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  • Issue 27

Published by Karl Rademacher on August 26, 2015. This item is listed in Issue 27, Issue 27 Stories

Mask of the Kravyads

By Jay Requard

 

They walked in, dusty men in dusty black armor.

templeDeepti drew a sharp breath as one of the temple’s guard stepped in front of the pair of sellswords, asking for the weapons belted around their waists. They answered with quick and quiet nods, handing over their swords before resuming the march down the chamber’s long blue runner. Light from the great braziers in the center of the long floor cut their shadows onto the mural-walls, briefly obscuring chiseled scenes of devas at work in the world. Warrior gods fought demons as lotus-birthed goddesses carved rivers into the land, and that the center of these many panels raised one from the rest, a dark lady who held the moon and the stars in her hands.

“So here they are… bloody men who feed themselves on bloody money.” Preem sighed greatly on his cushion, the wrinkles on his face and body stark in the gentle light of the lamps set on their dining table. “What a world I live in.”

Seated at the low table, Deepti would have normally focused on the serenity of her deity as she ate, but tonight was different. The table had not been prepared yet and her attention was on the men walking her way. “We can only judge them based on what they do, Father, not how they look,” she reminded, an old axiom her mother used to bother her with. “Let’s let them eat and speak before a decision is made.”

“Just like your mother,” he replied with a forced smile. “I wish she was here now. She’d handle them better.”

Their chatter died when the two warriors approached the other side of the table. The shortest of the pair, a white man from the west with dull brown eyes and gray hair, pressed his hands together in the customary greeting of her people. “I bow to your forms.” he said in Suti, Deepti’s native tongue. “May we sit, uncle?”

Preem looked at the man, surprised by such deference. “Please do. Thank you for coming. I imagine you trip must have been long.”

“We heard the call in the market of Marthi and came quickly when we heard few wanted the job,” said the first man. “Opportunity are where opportunity offers themselves, after all.”

They plopped onto the cushions on the other side of the table, the iron parts of their armor clanking. It was in this blur of their movements that Deepti noticed something different about the second sellsword. Even in the dimness his skin was dark, a sandy brown color common to her people. His narrow face and aquiline nose defined a rugged handsomeness framed in a shag of black hair, the luster hidden beneath the grit of the road.

“Excuse me,” she called to him, keenly interested. “Sir, are you a Sutian?”

The man looked at her in surprise, as if he had not expected to be addressed. He checked with his superior, who gave a quick nod. “I am,” he said, clearing his throat.

Deepti turned to her father, a quick grin formed. “What a wonderful surprise.”

“Pardon me, young man, but of what caste are you?” Preem asked. “What’s your name?”

The young sellsword straightened on his seat. “My name is Jishnu. I am a Kshatri.”

“A Kshatri,” Preem said, impressed. “This does change things.”

“It’s a good thing I brought him then,” said his superior. “While I understand the need for introductions, could we perhaps do so while we eat? Thumbs and I are famished from the road, and unlike the rest of our company we have not had time to supper.”

“Please. We were waiting for you anyway,” said Deepti, waving for one of the temple’s servants. “And what is your name, sir?”

The white warrior bowed. “I’m the Captain of The Grinders Sellsword Company. That will do for now.”

Platters of steaming rice, roasted vegetables, and goat braised in hot spices were served alongside a fresh pot of black tea, a grand feast the four consumed in awkward quiet. Deepti studied the two as they ate, taking measure of their manners. Jishnu picked at his food while the Captain gorged himself, both supping fully but in a practice method allowing for them to remain clean. There was a discipline to them, a singular focus targeted to finishing the meal.

The Captain wiped his chin with the back of his hand minutes later. His shaggy white hair framed his face, a wide field populated by a broken nose and sunburnt cheeks. The rough whiskers of a mustache fed into a cruel scar on his upper lip. “You two seemed so surprised with Thumbs here. Why is that?”

“Why do you keep calling him that?” Preem asked. “Why not his name?”

