PULP Issue 5

PULP ISSUE 005

TABLE OF CONTENTS

WALK ACROSS TOWNS, LATE LESSONS OF SKIN AND SHOES, THROWING GASOLINE ON A FIRE - MICHAEL PAUL KOZLOWSKY

DRIFTWOOD AT SEA - MICHAEL ROQUE

WHEN THEY ARE SILENT, SECURE THE BAG!!!, ILE ILERI, SPIDERS, DANCE OR CRY, I NEED YOU TO LIGHT THE FIRE - SOLAPE ADETUTU ADEYEMI

BREAKUP CRAZY, RECORDINGS, HARD MORNINGS, YELLOW, WAKEUP

CALL - FAIRNESS PECK

I AM SURFEITED - CJ THE TALL POET

IT’S NOT TOO LATE - TOM STUCKEY

THIS DECORATED GRAVE I MOURNED YOU, SAINT, A SMALL SONG OF MYSELF, AS I CARRIED YOU, MORNING BURSTS OUT FROM AN AFFLATUS SON, WE SING OUR BODIES MUCH ELECTRIC - DUNG WILSON

WORLD HUNGER - MARK MANIFESTO

CHERRY PITS - CAROL BERMUDES

FINDING UTOPIA - PETER BERTLESSEN

FROM THE HOLLOWS - R.A. DAUNTON

NOT PANICKING - RUSS BIGGERSTAFF

LONG GOODBYE - BARLOW CRASSMONT

BRIAN FOOD - EWEN GLASS

THE CADUCITY CLINIC - KEN FOXE

WHAT IS THIS THING CALLED LOVE - WILLIAM FIRSTBROOK

THE CONSTABLE - TONY DUXBURY

FAKE NEWS INC, THE BLACK KIMONO - J.B.POLK

ATALANTA - ANDREW NICKERSON

THE RINGS OF NEPTUNE - J.W. WOOD

CHRISTMAS SERVICE - ROBERTA BARMORE

DICK IN THE DIRT - CHRIS DAVIS

THE PALEONTOLOGIST, THE STAND-UP COMIC, DARE - AUSTIN GILMORE

PICTURE COLLAGES - IRINA TALL

CONTRIBUTOR

BIOS

Michael Paul Kozlowsky (he/him) is the author of SCARECROW HAS A GUN. His children's novels, written as M.P. Kozlowsky, include JUNIPER BERRY, FROST, ROSE COFFIN, and THE DYERVILLE TALES. He lives in New York; his website is www.mpkozlowsky.com.

Michael Roque (he/him), a Los Angeles native, now residing in the Middle East, embarked on his writing odyssey amidst the bleachers of Pasadena City College. His literary voyage has traversed continents, gracing the pages of esteemed publications such as Aurora Quarterly, Veridian Review, and CascadeJournal.

Solape Adetutu Adeyemi (she/her) is a dedicated professional with a Bachelor's degree in Microbiology and a Master's in Environmental Management. She is a researcher, a consultant,a passionate environmental sustainability enthusiast and a talented award winning creative writer, with her works published in esteemed journals and magazines, including Writenow Literary Journal, TV Metro, Poetry Marathon Anthology, the Guardian newspaper, and the Indiana review among others. With close to two decades of experience, Solape has excelled in various roles within the Fast-Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG) industry with varying certifications: ISO certifications (International Standards Organisation), a Basic level certificate in Spanish, Behavioural management, Mental Health, Office etiquette, Advanced Excel, Health, Safety and Environment, script writing and movie production plus Modern HR management. Her commitment to environmental causes aligns with her belief that everyone can contribute to saving our planet. Beyond her professional life, Solape enjoys watching action movies and immersing herself in whale documentaries. She is a host, presenter, teacher, counsellor, voice over artiste, script writer, poet, and movie subtitler. Her diverse interests reflect her curiosity about the world and her commitment to learning. Solape is a member of the following bodies: the American Society of Microbiologists(ASM), the Association of Nigerian Authors, Lagos chapter(ANA)and Poets in Nigeria(PIN) Currently, Solape serves as the Secretary of the Association of Nigerian Authors in Lagos, Nigeria, where she continues to contribute to the literary and cultural landscape of her community. Her dedication to both her professional career and her advocacy for environmental sustainability demonstrates her multifaceted talents and unwavering commitment to making a positive impact in the world. Solape can be reached at solapeadeyemi1@gmail.com and 08033487417.

Fairness Peck (he/him), a poet living in Seattle WA, holds a BA in literature and poetry from Western Washington University and an MA in communications from the University of Washington. Today he works as a content strategist and his work has been recently published in The Racket Journal, Red Noise Collective, The Rising Phoenix Review, Griffel and has a chapbook forthcoming from Finishing Line Press.

CJ The Tall Poet (they/he) is a poet, digital artist, and author based in Chula Vista, California who’s currently attending Cal State University San Marcos for a degree in Literature and Writing. Their writing has appeared in The Drabble, Shortkidstories.com, The Amazine, Backpatio.press, Fivefleas, Bardics-Anonymous, Nap-lit, Dadakuku, and elsewhere. They have art pieces published in All-Existing Literary Magazine, mini-mag, Trash-Wonderland, and the RECESSES Zine. Three of their books: Interpret The Status of His Consciousness, Abstractions of Civil Modernity, and Childish Expressions are available on Amazon.

Tom (he/him) is a poet from Devon in the UK and has been published in Punk Noir, Bristol Noir and A Thin Slice of Anxiety.

Dung (he/him) is a poet whose work is steeped in the lush language and evocative imagery of the Romantic tradition yet resonates with the modern edge of T.S. Eliot’s influence. He finds inspiration in the emotional landscapes of classic poetry, always seeking to craft verses that echo with both depth and delicate precision.

Mark Manifesto (he/him) is a writer, teacher, father, and lover of stories. He’s been writing fiction, essays, articles, and poetry the past seven years. He studied Environmental Science, Business Administration, Religious Studies, and Classic Literature at Saint Mary’s College of California. He currently lives in the Bay Area, and should you want, you can find his work published across multiple journals including Freedom Fiction, Pikers Press, Altered Reality and Guilty Crime Magazine.

Carol Bermudes (she/her) has been writing short stories and poems ever since she can remember. She is a voracious reader and likes the clever, mysterious and unusual. She currently resides in Northern California, and when she is not writing or reading, she is baking and watching mystery movies.

Peter Bertlessen's (he/him) previous work can be found in Punk Noir Magazine and other literary journals. He'd venture to say he writes; however, a more apt description would be he stabs the pages with his pen just to watch them bleed. A counterculture enthusiast dead set on smashing the glass ceiling of one's imagination and sharing the shattered shards with the masses.

R.A. Daunton (he/him) is an award-winning screenwriter, author, and musician from Edinburgh, Scotland. Some of his previously published stories include Man/Maid for Black Sheep Magazine, and Edin and Padlocks, both for an upcoming anthology by Hex Arcana Publishing. His short films, A Whole Host and Wooden Masks, are currently doing the rounds on the festival circuit and can be viewed at various festivals worldwide and online.

Russ Bickerstaff (he/him) is a critic and author living in Milwaukee, WI.

Barlow Crassmont (he/him) has lived in the USA, Eastern Europe, Middle East and China. When not teaching or writing, he dabbles in juggling, solving the Rubik’s Cube, and learning other languages. He has been published by British Science Fiction Association, Wilderness House Literary Review, Sudo Journal, and in the upcoming 41st anthology of Writers of the Future.

Ewen Glass (he/him) is a screenwriter and poet from Northern Ireland who lives with two dogs, a tortoise and lots of self-doubt; his work has appeared or is forthcoming in Okay Donkey, HAD, Poetry Scotland, Roi Fainéant, Bridge Eight and elsewhere.

Ken Foxe (he/him) is a writer and transparency activist in Ireland. He is the author of two non-fiction books based on his journalism and a member of the Horror Writers Association. He has had around three dozen short stories published in a wide variety of journals, magazines, and anthologies. He is currently working on a collection of short stories and a horror novel. You can find him on Instagram (@kenfoxe) and Twitter/X (@kenfoxe). www.kenfoxe.com/short-stories/

William Firstbrook (he/him) is a writer from Northumberland in England.

Tony (he/him) is an unknown and unsung scribbler who loves fantasy.

J.B Polk (she/her) is Polish by birth, a citizen of the world by choice. First story short-listed for the Irish Independent/Hennessy Awards, Ireland, 1996. Since she went back to writing in 2020, more than 100 of her stories, flash fiction and non-fiction, have been accepted for publication. She has recently won 1st prize in the International Human Rights Arts Movement literary contest.

Andrew's (he/him) originally from Massachusetts, and is a lifelong reader. He has a BA in History (English minor) from UMASS Lowell and JD from Mass. School of Law. He can be found on Twitter daily, analyzing characters via Sun Tzu.

J.W. Wood is the author of six books of poems and pseudonymous novel selected for rights auction at the Rome Film Festival. His work has received awards in the US, UK, Canada and India. In November 2024, AN Editions (London) will publish his collection of satires on the digital age entitled "Captcha This!" www.jwwoodwriter.net

Roberta Barmore (she/her) has been writing stories since seventh grade, at a time when dinosaurs still had chrome bumpers. She shares her home with one lodger, two tomcats, over 8000 books, a dozen manual typewriters and an indeterminate number of spiders.

Chris Davis (he/him) is a journalist and storyteller living in Memphis, Tennessee. He’s also a musician, actor, father of twins and retired columnist for The Memphis Flyer. His awardwinning nonfiction has appeared in a variety of newspapers and in magazines like Details and Maxim. A trio of essays were collected in Garden & Gun magazine’s book The Southerner’s Handbook: A Guide to Living the Good Life, and HeadCanon Magazine has accepted his short story Cornfield County for publication. Most importantly, two of his photographs were published by the online gallery Crap Wildlife Photography.

Austin Gilmore (he/him) is an Art Director and Gallery Artist based in Kansas City. Before that, he co-ran Kevin Costner's production company for 7 years. His stories have appeared in Every Day Fiction, Mystery Tribune, and Maudlin House, to name a few. He is passionate about donuts.

Irina Tall (Novikova) (she/her) is an artist, graphic artist, illustrator. She graduated from the State Academy of Slavic Cultures with a degree in art, and also has a bachelor's degree in design. The first personal exhibition "My soul is like a wild hawk" (2002) was held in the museum of Maxim Bagdanovich. In her works, she raises themes of ecology, in 2005 she devoted a series of works to the Chernobyl disaster, draws on anti-war topics. The first big series she drew was The Red Book, dedicated to rare and endangered species of animals and birds. Writes fairy tales and poems, illustrates short stories. She draws various fantastic creatures: unicorns, animals with human faces, she especially likes the image of a man - a bird - Siren. In 2020, she took part in Poznań Art Week. Her work has been published in magazines: Gupsophila, Harpy Hybrid Review, Little Literary Living Room and others. In 2022, her short story was included in the collection "The 50 Best Short Stories", and her poem was published in the collection of poetry "The wonders of winter".

PREVIOUSLY PUBLISHED/

I am Surfeited includes references to depression.

Finding Utopia has talks about suicide.

The Rings of Neptune includes references to drug abuse. The characters are homeless.

Dick in the Dirt has sexist talks and sexism throughout.

I don’t know if my friends were real I don’t see them anymore

Not one

And from what I’ve learned about them today They can’t be the same people I once knew Not ghosts, but not alive either.

Perhaps friends are ideas, Neurons and synapses and Survivals of memory, Especially those in childhood

Back when time and place matched up

And a walk across towns Was no longer the punishment It was meant to be.

Or maybe they’re just imaginary, Storybook paper and Little playful things our minds manipulate; We can see them there in our heads, Build them a world in which to run

A slightly better world

More dramatic, and far, Far more Romantic.

There one day and gone the next

And in this morbidly cold shadow

We’re left wondering, That couldn’t have been how it went That couldn’t have been How it went Right?

WALK ACROSS TOWNS

LATE LESSONS OF SKIN AND SHOES

School is out and they have nothing left to learn

And time has been generous. They tie the tree stump to the back of the pick Up truck, the Beast, the second Beast,

Body raised and sitting menacingly on five foot tires Engine revving, growling Rope stretching, creaking Roots writhing, ripping Until, with back snapping sounds, The tree is wrenched from its home

And the boys in the Beast take it for a ride around

The block Stump dragging Behind

Shedding its skin, Weeping its soiled tears Along the graying asphalt Until it’s nearly skeletal. On the final turn, the tree rolls wide Slamming into a parked car, Setting off alarms, though Nothing stops Nobody calls the police

And the boys are fascinated by what they wrought Pleasure in pain and the seismic vibrations within the power of destruction. Eventually they cut the tree loose and gaze upon it, Take pictures; It is a good summer For them.

Young boys do this

Literally

Even the ones who should know better, as For them

Life is lighter

Fluid and bright

THROWING GASOLINE ON A FIRE

A guitar burns on a block of wasted concrete

But not

Enough

Camera rolling

A boy lurches the red plastic container forward

And the gasoline splooges forth

And the guitar’s flames

Aroused

Rush to meet it

Climbing the air like a ladder

For the boy

It could have meant burns, blindness, deformity

It could have meant scars, pain, regret

It could have meant the end

But life will catch up with him later

The flames die just before the kiss

And the acknowledgement of what could have been

Was but a flicker in the boy’s lazy hazel eye

Far weaker than the panting of the flames

Enveloping his dying guitar

As he laughed at He didn’t know what

DRIFTWOOD AT SEA

Driftwood at sea withstands everything the world throws. Smashed by tidal waves amid a storm or sunburnt on a stagnant day, there’s no pain floating on the in-between, only a relaxing push and pull on the current’s variety.

Driftwoodat sea-

high above the them below, watches marine life in wonder. No worries of sharks or mishap whale swallowings. Never imagines it can sink to the seafloor, stranded on the surface with the abyss beneath DriftwoodAtSea-

Bobbing up and down, no voices to hear speak, there are no desires for the crowded rainforest it was, just rediscovery on a beachto be built again into a ship that sails and never settles for a directionless drift on an unending dream.

Those spiders clogging my space

Squirming, longing for release

And you cry to them for help

Appeals falling on other, falling appeals

But they ignore you

As they are silent

You curse and swear

Anything, to get a reaction

You cry, your tears coursing upon them

Your voice hoarse, your throat, sore

But nothing gives

As they do not stir

And the silence is more silent than the grave

Each time one tries to get out, I slam the lid down, with violence

I cannot afford for any of them to be released

They must stay down

They must stay out of sight, always

WHEN THEY ARE SILENT SPIDERS

Those spiders clogging my space

When they are silent

SECURE THE BAG!!!

And their voices arose in righteous indignation

The voices of the Umunna ‘What is this?!’

This, being the pathetic looking yams the unfortunate suitor and his family had presented at the traditional marriage. Kwashiorkor ridden lot of yams in every respect! They looked just a mite better than seedlings!

‘This can only mean you will starve our daughter, Ovbiageli!’, someone else shrieked

A lot of insults were hurled at the suitors family

You being a very pragmatic person saw opportunity in the er....disunity

As you cunningly reached the table were the drinks had been presented, unnoticed during the mayhem and general confusion

You are one of the younger brothers of the father of the bride, papa Oby. You recall, shaking your head with sorrow, how you had been forced to relocate from the city to this godforsaken village, a village devoid of all social amenities, when you had lost your job. And as you quickly reach for the Schnapps and malt whisky, whisking them with nimble fingers unto your capacious cloth bag, you bless the gods for the altercation. Ordinarily as one of the youngest, you wouldn’t get more than a small bottle of...anything. Your eyes lit up at the sight of your favourite, Irish Baileys which quickly disappears into your bag

What a most auspicious use of...opportunity comes but once!

Your house isn’t far and you quickly deposit the five choice bottles at home. By the time the uproar would have ended, you are sure the bottles wouldn’t be missed. You had heard it was the one of the grooms men friends working in oil and gas who had outdone himself on the behalf of his friend to supply the drinks...generously. Pity he had not thought to supply the yams, too.

The size of yam expected was the Down Onitsha variety, yams that are almost as big and as stout as a man. After all, Oby was more than worth it, having recently bagged a PhD.

‘Oh well!’ you sigh as you quickly pop a garden egg from one of the many trays of garden eggs placed liberally on tables at the venue, and throwing in some groundnuts into your mouth, to accompany it, you join your Umunna to castigate the family

An island where inpunity strives

An island characterized by lawlessness

ILE ILERI

An Island where there is but a short memory of crimes…no matter how heinous

In fact

In the island of Ileri, crime is encouraged

Else

How do you hope to ‘stand’; and remain ‘standing’

A blind eye is turned to injustice

Ile ileri truncates dreams

And…the dreamers of dreams

Ile ileri where the stealers of rats bag ten years and the stealers of elephants get a slap on the wrist

In Ile Ileri…justice can be bought

Death can be procured

Nothing is as it should be

Greed and avarice sum up the polity

No one knows what the next day would bring

As uncertainty fills the air

Ile Ileri has no peace…knows no peace and, gives no peace

We can either

Dance around it

Or cry around it

I NEED YOU TO LIGHT THE FIRE

DANCE OR CRY

And try as I might

I cannot sustainably light the fire

I mean I could try

But the embers would burn out soon enough

And so I’ll be needing you

To not just light the fire

But to keep it burning

And to set me ablaze...

They’re screaming through the walls while bottles break.

Two alcoholics passing problems like curses, back and forth words hotter than potatoes hurled down hallways where hair flies from wind and sheers, scalpings of another era.

Their walls decorated in locks and baubles and voodoo of moving paintings that suck you into the scenery.

And we hear Margo Price sing ‘I put a hurtin’ on the bottle’ like she’s showing up for cake with no occasion while they laugh with dead candles, forgotten wishes, and a god they swore they’d never lose.

BREAKUP CRAZY

RECORDINGS

Alone there were LPs spinning in solitary resolution, tape cassettes that grew plastic wings and flew away, wind that blew on fig trees driving those fiddle leaves into melodic simplicity.

Together we made a racket, dancing down sidewalks to the beat of pale-yellow electricity that dripped down the lamp posts. We knew how to spot each other’s tune. And I always enjoyed how you balanced the notes with midnight while you laid humming in your sleep.

Good women are like good hangovers. When they linger and your knees are weak and you’d rather not stand up straight. Good hangovers sit and spin with wild abandon, like those dancing feet and sweet sleep addled eyes after long nights of looking at her shoulder blades dripping skeletal sweat in rivulets while I whisper, ‘I put those there.’

Good hangovers and good women, hand in hand, in short dresses showing off everything they have to offer for good boys with good hangovers.

HARD MORNINGS

YELLOW

When my ex-girlfriend decided to believe in dreams she awoke to the yelling death throes in her own throat still smeared with lucid twilight. As stained and as lurid as her eye shadow pillow that’s painted the picture of her sleeping face. As clear and vivid as Indian yellow from Van Gogh’s paintbrush. She whispered about him sexually, while filling in her starry night coloring book with all the wrong hues. She always told me, ‘I’m attracted colors of madness.’

Well, I still have the coloring book and the crayons, and I wonder if she still believes that mad angels scatter from her fingertips.

The 7am call asking for a quick fuck after a blown night of lines and lines and lines. Her apartment wasn’t intimate but sad, not like old times, she wanted to hurt.

She made sure to say it was the last time as petunias dripped and the fern wilted and the palm leaves fell like feathers dropped to the pine floor.

Take it all in, she said. The smell. The feel. The lost, ancient love. The electric memory. She looked better under the mahogany light, walked better already wrapped in her hangover blanket keeping together what she couldn’t herself

WAKEUP CALL

And she pissed herself just to be dressed in sweats and tucked into bed to sleep it off.

The one last rescue after the one last fuck and the memory of the grey sweats that never came back.

I AM SURFEITED

Her disassociation level

Persuaded this cobalt ring

Around Chris’s pointer finger

To mold his initials on the nail by using a dying star’s reflection

Karma kicked him repeatedly

It’s comparable to a poet’s death

Who was riddled with guilt

Who constantly fought a pointless addiction

That he knew could drain the will to live

Why struggle to summon affection

When ugliness dictates your destiny

Which prevents ambition from dilating

I am surfeited with creativity

I am surfeited with kindness

I am surfeited with interactions

watching waiting in every day‘s new battle that is as confusing as yesterday’s gone but see an artist for the first time who began painting at 70 with no training no paint except that of which he painted the boats with painting out the loneliness of a dead wife on the walls and cigarette tins better than all the glory filth that washes up out of rich pussies died in a work house went mad first long live the gods

IT’S NOT TOO LATE

THIS DECORATED GRAVE I MOURNED YOU, SAINT

This decorated grave I mourned you, Saint. A glint of light has sunk below the Christ. They sing among the branches, soon they thirst For verses, prays are elsewhere from this taint.

Born radiated sun, wind’s chord sustained. Thy anguish claret gushed, your sacrificed Beyond cusp. Angels bound in sacred tryst, Them risen to the church bells howl disdained.

So you, Cecilia, deeply hurt by thee; Dross quiver of stunned romance pierced my loin. Then you let your heart to Lord - Your true love. This Sonnet won’t affect you not, I see The river isn’t to mine to esloin.

The cries and whispers, made me overlove.

A SMALL SONG OF MYSELF

Inert, a shade steel willow out before, Aloof as I stepped into such ice coldNor as cold as the winter sang ear sore. Those gazes to and fro it’s cant I hold.

Placed my sit near the door, frayed chair miss wore, ‘Twas summer outward - whistling thousand’s fold. Apollo grinned as my eyes sticking glue, His ray fore warm: “Thou art deem residue”.

Thy teenage soils thy crimson seeds, thyself In duty - where thou seek me, stirs it now.

Since thou born something wicked this way comes, self Implanted worms and rotten beauty, plow

These puppy into dreading logs beam shelf. To heaven I wept - sorrows shall allow.

But placed an apple on the ground erect. Mind savor bit solution - I reject.

Veiny rope of green,

Condensed in the still of air.

Spring’s courtly fence; glares.

Petals shapen cups of tea -

No Limit in Passageway.

MORNING BURSTS OUT FROM AN AFFLATUS SON

AS I CARRIED YOU

My wearied gazed with beaten warmness, you ’ re

Indebted any not, rest easy now.

Clad bounded ochry, butter skin’s secured

None sunny lights imbrue the crate-braced plow;

There, banker dresses murk, men at arms bow.

Please dudgeon at me, Lady of the Realm;

Please cherish devotee once more, know-how

The cherish Ones directed scene of Elm.

Fade into you, long into you, hold you like helm.

When April with its sweet showers has pierced the vacant lots. Though the heat still blazing like unceasing fire. You and I, young and willful, jog Around the crumbles like no divide.

Heard the laughing, and the kicking. Yes, that we are no mind to thinking. ‘Cause today is today, and ’ morrow is not A subject, that we children are savvy.

We sing our bodies much electric. Liquid egests of our rags. Let’s find some forgotten cold, Then plunge into the splash of brightness.

Then I saw your strawberry lips. Reddening under the cloudy day. What if you and I, hold hands and pray That our day would be eternal.

So I kiss you on your soft cheek.

Oh, don’t you know you are that softSoft as a little hamster, just to think You are my life, my deeply, sweet April.

WE SING OUR BODIES MUCH ELECTRIC

WORLD HUNGER

Sheets of poison smoke hung over the night sky. Trails from the crumbled skyscrapers. Faint alarms. Most had died out. Staring from overtop the metropolis, Hector tried not to think of the lives beneath the burning steel, generations which had erected these towers, towers cleaved in less than an hour. A world taken in less than a day.

The planet shook under the Obstinought’s step. It was his own. All ten thousand feet of the titan. The flesh over his bones, the eyes through which he stared out of Thesakles’ visor, they weren’t really him, the suit was.

Admiral Booker called over the radio, “One last wasp, Thesakles.”

Soaring in from northern clouds hummed a mammoth battleship. His greataxe carved through the streets as he dragged up and over his back.

“Quellcannon,” Hector commanded.

The quiverholster rotated. Power inputs attached from wrist to rifle. Missiles flared out from the ship in rounded arcs, a great plague of fireflies. He doubted they’d darken the hull.

He slid the power control near the trigger. Three percent. A red glow illuminated the rifle’s core. With crosshairs on the ship, he felt a sudden fit of asphyxiation, panic and self-loathing. He reminded himself of the billions of Unus Animus citizens waiting in orbit, exiled from a world turned desert. Pauci pro multis. A few for the many.

Hyllan had its time.

Hundreds of fiery plumes burst over the hull. He squeezed the trigger. Unholy thunder roared and a colossal pearl of red energy cleared the city’s smoke. Like a fist through wet paper, the ship erupted.

Hector looked over the apocalyptic landscape.

Gauges read that he’d only used twenty three percent of the suit’s battery over the course of the day. The casualty estimate bore too many commas to conceptualize. Acid licked sharply at the lining of his stomach.

“Hell of a job, Thesakles,” Booker called from the ship. He looked up to the celestial gray sphere in orbit. “Hyllan’s down for count.”

“ ... ”

“Steak on me. ”

A firmament quivering roar rolled from the jets on Thesakles’ back. Buildings below seared and boiled as the mecha rose towards the stars.

Arms at his back, eyes on the Harvester ships descending upon Hyllan, Hector’s mind ventured towards places he wouldn’t let himself dwell. Booker finished reading the report and tossed the tablet onto his desk.

There was a time when Hector didn’t worry about the results. “Sir?” he asked, fingers running over the input jacks atop his hands.

“Nothing I haven’t seen, ” Booker said. Deep wrinkles scored his ebony cheeks. Dark oysters swelled beneath his eyes.

“So I’m stable.”

“As anyone. They’re going to boost your prescriptions. More SNRI for the fits and PPI for the ulcers,” he said, sitting on the end of his desk. For a man who hadn’t undergone the Pilot Surgeries and pushing 197 years old he was a unit.

“How’d it feel to get back in the suit?” Booker asked.

Hector’s gaze turned to the sun and Thesakles before it, a spiraling cone of light siphoning the star’s combined energies into its core. Sharp thorns ran from shoulder to knuckles, hips to ankles. Its crimson alloy drank the light.

“I didn’t think about it.”

Rion grinned and shook his head. “Maybe it’s time I had the med team hollow me out too.”

People genuinely thought that Pilots couldn’t feel.

“Anything useful we should know?” Booker asked.

“The air and water have dangerous amounts of heavy metal. A lot of microplastics in the soil. Regardless of its size, I’m guessing the next two planets might provide more in the way of untainted resources. ”

A sharp buzz sounded from the door. The security monitor in the corner showed Dr. Lanna Ross, tablet in hand, foot tapping anxiously. She buzzed again.

Booker sighed. “Keep your head together, kid.”

He remembered the term as pedantic in his younger years, but at seventy two, he didn’t care.

The steel door slid open, and without a second’s pause, Doctor Ross stormed forward. She held her tablet up like a second coming of the commandments.

“See!” she said, pushing her glasses and pulling her loose trousers up. Her hair poked like straw out of her ponytail. “I told you. ”

“Most likely,” Booker said.

“This time near it was at the center of the Paramecium Galaxy. Last week in the Sculptor Dwarf. So either there are multiple of them or it can jump. Organic wormholes. Quicker than ours. Look,” she said, handing him the tablet.

Hector turned to leave.

“Captain Thorne, can you tell me what you see?” Booker asked.

The image showed a blurred image of a large cylindrical formation floating through space, surrounded by small asteroids, and hovering before a blue planet. Next showed it nearer, the last showed no planet. Ross glared in the abominable manner he’d become accustomed to at advisory panels.

“I’m not an astronomer.”

“That’s not what I asked,” Booker said.

“I see a large and irregularly shaped asteroid, surrounded by smaller ones. Then what looks like a planetary devastation.”

“Are you serious?” Ross asked, almost knocking her glasses off as she palmed her face. “An asteroid that size would be round, held together by gravity. And it couldn’t change direction, look at the frames! And these ones from last week. And these ones from two months back! Don’t be ridiculous.”

“As ridiculous as an interstellar, planet-eating levitation, with symbiotic insects? We’ve been crossing stars for nearly three thousand years, Lanna, and not once have we seen one of these things. You’re making a wild leap.” Brooker stood and stared down his nose. “And more importantly, I told you to stop wasting satellite time on personal projects when your job is to tend to the Obstinoughts. We’re still behind on Deianira’s core systems, and I’m waiting for a damage report.”

She tried to match the heat in his gaze. “This isn’t why I joined.”

“Dismissed.”

Down the stainless steel halls, past communications rooms, and labs, the phantom reverberation of Thesakle’s axe through Hyllan’s Planetary Capitol Building sent a shiver through Hector’s forearm. Flashes of incoming missiles played in the periphery of his sight.

Splattered bodies that could hardly be made out.

“Captain Thorne!” Ross called, running down the hall.

“Yes?” he asked.

Hunched over to catch her breath, she said, “Your psych evaluation.”

His heart sped and eyes turned furtively. “I’m tired, Doctor.”

“It’s my job to make sure our Obstinoughts and they’re pilots are in working condition.”

“Thesakles is fine.”

“He always is.”

“ ... What do you want?”

“To discuss your future.”

Fifty years of service, thirty at the helm of humanity’s greatest sword, and now a small case of regret was going to ruin him? “Can we have this conversation in private?” he asked.

Ross’s office was adorned like most of the research and maintenance team. Monitors, files, VR systems, fidget toys, and a hologram table.

“You don’t have to stand at attention,” she said, taking a seat and gesturing to him to do the same. “Suit yourself.”

“Are you going to recommend my dismissal?”

“No. I want to discuss the dismissal of the Conquest program. ”

His brow furrowed. It was like discussing the end of public education.

She continued, “Have you ever thought about how ridiculous this system is?”

“To live is to consume. ”

“To live is to learn.”

His jaw tightened in defense of many things. “There are over five hundred trillion Unus Animus citizens spread across a hundred worlds. How else should we provide for them?”

“For starters, taking care of those worlds.”

“Easier in theory.”

“Easier than relocating a population every few years. ”

“You should talk to someone who can help.”

“I am. ” She sighed and rubbed circles in her temples. “For deeply troubling reasons, people look up to Obstinough pilots, yet you, your colleagues, and predecessors only use your celebrity to sell bullshit.”

“The pension isn’t great.”

“The pension isn’t the problem and there’s a reason most don’t live to see it.”

The crystalline memory flashed of his father slumped in his office chair. Blood on the wall, a half finished note. He cited the Unus Animus motto, “Pauci pro multis”.

“What I’m saying is that if you endorsed alternative means of resource allocation, alliances, or maybe even just sustainable living instead of Dunbar’s Discount Imitation Shrimp, maybe we wouldn’t need to decimate half a dozen planets a decade.”

One of the main reasons he’d joined the military is because it was on the surface supposed to be simple.

“You overestimate how much people care about us. ”

“And you haven’t estimated it at all. You might try to look like teflon, but you ’ re breaking. You have been since the last Conquest. Your liver’s proof.”

He squeezed irritation through his wrists.

“It’s my job, Ma’am.”

Too flustered to speak, she snarled, “It won’t last forever.”

He nodded and looked to the textureless steel floor. “Am I excused?”

“I’m not a commander.” She rolled her eyes upon seeing him still there. “Yes.”

“Thank you. And good luck.”

He meant it.

The steak almost tasted real, but lab-grown meat was always a bit off. They couldn’t replicate the flavor of digested grass. It was close enough.

Utensils clicked over plastic plates. Beyond the window of his room, the expanse of space struck him as black and beautiful as the first time he’d left Themis. Had it not been for the sudden stall in the hologram, a part of him might have gone on thinking Olivia was really there. She’s getting big, he thought. Puncture drive or not, wormholes still took time to navigate.

“How old are ”

“Thirteen,” Olivia said, without looking up. She was beginning to look like her grandmother, a child of the sun.

“ … Six years, ” he said, taking a bite. “It wasn’t that long for me. ”

Her lips tightened. “I know.”

“How’s your mom?” A phantom pain flared in his ribs from where the hydrogen bomb had detonated.

Olivia shrugged. “Fine. Out with James.”

The fork bent as imagined ‘James’.

“So how much longer until you ’ re back?” she asked.

“ ... I don’t know. Maybe half a year. For me. ”

“Try not to miss my wedding.”

“I told you, you ’ re not allowed to get married until you ’ re fifty.” She never could tell when he was joking. “I’ll be back.”

Olivia pushed her tofu around. “They’re starting on your monument soon. Congress wants it to be ready for you when you get back.”

Pride swelled in his chest, but washed away in seeing it wasn’t shared.

“Hopefully it turns out better than grandpas… Did they scrub the graffiti?”

“Yeah, but it’s back.”

Hector wondered, If he would’ve just overdosed like most pilots, would I still get the nightmares?

“Do you think you deserve it?” Olivia asked.

Chemically dampened emotions and all, the words left his ears ringing. “If they say I do.”

“Do you ever have thoughts of your own?” she asked.

“I try not to.”

“Why?”

“They’re not useful.”

“That’s a terrible reason. ”

“But it’s mine.” He moved the pieces of red dyed meat around his plate. “Do you still like sprinkle pancakes?” Hector asked.

“I don’t eat breakfast.”

He gestured to her plate. “You don’t eat dinner either.”

“I’ve got a date later.”

White rage buzzed in his ears, the sort he felt in swinging his great axe, in remembering scores of soldiers whose intestines painted the battlefields of his first deployments, in pleading with God. “You can’t go on a date,” he said, resolutely.

With how skinny she’d become, Hector saw every sinew of her jaw tighten. “You can start telling me what to do when you pay child support.”

“I sent your mom the money. There must have been a problem with the connection.”

She smirked and looked his hologram up and down. “It seems fine to me. ”

Something inside of him wanted to throw the plate, to smash the apartment and shout how she needed to listen to her father, to level planets, but instead he sat there staring at the synthetic steak.

“I gotta go, Dad. I’ll talk to you… whenever.”

Without the hologram, the room went dark. His eyes fell shut. Two more planets.

The titanium staff blurred past his face. A genuine spike to his heart rate. The kid was fast. Thesakles and Deianira stood opposite the green valley, an orange sunset catching dully on her black alloy. Even in its virtually simulated form, Vera’s Obstinought was something. Thinner, faster, the primary alloy almost two times stronger than Thesakles, devoid of the wickedlooking spikes which covered his, outfitted with two small quellcannons on both arms instead of the oversized rifle. A good decision, practical and efficient. Throughout his tenure, he’d never once taken his quellcannon over thirty percent theoretically couldn’t even take it over ninety without risking detonation.

The Obstinoughts circled, weapons at the ready. He didn’t give advice during training.

She led with a jab he knew she would. A dash off-center and he swung his axe. The blade cleaved through her elbow and buried into the ground. Sparks flared as she stumbled. Even through the pain, she managed to hold onto her weapon this time.

Hector pressed the attack and tasted the blunt kiss of her staff upside his cheek. Pain pulsed through his teeth and brought to life something within him. He ducked, swung, caught an edge into her midsection, spun, and buried it in her spine. Suddenly, his balance was gone, swept at the ankle. He crashed on his back and she mounted. A steel fist pummeled his face and sent stars through his vision. Vera raised a hammer fist, and overhead a spear formation of bombers shot past. Before she could look, the nuke’s burst over her back. His hand caught her neck, and with a jet’s surge, he drove her up to the sky. A moment of frozen clarity at the apex of the arc before he slammed her back to the earth. Vera’s screams carried through the VR room as she watched his sole descend upon her face. The cockpit crumbled.

Haptic feedback cut, the virtual display disappeared, and he was back in the simulation room.

The hardlight suits evaporated and he dropped to the illuminated floor. Vera pushed herself off the ground, blood running from her nose, bright against her dark skin.

“You alright?” Hector asked.

She nodded and caught her breath.

“You didn’t see the bombers. Were you paying attention to the radar?”

Vera shook her head and placed her gloves on the chargers.

“Incorporate your cannons. ”

She sighed.

“Watch the midsection. And use the pattern recognition software.”

Her lips sealed without a crease.

“Don’t assume because someone ’ s down that it’s over. ”

“ ... ”

“Never leave your weapon. ”

“Alright!”

Hector froze, a quick spike of anger, but he let it go. Regardless of the Pilot Surgeries, she was young. He couldn’t have handled all this at twenty eight. He struggled in his fifties. It was one of the reasons he suggested her rejection.

Her head fell. “Sorry, Sir. I just feel like I’m letting you down.”

He squeezed her shoulder. “It’s not just you. ”

It didn’t provide her the comfort he’d hoped.

“We get better with time. Keep your head clear and focused,” he said.

Her lips tightened into a faint line. “How do you do it?”

“I…” His breath sped as he thought of fire and blood. “I try to remember why we ’ re doing it.”

“I hope I can be like you. ”

The muscles of his throat tensed. “It’d be better if you weren’t.”

Each jack, sealing into their input down his back, arms, and legs, took his breath away. The neurocaster connected with Thesakles’ control system. His eyes fluttered and their vision became one.

“Clear the hangar!”

A great exhale sounded from the station’s doors as they opened to the void. Before him shone a blue green marvel, perfect as the pictures of Earth. Thesakles’ engines roared.

“Be careful down there,” Admiral Booker said over the radio. “Estimates show some of them might be bigger than we thought.”

“How much bigger?”

“Two thousand feet at most. But they’re dumb. Wild. Like putting down steer.” “Vera, are you watching?”

“Yes, Sir,” she called.

“Keep the footage, I want to review after.” The locks on Thesakles’ wrists and ankles released. He spared a glance towards Deianira off to his right, mostly constructed. The future.

