Chapter 5: Getting Ready

28 April 2017 [Fri]

At breakfast, I asked Rachel if she and her friends would join my birthday party Saturday night at the castle, since we were getting on great since the shooting. Rachel agreed and invited the entire family. As everyone else got ready for the day, I updated my guests and waited for the electrician to arrive.

The electrician’s inspection and planning meeting lasted about two hours. He recommended a complete rewiring, as even the newest wiring was over 50 years old. He was unsure about my request for the massive power capacity I requested, but fell back on an old cliche; “the customer is always right”. When he was finished, every door, light-switch, and most of the plug-ins would be remotely accessible through the Wi-Fi, which would have a backup battery, and each room would have an intercom/control panel. He would also be installing the system in my new penthouse, but since he wouldn’t need to run new wires, that one would go a lot faster. I paid a premium to bypass the list of waiting clients and he would start on Wednesday, when his best crew finished their current job.

Once the electrician had left, I had Mrs. Combs drive me as I prepared for my meeting with Marci on Monday and the larger party the next day, since Rachel was just planning an at home event with Mrs. Combs catering. For the party, we stopped at Party Everything to buy red bunting and streamers to go with my green ones, Azucar Bakery to order a second birthday cake, and Di Franco’s to order Italian catering to go with my Mexican. After delivering the decorations to a secure area at the castle, came the fun part of my preparations; which I ordered Mrs. Combs to keep secret.

Unless Phoebe had confirmed our encounter, my plan was to start new rumors that Phoebe had helped me install new toys in the bunker. Therefore, there would need to be new toys in the bunker. While I had no interest in sexual bondage, the historical society was awash with 50 shades of talk and had voted to make a dungeon our yearly addition to the bunker. To both ends, we stopped by Fascinations, the Adam & Eve Denver outlet, and Romantix. I bought an assortment of tickling and spanking instruments, leather wrist and ankle cuffs, spreader bars, slave collars, ropes, D-clips, pulleys, winches, and toy storage racks. I even bought several restraint tables, racks, and thrones. In fact, we had to make multiple trips from each store with the rear seat folded down and the middle seat removed to transport everything. Not wanting to find a private place to unload the van now and reload it when the school would be empty, I had Mrs. Combs park in a different spot each time and created a Q encompassing everything between the bunker and the parking lot.

For the first Q, I shifted the cargo with myself, since I had never shifted anything but myself when doing so and didn’t know if I even could. For the remaining trips, I only shifted the cargo.

It wasn’t until I was on my way back home that I realized the problem I had created.

Sitting in my room, I was contemplating how to enter the new Qs without fusing myself to the sex toys at the center of each rift. Creating a new exit from a Q to Earth⁰ is easy because every point inside correlates to a single point on Earth⁰. However, every point on Earth⁰ correlates to an infinite number of inter-dimensional points; most of which are in the void between realities. Using my eidetic recall to review the texts I had read in Amber’s tèarmann and what I knew of theoretical and quantum physics, I couldn’t find any way to target an existing Q other than twin crystals or an existing portal or rift.

However, there was a possible solution; an avatar. I had previously thought avatars were a waste of power. Avatars are constructs of light and magic that are often used for clairvoyance, but with enough focus, you could look anywhere without one. An avatar can be as transparent or opaque and as tangible or intangible as the user wanted it to be. If an avatar is made of magic, with no matter to become fused, perhaps I could move it into a Q and channel my power to create a new entrance.

To make an avatar, I would first need a 3D image. I grew a tiny diamond orb to hold the image. Next, I needed an image chamber. Most practitioners use three or four full length mirrors, but I have always been an overachiever and I wanted a perfect image. Using diamond and silver pyrite, I grew a six-sided, hollow chamber, cut a doorway on one side, and grew a set of hinges on one seam. The finished chamber had a reflective lining inside the chamber with only a half-inch clear circle at each of the six upper corners, to let the light in, and a clear recess at the center of the door to hold the orb.