The Captain nudged his subordinate in the arm. “Tell him, my son.”

“It’s a nickname,” Jishnu said simply, his head lowered at Preem in reverence. “All Grinders have nicknames, Preemji.”

“And how did you get yours?” Preem pressed.

Jishnu raised his right hand, his fingers splayed apart. Deepti stifled a gasp when she saw a smaller sixth digit grown on the outside of his natural thumb. Twisted, it connected to the original finger by a fork webbed in flesh. “A birth defect,” he explained.

“I am surprised I did not notice when we first met. Did you, Deepti?” he asked his daughter.

“No,” she said, puzzled that she had missed such a crucial detail. The surprise in her voice must have troubled Jishnu, who lowered his hand back beneath the table. “Does it hurt, sir?”

“No, lady,” he said, weary. “It is what it is.”

She cocked her head to the side, mouth opened before her father interrupted. “Pardon me for prying, but how does a man such as you fall into such a different profession? Surely you could have been a guard for your homeland’s king.”

“Indeed, I could have. My father is a guardsman for the king of Srijian while my grandfather is an elder of its capital, Shiri. They were sellswords first, however, and gained their education in warfare in other lands. I’m doing as they did.”

Preem sipped some tea. “Duty to the family, adherence to tradition? Not the most conventional way, but then it has never been a conventional world.”

“Thumbs is my very best.” The Captain clapped his second on the shoulder. “He is a credit to the people of the Sixteen Kingdoms.”

“And many more, I should think.” Preem set his teacup on the ground beside his cushion. “Gentlemen, perhaps it is time we spoke to the terms of your employment?” He looked to Deepti and nodded.

She lifted a black box onto her silken lap, the weight heavy. “Gentlemen,” she said, “This is the Mask of the Kravyads.”

The eyes of the two men roamed within the box as she opened the lid, and a change come over both of them. Deepti followed the Captain’s eyes first, disappointed by their lustful gleam. Jishnu, on the other hand, stared at the damnable object in curiosity, his brow furrowed in concern.

“Very pretty,” said The Captain, “but what is a kravyad, if I may ask?”

Preem spoke. “It’s a type of rakshasa, a spirit of the underworld. This mask allows one to view their realm through which the wearer learns secrets best left hidden. This temple has guarded this item since it was first brought here centuries ago, where our order guarded until a remedy could be found for its evil—until now.”

“What happened?” the Captain inquired. “The toll must be great for you to give up your duty.”

Deepti spoke before her father could answer. “Kravyads entered the temple.”

“Here?” Jishnu asked, aghast. “But they are beings of hell. The holiness of this place should hold them back.”

“That was our hope,” Preem answered, his age shown in a shuddering breath. “The Goddess Devi sees it differently.”

The Captain spoke. “So why have you not destroyed the mask already?”

“We tried.” Preem brushed one of his gray dreadlocks from his sunken cheek. “We had blacksmiths try to melt it in their crucibles, but the spirits claimed them in their forges. We tried throwing it into the river Vallabha, only to have its goddess spit it back out. We tried so many things–”

“And lost others who tried to stand against the mask’s power,” Deepti said. Her father placed a hand over hers. “The only choice we have now is to take it to the holy fire at the temple of Agni. Nothing burns hotter.”

“So you want us to run protection on the way down,” the Captain guessed.

“In essence,” Preem acknowledged in a slight nod. “But there is more. You must take a representative of the temple with you. It is the only way the rishis at Agni’s Temple will allow entrance to the fire.”

“Who will we be taking?” Jishnu asked.

“Me,” said Deepti.

“Absolutely not,” said Jishnu immediately.

“Pardon?”

Her question caught Jishnu. He dithered for a moment before continuing. “Captain, Preemji, this mission is no place for holy ones, especially a rishika. The dangers of the road–”

“Pardon me, sir.” The strength of her voice drew the men’s attention back to her. “I am well versed in contending with the kravyads. Just because I am a woman doesn’t mean I am weak.”