The jets thundered as he soared towards the planet. Facefirst through the vacuum, he felt serenely weightless, then the atmosphere’s crash. Heat glowed over the suit, streaming flames in his wake, the gauges flashed a light yellow. Pulled by the planet’s heavy gravity, he descended over the ‘Queen Nests’, a green crescent archipelago.

The air tore before him. Sparks flared off the visor. He lowered his feet, fired the jets, and crashed into the shallows. The connected islands bore a mix of round and sharp peaks, lush greenery and golden sands. The greataxe sang as he slung it over his shoulder.

“I don’t see them,” he said.

Booker said, “Try switching to thermal sights.”

Nothing.

“They’re cold blooded, Sir,” Ross said.

Something grasped his ankle, a massive tentacle wrapping from the depths. Without thought, he cleaved. A sea of umber blood sprayed as the feeler writhed. It sloshed white back through the water and there arose an uneasy silence. Then a resounding explosion from the sea. A horrid monster, bipedal and coral-carapaced with a sprawl of spiked tentacles and a fishlike head devoid of eyes. Brown, needle fangs flashed within its wide maw.

A trio of tentacles shot forward and he cleaved at an angle. A high pitched squeal rang as they splashed to the ocean. He stepped forward and pulled back, but from the other side of the mountain, a tentacle wrapped the axe ’ s neck. His leg ripped out from under him and with a hard crash, he found himself looking up to gnashing teeth. Caught by the neck, drool poured over the visor. His arm trembled against its hunger, and all around, sprouting from the depths, dozens more.

Fear flashed white through his heart, a lifetime of regrets and hopes all before him. Mission control blared in his ear. Only Vera’s voice rang clear. “Get the hell up, Sir!”

His fingers clasped hard and he opened his mouth. Sonic waves at two hundred decibels rolled in a reverberating screech. It reeled and screamed, tentacles flailing, blood dripping from its ear holes. Feet to its chest, Thesakles’ jets fired and sent the thing soaring as he shot to his feet. The creature opposite the island charged and his axe buried deep into skull. His surgically dampened fear turned into black rage as he ripped it loose and split the handle. One in each hand, he scanned the encircling colossi. He ground his teeth and let them come.

Razor tips through carapace and flesh. Cleaving head from neck. Spilling miles of intestines. Alarms sounded with returning blows. The sharp pain of teeth in the shoulder and spiked tentacles wrapping around the arms. Hector roared through each swing, each fist, each knee and relished the shattering of bone.

The sea stained dark and murky, Thesakles stalked over the last, whimpering and pulling itself forward on stub tentacles and a single leg. Seething breaths fueled his temper. Over a bay of mangled corpses, he raised both axes and screamed. The clouds parted and the edges buried into the bedrock. Waves rolled. Then peace. Hector caught his breath and looked around.

“Any sign of the Queen?” he asked.

Radio silence.

Seismic vibrations shook the archipelago. The water seemed to be boiling. Evermore violent, he stumbled and the mountains broke from the sea. As the ground fissured below and the waters surged, Thesakles gathered himself and took to the air.

Aloft below the clouds, he watched the archipelago bend. Seven others emerged from below the surrounding waters, rising until they took shape. Fingers of a mammoth hand which forced a body up from the tectonic plates, a porous rock behemoth, dripping magma, water, and bathed in steam, a thing which dwarfed him as it rose ten, twenty, thirty, a hundred thousand feet. Water rushed to fill the vast cavern of its vacancy. Hector’s pulse raced on the monitor. He forced himself to breathe. These are what the humans of Earth had talked about when they posited gods.

“Shit,” Booker said.

Hector clasped the axes back together, secured them within the quiver holster, and took up the quellcannon. Solar heat flared red through its core.

“Power estimate?” he asked.

After a moment of deliberation, Ross said, “Maybe thirty eight percent.”

His thumb slid the lever to forty. The titan’s roar shattered the clouds in visible sonic waves. It was like someone had fired a .45 inside his head. Blood dripped from his ears and the world spun. Hector leveled the rifle and peered through the sights as the creature reared a fist the size of a state.

There was something divine about the moment.

“Are you sure we have no reason to keep this thing alive?” Hector asked.

“Unless you ’ re opening a zoo, ” Booker said.

Hector exhaled and, with forced mental effort, pulled the trigger. Red light cut a gaping hole through the center of its tectonic chest and fired out the atmosphere. Fissures rippled from the impact and widened. Massive boulders crumpled to the sea and cast rolling waves out to the horizon. Hung within the clouds, Hector pondered cosmic reckoning.

“Well done, Thesakles. Four more nests before dinner.”

The last of its cries faded as it toppled and a cramp seized his stomach.

“You hear me, Thorne?”

“ ... Copy.”

Hector watched the video with crossed arms, the crimson titan ducking under the massive claws of the Western Hemisphere’s Queen, catching its stinger, ripping it from its socket, and burying it into the spawn behind him. Miles of jungle fell with each step. Thesakles turned and, with a closed fist, compacted the Queen’s wolf-like snout into its single eye. The shadow sensation of the impact echoed through his forearm.

“Pause,” he said.

The video froze and Vera looked to him coldly. He doubted he really needed to point any of this out, but he figured it was his job.

“The problem?” he asked.

“You didn’t see the one behind you. ”

“No, my feet were too close together. Always be thinking about your center of balance. It needs to be instinctive. That was twice in one day that I got taken down. In Type One Societies, even half of Type One, you get taken down and the next thing you know you ’ re looking at an orbital strike.”

She nodded and the video proceeded. Thesakles crashed on his back, caught the massive cyclops wolf’s face as it plunged for the bite, and ripped its jaws in two.

“Expand your peripherals, any motion is a threat, any irregularity is motion.” Hector rolled out the pain in his shoulder.

“Sir,” Vera said, “We don’t have to do this right now. You’re hurt. We can pick up tomorrow.”

“It’s easier while the memories are fresh.”

They watched in silence as he hacked the last of the Queen’s spawn into pieces, but eventually her silence became unavoidable.

“What’s wrong, ” he asked.

She raised her chin. “Nothing.”

“Don’t waste my time.”

“ ... I’m just starting to feel it.”

“You’ve still got a while. After this leg, it probably won’t be another five years until the next Conquest. And even then, they probably won’t choose you. ”

He knew full well that sitting on ice didn’t make the inevitability any easier.

Hector paced his office and looked to the shimmering blue planet below. A dozen ocean pumps were already protruding through the atmosphere.

“It’s normal to be scared. But when you ’ re in the suit, it all goes away. ” He leaned on the cold glass. He wanted to be honest. “It’ll haunt you. ”

“Which part?” A slight glimmer played off her eyes. She knew full well. “But we have to.”

He nodded.

“So what do we do?”

Hector felt his lungs locking, vision beginning to shake, the hooded presence of dread over his back. His hand dove into his pocket and fished through the pill canister. The SNRI tablet ground into bitter powder between his teeth. It didn’t kick right away, but the taste brought about a pseudo-somatic response.

He jumped to Vera’s hand on his back. Her voice broke the white noise. “Sir?”

He drew a long breath. “I… you ’ re right. Let’s pick up tomorrow. Simulation room at nine.” It wasn’t necessarily the dread that angered him, but her worry.

Before she left, she asked, “I know it’s not required, but will you be there for my first Conquest?”

Just the thought sent the room back into a pulse. “We’ll see, ” he said.

The doors sealed and he chewed another two tablets. The shakes remained. Stories of Ragnarok echoed from his childhood. He turned away, unable to watch the planet anymore. Through the halls, he wandered without purpose. Most were empty at the late hour and on the heels of a successful day. He wished some of the writers on the station could have seen Georgus in person. No doubt they’d witness the video, or at least parts the military only released bits but it wasn’t the same as seeing it in person.

As he passed the mission control, he noticed the red lock on the door’s display. Curiosity reared its head. The only occasion for it to lock was in the event of intruders but the alarms would have sounded long ago. Hector tapped his neurocaster into the panel and ventured through the ship’s archive. Within the emergency files he found the code.

The door opened to an empty room. Just one person on the rightmost communication console, Dr. Ross, headphones over her ears, the monitor’s blue glow illuminating her pale features. His eyes narrowed.

“ You have to prepare whatever defenses you can, ” she said. He crept silently around.

“I know… I’ve seen your planet’s schematics… I helped map them. I’m sorry. ”

He paused and probed into the system. The opposite line was connected to a distant radio number, galaxies off, ESO 151-41. A cold hand pressed into the base of his spine. It was coming from Kroan. The last planet of the Conquest.

“By the time you see us, it’ll be too late. At most you have two weeks.”

He heard the frightened radio operator, “Please, we can’t fight. Our society hasn’t even reached the nearest planet. Whatever you want, take it.”

Ross shook her head. “Even if a planet surrenders, it’s the military’s belief that uprisings are inevitable. For resource acquisition, they don’t move in until the global population has dropped to twenty percent.” She choked out the last bit, “And for Kroan, they want more than your resources. ”

“What does that mean?”

“The plan is to use the planet for relocation. They won’t leave anyone alive.”

A long measure of radio silence elapsed. Hector’s mind ran incomplete circles. His duty, trillions of lives, a career of service. Sweat dripped coolly down his neck hairs. Ross turned and let out a muted scream before covering her mouth.

“Are you okay?” the Kroan operator asked.

“I…”

“Please, we can live together. We have space. We’re peaceful.”

Ross’s eyes glittered in terror behind her glasses.

“There are over five billion people here!” the operator said.

Hector felt himself growing weak in the knees.

“ ... Thorne.” she whispered.

He closed his eyes and turned towards the door.

“Where are you going?” Ross called, tears in her voice.

“To my room. ”

“Are you going to…”

His feet moved by themselves. The door sealed. It felt as if his brain was going to explode.

Hector sat at the end of his bed, the lights low to ease his pounding migraine. Sweat soaked his undershirt and briefs. The dial tone continued to ring sharply as he watched the old video of Priam Thorne and the unstoppable Hyperiues tearing through the secondary capital of Panth. Felled skyscrapers at his feet, airships fleeing, surrounded by a half dozen of the planet’s own defense titans rudimentary versions, perhaps three hundred years behind Hyperiues, each a good four thousand feet shorter. The video swiveled to catch the charge of the incoming mecha. His father’s greatsword glinted. Sparking halves added to the city’s debris. The others charged

The dial tone broke and a full size hologram of his mother appeared in the room. Hunched in her wheelchair and wrapped in a swaddle of white blankets, she looked over her shoulder and spoke with one of the home’s assistants in a confused and irritated tone.

“Mom,” he said.

She squinted her eyes and said, “Hello?”

“It’s Hector.”

Her expression turned in perplexity. She looked back to the attendant for confirmation. Maybe this was justice paid forward on behalf of him and his father. Dementia at her age? Barely over a hundred?

“Where are you?” she asked.

“On deployment.”

A small measure of recollection seemed to click. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah… yeah.”

“Are you visiting soon? Jolleen keeps asking why I don’t have visitors.”

Hector sucked on his teeth.

“She stole my boyfriend, you know.”

“Don’t tell me that.”

“Then who am I going to tell?”

Hector’s reddish brown hair fell over his face as he pinched his eyes. “I don’t know. Not me. ”

“Why’d you call then?”

A question he still hadn’t answered himself. “I wanted to ask you about dad.” He sighed. “Did he ever have regrets?”

Her eyes glazed in rumination of the past. “Everyone has regrets.”

“I mean… when I was growing up, he was Superman. Untouchable. Sure as steel. But the more I think about it, the more I realize I never really knew him.”

“Of course you knew him. Don’t be ridiculous,” she said, hands shaking over her knee.

“He used to tell me that what he went through was a small price compared to what Animus received. I assumed he meant the pain. The synaptic and somatic issues.”

Her eyes squinted in remembrance.

“I didn’t even know he was on drugs until I joined the infantry.”

“ ... ”

Hector scratched his browline. “He was so big. Every time I imagine him, he’s blotting out the sun. But I think the shadows hid his face. When I found him in the office, outside of the hole, his eyes… I’d seen them like that before. I think if I paid attention, I would have known he was crying.”

“ ... A rock never cries.”

He felt a fracture through his heart. “They just break.” Hector thought of the question.

“So the answer ’ s yes?”

“When am I going home?”

He paused for a long while, the cramp in his throat too painful to speak over. “I’ve never asked you about it, but his note, what do you think he meant? ‘The dying of light’.” The words struck an electric and melancholy chord. Upon trembling lips, she whispered,

“And you, my father, there on the sad height, Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray. Do not go gentle into that good night. Rage, rage against the dying of the light.”

Her teeth broke into a quick chatter and tears loosed down the lines of her cheeks. As he stared at the still frame of his father’s Obstinought on the screen, indomitable over the felled city, he asked himself, Then why did he?

Whispers rang around the round conference table, fleet advisors in gray uniforms, the windows sealed over with titanium, beyond it, the streaming colors of torn spacetime as the station soared through the belly of the wormhole. The shine of the stainless steel room worsened the harsh beat of his headache.

He shared a glance with Ross, who’s eyes danced furtively over the table. “A bit early for the final tactics review,” Vera said. “We’re still a week out from Kroan.”

The ecologist to her left said, “It’s about the station that got taken out a few days ago. They’re probably calling us back to the Capital.”

“Attacked?” she asked.

“They don’t know. No SOS made it out.”

Vera looked to Hector for confirmation. He tried not to fall into panic. The doors slid open and the room quieted. Admiral Booker’s thick soled bootsteps pounded around the table. With sunken eyes, he scanned the room.

“This job isn’t easy, ” Booker said, in a conflicted voice. After a long pause, he continued, “But we didn’t fall into our positions by accident. We all knew the cost.”

Vera sat up, trying to look resolute. Hector squeezed a fist to fight the shakes. Booker continued, “Before we make a station-wide announcement, I wanted to inform you that last week there was an unauthorized use of the ship’s Puncture Drive. Someone made radio contact with Kroan. There’s no transcript, but I think the purpose is obvious.” He let the fact soak in. “First Degree Treason.”

Furrowed looks of disbelief rounded the table.

“Maybe it was one of you, maybe it wasn’t, but the truth will come out.”

Beads of sweat shone on Ross’s forehead.

“I shouldn’t have to remind you that a crime like this could result in the death penalty, but I’m telling you now because I want to give whoever did this a chance. If they come forward, I’ll fight on their side to lessen the sentencing, but if we have to root them out, there’s nothing I can do.” He didn’t seem to take any pleasure in the room ’ s discomfort, but he didn’t ease it either.

One of the Heads of resource acquisitions asked, “Do you have any leads?”

His gaze passed over everyone, but Hector noticed a slightly longer pause on Dr. Ross. By the flush of her cheeks, she noticed too and at least a few others.

“I’m not at liberty to ”

He didn’t think. Didn’t plan. The words took form by themselves. “It was me, Sir,” Hector said.

A strange sensation overcame him, cold on the inside, hot on the out.

The Admiral’s jaw fell slightly ajar before sealing it tight. “ ... Thorne.”

“I take full responsibility, Sir.”

Booker’s eyes narrowed into glittering black marbles. “Why?”

“You’ve seen my psych report… I couldn’t take it.”

Gazes turned between them.

Hector continued, “They’ve offered their surrender and authorized full use of their planet. Annihilation isn’t necessary. ”

Tides of pain and betrayal pulled at the Admiral’s expression.

“That doesn’t change anything.”

“In the history of the Conquest program, only four planets ever revolted. Four out of the hundreds. It’s not right that because of them, we annihilate the rest.”

“Those uprisings spread to other colonies.”

“Their sins shouldn’t damn the universe.”

“It’s not on us to determine what’s right and wrong, Thorne.”

“Maybe, Sir. But I did it nonetheless.”

Around the table, eyes bounced back and forth. He didn’t have to look at Vera to feel her anger. Didn’t have to spare more than a glance to see Ross’s guilt.

“Nine planets, Captain, and here at the end of your service, you turn your back?”

Hector thought of burning cities, crumbled mountains, and beautiful species brought to extinction or held underfoot while Animus drained their oceans and carved the gold from their cores. “Pauci pro multis… but five billion isn’t a few.”

The Admiral pinched his eyes. “You let me down, Captain.”

“That wasn’t my intention.”

“Should I call security?”

Hector stood calmly and advisors around the table recoiled in fear. “I can walk myself.”

His steps were the only sound. The halls, the comms rooms, the offices, mess halls, R&D labs, a great machine. He wondered what was one part less.

The cell was purgatorial white. Headache inducing. Hector sat impassively atop his cot and stared at the wall, contemplating how Olivia was going to take the news. Her mother, his mother. The empire. He told himself he shouldn’t care.

Days were hard to quantify. He guessed it’d been six. What did it say that Booker had been his only visitor? Hector didn’t blame Vera. Had the same happened with his mentor, he likely would’ve turned his back too.

Given today was her first drop, she didn’t need anymore confusion.

Hector paced toward the glass and noticed the guards at the end of the hall listening to their radios before disappearing through the sliding doors. He imagined Vera’s prep, how nervous she must be. He wished he could be there, wished he could be proud of her. He was.

He paced back and looked into the security camera. If not for the signal blockers, he might have streamed the mission feed through his neurocaster. Be safe, Kid.

A knock sounded on the glass. He turned to Ross, haggard looking, eyes swollen behind her glasses, mostly bone.

“Sorry it’s taken so long,” she said. “Booker’s had people watching me around the clock. I don’t think he’s convinced.” Tears glittered over her eyes. “Why’d you do it?”

“I’m at the end of my line, Doctor. Whether I spend my life in a cell or a one room apartment doesn’t make much difference.”

“But it’s not right.”

“I haven’t done much of that in my life.” He sat and braced his chin with his fists.

“I assume you know what today is?” she said.

“When are they sending her out?”

“Within the hour.”

“I imagine Booker’s having an aneurysm wondering where the System’s Chief is.”

She didn’t see any humor in it. “Thorne, you ’ re the first pilot to ever step down. You’ve started something.”

Step down? “Don’t be dramatic.”

“People are talking.”

“Seems like things are normal.”

“Don’t be stupid!”

“What do you want from me?”

“Convince the kid not to go. She’ll listen to you. Save those people down there.”

“She’s being deployed in an hour, Ross. This has been her dream for a long time, she won’t just abandon it.”

“I saw her evaluation. She’s not even close to ready.”

Not even one drop and she was already breaking.

“Even if I did, there’s always another,” he said.

“One pilot turns to two, two to four… who knows what happens next.”

Hector stared at the floor, his body feeling like iron.

“If not for Kroan, think of the kid.”

He imagined Olivia stomping on societies… and in time tying a noose in an empty home. The glass slid open. Neither said a word.

Face down through the halls, past the whispers, they ascended the station to Ross’s office. She slid into her chair and hurried into Deianira’s system. A feed of the hangar came to life on the monitor. Deianira and Thesakles side by side, the final locks coming off her wrists and core charging a bright blue. A pressing wave of guilt overcame him seeing Vera wired into the Obstinought, a steel look of death about her.

Ross handed him her headset, and the words flowed from his chest. “Kid,” he said. Her head turned, a sudden expression of panic.

“Captain?” Vera whispered.

Booker’s voice cut through, “Is that Thorne?”

Hector said. “I know you think you have to do this, that you can’t throw away all the time it took to get into that suit, but you have a choice.”

Booker shouted, “Is he out of his cell? Find him!”

“I fell for it too, Vera. We were raised to think this is the only way, that our survival is the only thing that matters. But I promise you, the only thing that matters to all those people down there is whether you drop.”

Booker interrupted, “Captain Kassian, you have a job, your responsibility is not them. We’ve got a billion people on this station without a home. We owe it to them.”

“There’s more to this numbers,” Hector said.

A long silence held sway over the radio. Vera’s head fell in solemn consideration. She whispered, “Unus Animus.”

Her jets fired and, in a face first dive, the Obstinought shot towards the blue surface of Kroan. Existential dread gripped Hector’s spine. Divergent worries rendered him into ice. Through the ringing in his ears, he heard Ross “Thorne…”

Security footage showed soldiers racing down their hall.

Pain flashed through his gritted teeth. “Can you deploy Thesakles from here?” he asked. Her expression was stern and unquestioning.

Hector stepped into the hall and eyed the incoming three, clad in ballistic armor, brandishing black stunner sticks. With a deep exhale, calmness overcame. A left step from the first swing and a front kick to the ribs which toppled two.

He caught the arm of the third, and with a backhand cracked his jaw. His feet pounded down the hall, around the corner, up the elevator and before another group of three. They met his gaze with glittering fear, and stepped aside.

Breath cool and even at his sprint, the upper hangar doors opened and he ran the top platform towards Thesakles crown. Technicians parted, in fear, confusion, and with a few smiles. Booker’s voice rang through the speakers

“Don’t make this any worse on yourself, Captain.”

“I’m sorry, Sir,” Hector said, vision unifying with Thesakles’.

Ross spoke over him, “Are you good?”

“Let me out.”

The locks released. Alarms rang and the technicians ran towards the exit. Thesakles’ jets fired. Adrenaline flooded his veins, tightened his muscles, and filled him with a sort of purpose he hadn’t felt since he was a young man.

He hit the atmosphere with a burning crash. Face first through the clouds, he followed Deianira’s descent upon an island metropolis. The towering Obstinough stood over the postindustrial city, frozen, staff in hand, and staring at the masses below. Just in landing, she’d already taken out twenty square blocks.

Booker called on the radio, “I know this is you Ross. Drop open your door and we can discuss this before things escalade.”

“Sorry, Admiral… I’ve made my choice.”

Thesakles’ jets shook the air as he slowed to a low hover over the city.

Deianira’s visor shone gold against the sun at his back. Neither spoke. He hoped that the agency of presence might illuminate his plea.

“You’re a traitor, Sir,” Vera finally said.

“If it means saving you from hell, fine.”

“What about our people?”

“There’s more than one way to survive.”

“But it’s ours. ”

“ ... Prove it.”

Her visor flashed as she scanned the cityscape. Fingers tightened along the staff. Over the radio, Ross whispered in a wary voice, “Thorne, I’m getting some strange signals in the solar system.. Gravitational disturbances.”

“Kroan defense systems?”

“No, they don’t have the technology to affect spacetime like this.”

“Then what is it?” he asked, anxiety rising from the kid’s silence.

“A wormhole.”

His head throbbed in harsh beats. “Let Booker know. Vera, they’ve already surrendered.”

Black dots appeared through the clouds on the horizon, aircrafts in spear formation. Vera whispered through her teeth, “You’re wrong, Sir.”

Her quellcannons charged blue. Duty and sorrow wrestled a knot in Hector’s heart.

I’m sorry.

In a forward dive, he grasped her wrist and throat and pulled her through the air. Her foot caught the edge of a tower and a cloud of debris crashed on the city.

The cannon ’ s blue beam fired into the atmosphere. Hector squeezed tight, soared over the coastline, and heaved her into the ocean.

She landed on her feet and he crashed before her. A hail of bombs burst over both hulls and sea. They recoiled to fire while the jets ripped eastward.

Booker cut through, “Captain Kassian, your mission now is to capture the prisoner and return our property.”

The ocean ’ s breeze rang swift and cold.

“Copy.”

Deianira’s staff whirled into an offensive position. Hector’s eyes fell shut in resignation and he split the axe in two.

She rushed first, a jab no, a feint. He stepped left and into the blow. Pain flared through his cheek, yet through it, he caught sight of her swinging for the leg. He lifted over the sweep and planted his alloyed sole into her face.

Deianira crashed through water, a fracture in the visor and a tidal wave around. Instinct called to strike the heart, but he froze and found himself looking at the charged barrel of her cannon. Ducking the first, the second burned into his chest and sent him airborne. Pain flared as he bounced. Staff overhead, she charged and he crossed his axes. Almost too fast to register, her knee cracked his chin. Alarms sounded as the visor fissured. His back hit hard within the bay.

Once more he was looking at the butt end of her staff. She plunged for his heart and he rolled not quick enough. The end tore through the ribs and pressed a wave of agony. He ignored the pain, kicked her ankles, and in her stagger, fired off his back. Up into her chest, he drove her into the sky and back to the sea. Her breathless gasp pressed needles into his heart. “Vera… please. Enough ”

In his peripherals, he caught sight of a blurred green missile. A thought-wrenching impact blasted his heart. He soared off his feet, the blow like a bull’s horn. Alarms and white noise filled the cockpit. Internal defense systems activated to extinguish the fire around the core.

From his belly, he saw on the horizon a black warship. Enhanced vision showed a large DEW, a rectangular particle beam repositioning for the next strike.

Pain pulsing through his ribs, he watched frozen as Deianira raised her arm and fired. The short beam sliced over the curvature of the planet and a resounding plume of flame and water rose into the air.

“You see, Sir. There’s no such thing as surrender ”

The axe tore through her elbow. He spun and wrapped the handle around her neck. Conflicted tears stung his eyes. Her breathless cries rang in his ear. Then he was hurling over her shoulder, thrown at the hip. As he crashed, he knew what she was going to do. Always quick to sprawl, to dive into a grapple, to drop her weapon

Deianira tore his axe away, and in frozen moments, he watched its head fall upon him. Agony flashed white through as the blade cleaved through his shoulder and lopped his arm. Hector grasped at the phantom pain and roared over the alarms.

“Yield, Sir,” Vera said, the cannon aimed at his face. His gaze turned between her, the city, to the moon-sized station in orbit. Maybe he was wrong. For her sake, he hoped he was.

In a perplexed voice, Booker called on the radio, “What the hell is that?”

There was no excitement in Ross’s response. “I told you. ” Video from space streamed into Thesakles’ cockpit given her pause, he figured Vera was watching the same. Near the dark end of the solar system, small ripples in space showed over distant stars as a whitehole grew from the abyss. No sound carried through the vacuum, but could it, he figured it might shatter an atmosphere. Slithering through the blackness, larger than anything he’d ever dreamed, an eldritch leviathan. Head wide as a sun with thousands of horrid eyes, pale as death, and bearing hundreds lipless mouths, the most prominent at the front, a gaping baleen maw large enough to fit all of Kroan.

The smaller mouths opened, and through the fangs merged an army of silver, winged spiders by satellite measurement, the size of hundred story skyscrapers.

“Ross, what the fuck is this?” Booker asked.

“I told you. ”

“I understand that! What is it doing?”

“From what I’ve seen, the symbiotes go first. They seek out biological fuel and the main body takes everything else.”

“What do you mean everything else?”

“Planets, space stations, anything.”

Alarms blared over the radio, Booker called ships to the ready, defensive formations. Everything they had. Deianira looked between the city and blue skies above, shaking in the knees.

Through pain in his shoulder and chest, Hector pushed himself up on one arm. They shared a silent glance. Vera handed him his axe and fished her staff from the sea. There was a lot he wished he could say. Side by side, they soared towards the heavens.

The video showed as the spiders shot through the solar system towards the station. White Animus ships emerged from the hangars like bees from a hive. Into the abyss, Thesakles and Deianira picked up speed. Shouted orders carried over the radio, estimates on numbers, maybe a thousand of the creatures against five hundred ships. Questions of how effective the particle cannons would be. Questions of retreat. The clear answer that there wasn’t enough time to open a big enough hole.

“Sir?” Vera asked. “Orders?”

“Keep them off the stations.”

“What about the big one?”

He eyed his battery, bleeding with his wounds, twenty percent. The sun burned red and forty million miles off.

“Ross,” he asked, “Can you puncture a small hole for me?”

“You’re leaving!”

“I need to get to the sun. ” “ ... I’ll have it ready in ten.”

The two picked up speed as in the distance, green bolts converged on the creatures, sprays of silver blood and carapace shot through space, quick plumes of flame which quickly extinguished as the spiders shouldered through. Their path was clear, those billions of beating hearts on the station.

The first wave crashed around the station. With spiraling razor maws, they burrowed into the titanium. Thesakle heaved his axe, and swift with his momentum, cleaved a chittering beast at the stomach as it raised up. Silver blood sprayed, and he landed secured by electromagnetic soles.

The creatures turned, and scuttling on ten legs, met his charge. By the distant rays of the sun, the axe ’ s head shone bright. Wide swings over the top and around the side, legs and carapace drifted through space.

A maw of spiraling teeth like a living garbage disposals shot from his blindside. He raised his arm for cover, but the horrid face crashed against a titanium staff. Deianira and Thesakles’ drew back to back, weapons ready as the things surrounded.

“Advice?” she asked.

“I was going to ask the same thing.”

Halved bodies, still twitching, carried around Thesakles’ axe. Mangled heads spouted silver life, crushed under the force of Deianira’s speed.

They spun, hacked, and split. Defensive forces circled back. Green blasts scored their carapace. Through the cosmic detritus, the leviathan neared, eyes turning the system over, slithering across space in a slow S. His panic was broken by a firm swing which shattered the back of a charging spider and sent it drifting.

“Thorne!” Ross said.

He turned to the rippling space before the station and the white event horizon around the wormhole. Dienaira’s staff whirled overhead before cracking two creatures. Something grave inside him reared its head.

“Captain,” he said.

Vera looked back.

“I didn’t mean to let you down.”

“We’ll talk about it later.”

“Trust yourself.”

Caught by the gravitational tide of the event horizon, his frame elongated, time stretched, and through the short passage, the colors of space twisted like taffy. He shot forth from the hole, face to face with the blazing red sun. A quick thought passed of how even at ten thousand feet small he was. He turned and brandished his cannon. The rear core access opened and, like a deep inhale, began swallowing a stream of solar tendrils.

“Drop intake blocks,” he commanded. “Maximum power absorption. And funnel all energy directly into the quellcannon.”

His thumb slid the power up to one hundred percent. Blinding red energy flared through the power lines and into the cannon. Sparks burst from the mangled shoulder and ribs. Heat mounted in the cockpit and a cautionary voice spoke, “Energy systems unstable, life support systems compromised, multiple fires detected in the core, emergency escape pod ready for deployment.”

Sweat burned his eyes. He slung the barrel over his mangled shoulder and secured it in place with his chin. Down the sights, he set his aim on the ghastly pale leviathan, baleen spread, nearly in reach of the station. Through the darkness, he saw the bright flares of green particle beams, spiders racing over the surface of the station, blue flashes, and a spinning staff.

His head spun within the overwhelming heat. “Core in critical condition. Emergency escape recommended.”

The rifle burned bright, surging and crimson. The trigger pulled easily. A vast beam soared, the circumference of a planet, rippling with electricity at the speed of light. He fired backwards against the force. A boiling sun seared his back and cracked the cockpit displays, yet he held the trigger through. Jets fired to counteract the force, a weak struggle against its strength and the sun ’ s gravity. Sweat slicked his face. He felt his skin sizzling. No longer could he hear the alarms over the terrible shaking of the cockpit. Lights flashed him senseless. He closed his eyes to the blinding rays of the sun behind. Each breath brought in less. He forced one eye open, needing to know if it hit.

But the alarms went silent. All he felt was the sudden force of the quellcannon’s explosion, then spinning flight. Hot and cold, the vacuum suck through the shattered visor, soaring within Thesakles’ dismembered head. Vertigo and an airless hull proved the final nail. He closed his eyes and thought, I didn’t go gently

Hector sat numbly in the wheelchair, staring at the faux-pine desk. Around him, the frenzied talk of reporters, congressmen, and protestors on both sides washed into nothing, it was nothing, not compared to the pitch of the sun swallowing his second body, the world devouring quake, and utter quiet which followed. As he’d closed his eyes to that black night, he’d been ready. But the living weren’t done with him.

A sudden pain flared through his right leg. He grasped at it with his right hand. For a moment, it felt like something was actually there, not just an empty pant leg and armless sleeve. A camera flashed on his right, a perfect shot of all the burns.

The Head of Congress banged her gavel and a restless silence came over the chamber.

She put her glasses on and asked, “Captain Thorne, before we dismiss for today, is there anything you’d like to say on behalf of your defense?”

He looked through public seating, hoping to spot Ross or Vera, maybe his daughter, but there were too many faces and they all looked the same.

“I freely admit my actions. I warned Kroan in advance, I broke out of my cell, hijacked Thesakles, interfered with a mission set on behalf of all Animus, and in turn caused the destruction of a major military asset.”

Silence. It seemed she wanted him to plead but they already knew his actions had led to the leviathan’s destruction, that he’d protected the station, that for five minutes he’d given his life.

“So why, after over fifty years of service and four and a half Conquests, did you choose to betray your people?”

His gaze fell to his burned left hand. For a moment, he saw Thesakles’.

“Since I was in diapers I always imagined saving something. We say the few for the many, but there was a time when we were the few. For millennia humanity did what it had to in the name of survival, but we ’ ve become complacent, blinded by tradition and fear of destruction. Maybe I’m wrong, but I couldn’t damn another planet for the sin of those past. The lives on Kroan, like all those I took before and all those in this room, deserve a chance. If we only look back on betrayal, that’s all we’ll ever know. Scared species running from life…”

He looked around the room, unsure where he was going. He heard his father’s voice and echoed out his mouth, “There’s beauty in every world and every soul. Do what you must with me, but for your sake, I pray that you see that there’s no end to this stomach.”

The congressmen and women around the hearing stand shared perplexed glances.

“Is that it?” the head congresswoman asked.

Maybe one day they’d go back for Kroan. Maybe he was a traitor. But he was only in charge of one man. Who knew what that really meant. He nodded. “I doubt it. But it’s all from me. ”

CHERRY PITS

As Victor and Jezebel made their way through the airport security lines, Victor kept up a litany of all the things wrong with the airport and in general.

“I can’t believe how far away we had to park! It seems to me they could design airports better to accommodate parking nearby. And don’t even get me started about the price of parking! And just look at the long security lines! Why it could be done in a much more efficient manner I’m sure!”

He always had so much to say and criticize but no real solutions offered…Jezebel had learned long ago to [mostly] tune out his “monologues” as she called them. She listened with half an ear in case he threw in a question requiring a response from her.

“And if everyone would do what they’re supposed to do and have their IDs ready and their shoes off it would make a big difference. Just look at that couple over there; they’re almost at the checkpoint and they’re still fumbling in their bags for their ID.” Victor shook his head as if it was a personal affront to him.

Once they got through security and were making the long walk to their gate, he had more to say.

“Why does it seem like we always get the last gate and have to traipse so far?!”

Finally, Jezebel spoke up, “You know there is that saying, ‘Life is just a bowl of cherries, so live and laugh and love!’ As we walk, I like to look at the shops and restaurants along the way, and watch the families on their way to wonderful vacations…the possibilities are endless if you just take the time to enjoy.”

“Well if life is a bowl of cherries, why am I always in the pits?” Victor replied sourly.

Jezebel just shook her head and kept on walking.

When they finally got to their gate and got settled, and before Victor could start another litany of things wrong, she said, “You know, cherry pits historically had many good uses: they were burned as fuel, used in medicine, heated in sacks for pain relief and warmth and even made into jewelry.”

He just gave her a withering look, “You’re always such a know-it-all!”

Jezebel continued, “Well apropos to our topic, I have a little surprise for you! I made you your favorite cherry hand pies to snack on while we wait for boarding! That should put a smile on your face!”

She handed him a small bag she had been carrying in her satchel.

“Well, this is a nice surprise! Though I hope they made it through security and all the walking without being squished!” But he did smile as he unwrapped one of the pies and began eating.

After a few minutes passed with him eating the pies, he offered Jezebel one.

“No thank you, I made them all for you! You know when we first got married I thought you were the sweetest most handsome man I had ever seen, and that I was the luckiest woman in the world. Sometimes, like now when you are smiling and eating, with just a tad of cherry juice on your lips, I still see that man. ”

She looked at him wistfully, almost longingly. As she watched, Victor got a strange, pained look on his face. “Jezebel, I have a terrible headache all of a sudden and I don’t feel so good I think…”

There was an announcement that it was time to board their plane.

As his vision started to swim, he saw Jezebel stand up and gather her things.

“You know Victor, I was very efficient, which you prize, and used all the parts of the cherries in making the pies; I even ground up the cherry pits to use in the crust. At the risk of sounding like a know-it-all, I read somewhere that cherry pits can be lethal if too many are ingested, but I’m sure that’s just an old wives tale...”

It was six in the morning when the phone rang incessantly. I snatched the receiver off the hook, more so out of spite, than to answer the damn thing. I rebuked the notion that the outside world even knew I existed, let alone my whereabouts. The voice on the other line crackled through the speaker in an all too familiar shrill pitch, it was my ex-sister-in-law.

FINDING UTOPIA

“What are you doing calling me here, how did you get this number anyway?”

“You wouldn’t answer your cell phone, so I pestered your agent until he gave me this number. Never mind all that, it’s your birthday, you big dope.”

Her voice slithered in one ear and oozed out the other. Susie was sweet, the youngest of the four Farley sisters. The only congenial one, and although ridiculously naive she had a rather big heart. It had been two years since her sister Sarah left me for the pool boy, a cliché among clichés, but she had remained close, as close as I would let her get. Her icky sweet persona coupled with the fact she could have been Sarah’s doppelganger would only allow me to tolerate her in very small doses.

She began to sing the ill-fated birthday anthem in the most contrived tone. The shotgun blast rang through my ears, the barrel nuzzled up underneath my chin. By the time she embarked on the final verse, I had envisioned pulling the trigger several times. The single pump action Mossberg that I pantomimed wasn‘t strong enough to rid her of the phone. I had to play nice and see her spiel through if I wanted to rid her of pestering me for the rest of this horrid day.

Birthdays, as a man it should be common law that you are only allowed to celebrate three or four of them your whole life. Milestones that are acknowledged as a rite of passage as they offer little to nothing else. As a youth, I eagerly awaited them, now, I fret their very existence. Nothing more than a dreadful reminder of our dwindling mortality. You spend your whole life amassing knowledge and wisdom, to see it all dissipate into a vast void of nothingness a molecular necrosis excreting tendrils of brain tissue.

