“Is it this?” he asked, holding out his hand to show a small flashing device. “Yes,” I said, “that’s it; that’s a governor. How did you know?”

He told us of his network of informant former researchers who kept him up-to-date on all doings in the current HQ – one very high up who knew of the five-year plan, and others also. One was the kind young man who had shown me the warehouse when I was first there.

“But what is happening and how can I make sense of it? How do we stop it ,or at least slow it down?”

“Yes, the cabinets!” he nodded, “You were to investigate these – we’ve watched your efforts with great interest. I’m here to tell you, forget about them, they aren’t what you think. You were given this assignment as a cover and as a test.”

I was shocked and nonplussed to hear that my so-called secret mission has been kept secret even from me! And that the whole cabinet was just a canard!

“But but,” I stammered.

The archivist looked away. So she had been in on it too. I began to cough uncontrollably until my eyes watered. His companion handed me a tissue. I couldn’t look at either of them. Or the room. Only at my own hands and for an instant everything became liquid. The room wavered. The light shifted, I was dizzy and must have laid down, for I woke on the divan, my ears ringing an internal alarm.

It was night. Soft light came from a dimmed beaded lamp. Velvet curtains covered the closed window. The companion looked in the door, “Oh good you’re up. Come and join us for dinner.”

I stood shakily and smoothed my clothes and hair as I followed him to the dining room. I could hear soft laughter and conversation but felt too disoriented to even try to make it out. I sat at my place at the table – there were four others there – the archivist, the companion, the founder, and one other who I hadn’t ever seen before – Oh now I see, it is the young man who was at the warehouse – but that’s not a man at all. In a soft light I saw her more clearly, a short haired woman of around 25 – the daughter of the founder perhaps?

In the distance, outside, I heard growling like a mountain lion but how could that be? It was growling in words. I must be dreaming.

I eat my food without tasting it, drink my wine without remark, watch them act as if nothing was out of the ordinary, until I found myself speaking in a voice too loud and sharp. Forks down. Heads turned, all eyes on me. I asked with all my heart, for a clear explanation. Then I heard the sound my throat was making – it was the growl, the mountain lion growl.

“What has happened to me?” I cried and jumped from the table in tears to rush from the room. The companion barred the way. The young woman tackled me and held me down.

“We have to stop this,” cried the archivist, “I don’t believe she can take much more.”

The founder let his cane hit the floor three times. Each time the foot of the cane hit the tiles, a sound cracked the air. On the third crack, he had opened a new doorway, and I was lifted up and carried by the companion and we followed down the stairs, over the underground grotto on a fine steel bridge and into a fast speed boat.

I could speak now but was too shattered to, so looked at the faces of my companions with relief. A sense of well-being flooded me – I was safe. It was all OK. Yes we were on a boat but I was human again.

The founder was obviously a master magician. A true mage.

I still didn’t have a clue what was going on and our skiff sped to a flashing light along the shoreline. Five people were standing ready to pull us in and all of them were mirror images of ourselves. As we left the boat we each merged into the other self and walked up a short pathway.

“Oh no, don’t tell me…” I moaned inside my mind as I melted with this other, and walked to our house identical to the place we had just left.

“I am sorry to confuse you,” the founder said. “We’re still in the journey as you see, but we do so for good reasons. Trust me.”

“It is love’s labyrinth,” said the archivist. Hearing her voice calmed my spirit and I felt my breath settle but when I looked down at my hands, I saw they were the hands of the double – they were not mine. I became wary, watchful, as we tripped into the dinner table and took our places.

“Where were we?” he asked.
“Our initiate needs an explanation.”
“You know we never explain, only reveal.”
“If she needs an explanation she isn’t ready yet. We have to go through a few more rounds of this.”

“No no,” I pleaded, “I’m fine, I’m settling.” And I was. I somehow had fully accepted the situation I was in, and had taken to heart the founder’s words: trust me. I knew I couldn’t go on calculating documents in dusty old cabinets forever, where would that leave me?

As if they heard my thoughts, did I said that out loud? I didn’t think so. They looked at one another and then at me. They each split in two – the mirror self and the first, both side by side, then facing each other then back to back then one on top of the head of the other and so forth in all directions. A dance. Cotillion. I did not split from my mirror self. Not then.

Their mirror selves then broke into two, four, eight, 16, 32 and more innumerables. I had not yet split.

The innumerables spoke with one musical voice, watched as something began to shimmer inside me. I blinked my eyes and Bam!! Two. Bam! Four, and on it came, rushing me outside myself with a pattern that resembled that painting above the metal piece. One tone, the combination of all the tones.

The innumerables became less and less distinct as they faded from physical existence.

“But they are not gone,” said the founder. “They are you. And they will do your bidding. You are their master, and you can now learn their ways. They will cooperate with you, they are serving the same goal. You won’t be able to see them but they can see and hear you always.”

Wide eyed, astonished, I understood.

Then the next amazing thing happened. They each displayed to me their being not as individuals but as cabinets. The companion turned and was a tall exquisitely carved cabinet with glass doors and inlaid wood. It laid down. The archivist spun around to display a Chinese cabinet, it laid down. The young woman a modern cabinet, the founder an oaken cabinet. Both laid down. I knew it was my turn – I spun and spun but there was no change. I retained my human form.

“Not yet,” A voice came.

In my mind‘s eye, I saw my coffin.