“This has nothing to do with it,” said Jishnu.

“Then what does?”

Jishnu gaped back at her, lost for words.

She pressed, not letting him find them. “No others in this temple are allowed to leave without breaking their vows of silence and meditation, or they are too old. I am neither. Think what you want, but I am quite able to take care of myself. So what reasons will you come up with now?”

The Captain snickered. “Well, Thumbs?”

Jishnu looked away, dejected. “Your orders, sir.”

The Captain patted his charge on the shoulder and looked to Preem. “We accept. Now, to our price.”

“Yes, of course.” Deepti nodded, satisfied with her victory. Yet as she observed Jishnu’s placid bearing, the satisfaction ebbed.

He was not angry. He was worried.

#

Wagon wheels ground to a halt, jerking Deepti slightly as the men around her broke in an explosion of motion. Before she had even risen to her feet the Grinders had flooded out of the cramped wooden rectangle and converged on the campsite. With the wagons drawn and the horses still set on the yokes in case they needed to flee, the tension of the ride slowly settled with the shrinking sunlight. Deepti followed along behind a few stragglers, thankful for the chance to stand on her own feet, though they offered little comfort. Her pack hung like a great stone from her bare shoulders, the weight of the mask and its box a constant burden.

One of the Grinders, a young man from the kingdoms of the faraway west, approached. “My lady, can I help you to a spot to set down?”

She offered a nervous smile. “Marl, yes? I think you were riding in the same wagon as I on the first day.”

“Yes, my lady,” he said, nodding his helmeted head. “The Captain assigned me to you for the night. Is there anything you need carried or…”

“No,” she said. “Just directions to where I should sleep.”

“Let’s go talk to the Captain about it.”

Deepti let him lead her through the camp. The sellswords had already gathered wood for a bonfire fire while others prepared salted meats for roasting. Some foraged for plants to eat and water to boil, and in the center of the ordered mess sat the Captain, who waited before the unlit fire with his hands in his lap. Jishnu sat next to him, striking a shard of flint against the iron blade of his sword.

“Evening, my lady,” greeted the Captain. “I wondered where you had gotten off to. Have you found your tent for the night?”

“Not yet,” she said. “I can sleep without one, if need be. You truly do not have to accommodate me more than you do your own men.”

“My men have weathered worse than the stars and the wind. And it might rain tonight,” The Captain said, glancing at the clouded skies. “We’ll see if one is willing to lend his lean-to again.”

“She can use mine,” Jishnu said. “I probably won’t sleep anyway.”

“I’ll take first watch too,” Marl volunteered. “No need for you to stay up alone, Thumbs.”

Jishnu grunted in reply, focused on the flint and the fuel before him.

“Well, that’s that then.” The Captain rubbed his hands together. “Time for supper. I’ll go see how Frog is doing with the meat.”

“Follow me, my lady,” Marl said to Deepti.

They stopped at an open spot near one of the wagons. The mask and its box struck the ground in a dull thud as Deepti let the bag slip from her shoulders. Lost in the sound of marching feet and foreign voices, she pulled the pins holding her long braid in its bun, allowing the long rope of hair to fall down her back.

“What’s wrong?” Marl asked.

She shrugged her shoulders and rolled her head about her neck, working out the day’s soreness. “Nothing. At least nothing worth talking about.”

“Oh, come now.” Marl lifted his helmet to free his flaxen hair. “You aren’t sure about us.” He walked to the mound of packs piled near the wagon’s rear wheel. “And that goes double for Thumbs. That is a pun, if I think too hard on it.”

She shook her head quickly. “A sellsword is no occupation for a man of his birth, no matter if he is of a low house or not. I venture I could say the same for all of you.”

“A big pronouncement for a girl who never lived in her own filth.” Marl pulled a large blanket and a loop of gathered twine attached to a wooden stake from a pack, most likely Jishnu’s. He tied one end of the line to one of the main tacks set in the rail of the wagon, stretching it until he found the spot where he hammered the stake into the earth. He hung the blanket over the line to finish the lean-to. “The world is very different. The real one outside of your walls, that is.”