Birthdays are a truly sad endeavor and a detriment to our society. Second only to man ’ s greatest self-imposed enemy, procrastination. It’s the hesitance that’s born deep inside our collective consciousness. Our blatant fear of utter rejection gives us pause, a blanket scapegoat for not living the life that we want to live. This life, that is the only thing we know to be emphatically true. The speculative hereafter, grandiose illusions of some utopian paradise, are just that, figments of our hopeful imagination. The bitter emptiness of nothing weighs heavy on us and embarks on the underbelly of our fears. Unweaving the tattered fabric of our fleeting existence.

I peeled back on the shower curtain and drew a bath of lukewarm water. As I awaited the tub to fill, I flipped through the local stations on the radio that sat atop the bathroom counter. Sometimes you find that perfect song, and sometimes you have to settle, this is one of those settling times. The tune that belted out was a catchy little jingle, an advertisement for a local mattress supercenter. Ironically it acted as a pseudo requiem for the tyrannical capitalistic corporate manifestation of greed that plagued our ingested society.

I stepped into the water, a fair shade cooler than the lukewarm I set it to. I wiggled my toes freely, feeling the slick bottom of the tub underneath my heels. With the radio in my arms, I dropped it, awaiting the cool pulsations of hot electrical current to creep up my spine and toast my wispy grey hair. The radio plunged into the bath water, and I lapped up my last few milliseconds on this dreaded Earth. Death hadn’t come as quickly as I thought, so I looked down at the floating radio bobbing between my legs and followed its cord up and out of the tub. There it was coiled up on the floor, I reached to plug it back in, but it had been at least a foot too short.

Here’s the thing, and I probably should have started with this, but this wasn’t my first suicide attempt. As a writer, my death couldn’t lack the creativity and imagination my life was regularly bereft of. After months of drafting the most ludicrous ideas my brain could concoct, I chose to drown myself. I figured I might as well leave my body in a way that shrouds my departure in a heaping cloud of confusion and lingering questions. And if a certain someone was to be dragged out of bed and brought down to the police station in the wee hours of the night for interrogation, well that would have been an added benefit, that I may or may not have considered. After all, love is the eternal sadness that either two will share or one will suffer over.

My plan was simple, I had several large glasses and a gallon jug of water laid out on my coffee table in front of me. TV blaring at maximum volume, set to some 70's cop show rerun marathon, I sunk into my sofa, like it was any other Sunday afternoon. The jug was filled with tap water while the glasses were filled with the water from my pool. The idea was I would drink down the first two glasses of pool water and then snort the final glass up my nose. While I was choking and struggling to breathe, I would refill the empty glasses with tap water.

My body would have been found propped up, on my couch, pale and bloated but innocuous enough. At first sight, it would look like nothing more than a heart attack. One could deduce, with the gallon or so of water splayed about, it potentially was death by water intoxication. When the corner realized my lungs were full of water, a simple chemistry test would conclude that the chlorine levels were too high for that of the surrounding tap water and foul play would be assumed. This was the best plan I could have possibly devised, the others which I couldn’t bring myself to attempt included impaling myself on either a frozen piece of meat sharpened to a fine point or an icicle. Ideally, my body temperature while waning would have been warm enough to have melted the object and by the time the authorities arrived either hilarity or confusion would’ve ensued.

The issue with drowning is naturally your body rejects the water going into your lungs. The coughing fit that ensued sent me flailing into the glass coffee table. The glasses of water shattered on the floor alongside me as I sat there spitting up, spewing the remnants of pool water that stung my lungs. Blood trickled down my arms from the pieces of glass that were embedded into my skin. Maybe a death befitting of a grandiose mystery wasn’t really in the cards.

I set the oven to 450° F, cracked open the door, and took a seat at the island in my kitchen. To pass the time I read the morning’s obituaries and thought to myself about how terribly written they were, every single one was devoid of any humor. Surely my agent and publisher at the hand of some talented young ghost writer would draft something better than this dribble. I could picture their headlines now; “Eugene Dickinson, 52 years of age, bestselling author of such trite nonsense as Blood, Guts and Sprinkles, was found dead in his LA home Monday morning. He is survived by not a single soul and is described by those who knew him best as a cantankerous old coot, a crusty ramshackle curmudgeon, and a woefully bleak miser who was a surly drunkard. The world is truly a better place for his passing,” or something along those lines.

After an hour, the beads of sweat that pooled along my forehead began to pour out like a burst water main. If the carbon monoxide didn’t do me in soon, I was surely to die of heat exhaustion. I assumed as most any would that I wasn’t close enough in proximity for the oven ’ s discharge to do its worst on me, so I neared in. I was hesitant as the eerie thought of my eyes beginning to shrivel and shrink, hissing inside their sockets as the ocular jelly crisped over, hardening like the glaze on a honey-baked ham then shattering into thousands of tiny shards that trickled down to the searing broiler of the oven below, plundered around in my skull.

As I drew near, I was taken aback, the smell coming out of the oven didn’t smell remotely like gas or any byproduct of its combustion. It had a pungent detergent-like scent to it, a baked cleaning agent freshly sprayed along the inside of the walls. The heat waves wafted in my face as I knelt positioning myself to lean in. That’s when I saw it, the bright cherry red glow of the broiler’s heating element. As I had never used the oven to bake, I was completely unaware that the damn thing was electric. Flustered, I went to stand up and my knee slipped out from under me, and I fell face-first inside the oven. Luckily, my hands broke my fall grasping the inner walls. The skin from my fingertips singed and clung to the oven like that cheese from a casserole that boils over and sits on the bottom tray for decades, seasoning each dish with its distinct char.

My bad luck, believe it or not, continued. After bandaging both hands and plucking the shards of glass from my arms I went straight for the painkillers. I originally avoided them, as an overdose was all too common, and the idea of a cliché death was killing me faster than any of my previous attempts. But the pain was growing unbearable, my hands hurt so bad that it caused my head to throb causing a bulging behind my eyes and I could no longer give two shits about how my overdose would be perceived. After all, I’d be dead, and the pain would cease to exist and that’s what we call a win-win.

I opened the medicine cabinet and rifled through the abundance of random prescription bottles that didn‘t even belong to me, I mean how many different antibiotics was Sarah taking? I finally came across the bottle of oxycontin, prescribed to her and expired two years prior, I figured that could only make them more potent, like a fine wine or something of those sorts. I popped off the top and the damn bottle slipped from my hands sending the pills spiraling down the open drain. I struggled to corral the last three pills, as the gauze bandage on my fingertips made it as if I was wearing catcher’s mitts.

I took each pill slugging them down with the water cascading out the faucet.

Several hours later, I was still fully awake, sitting atop the toilet as the damn things had only given me nausea and diarrhea. Not even the slightest bit of respite from my pain, that didn’t come until the levity of the situation began to sink in. Three failed suicide attempts in one day would be enough to tell most people, maybe it isn’t your time. But as I writhed in gutcurdling pain on the toilet seat, I figured I’d at least give it one more go. Same as it was in my professional and love life, I was too stubborn to simply take no for an answer.

That’s how I ended up here in this hotel, be it, not the way I originally planned, but I figured maybe more of a sympathetic route would suffice. If everyone assumed I died in an accident, then that would be a tragedy. Since my publishing firm was so gracious with the advance they fronted me on the new book deal, I set out to write my last great novel. The uptick in sales from my previous work after my death would pay them back tenfold seeing how this novel would never see the light of day.

I needed an old hotel room, a secluded one, with a lovely view, a soaking tub to harness my thoughts, and most importantly a functioning fireplace. I closed the flue and made sure it was nice and sealed before I lit the fire. The crackling from the logs was a pleasant and calming sound that embraced me ever so gently. I moseyed leisurely about on my way over to the bed, climbing under the covers as the warm smell of hickory filled the room.

What I didn’t take into consideration was the carbon monoxide detector. As it began chirping, I took elongated breaths, relishing the tingling sensation of smoke singeing the inside of my lungs as I heard the hotel’s fire alarm go off. I closed my eyes, mere moments away from drifting off into that great void when the maintenance and security team came hurling through my door. My eyes clenched tight out of sheer embarrassment as they opened the windows and put out the fire.

The hotel management apologized emphatically for the faulty flue and pleaded with me profusely to continue my stay with them. They upgraded me to this penthouse suite, which is damn near child-proof. I suppose I could have always gored myself with this rather dull steak knife brought up by room service or bludgeoned my temple against the soft edge of this nightstand. But at what point do I concede to the fact that I don’t have it in me?

Truth be told, like everything else in my life, I approached this journey of self-discovery and conclusion with the same half-hearted approach. I’ve decided to use this experience as the source material for the novel I never intended to write. A protagonist mired in the mediocrity of everyday struggles, consumed by the weight of emptiness that loomed over his every waking moment. He chose to find life on a different plane, rather than ridding himself of his mortal coil, a rather whimsical tale about a middle-aged man who contemplated life.

FROM THE HOLLOWS

The mirrored hull slithered through the sparkling warp tunnel, dancing through the stars with sleek purpose. An obsidian mirror, reflecting the emptiness it knew all too well. Through piercing eyes, the man stood, watching, ever sure. The vacuum was an inferno compared to his heart, but what could not melt could not be changed, reforged or reshaped. A constitution, frozen, yet always reliable. The man was all he needed to be, nothing more and nothing less.

As the violet plumes reconverged and the planetoid emerged, he looked away from the viewfinder. There would be no acknowledgement of a job well done. No words of affirmation were necessary; they were all there to do a job and would carry it out without question or need for approval.

Captain Alzhahn ran his hand over the armrest of his chair. The bridge of the Frumentarii hummed in anticipation as he sat down and crossed his legs. He looked over his crew and calculated their next move. The members of his ship were the best of the best, men and women who had been handpicked from across Terra and her colonies for their specific – and unique – skills, honed to a razor-sharp edge through years of gruelling training and fieldwork. The Frumentarii flew no flag, its name would never be sung, and its victories never celebrated. The crew had a singular purpose, and it would be kept secret by every ear that ever heard it, one way or another – for space was a terrifying place, more so than anyone could ever know. The only thing keeping the nightmares found amongst the stars from revealing themselves to the people of The Known were those aboard the Frumentarii. And they would take that knowledge to the grave.

‘Elztoria, report,’ Alzhahn ordered. A thin, stern woman with long, blonde hair shifted as she heard her name called.

Like the rest of the crew, Elztoria was dressed in all black and gold. She stood behind a set of controls, balanced gracefully on knee-length, heeled boots.

Upon her body, she wore opaque tights and a gold-trimmed leotard made of synthetic fibres, leather in its appearance, though non-organic in its origin. Although he sat behind her, her gaze did not leave the viewfinder.

‘We have arrived at Beherit I, captain,’ replied Elztoria. Alzhahn watched the back of her head move as she spoke, her tight ponytail waving in time with her jaw. The sight of the planet on the viewfinder made her statement obvious, yet the information was important enough to be vocalised.

‘Good. Elztoria, Mann, Vurn, with me; prepare to go planetside. Issah, you have the bridge.’

‘Sir,’ came in chorus from the named crew. Alzhahn stood up, straightened out his doublebreasted tunic, and walked out of the bridge, his boots clacking upon the polished floor.

When the transport elevator opened, the captain nodded his head. Beside Elztoria stood Vurn, a raven-headed, olive-skinned woman dressed in the same uniform as Elztoria, and Mann, a muscle-bound, shaven-headed man in a sleeveless rolled-neck sweater and flared trousers. In their arms, they each held long-barrelled rifles pointed toward the floor.

‘The atmosphere should be clean,’ said Vurn. ‘I also do not foresee any difficulty descending to the surface. This was, until recently, a milquetoast mining colony. There should not be any issues below other than what was stated in the reports. Initial scans show a slight deviation in the population, but nothing which couldn’t be explained by an accident. Apart from the beacon, everything appears normal for what you’d expect from a mining colony.’

‘Affirmative,’ replied Alzhahn, attaching a small sidearm to the thigh of his trousers with a buckled strap. ‘ETA to Hinom, Lansor?’ he asked.

‘About forty minutes, sir,’ replied a short man standing by a set of controls. He was Lansor, the Frumentarii’s chief of transportation. ‘The shuttle is stocked and fuelled, as requested.’

‘Then we launch when ready,’ stated Alzhahn.

Lansor grinned toward Elztoria, Mann, and Vurn. ‘Jump aboard, captain. We’re good to go. ’

Aboard the Amort, the transport shuttle of the Frumentarii, the crew was putting the final touches to their mission prep. Elztoria, Mann, and Vurn were busy clipping small, circular metal discs to their belts while Alzhahn searched a trunk beneath his bench.

‘Grav-discs fully charged and onboarded,’ proclaimed Mann. ‘Synching DNA now. Elztoria, Vurn?’

‘Ready,’ answered Vurn.

‘Ready,’ parroted Elztoria.

Elztoria, Mann, and Vurn pressed on their devices and a sharp, moist sound glooped across the Amort as their bodies jerked in their boots.

‘I’m never going to get used to that,’ gasped Vurn.

‘Count yourselves lucky you ’ re science officers, you won’t have to,’ chuckled Mann. ‘Us grunts have got anti-gravity in our blood. The jerk even starts to feel good. If you ’ re unlucky enough to live long enough, that is.’

‘We all paid our dues,’ said Elztoria. Her voice was curt, serious. ‘We all bled to be here.’

‘Hey,’ said Mann, throwing his hands in the air, ‘I’m only talking grav-discs, Elzy. We can’t all be experts on everything. I’m sure there’s a whole system’s worth of knowledge you could teach me about navigation that I’d never get my head around. That’s why we are here, right? Unique skills and all of that.’

Elztoria grunted. ‘Don’t call me Elzy. I’ve already told you that a hundred times.’ Mann chuckled and floated up to the ceiling of the Amort, grabbing onto a metal beam with one of his hairy fists. ‘Sorry, Elzy. You make it too easy. You know I love you like a sister.’

Vurn put her hand on Elztoria’s shoulder and looked up at the floating weapons specialist. ‘He tries to hide it, but he’s just scared. He read the same reports as everyone else. This mission is no good.’ She floated up so that she was locked, eye-to-eye with Mann, ‘And he knows it.’

Mann floated backwards, away from Vurn. ‘Yeah, yeah. You got me, I can admit to it – I think this whole thing stinks.’ He descended to the bench and took a seat. ‘A whole colony of miners and farmhands goes quiet, and what? And we ’ re the first ones that they send in? Not the military? Not even a scouting vessel? Us? Going off, what? Some busted broadcast from a distress beacon.’

‘We are the scouting party, the military, and the damn exorcism if need be, Mann,’ uttered Elztoria. ‘You know that as good as anyone. ’

Mann nodded. Vurn floated down beside him. ‘What’s got into you, anyway? You’re never like this before a mission. Did you know someone down there or something?’ she asked. ‘No, nothing like that. It just doesn’t sit right, you know? It’s too much like Decanfore.’

‘Yeah, and what happened on Decanfore?’ asked Elztoria. ‘We made it out, and now we ’ re here. We didn’t die then, and we aren’t going to die now. ’

Mann looked up at Elztoria and smiled. ‘You science lot. Always know the right thing to say. ’

Standing up from the trunk, Alzhahn held a long, golden shamshir. Holding it up, he turned it over in front of his face. It appeared to vibrate and shimmer in the space between his fist and face, humming as if powered by a battery. He waved it up and down, leaving smoky, red tendrils dancing in the air as if it had burned the atmosphere around it. Pressing a button on the hilt, the shamshir took solid form and ceased humming. As Elztoria stared at the captain, she could have sworn she saw the sides of his mouth twitch as he inserted the weapon into the scabbard dangling from his belt.

The shuttle was smooth on its descent, traversing the high winds of Beherit I like a scissor through crepe paper. As the ship approached the surface,

Alzhahn slicked back his shoulder- length hair and placed a wide-brimmed hat upon his head.

‘Approaching Hinom, Landing Zone VII,’ proclaimed Lansor, ‘Sorry there’s no welcome party for you, but I think they might be a bit preoccupied.’

The captain looked out of the shuttle window at the dock below. The landing zone was built into the black rock of the planet, the mineral that had been so sought after by the settlers there and gave the entire planet its distinct look of endless night.

‘Monozium,’ said Vurn, who had approached Alzhahn and was peering out of the window beside him. ‘Unbreakable and surprisingly light, unlike any other material in The Known. Or, at least, that we know about so far. It is used mainly in starship and weapon manufacturing. The Frumentarii is built from it, as well as our rifles and the grav-discs, even that sword of yours. ’

‘Yes,’ replied Alzhahn. He knew all of this information already, but it was proper procedure to be briefed once more before landing.

‘It was first discovered here on Beherit I but has since been found in more plentiful numbers on planetoids closer to the Inner Belt. Work has slowed down here over the last few decades. The planet is nothing but an afterthought these days, all but forgotten. The amount of Monozium they send back to Terra is negligible at best. Compared to other mining worlds, anyway. ’

‘Then why are we here?’ asked Mann. ‘Why are we being sent down to check up on some washed-up old mining colony?’

‘It’s not about the Monozium,’ replied Elztoria. ‘It can’t be. It has to be something else.’

‘We are here to respond to the distress call,’ uttered Alzhahn. ‘Sent two weeks ago on a public channel, broadcasting things they shouldn’t be broadcasting to the galaxy.’

‘That’s what I’m worried about, sir,’ replied Mann.

‘It’s not our job to worry, Mann. Our job is to do whatever they tell us to do and to do it quietly,’ said Alzhahn.

‘Sir,’ responded Mann.

‘We are merely here to turn the beacon off. Terra can’t have any spacer turn up and find out what happened here,’ proclaimed Vurn.

‘And to deal with whatever caused this in the first place,’ said Elztoria. ‘It’s not an important place now, but it once was. The people here have been digging for longer than any other colony. Digging for longer means digging deeper. Who knows what they have seen below the planet.’

Elztoria and Mann approached the window. The world outside the shuttle was barren and desolate, windswept and dusty. Not a soul was visible as far as their eyes could see, neither alive nor dead, a ghost planet for a ghost ship and her ghost crew.

‘Coming down now!’ yelled Lansor, and the Amort landed on Hinom, the capital mining pit of Beherit I.

‘The beacon is one klick north,’ stated Vurn as the Amort ascended. ‘Looks like it should be inside one of those installations by the excavator facility.’

Through the thick dust clouds surrounding the Frumentarii away team, Vurn pointed north toward a large, imposing shadow. As Mann squinted his eyes, he could just about make it out: a towering bucket-wheel excavator.

‘Stars above, that thing is massive,’ he uttered. ‘It must be two miles high!’

‘Two point two miles, to be exact,’ answered Vurn. ‘It is a StarRov Manara, a Ganymede-class drilling system. There are only six in the entire galaxy. I believe that this was the first. The arm can stretch out for over four miles when fully extended.’

‘Damn,’ uttered Mann. ‘Have you ever seen anything like that before, sir?’ he asked Alzhahn.

‘Never,’ replied the captain. ‘If they are drilling with something so large and for so long, the depths they have reached must be unfathomable.’

‘That is my main concern, ’ answered Elztoria, ‘Considering what we heard from the beacon…’ Her words trailed off as they approached the facility. It was a congregation of several short, stout buildings with few windows and fewer doors. The buildings were connected by long, snaking, corrugated above-ground tunnels, several of which had collapsed on themselves. ‘Where is everybody?’

‘The beacon should be inside this building,’ stated Vurn, staring at a device around her wrist: her Omni-Vis. ‘I think we will find out fairly soon. ’

Mann gripped his rifle and looked toward the building. His thumb hovered above the safety switch, coated in a film of sweat that began to glisten through the sandy haze.

The voice greeted them before they saw it. The beacon was placed in the middle of a control room, long since abandoned and surrounded by dust, sand, and debris. Tools, data pads, and work clothes lay scattered throughout the room. A control desk sat across one wall, smashed to pieces, next to a wide-open blast door leading down into the mine.

‘Emergency. Emergency. This is Aoid Forrester, Chief Mine Supervisor of Beherit I. Requesting immediate extraction for all colony members. The mine has been compromised. I repeat, immediate extraction for all colony and company personnel. The Monozium is not what we once thought. We dug too deep. There are things, creatures beneath the surface. They are down there, waiting, biding their time. We have to stop all operations across the territories. They are the Monozium. They are a part of it, all of it, across the galaxy. Their eyes, stars above, their eyes. This cannot go on, there is no more time, we ’

The message cut out and began to repeat. The crew of the Frumentarii shared a look among themselves, even Alzhahn.

‘Shut it off,’ uttered Alzhahn after a second repetition of the message.

Without needing to be told twice, Elztoria stepped forward and turned off the beacon, plunging the control room into total silence, other than a dripping of moisture echoing from within the mouth of the pit. Elztoria, Mann, Vurn, and Alzhahn turned their heads to the entrance. None of them needed to vocalise what had to come next.

The Monozium glistened against the dim footlights, reflecting and cutting a path through the dank inner mine. Though the light was low, the mirrored stone consumed the beams of the small guidelights like a thirsty desert traveller, gulping it up like water in an oasis. The cavern was titanic, stretching as far and as deep as the crew could see or comprehend, and as they travelled down the endless, hollow earth, there appeared to be no end in sight. The massive, carved gash from the bucket-wheel extractor let in no light from above, despite its monstrous size, but gave off the impression that the sky had been ripped open, torn apart by celestial claws through a tin can. The sidings of the mine were made from pure, cut Monozium, jagged and jutting at all angles, stabbing at the wide-open, howling depths of the planet, vibrating gently with a low, unnerving purr. The place was as barren and unwelcoming as anywhere they had seen throughout The Known, yet still they ventured on.

‘This makes me miss Efflon VII,’ muttered Mann, tripping over a shredded fuel tube hidden beneath a mass of dust and sand. ‘At least we could see where we were going.’

‘You mean the same Efflon VII where you got frostbite and had to have a new foot grafted on?’ replied Vurn. ‘That Efflon VII?’

‘I’d take that cold over this heat any day. I can’t stand this; muggy and dry, the back of my throat feels like it’s made out of sandpaper,’ replied Mann.

‘Take a moisture shot if you feel that bad,’ said Elztoria, ‘We can’t have you passing out now, not when we still have a ways to go and still haven’t seen any signs of life. It gives me a bad feeling; where could they have all gone?’

Mann grunted and nodded, then shot the science officer a sarcastic ‘Yes, miss.’ Still, he removed a small silver tube from a pouch on his belt and put it on his neck. Gritting his teeth, Mann pressed a button on the tube and injected himself with the azure liquid contained inside. His body spasmed for a beat before he rolled his shoulders and cracked his knuckles.

‘Damn, that feels good!’ he roared, but Elztoria, Vurn, and Captain Alzhahn had already walked on.

‘No, you ’ re correct. It doesn’t make any sense. ’ Vurn was walking next to Elztoria, her head pointed high, her gaze floating from one protruding Monozium ore to the next. ‘It’s as if the whole colony has disappeared. According to Bringham Mining Corporation reports, Beherit I has a population of over one point eight million settlers, civilians, and workers. Over eighty per cent of them are located here in Hinom. Yet, nothing; not a soul, not even a hint of life other than that beacon.’

‘No ships either,’ replied Alzhahn, walking to the front of the group. ‘A mining colony of this size, producing Monozium in this quantity, even if the activity has slowed; there should have been hundreds of transport vessels on the surface.’

‘A fleet of sixteen hundred, to be precise,’ replied Vurn. ‘For both personnel and product transport off and on the world.’

‘Gone…’ uttered Elztoria. She shuddered as a chill ran down her spine. ‘What could have done something like this, captain?’

‘The beacon specifically mentioned “creatures”, so I am speculating Xeno involvement of some kind, although to what nature I cannot speculate. It was that aspect of the message that worried Terra. You know they can’t have that information broadcast before First Contact has been revealed,’ proclaimed Alzhahn. He turned his head to look at Elztoria and noticed a bead of sweat drip down her brow. ‘You are the expert of extra-terrestrial fauna, officer; what do you suppose?’

Elztoria ran the back of her hand across her forehead before wiping it dry against her tights. ‘There wasn’t enough information in the broadcast to say for sure, but it didn’t sound like anything we have come across. The rambling about Monozium? No, nothing like we have

encountered. Nothing anybody has.’

‘Then we better find out for sure and make certain it stays that way, ’ replied Alzhahn.

‘Vurn, what do the blueprints say about how to get to the bottom of the mine? If whatever happened here happened after they reached down to a certain point, then we would be best checking there first.’

Vurn turned away from the Monozium and checked the Omni-Vis on her wrist. She pressed two buttons, and the blueprints appeared above her wrist in blue, holographic form.

‘There is a transport elevator one hundred and eighty-six klicks to our west. It will take us to every level of the facility – all forty-six thousand if required.’

‘That will not be required,’ stated Alzhahn. If there are forty-six thousand levels here, then it is level forty-six thousand where we will find answers. ’

‘Sir.’ Replied Vurn.

‘That’s a long trek, though,’ said Mann, having caught up. ‘One hundred eighty-six klicks on foot, and in this heat?’

‘It’s only going to get hotter the lower we go, ’ replied Elztoria, ‘But I agree, I don’t like the idea of travelling this far on foot, especially in such open ground and with no idea what kind of danger is lurking out there.’

‘Indeed, forty-six thousand levels below the surface. Based upon the company plans, that will take us dangerously close to the planet’s core. I honestly have no idea how they were able to do it, how they were able to survive,’ said Vurn.

‘They didn’t,’ uttered Alzhahn.

‘Yes, captain. Quite correct,’ responded Vurn. ‘Our Grav-discs should be able to sustain us, even at those heats, but it’s not going to be comfortable.’

‘It’s bad enough up here as it is,’ complained Mann. Elztoria rolled her eyes.

‘But, I have some good news, at least,’ continued Vurn. ‘Half a klick from here is a transport hub. Assuming it is still operational, a bullet rail there will take us through the facility to the core. We won’t need the elevator at all. It’s a one-stop trip.’

‘Assuming that it is operational,’ repeated Mann. ‘And why do you think that will still be the case?’

‘The lights are still on, are they not?’ spat Vurn.

Sheepishly, Mann looked away from the science officer and towards the captain. It was no use, though, for he had already begun bounding towards the transport hub.

‘At least his lights are still on, anyway, ’ grinned Elztoria to Vurn. Mann sighed, loud enough that it echoed through the hollowed earth. As the Monozium hummed around them, they took off behind Alzhahn.

‘Vurn, check the controls; Elztoria, scan for any signs of life; Mann, hold the perimeter,’ commanded Alzhahn as they entered the transport hub station. It was an open-plan platform featuring benches, vending machines, information booths, and a waiting lounge. Posters and billboards depicting moving company slogans were bolted to every wall. Messages like Keep Calm and Mine On, Monozium for the Heart, Monozium for the Soul, Bringham Mining Corporation Thank You For Your Service, and Beherit I: A Place To Settle glowed in bright, neon colours. Each poster featured a buxom blonde woman with teased hair and a spandex, figure-hugging jumpsuit in the blue Bringham company colours.

‘Sir,’ replied the crew as they got to work.

Alzhahn approached one of the moving posters and studied it for a beat. As he gazed into her eyes, the woman smiled and blew him a kiss from her hand. He turned his head and followed Vurn into the control room, trying not to make eye contact with any more of the advertisements.

‘Bettie,’ stated Vurn as Alzhahn entered the room.

‘Officer?’ he replied.

‘Bettie the Bringham Bombshell,’ she replied. ‘They say she’s responsible for more male deaths than the Lunar Civil War. Applications to join off-world Bringham mining colonies increased seventy-two-thousand per cent after she was introduced, don’t you know? The poor actress has been carted around the entire Known for decades, doing in-person appearances, signings, and hand-shakings. She’s probably out there right now, kissing some baby somewhere. They advertise it as one of the job perks, “Join up and meet Bettie!” They even give you a keyring of her likeness when you sign up. ’

‘I am aware of the most famous woman in the galaxy, Vurn,’ snapped Alzhahn. ‘Report; what have you found?’

‘Nothing, captain,’ replied Vurn. ‘That’s the thing, there isn’t anything out of the ordinary. Everything is in working condition, and there are no signs of struggle. The only thing is the complete lack of life. The reports said that the beacon had been active for two months before reaching Terra, but other than the dust and the sand, it is as if this place was used hours ago. It’s like everybody just…disappeared.’

‘What do you suggest, officer?’

‘Honestly? Ask Bettie. I can call the bullet no problem, but it might take a while to arrive. The console says that it is still down in the core. ’

‘Bettie? You want me to ask the billboard?

’

‘If anybody has seen anything, it’s her. Her face is plastered all over the place.’

‘Very well,’ sighed Alzhahn. ‘Call the train.’

‘Did you hear that?’ asked Mann, pointing his rifle towards the glass partition separating the

platform from the waiting room.

‘Hear what?’ replied Elztoria, looking up from her vibrating Omni-Vis. It was making a low, humming noise as she walked the platform. Her brow furrowed as the vibrations and the sound appeared to grow and then diminish in intensity depending on the direction she was pointing the device. ‘There’s something here,’ she muttered to herself.

‘I don’t like this, Elzy. I think there’s something behind the glass. I heard it move. ’

‘Shut up for a second, will you?’ Elztoria hissed. She pointed the device towards the waiting room and it began to shake violently against her wrist, beeping quickly and sharply.

‘Take the safety off your rifle.’ She floated a couple feet off the ground and removed the blaster from her thigh.

‘You take the window, I’ll get the door,’ stated Mann, clicking the safety of his rifle. Floating above the window, Elztoria jammed the heels of her boots into a metal vent and let herself hang, her ponytail swaying back and forth like the pendulum of a grandfather clock. She pointed her rifle and the small, glimmering pistol at the window and waited for Mann to make his move.

Mann pointed two fingers at his eyes, to Elztoria, then down to the door. He gestured to the window with a nod, rolled his shoulder, and then put his hand against the door to the waiting room. He waited for Elztoria to reply: a nod and a circular rotation of the hand holding her blaster. He felt the hard plastic handle in his hand grow slippery with sweat as he received the signal that she was ready. Swallowing a mouthful of saliva, he took a deep breath through his nose and then barged the door open with his shoulder.

A quick, deep shot sounded through the platform, followed immediately by the noise of shattering glass.

Alzhahn stood by the poster depicting the flashing words Mining on Beherit I: Drill Deep and I’m Yours to Keep! He let out a dry sigh and tapped on the screen with his knuckle, impatient

for the mascot to make her appearance. A couple of long seconds passed, which he used to consider the absurdity of what he was about to do, but he knew that Vurn was right more often than she was wrong. As he felt the urge to turn heel rise within him, coming dangerously close to overruling his better judgement, she poked her head out from the side of the poster.

‘Hello, handsome,’ said the voice, swaggering out from a pair of speakers in a comically strong 20th-century Dixie drawl. ‘If you aren’t a big old hunk of man, or what! What can I do for you? You aren’t signing up to be an honourable member of this colony, are you? We sure could use a man like you!’

Alzhahn felt himself getting light-headed as the rage built inside him. He clenched his fists, digging his nails so deeply into his leathery skin that he could start to feel the skin break. ‘Bettie. I have some questions, please. About the mine, about Hinom, about Beherit I.’

‘Gee, I’d love to answer them for you, feller! But why don’t we talk about you signing up for a little tour of duty here on Hinom first? It sure is a wonderful place!’ A long, spandex-clad leg appeared below Bettie’s face, seductively kicking itself up and down from bent to straight, repeating hypnotically. The stiletto-heeled, black knee-length boot lowered after a couple more repetitions, coming down upon the bottom of the poster, and Bettie pulled herself into full view. The zip of her jumpsuit had been pulled down below the bottom of her breasts, and she adjusted her cleavage before looking up, putting a hand over her mouth and giving Alzhahn a cheeky look as if she had been caught doing something she wasn’t supposed to. ‘Oops!”

‘What makes you think I’m not already a settler here?’ Alzhahn said, his blood boiling at having to play along with the charade.

‘Why, I’d remember a face like yours. No, you ’ re new to these parts. Come on, I can get the paperwork up right now. Right here on this screen. It doesn’t take more than five seconds to sign up, and afterwards, when you ’ re all settled, I’ll be right here with you the whole time, right by your side! I can even sit on your lap if you like!’ She broke into a hysterical fit of giggles at this, ‘Hehe!’ Her chest jumped up and down with every laugh, coming dangerously close to falling out of her outfit.

‘No,’ he stated. He had begun to have enough. ‘I am Captain Alzhahn. I am here from Terra on official, confidential business.’ He raised his Omni-Vis to the front of the poster and pressed a single button. ‘Here are my credentials. You will now answer all of my questions. I am getting bored of this.’ ‘Aww,’ Bettie sulked, falling to her knees and sucking her thumb. ‘You’re no fun.’

‘Are you quite finished?’

‘I suppose, ’ she said, sticking out her tongue and blowing Alzhahn a raspberry. ‘What is it you want to know?’

‘You can start by telling me what happened here. What happened to everybody? Where are the people in charge?’

‘Oh, that?’ she replied. ‘Why, they didn’t go anywhere. Nope, nowhere at all!’

‘What do you mean? I don’t see any of them. Where have they gone, Bettie?’

Bettie, once again, put her hand over her mouth and giggled. ‘Hehe!’

Before Alzhahn could press the matter, the noise of breaking glass echoed across the station.

‘Who are you? What are you doing here?’ yelled Mann, pointing his rifle at the man. He was cowering in the corner of the waiting room, covered in broken glass and what looked like weeks of dirt and grime encrusted into his face and oily, unkempt hair. On his body, he wore a Bringham jumpsuit complete with an enamel pin badge of Bettie attached to the collar. Surrounding him were dozens of empty water bottles and cans of dry food.

‘Answer him! Now!’ demanded Elztoria as she floated into the room through the broken glass, her rifle still smoking. ‘My next shot won’t be a warning! There’s no glass in my way anymore, so I suggest you listen!’

The man scuttled backwards, trying to increase the space between himself and the angrylooking man and woman waving laser rifles his way. Upon hitting the wall, he clutched the pin badge and began mumbling. ‘Don’t shoot! Don’t shoot! She did it, she told us to go! We had no idea. No idea!’

Elztoria’s heels crunched against the fragments of broken glass as she returned to the ground and shot Mann a fast, sideways glance with her eyes. He shrugged his shoulders and stepped closer to the man, reaching his free hand out in a show of friendship. His rifle, though, was still unmistakably pointed towards his chest.

‘What are you talking about?’ asked Mann. ‘Do you live here, work here? Are you a miner? We aren’t here to hurt you. We are here to help.’

‘No, no, no. No help,’ stuttered the man.

Elztoria edged closer. The sound of more glass cracking beneath her feet caused the man to turn his head her way with widened, frightened eyes.

‘Whoa!’ she uttered. ‘Easy now, he’s telling the truth. We are from Terra; we received a distress call. Was that you who sent it?’

‘No. No call. Forrester did that. He’s gone, gone to the core. To be with her. With them. With all of them. But not me, no. Not me. I’m too smart for that, I hid. I hid away where they couldn’t get me. Safe. Just me and her. Safe.’

‘Slow down,’ said Elztoria. ‘What are you talking about? Who are you? Tell us your name. ’

‘He’s gone loopy. You won’t get anything from him,’ scoffed Mann.

‘Linklater, sir,’ stuttered the man.

‘Stop right there! I’m warning you!’ yelled Mann. Linklater had attempted to bring his hand to his forehead to salute. He quickly returned it to his side after sensing Mann wasn’t messing around.

‘Linklater, okay. We are getting somewhere now, ’ said Elztoria, trying to calm the situation. ‘What do you do here?’

‘Live,’ replied Linklater. ‘I live here.’

‘Here? In the station?’ asked Elztoria.

‘Yes. But not always. I used to live up there as well. Sometimes down there. Anywhere she told me to go. ’

‘Are you a miner?’ asked Mann. ‘What did you do here? He doesn’t look like a higher-up, Elztoria. Probably just some drone; he won’t know anything.’

Linklater glared at Mann. ‘Don’t like him,’ he spat.

Elztoria took another step forward. ‘It’s okay, Linklater. He won’t harm you. None of us will. We need to know what happened here at the mine, though. Where did all your friends go? Can you tell us that?’

‘No friends. Only her. She is the one. ’

‘No surprises there,’ chuckled Mann. ‘To Venus with your friends; what about your colleagues? Forrester? Tell us where the people in charge went.’

‘I told you already. Down! They went down!’

‘To the core?’ asked Elztoria. ‘That is where we are heading next. Is that where we will find everybody?’

‘No, not everybody. Not me. I’m here, safe. Safe with her.’ He pulled the badge up and kissed it with his cracked lips.

With the sound of an electrical thunk, a poster frame behind the man sprang to life. Startled, Mann turned his rifle away from Linklater to focus on the newly awakened piece of company propaganda. The words Safety in Numbers: Join Up Now! began to appear on the screen in

front of a photograph of the bucket-wheel extractor. Upon seeing that the poster was no threat, he lowered the rifle, brushed a layer of broken glass off a bench, and sat down.

‘Okay. Who are you talking about? Who’s this woman you keep mentioning? Your wife?’

Elztoria lowered her weapons and sat beside Mann, slotting the pistol back into its holster on her thigh as she crossed her legs.

Linklater giggled and put his hand to his mouth. ‘No, not my wife. But soon, maybe, if I’m lucky – yes. I do everything she says, maybe then. She’s told me so. ’

Once again, Mann and Elztoria shared a worried look.

