temple are burnt, and with themthe stuck up ideals of a predefined world where everyone’s life is traced bythe hands of destiny. We chose this place because like all the burners here weare not about destiny, we are about choice, and choice is at the center ofeverything we are doing in this secret little experiment of ours.”

“So I can choose not to followthrough and leave now if I wished.”

“You could indeed, but you will bemissing on the knowledge of what our experiment is about, and the new choicesthat knowledge could lead to. Of course you can quit at any time, but once youknow, once you understand what we are trying to do, everything in you will pushyou to go further. Some would say it is destiny, but once you know, destinybecomes meaningless.”

Sonata stopped as they were passingnext to the “faces of the lovers”. Still holding Liviano’s arm, she pulled himcloser kissing him.

“If I was following what destinywould dictate, this would never happen, but I kissed you because I felt like itand chose to do it, it is as simple as that.”

Liviano was confused, but he enjoyedthe kiss, and was feeling more and more intrigued by Sonata, even attractedtoward the mysterious young woman.

“Now Liviano, your questions willfinally be answered, it is time to see Alexis.”

The two walked through the town arrivingat the wooden statue of the man. At its base, Liviano spot Rachel, Daal,and…Alexis Makarov; he recognized his short silver hair and his wire frameglasses.

“We meet again Mr. Iskatel, I hopeyou had a great time so far at the festival and enjoyed knowing the presentother members of our team. You will meet the rest once we officially startworking, I guess you have been waiting for quite a while to know the nature ofthis job the Arcadia Corporation is offering you.” Alexis said.

“I’m starting to form an idea, but Imight be wrong.”

“What is your theory Mr. Iskatel?”Alexis asked.

“You are working on probabilities,outcome determination, maybe some application to quantum mechanics.”

“I am impressed, you are very close.What kind of application do you think we are developing?”

“I can’t think of one specifically,but if I have to make a few guesses I would say entanglement, probability wave’scalculation, maybe even teleportation?”

“You are well informed on quantumphysics. Your application didn’t mention any degree in the discipline.”

“I spend a lot of time on theinternet, quantum mechanics is very popular with geeks.”

“So you must be familiar with themany worlds theory.”

Liviano stood silent for a moment, athought of what this was all about passed through his mind, but he didn’t paymuch attention to it as it seemed too farfetched to be true.

“The theory that every possiblechoice happens simultaneously, that the other outcomes not observed still existin parallel worlds, the multiverse? What? You’re gonna tell me that you have away to choose the outcomes in advance and build your own navigation system in aperfect timeline?”

“Oh no, not at all, we are nottrying to control the future, that would be boring.”

“What other application could therebe to the multiverse theory?”

“There are potentially plenty. Oneof which is exploring the multiverse.”

“Wait…What?!”

“You heard well, at the ArcadiaCorporation we built a device we called the “multiverse drive”, with it we areable to entangle our consciousness to compatible individuals in other possibleworlds, when we drive, we become our alter egos and we explore their worlds.”

Liviano started thinking over allthe implications of the words Alexis said. He felt his thought loosing coherenceas all the possibilities that rose in his mind were colliding with each other.

“So if I join you, I will be sent toother parallel worlds to explore them? This is a lot to digest, but I stillwant to know one thing. What are you trying to achieve through doing this?”

“Observation of the drive got us tosome conclusions, one of which is a theoretical explanation to the phenomenonof entanglement. The theory is simple, thinking on a higher dimension,everything that can be potentially entangled must pass by a central focalpoint, a knot in the fabric of space and time that links everything together,all possible worlds; we call it the Nexus. We believe that by traveling toother possible worlds, we might replace a way to physically reach the Nexusinstead of sending our brain signals, and by doing so, be able to physicallytravel the multiverse, maybe even higher dimensions than the timelines at ourvicinity we are already accessing via the drive.”

“I’m in.”

“Perfect. Well then Mr. Iskatel, letme officially welcome you to the A.C.M.T, the Arcadia Corporation MultiverseTeam as our number six; your ranking is based on your drive percentage, thehigher the percentage, the higher the rank number, mine for instance is eightas I am 99.2% drive compatible.” Alexis posed letting the information sink inbefore finishing, “Congratulations Liviano! By joining us, you burnt the man inyou who still believed in one world and are officially a Multiverse driver.”

The End.