She understood his point. “Still.”

Marl gathered his spear and shield. “In my country we don’t have this idea about predetermined duty. If a man wants to fight he fights, if he wants to farm he farms. I’ll tell you this, though—Grinders are very good at what they do.”

“I hope so.”

Deepti and the westerner talked until the call for supper. The sun sank hills of shadow and silence as the sellswords gathered around their bonfire to eat, shields and spears replaced with tin bowls and spoons. Boiled chicken and overcooked rice mixed with dandelions made their meal for a night, a chewy stew with too much salt and pepper for her test. She struggled through the meal, taking small sips of the broth at a time and listening to the conversations going on around her. Men of different hues and origins spoke to each other in a mishmash of languages. Civilized and intelligent, they did not behave in the ways her father had taught her to expect of hardened warriors. They were content, seemingly unburdened by whatever they had done in the past or the possibility death waited for them beyond the rise in the road. She sat there quietly, chin rested on her knees as she watched, intrigued and confounded.

Marl led her back to her tent after dinner as the Grinders went to their places for the night. Some guarded the wagons while others dozed in their small tents until their turn at watch. Deepti settled in her own little shelter, restless as she fought to find a comfortable position on the hard ground.

Her attention turned to the mask. Pulling the box out of her knapsack, she rested it on her stomach. Tapping the painted wood with her nails, the image of a woman wearing the mask played in the depths of her memory, held to a stone floor by a pair of shadows. The spirits ravaged their victim.

A laugh broke through the horror.

Jishnu’s shoulders bounced while Marl whispered to him as they tended to the bonfire. Deepti crawled off her blanket and stood, dusting the front of her blue sari. Marl saw her rise, waving her over to join them.

“Having trouble sleeping?” he asked when she approached.

“I’m not used to the ground,” Deepti said.

“It’s better to rest on your side than your back,” said Jishnu. “You can sit down, if you like.”

She knelt beside him. “Aren’t you two tired?”

“Never.” Jishnu poked at the fire’s base with the point of his sword. The skin of a burning log cracked into fissures. “No man affords it when his brothers trust him with their sleep.”

“Speak for yourself, braggart,” Marl said. “Just because there’s a pretty lady present doesn’t mean you have to spin lies.”

Jishnu shot Marl a dire glare, only to get a wink in return.

“Don’t worry about him,” Marl told Deepti. “A calf trying to be a bull.”

“You all puzzle me.” She motioned at the camp around them. “I don’t understand how men can live in such a manner. Marching, fighting, never home or in a place of peace—how do you sustain this?”

“We just do,” Marl replied. “I was a farmer’s son who wanted more, and Thumbs is doing as his father’s father did, preparing for his duty. What is hard to understand about that?”

“Forgive me,” said Deepti, “but in my temple we are taught that lives should be lived in accordance to dharma. If a man’s dharma makes him a soldier, he should be a soldier, just like if a woman is meant to be a rishi, she should go into the mountains and spend time in meditation. But this is not what my father taught me of sellswords.”

Jishnu cracked a smile, his teeth white. “What did he say? That we are savage men hungry for spoil?”

Deepti felt her face flush. “Well, yes.”

“We are, on our worst days,” Jishnu said, “But who isn’t? We suffer with homelessness and violence, but at least we have a family. And if what you learned in the temple was true then how do you know that the entire world isn’t a temple in itself? What if we are living our dharma?”

“But what if you aren’t?” she asked.

He brooded on the question. “To have lived these small moments of glory, joy, anger, love and hate, will be worthy to me. As for devas and dharma… that’s their business.”

A growl came from the woods.

Jishnu shot to his feet. “What was that?”

Deepti stared into the darkness on the other side of the flames, to a gap where two of the Grinder’s wagons backed right up to the edge of the forest. She rose up, her hands trembling. “They’re here.”