‘Who are you talking about?’ repeated Elztoria. ‘Who told you this? Told you to do what?’

‘I think I know who he’s talking about,’ stated Alzhahn, opening the door to the waiting room. Vurn was stood outside the broken window, pointing her rifle inside toward Linklater.

‘Why don’t you show up and tell us yourself, Bettie? Tell us everything that you told him.

About the mine, about what’s down there by the core. About the Monozium. That’s what this is all about, after all. Is it not?’

Elztoria and Mann turned their heads to watch their captain enter and strut across the room, stopping in front of the poster next to Linklater. The dishevelled man looked up from the floor and continued to laugh. ‘Yes, please! Let her come and show you! The most beautiful, wonderful girl in the entire Known!’

Vurn groaned and lowered her rifle. ‘It’s never easy, is it?’ she uttered as she floated over to Elztoria and Mann.

Alzhahn tapped on the poster and waited for a response. ‘Come on out, Bettie. I still have some questions I need you to answer. ’ After taking a quick look down at Linklater, he grabbed him by the chest of his jumpsuit and pulled him up to his feet. ‘I have someone with me. Do you know this man?’

Bettie appeared on the poster, swinging on the rungs of the extractor like they were monkey bars. She had changed from her usual jumpsuit into a matching combination of company blue leggings and a sports bra. On her feet were matching trainers, and her hair had been straightened down and pulled back with a thick hairband. ‘Oh! Hi there, lovely!’ said the mascot. ‘You caught me working out! I’m…’

Mid-sentence, Bettie began doing pull-ups, making a point of pushing her breasts against the top of the bar with every rep.

‘…All…’

Pushing herself to the top of the bar, she raised her legs in the air and held herself there, hand-standing miles above the earth, legging-bedecked buttocks knowingly displayed to the front of the poster. Linklater began to breathe heavily, pushing his face up to the screen.

Suddenly, Bettie appeared, close-up at the front of the poster, ringing wet. Surprised, Linklater jumped back from the screen with such force that he would have fallen if Alzhahn hadn’t been holding on to him.

‘…Sweaty!’

Pulling a towel out of thin air, she began to dry herself off, giggling as she went. ‘Tee-hee!’

Vurn rolled her eyes, looking down at Elztoria. ‘Stars above.’

‘What do you want to know, darling?’ Bettie purred. ‘I’m all yours. Just let me change first, yeah?’ With a wink of her eye and a spin of her body, Bettie evaporated into a cloud of cartoon smoke and stars.

‘No!’ gasped Linklater, raising his hand in protest.

Before they knew it, Bettie had reappeared from the cloud, dressed again in her jumpsuit, boots, and with her giant, backcombed hair. ‘Good to go, handsome. Shoot!’ Alzhahn sighed. ‘Are you done?’ he asked. ‘I want you to tell us what’s been happening here.’

Why, that’s easy, honey!’ sang Bettie. ‘Mr. Linklater and I have been helping out, that’s all! Just wait until you see what wonders we have uncovered here. You’re going to burst!’

‘I have been good, Bettie? A good boy, for you and the company?’ simped Linklater.

‘You sure have, ducky. You quacked real good, don’t you worry! You’ll get what’s coming your way, ’ replied Bettie. Alzhahn couldn’t help but notice a hint of disgust in the mascot’s voice that Linklater seemed oblivious to.

‘Thank you, Bettie. Thank you so much!’

‘Enough,’ uttered Alzhahn. ‘Get to the point.’

‘Gee, you are a grumpy one, aren’t you? Fine, but why tell you when I can show you?’ declared Bettie. ‘That would be much more fun, don’t you think, ducky?’

‘Yeah!’ answered Linklater, nodding and clapping his hands. Alzhahn scowled down at him.

‘What’s got into him?’ whispered Mann to Elztoria and Vurn. ‘To make a fool out of yourself like that, in front of strangers no less.’

‘What’s the matter, Mann?’ replied Vurn. ‘Haven’t you ever been in love?’

‘Sure I have. But I don’t know what that is. That’s not love, that’s embarrassing.’

‘I think it’s cute,’ uttered Elztoria. ‘I like it when a man shows reverence. ’

Mann scoffed. ‘Yeah, you would. Elzy Blackheart: Maneater of the stars.’

‘There’s a reason you ’ re single, Mann,’ spat Elztoria.

Mann chuckled. “And, what? Like you aren’t?’

‘I am. But no one hears me cry myself to sleep about it. Unlike someone I know.’

Mann turned away from Elztoria and returned his gaze toward his captain. Elztoria and Vurn shared a quick smirk between themselves and did the same, Vurn nervously scratching at the beauty mark below her eye.

‘Show us what?’ quizzed Alzhahn. ‘Stop dancing around the question and tell me what happened. I’m getting sick of this.’

‘Don’t speak to her like that!’ growled Linklater. ‘You can’t speak to her like that!’ Alzhahn looked down at the man and balled his hand into a fist.

‘It’s okay, ducky. He’s just a grumpy goose, that’s all,’ twanged Bettie before Alzhahn could act. Alzhahn un-balled his fist and let Linklater out of his grasp. Linklater scowled at him and threw himself against the poster, pushing his face against the screen. ‘Fine. If I tell you what happened, will you come with me? But you have got to promise to keep it a secret, now. It’s big! Can you keep a secret, sugar?’ continued Bettie, ignoring Linklater as if he were nought but an annoyance.

‘Fine. I can keep a secret. If it will hurry this along, I promise to keep whatever went on here a secret, okay?’

‘It’s only for a little bit, anyway. Company rules, you know how it is? It will all be revealed in time, don’t you worry!’

‘I feel like my head is spinning,’ muttered Vurn.

‘It’s fascinating, watching him in action. Don’t you think? I would have lost my temper far before now, ’ replied Elztoria. Mann said nothing, still sulking.

‘We found something below,’ began Bettie. Suddenly, an ancient-looking mining helmet appeared on her head, complete with a blinking head lantern. ‘Down by the core. Deep in the heart of the planet. Where the juiciest Monozium dwells.’

Linklater began panting. “Yeah! Yeah!’

‘It’s a game changer, but not everybody saw it that way. At least, not at first. Bringham sure

didn’t think so. ’

‘But they aren’t a problem now!’ yelped Linklater.

‘No, not now, smiled Bettie. ‘Not thanks to you, ducky.’

‘Bringham? They own this facility, this planet,’ stated Alzhahn.

‘Do they?’ smirked Bettie. ‘They may have done. Once.’

With a loud THUNK, the next poster on the wall burst to life. It depicted a bullet-rail car speeding through molten rock and Monozium. As if leading the way, every subsequent poster in the room burst to life, one after the other. THUNK. THUNK. THUNK. They formed a trail leading towards the door to the platform.

‘Come on, darling. It will all be made clear soon enough,’ giggled Bettie. She danced off to her right and appeared in the next poster. Waving her hand at Alzhahn, she beckoned him to follow before jumping to the next screen. She leapt from every poster until she reached the one closest to the door. ‘I think I hear a train a-coming! Choo-choo!’ she yelled before disappearing.

As Alzhahn looked around the room, he caught the eyes of Mann, Elztoria, and Vurn.

‘With me, let’s go. ’

‘Sir,’ they replied in chorus, standing up from the bench.

The sound of another poster sprang to life from the platform outside. They followed it, Linklater straggling behind as he stared, mesmerised by every poster, sniffing at them he passed.

Alzhahn, Elztoria, Mann, Vurn, and Linklater stepped through the door onto the bullet rail platform. The ground beneath their feet began to rumble and shake as they stood, looking

down the empty rail. Bettie stood in a poster by the rail, dressed in the uniform of a steam train driver and holding a whistle in her mouth. As the group emerged, she began to wave and blow the whistle, letting out a sharp, harsh noise through the platform that burst out of every poster’s speaker.

‘All aboard!’ yelled Bettie before blowing the whistle again for a purposefully long, annoying time. She held the note, winking at Alzhahn and tipping her hat at him as they locked eyes. He gritted his teeth and walked forward, running his thumb across his neck to tell her to stop.

‘This woman, ’ groaned Vurn, holding her hands to her ears.

The platform began to shake violently as Bettie’s whistle grew in intensity. AI did not require nor come equipped with lungs, and the threat that she could hold the noise for as long as she wished had begun to dawn on them all. Other than Linklater, who seemed to have the time of his life, dancing across the platform, spinning around in a circle with his head held high.

‘Enough!’ roared Alzhahn, but it was no use. He could not be heard over the whistle and the now thundering sound of the platform shaking around them.

Then, as if appearing out of thin air, the train materialised on the platform, and the shaking and Bettie’s whistle ceased.

Relieved, the crew of the Frumentarii removed their hands from their ears and gasped for breath. Linklater stopped his maddened dancing and drooped his shoulders, looking as if somebody had just kicked his dog.

‘Hehe!’ giggled Bettie. ‘Jump on, boys and girls! Next stop, the core of Beherit I! Better strap in and hold on to your hats because it’s a doozy! Choo-choo!’

They stepped aboard the train car and held onto the railings inside.

‘Here goes nothing,’ said Mann as the train started to vibrate.

Like a shot from a gun, the train disappeared from the station in a plume of static and smoke. The platform shook for a few seconds before settling. The posters faded, once again, to black

was as if none of them was ever there. #

The train sped through the mine, following the corkscrewing rail down. A level counter on the wall flittered through digital numbers in the thousands as they descended, letting the passengers know how far and quickly they had travelled. The numbers went from one to one thousand in the blink of an eye, with the only sights outside the window being that of blurred, fiery darkness.

‘I’ve never been so thankful for gravity regulators,’ grimaced Mann as he gripped the handles of his seat.

‘You got that right, big boy!’ chuckled Bettie. ‘All courtesy of the good, generous people at the Bringham Mining Corporation! Think big, think Bringham!’

‘We have had gravity regulators and bullet-rails on Terra for centuries,’ scoffed Vurn. ‘Bringham did not invent them.’

Bettie pulled a face and stuck her tongue out at Vurn before turning to Alzhahn. ‘I don’t like her. Why do they have to come along?’ she said, thumbing her hand toward Vurn and Elztoria.

‘Don’t like them either,’ uttered Linklater as he stared out the window. ‘I only love Bettie.’

‘Aww!’ chirped Bettie. ‘I like you too, ducky.’

Vurn and Elztoria rolled their eyes at one another as the counter hit level twenty-one thousand.

‘Starting to get hot. Hotter, I mean, ’ groaned Mann. He wiped a cascade of sweat from his forehead with his hand.

‘I like it!’ replied Bettie. ‘I love getting sweaty, don’t you?’

Mann looked up at his captain with a pained expression on his face. Alzhahn gave him a sympathetic I know look back and shook his head.

‘Is he going to be alright?’ asked Mann, nodding at Linklater. ‘He doesn’t have a grav-disc or a mining suit on. ’

‘Don’t worry about him, he’ll be fine. Won’t you ducky.’ stated Bettie.

‘Yeah,’ responded Linklater, his head quickly shifting right to left as his vision attempted to keep up with the outside world.

Thirty-three thousand.

‘Sure,’ muttered Mann. ‘Whatever you say. ’

‘Not our problem,’ scoffed Elztoria. She received a playful nudge in the ribs from Vurn, but before she could respond, the train pulled to a stop.

‘Gentlemen and…ladies, ’ announced Bettie. She shot daggers with her eyes towards Vurn and Elztoria. ‘We have reached our destination: Beherit I, level forty-six thousand! This will be the final stop of our journey, so please be sure you have all your luggage and personal effects. There will be no more stops after here, the hottest of hot, the most boiling base on Beherit, hotter than hell, the scorching station – the planet’s core!’ She blew her whistle, long and hard.

Trying their best to ignore her, the crew picked themselves up from their seats and wobbled towards the exit of the train car. Their grav-discs blinked red and screeched at them as the doors opened and the heat from outside blasted into the train.

‘Bleed it,’ uttered Mann. He put his hand up, trying to protect himself from the heat. ‘I feel like I just stepped onto the sun!’

Vurn squeezed Mann’s shoulder, gave him a knowing smile, and strolled past him.

‘It has been a pleasure travelling with you. We thank you for your patronage,’ Bettie winked

as they passed her. ‘Come on, ducky. Time’s up!’

‘Yes, Bettie,’ replied Linklater as he followed them onto the platform.

The station at the core was different from the ones above. While the others had been openplan affairs full of niceties and billboards, station forty-six thousand was utilitarian in sight and purpose. Housed within a massive heat-shielding canvas, the place felt more like a tent than a rail station.

‘It’s so stuffy,’ complained Mann as he looked around the station. A wall of lockers ran across the side of the canvas, from the platform to the far end of the canvas. At the end of the wall was a large airlock door.

‘And this is it with enviro-conditioning on, ’ replied Vurn, holding up her Omni-Vis as she scanned the area.

As Alzhahn stepped out of the train, the posters in the station came to life. Bettie stood dressed back in her mining gear behind a blank, black background. The screens flickered and crackled under the heat as she grinned at him, sweat patches dotting her uniform.

‘Come on, ducky Chop-chop!’ she sang, clapping her hands.

Linklater began hobbling over to the lockers, hunchbacked beneath the appalling heat. ‘Yes, Bettie!’ he said, pulling one open.

Ignoring the man, Alzhahn, Mann, Vurn, and Elztoria began to walk through the station towards the airlock.

‘There’s still nobody here, Bettie,’ uttered Elztoria. ‘You’re not taking us for a ride, are you?’

Bettie appeared on a poster next to Alzhahn. ‘Don’t’ worry, handsome,’ Bettie flirted.

‘They are just behind the airlock, having a wail of a time! You’re going to love what they’ve

done with the place. I know it!’

Elztoria glared at the poster but received no response from Bettie. ‘You ready, Mann?’ she whispered.

‘Always,’ he responded, flicking the safety off his rifle.

Alzhahn put his hand against the airlock door and peered outside through the window. There was nothing but darkness.

‘I’m afraid this is as far as I can go, ’ groaned Bettie.

‘No!’ protested Linklater, running up to the rear. He was dressed in a heat-shielding mining suit, covered from head to toe in blue. There was a large backpack slung across his shoulders with pipes and wires scuttling out to various points on the suit, and his covered face included a respirator that made his voice take on an odd, robotic quality.

‘But don’t you worry, ’ continued Bettie. ‘I’ll be seeing you soon. ’ She winked before disappearing. The posters hummed for a beat and then fizzed. The black backgrounds reset to a blue screen, vomiting flashing code and notifications about errors.

‘Bettie!’ wailed Linklater, falling to his knees. Tears began to dribble down his cheeks, barely visible through his mask.

‘Finally,’ groaned Vurn.

A roaring CLICK boomed from the airlock door, followed by a steamy hissing noise.

‘Stand back,’ commanded Alzhahn. ‘Be prepared.’

Slowly, the doors opened. The crew of the Frumentarii stood, weapons clutched and pointed into the darkness that greeted them. As the airlock opened, they were met with the core of Beherit I.

‘Whoa,’ uttered Mann. ‘How were they able to…?’

The core was pitch black, other than the mass of flame and magma that swirled in the reflection of Monozium. The choking darkness of the ore was attempting to snuff out the light of the core, but it was unmistakably still there, fighting for survival. A path had been cut through the ore, leading directly to the heart of the core, miles away from the airlock. But something stood there, blocking the path, twinkling in the reflective glow of Monozium.

‘I don’t believe it,’ gasped Elztoria.

Standing in the middle of the path was Bettie, all 5ft 11 of her in her 5-inch heels. In disbelief, Linklater and the crew of the Frumentarii stared at her from the airlock as she smiled their way.

‘She looks…I don’t know how to say it,’ continued Elztoria. ‘Real.’

‘Bettie!’ screamed Linklater. Alzhahn knew what was coming next and thrust his arm forward to catch the man, but he was too slow. Linklater’s suit passed through Alzhahn’s fingers as he sprinted down the path, rushing past the jutting Monozium walling them in. Alzhahn looked at the wall of Monozium and furrowed his brow, seeing what rested inside.

‘Vurn, scan them,’ Alzhahn commanded. ‘Mann, Elztoria; with me. ’

‘Sir.’

Vurn began to scan the ore as the Frumentarii crew ran after Linklater. What met her as she peered inside caused her blood to run cold.

‘Stars above,’ Vurn uttered to herself. Looking back at her from inside the ore were the miners of Beherit I, eyes open, unmoving and suspended within pulsating black gunk.

Vurn looked at her Omni-Vis: Gregov Hilde, designation number 80039291072. Age 41 years old. DOB: 05/01/3219, Origin: Mars. Register to Bringham Mining Corporation, Beherit I – Submine Hinom c.3238. Designation, Quarry worker. Status, Alive -BPM 50.

The ore was jammed with bodies, shoulder-to-shoulder and floating at various, contorting angles. As she moved the device across the ore, the vitals of different workers pinged up – all

male, all alive, all unmoving. As far as her eyes could determine through the darkness, every piece of Monozium contained the same mass of human beings trapped inside. The cavern stretched on and on, miles high, miles wide, and miles deep. With the foundation of the planet’s core made of pure Monozium, there was enough space to contain the millions of workers and settlers registered to Beherit I, all trapped in suspended animation in the bowels of the mine.

‘Captain!’ screamed Vurn. She took off, running as fast as her legs would carry her, past endless trapped workers and Monozium ore.

Gregov Hilde, designation number 80039291072, opened his eyes and reached out of the Monozium.

Bettie stood, towering above Linklater. He was hugging her legs, glaring at Alzhahn and his crew. She slowly stroked his covered head with her hand, a knowing smirk on her painted face.

‘I’m so glad you could join us, ’ said Bettie. ‘We had been waiting such a long time.’

‘Get away from her, Linklater,’ ordered Alzhahn. Elztoria and Mann were standing by his sides, pointing their rifles at Bettie. None of them were sure who she was addressing. But they knew something was wrong.

‘No!’ he roared. ‘I don’t take orders from you!’

‘That’s right, ducky,’ responded Bettie. ‘He’s all mine, I’m afraid. As are…all of them.’

‘What?’ asked Elztoria.

Bettie waved her free hand, and the Monozium around them began to glow, revealing the men sealed inside.

‘Captain!’ yelled Vurn as she arrived. ‘The miners, the settlers, everybody! They are trapped

within the Monozium!’

Alzhahn looked around the path and studied what he saw. After a few seconds of silence, he took a step forward. ‘Why?’

‘Where are all the women, Bettie?’ growled Vurn. ‘What have you done?’

‘Oh, darling,’ Bettie replied. ‘Why, that’s easy. ’

‘Explain. Now,’ commanded Alzhahn.

‘Show, don’t tell,’ giggled Bettie. ‘Ain’t that what they say?’

A shocking, gloopy noise began to splurge across the path as the men trapped inside the ore started to fall, walk, and tumble out of their cages. Exiting their prisons, they stood tall, staring silently at Bettie as if waiting for a command. Millions of beings began to fill the cavern from all angles. The light from the core dimmed as the settlers piled up, eclipsing it with their mass. So many emerged from behind the group that it began to cut off the path, sealing the way back to the airlock. Elztoria, Mann, and Vurn span around, pointing their rifles at the unmoving horde.

‘Great Terra,’ uttered Mann. ‘How is this possible?’

‘Needed the power! Needed the men!’ spat Linklater. ‘Isn’t that right?’

‘Yes, that’s right, ducky,’ replied Bettie, patting Linklater. ‘Isn’t that what everything is about, after all?’

‘The women, Bettie. What happened to all the women?’ repeated Vurn, spinning to face Bettie. Her rifle was pointed directly between her eyes.

‘No need for them!’ roared Linklater. ‘They wouldn’t listen to Bettie. They only got in the way!’

Elztoria edged forward. ‘You mean they wouldn’t go along with whatever insane scheme she cooked up. ’

‘Not insane!’ replied Linklater. ‘Progress!’

Bettie patted Linklater on his head and stepped forward. He fell on his belly as her legs moved away from him, his head slamming into the dirt beneath her feet.

‘The Monozium offers more than you know. Bringham, Terra; they had no clue. They have wasted it on their weapons and starships. But if they had just looked a bit closer. A little bit… deeper,’ grinned Bettie. ‘They would have seen the truth.’

‘What truth?’ growled Alzhahn.

‘The men here, they understood. The power in the Monozium is astronomical. They just needed a little guidance, that is all. They needed to be pointed in the right direction. They needed direction. They needed me, the right person to give it to them. The Monozium, you see, is a conduit, a battery. It is the lifeblood of reality, but it requires power, and what is a battery without…juice? Once they understood, they were more than happy to give their power up for the greater good.’

‘You trapped them in there? To what end?’ asked Mann.

‘Trapped? No,’ replied Bettie. ‘They all, every one of them, entered on their own free will.’

‘Brainwashing is not free will,’ spat Elztoria. ‘That is what happened. Isn’t it? You got into their heads somehow. You tricked them in there!’

Bettie laughed. It was a dry, deep, throaty laugh, unlike anything she had displayed before. As her body convulsed, her appearance blinked and shifted as if phasing out of reality. For a brief second, the image of Bettie was replaced with a crouching, black creature, its eyes glowing golden and bright. As the sight of Bettie reappeared, the image of its eyes remained, hovering in front of her as if they had burnt their presence onto the world like a screen burn on an old television. Linklater picked himself up and stared at her, a look of confusion forming on his face.

‘B…Bettie?’ he mumbled.

‘Enough,’ stated Alzhahn. He stepped forward.

A flash of light burst across the path, followed by a low thudding sound.

‘No!’ screamed Linklater, reaching out toward Bettie.

Standing in front of the whimpering man, Alzhahn’s outstretched arm held the shamshir, its blade glistening under the hue of the Monozium. Bettie’s face smiled back at Linklater as it rolled over to him, flickering in and out of its human and creature forms. Her body dropped to its knees as a cascade of blood fountained out from its severed neck. Falling to the ground beside her head, Bettie’s body shifted as it bled out, taking on the appearance of the slimy, clawed creature. Its thin, spindly body jutted out at sharp angles along its elbows, knees and ribs where the skin was thin and the bones ascended.

‘Bettie!’ sobbed Linklater in a mass of hysteria and confusion. ‘What have you done?’ he asked, looking up at Alzhahn.

Mann, Elztoria, and Vurn span around the path, sensing the settlers begin to stir.

‘Captain? What is going on?’ asked Mann.

‘I don’t think that was Bettie,’ stated Vurn. ‘What is that thing?’

Elztoria waved her Omni-Vis over the creature’s corpse and stared at the data it returned.

‘I don’t believe it. The readings say that it is Monozium. Pure Monozium. As in, it contains nothing organic at all. It shouldn’t even be alive. It certainly shouldn’t be bleeding. ’

‘That isn’t filling me with confidence,’ replied Mann. ‘What do we do now?’

A miner to the side of Alzhahn stepped forward. The captain watched as he began to spasm and fizz, phasing forms between himself and Bettie like she was a ghost signal, trying to claw itself through static. The man shuddered in place as the woman, unresisted, took control of his body. After a few seconds, the miner was gone, leaving nothing but Bettie. She grinned and winked at Alzhahn as she brushed down her jumpsuit and straightened her cleavage.

‘Now, darling. Did you really have to go and do a thing like that?’ she giggled.

‘Bettie!’ yelled Linklater upon seeing her. On all fours, he scuttled towards her but was quickly pulled back by Alzhahn.

‘Don’t you get it?’ uttered Alzhahn. He slashed the sword at Bettie with his free hand, beheading her once again. ‘That is not Bettie. It never was. ’

As Bettie’s corpse sank to the ground, it morphed into its extraterrestrial form. Linklater looked into the face of Alzhahn, sad and confused. ‘I don’t understand.’

‘Poor ducky,’ Bettie’s voice echoed through the core. Her image flashes across the cavern, possessing thousands of miners and settlers a second. Every letter of her words came from a different position within the planet’s centre, giving it a stuttered, displaced feel. ‘But never fear, your time to be one with me has come. ’

The miners began to step forward, their arms outstretched, their monstrous visages slipping between creature, Bettie, and human with every step.

‘No,’ cried Linklater. ‘You’re not Bettie. I don’t want this! I want Bettie! The real Bettie’ Alzhahn let go of Linklater and turned to his crew. ‘Are you ready?’ ‘Sir.’

Alzhahn nodded his head. ‘Now!’

Elztoria, Mann, and Vurn let loose with their rifles, Alzhahn slashing with the shamshir.

Heads rolled away from the captain as he spun across the path, cutting the creatures down as they came.

‘It’s no use!’ screamed Vurn. ‘The rifles aren’t doing anything!’

Every blast of plasma from the guns bounced off the approaching miners, doing nothing to

stop their descent from the Monozium ore.

‘What do we do?’ yelled Elztoria through the din of plasma fire. ‘Keep shooting? Why isn’t it working?’

‘To Venus with this!’ roared Mann. He threw his rifle at the head of the closest miner, caving in its skull and sending it crippled to the ground as it morphed.

‘The sword, the rifle,’ uttered Vurn.

‘They are Monozium! Maybe they can only be hurt by Monozium!’ responded Elztoria.

‘Worth a try,’ grinned Mann.

‘Take them back to the ore!’ commanded Alzhahn.

The crew nodded, and Mann, Vurn, Elztoria, and Alzhahn ascended. Using their grav-discs to take them above the path, they held themselves in the air and waited for the command.

‘Now!’ yelled Alzhahn, and they flew back down towards the creatures.

Each one slammed into a group of miners, pushing them towards the Monozium ore walling the path, utilising the momentum of their flight to bulldoze them inside. As they hit the ore, the world went black.

‘Now. Now you will see, ’ Bettie’s voice hummed.

Flashes of melting orange and purple oozed through the pulsating black as they floated within the Monozium, holding the creatures in their arms. The visage of humanity had ceased upon entering the ore, and the black, sharp-toothed aliens thrashed and wailed to be set free.

The strange, gritty substance they had been enveloped in slowed the beast’s movements, stopping them from reaching their fanged mouths to the Frumentarii’s throats. Still, the

colours around them flew by at the speed of light.

‘Traverse the Monozium. Witness your reality fold as the new day unfolds, darling.’

As the words pounded through their heads, the crew found themselves spat out of a cluster of Monozium ore. Rolling the beasts away from their bodies, Alzhahn beheaded his and Mann’s while Elztoria and Vurn smashed their creature’s heads with the butts of their rifles.

‘Where are we?’ gasped Elztoria, looking around.

They were no longer in the core of Beherit I. The place they found themselves was bright and cool and filled with strange, pastel-coloured flora. It smelt of burnt rose petals, but the sidings of the cavern were unmistakenly made of Monozium ore. The place dwarfed even the cavern of Beherit I, stretching on as it did for miles upon end, but with beaming sunlight crying down from the open heavens above.

‘Welcome, dear. To the core of Monozium Prime,’ Bettie’s voice sang. Suddenly, she appeared before them, dressed in a short floral dress and sandals. Her hair was braided, and she wore a crown of daisy chains.

‘Explain,’ commanded Alzhahn. Even he couldn’t help but look around, the wonder clear on his face. ‘And Enough with the disguise. We know you aren’t Bettie.’

‘Very well,’ replied Bettie. Her form shifted into a large, muscular version of the creature. It had spiralling horns upon its head and a long, pointed tail that thrashed in time with the swaying movements of its body.

‘Queen…of Monozium?’ uttered Elztoria.

‘Very good,’ replied the Queen. ‘Do you see now? Why all of this was necessary? This is a junction to the stars, where all deep-core Monozium comes together as one. It is connected to hundreds of thousands of other planets across the cosmos. All it takes is the joining of Monozium to Monozium. And you are free to enter. And, of course, power. Lots and lots of charge. Every piece of ore you see here is connected to a cluster on another planet. Interstellar travel in the blink of an eye. It just requires…’

‘Life,’ declared Elztoria. ‘You sucked the life out of an entire planet so you could walk across planets! You turned all those people into those…things!’

‘Correct. Long-term Monozium exposure at that level does invoke certain changes. Wonderful, beautiful changes. Embrace the hive mind, Terrans. Open yourselves to a new, exquisite reality.’

Alzhahn walked up to the Queen and faced her eye-to-eye. ‘This is astonishing. It could change everything we know about…everything.’

‘Correct. And all it takes is the life force of a mere few million of your Terran bodies to power. Or any other humanoid creature, that is. After you change, we could find more species together, others to power the machine. Join us and begin humanity’s journey further afield than you have ever dreamed possible.’

‘Terra will need to be informed,’ stated Alzhahn. ‘Do you understand?’

‘Sir,’ responded Elztoria.

‘They will be very interested in this indeed,’ said Mann. ‘Very interested.’

‘All of these ores transport you to another world?’ uttered Vurn.

‘Yes,’ replied the Queen.

‘I see. Yes, think of the prospects.’

‘And all you need is Monozium from a Monozium-producing planet’s core to pass through. Interesting indeed,’ Elztoria said.

Alzhahn’s fist flexed. The Queen’s eyes widened. A light flashed, and with a wail, the Queen’s body dropped to the grassy floor of Monozium Prime. Alzhahn picked up her head and walked back into the cluster of ore from whence they came.

Upon reaching the surface of Hinom, the crew of the Frumentarii gazed at the giant bucketwheel extractor.

‘What are you going to do now?’ stuttered Linklater.

‘Lansor, requesting pick-up from Landing Zone VII,’ spoke Alzhahn into his Omni-Vis.

‘Roger that, sir,’ replied Lansor. ‘I’ll let Issah know to vacate your chair.’

‘Are you ready, Vurn?’ Alzhahn asked.

‘Sir.’

‘What happened down there? Where did you go? Why won’t you tell me what happened?

‘What did they do with Bettie?’ demanded Linklater.

‘Then bring it all down,’ commanded Alzhahn. ‘Terra will want this place safe when they come to pick up the pieces.’

Vurn pressed a button on her Omni-Vis, and the bucket-wheel extractor roared to life. As the extractor descended, so too did the Amort. The crew stood and watched the beastly machine at work as they waited for pick-up, hearing the screeching sounds of Monozium upon Monozium filling the air.

‘Elztoria,’ uttered Alzhahn.

‘Sir?’ she answered as the Amort began to land.

‘Keep our secrets.’

‘Yes, sir.’

The sound of a blaster rang out, followed by a soft thump before Alzhahn, Mann, Vurn, and Elztoria entered the Amort and returned to the Frumentarii.

NOT PANICKING

“There’s nothing that’s more ambiguous than a gun, right?” This is the question he’s asking me with a smile as he points a gun at me. And for some reason at the moment, I wish that I could say that he was a stranger. I mean, I would assume he's not. I’ve recognized that kind of face before. Although not for any specific reason. Not in any good way or anything like that. I mean, it's just his face. Smiling at me. Pointing the gun at me. I suppose I feel a bit, violated by the whole experience. Just a bit, though.

And I take a moment to feel my pulse. I mean, it feels perfectly natural. It feels perfectly calm. I suppose I do as well. But there's something wrong about that. Something that I don't entirely understand. Something that I would like to entirely understand. I mean, for all I know that gun is even loaded. Stranger could pull the trigger at any moment. It would all be over. I'm perfectly relaxed. Perfectly calm. there's really no reason for me to be at all casual about the situation. Because there's nothing casual about the situation. Aside from the fact that I'm behind this counter on a casual day at work. (I mean, there IS that.)

I suppose I probably feel kind of strange about the fact that I am not panicking at all in anyway. I mean, I probably should be. I should probably feel a little bit uncertain about the whole situation. And yeah, I just don't completely understand it. And I suppose that's probably what I'm telling him right now. The words are just sort of spilling out of my face right now. And I'm sure there's probably some reason why that could be happening. But it doesn't have anything to do with panicking or anything like that. At least it doesn't seem to.

And I'm sure we're almost even having some sort of a conversation. I mean, I don't know what he could possibly be saying in response to what it is that that I'm saying. But then I don't really know what it is that I could possibly be saying either. It's just a weird kind of an echo of an echo of some sort. And I'm not sure what it is that I'm going to be able to do that. Because it really doesn't make a whole lot of sense. And I'm sure none of it really makes a whole lot of sense. It just feels like things are ricocheting around in different directions as he smiles and points this gun at me. I suppose that I'm probably doing something in response to something that he said. But really more than anything. It's just having a conversation.

That's probably some sort of one man standing behind the counter while another man points a gun at him. Like maybe there should be some sort of a transaction going on. But I'm not sure exactly what it is. It's supposed to be going on with respect to that. So I'm just sort of standing here and absorbing the reality of the situation with without really understanding any specific and maybe that's what I'm saying to him. Maybe I'm saying to him that it could not possibly be more ambiguous right now. I mean, I have no idea what he wants. Because I'm not really able to focus on the situation. Because I am too drawn away from the presence of the present to really understand it.

And I suppose he wants some clarification. It feels like I have been clarifying that for quite some time. I've been telling him to the best of my knowledge that it's a situation where I of what's going on in the moment to really understand what he could possibly be wanting. I mean, clearly he's got some sort of an agenda. And he's probably told me that he wants me to do some thing at some point. And I figure that's probably this situation. But I just can't focus on the words. I just can't understand what it is. It's bein and so I'm not really responding to my knowledge in anyway that would be compliant with any of his wishes. I'm not not sure exactly what they are.

I feel like I've expressed myself and clarity as a hand, and I'm not sure what's in the bag. But it occurs to me that it's kind of heavy as I handed over. And I suppose he probably looking inside the bag. It kind of looks like he is. After all, he's standing there with the gun and the gun is still pointed at me. But the other hand and the rest of his consciousness is looking into the bag. He's looking back at me. I don't know that I did what he just told me to do. But I'm pretty sure that there's probably some sort of a reality about the situation that might actually be expressed in more coherent fashion. Just not by me. And certainly not right now. He's looking around a bit. And I think he's probably understanding that things aren't going to quite go the way he's anticipating them going. So I put the backpack under the counter. After all, he put the bag back on the counter. And he's putting the gun away. And he's nodding and waving goodbye. I don't think that I'm never really going to see him again. It's going to be interesting checking the surveillance camera footage. Maybe trying to understand what the hell it was that that was just all about. Theoretically I could get to it before upper management. Maybe it would just be like having washed the footage or whatever. Because I don't know that I would really be able to explain what happened. Because again, I don't know.

And I don't wanna look to upper management like I'm the type of person who would have something like that happened to them without even knowing what it was. So we'll just keep this under wraps. There's no reason why anyone else has to know anything about it.

LONG GOODBYE

The day I said goodbye to Amber was the longest of my life.

I never thought I’d get this attached, but she had that effect on people. Her gaze was perpetually admirable, her poise singular, her demeanor incomparable. She never judged others prematurely, the way most of my family did. A person could learn a thing or two from her, if they’d only look past themselves for a moment.

Ever since I first laid eyes on her three years ago, Amber and I have been inseparable. On countless days, I watched her eat elegantly, with much joy in my fluttering heart. When she’d carelessly frolick in the open fields, I was always next to her side, my warm hand on her loving shoulder. When occasionally she grunted in dissatisfaction, I whispered sweet words of comfort into her dazzling ear, and rubbed her breasts gently until elation enamored both of us. She never confessed her true feelings for me, but she didn’t have to; I did the talking for both of us, each of my declarations to her a proof of undeniable affection. But a romance of our unique ilk was too much for our conservative community to bear. My father watched us from a distance with a furrowed brow, until he could take it no longer.

“People are starting to talk, son. ” He puffed and blew smoke from his antiquated pipe without any consideration for my dislike of the loathsome vapor. “You are to take her away from here. I’ve arranged it already.” He handed me a piece of paper with all the details, and that was that. Had I possessed a stronger spine, perhaps I would’ve put up a fight. But instead, I wept myself to sleep for the next two nights, until the morning I was to part with Amber forever.

The day of her departure, I woke up early and snuck into her quarters before sunrise, while my family was still asleep. We made ardent, sensuous love as the rooster crowed, officially announcing the end of our star-crossed romance.

Hours later, when we arrived at Wild Jack’s Ranch, she walked somberly to her new dwelling. We stopped and took one last look at each other. Her melancholy glare nearly made my stomach turn as I held back tears. I kissed her for the final time, whispering pleasing words I knew she’d find comfort in. At length, she turned and walked away, joining the other cows on the rich green pasture.

BRIAN FOOD

Brian hadn’t taken much interest in his son ’ s studies because his son had. Even as a twelve year-old, he needed no co-sign or over-shoulder. Proud that the kid clearly knew which way the wind was blowing, Brian grew used to prevailing winds and, years later, no longer thought about his son ’ s studies at all. He didn’t ask questions at the dinner table and when his son ’ s exams were discussed he thought about them only fleetingly, saying things like: “do you need more pens?”

One spring evening, however, Brian bumps into a parent at the gas station fretting about tomorrow’s big exam. Brian knew his son had something scheduled but had no idea it was so important. Watching the other Dad (Warren? Wayne?) buy a load of energy drinks and protein bars, Brian, for the first time in years, faces his own dereliction. He must do something.

He unpeels a greasy parcel in front of his son, enjoying first the theatricality of the reveal, then the neat flesh of the salmon, finally his own lecture about the benefits of brain food. But his son doesn’t look touched by the gesture and Brian wonders if he got it wrong; maybe there’s no exam tomorrow. His son bullets towards the door. “You know what salmon does to me, ” he says, “do you want me to shit myself in the exam hall?!” As he charges up the stairs Brian looks at the fish and finally calls after him: “ are you okay for pens?”

