Free Eden's Jester by Ty Beltramo Page B

main building and went inside, where I was met by a young Chinese lady in traditional silk robes of yellow and red. There was no receptionist desk. This was more like a home than an office.  
    She opened the large ornate doors and greeted me with a warm, genuine smile. She obviously didn’t know her boss very well.
    “Can I help you, sir?” She asked with a slight bow.
    “I’m Mr. Elson. I would like to see Mr. Aeson. Please tell him it’s concerning a mutual friend who’s in jail.”  
    “Please come in.” She backed up, allowing me to come through the doorway, and gestured to a mat on the floor by a table. “Would you like some tea while you wait?”
    “No, thanks. I’ll just wait.”
    She hurried off, leaving me alone, which gave me some time to inspect the environment. I’d been here before, about fifty years ago, but things had changed. There was more ambient energy about. I could sense the presence of several enforcer types lurking about in either the astral or ethereal planes. Aeson was in a defensive posture.  
    I also sensed something else: a strange breeze in the ambient energy fields. An ethereal river ran through them and around them. I couldn’t place it, but there was a stale sense to it. “Grey” was the best way to describe the dusty smell--dull and void, but real and there at the same time. I didn’t like it, whatever it was.
    The young lady returned before I could analyze it further.  
    “Mr. Aeson will see you now, sir,” she said with another bow. She took me down a hall and up some stairs to another level.  
    In a large room, Aeson was alone--except for about a dozen stuffed lions, tigers, and other large cats. If there were an Interior Designer Discipline, they’d have had an aneurism at this aesthetic travesty. The room was a mishmash of English antiques, southwestern pottery and furniture, stuffed animals, and Chinese art. The most unsettling thing, however, was the glass wall that constituted an entire side of the room. Behind the glass was a nature scene of tropical plants and rocks—and lots of spider webs. Something stirred within. I stepped over to get a closer look. Staring back at me from under a large leafy fern was the largest spider I had ever seen. It was as big as a large house cat, and it didn’t look like one of those fat, slow spiders, either.
    “Nice place you have here, Aeson. Who’s your decorator?” I asked.
    Aeson stood behind a desk made of a slice cut from what looked like a petrified Sequoia. He leaned forward, knuckles to wood, reading something. He didn’t look up from his work.  
    “No one you know, Elson. Let’s dispense with the pleasantries, if you please. I’m busy and you’re a pest. What do you want?”  
    Ah. He was grumpy. That meant things were not going according to plan, which meant that Aeson wasn’t staging this whole thing, probably.  
    “What’s with the pet?” I asked.
    “Nostalgia, mostly. One of our best developments, I believe.”
    “One of your best developments is the man-eating spider?” I asked.
    He looked up from his work and was about to answer, but stopped and frowned. “Where on earth did you get that suit?” he asked.  
    “It was a gift,” I said.
    With a wave of the hand he dismissed the issue and walked over to the wall. “Look at it. It is the perfect killing machine. By its very nature, it forces other creatures to be better, stronger--or they die and are replaced. The spider is one of the best innovations in evolution through competition.”
    “Kind of direct, don’t you think?” I asked.
    “Really? Do you know why people fear spiders, Elson? I’ll tell you. Because ages ago, deep in human pre-history, assets such as my friend there roamed most areas inhabited by people. Spiders were much larger then, capable of killing and eating a fully-grown human. Fear of them and competition with them forced man to overcome his weakness and to fight. After millennia of conflict, the humans won and the