“Grinders, to me,” shouted Jishnu. Marl banged his spear’s shaft against the bronze face of his shield. Tents were torn to the side as men arose, armed as they ran toward the fire. They converged in a tight circle around the blaze, their shields joined together in an overlapping wall.

“Get Deepti in the center,” The Captain ordered, appearing out of the mass. “Spears-In-A-Diamond, eyes forward.”

The Grinders flowed from their loose ring into four uneven wedges connected at the corners. Deepti found herself gently pulled and pushed toward the center of their formation, near the fire and at the back of their numbers. She spotted Jishnu through the shifting bodies, himself set at the point facing the forest.

The growls in the darkness grew in volume, no longer one but two, and then three. Above the crackle of the fire, the wind in the trees, came a padding—a heavy, slow padding.

kravyadA great cat burst from the shadows, made of dull iron and striped with red light. Its maw opened in a bellowing roar, full of fire and smoke to match its horrid eyes. Powerful muscles twitched in its massive shoulders as the kravyad charged, a storm of claws and teeth. The Grinders held. Spears went out, stabbing the beast in the sides. The points knocked and skidded off the plating of its hips and neck, unable to pierce the seams.

A second kravyad bounded out of the shadows, made of black and brown granite. It stalked toward Deepti’s lean-to.

“The mask,” Deepti said. “Jishnu, the mask!”

The Captain called. “Thumbs, Break point!”

The Grinders around Jishnu, five men in total, stepped in perfect unison with him as he headed toward the tent, closed tight in an uneven shield wall.

“Form delta,” the Captain shouted.

The men closed the gap Jishnu’s detachment had created in time to accept another charge from the iron kravyad. The monster leapt high, forcing them to lift their shields. Deepti dodged to the side, narrowly missing the fire as the iron kravyad rolled atop the roof of domed bronze. The Grinders let the monster sink through a gap, stabbing and banging against its iron flanks. Startled, it squirmed to its feet and bolted back into the woods.

Deepti huddled between the sellswords and the fire. The screams of her mother emerged from the noisy chaos around her, no longer a faint echo recalled from the dark and dusty corners of her mind. Blood flowed down brown cheeks as broken nails probed past the eyeholes of a copper mask. She fought for breath. On instinct, she looked to her right.

A third kravyad, skinned in bronze, perched between two wagons. The beast watched Jishnu tear at Deepti’s lean-to in search of the box, finding it as he tossed the tent aside. His brothers guarded his right flank from the granite kravyad, who swiped at them with its claws.

The bronze kravyad closed the distance in the blink of an eye. Jishnu went down, pushing and stabbing to keep its jaws from his neck.

“Move to the wagons,” The Captain ordered. A few Grinders broke away from the main formation at some point in the fray, working to set the horses.

Deepti couldn’t believe her ears. They were going to leave him.

They were going to leave the mask.

Anger, cold and grim, rose from the place she kept the darkness of the past. Focus returned, and she went inside herself to find her atman, the quintessence the gods imbued in all things.

The bonfire flared high beside her, and above the blaze a wheel formed in her mind’s eye. A mandala made of three shifting rings ground in opposite directions. The center ring rolled clockwise while the next one went counter to it. The outermost ring bobbed back and forth.

The hum of her body drew the heat from the friction between those circles, and from the center emerged the fanged mouth of a dragon, his great tongue writhing in the air. Agni, the god of fire and sacrifice, breathed his power into Deepti.

“Move,” she bellowed in a voice both hers yet not hers either. The sellswords stopped in surprise at the order and stepped aside, compelled by something beyond mortal reckoning.

A grim mantra parted Deepti’s lips in a harsh whisper, repeating over and over again. The dragon’s flame at the center of the mandala rose in a white hot needle, its point narrowing and sharpening until it gleamed like a honed arrowhead.

The mantra ended.

Flames shot from the bonfire in a perfect stream, striking the bronze kravyad atop of Jishnu. It rolled away with a loud screech, its flank red hot and sagging. The two remaining kravyads darted for the woods as more fiery tentacles slithered from the bonfire to chase them. Deepti walked with her conjurings as they burnt lines into the trampled grass and dirt, her fingers pointed at the beasts to direct their destructions.