THE CADUCITY CLINIC

When I woke up last Saturday, I was 23 years old. The day before that 77. Every day since, something different. They say age is just a number but which one? Who knows what I’ll be tomorrow when the alarm on my iPhone begins to chime. What if I come out of my slumber as an infant, looking for a bottle of warm milk, needing my soiled boxer shorts changed? Could my eyes ease open surveying the landscape of a one-hundred-year life or are these frolics of longevity subject to some limit?

Seven weeks ago, I was sprawled on my tatty taupe Chesterfield couch in the terraced cottage in Stoneybatter that I call home. There were two empty bottles of Westmalle at ease on the wooden floor, to add to the five pints of Czech beer I’d drank down in Mulligan’s. There was nothing much worth watching on the TV now that midnight had been and gone. So I was absentmindedly scrolling Instagram photos of women dressed in the fashion of the 1950s when an advert for an anti-ageing skin cream appeared.

I’m a vain old sort, early-to-mid-forties, in truth, closer to fifty. But I look after myself and I like to think I’ve become more handsome with time. Isn’t there more character in greying hair, a few sharp wrinkles, and a face that looks well-travelled? ‘Rugged,’ that’s what a young woman called me in McGowans a few months ago, ‘ a little like George Clooney.’ Mind you, I think her friend said ‘old enough to be your dad’ but I might have misheard that part of the conversation because the music was much too loud.

I keep my bathroom cabinet well-stocked with beard oil, caffeine shampoo, and tubes of Kiehl’s facial fuel. There’s eight bottles of aftershave arrayed along the top of my mirror, one for each day of the week and two for Sundays. Like my daddy before me, I’ve always been a great believer in looking, and smelling, my very best once the front door slams shut behind me. Anyway, that’s probably more than you wanted to know about me.

It was 3am that night when I woke up on the couch, a crick in my neck from sleeping skewwise. And so, I shuffled off to bed, sending one of the empty beer bottles skittering, scarcely remembering the €42.99 I had paid for the skin cream. A few days later, sipping a cappuccino on Smithfield Square with the graze of a hangover, I was searching through the banking app of my phone. There were two unfamiliar transactions in quick succession, one at 1.03am, the other at 1.07am. It was the exact same charge repeated twice – over €80 in total made out to a vendor called ‘The Caducity Clinic’. I remember squinching my eyes, plucking at a protuberant nostril hair between my thumb and index finger, trying to make sense of the mysterious purchase. And then, that slow-dawning that I could now count myself among the hundreds of millions of people who had fallen prey to an unsophisticated online scam.

What do you in those circumstances but ring the bank, cancel your credit card, and hope for the best? But something else possessed me, a fizzing froth of fury, or maybe just the humiliation that comes from getting hoodwinked. In Google, I searched for the clinic’s name expecting to find articles about others who had been defrauded but I could find only a single reference to the clinic. It included a business phone number and a PO Box operating out of the sorting office on Bannow Road in Cabra.

As I punched in the digits on my mobile, I think I was expecting the whine of a dead phoneline or a voice in a frenetic call centre located on a different continent. What I certainly wasn’t expecting was the aristocratic male Dublin voice that boomed at the other end.

‘The Caducity Clinic, Doctor Dillon speaking. How can I help you?”

Whatever effusion of expletives that had been readying themselves in my cerebrum coalesced instead into a long dull-witted ‘ ummmm. ’

“Hello?” the voice said but it was more like an hullo.

“Emmmmm,” I said. “I wanted to ask about an order I made.”

“And what was your reference number?”

“I don’t think I got one, ” I said.

“Well, your name will do just as well.”

“Lynch, Martin Lynch,” I said.

“Yess. Two tubes of our ageing cream, wasn’t it?”

“Yeah,” I replied. “But I only meant to order one. ”

“That’s no problem sir. We will refund one of the purchases. Do you want to confirm your postal address? X on Y Street, Stoneybatter, D-7?”

“That’s the one. ”

I could hear in the background an old typewriter clacking away like a bird pecking at gravel.

“According to my records here, your package has already been dispatched. You just need to send the second tube back as soon as it arrives and we will process your refund without delay.”

The following morning, I was looking forward to a lie-in. I was on a week off from my council job with well-formed plans for dawdling, idling, watching the horses, and a light sprinkle of carousing. There was no reason for anybody to be knocking at my door at 7.47am but that didn’t stop them. When the racket began, I was thinking it must be a mistake and if I just ignored it, they would go away. But they kept hammering away.

“All right, all right,” I roared as I shambled towards the door in a tattered t-shirt and raggy pyjama bottoms.

“Mr Lynch,” said the postman.

“Yeah.”

“Sign here please,” and he had this glint in his eye like he had taken unnecessary joy in rousting me from the bed. I scrawled my signature, slammed the door in his face, threw the package on the couch, and headed back for my bed. My earplugs were on the side table and I made sure to put them in as I pulled the duvet back over me.

Then, the banging on the door again, me pretending it wasn’t there, it persisting.

“Me again,” the postman chirped, “I forgot to give you this.”

It was the second package I had ‘ordered’.

Maybe it’s just me but there’s a sort of switch in my head where my body makes a nonnegotiable decision that I am awake. So I made myself a nice strong coffee in my French press and opened the first brown packet envelope. Inside was a dark wooden box that seemed of unusually high quality and craftsmanship. If I was a gambling man – which of course I am – I could have sworn it was ebony. The skin lotion was contained in a long silver metallic tube, that put me in mind of an artist’s oil paints. Only the words ‘ageing cream ’ were written on it, in gold serif lettering. There was a small little folded sheet of notebook paper, which when I opened it up, was handwritten.

“Use no more than a pea-sized amount each day,” it said. “If you experience any rash or other skin irritation, cease application immediately.”

I showered first as it seemed foolish to use the cream before I had a good wash. There are few things more blissful than standing beneath a stream of warm water, eyes closed, some tunes playing, crowing along, and in no particular haste. I stayed in the shower right until the hot water began to run out. With a towel around my waist, I tidied up my beard, and then set about pruning the invading army of hair that carries out incessant overnight raids on the nose, ears, cheeks, and eyebrows of all middle-aged men.

When everything was in order, I unscrewed the top of my new cream. It was almost like its scent had been scratching the lid like a dog at the back door on a wet night. Because once it opened, the small bathroom filled up with a musky smell with hints of eucalyptus, hops, and the pine needles of a Christmas tree. Never one for half-measures, I squeezed out perhaps half a tea spoon and began applying it to my face. It created a curious warmth, like the flushing that would accompany a hot whisky drank quickly on St Stephen’s Day in Leopardstown Racecourse.

Nothing more happened but the scent of the cream lingered, and throughout the day, it would catch me pleasantly by surprise like walking past the open window of an artisan baker.

So I kept using it each morning, but applying a little bit more each time. When I looked in the mirror, it did seem as if the lines of my face might have softened but that could as easily have been my imagination. I didn’t bother to return the second tube; it would have been too much hassle and the smell of the lotion, it had almost an addictive quality.

Exactly a week had passed when the first transposition took place. The signs were subtle at first. For quite a few years, my lower back and left Achilles would be stiff in the morning, a painful reminder of playing Gaelic football long after my body was able. But there was a spring in my step that day, like my legs were brand new and my lower vertebrae resprung. I was even able to touch my toes as I stretched, and couldn’t remember the last time that was possible.

My mind felt different too, effervescent and free of worry. For some reason, I felt exactly twenty six years and one month old. There were vivid images of my most recent birthday party, the candles on the cake in the shape of a two and a six, each of them burning bright in my short-term recall. It wasn’t that I had lost the memories of the intervening two decades. It was instead as if they had been put by, in the furthest corner of the attic, available, not terribly useful, but accessible if they were needed.

It was strange to feel so energetic, like filling the tank of a car that begins to spill petrol on the garage forecourt. I changed into my running gear and headed off for a jog around the Phoenix Park. It was something I still did occasionally, rarely rising above a trot, always feeling sore but self-satisfied afterwards. There was a five kilometre loop I would run and in recent years, I’d be happy to do it anything less than 30 minutes. This time when I arrived back, I clocked in under 23 and I felt such vigour that I did another lap, even faster the second time.

Down in Stoneybatter that evening with my old college pal Luke, we sat on a high stool in Walshs, drinking and scoffing Scampi Fries. I was playfully trying to cajole him into going to a late bar but his interest in such nocturnal excursions was well-withered. He had two young kids and a wife at home, plus an early start in the morning to bring them to their hurling matches.

“Did you dye your hair?” he said to me at one stage.

“No, I didn’t,” I replied although I had been contemplating it.

“Looks a bit darker to me. ”

“At least I still have some, ” I said, poking him good-naturedly. But my mind was already elsewhere – out in the smoking section of Flannery’s on Camden Street, or perhaps even the dancefloor.

The morning after, I awoke with my head pounding, not entirely unexpected given the hour I’d gotten home. What was peculiar was how when I first opened my eyes, the bedroom was a little blurry. There was a woman asleep beside me but I found it hard to distinguish her features. I tried to remember her name but the memory seemed misplaced like a book on the wrong shelf of a library.

As her eyes opened, I could sense in them revolt, something much sharper than the typical regret of a drunken one-night stand. She rose quickly, searching for her clothes, dressing herself rapidly, the leg of her jeans getting stuck in the back of her right sock.

“I’ve to get going,” she said, and there was a palpable disgust in her voice.

My mind was still trying to recapture her name. Anna, Áine, Emily … no, that wasn’t right. Next thing, there was the sound of the front door closing. ‘Emma,’ I thought as the neural connection at last fired. It didn’t matter; I wouldn’t be seeing her again.

I was well familiar with hangovers, of every caste and creed. But this was entirely different as I grasped onto the fact that I was now sixty-nine-years of age. My body felt as if a rugby scrum had collapsed on me. All the energy and acuity of the previous day had deserted me. With every step, my body creaked and quibbled. In the mirror, my hair seemed to have gone white as snow and the wrinkles looked like they’d been excavated with a shovel. There were liver spots on my forearms and I was nearly glad my sight had deteriorated so that I couldn’t see them too clearly.

I hardly left the couch all day, watching soap operas and antique auctions I would normally have no interest in. Regularly, I’d find myself dozing off and have to wipe a thin dribble of drool away when I woke. The strangest thing though was the sense that there were twentyodd years of my life that had gone missing.

It felt as if I had ‘lived’ through my fifties and most of my sixties, but when I tried to access those memories, it was like opening an empty folder on the desktop of a computer. It was nearly 4pm by the time I shuffled into the shower, and I thought slow, long, and hard before I decided to apply the ageing cream again.

The transpositions remain unpredictable. Sometimes, I age or de-age just half a dozen years. The oldest I’ve been is 79, the youngest 18. It always switches from one side to the other like a mischievous metronome. Each of those stolen days of youth though is worth at least six in senescence.

Alas, the cream is running low. Each of the tubes is folded over like old toothpaste, nearly every drop of the precious lotion squeezed out. I have tried ringing the Caducity Clinic but the number is out of service now. I have scoured the internet for a Doctor Dillon with a speciality in dermatology or geriatrics but without success. In the sorting office up on Bannow Road, I asked if I could track the owner of the PO Box.

“Nope,” said the man behind the counter and I think it might have been the same fella who took such glee in waking me when the cream first arrived. Tomorrow, I will cut the tubes open with scissors. I hope there will be enough to give me one more day, or two.

WHAT IS THIS THING CALLED LOVE

It’s ashen cold in the defeated city. Swarmcraft dip under the floodlights to scan the litter for the creeping bugs of the fugitives. And Clay Morten turns down an alleyway to make his apartment before curfew, with the sound of Sonny Rollins meandering in his ears. His shoes are plugged with wool, a size too big, a gift from the Plaid resister gang. The flickering strip light illuminates the spiders in the turquoise stairwell. He turns the key and clanks the door closed to his little flat which watches over a derelict supermarket car park. The saxophone cries in E flat minor. He falls asleep in his plastic chair.

Morning is like the sick rush of a hangover, yellow and mocking. There is an idiot playing golf in the deserted estate over the way. The joke of sunlight pours revelation all over the plastic carrier bags holding his clothes and the opened tins of food that should be thrown away. Morten, Clay. Dr. He looks at his ID card in a shaft of sun breaking through the cheap curtains. What a bloody joke now all this, he almost says out loud. Psychiatrist. Haha... ha... Who’d notice another madman round here?

It’s war, of course, it’s war so you can’t complain. You put your boots on and you walk to the depot for your ration. You grumble in the queue and you scan your face on the reader. ‘Bloody seven years now and the front hasn’t moved. Bloody joke these generals. Fucking precious shits don’t want their hands dirty. It’s a war. Scared of fucking UN resolutions. What has the UN ever done to anyone? Swear to god. Christ.’ It doesn’t really help to hear them complain, though you half agree.

When she appears at the reader Morten notices her head tilt to the left in a quizzical way, which he would call ‘oblique’ if he was still a writer. He sees thick black eyebrows. A swarmcraft sings low in the sky outside and it clashes like a seventh chord with the bee hum of the nearly broken readers as she turns from him and exits like a film-star at a gala. What a way to go, Morten would think later.

Now he just freezes like a child being hit as the back of her head bursts open and brains fan out like a kaleidoscope. The memorable CHROOM of detonation fills the world for three seconds. Fuck. April... he retreats through the side door, fast but controlled. He’s seen it before. Why is it always April?

‘Resistance is futile,’ the barman says.

Clay grips his glass like it’s the wheel of a ship. He stares at the barman’s belly like it’s the open ocean.

‘One more edible. Please.’

‘You know, you could do summat with your life if you weren’t down here getting ratfaced all the time. Clay. Not too late for a bloke like you. Eh?’

The barman neatly sets out two edibles and a pack of pork scratchings. ‘On the house.’

‘I am hungry,’ Clay says. ‘Why April?’ He asks, staring through the far-off window at loiterers lost in a sea of fog.

‘Pah... why April? It’s the cruelest! Ha. No idea,’ the barman says.

The loiterers disband and two of them make a decisive move for the pub.

‘I mean, god, for what? Maybe she put some lefty pamphlet through a photocopier or... or chucked some paint at the stars and stripes.’

‘It’s like I said, Clay. Resistance is futile. Every April there’s about fifty detonations in the city. The way I see it, t’s fifty tragedies to keep the peace and we get through the war quicker and cleaner. You remember what it was like before the Americans took over. Bloody chaos. And people say ‘not my President’! If it wasn’t for Mr. Galt, we’d all be speaking Mandarin. Look mate I just don’t want you getting involved in any of that lefty crap. Well... I don’t want your brains all over my bar do I? Eh?’

He pulls open the pack of pork scratchings and takes one out that looks like a unicorn. The loiterers arrive and they move with strange speed towards the bar.

‘Good morning, Mr. Morten?’ One says.

‘Uh... hello? Sorry, do I know ‘

-CHROOM -

The detonation silences the music. And the barman shouts FUCK and retreats to the kitchen where he washes his hands quickly like a haywire robot muttering, ‘Itold’im Itold’im Itold’im Itriedtotell’im...’

The loiterers clear up the official mess and take the photos for the official report.

And the song goes on.

I saw you there one wonderful day

You took my heart and threw it away

That’s why I ask the lord in heaven above

What is this thing called love?

THE CONSTABLE

He opened his eyes and found himself in a round stone pit, under a cone of light. He was naked, some sort of glowing light wrapped around his wrists held them immobile. He tried to move, but couldn’t. ‘What the fuck?’ Noise made him raise his eyes. In the gloom above he could just make out a denser patch of darkness. In the dim light, he made out a pair of scaly hands with sharp black fingernails that gripped the rim of the pit. He gulped. He’d had some pretty weird dreams before, but this took the cake. Chittering slammed into his mind. A moment later he realised it was language and he could understand it. Before he had time to sort it out the ‘words’ captured his attention. We are glad to know you are awake and paying attention, prisoner! Even despite the weird language he could detect the biting sarcasm. Prisoner? Before he could even start to get his brain in gear, other words invaded his mind. This jury has found you guilty on all counts. Finally, his brain and mouth sprang into action. ‘What the fuck are you talking about? What crimes? What am I accused of?’ He shouted out in desperation, but it came out more like a whining plea than a righteous denial. None of this made sense. Ok brain, you ’ ve scared me enough, time to wake up! Earthling, you are sentenced to immediate extermination! EXECUTION TO BE CARRIED OUT IN THREE SECONDS, boomed an electronic voice. More chittering broke out above him, but not talking to him. Were there more creatures? Wetness at his feet told him he was standing in a pool of his own piss. Who cared? He was about to die without knowing why! This was crazy. Had the drugs and booze finally tipped him into madness? Unfortunately, it all appeared so real. Fear set him trembling.

ONE…TWO…

‘Halt!’ This time the word was said out loud, not in his head. He wanted to collapse in relief, but the beam which held him upright didn’t let him. More chittering from above. ‘The sentence will be commuted. If you confess to your offences.’

‘I confess, I confess!’ he screamed.

‘Know, Earthling, this is a reprieve not a pardon. You can redeem yourself under probation if you offer your services. Be quick to decide!’

‘I offer my services!’ he cried. What fucking services? What did they expect? What have I got myself into? Everything went black.

Chapter 2

The next moment he stood under moonlight, two moons, actually. Under his feet was what appeared to be a dirt road? On either side was a forest of some kind. This time he was clothed. He wore a long coat of some animal hide, a wide-brimmed hat, shirt and vest, soft trousers and knee-high boots. Around his left wrist was a metal bracelet which had buttons on it. Weight on his right hip made him pull back the coat. There was a handgun in a holster. He’d never had anything to do with guns or any other kind of weapon before. Gingerly sliding it out, he inspected it. It appeared to be an old revolver which had succumbed to obesity. A bulbous object, yet it fit his hand and wasn’t as heavy as he first imagined. The sight and feel of it sent shivers up his spine. Why did he need a gun? A faint glow came from the end of the road. Gulping down his fear and praying for this madness to end, he began to walk towards the glow. He soon had the gun in his hand again as he heard strange noises coming from the foliage on either side.

Sometime later a small shadow appeared on the road. Gripping the gun, he moved forward to meet it. Expelling a huge sigh of relief, he saw it was just a dog. A small mongrel. ‘You took your time, mate!’ Someone said. He jumped and spun around looking for the owner of the voice. Nobody and nothing, only the dog. ‘You can put the blaster away. ’ He peered down at the dog in confusion. No! ‘Dogs can’t speak!’ he told himself out loud. ‘Maybe not, but I’m not a dog. This is a disguise, see? This is my harmless aspect.’ Shocked, he stumbled backwards and dropped his weapon. This time he was sure the words came from the dog. That can’t be right! ‘But…but...,’ he choked out. The dog bobbed its head. ‘Get a grip, Earthling.’ Paralysed by the impossible, he gawked in silence. ‘Well, better get this over and done with,’ the dog told him. The next moment something else stood where it had been. His legs gave way and he plopped his arse in the dirt, heart hammering wildly. This is insane, I’m insane! A creature like a cross between a big cat and a canine gazed at him. Its snout was long and sported wicked-looking teeth. Its coat had turned to dark red triangular scales. Huge amber eyes glowed in its head.

A long tongue flicked out and licked its teeth. Its size had changed to that of a Shetland pony.

‘Well, say something, human!’ He closed his eyes, bit his lips and dug his fingernails into his palms. Think, think! He begged his shattered wits. What this needs is a bit of Zen, whatever the fuck that means! Just go with the flow. He took a deep breath.

‘What are you?’ he managed. It wasn’t much, but it was a start.

‘I am a Zylexcoc.’

‘You can talk and change shape?’

‘Obviously,’ came the reply, dripping with sarcasm. ‘My species can do that.’ We can also talk mind to mind. He flinched and staggered back as the last sentence slammed into his head. ’Stop, don’t do that!’ he cried, clutching his head. It felt like an invasion of privacy. The creature cocked its head and asked out loud, ‘Earthlings aren’t telepaths?’

‘No.’ He held up his hand to stop it saying more. He had to get a handle on what was happening here, to take charge before his sanity imploded. ‘What’s your name?’ It reeled off a string of incomprehensible words. The letter ‘Z’ seemed to feature prominently.

‘Can I call you Zed? I can’t pronounce your name. ’

‘If you wish. What do I call you?

‘Vic.’ Both of them spoke different languages but understood each other. One of the many things he couldn’t figure out, but couldn’t be bothered with right now. A bad feeling told him he would soon have bigger problems on his mind. ‘What are you doing here?’

‘They sent me here. They said I could reduce my sentence if I helped a human with a task.’ So, his new mate was a convicted felon too. Vic decided to avoid delving into that. ‘Who are ’They’?’ he implored Zed, desperately hoping for answers. Zed seemed to shrug and replied,‘Nobody knows. I imagine it was them that sent you here too?’ There were a million questions to ask, but sensed Zed was as much in the dark as him. The mysterious and allpowerful ‘Them’ had him trapped in this nightmare. ‘Are you ready, now?’ Zed asked.

No, but Vic nodded reluctantly. They set off.

Chapter 3

Not long afterwards they reached the edge of the glow, which was a habitation of sorts. It reminded Vic of a scene from Star Wars. What they could make out under the few lights were buildings moulded out of concrete or something. There were arches, domes and towers. A sign flickered to life. MUTANT TOWN, it proclaimed. Vic’s balls shrunk.

‘What are we supposed to do here, then?’ Vic asked.

‘Use your wrist device,’ Zed replied. It was so light he had forgotten all about it. Lifting his wrist, he studied it and gazed at Zed. One of Zed’s ears bent. Vic began pressing buttons. Nothing happened until he hit the last one. Vic jumped as a hologram sprang out of it. It was a headshot of the same hooded figure that had sentenced him, the hood so deep no features could be seen. BANDITS HAVE TAKEN OVER THIS TOWN. YOUR MISSION IS TO RECTIFY THE SITUATION, it said and winked out of existence. ‘Now you know, chum. You’re an enforcer,’ Zed said and sniggered. A light flashed under his coat and Vic pulled it open. A metal disk was attached to his vest, something he hadn’t noticed before. Strange squiggles on it lit up. They spelled ‘Constable’. Vic’s eyes nearly popped out of his head and the sinking feeling in his stomach got worse. He and Zed stared at each other. His companion’s ears were flat, Vic took it as a bad sign.

They entered the town but didn’t encounter anyone on the streets. The place appeared deserted. Turning a corner they found a large building with a flashing sign above it. THE SOUL EASE, it announced. Vic shared a glance with Zed. At least one place seemed open. They needed information. Zed nodded, ‘After you, Constable.’ The slight edge to Zed’s tone made Vic feel he was being mocked, but he had bigger problems than that petty shit.

The door whooshed open and they stepped into a large open area. The lighting was dim, but they could make tables and chairs, booths around the walls and a circular bar in the middle. Strange, but soft music came from somewhere. All conversation stopped. Vic spied oddlooking people but commanded his eyes to skip over them and his brain not to dwell on it. His aim was for the bar. Despite the fucked up mess he was in, Vic relaxed slightly. This was known territory, a natural habitat for him. A tavern was a tavern, in whatever galaxy.

‘Humanoids,’ muttered Zed, who had reverted back to harmless mode.

The bartender was a bulbous pyramid in form. He frowned down at Zed and turned his gaze on Vic, ‘No animals!’ Vic smiled back and said, ‘You tell him.’ The barman stumbled back as Zed changed into his other aspect, paws planted on the bar, claws showing, muzzle pushed forward, sharp teeth glistening. One hand out of sight, the barman scrambled for something.

‘Stop, Jay-Jay!’ a feminine voice barked sharply. Vic turned and gaped at the vision before him. She was sex appeal personified, like a Barbie doll. No, more like one of those exaggerated cartoons of sexy femme fatales. Ripping his eyes from her curves, he looked into her eyes, which were beautiful. Almond-shaped and of different colours, all three of them! Her tits were a threesome too. One arm was actually a tentacle. She sauntered towards him with an exaggerated sway. Vic was tongue-tied. ‘Welcome strangers. I’m Honey Dickport, the owner of this establishment. We don’t want any trouble here. What is your pleasure?’ Dickport? The name conjured up all sorts of images. Focus Vic, focus! ‘Harmless mode, Zed,’ he muttered. All around the room pent-up breath was released. Glancing down he saw Zed had changed. Vic opened one side of his coat. Honey’s glide checked for a beat when she clocked his badge. ‘’Well Constable, how can I help you?’ At the word ‘Constable’ muttering broke out again and he heard the whoosh of the door a couple of times. ‘Jay-Jay, fix the Constable and his friend something to drink.’ By this time, Honey was close, real close. Determined to concentrate on the task at hand, Vic said, ‘I need information.’ Honey raised her three delicate eyebrows. A drink slid in front of him and another for his host. Zed jumped on the bar to stick his snout into the bowl placed for him. The drinks were a purple colour and smoked. Honey grabbed hers and took a belt. Vic took a sip and rocked back on his heels. It was wicked stuff! ‘What information?’ Honey breathed. ‘We’ve heard a group of bandits have invaded this town,’ he replied, all macho and oozing authority, pretending he knew what he was doing. Honey frowned prettily. ‘It’s about time they sent someone, we ’ ve asked for help enough times.’ Sadly, you got me and a dog/cat-like creature instead, he thought, but didn’t voice it. ‘You don’t have any law enforcement here?’

‘No.’

‘None?’ That queasy feeling got worse as Honey shook her head. She started as Zed asked, ‘How many bandits are there?’ Honey thought for a moment.

‘Twenty or so. Maybe a couple of dozen, nobody’s sure. ’ Vic exchanged a stricken glance with Zed. Fuck! sounded in his head and he agreed. Fighting down panic he asked, ‘Where do we find them?’

‘That’s easy. I’ll show you. ’

Chapter 4

Honey led them through the town, which was as quiet as a graveyard. She stopped beside a crater in the ground, telling them it was where the police station used to be until the bandits came. Vic and Zed eyed the rubble-filled hole with trepidation. ‘Heavy weapons, ’ Zed gulped. Vic shuddered. Just past the edge of town, Honey pointed to a huge cone-like structure. It was standing upside down, the pointed end buried in the ground. Not smooth, it appeared to be made up of rings, haphazardly piled on top of one another. There were lumps and bumps and holes, out of which shone different coloured lights. ‘Don’t go any closer, they have sensors that will detect you ’ warned Honey. Vic and Zed stepped back. After gazing at it in fear for a few minutes, they opted to beat a retreat.

Both he and Zed were struck dumb, but as they headed back to the Soul Ease, Honey happily chatted away. According to her, Mutant Town, which once had another name, was where the government of the planet exiled all the mutants, as it was thousands of klicks from anywhere. At first, it was hoped they would all die out, but that didn’t happen. Mutated, but not stupid, they had found ways to harvest the products of the surrounding jungle and prospered. Now they were slaves to the gang that had captured the town. Whoever resisted was killed. Months ago they had sent out messages asking for help, but they were ignored until Vic and Zed turned up.

Honey offered them a room for what was left of the night and went off to sort out some food. ‘Can’t we run?’ Vic asked Zed. ‘You don’t know much about the Universal, do you?’ Vic shook his head, he was still hoping all this was a vivid nightmare. He didn’t know where the hell he was or how he got here. ‘They won’t let us just walk away, even if we could,’ Zed assured him. The ominous ‘They’ had them by the balls.

‘Do ‘They’ expect us to arrest the bastards?’

‘I doubt that’s an option, my friend. I wish I hadn’t accepted their offer and was safely back in my cell again,’ Zed replied mournfully. So do I, thought Vic and then remembered he had been slated for execution. ‘You can’t even wield any weapons, if we had any, ’ Vic spat out in anger, ‘ you ’ re bloody useless!’

‘Not in this guise. I wasn’t always a Zylexcoc, you know!’ Zed spat back.

‘What!’

‘Never mind.’

‘Any ideas?’

‘No.’

‘Why did they pick you to help me, then?’ Vic whined.

‘For my intelligence!’

‘Shit for brains!’ Zed changed aspect and with paws planted on the table, leaning forward, muzzle agape, snarling. Vic pulled out his gun, which vibrated. Tiny lights on it lit up. He pointed it straight down Zed’s throat. They were interrupted by Honey returning. ‘Now, now boys, sheath those teeth and put that blaster away. No good fighting amongst yourselves. That won’t solve matters,’ she admonished them calmly. After another moment of staring at each other, Zed returned to harmless mongrel and Vic holstered the gun. Honey placed food in front of them. They ate in silence.

‘Well?’ Honey prompted softly. Sighing, Zed questioned Honey about the bandits. Vic kept quiet, he was out of his depth. Apparently, the gang was made up of different species. Honey rolled off a list of beings and Zed grunted. Their craft sat atop the cone. No one knew what was inside. Townspeople had been taken there, but none had returned. Vic only interrupted once, when Honey described an animal the bandits had as a pet. Their idea of fun was to pick a victim, place them in the jungle and let it hunt them down. ‘Sounds like a Veloraptor,’ concluded Zed. ‘Dinosaurs! You’ve got to be joking?’ Vic exclaimed.

‘You have those creatures on Earth?’

‘We did have millions of years ago. They are extinct now. ’

‘What did you do to them?’

‘Nothing! They died out. Nobody knows why.’ Zed’s ears bent in half, which Vic took as disbelief, but the Zylexcoc didn’t pursue it.

‘So, any ideas, now?’

‘We need a bomb, but there are two problems,’ Zed informed him. Vic cocked his head in inquiry. Vic liked the idea of a bomb, it meant he didn’t have to face the bandits. ‘You know how to make bombs?’ he asked in wonder. Zed bobbed his head. ‘One problem is finding the right ingredients, the other is delivering it.’

‘Tell me what you need and I’ll see what I can do,’ Honey told him. ‘It’s best you retire to your room now, it’s almost dawn.’

Chapter 5

Despite his fear, Vic fell into an exhausted sleep. Zed was on the floor next to him on some animal skin rug. Honey woke them with breakfast. She ushered them into her own apartment and told them they should stay hidden during the day. The windows were one-way, she assured them. He and Zed watch the activity of the town. A few of the bandits were out and about, harassing anybody that crossed their paths. Zed reeled off the names of the different species in the street. Most of them, including the mutants, made Vic want to cringe.

Honey brought them lunch and told Zed she had put the word out to collect the required ingredients for the bomb. While she was there Vic decided to question her further. ‘Why here? Why did the bandits take over this town?’ Honey smirked and said, ‘Napa.’

‘I see, ’ said Zed, but Vic was none the wiser. Seeing his expression, Zed explained. ‘Napa is a drug. A hallucinogenic, but not physically addictive. Much sought after, but hard to get.’ Zed turned his head to the smirking Honey as she explained.

‘We harvest it from the jungle. We found the plant it comes from here. We process it and ship it out discreetly. The whole town shares in the profits.’ Vic stared bug-eyed. He found it hard to get his head around it. Supposedly, he had been sent here as a policeman of some kind to defend drug dealers from other criminals? It didn’t make any sense, but nothing else did either. Zed spoke in his mind. Those who sent us must approve or we wouldn’t be here.

Much later that night they slipped out of the back door of the Soul Ease and Honey led them through the town to another large building. ‘This is where we process the Napa. We’ve collected the chemicals you asked for here,’ Honey told them. Inside, the lights were on and someone waited for them. ‘This is Luke, our chemist.’ Vic eyed the mutant, who had a bird-like aspect. Honey made the introductions and Luke led Zed back to a storage room. Vic stayed where he was, gazing at the apparatus around him. Honey left him a moment and came back and placed a tiny cube in his hand. ‘Napa,’ she grinned, ‘Wait until all this is over. ’ She gave Vic a tour of the lab and told him how they processed the buds, which were each the size of his thumb. Zed and Luke joined them, but the news wasn’t good. ‘I can mix up a bomb from the chemicals here, but it won’t be big enough to destroy that cone, ’ Zed told them. Vic felt heart sick and the others were just as downcast too. ‘Can you make a lot of small bombs?‘ Vic asked. Zed’s ears folded forward and he replied, ’For what purpose?’ Vic really hadn’t a clue, but the idea had suddenly come into his mind. ‘I don’t really know, but we need something other than my pistol and your teeth,’ he admitted. Zed looked at Luke, who shrugged. He and Luke returned to the storeroom for about ten minutes. Zed joined them again. ‘I’ve told him how to mix the chemicals and rig up detonators.’

Back at the Soul Ease Honey asked, ‘Well?’ Vic shook his head. ‘Do any of you have any special powers?’ He was thinking about X-men and grasping at straws. ‘Because we ’ re mutants, you mean?’ Honey asked sharply. Vic avoided her eyes and shrugged. ‘No, we are just ordinary people whose genes have mutated.’ Vic felt a bit guilty, but had to ask, didn’t he?

Chapter 6

The next day was a repeat of the last. They watched the townspeople go about their business and the bandits abuse them. The more he saw, the more cowardly Vic felt. He also felt guilty about being so impotent. He wasn’t about to do a High Noon and walk down the main street like a pale imitation of a Clint Eastwood character.

Zed didn’t have any suicidal urges either. He and Zed bounced ideas off each other, but it all came to nothing. Gnawing at the back of his mind was the fear that if he didn’t complete this mission his execution would be carried through.

Honey burst through the door in a hysterical state. Arm and tentacle waving, tears gushing from all three eyes, shouting incoherently. When they had got her calmed down a bit she told them her best girlfriend was going to be fed to the raptor. Apparently, the bandits chained their victims to a stake in a clearing. They released the manacles remotely, so the victims could run, and then they let loose the raptor. They watched the hunt through cameras strapped to the beast. They had snatched Honey’s mate off the street about ten minutes ago. She begged them to save her friend. He and Zed looked at each other over the head of the sobbing Honey. So far, the bandits didn’t know they were in town, but if they took any action the cat was out of the bag. Also, the very real fear of the raptor too. Unfortunately, neither could ignore Honey’s cry for help. Reluctantly, they both agreed to do something.

After talking to someone on her device, she hustled them downstairs and out the back. Two young mutants waited on some kind of hoverbikes. He and Zed climbed aboard and the youngsters zoomed out of town and into the jungle in moments. They followed trails through the jungle at hair-raising speed. Bursting into a clearing they came to an abrupt halt by the sobbing girl. She looked like any other girl, except for the four arms, two of which were chained to a pole.

‘What now?’ asked Vic. There was an audible click and the manacles opened. The girl fell to the ground. One youngster scooped her up and put her on the other bike. Both youths gunned their machines and shot off down another trail. Vic looked at Zed, who changed aspects and said, ‘Turn the blaster to full and wait,’ and slipped into the undergrowth. With a shaking hand, Vic unholstered the blaster and thumbed the dial. He didn‘t know what to do, shit, vomit or cry.

It didn’t take long for the raptor to arrive. It burst from the foliage, skidded to a halt and shrieked. It remained still for a moment and then slowly plodded forward. Shoot the fucker! shouted Zed, in his mind. Vic whipped the blaster up, tried to steady it with his other hand and squeezed the trigger. Bolts of red light shot out in rapid fire. To his surprise the bolts hit the target, stopping the raptor’s advance, but only for a second. It hunched back on its hind legs and sprang. Vic watched in open-mouthed terror.

The next moment, it was knocked out of the air. Vic turned to see the raptor rolling on the ground, over and over, with Zed’s teeth clamped onto its throat. After a moment of shock, Vic ran to the fighting pair and used the blaster whenever he could get a clear shot. The growling of the beast was abruptly silenced by a wet ripping sound. Zed rolled out from under it with a large lump of blood-dripping meat in his jaws. Let’s get out of here! Zed commanded in his head. The device Honey had given Vic chirped. ‘Wait!’ he called. Honey’s voice came through. ‘Take the wide trail. Someone will meet you. Quickly! The bandits are coming for you!’ Vic jerked his head at Zed and ran.

He and Zed skidded to a halt. A young cyclops stood in their way. He gestured into the jungle. They followed his pointing hand. All of a sudden, out of nowhere, a door appeared before them. “Enter. Quickly!”; the youth urged. They descended a flight of stairs and ended up in a large round room. At Vic’s look of inquiry, the boy grinned and said “This is one of our sanctuaries. It’s disguised and shielded. You will be safe here.” Vic slumped to the floor and leaned back against the wall. Reaction set in and he trembled. Without being asked the boy explained that there were several such shelters scattered around. Most of the townspeople would be hiding in them, expecting a bad reaction from the bandits. ‘Who organised our escape?’ asked Zed. He jumped when Zed spoke, but replied, ‘Miss Dickport.’ It seemed that Honey was more than just a bar owner and…whatever.

“Why do you have these shelters?” Vic asked. The boy gaped at him in surprise but answered readily enough. ‘We’re mutants, many people object to our existence.’ Vic felt a little sick. It seemed the wider universe was just as bad as his home planet. ‘You realise we ’ ve lost the element of surprise,’ Zed prompted. Vic nodded, he understood. The bandits would have seen them kill their pet. Pissed off, they would hunt for them. The odds against them completing their mission just got higher.

Chapter 7

The young Cyclops received a message. ‘Miss Dickport says I should take you to her place.’ It was nighttime when they emerged. He led them through the jungle to the town. The town had taken a battering. When they couldn’t find flesh and blood victims the bandits had taken out their anger on their homes. Some were smoking wrecks, and most had holes in them. The Soul Ease was a scene of devastation. Honey and her bartender were trying to clear up the wreckage. Vic felt guilty. She stopped him when he tried to apologise.

‘Gina is safe and most of the people are hidden in the shelters. They are safe, that is what matters. We have the money to repair and rebuild.’

They went into hiding again. For the first time, Vic felt some real sympathy for the people. As mutants, they were marginalised and persecuted. Now they were terrorised by a bunch of murderous thugs. Something had to be done. It had become more than just saving his arse from execution. Later, Honey joined them. Without any ideas on how to proceed, they chatted with her about her life and the history of the town. It was a real eye-opener for Vic. ‘Our mutations are the result of too much solar radiation. It poisoned our genes, ’ she concluded. The word ‘poisoned’ struck a chord. ‘Let’s poison the bastards!’ Vic cried.