She reached Jishnu, who lay curled in a tight ball to protect himself from the flames. “Jishnu, get up,” she whispered, careful not to frighten him.

Jishnu looked up, squinting in the smoke. He took her offered hand, and a quick jerk lifted him to his feet. “You’re a mantrik,” he said through his coughing. He tucked the box under his arm.

“When I need to be.” Deepti pulled him to one of the five wagons ready to escape to the highway.

#

The convoy rumbled down the dirt highway at a brisk pace, the wheels clattering across the dips and pits in the road. Still armed with their spears and shields, the Grinders lined the sides of the wooden boxes, keeping watch for the dread beasts they knew prowled beyond the trees and brush. Morning arrived as the emerging sun brightened a cloudless sky from black to bronze. Seated in the corner beside Jishnu, Deepti leaned against their section of wall and watched the day arise.

“Why didn’t tell us you were a mantrik?” he asked.

She chewed the inside of her lip, searching for the right words. “My father and I thought it best not to say anything. I only use my power in the line of duty. I had hoped it would not be required.”

“I knew you were trouble the moment I laid my eyes on you.”

Deepti cracked a grin. “Scared of the little temple girl now?”

“What happened to your mother?” he asked, to the point.

The sudden question caught her. “What makes you think something happened?”

“I know sorrow, Deepti. I’ve seen enough of it to know its face.”

She sighed in resignation. “My mother was one of Sutia’s greatest mantriks, though no one knew save the kings and queens who called in secret. She liked her peace and quiet with my father. He was always better at helping others in alms and devotion. All she wanted to do in this life was neutralize the mask and turn it to good works.”

“She tried to destroy it,” Jishnu guessed.

“She tried everything. Every mantra and ritual she knew, but none of it worked. She put the mask on one day, thinking she could infect it from within with Devi’s holiness.” A tremor worked out of her chest, a breath of sadness. “That was the first time the kravyads entered the temple. People started dying that night.”

“And they took her first.” Jishnu looked to her, lips pressed in a line of sadness. “I’m sorry.”

“Hey, Thumbs,” called one of the Grinders, a short man with dark brown skin.

“What is it, Frog?” Jishnu asked.

“Look.” Frog pointed off behind Deepti and Jishnu. The two rose on the wagon bed and looked past the driver. Hills of green kusa lowered in gentle slopes to a white sand coast. At the edge of the ocean stood a sprawling city, its protective wall a long line of beige. The three towers of Karish’s royal palace gleamed like silver in the fresh morning, their spires rising from the peninsula they had been built upon in ancient times.

Further up the coast to the west lay a smaller structure overlooking the beach, a great stone beehive built on the top of a hillock. “That is Agni’s Temple,” said Deepti.

Jishnu patted the Grinder driving their wagon. “Did you hear her, Wood?”

“Aye, Thumbs,” said the driver.

Frog spoke again. “Looks like nobody dies to–” Cut off by a loud roar, the sellsword screamed as the iron kravyad climbed up the back of the wagon. It clamped its jaws on his shoulder and ripped him from the carriage. Before others could grab Frog’s feet he was already yards away, smothered beneath the bulk of his killer.

Jishnu ripped his sword from its scabbard. “Stop the wagon, Wood! Stop!”

“Look,” cried another of his comrades. Out of the wooded hills, where the forests met the plain, six more kravyads sprinted toward the convoy.

“By Naraka.” Jishnu squatted beside the wagon wall near Deepti, braced in the corner. “Wood, keep those horses moving! Someone signal the other wagons!”

One of the Grinders retrieved a horn from his pack and a clear note rang across the fields. The convoy broke their ordered line and went off the road, each aimed for the temple near the sea.

kravyad-2The kravyads closed the distance, the fire in their mouths bright, even in the sunny morning.

“Do you have another mantra?” Jishnu asked Deepti.