‘What?’ asked Zed. ‘You know chemistry. Could you manufacture some sort of poison?’ he urged. Honey and Zed looked at each other and then at Vic. They stared at him as if he was nuts. ‘There are too many to pick off one by one. We can’t destroy that cone and the bandits with a bomb, we don’t have enough explosives. We need a weapon of mass destruction.’ Vic kept talking, ideas suddenly popping into his head. After a while, they both reluctantly came around to the idea. ‘There are poisonous plants in the jungle,’ Honey supplied, looking at Zed. ’I will need to consult with Luke,’ he replied, ‘but there is still the problem of delivery.’ Vic understood it was another stumbling block, but he was determined to find a solution. ‘Honey, is there anyone that has been inside the cone? I need an idea of the layout.’ She thought for a moment and nodded. ‘I know of one person. ’

Chapter 8

Zed went off to talk to Luke. The lab was the processing plant for the Napa and so, hadn’t been touched. Honey organised the secret harvesting of the poisonous plants and talked to the one person who had returned from a visit to the cone. Vic was left on his own. Unfortunately, it gave him time to think about what the hell he was doing. Apart from the fantastic circumstances, he was also planning mass murder! His mind shut down.

At dawn the bandits emerged from the cone, searching for the townspeople, who were determined to stay hidden. They spread out through the town, banging on doors. Small craft flew overhead, broadcasting dire warnings and demanding a return to work. Vic noted that they didn’t venture far into the jungle. It was ironic, but the bandits needed the people to harvest and process the buds for the Napa.

Without their labour, there wasn‘t any drug and therefore no profits. It was a stalemate, but one he and Zed could take advantage of.

Zed returned after dark and reported that it was possible to convert the poison into gas. The first batch of plants had arrived and was being processed. Volunteers were working in the jungle and the lab. Honey came back with a rolled-up piece of plastic, which turned out to be a computer device. On it was a crude graphic of the inside of the cone. She explained what she had been told. The middle of the cone was hollow, except for two elevator beams, one for up and one for down. All a person had to do was step into the right beam to ascend or descend. Vic had the solution to spreading the poison throughout the cone. He told Zed to load the gas into one of the cylinders he’d seen in the lab and rig up a small explosive device to blow off the nozzle.

A couple of tense days went by as Luke and his team worked in secret and the bandits searched for the inhabitants. He and Zed were moved to a safer location on the edge of town. The small bombs were stealthily placed all around the cone, just out of range of the sensors the bandits had planted.

Chapter 9

‘The cylinder is ready, but how are we going to get it inside the cone?’ said Zed.

‘Put it on one of those hover bikes and I’ll drive it in,’ Vic told him. What! Zed responded in his head. ‘That’s suicide!’ exclaimed Honey. ‘She’s right,’ Zed said, out loud. Vic didn’t argue. Despite his opinion, Zed didn’t try to talk him out of it. ‘As soon as I cross the zone covered by the sensors, all hell is going to break out. Alarms and I don’t know what. Set off the small bombs as a distraction.’

‘The gas is compressed under great pressure. It is a mix of the most deadly poisons we could manufacture, given the time. The result of inhaling it or absorbing it through the skin will be horrendous. Once the nozzle is broken it is going to shoot out in force. Make sure you are well away from it before you blow it,’ warned Zed.

‘There must be a better way!’ cried Honey. Both he and Zed looked at her anguished face, all three eyes leaking tears. Zed turned to Vic.

Vic looked at Honey and said, ‘If you can think of one, then tell us. ’ Unfortunately, she didn’t respond. He was surprised by her emotion. They were basically the hired help, sent to fix a problem. Vic realised that under her no-nonsense and hard exterior, she was a caring person. Vic felt a lump in his throat to know someone cared.

‘When do you want to do it?’ asked Zed.

‘Tonight,’ Vic replied.

Chapter 10

In the middle of the night, Vic stood outside the lab, getting instructions on how to ride the hoverbike. It was dead simple. Luke handed over a crude device that would detonate the explosives on the cylinder nozzle. The cylinder was already strapped to the bike. Vic was trying not to think. He was about to put himself in harm’s way. The small bunch looked at him expectantly, as he mounted the bike. Did they expect some brave words? He didn’t have any, he was numbed by the thought of what he was about to do. Good luck, my friend, Zed said in his head. Honey jumped forward and planted a chaste kiss on his cheek. Vic nodded and moved off.

Vic steered the bike through the town, building speed. With the cone dead ahead, he opened the throttle to full. The bike shot forward. Sirens shrieked as he passed the sensors. He aimed for the entrance. Suddenly, bodies fill the space. He ducked as low as he could. The bombs exploded. Vic cut the throttle and the bike ploughed into the bodies, slicing through them. impacting with the bandits sent the bike careering off to one side. The bike hit a wall, bounced off and smashed into another on the opposite side of the floor. Vic was thrown off and rolled across the floor. Head ringing and dazed, Vic still managed to jump to his feet. Pulling out his blaster, he fired indiscriminately in the direction of the entrance. Stumbling to the bike, he wrestled the cylinder off it. It weighed a ton, but he dragged it to the ascending elevator beam and pushed it in. Immediately, it started to rise. A bandit rose in the same beam from below. Spotting Vic, the bandit began to fire at him with a weapon in one of its many hands. Vic dropped, rolled and fired back. The blaster blew holes in it. Vic gaped as it rose, lifeless. The siren suddenly cut out and he heard shouts from above. Looking up, he saw dark shapes in the descending beam. He ran through the gap between the beams, straight for the door.

A wide arc of bodies fanned out from the entrance, some were moving. Vic used the blaster on anything that moved. In moments, he was outside. Still running, he pulled the device from his pocket and pressed the button. He didn’t hear anything but kept running for the shelter of the houses.

Something knocked him off his feet. When he stopped rolling he found Zed standing over him. ‘Did it work?’ he gasped. ‘We don’t know yet,’ Zed replied. They watched the cone from concealment. Faint screams could be heard. Some bandits ran from the cone, others jumped from the openings higher up, but none got very far. When it felt safe, they stood out in the open. Vic was still stunned at what he had done. ‘Not bad for an amateur,’ muttered Zed. Honey squeezed in between them. Her arm went around Zed’s neck, and her tentacle wrapped itself around Vic’s waist. A hissing noise could be heard. It changed to a sizzling sound as it got louder. The cone began to list. The bandit’s craft slid off the top and landed with a crash. Before their eyes, the cone folded in on itself and started to melt. Whatever material it was made of disappeared as the noise got louder. ‘What the hell is happening?’ Vic asked Zed. ‘No idea,’ came the reply. There were gasps as the townspeople came out of hiding and watched. ‘My heroes!’ exclaimed Honey as she squeezed them. She yelped and flinched. Zed had disappeared. She turned to Vic, mouth open. Everything went black.

Chapter 11

Vic came to with a start. It only took him seconds to realise he was in a hospital bed. There were beeping noises and a nurse rushed in. A doctor was called and he was examined. His dream kept revolving around and around in his head as they worked. It was the most vivid dream he’d ever had, although it didn’t make any sense. ‘Well Mr Armstrong, you are fortunate. You have come out of coma without any ill effects, but I would like to keep you under observation for the next twenty-four hours,’ the doctor told him, cheerfully. ‘Coma? What happened?’ Vic asked. The doctor shook his head, ‘Nobody knows. You were found in a comatose state in the street.’ Try as he might, Vic couldn’t recall anything that would account for that. A little later he needed to go to the bathroom. Refusing to use a bedpan, a nurse helped him to the bathroom. On the way back Vic had the urge to look out the window. The view was a typical street scene. A stray dog was on the other side of the street. Funnily enough, it reminded him of the one in his dream. The dog turned its head and looked straight at him.

Vic gasped as words slid into his mind. Greetings, Earthling! They’ve sent me to remind you that you aren’t off the hook yet. By the way, they were quite impressed by the way we handled the situation. Until next time, my friend.

FAKE NEWS INC

It started small, far from what it eventually became a quicksand of lies and secrets. And once in, there was no way out.

It began on the day Ashok came to visit. We chewed the fat for a while and talked about our childhood on the estate and my computer science studies at Uni, but I noticed my pal was strangely quiet.

“What’s eating you up?” I asked.

After hesitating for a minute, he confessed that Prisha, his girlfriend of two years, had just dumped him.

Prisha was a dishy chick with doe-like eyes, pearly laughter, small pointy breasts, and a pert ass. I wouldn’t have minded dating her, but she only went out with Indian guys, and, apart from getting the occasional Saturday tikka masala with Basmati rice and mango chutney, there’s nothing Indian about me.

She was Manish Singh’s daughter, one of the Manchester Indian Association leaders with a lot of clout in the local community. Ashok was in awe of the man because one word from him could make or break an Indian Briton’s reputation. And a comment from Prisha, the apple of her father’s eye, would make the old man jump off the roof of the Gandhi House without asking as much as one question. So, Ashok had a lot to fear if Prisha dumped him because of his infidelity.

“She made a big deal out of nothing,” he complained.

“It was just some innocent arsing around, but she went ballistic and finally told me to sod off.”

“Sod off, then,” I answered. “Or are you so in love that you can’t let her go?”

“Nah, man, not in love. I’m simply in trouble up to my neck,” he sniffed.

“The problem is, she said she’d tell the patriarch, and then I’d be a rotten potato in Greater Manchester and twenty miles around. And if pop squeaks, I’m done sauce. No self-respecting Indian family will ever let me into their house; I’ll stay celibate forever, there’ll be no dowry to pay for an extension on Dad’s conservatory, and my mom will die of shame in the hair salon where she works. I might just as well shoot myself.”

“You’ve got no gun, so you’d better jump into the Irwell River.” I tried to lighten the mood, but Ashok waved his hand desolately and left shortly after.

The same evening, he WhatsApped me a video. It was fuzzy and dark, and I could barely distinguish the back of a slim woman with flowing black hair, naked from the waist up, a white sari around her bottom half, making grunting noises while she was sitting on top of a nondescript guy.

Ashok called a minute later.

“Listen, bro. You study computers at that fancy university of yours. Could you fiddle with the video and make the man under the girl yell, “Prisha!” Like it is her and me, and like I’m coming?”

“Why would I want to do it?”

“Because we ’ re friends? And it would give me something to keep the broad at bay. If I have this video, she’ll keep her gob shut. After that, I can move on with my life. Water under the bridge.” I was quiet for a moment because I thought I owed him. Ten years ago, Ashok bailed me out of serious trouble when we were kids in Fallowfield. After being caught stealing beer from Wasim Choudhury’s corner shop on Wilmslow Road, I still remember the big man ’ s tight grip on my left ear as he took me to the police station carrying the evidence a six-pack of Carlsberg lights stashed in his bag. The thing is, it was my second arrest, so a youth court was inevitable. My desperation was so great that I was prepared to lose my earlobe rather than my freedom.

Eel-like, I twisted and turned, and with my ear still intact but red and swollen, I managed to break free and run straight to the doorstep of Ashok, my best buddy. When the shopkeeper and two cops arrived, Ashok, who’d given me a bag of frozen broccoli florets to help with the swelling, swore I’d been with him the entire time. Red with rage and impotence, Choudhury promised to get me one day, while I made faces at him over Ashok’s shoulder.

Every time I passed Choudhury’s shop for the next two years, I’d pick up a pebble and throw it at the window. I must confess that I’m a vindictive kind of guy, and if it weren’t for the bloody cameras installed all over the place, I would have probably petrol-bombed his shop.

With time, my longing for revenge decreased but never disappeared completely. And I always felt grateful to Ashok for having helped me avoid doing time for a stupid juvenile misdemeanor. As the years passed, my teenage criminality faded into obscurity. I graduated from high school with honors and went on to study computer science at Uni.

“I guess I could,” I said now. “But it’s not her, is it?”

“Of course not! She’s not the kind of girl who likes carrots. All she let me do was play with her titties through the T-shirt! Never managed to get her knickers off. But that’s not the point, man. I just want something to keep her quiet and to stop her from being such a freakin’ obnoxion.”

The video lasted about twelve seconds, and in the eighth, I added an extra sound using Power Direct Pro 365 video manipulation software. Amid the grunting, the man lying quietly beneath the slim woman screamed a joyful Prisha! It truly was a piece of cake.

I sent Ashok the video, and I uploaded it to Twitter that same afternoon. It received hundreds of views in half an hour and was retweeted numerous times. I watched the re-tweet rectangle explode, and the comments underneath became increasingly scathing, both from people who knew Prisha and those who didn’t. Prisha had become a trending topic by the end of the day.

Was I surprised by the success? Hell, no! Statistics say that, compared to traditional media, news can circulate around the globe in about thirty minutes. Fake news spreads six times faster than factual information.

I watched the process with clinical interest because the phenomenon has always fascinated me.

By midnight, Prisha closed her Instagram, Snapchat, and Twitter accounts. By dawn, she was dead. Ashok called me early in the morning, his voice heavy with panic.

“She killed herself, dude! She did, the daft cow! Can you believe it, man? She just went and killed herself!”

It was odd. Instead of the same panic that honed his voice to a scalpel-like sharpness, I felt a stirring in my gut like the sensation you get when your belly is full after you ’ ve eaten an extra-large portion of burger and chips and you begin to dream about touching Angelina Jolie’s bajingo. In other words, it is watermelon sugar, as Harry Styles would say.

“Calm down, man. You didn’t do anything wrong. It’s not your fault,” I said.

“I never wanted this to happen. I just wanted her to keep her gob shut, that’s all. But if her old man thinks I had something to do with it...” Ashok was half crying, half choking.

“Don’t you do anything stupid! Erase the video, reformat your phone, or even better, get rid of it. If someone asks, deny everything. You know nothing at all.”

“But you do believe me, don’t you? I never even sent it to her, and I didn’t upload it either! Someone must have hacked my phone!”

I imagined him all wonky, sniffling, and wallowing in self-pity instead of feeling sorry for the dead broad. I tried to reassure him that everything would be fine.

“Calm down, Bruv. It’ll blow over in a couple of days.”

I was right. At the inquest, the coroner declared it was death by suicide, and Prisha was cremated with a ton of white calla lilies, her reputation tarnished beyond repair.

Old man Singh was tearing his beard out with shame, hair by hair, while I watched the funeral procession and the display of grief at the Blakley Crematorium, feeling nothing at all.

Ashok never contacted me again to talk about the whole incident or anything else. For him, the entire affair was indeed water under the bridge, or rather, “dead girl six feet under.” And so was our friendship, because I held the key to the closet where he kept his skeletons.

You could ask why the hell I posted the video. My answer would match George Mallory’s when, in 1924, he was asked why he wanted to climb Mount Everest. Because I could. Because I felt like it. Because it gave me a buzz. Mallory never made it to the summit and simply vanished in the blizzard. I, on the other hand, got a result beyond my wildest expectations. It was supposed to be an experiment. I was dabbling in messing up someone ’ s life and never expected Prisha to Kobain herself. But it proved that fake news was a powerful tool, a kind of virtual monkey wrench I held and could use to my advantage and other people’s harm. It fired me up and gave me a sky-high boomwha like nothing I could think of, not even my wet dreams about Angelina Jolie.

And my friendship with Ashok? Screw it. I paid my debt to him, and that’s that. I never thought Prisha would go and take care of herself. Collateral damage both Prisha and my relationship with Ashok.

I wasn’t after fame or newspaper headlines. Instead, I liked being a master puppeteer, an éminence grise whose identity was unknown to everyone. I enjoyed pulling the strings from the backstage shadows.

From my gaming days, I remembered a quote from a real-time strategy game, taken from “The Art of War” by an old Chinese military strategist, Sun Tzu: “Be extremely subtle, even to the point of formlessness. Be extremely mysterious, even to the point of soundlessness. Thereby, you can be the director of the opponent’s destiny.”

And that’s who I was a modern-day Hitchcock who wrote the script for the slasher but never got blood on his hands. I was formless, mysterious, and soundless, directing my opponents life. And sometimes... death.

After Prisha’s kamikaze act, I decided to rekindle my all-but-forgotten war on Wasim Choudhury rancor was still smoldering under the ashes of the past. All I had to do was poke a little at the embers and revive the sparks.

Nothing occurred to me for a while. Choudhury was a good citizen. His most serious transgression was spit-polishing the occasional Granny Smith or handling crumpets and scones with ungloved hands. When he was not selling Mars bars and Juicy Fruit, he’d sit in front of the shop and finger the 100-beaded Misbaha, mumbling God’s most beautiful names for hours on end. And he was social media illiterate, without a Twitter or Instagram account. I checked.

But I didn’t have to wait long for the opportunity to fall into my lap in the unlikely figure of Ariana Grande, or, rather, of Salman Abedi, who detonated a homemade device at her concert in the Manchester Arena. The bomb killed twenty-two people, mainly kids and youngsters, and injured over five hundred. Abedi also blew himself into the sky. For his Intihar, he was supposed to be rewarded with the company of seventy-two virgins who waited on him hand and foot (although I really doubt that they could find either his hands or feet after the blast).

You might ask: What does Ariana Grande have to do with Wasim Choudhury? Everything. The moment I saw the headline “Manchester bomber carried bomb for hours in blue suitcase” under Abedi’s picture, I knew I had Choudhury in my net (or Internet).

The shopkeeper was a proud father of two strapping boys: 23-year-old Ahmed, whom I vaguely knew from Uni, and Hamza, a riotous teen who used to play football with my brother John.

It took me barely twenty minutes to hack Ahmed’s Instagram and download a picture I photoshopped, adding a large blue suitcase the replica of the one Abedi had lugged around Manchester for hours. Using a fake account, I posted it on Facebook. I tagged some people from the university and some neighbors from Fallowfield, and then I sat down with a beer and salt-and-vinegar-flavored crisps to wait for results.

People who grew up with the Internet know what it means for something to “ go viral.” The photo went viral and spread like wildfire in the Australian bush after a yearlong drought. By the end of the afternoon, dozens of people had gathered in front of Choudhury’s shop with clubs and stones, and within ten minutes, no window remained intact. Inside, orange juice and clotted cream blended with squashed bananas and hot cross buns.

An unidentified 23-year-old was arrested in South Manchester on Tuesday in connection with the bombing, as reported by the press the following day. Police also said they had executed two search warrants, including one where they conducted a “controlled explosion ”to gain entry to the search site.”

It didn’t matter that they eventually let Ahmed go. After being arrested under the Terrorist Act, Ahmed endured a harrowing 14 days of interrogation about his connections to the bomber. And Dad Choudhury had to abandon the shop and Fallowfield because no one wanted to buy cigs and booze from a man whose son might have been involved in the deaths of twenty-two innocent people. And while I remained formless, mysterious, and soundless, the game was over for Choudhury and his clan. Checkmate.

As I finished talking, I looked around the room. A guy by the door wore a dark, well-tailored suit. From where I was sitting, I caught a whiff of the rank smell of a secret service agent. Across the table sat two men in uniform whose grades I could not establish, but I guessed they belonged to the military’s upper echelons. The woman sitting next to me was Big Boss’ chief advisor and lover. She was dressed in a somber black dress with a string of pearls.

The Big Boss sat at the head of the table, smelling of Acqua di Gio and his ego. While I talked, he nodded occasionally, and the lump in his throat slid up and down as he swallowed air. His skin was blotchy, with orange spots. Moisture dewed the unnaturally short patch of flesh between the upper lip and the nose, and the heavy-lidded, slanting eyes suggested simian cunning. While I could read the expressions of the military personnel and the woman, as well as get inside the mind of the secret agent, the Big Boss gave no indication of what was going on in his mind. He didn’t give off any vibes.

“When I came here, you asked: Can you and will you help us win this election by whatever means it takes?” I replied, looking directly at him.

He didn’t blink.

“To be honest, I told you how I got to where I am and how I don’t give a damn who gets hurt along the way as long as I obtain the results I want, so draw your conclusions.”But let’s say you still require a straight answer. In that case, I’ll spell it out: Ladies and gentlemen, Manchester Analytica is at your disposal. Let’s do it. Let’s win this damn election. Even if it means trampling on the opponent and hanging him out to dry, I can produce fake dirt on the man himself, his drug-addled kid, his wife, and even his long-dead grandmother. Because all that matters is the power of fake news. ”

I was out of breath as I finished.

Everyone in the room was silent, eyes fixed on the Big Boss.

And then he spoke.

“That’s a fabulous guy we have here,” he said, beaming at me.

“The type of guy I like”

“This guy will help us turn it around, and we will start winning again! We are gonna win biggly! We’re gonna win at every level! We will keep winning, and it’s gonna be fabulous! Fantastic! We will win so much that we’ll get tired of winning. And when we win, we’ll make the other guys squirm!”

“Bob’s your uncle,” I thought.

“The Big Boss has spoken. The fake news contract for the elections is mine, and I am a rich guy. Now that there is no way out of this situation, I’d better plod on. ”

THE BLACK KIMONO

“Or, to be more precise, since I kicked him out?”

The room was hot and dusty. No one had come in for a while to air it and tidy things a bit.

“How long it’s been since Victor took off?” Juan thought.

“At least a year. Maybe even longer,” he answered himself mentally.

A black kimono with vivid yellow and green circles was casually thrown onto a wooden hanger suspended from the top of the wardrobe. The fabric was shiny, soft, and smooth. Juan didn’t know much about fabrics - that was a woman ’ s thing - but he believed it was called silk.

He remembered watching a documentary on Discovery Channel about how silk was made in China. He found the process cruel and disturbing. The filament in the cocoon had to be extracted in one piece, so the hard shell was first removed by dipping the dormant bug in boiling water or baking it in hot air. The presenter explained that more than three thousand insects had to die to make two hundred grams of silk, which is why it was so expensive.

He shuddered at the thought of billions upon billions of those little buggers dying so that someone could wear a pretty blouse or a scarf. Or a kimono like the one on the hanger. “One might say they are only insects, but still...”

Sweat pearled his forehead and dripped down the back of his shirt. He rose from the bed, his right leg tingling from sitting on it for almost an hour. He limped across the room to open the window. A warm breeze wafted in and moved the kimono sleeves. They fluttered like enormous butterfly wings, moved by the souls of the thousands of silkworms that had gone into making it.

He winced. Butterfly. He’d been told that that’s what they called Victor the Butterfly. Because of the tacky clothes, the outrageous make-up he wore, and the hair color.

Neighbors, nosy and ill-intentioned, never failed to alert him when they saw Victor walking on the central roundabout, which was famed for transvestites, streetwalkers, and other “freaks,” as they told him. Whenever he listened to such gossip, he would keep his face deadpan; not a muscle would twitch, and his mouth would set into a disdainful line. He’d say nothing in response. He would walk away, his back ramrod stiff, head up, eyes fixed forward, never on the ground or the gossiper. He knew he was the laughingstock of the neighborhood, which was mostly made up of former soldiers and their families. Sergeant Juan Gomez, whose only son was not only a fagot but a fagot who dressed like a woman, wore a wig, and sold his body to the highest bidder, he thought they whispered. Or maybe not even to the highest bidder, but to anyone at all.

Victor had been born just before Juan left the army a late and entirely accidental addition to the family. Ema, Juan’s wife, had always said that with four daughters, they’d better close the factory, shut the oven tight, and spend their time and money on the already large brood. And then, unplanned and nearly unwanted, she was with child, and Juan was delirious with delight when he learned it was a boy. His own boy. Ema could dress up her girls like dolls in lace and patent leather shoes, plait their hair, paint their nails, and buy them Barbies and little prams. He would have a son with whom to go to Sunday football matches and do all the stuff that fathers do with their sons, like buying electric saws, fixing faulty sockets, watching action movies on TV, and talking about politics.

But it never happened. By the time he was six, Juan knew that Victor was different. The football they gave their son for his fifth birthday was as new as the day they’d bought it. The boy took it out of the box and left it under the bed in his room. Instead, he was fascinated with Nelly’s dolls, their youngest daughter’s toys, and their fancy wardrobe. Instead of going out to play on his scooter and climb trees, he spent hours watching Francisca, the eldest, who was 16 at the time, put on makeup in front of a mirror.

Juan caught him several times dipping a finger into a jar of strawberry gloss and sucking on it secretly. There were signs, of course, but Juan could not bring himself to believe that his son was a “marica” who wanted nothing to do with boys’ stuff and dreamt of girls’ hairless armpits. Things like that didn’t happen in a soldier’s family. All of Juan’s seven brothers either joined the army or the Carabineros, the uniformed police, and fathered a good number of kids among them. It was not possible that out of the whole lot, it was he who’d drawn the short straw and got punished with a boy who wanted to be a girl.

He tried to ignore it for many years, as long as Victor made at least some pretense that he was a normal, if somewhat effeminate, teenager. At 14, when he was finishing the 8th grade, and the other boys in his class opted for carpentry and electronics, Victor said he wanted to be a beautician.

Juan totally lost it.

“Not a chance! No man in this family has ever messed with anyone ’ s hair or nails, and that’s not changing anytime soon!”

He was really annoyed while Victor just stared at him with a smirk on his face.

“Try to stop me. I dare you, ” he said after Juan finished his rant.

“You can’t leave the house until you pick a new career, ” Juan spat out.

Victor stood up from the chair and strolled over to his father. They were close, just inches away from each other. Juan could feel his son ’ s warm breath on his face.

“Just try to stop me, ” the boy hissed.

Juan’s fist caught him squarely on the nose. Blood, red and thick, burst out like juice from a squashed tomato.

Dazed, Victor stared at him. He didn’t see this reaction coming. His dad had never touched him before. He had no idea Juan could be so violent. Yes, he was a soldier, and sure, soldiers do some nasty stuff, but they never take it out on their families. His dad was always nice to his wife and the girls. And Victor. So, the unexpected wave of brutality really threw him off.

He watched the red droplets fall to the floor in slow motion, splatting heavily, and then raised his gaze to his father, who seemed as horrified as his son was.

Juan was relieved because, eventually, Victor came to his senses. He said he’d study mechanics and seemed to enjoy it quite a lot. He even tinkered occasionally in their old Honda CRX and took his sisters for a spin around the neighborhood.

But it didn’t last. Nothing good ever lasts. A few months later, Victor’s enthusiasm waned. He started skipping classes and coming home late, and Juan worried he was getting involved in petty robbery or something worse, like drugs. He was morose and answered back angrily when questioned.

And then came the day he’d arrived home early. The middle of winter - the rain was pouring down as if there were no tomorrow. And there wasn’t at least for him. Although it was barely three o ’clock, it was dark because of the low clouds. The girls were still at school, and Ema was nowhere to be seen.

“Ema! I’m back!” he called.

“Can you get me a towel? I’m soaking wet.”

There was no answer. He saw a spear of light sneaking out from under their bedroom door. Ema was probably sleeping. It was the perfect weather for an afternoon nap.

He pushed the door open and came face-to-face with…someone.

Something someone he knew to be Victor but not the Victor he loved. Not the Victor in a school uniform with a backpack full of books and ham and cheese sandwiches. Not the Victor who sat with them at the table, eating his mom ’ s fried chicken and laughing at his sisters’ zits.

This something, this someone, this new Victor was wearing a blond wig, a short dress, shiny stockings, and high heels. This person had put on garish makeup with dark purple eyelids, false eyelashes, and swollen red lips.

“Dad… I didn’t expect you so early,” this someone whispered.

“I...I...Let me clean up, and then we can talk,” this someone continued.

Juan took one giant step and stood in front of this someone. He tore the wig off his head and threw it onto the floor.

“Five minutes,” he said.

“I’ll give you five minutes, and you must be gone. ”

Although the wig was no longer on the boy’s head, this someone still did not resemble his son.

“Dad…” he pleaded.

“Five minutes. No more. Get your things, and once the door closes behind you, I never want to see you again.”

Juan’s chin shook with rage as he pronounced the sentence.

This someone who was and wasn’t Victor picked up his clothes from Juan and Ema's bed and proceeded to gather his belongings.

Juan stood with his back to the living room when he heard the house door close with a soft click.

Half an hour later, Ema came in and found him standing in the middle of their bedroom, with the blonde wig at his feet and her makeup bag all messed up on the bed.

“Where’s Victor?” she asked, but she already knew the answer.

“What have you done to my baby? Where is he? What have you told him, Juan?” Her voice was shrill and drilled into his consciousness.

He started at her.

“You knew, didn’t you?” he asked.

“Of course, I knew!” she screamed.

“I knew, and I didn’t care! He’s my baby! No matter what clothes he wears! A body is just a body nothing else! Inside, he is the same loving and kind person he’s always been!”

She looked at him through her tears, hoping he would understand.

“But he is no longer mine,” Juan spat out.

He left the room and, on the way out, kicked the blond wig as if it were its fault for what had just happened.

He never saw Victor again, nor did he ask about him, but his neighbors made sure he should know. They told him Ema let him come to the house when Juan was at work.

Then, one Friday evening, when he came back from the strip center where he worked as a security guard, he got the news. Even before he put the key in the keyhole, he could hear the crying. He pushed the door open. Ema was sitting at the table, her face swollen and red, with three of their daughters around her, trying unsuccessfully to comfort their mother while apparently dealing with their own grief. Francisca, the eldest, was away studying to be a nurse. Nelly, the youngest, barely out of her teens and not much older than Victor, put a reassuring arm around her mother’s shoulders.

Ema looked up at him and yelled, “It’s all your fault! It’s all your fault!”

She screamed, expelling the kind of sobs that made her whole body tremble and distort her voice.

He closed the door gently and approached the table.

Ema was looking at him with a kind of hatred he had never seen before dark, unforgiving, unyielding.

“You killed my child!” she spat out.

“If it weren’t for you, he’d still be alive. But you made him go away! It was as if you killed him yourself.”

The four women looked at him with eyes filled with grief.

Juan sat heavily on the chair opposite Ema and said, “Tell me what happened.”

Ema was breathing heavily like a poisoned dog, with weird hiccups coming out of her throat together with words dripping poison.

“He left because of you! You could not accept him as he was. You… Juan Gomez, a soldier and army man, could not have a gay son. You felt ashamed of him, which is why he left. But that’s what you ’ re good at, right? Killing. That is what they teach you in the army. ”

She hiccupped again.

“How to torture and kill.”

Her words were like daggers, piercing Juan’s heart more painful than any physical wound could hurt.

“I hate you, Juan! I hate you! You killed my only son, ” and then she burst into prolonged and inconsolable weeping, wreathed by her daughters, who must have felt the same wrath because they didn’t defend him.

He tried to hug her as she sobbed, telling her that he had not wanted anything like this to happen, but she wriggled out of his arms and fled, seething in her grief and anger.

Later that day, already dried-eyed, she watched him punch holes in walls and throw a chair into a window, but she did nothing to stop or console him, although he was like an elastic band being stretched too far.

The following day, a guy in the homicide squad told him that Victor had been found in an alley behind the local supermarket, where all sorts of hobos, druggies, and other losers used to hang around.

“I know it’s gruesome, but you need to know. It was a hate crime. A knife was stuck in his chest, which is likely what killed him. His face was badly beaten, with almost no teeth left,” the man told him, without any anesthesia.

“But the really bad part is that his panties were around his ankles. His cock had been viciously slashed, and the word ‘maricon’ carved in his left thigh.”

There was no sympathy in the man ’ s tone.

“Someone treated my poor kid worse than dirt, but for him, it’s just another murder. Another pansy killed for trying to pass for someone he was not,” Juan thought, but then remembered how he treated Victor, who was, after all, his son.

The same guy told him a family member had to identify the body. He could not let Ema see Victor, so he said he’d do it.

Victor was lying on a metal mortuary slab covered by a white sheet. The doctor, a skinny, tall guy with straw-yellow hair and glasses in thick frames, pulled back the sheet.

“I’m so sorry, ” he said. “I’m so sorry. ”

“Maybe he is sorry, or maybe it’s just the words he says to everyone, ” Juan thought.

He nodded and approached the gurney. He knew it was Victor because they had fingerprinted him and matched his identity to one Victor Gomez, aged 17, son of Juan and Ema. And thank God they did because he’d have never recognized Victor by his face. Although someone had washed off the crust of blood, it was just a mass of bruises: the nose completely broken, fragments of bone-like white thorns poking through the skin, the eyes swollen and shut tight, and the toothless mouth folding inward. There were still traces of earth on his chin.

“The mask of an Aztec god of sacrifice” crossed Juan’s mind. He had also learned it from a Discovery Channel documentary. Itzpapalotl, or the “obsidian butterfly,” because he was as black and shiny as the volcanic glass. And so was Victor now his face was black with a few punctures of violet and blue, but mainly black. Juan had never seen anyone as damaged as Victor.

Well, maybe once before. A long time ago. He remembered another boy, a prisoner not much older than Victor, whom he had driven to a big house in the foothills of the Andes. It was rumored it was a spot where anyone who went against the military regime faced some pretty awful torture. They said there was this lab where this dude, who ended up dead in Uruguay, was messing around with sarin gas. They also said that Gringo, a pretty chill and good-looking guy, was putting together bombs to take out some big shots in Buenos Aires and Washington.

Meanwhile, his wife and kids slept upstairs right over the cellar where all the creepy experiments were happening.

It was just before Christmas, and the big house was festive with colorful ornaments. A big pine tree stood right by the entrance. A small, pretty woman had just driven up the slope in a yellow Volkswagen Beetle and was blocking the entrance to the cellar.

“You and the tree are on my way, lady. Can you move your car, ” he barked at her.

He could see her eyes were flinging thunder in his direction. She was debating with herself, looking for the right words or maybe a curse, but she said nothing, jumped into the vehicle, and moved forward.

Juan had just left the kid there, fully aware he’d get grilled and likely wouldn’t make it out alive. She totally did, too the cute, petite woman whose husband, the chill Gringo, let them use the cellar and sometimes even participated in the questioning.

He was spot on two days later, he got the order to collect the body and toss it into the river. He’d done this kind of thing before.

He could still picture the kid’s face from when he left him in the big house and how it looked when he tossed the body into the river. Just like his son ’ s, it was Itzpapalotl the shiny, black obsidian mask of the sacrifice god—big and swollen. The kid was naked and covered in bruises that looked like tattoos. All he had on was this stringy bracelet wrapped around his right wrist. His skin was starting to puff up, and the string was digging into his wrist pretty hard. Juan was aware that he shouldn’t leave any noticeable marks, but no matter how hard he tried to remove the bracelet, he couldn’t because it was embedded in decaying flesh. He just left it on.

For years, he could not erase the picture from the canvas of his mind. It festered as though he were infected, and no matter what he did, he couldn’t shake off the feeling of disgust with himself. But they say that time heals, and gradually, the memory resurfaced only occasionally. He was able to push it to the darkest confines of his brain, but this time, looking at Victor, it came to haunt him again. Two obsidian masks one his son ’ s and the other the boy’s both led to their execution.

And he was responsible for them …Ema was right. Had he not kicked Victor out, he’d still have been alive. Had he refused to take the other boy to the big house, he’d have been alive, too. But times were different then. And besides, he was a soldier. He’d been given an order, and even though he knew he was taking the boy to his death, he obeyed.

The only difference between the two young men was that Victor would get a proper burial, accompanied by his grieving family. For the other young man, there’d been no fond farewells or grand send-offs because his body was dumped into the river, most probably floated into the Pacific, and was devoured by fish, bracelet, and all.

“There’d been at least five more I took to that house. Strangely, he could not picture any other faces, although he knew that the house at the foothills of the Andes had spat out several corpses in different stages of decay. And he, Juan, made the same trip to collect the bloodied remains on several occasions. But now, nothing came up. Not a single face apart from the boy with the red bracelet.

When Victor’s burial day came, he said he’d not go. He didn’t really belong there if he went, he would feel he was seeking validation, pity, forgiveness, and love which, of course, he was, but he was not willing to admit it even to himself.

Instead, he watched from afar, unseen. If one didn’t count the priest, there were only five people at the graveside Ema and the four girls, dressed all in black, supporting each other, crying into their handkerchiefs, searching for meaning in their desolation while the priest said something cliché like, “He is in God’s arms, his sins are forgiven and forgotten,” and all that Catholic mumbo jumbo Ema believed in.

There was a strong smell of freshly mown grass and wet earth, which brought to his mind the memories of their holidays in his parents’ house, out there in the sticks, where two lazy creeks flowed together, forming one rushing river. His parents’ house had smelled like that of wet earth, grass, and wood smoke from the clay oven. They had been happy then. Ema helped his mother chop chilis, coriander, and onions for the spicy sauce they would put on the slightly scorched bread freshly taken out of the oven.

She’d scratch the red and blue bandana around her head, catching the sweat pouring

down in the heat, and flash him that easygoing smile from back in the day.

“Pretty hot out, huh?” she’d say, not bothering to wait for him to answer. She kept chopping up the red, green, and yellow chilis, their pungent smell making his nose twitch. The girls were hanging out, playing the usual games little girls play, while Victor, a chubby two-year-old, was sleeping in his pram under the vines. Yeah, good times until something messed with the kid’s head and totally changed him for good.

He left abruptly, just as the mechanical platform began to descend with an eerie groan followed by the sound of dirt falling onto the coffin. There was no reason to remain.

A depressing void met him upon returning home. Ema and the girls would probably stay at the cemetery. Perhaps they’d never come back. And he deserved it. It was his fault that his son and another boy died.

He sat on Victor’s bed in his room, watching the black kimono flutter its butterfly wings. He couldn’t take it any longer, and like the day he learned about Victor’s death, he vented his wrath on inanimate objects. He stood beside the bed, his arms lifted almost on their own accord. He raised one of the cushions and felt its weight. It appeared to be filled with stones. But he knew it was the weight of his conscience that had soaked into the cushion through his palms.

He flung the pillow onto the floor, punched the wall, and ripped the kimono off the hanger. He didn’t want it here anymore, but he didn’t want to destroy it either; it still smelled of Victor, or rather, of The Butterfly, Victor’s alter ego. The smell was musky and spicy, similar to that of his mother’s chili sauce. He knew that if he tore it to shreds, he would kill the last vestige of his son.

There was a charity shop in the strip center where he worked, and he could just drop it through the slot. People left unwanted clothes, books, and other things there. He’d just leave it there and then try to forget and move on. Like the time he tried to forget the boy with a rotting body and a red bracelet.

ATALANTA

The kingdom of Boeotia was in a state of pure joy at the news: the prodigal Princess Atalanta was to be married! Her father, King Schoeneus, was so happy to announce the news most thought him giddy as a child, sacrificing at every temple in the land for the last three days as thanks. Atalanta herself hadn’t been so visible, rumors even going so far to say she was brooding over having to marry her husband-to-be, Hippomenes, a man whose sweet nature and loving demeanor won people over wherever he went. He’d already openly pledged to love her forever, an attitude that’d made the princess the object of jealousy amongst women everywhere, and his further vow to shower her with affection and gifts every day for the rest of their lives had earned the ire of their husbands. Yet, despite the mixed reactions, as the day before the wedding slowly turned to dusk, the feasting and drinking most households were indulging in to honor the occasion began to drown out the misgivings.

In the palace itself, the servants were buzzing with excitement as they prepared for the ceremony, draping garlands and rushing orders to the rooms filled with distinguished guests who’d be attending the ceremony, while the guards patrolling the grounds did so under heavy orders from their sovereign: “Nothing must interfere with the wedding; no excuses will be accepted.” Thus, they made sure to sip their wine and not be drunk no matter the temptation, and their senses were keen throughout the night. Schoeneus himself was currently locked in his chambers with Hippomenes, enjoying a small feast and a generous amount of wine with his son-in-law, the servants under orders not to disturb them for any reason, although more rumors abounded over what they could be discussing.

As for Atalanta herself, she was in an ugly mood. Her mind had been so uneasy as of late, what with having to marry someone she couldn’t love, even if he did constantly profess affections for her. The entire day she’d barely touched any food and found wine almost undrinkable, something which most interpreted as excitement over her nuptials. In truth it was the opposite: she couldn’t help but feel like a fool, an attitude she’d had the entire time since she’d been “found” by her father, a coward who’d cast her into the wilderness at birth for not being a boy. She’d been saved by a she-bear, who’d raised her for years, and then found by a band of hunters, who’d taught her life’s greatest passion: the hunt. On one of her treks through the woods, she’d met the one true love of her life, Prince Meleager, when she’d stopped him from killing a bear, whom she considered a brother.

They’d been drawn to each other through their love of the hunt, fallen hopelessly in love during their quest to kill the Calydonian Boar…and then his own mother murdered him to keep her son from marrying someone she didn’t approve of (she’d later died in her sleep suddenly; Atalanta saw it as the Olympians delivering justice).

Heart-broken, she’d found herself the most famous woman in the land—and suddenly finding her father making overtures for her to return. It seemed like things would heal between them, but there was no way she could love another man, despite the violent entreaties from the many admirers who came to meet her from all around. They all praised her beauty, but their flattery meant nothing to her, and she always sent them off with nothing…until her father began pestering her to marry. He was relentless, begging her all day and night, regardless of her constant refusals. She knew, being 19, she was far older than most women when they married, but her heart was forever locked in Meleager’s arms, and she’d never let him go. However, her father’s persistence wore her down, and she decided to placate him with a proposal: whoever could win a footrace against her would be her husband; if the suitor lost, he also lost his head.

For several weeks, she’d outrun every man who’d challenged her, causing many suitors to give up immediately…and then Hippomenes challenged her. He was handsome, charming too, but she only found his attentions irritating when he took his place at the starting line. Yet, somehow, while racing down the path, she kept getting distracted by golden apples he threw every so often, each one filling her mind with memories of her beloved Meleager. The last one he’d thrown had given her a vision so wonderful it’d left her in tears, so consumed by her soul mate’s loving embrace she never saw or heard Hippomenes finish the race. In fact, the only reason she knew what’d happened was when the vision suddenly halted, courtesy of her father demanding she greet the man she’d marry, smirking the entire time. She’d then turned to see Hippomenes grasp the hand not holding the apple, kiss it, telling her how much he loved her and wanted to be with her forever and felt sick to her stomach.

People were talking up a storm everywhere after it, some laughing about her “frustration”, others bragging about how she’d “finally be civilized”, and still more muttering “she’d be put in her place soon ”…all of which still echoed in the halls. The maids assigned to her had been putting makeup on her the last few days, bathing her in fine oils and dressing her in fine linen, all under the pretext of giving her a “royal appearance ” , and some were even trying to teach her to sew and maintain a household.

She couldn’t stomach any of the lessons and barely tolerated being painted and swaddled in clothes that felt suffocatingly foreign, but one thing did happen earlier that day when she went to the temple of Artemis, where she was expected to perform a sacrifice in honor of her wedding. As she approached the door, a soft yet potent voice in her mind told her, “Stop. Heed my words and you will find true peace. I will blind the eyes of those with you so they will not see you return to the palace; in turn, wait for my instructions tonight, and you will learn something important.” Amazed, she’d then seen all those in visual range suddenly find their eyes glazing over, not noticing who was around them or even being aware of their own existences. Not wishing to offend the speaker, she’d quickly rushed off, reaching the palace in no time, slipping over the wall using a secret spot she’d found that let her reach her room after a hunt (which she hadn’t indulged in since the races) without being seen. The attendants came back hours later, buzzing about the “lovely sacrifice of the princess”, convincing her a higher power was at work.

Therefore, she wandered the halls, waiting for the voice’s next command, her mood souring at the continual whispers/insults all around her, including a few nastier ones from the distinguished guests, which her keen ears discerned from outside their rooms. Her heart was pounding with rage by the time the voice came back, commanding her to turn to the right, where she found an empty storeroom, close the door, and bar it. Doing so, she was then told to climb out the window and listen to what was above her. Heeding the orders, she slipped out onto a small ledge and looked up, gaping as she saw the balcony outside her father’s chambers. She couldn’t hear anything, so she climbed up to another ledge just above her…and could clearly make out her father and Hippomenes talking. “A fine day it’ll be tomorrow,” the former gleefully declared. “At last, my bloodline is secure. ”

“With all due respect, great king, is that all Atalanta is to you?” Hippomenes demanded.

“I have no other children, and I need an heir,” Schoeneus growled. “Why else would I bring that girl back into my home?” He coughed, and then added, “Bear in mind, you also promised you would provide heirs.”

“You’ll have your heirs, great king,” Hippomenes snapped. “But Atalanta isn’t useless to me; she’s everything, and I want to love her and make her happy every day, something you could never understand. With me, she’ll never want for anything: fine clothes, perfumes, oils, servants, jewelry…whatever she desires will be hers.”

“She can’t run a house,” Schoeneus scoffed. “What kind of man wants that?”

“She’ll have servants to do the cooking and cleaning,” Hippomenes insisted. “She won’t even have to hunt again; servants will do that, too. I want to be sure she never lifts a finger for the rest of her life she’s endured more than anyone should ever have to.”

Atalanta’s heart nearly stopped beating over such a horrible life. How could anyone wish to put her in such a position? But it only got worse when her father laughed. “Always the sentimental one, ” he sneered. “Perhaps you ’ ve told her the only reason you won the race was because you cheated?” Silence greeted that declaration, and Atalanta had to remind herself to breath at the words. “The priests at the temple of Aphrodite told me yesterday about the prayer you offered before the race, as well as the goddess herself presenting you with those three golden apples, all meant to distract her with images of her ‘precious Meleager.’”

Atalanta’s hands shook in outrage, and Hippomenes’ next choice of words didn’t help: “It was the only way I could win, since no man could win a footrace against her. But, if memory serves me correctly great king, you swore an oath to behead anyone who lost why haven’t you fulfilled it?”

“Because, as far as I’m concerned, you put that conniving brat in her place,” Schoeneus laughed. “It’ll serve her right for thinking she could win a war of wills against men like us. ”

Unable to listen anymore, Atalanta slipped down the ledge and back into the storeroom, where she spent several moments trying to control her racing heart…and wanting to kick herself for being such a fool. How could she have trusted a man like Schoeneus, who’d clearly lost no sleep betraying her again? And how could someone like Hippomenes, who claimed to love her, want to take the hunt away from her? It was the one true passion she could hold onto, something her beloved Meleager had understood; in fact, the day he died, he’d vowed that, for every day they wasted in a palace the two would spend weeks together, chasing down prey and letting the wind wipe the sweat from their brows! The thought of her soul mate brought a fresh wave of anger to her heart, namely when she remembered the apples, which were still in her room (“a symbol of Aphrodite’s blessing”, according to Hippomenes), and the images they’d conjured of her beloved’s embrace and loving heart…all one manipulative lie!

She took a quick breath, sent profound thanks to the voice for the enlightenment, and pulled open the door. Heading down the hall, she climbed up towards her chambers, ignoring more insults as she finally reached her destination. Throwing open the door, she was shocked to find her maids standing before her, welcoming her in with deep smiles. Confused, she noticed many kept glancing over their shoulders, and her eyes went wide at what she saw a multitude of gifts from their distinguished guests, all for the wedding. The maids eagerly greeted her and chattered about how excited they were for the coming day, as well as describing every gift in detail: cooking utensils and sewing kits for preparing her husband’s meal and mending his clothes; exquisite perfumes, oils, and makeup to entice him to bed; soft linens for their marital chambers; rich clothing for her new life as a wife and mother; fine wines for both the occasion and her wedding night; the intrinsically woven dress and veil she’d wear for the wedding tomorrow, hanging next to her bed; and, finally, a special gift from the king in the form of a baby’s cradle, complete with toys for a baby boy.

The women cooed and smiled about having “such a loving father” and how fortunate she was to be marrying “ a sweet man ”…but Atalanta saw nothing before her but insults and disgraceful lies, especially when her gaze happened upon the bowl next to her bed, where the golden apples lay. Her brow furrowed and her mouth flattened, but another sight sent shockwaves through her: the chest in the corner, which contained her hunting gear, now bore a chunky lock over its latch. “What is the meaning of that?” she angrily demanded of the closest maid.

Recoiling at the venomous tone, the woman swallowed before pasting a smile back on. “Your father has decreed the chest’s contents are to be presented to a guest, a man who has expressed interest in owning the belongings of the soon-to-be former huntress.”

Atalanta’s temper hit homicidal levels, but another maid, an older woman who seemed to enjoy treating her like a child, placed her hands on the angry princess’ shoulders and soothingly whispered, “You won’t need them as of tomorrow, young princess. Your husband will provide all you need. The only worries you’ll ever have will be to handle his home and raise his children.” Removing her hands, she waved two maids over, one carrying a jar. “Now, it’s time for your bath, your highness. We have something special ”

“Leave…all of you, ” Atalanta growled.

Her tone stunned the room, but not everyone took it seriously.

“But we ’ ve got your bath ready,” the older maid gently protested. She walked over and took the jar from her cohort, turned back, and added, “Your husband-to-be sent this especially for you ”

Atalanta’s hand lashed out, knocking the jar from the maid’s hands. It flew into the wall, where it shattered, slowly dripping oil into a puddle next to the fireplace. “I’m not going to tell you again,” she snapped. This time, the maids took the hint and frantically ran out, leaving Atalanta to slam the door and throw the bolt. Taking a second to get her breath, she took in the gifts, as well as the oil pooling by her foot…and felt like a stranger visiting a foreign land, so out of place it was unnerving. In that instant, she knew what she had to do. First, she lifted her eyes skyward and whispered, “Lady Artemis, for I feel it was you who spoke to me, I thank you for the enlightenment and for giving me a new path. From this moment until I die and am reunited with my beloved Meleager, I will live for one thing, always in your name: the hunt. No man will be my husband nor possess my body or heart, and I will never voluntarily see nor speak to Hippomenes or the king who calls himself my father again. Also, as thanks to you, my lady, for giving me this path, when I cross the border of Boeotia I will hunt the greatest hind around, bring it to your closest temple, and sacrifice it to you, keeping nothing for myself. I swear this in your name, my lady, and I beg your forgiveness for being foolish enough to have been led astray.”

Lowering her eyes, she pulled off the signet ring the king had given her as a symbol of “returning to the family” and threw it in the chamber pot next to her bed. Next, she tore off every scrap of clothing she wore, pulled out all the pins her maids had been weaving into her hair, bundled it together, and threw it in the fireplace. From there, she went over to the bowl with the apples, lifted the entire piece (being careful not to touch them, since doing so caused the visions of Meleager to return), and threw that in the fire as well. Then, she pulled down the wedding gown, went to the chamber pot, emptied her bladder/bowels into it, used the gown to clean herself off, and threw the dress in the fire with the rest. Afterward, she grabbed the fine linens meant for her marital bed and went into the next room, where the tub awaited. Stomping into the vessel, she immersed herself completely, scrubbing her body/face/hair of all the oil, perfumes, and makeup with as much vigor as her skin could take; she secretly despised all of them, since the first made her skin feel clammy, the second smelled awful, and the third made her itchy as well look foolish. Rising from the water, she got out of the tub, grabbed the linens, and used them to dry herself thoroughly, making sure to get all vestiges of what she’d worn off before heading back to the bedroom, where she added the cloth to the fireplace too.

Turning to the locked chest, she grabbed the poker next to the fireplace and used it to snap the lock off the latch. She then grabbed the veil meant for her gown, used it to wrap the lock in, and threw the bundle in the fire too. Returning to the chest, she lifted the lid, a smile coming to her lips as she took in the sight of her familiar gear and armor. First, she pulled out the underclothing, which she’d bought with her own money before coming to the palace but never worn, and pulled it on. Second, she dragged out her tunic, a refitted design meant for a man, put it on, and grabbed her boots and greaves. After sliding those on, she put on her bracers, caressing them the way she always did before a hunt, and then the greatest armor piece inside: her cuirass (breastplate), made of the Calydonian Boar’s hide, which she’d meticulously tanned and recut. Impervious to arrows, swords, and slings, but lighter than air, it was a prize for any hunter, and she buckled it on, the power of the animal surging through her veins the moment it settled.

Before she put anything else on, she pulled out a small box, which contained her most valued possession: a golden necklace with a golden heart dangling, the latter bearing the symbol of a bow and arrow. It’d been given to her by Meleager the day he died, and was more precious to her than life itself. She caressed it with her fingers, feeling his heart merging with hers, then plucked it out and fastened it on, vowing never to take it off for the rest of her life. After taking a second to tuck the necklace under her cuirass, she pulled out her helmet and put it on, adjusting the strap before drawing out her weapons: three daggers, a small axe, her xyphos (short sword), the elaborate bow carved for the Boar’s hunt, and its matching arrow quiver. “Hello, my old friends,” she whispered reverently. Strapping everything on (and loving the familiar feel of them), she added the protective waist guard to her cuirass (a separate piece, also made from the Boar’s hide) and three pouches, one for foodstuffs, another for money (still holding some coins too), and the third for water.

Standing, she felt her old self returning, confidence brimming inside as she moved around a little to reorient herself in the ensemble. Nevertheless, once she was comfortable, she headed to the nearby window, which she knew led to the outer wall of the palace…but stopped to look back at the room and its contents one last time. All the finery would make some other girl happy, but she was Atalanta, and no one would take that from her. Smiling, she grasped a hold of the window and eased her way out, her practiced stealth as great as ever. Slipping down to a ledge, she watched as the guards’ patrol (which she’d long memorized while bored senseless in the palace) passed by, and she hurriedly dropped down and crept over the secret spot on the outer wall.

Again, she timed her movements to the patrol’s route, then quietly dropped to the ground and ran, her movements lithe yet as silent as a cat. #

The next morning, Schoeneus awoke, deeply hung over, and found himself alone; the discussion between himself and Hippomenes had gotten heated at one point, and the latter had stormed out. Undaunted, he soon heard a pounding on his door, which turned out to beAtalanta’s maids, who relayed what’d happened last night, as well as their charge’s room was locked and they needed to prepare her for the wedding. Irritated, he called several guards and ordered them to smash down the door, a sight that caused an alarmed Hippomenes to follow, terrified for his intended. The sight they found when the room was finally opened was horrifying: the items smashed/burnt up in the fireplace (long gone cold); the bed not slept in; the bath half full but with water all over the floor; the chest, opened and emptied; finally, worst of all, no Atalanta. When Schoeneus learnt this, he immediately a full search of the palace and surrounding grounds, but found nothing; a follow-up of the nearby urban/village spaces was just as inconclusive. However, Hippomenes was practically incoherent, taking to his room and weeping for hours over Atalanta’s absence; his mourning was so great the palace guests complained to Schoeneus, who told them the princess had apparently fled and the wedding would have to be postponed until she was found.

Sadly, hours turned into days as Schoeneus, Hippomenes, and even the honored guests (namely the one who wanted her armor) searched the entire kingdom for Atalanta; every citizen capable of doing so adding their efforts to the search too, since they refused to believe she’d just vanished. Unfortunately, all efforts were in vain, since her hunting skill was so great none could track her, and Hippomenes resorted to praying at the temple of Aphrodite every day, begging his patroness to bring her back to him. His efforts were equally in vain, since Artemis had convinced Zeus to make Aphrodite stand down; her grounds were that, since Artemis so rarely had a favorite, it would be inappropriate. Moreover, the mistress of the hunt then slipped into Boeotia in disguise and spread whispers of the truth regarding the race, just like she’d done for her favorite, and soon the people turned against both their king and Hippomenes.

Undaunted, Schoeneus vowed to bring his daughter back no matter the cost, a large part of which was due to prodding from his guests. He therefore searched his kingdom inside and out for over a year, with the forced aid of the public, but found no trace of her. However, his actions spurred rage amongst his subjects, and a rebellion broke out when his guards got a little rough outside the temple of Artemis. In a conflict which lasted three months, Schoeneus was forced out of power and fled into exile, where his former guests awaited him; he expected welcoming arms, but the only ones present were lethal ones, and he found himself cut down for failing to deliver the armor as well as for being such a failure as a king and father. In the Underworld, for the crimes of mistreating his daughter, breaking a solemn vow, and tyranny, he was sentenced to Tartarus. His punishment: alongside Meleager’s murderous mother, he was to be torn apart by the bears who’d raised Atalanta for all eternity.

Hippomenes wasn’t about to give up the woman he loved so quickly. Despite his floundering reputation, he vowed to find her and convince her to love him even if it took the rest of his life. Gathering his belongings, he set out after Atalanta, only to find his path being constantly led astray by false leads planted by Artemis. Aphrodite, in a dream, warned him not to proceed any further, but he refused to listen, heading into a mountain pass in the north of Greece…where he was set upon by bandits and slaughtered. In the Underworld, he was given passage to Elysium, but told he’d never be allowed to see Atalanta again. Crushed, Hippomenes was given permission by Zeus to be born again, and this time allowed to find a new soul mate. His memories of Atalanta were dutifully erased, he was reborn, and finally able to give his love to one who’d return it.

Atalanta escaped far to the north, making sure to fulfill the promise of a sacrificial hind to Artemis first, and then set off on a series of hunts that earned her more fame than she could’ve possibly imagined. She ended up being propositioned by literally dozens of men, but maintained her chastity despite their most generous offers. Along the way, she taught hundreds of young women the value of the hunt as well as how to establish their independence, saying how they didn’t need men to make their lives complete. Her teachings created an incredible following, earning her the title “Lady of Independent Thought”, a moniker which lasted throughout her long life. As she lay dying many decades later, her final request was to be cremated wearing her armor and weapons, and have the ashes scattered to the winds so that her essence would never die. Her loyal followers did so, but Artemis, mourning the loss of her favorite, did one better, transplanting her hunting ferocity into the mightiest hunter of beasts: the lion.

In the Underworld, Atalanta was immediately reunited in Elysium with her beloved Meleager, and it was said their meeting was so intimate the fates themselves blushed. Artemis herself made a pilgrimage to the Underworld every year on the date of Atalanta’s death, where she and her favorite discussed hunting in great detail for the rest of eternity.

THE RINGS OF NEPTUNE?

So why am I here?

For twenty years I’ve wandered these streets like an exile, wondering why I’m alive. Any business – well, any legal business – round here stopped years ago. The store-fronts that aren’t shuttered are looted: the only thing moving is the tick of a traffic light at a road nothing passes through. This place is empty – except for me.

I’m looking for my mother. Traces of her, at least: I never knew her. A transitioner fostered me from age two: they liked the idea of parenting until they found out how much work it meant. After that it was fifty hundredths on the kitchen table every morning for lunch, at least when they had money.

Those fifty huns went on junk food til I worked out you could use money to get people to do things. After I got that down at age ten, I left school in the rear-view mirror and started scamming.

So yeah, I can’t read or write – but who reads anyways? Everyone just watches shit on their holos, those holographic tablets we all have. You need a holo just like folks used to need smartphones a hundred years ago.

I eat out of dumpsters, fighting with rats and dogs for scraps. Like my mother, I got into drugs. Or should I say, back into drugs. I was born addicted, after all. Maybe it was my destiny, like something out of old Hollywood. My dessss-tiny, in a deep, growly-man voice. Whatever.

My dealer’s name is Sister F. Why is she called Sister F? Fuck knows. Actually, maybe that’s why she’s called Sister F. Sister Fuck Knows. For sure, no-one knows where she comes from or where she gets her supply. Of course, it’s all synthetics these days. Could come from anywhere – Mexico, Amsterdam, the Moon. They have chem-ops on the Moon. It’s the interstellar addict Klondike up there.

Anyway, right now I’m headed to see Sister F. She lives in one of those ancient places. You know, when they used to build using natural materials cos that was the right thing. Before everything went synthetic – and not just the drugs. I mean the buildings, the air, this whole shitty world. When I get high, I close my eyes and wonder if everything is as hollow as it seems.

I run up the stoop to Sister F’s door, hanging off its frame like a stroke victim’s jaw. Inside the door, there’s the real door: one that’s got a spyhole and a low drawer to push the money in and drugs out.

She flips the spy-hole and looks at me. From that one bloodshot eye I can see she’s been using. I hear bolts getting undone, then she opens the door and drags me in.

“I told you: not during daylight!”

She smells of mouldy walls. Her skin’s cracked, wrinkles on her ears even. But those bloodshot eyes shine like the satellites I see floating far above. She’s got a dirty wool poncho on – must have liberated it from some dumpster.

“I know I shouldn’t come now. But I want to talk” –“Bullshit. You want to use. ”

“Use – and talk.”

“But you got no money. ”

I look into the interior, murky except a couple of bars of sunlight sneaking through torn curtains. There’s the table she peddles from, thick with tobacco ash, spent plastic pods littering it like shrivelled molluscs. In the centre, a hand-held quant-comp for encrypting deal payments with suppliers and users, plus her holo. It’s switched on but nothing’s showing.

“What you watching?”

I try to keep the need out of my voice lest she charge me double.

“Just tripping through space and time. When you ’ re as old as me, you’ll realise how little we knew all those years ago. Still do.”

She smiles, skin crinkling up her weathered-leather face. “As a former teacher, I know a thing or two.”

“What you talking about?”

I want a fix. I don’t get why she’s rapping about being a teacher. I hate teachers, all of them. Nothing I need from them and their lessons.

She shuffles over to the table.

“All knowledge is a question of perspective. Correspondences.” She rummages on the table, tosses a couple of ampoules at me. “Here. On the house.”

I catch the two amps out of the air and look at the light-brown fluid pulsing under thin plastic. I can tell it’s synth – too runny to be real. But it’ll get me there. I push my thumbnail against the plastic covering and slit it, synth oozing out behind my nail. Then I stick the amp in my mouth and suck hard.

Right away I taste honey and fire, a buzz that spreads through my throat up to my brain. I sit down on the beat-up couch by her dealing table.

“Um… hello? You still there?”

I nod, head drooping forward.

“I want to talk about my mother.”

“What about her?”

“You knew her. What was she like?”

Sister F picks up some rolling papers. Jesus. She’s going to roll an actual joint.

I’d never seen anyone do that before. She digs the tobacco out of a blunt, mixes it with green and puts in the middle of a cigarette paper, rolls it. She sticks it in her mouth and pulls out a tiny splinter with red stuff on the end, then runs the splinter along her quant-comp’s keyboard til it catches fire and she sparks up.

“That’s a match. Ever seen one?”

“Nope.”

“Anyway. Your dear Mama wasn’t exactly a prude.”

“I know. She was a junkie who sold herself for drugs. That’s how I got here. Son of some John without a rubber. But who was she?”

Sister F takes a deep draw on her joint.

“I told you. All knowledge is perspective. Watch this” –

Sister F takes another drag, exhales. She fires up her quant and hooks it to her holo-tablet. Above the table, a blue orb starts spinning, five moons circling it in different directions.

“See that? The planet Neptune. Or at least, Neptune when I was a little girl. But lookee here” –and she hits a key on her quant. The blue orb pivots so we ’ re above it, the five moons still circling only now from a different angle.

“Can you see them?” she asks, taking another draw. By now I’m so buzzed I would say anything. This synth was bomb, no question. So yeah, I said I could see it. Even if I’m fucked if I know what “it” is.

“Those rings”, she says. I can tell she’s high too, eyelids drooping. “The rings of Neptune. Noone noticed them because they weren’t looking. They were trying to find out about the atmosphere, rotation speed, all that.”

I looked again and saw them: skinny bands of light stretching between the poles of the sapphire planet, thin like a spider’s web, so thin if you moved you missed them.

“So what?”

I’m starting to fade out. If I keep chatting shit maybe she’ll give me another freebie.

“So everything we know depends on how we look at it. We will find what we need, even if we aren’t looking for it.”

“Right. And what does that have to do with Mum?”

Sister F takes a long draw, then crushes her joint into the ash pile on the table. A fine shower of sparks flies up, creating a tiny mushroom cloud that flecks the pillar of light shining through the broken curtain.

“They called her a junkie. But she was a seer. She had second sight.”

“A what?”

“A seer. A visionary. That’s how she got hooked. She knew what was going down. She told me one time supercomputers would control everything – and those who controlled the supercomputers would keep all the money and food, to hell with the rest. Fast forward twenty years and guess what?”

Sister F raised her flabby arms. “Here we are, baby!” She hacked out a bitter laugh. “We strugglin’. At least, you and me is strugglin’. The rich is probably on their own planet! But you were your mother’s blessing. And she figured the best way to protect you was to give you to someone who had more than her.”

I’m rattling. Ten minutes and I’ll need to bump.

“How did she die?”

“She took a bad hit with a dirty needle, got sick like they all do. You were a tiny thing. A year maybe. She knew what she’d done, bringing you into a world like this – and she couldn’t live with herself. Especially cos you’d been born, you know –”

“Well, like I said. Everything is a question of perspective.”

I stare at her. She just told me Mum was a junkie slut, now she’s on about perspective. Sister F stands up, shuffles toward me. I get up and put the other ampoule in my jeans. My life blows hard enough – I don’t need no more badness.

“Thanks for the bump. Gotta bounce. Make some credits, get me?”

“Wait. Look at those rings. Can’t you see?”

I can’t see nothing, just those tiny slivers of light circling a hologram. And only if I look really hard. I turn back toward the bolted door.

“Wait! You need eyes to see and ears to hear! Your mother is here! She died, but she lives inside you. You have her gift!”

Tears start tracking down her cheeks.

“I remember last time she held you. She said she would always be with you, no matter what. Always guiding you. And given all this” – she waved her hands around again – “the endless war, the fear factories, all of it – her spirit wants you to leave. Can’t you see? Get out of here!”

I clock Sister F up and down: her filthy clothes, those ropes of grey hair. Teacher, my ass. She peddles dope, pure and simple. I walk back through the door into the city, its grey clouds and dishwash-weak sun.

As I’m leaving she yells something about reading books and getting an education. Fuck that. She was right about one thing, though: I had to get out of here. Maybe Mum had been with me all along.

Out on the street, I’m looking for dumpsters to dive, something to sell.

There’s one just half a click from the thruway where rich folks drive their maglevs. If they want to dump stuff, that’s their spot.

I make it to that dumpster. It stinks like unwashed underwear. Now I’m coming down, so I slit the second amp and lick it out. I feel the hit that it gives and roll my eyes to the sky before I dive the dumpster.

As I look up I see a woman ’ s face up in the sky smiling down. Maybe it’s the mother I never knew. She tells me there’s something in there that will change my life so I flip my body into the stinking filth.

When I get inside, I see rats running for cover, shit you can’t tell what it is like sludge everywhere – the usual. There’s garbage bags semi-floating in the sludge sea. It’s dark so I spark up my holo and it lights up a ghost-shadow circle.

On my right, two ripped-up garbage bags – rats got there first. In front, a bust-up chair – also useless. I’ve got about a minute before the stench makes me heave. There’s a box. Always good, cos boxes usually hold stuff. I shove the chair out of the way and crawl over heaps of crap to get to the box. It’s made of wood – even better.

Inside I find sixteen red books with gold lettering on the front. I haul the whole box, heavy AF, across the sludge and into fresh air. Then I climb out, pulling the books out to clock them properly. I ain’t seen a book since I quit school.

The words on the side say The Wonderland of Knowledge. I look inside the first one:

The Wonderland of Knowledge VOLUME I

Published

by

William Heinemann

and

Company

London, Sydney, Toronto and Melbourne.

AD MCMXXXVI

Whatever that last bit means. Some kind of code. I leaf through.

Lots of words so small you can hardly read. Every few pages, a colour picture of an animal or mountain or leaf: you get the deal.

I turn round – someone ’ s there, and they look like me.

Girl or boy I can’t tell: fat puffer jacket with the hood up, skinny grey jeans and beat-up boots. Poor, hungry and hooked on amps – just like me.

“What you got?”

A girl’s voice.

“Nuttin’. Jack shit in there.”

She pulls down her hood and I see she’s bout my age. Long, greasy, dirty-blonde hair, china eyes. She smiles. Teeth in worse shape than mine – black and tarry, white bits with broken ends.

“Got a smoke?”

I shake my head.

“Want one?”

I nod. She pulls two vapes out her pocket. As I draw, I taste sweet apples and honey, and look up at the dull sky. Then I shine why her teeth are black – cos she loves the vape too.

“Bet I find something good in there. Watch this.”

She takes a huge draw and hands me her vape, then blows out smoke that smells like fruit. She writhes into the dumpster, not hard cos she’s even skinnier than me.

I hear her clatter around. While I’m waiting I open another red book. A picture of some African guy wearing a white suit and medals and jewels. He has a beard and a white cap with a star on it and he’s looking away from the painter.

The words underneath say HIS EXCELLENCY KING HAILE SELASSIE, EMPEROR OF ETHIOPIA.

I wonder where Ethiopia is. Or was. And who Haile Selassie was. And why anyone gave a fuck. The girl pops her head out. Her hair looks bright against the dumpster’s darkness, like corn or gold hanging down her shoulders.

“Ain’t shit in here.”

She climbs out and steps to me. I just been in there and she stinks worse than I do.

“What’s that?”

“It’s a book.”

“What’s a book? What them letters say?”

“You can’t read?”

“Nope. Never needed to – my ass pays, bwai! Who need books or whatever?” She stamps her feet against the cold then grabs her vape out my hand and takes another toke, blows applesmoke on my face. “We should go someplace. I’m cold.”

I take a last toke and hand back her vape then pick up the books. If these things is worth anything, I don’t want this bitch stealing them. But they weigh a ton.

“Help me get these to my cotch and you can stay.”

I give her half the books and we walk the four blocks to an alleyway where my cotch is. I keep all my shit in a broke junction box bout two metres by one. They took the electrical crap out but left the box to rot. I squeeze in through a hole I covered with a wood panel and she follows.

I got a flashlight, an old sleeping bag and a picture of some woman. My worldly goods. I turn on the flashlight and the girl notices the picture. I like to imagine my Mum looked like that.

She’s got brown hair and a tan and she’s smiling at the camera. Like Mum smiles at me from the sky, watching over me.

“Who’s that?”

“My Mum, innit.”

“She looks like a holo-movie star.”

The girl crawls fully into my cotch. We stack the books at one end, red linen covers and gold lettering shining in my flashlight.

“Got to be worth something. Them gold letters.”

“Maybe.”

She takes off her jacket and lies down next to me on the sleeping bag. So close we ’ re almost touching.

“I want a hit.”

“Me too. But I got nothing.”

She leans in and I feel her chest on my shoulder, smell nicotine and apples and honey on her breath. “Pleeeease?”

“We need to go see my Mum. Maybe she can sell them books for us. ”

“Your Mum? Like, the holo-star one on your wall?”

“Not her. My pusher. She’s called Sister F.”

“Why is she called Sister F?”

“Fuck knows.”

Minutes later I’m back in front of Sister F’s gaff with the books in my arms and the girl behind me. I bang on the door and yell at her to get up. Flakes of sleet slip down from the clouds.

That bloodshot eye appears at the spyhole. Then Sister F’s voice croaks out:

“Who’s she?”

“A friend. I got something to sell.”

Sister F opens the door. I push past and dump the wooden box on the table littered with joint ends and discarded amps. The girl puts the books I gave her on the floor next the table. Then we flop back on the sofa and the girl pulls her hood down. Like for the first time I notice she’s cute but then I think about her teeth.

“So what you got to sell?”

“These books I guess. ”

“What are they?”

I open the one I looked at before. I find the picture of that African guy in uniform and show it.

“Look. You tell me what it is.”

Sister F stands up and starts doing some dumb little dance. She’s holding her arms out, head back, grey-brown hair shaking, laughing.

“GREETINGS in the name of His Imperial Majesty, Emperor Haile Selassie, Jah Rastafari, who liveth and reigneth I’n‘I itinually, ever faithful, ever sure. Ever-living, ever- faithful Haile Selassie I the first, Jaaaaah Raaaasssstafarai!”

I stare at her across the drug-messed table. The girl giggles.

“Weed fucks you up, Sister. You know that.”

Sister F looks through the dust columns like she’s trying to find some pattern in them. Her smile fades.

“One love”, she says. “Daddy used to put that on the record player when I was a lickle pickney. We danced to them old tunes at college – Bob Marley an the Wailers! Come on!” College – ha. Whatever. She is done. Too much drugs. The girl stares at her.

“What’s a record player? Did you do College? Chattin shit. What you at, crusty bitch?”

The girl leans forward on the couch, hands touching the drug table.

“These book-things worth a credit or what? Cos I want a score. ”

She pulls her vape out and switches on, takes a long draw. Sister F lunges over the table like she’s gonna slit the girl’s throat. I throw Sister F back down in her chair. She straightens her hair and spits.

“Don’t call me crusty, slut. What’s your name?”

The girl exhales appley smoke.

“Ivana. Now give me an amp, bitch.”

“Not when you cop attitude like that.”

I stand up and tell them to chill the fuck out.

“Come on, Sister F. Help me. These things got to be worth something. Look at that cloth and them gold letters!”

Sister F shuffles back into the darkness then shuffles back in. I clock she’s holding amps. A shitload – like ten or something.

“Them books are worthless”, she says. “But what’s in them is priceless.”

Ivana puts a hand on my shoulder and I feel my heart go faster. I smell her smell, like musk. I want her, but I want a hit too.

Sister F tells us to sit down. Then she explains the deal. She’s going to pick stuff for us to read up on from the books. If we tell her what we learn then we get a hit.

“You in?”

Me and Ivana tell her yes. Sister F sparks up her Holo. When it boots up it still has the image of Neptune and its moons projecting. That blue planet hangs there, thin rings running round it and moons circling like little bugs. This time I see them rings clearly.

“The fuck’s that?” Ivana goes.

“Tell her, boy.”

So I explain what Sister F told me. About the planet Neptune and the accident discovery of its rings that shows everything is about finding what you need even if you aren’t looking, perspective and blah.

“Well, from my perspective, I need an amp ” , says Ivana. She takes her hand off my shoulder and I get a gut twinge like when I’m coming down. Then she turns to go – but Sister F pulls her back.

“Wait. Do what I tell you and I’ll give you drugs for free.”

Ivana pauses. “Is you mad, gurl?”

“Nope, I’m old and I want better for you. Better than he has and damn sure better than his Mum ever had.”

Sister F grabs the book from me and says my job is to read up about Haile Selassie and Ethiopia. Then she tells Ivana to learn about the solar system – only Ivana says she can’t read.

“Well, I’ll wise you up anyway. ”

Sister F puts me in her back room with the red books – says they’re called encyclopedia. She says it means “general education” in Greek. Whatever the fuck Greek is. Meantime she’s out front with Ivana. Then she locks me in.

Fuck, I’m rattling. I look at the picture of the African dude in uniform and turn to the page before. I find the entry about him and get going, scratching my arms cos I need to bump. Like need to bump bad bad.

One hour later we ’ re all back in the front parlour and I’m so hot for a hit I’m chatting shit I can’t believe. Like about Haile Selassie and Marcus Garvey and and Malcolm X and the Black Panthers. When I’m done I lean back on the stinking sofa, scratching my arms.

“Good boy. Well done. Now you. Tell me what I told you. ”

Ivana runs off the names of the planets, from Mercury to Neptune. She talks about which ones have moons and why the further out you get the more moons they have. Then she rolls into asteroids and rotations and shit I never heard before in my life. I think again how cute she is – that face. Like filth and angels mashed into one.

“Good. Here you go. ”

Sister F tosses two amps at us and we ’ re just about to bite when she yells:

“Stop! Before you get high - how come you never read a book before?”

“Cuz I never went to school, Sister Fuck!” Ivana bites down on the amp but Sister F grabs it out her mouth.

“No. Even if you’d gone to school, you wouldn’t know anything. And that’s cos they don’t want you to know anything. They want you where you are. Poor, stupid and high. Is that where you want to be?”

Ivana grabs the amp back and sticks it in her mouth.

“No it ain’t where I want to be.”

“Me neither”, I say. “But what-a-gwan? We’re poor-as-shit junkies.”

Sister F smiles at me as I bite my amp and lick it.

“You can learn. Do what your Mum wanted. I can teach you so much the rich will fear you. And that’s how you’ll change the world.”

I’m nodding out. Ivana’s already gone, blonde hair mussed on my shoulder, head tipping on my neck. As I fade out I dream Ivana is my Mum and she’s smiling and hugging me. Only she don’t look like Ivana or the lady in my photo that might be a holo star. She’s as skinny as I am with black circles round her eyes and holes and scars in her arms. But she’s still smiling and telling me everything is going to be all right. And for the first time in my life, I feel like maybe it will.

CHRISTMAS SERVICE

My neighbors knocked on my door two days before Christmas. I was wallowing in holiday gloom.

I inherited the habit. My Dad hated Christmas. Born on December 25, as a child he never got a birthday party, and resented it. He’d wear a happy face for Christmases when I was a child, but I could always see the hurt.

On Christmas Eve when I was in seventh grade, an impatient driver tried to pass my Mom’s VW Bug. It had been sleeting all day. He lost control and hit her car, sending both vehicles into a creek. Mom lasted twelve hours in the ICU, Dad at her side.

He white-knuckled through the funeral. From then on, he spent every Christmas sunk in whiskey and gloom. It left a cloud over the season that won’t lift.

When my neighbors stopped by looking for help, I wasn’t ready to see them. I opened the door anyway.

Jana and Davina are retired, a former school librarian and a commercial artist, and have been together since before they could admit it. Jana’s tall and skinny, hyperactive, and she spoke first, “Leigh, you ’ re not busy are you?” She leaned forward and put on a stage whisper, “Are you on a big case?”

I held the door open. “Not other than finding Ed Jonas’s pug yesterday.”

Davina winked at me. She’s the artist. “That dear little doggie. You’re doing the Goddess’s work, you are!”

I’m never sure how serious she is. The two of them have supported every women ’ s and LGBT issue from before ERA to protesting the Supreme Court’s reversal on abortion rights. They love a good fight, but they’re never grim about it.

Jana didn’t sit. “We’re headed down to the Bromeliad Center to work at their food pantry. They need help assembling holiday bags for Christmas -- food, soap, basic supplies. They’ve been short-handed ever since the pandemic, you know.”

I could guess. The Bromeliad Center helps out HIV+ people, especially if they’re down on their luck. It’s a mixed bag of gay men, sex workers, homeless people, current and former IV drug users, people who got the short end of life. Modern drugs have made a huge difference. They’re still not the kind of fluffy, ever-so-grateful “deserving poor ” you see on sanitized TV specials, just hardscrabble folks in need of help. Helping them is a hard job, not a photo op. “And you wanted to ask me along?”

Jana nodded. “We wanted to ask you to drive. It gets dark so early this time of year, you know.”

I did grocery runs for them all through the pandemic. Those years had aged them and they weren’t young to begin with. “Your Magnum wagon?” I want to dislike that thing. It’s a boat, but it sure doesn’t drive like one. Parking, that’s another story.

She gave a little shudder and said, “Not your MGB.”

My name is Leigh Reid Moxon. I’m a private investigator, which is a great job if you can stay ahead of the bill collectors. I grew up in a mostly-rural county, and ran track in high school until I tore up my right knee in a motorcycle wreck. These days, I live in Indianapolis. I own a rusting British sports car and a cantankerous Japanese motorcycle, which is to say mostly I ride the bus. And, oh yeah, I’m non-binary.

* * *

Jana and Davina had accumulated several boxes of canned goods. I helped load them into their wagon in the evening chill, wishing I’d worn more than my usual zip-up hoodie over a knit top.

Eventually we were downtown, helping set up an assembly line in a big storage area at the back of the Bromeliad Center building and filling grocery bags with canned soup, microwave rice, healthy snacks, cleaning supplies, and a little holiday present in each one.

The place had its own smell, not unpleasant. Mild disinfectant, a whiff of peanut butter, the dry scent of cardboard and flour, a faint toothpasty mint.

An older woman seemed to be in charge. She was one of those formidable types, no curves but as a solid as a log. She gave me a sharp look when I followed Jana and Davina down a long hall into the room. “You’re new here, um, dear?“

I gave her a neutral nod.

Jana answered for me. “This is Leigh. Our neighbor? The private investigator I’ve told you about.”

“I see, ” she said. She didn’t look impressed. “I’m Sarah Watts, ‘Leigh.’"

I could hear the quotes. But I just blinked and smiled. “Here to help out, ma ’ am. ”

The half-dozen volunteers talked as they worked, the quiet gossip of busy people. I just listened, letting it flow over me like water in a creek.

The talk ebbed and flowed, an undercurrent of worry bubbling up. Someone mentioned being unexpectedly short of peanut butter. A slender woman with a necklace pendant reading “Jazz” doubted it. “We were low on Monday.”

A man opened the door, broom in one hand. He was thin, going bald, wearing dark work slacks gone pale at the knees and cuffs and a tartan shirt under a ratty-looking sweater.

Sarah made a point of greeting him as an equal-but-not-really. “Roy! So good to see you. You’re early, but these wastebaskets are full. Could you...?”

He said something too quietly for me to catch and headed for the trash cans, avoiding eye contact.

I do my best not to judge, but he had the hollow cheeks of a meth user and the scrubbed look of a person working hard on recovery.

Another volunteer announced a grocery run, and asked what else was needed. Two people checked shelves and the other storerooms. They returned shaking their heads. Bread, honey, canned stew, matches, hand sanitizer and more. The list was long enough there was a discussion of priorities and everyone pitched in cash. I kicked in twenty dollars. No coffee shop next week.

Things calmed down after the grocery-run pair left. I looked over at Davina. “This happen often?”

She gave me a raptor’s look, unreadable, distant. “People pitching in?”

“No. Unexpected shortfalls.”

She looked away. “Um. A little? But more and more. ”

One of the men looked up from filling bags, frowning. “It’s happening more and more. Aren’t you supposed to be a detective? Maybe you could find out.”

I ignored the challenge. No point in poking back.

Sarah gave me an intent look. “I’m on the board,” she said, “We have noticed some shrinkage. Couldn’t you look into it, Leigh?”

Jana elbowed me in the ribs, which I didn’t appreciate. “Inventory control’s not my usual thing, but okay. How does the center keep track of donated supplies?”

Almost everyone spoke up and it took a few minutes to work out. It was a simple system. Magnetic dry-erase tags for each type of item. Incoming supplies were sorted, and whoever shelved them changed the totals on the tag. Every evening -- “Most evenings,” according to the guy who’d frowned at me -- a volunteer recorded the daily total, handwritten on blanks kept on a clipboard. The form listed minimum quantities for each item and anything below that was entered on another form to be restocked.

Offhand, I could think of a half-dozen ways to cheat it. It was a system to keep the shelves stocked, not stop loss.

Jazz had kept on loading bags while the others told me about the system. I caught a look between her and Roy, the custodian. I’d stayed aware of him. If you grow up with a drunk or an addict for a parent, you develop a whole set of coping skills. Jazz was the only person he’d looked in the eye. After that, he slipped out with the full trash bag and broom.

The pair who’d gone to the grocery were back before we‘d finished filling the bags. We loaded the last few and made up the shortfalls in the rest.

The next step turned out to be assigning delivery routes and loading up vehicles. That wasn’t going to help me find who was making off with the stored supplies.

I caught Jana’s eye. “My bad knee’s aching.” I try to ignore it. That doesn’t always work. “Are you and Davina going to need my help?”

She shook her head. “We’ll manage. We were going to head home afterward...?”

That suited me. “I’ll take the bus. The closest stop is only a block away. ”

Over her shoulder, I saw Roy come back in. Jazz went over to him and spoke. He started to turn away. She took hold of his arm and tried to hand him something small. He didn’t want to take it, but she insisted, leaning closer to him, and I saw him accept it.

Jana was talking. “Leigh? Leigh? Are you sure you’ll be okay?”

“On an IndyGo bus? Of course. ”

Jana looked like she wanted to ask something else. I broke eye contact, not wanting to talk. Jazz was with Roy, staring towards the doors that led into the hallway to the front of the building. He mumbled something, looking at the floor, and went through the doors.

The matronly-looking woman clapped her hands. “Everyone! Do you have your delivery routes?”

They sorted themselves out. I got to my feet and made for the washroom, which conveniently opened off the hall.

Once I was in the hall, I saw Roy stopped in front of a door about halfway down. I ducked into the washroom, shut the door and stopped. I heard him unlock the door, open it, sigh, and there was a rustle followed by the door clicking shut. His footsteps went past, so I leaned over and flushed the stool for effect as he walked down the hall.

I waited for a minute. I could hear cars starting up and leaving, distant sounds. I ran the sink and stepped out. The hall was empty. The door next to the washroom that Roy had opened was marked “Restricted supplies” and had a serious-looking lock.

Lock-picking is a popular hobby these days. Good tools aren’t hard to come by and neither is good instruction. A decent set of picks takes up very little room in a pocket. I had the door open in under a minute. It was a shallow storage closet, medical supplies on the shelves. Alcohol, what looked like first-aid kit refills, fentanyl test kits. Hypodermic needles, sealed in plastic. I brushed the back of my hand against them and they made a rustling noise. Interesting.

Back in the storeroom, someone was moving around between the shelves. I parked myself in a shadowed corner and waited. It was no surprise when Roy emerged, carrying a cardboard box full of the same kinds of things I’d just spent an hour packing into bags for delivery.

Intent on his task, he set the box down on a table without noting me.

I asked, all innocence, "Getting ready for another round of deliveries?"

He gave a start. “No! I mean yes. ” He squinted at me. “Oh, it’s you. ”

I gave him a nice, sincere-looking smile. “Leigh. And it looks like you ’ re going into business for yourself.”

He wouldn’t meet my eyes. “No. You don’t understand. This is for Miss Jazz.” “Is it? And does ‘Miss Sarah’ know about it?”

He shook his head. “You mean Mrs. Watts? Um. Look, this is all old stuff. Expired or going to. It’s just gonna get thrown out.”

Ah, addict logic. Hi, Dad. Merry stinking Christmas. “So you ’ re just going to take it home? Or she is?”

He looked around, maybe hoping for inspiration to strike. “No, not like that. You don’t understand.”

I’m too inquisitive. I wouldn’t be any good at my work if I wasn’t. “So explain.”

He gestured at the box. “There’s always lots of food and like that. Especially at Thanksgiving and Christmas. You know?”

That made his kind of sense. “So you and Jazz just help yourself?”

“Not us. People who really need it.”

Right. Sure. “Isn’t that what the Bromeliad Center is already doing?”

He made a handwaving gesture. “Not everybody has an address.”

The outside door opened and we both looked towards it. A slender woman came in, said “Roy...?” and stopped.

I raised my voice. “Your friend was just explaining where the missing supplies are going.”

She blushed, deep red, the color rising through her face, and decided to be angry. “You! The weirdo detective!” She walked over to us, soft-soled shoes thudding counterpoint. “The freak.”

I admit it. I smile at angry people because it puts them off balance. I smiled at her. “Is that any way to talk?”

It made her even madder. “What do you think you are doing?”

Roy was stammering something. I ignored him. Jazz kept getting closer. She was almost within reach. She spoke again. “What’s even in your pants, creep?”

“A Glock,” I said. It’s true. The smallest 9 mm Glock they make, in an appendix-carry holster. Her anger went out like a TV shutting off, leaving her pale and blank. Roy froze.

I kept smiling. “Now that we ’ re all nice and close, suppose you two tell me what’s really going on?” Never draw a gun when you can just mention it and ask nicely instead.

Roy raised his head and looked right at me. His eyes were light brown. His gaze didn’t waver. “I got one of those on me, too.”

Oops. “Okay,” I said, “I still think we should talk.” It was worth asking. * * *

I think they were relieved to talk about it. Roy had made a disgusted-sounded snort in reply but Jazz started speaking, her voice thin and fast at first. “My little brother died five years ago. He always was-- Um. Troubled. He self-medicated. IV drugs. Got sick, wouldn’t take his meds, we couldn’t keep track of him. That winter, he just froze to death. I keep thinking we could have done more. I started volunteering here at the Center after that.” I nodded. “And...?”

She looked around. “Bromeliad does good work, but not everyone will make contact with a program like this. They’re scared of it.”

It surprised me when Roy spoke up. “Too fancy. You can’t trust ‘ em. They want you to have an address, ID, write out all those forms, you know? Like that.”

They had a point. “So what’s your deal? And Roy, what’s up with taking needles?”

Roy got very interested in the floor again. Jazz answered. “Harm reduction. I know we shouldn’t. I’m trying to find another source. But you know the risks when they share needles.”

“I don’t even know who ‘they’ are, ” I said. ”Keep talking.”

“I can do better than that,” Jazz said. “I can show you. ” * * *

I helped load boxes into Jazz’s SUV, thinking I could justify it as part of investigating the theft. She and Roy rode up front while I sat in the back seat as they wound their way through the decaying industrial neighborhood between Washington Street and the east-west railroad tracks. She stopped in front of a two-story brick building with broken windows, dark and empty.

“Here we are, ” she said.

It didn’t look like much. When we got out, I could see a large sign on the building, something about Loft Apartments and Renovation Starting Fall 2020. Here it was Christmas 2023, so that hadn’t happened.

Roy had taken a box out of the back of the SUV and carried it into a gap in the building front. I didn’t like the looks of the place, but I got a box and followed him, trying not to limp. The gap turned out to be a narrow alleyway between two buildings. It went back about half a block and turned, leading into an interior courtyard heaped with junk, poorly lit from lights along the street and taller ones along the railroad tracks past the far side. Roy set the box down, put his fingers to his lips and whistled.

It was cold and there wasn’t anyone around. Not a light showing in the ugly brick walls around us, ground-floor windows boarded up, doors padlocked.

Jazz was behind me, carrying another box. She set it down and gestured to me to do the same. “Why don’t you and Roy get the other boxes?”

I wasn‘t sure that was a good idea. “And leave you here alone?”

It was too dark to be sure of her expression, but she sounded amused. “Alone? Not even. ”

I turned and there were four people headed towards us, walking slowly. I wasn’t sure where they’d come from, and it worried me.

“Go on. I’ll be fine.”

Roy was already gone. I hurried to catch up, and when I did, I asked him, “What is this?” He took his time answering, opening the back hatch of the SUV and handing me a heavy box first. “It’s a camp. Pretty good one ‘til somebody notices.” He picked up the last box and balanced it awkwardly as he shut the hatch one-handed. “Somebody always does. Then it gets tore up. ” He sighed.

When we got back to the courtyard, there were more people than I had expected, still showing up from the shadows and gathering around our boxes, coughing and talking. The crowd was mostly men, a few women, a half-dozen children. Most were not old, but every face, pale or dark, showed wariness and worry.

Their breath made plumes in the cold air, with a few drifting ghosts of heavier smoke from what I hoped were plain cigarettes. I shivered, wishing I’d worn more than just a zip-up hoodie. A burly, gray-haired man with a wispy beard was staring at me. He grinned and drifted away to one of the bigger piles of junk pile in a corner of area. I realized part of it was a tent when he ducked inside it, the fabric weathered dark and mottled.

Roy was in his element, getting people lined up at our small stack of boxes, handing out food and silvery survival blankets, soap and hand sanitizer, looking confident. Jazz stood next to him, handing out small items, smiling and talking to the people as they filed by. “Kid?” It was the gray-haired man, who’d come up next to me. “You look pretty cold.” There was a sharp reek around him, like sawdust and chemicals. He held out a lump of cloth. “Here.”

It was a quilt, in what looked like a camouflage pattern of orange, violet and black. I knew I was giving it an odd look, but the thing deserved it. He nodded. “Go on, kid. It’ll warm you up. ” I took it and wrapped it over my shoulders. The sharp smell got even stronger and I sneezed.

He chuckled. “Mothballs. Good for you. ”

I wasn’t so sure about that but the camphor smell wasn’t as bad now that I knew what it was.

The crowd thinned as the boxes emptied, with some surreptitious back and forth over the fentanyl test kits and needles. The Narcan didn’t get that; Roy just handed it over to anyone who asked. The gray-haired man took the empty boxes and vanished into his junkpile tent, leaving the three of us alone.

Jazz was the first to speak. “Seen enough?”

I didn’t say anything, waiting to see what else she might add.

She started walking back to the SUV without waiting for me to answer.

I still had that pungent quilt around me. I lifted it a little and looked at Roy, who promptly sneezed. “Mothball Bill took a shine to you, ” he said.

“What I supposed to do with this?”

Roy nodded over at the tent. “Take it, if you want. Or leave it here. He’ll get it later.”

I set the quilt on the ground and followed Roy out to the street.

We got into the SUV and Jazz turned in the driver’s seat to look at me. “Well?”

“Well, what? You’re giving food away. Food that isn’t yours to give.” What did she expect?

Roy coughed, the way some adolescents do to cover bad language. “And so now you ’ re gonna stop us bad, bad people who feed the dirty bums, right?”

“I don’t know.”

Jazz started the SUV. "That is just fucking great.” I wasn’t sure if she was more angry or worried.

We rode the rest of the way back to the Bromeliad Center in silence. At the parking lot, Roy and I got out and Jazz left.

Roy turned to me. “I don’t want no trouble. You know we ’ re not hurting anybody. That food, it’s just gonna go to the trash.”

I believe in rules. “And the other stuff? Blankets? Soap? Hypodermics?”

He shrugged. “It’s not like we take that much.”

I especially believe in the Commandment about not getting caught. “Somebody’s going to notice.”

Roy shrugged again. “Haven’t so far.”

I shrugged back. “Stop before they do. Find another source. ”

“Ha.” Roy gave me a flat-eyed look, no expression showing. “I still got work to do. You do what you got to.”

I looked at my watch. Coming up on eleven. “What I got to do is catch a bus.” I wasn’t sure if he was going to do anything drastic, but he just turned and went into the Bromeliad Center building. I walked the half-block to the IndyGo stop and rode a snorting diesel into downtown, where I could pick up the Red Line for home.

The first New Year’s Eve of pandemic, I celebrated with Jana and Davina, sitting in their living room watching Westerns on the TV channel that plays all the old shows. Davina told me, “Your business card is too plain. It should have a chess piece on it like that Paladin guy in the old Westerns.”

“What, a big pawn? It’s the only non-gendered piece on the board. And they get pushed around a lot.”

“No, a castle. A rook. You’re all walls.”

I thought about it. “It’s too artsy. What’s wrong with ‘L. R. Moxon, Investigations’ and my contact info like I have now?”

She sighed. “Pearls before swine,” she said.

“Either one, ” I’d told her, “As long as they pay me on time and their checks don’t bounce.”

My apartment building was mostly quiet when I walked home from the Red Line stop, just before midnight. I could see a dim light through the windows of Davina and Jana’s apartment. Sure enough, when I got off the wheezing elevator at the fourth floor, Jana met me, halfgrinning.

“I was worrying about you. Took the last bus?”

I nodded.

“Well? Did you solve the mystery?”

I thought about that. About Roy, the janitor; Jasmine and her lost baby brother; about the encampment tucked into a decaying industrial site. I shook my head. “Nope. I don’t think there is one. ”

Jana studied me. “So it’s nothing to worry about, then?” She didn’t quite wink.

That’s the thing with those two. They always know what time it is. I gave her my most innocent shrug. “I found no concrete evidence of deliberate wrongdoing.”

Her half-grin blossomed. “‘...No evidence of wrong...?’”

I kept my expression blank. “Nope.”

“Merry Christmas, Leigh.”

I gave her a real smile. “Merry Christmas, Jana.” This year, it was.

DICK IN THE DIRT

Two blur-faced men loaded me into the back of the ambulance and somebody else - a woman, I think - started hooking me up to machines. “Who in the world woulda took that dildo?” I wondered, as whatever they were shooting me full of started to work and my head went loopy. I thought about Tony and how he gave me a sufficient quantity of shit and hell for making him drive 15 extra miles to see some big plastic cock by the side of the road and then it wasn’t even around to look at when we got there.

“I know you won’t even try to understand,” I told him and he said, “Yep.” Then, for maybe the 20th time, Tony said, “If you wanted to take your boyfriend home you shoulda just picked him up off the ground when you had the chance.”

Tony was a button pusher. He knew I didn’t ask him to drive me back to where the car broke down because I wanted to take the thing home with me. Of course I didn’t. I only wanted someone else to see it. I wanted, I don’t know a witness. For no reason except it was something to see, I guess. Sticking straight up out of the ground like fucking Excalibur in all those stories.

“Maybe that wasn’t the spot where it happened. Maybe it was closer to the exit,” I said, but by that point Tony was way past the novelty of our little expedition and maybe even wishing he hadn’t taken my call at work. He was laughing about it but we sure weren’t stopping for anything.

The clutch on my Pinto had been going out for some time but surely I’d make it to Memphis, I thought.

There were things I had to say to Bitsy in person and the things she had in mind for herself these days sure as hell didn’t include paying a babysitter so she could take a bus all the way to Waverly and listen to some sob story from the guy she caught doing her mom. And I had no excuses about that either because I was guilty as hell.

Me and her old lady, we got on real good for a minute. Ran off and lived in a cabin close to the Buffalo River, about a ten minute drive from where Loretta Lynn used to live, because we ’ re both big fans and because Lorna - Bitsy’s mom - thinks she and Loretta are related by marriage. But that’s not the point. Bitsy and me, we have something bigger than all that. We’ve got destiny together. I’ve known it since last month when we met at the rally against Socialism in Bartlett and snuck off together to do some rails in the port-o-John even though it was a hundred-something degrees and smelled like what it was. It blew my mind how fine Bitsy was then and it blows my mind how fine she is now. On a certain level I think what I was doing the whole time I was gone, was thanking her mother for, you know, for having her. And for making her so whatever.

I told Tony I didn’t think I’d have gotten too far hitchhiking with a big freaking dildo slung over my shoulder. He said “Oh, I bet you could too,” and I looked at him hard. Then he said I coulda stuck it in the trunk of my car, which is true and for a minute I did think I might want to retrieve it just to prove to folks back at work and such that I saw what I saw. But there’s people who already figure me for the type who’d invent some wild excuse for keeping a fakeass johnson under the car seat. Besides, it just felt wrong to move the thing from where it was, all alone there in the gravel and weeds; standing tall just three or four feet beyond the guardrail. It was… I don’t know what it was. Perfect, I guess.

“You know, I asked Bitsy out on a date,” Tony told me and I said, “So what?” even though I wanted to say, “Pull the fuck over right now so I can fuck you up. ” I’m glad I didn’t say that last part though because she told him “No way in Hell,” and then he said the whole thing was a kind of a test. If Bitsy’d said yes then he was planning to call her a whore for treating me the way she treated me then agreeing to “have pizza” with my best friend. He said he thought this proved she was still saving herself for me. I love that fucking guy.

“She’s not going to be there when I get back,” I said, not knowing why I said it. Tony gave me the skunk eye and wrinkled up his forehead. “That’s just how it always is,” I told him and we drove for about 10 minutes without talking.

“I guess your beau musta run off with another fella,” Tony finally said as we crossed over into Shelby County. It was spitting rain a little. It wasn’t enough to need the windshield wipers but he put them on anyhow and it wasn’t long before the squeaking had me about wild.

Even though I didn’t mean to hit him in the mouth, that’s what I did and, no matter how things turned out, I’m not sorry a bit because he could have just turned the wipers off easy when I asked him to and it would have all been over.

I don’t know what the car ran into exactly. All I know is the whole world went silent for a time and I’m soaring out under the stars. Just now one of the guys working the truck said Tony broke his neck and died before he hit the ground. Not me. I was wide awake the whole time and right before I hit the tree I remember thinking I might actually be flying. Everything was still and peaceful; exactly as it should be. I was reliving that moment right after my clutch gave out and it was just me and God and the dildo on the side of the road. And there were snow-peaked mountains. And fireworks. And reliable fishing holes. And when I hit the ground in a heap my spirit rose up out of my body like a kite and I could see myself way down below; broken and bleeding and almost blending in with the tree roots and fallen leaves, all red and crunchy brown.

THE PALEONTOLOGIST

For years I’d watch him Eeyore-ing around the museum at all hours of the night, mumbling about Rachel, the girl of his dreams, and what he would do to her crap weasel boyfriends if he ever got the chance. He knew there were cameras everywhere. He knew I was watching him, listening to every word. He was just too heartbroken to care.

Obviously, no one is supposed to roam around the museum after hours, let alone sleep in the displays, but he was the head paleontologist of the museum. He respected every piece more than anyone else, so I let it slide. But really, I let him because being a night watchman here is torturously boring, and he was entertaining as hell, rambling on about how he’d win Rachel over if he were given the chance. Which, by the way, was a total crock. He was in love with her for years, and for most of that time, she didn’t have a serious boyfriend standing in his way. He was just too scared to do anything about it.

If only he had told her how he felt, none of this would’ve happened.

The first body was found in a high school gym in Long Island, dead at midcourt. Three autopsies were performed, yet none could find a single injury explaining how he completely bled out. But there his corpse was, a boat in a sea of dried blood.

He must’ve gotten bored with the dinosaur bones and woolly mammoths because he started spending more and more nights wandering around the museum ’ s basement, our airplane hangar-size subterranean level that housed infinite boxes of forgotten antiquities. If you ’ re wondering if it’s like the storage facility at the end of Raiders of The Lost Ark, the answer is no. Ours is much bigger.

Ask anyone who works here, and they’ll tell you there’s something off about that level. Something different. Possessed, even. I don’t go down there unless I absolutely have to. And even then, I don’t go down there. So, at first, I didn’t understand what he was doing. But over time, it became pretty clear he was being drawn down there by something. A power greater than him. Maybe greater than all of us.

***

The second body was the orthodontist, found strewn over a dental chair, every ounce of his blood flooding Exam Room 1. Like the first victim, no visible wounds were found during multiple autopsies. They also shared the same time of death. ***

From his lovesick ramblings, I knew that Rachel was getting serious with her current boyfriend. Which explains, in hindsight, his escalating, erratic behavior down in our basement. I watched in horror as he climbed towering stacks of monstrous wooden boxes with a crowbar in one hand and a mallet in the other. He tore through box after box, rummaging through tufts of packing excelsior like a possessed dog digging up a bone, desperately looking for... something. I know I should’ve done my job, gone down there and stopped him right there and then, but, and I’m ashamed to say this, I wanted to see what was going to happen next.

And, like I said, I never went down there even when I absolutely had to.

Then he found it. Whatever “it” was. I couldn’t see exactly what he pulled out from the grainy surveillance feed, but it seemed to be some sort of amulet encrusted in jewels that sparkled in even the dimmest overhead light.

***

The third victim was found on an orange tufted sofa in a popular Greenwich Village coffee shop.

Like the rest of her boyfriends, not a single wound was found, but every ounce of his blood now covered the velvet couch.

All three victims died at the exact same time.

He whispered into the amulet like it was a child’s walkie-talkie, his voice cracking with desperation. A man at rock bottom. So heartbroken. So lovesick. It began to glow in colors I find impossible to describe. It shook and flopped in his hand like a fish pulled from the water.

It then spoke to him and him alone. He answered a question only he could hear.

“Anyone she’s ever fallen in love with. I want them gone. ”

And, as if he was shot in the head, his body went limp, lifelessly draping over the last box he opened as blood oozed out of his every pore and down the mountain of boxes he climbed with a shocking grace for a heartsick paleontologist.

And even then, I only went down there once the police arrived. But when I did, that level felt oddly different. Even with the waterfall of blood flowing down from his body high above, the basement now felt... better. Cleansed. Exorcised.

Supposedly, a handful of other men died that exact same way, at that exact same moment, but I don't know what to believe after seeing what I saw that night. After the search for the amulet was called off and the investigation was closed, we reached out to his ex-wife and son to see if they wanted his personal belongings. They never showed up. They never even called back. I think it was too raw, still too soon after his death. Or they just didn’t like him. I don't know. Finally, his sister and a few of his friends came and cleaned out his office. As they solemnly packed up what he had left behind, they asked if I saw anything out of the ordinary. I said sure, of course.

“Could you be any more specific?” one of them asked, emphasizing the “be” for some reason. And I told them what I just told you. As I finished, I noticed one of his friends was more upset than the others, even more than his sister.

And I knew. I just knew. That type of heartbreak was all too familiar.

“Are you Rachel?”

She nodded as her friends lovingly wrapped their arms around her, consoling her.

“You were in love with him.”

“More than he’ll ever know.”

The house was once full. It has been trimmed.

Hours after burying what was left of her, he barged into our house like a bull in a China shop with all his earthly possessions clutched in two trash bags.

THE STAND-UP COMIC

As the girls cried in their Father and Uncle’s arms over their Mother’s tragic death, he unpacked in the living room alcove, clamoring on and on about how we needed help raising the girls now that their Mother was gone.

As if he was the answer to all of our problems.

As if I needed any help.

He thought everyone was too distraught to catch him hiding his beautifully carved wooden knife behind a stack of books in the alcove. But I saw it. Because that’s the job of a dog, to see everything that goes on in the house. I lingered too long, though, and he caught my cocked, suspicious stare. Instead of playing it off, his face cracked into a wolf-like grin that filled me with a weary unease.

The full house was trimmed, yet somehow, it’s grew in size. It now had the three girls, their Father, their next-door neighbor Friend who keeps showing up day after day to check on them, an Uncle who moved in after the death, and now this so-called stand-up comedian best friend with his dirty clothes, obnoxious Woodchuck puppet, and annoying impressions.

The girls were always around, but there was a hushed conversation about the Mother’s death when the adults thought they were out of earshot. She died in a car accident, they said, but it’s strange, her only injury was her throat, torn to shreds.

I thought of the knife hidden in the alcove.

I thought of him staring back at me with that malevolent grin.

I thought of him.

What was he really doing here? What will he do next?

And wouldn't you know it, he was the one who found the neighbor girl dead in her backyard. Her throat mangled after allegedly falling from her roof trying to sneak out the night before. Allegedly.

The house was trimmed again. Now, a little less full.

I peed on his bed and gnawed on his Woodchuck puppet he needed for Open Mic Night, doing everything in my power to make it known he couldn’t be trusted. And how did he respond? He took me on nightly walks, one hand holding my leash, the other disappearing into his Woodchuck puppet. Night after night, forcing me to listen to him practice his routine, workshopping horrible wood puns in his unbearable Woodchuck voice.

He's messing with me. I have to keep him away from the kids. I have to convince someone...anyone that he’s responsible for the neighbor girl’s death. Maybe even the mother’s death. But how?

The knife, that’s how.

They awoke to the blood-curdling screams of the middle girl. She got up unusually early and discovered her Uncle gasping for air, blood flowing out of his open throat on the house's front steps.

A robbery gone wrong, they all assumed.

No one was connecting this to their mother’s death. To their neighbor’s. Not yet, anyway.

Throats gashed.

A hidden knife.

Now I just need one of the girls to find that knife to pin it all on him.

Almost as if he knew what I was planning, he grabbed my leash and that stupid Woodchuck puppet and took me on one of our torturous walks. Instead of working on new wood puns, he walked in silence while his Woodchuck deadeye stared at me.

This walk felt different from all the others, though. Along with the fog and drizzle, finality was in the air.

Only when the sidewalks cleared and we were alone, did he talk.

“You’re right about me. I didn’t move in to help raise those kids. You and I both know I’m no parent. I’m no uncle. I’m a hunter, Comet.”

I stopped walking, tugged on the leash, and woofed to tell him, “No more. This is it. This is where it ends.”

“I moved in to figure out...no, that’s not right. Let me rephrase...,” he said, kneeling close to me. “...I moved in to hunt down who killed my friend, their Mother. The only one who ever thought I was funny.”

“You don’t happen to know who was in the car with her that night...” he asked, then his Woodchuck took over, obnoxiously looking up, down, left, right, and then back at me, “Woooooould you?”

My tail wagged. My jaw dropped into a full-fanged smile. Finally, the truth.

Most crimes go unsolved because people, blinded by grief, miss the simplest, most important details. A witness forgets they saw a figure running from a body. The exact words of an escalating argument moments before shots ring out. Or where she was driving the night of her fatal accident. She was taking me to the vet because I was limping around the house.

Fake-limping, actually, so I could be alone with her.

To start the trimming.

Like I said, it was a full house.

“Dogs are man ’ s best friend” is such a horrible phrase. Such a stereotype. We are more than that. We are caring. Parental. Maternal.

More maternal than she ever was, I’ll tell you that.

I tore her throat out because those girls didn’t need her. They didn’t need any of them. They only need me.

I trimmed the house down. But evidently, there was more work to be done.

I lunged at the Woodchuck, baring the same teeth that tore through all of my victims. I just didn’t expect he’d be holding his knife inside the puppet, ready to plunge it into me if I confirmed what he always suspected and now knew.

The house has been trimmed again.

My pierced heart slowed on the rain-soaked Pacific Heights sidewalk as the Woodchuck's face moved close to mine, its wet fabric touching my drying nose. As my eyes dimmed to the perpetual darkness, I heard him say in that stupid voice I never found funny, “Was that knife made out of....woooooood?”

DARE

Most games of Truth and Dare stay relatively innocent at slumber parties because there are other, cooler things to do, like video games to play, movies to watch, crushes to reveal.

It’s those other times, when you ’ re truly bored with another friend when a simple dare can get someone, or maybe everyone, killed.

You always know when a dare crosses the line. Your heart sinks knowing you either gotta backout and deal with your friend’s wrath or do the dare and pray you survive. Jump off your roof into the pool! Egg that cop car! Lay down in the middle of a two-lane street! Those are all risky dares, with clear consequences. But simply filling out and mailing the back page of a beaten-up old Stephen King paperback? The olden way to order more of his novels in a bygone era seemed pretty harmless, if not incredibly lame.

But that’s how bored we were on that Saturday afternoon.

Fill out your name and address and check the boxes of the books you want, mail it back, and wait four to six weeks for your new books to arrive. “It’ll be hilarious!” my bored friend said, egging me on. I didn’t get the joke since it was a lot of work for no real payoff. For one, I had to find stamps. You know how hard it is to find stamps these days? Then an envelope. Easier, but still hard to track down. And after all of that, I had to steal a check from my dad’s checkbooksomething almost as obsolete as ordering books from the back pages of a grocery store paperback. And for what? At best, our letter would be delivered somewhere and simply thrown away. What’s so funny about that?

We rode our bikes to the closest mailbox, tossed the envelope in its blue mouth and literally forgot about it the second it disappeared down the chute. We then went on with our day, searching for new ways to cure our boredom.

My order didn’t take four to six weeks like the back page promised. It arrived and I was dead within a week.

The black envelope waited on the corner of my bed, left there by my father who always grabbed the mail on his way home from work each evening. I didn’t know it at the time, but he was already floating face down in the pool in our backyard, dead minutes after touching the package.

I had forgotten about the lame dare that filled my Saturday a week previous, so as I ripped the package open, I ran through all my online purchases trying to figure out what was inside. Maybe something from eBay. Probably something I didn't need from Amazon.

Had I lived long enough, my father’s fresh soul explained later as we both sat by the pool watching paramedics fish his body out of the water, a burning sensation would’ve spread from my fingertips through the rest of my body, as if each pore was a volcano, spewing out lava until I did something drastic about it. Fortunately for me, I died way before I could experience that wonderful side effect to the lamest dare of all time.

What I found inside the package was a white hardcover book with six hundred or so black pages without a single word, letter, or symbol inside or out. The cover felt like fake leather. Or plastic.

Or dead skin.

As I flipped through the pages, memories filled my head telling alternate stories of my life, each a cherished memory corrupted by new, horrific endings. My grandmother driving me to get a Happy Meal. A car swerving into our lane, hitting us head on, her frail body pulled through the windshield first punctured and shattered by her freshly permed head. Flipping off the high dive of the public pool, cracking my head open on the board. Choking on candy. Slipping in the tub. My head filled with these snapshots, every beautiful memory of my life with new, alternate endings of death.

Horrified by these visions, I let go of the book and instantly the new versions of my memories were cut off like someone violently unplugged a TV. But that’s when I heard the voice, though when I think back, I believe it was speaking to me as each memory flashed through my head.

“I dare you to jump off the roof, into your pool.”

“ I can do that,” I answered, not questioning who was daring me or where that voice came from, because I already knew.

It was coming from the book.

As I jumped through the closed window of my bedroom, as glass tore through my body like it had my grandmother through the windshield of her Cadillac, I thought, “Wow, that’s similar.” I fell through the air, and only then did I see the floating body of my father in the pool I wouldn’t reach. I cracked my head open inches from the water, here on the concrete instead of on a public pool high dive. And as I choked on my last breaths, I thought how very odd, how very similar.

The detective who bagged the book as evidence crashed into an electrical pole two blocks down the street. My father and I, now bored in death, heard screams, and saw a plume of smoke rise above what was once our neighborhood, what was once our house.

Where that book went after that I cannot say, but I dare you to find out.