The wheels of the wagon thudded in a depression hidden in the grass, jolting her off balance. Somehow still on his feet, Jishnu grabbed her arm and lifted her to one of the wagon’s sides.

“I don’t have a torch,” she shouted, her bruised arms hooked on the wagon’s wall. Men scrambled for their weapons in a mess of bodies and limbs, the situation made worse by their crowding.

“Think of something,” Jishnu pleaded as someone passed him a spear.

A strange memory came to Deepti then, a mantra her father used to chant over her at bedtime after he told her stories. In one particular the war-god Asdra had saved Devi from a demon come to eat the everlasting twins in her belly, the children grew into the first man and woman. The mantra was the dancing song she had used to calm her wild husband.

She touched Jishnu’s shoulder. “Do you have a bow?” she asked.

“Why?”

“Do you?”

Jishnu furrowed his brow. “Lucky, hand me Frog’s bow and quiver.” The sellsword next to them handed him a bamboo bow and a quiver filled with a handful of arrows. He slung the quiver over his shoulder. “What now?”

Deepti focused inward. She envisioned a mandala on the floor in the center of the wagon, its three cobalt rings smooth as glass and spinning together, unified and set. “Stand up, Jishnu, and defend us.” He did as he was told, an arrow nocked on his bowstring. In a moment she was gone from the physical world.

The mantra flowed from her mouth. The three rings slid along each other at different paces, never once dragging or slowing. Inside the center ring danced two figures, one armed with a sword and the other a scarf, a god and goddess. He swung his blade at unseen foes while she steadied the sway of his body with hers, two partners eased by each other’s steps in a dance that was not just a dance, but the cycle of the universe itself.

Deepti laid a hand on Jishnu’s ankle. Her fingers radiated a faint light.

Jishnu found his footing. His swayed with the shaking of the wagon, perfectly balanced. “How?”

She squeezed his ankle to reassure him. “Just fight.”

Jishnu raised the bow, drawing back the string with the pull of a skilled archer. “Keep the damned things from the flanks, men,” he said. He loosed a shaft when the granite kravyad climbed the back of their wagon. The iron arrow chipped its eye. The Grinders met it with their spears, thrusting at its face and neck until the kravyad screeched and bounded away.

Deepti looked to the other wagons. The two to her right remained un-harried, but the other pair to the left rattled down the slopes toward Agni’s temple, followed closely by five kravyads. In the nearest wagon stood one man, his spear out and his shield high. Though his words were lost on wind in her ears, she recognized the Captain.

She pulled on Jishnu, and without any words he twisted to his left. A kravyad made of wood jumped for the Captain, and his arrow met the side of its head. The beast fell in the grasses as its partner stayed alongside the far wagon-wheel, its body obscured.

“Captain!” Jishnu drew his third arrow. “Get down!”

The Captain stumbled forward in time to move out of the bronze kravyad’s ascent. The Grinders in the wagon used their shields to shovel the beast out.

“How far, Wood?” Jishnu shouted.

“Half a mile,” the wagon’s driver answered.

“Faster,” Jishnu said. His next shaft snapped out with a hard twang. The arrow went wide of the bronze kravyad squatted in the grass, and his balance faltered. Deepti ceased whispering, shouting the words of the mantra to stave off the burn racking every nerve of her body as she clung to his leg.

“Watch out,” screamed the driver. “To the left!”

The farthest wagon on the left flipped, spilling its occupants and shattering into a mass of splintered wood. Bodies littered the field alongside the dead draft horses, which were quickly pounced upon by the kravyads.

“Do we stop, Thumbs?” asked the driver.

Deepti glanced to Jishnu, and her mantra paused when she saw his hopeless stare.

He seethed as the wind whipped his black hair around his face. “How far?”

“Another minute,” said Wood.

The box holding the mask slid onto his foot when the wheels hit another bump, drawing away his attention. She wished in that moment she could have thrown the mask out of the wagon, let the damned kravyads have it, just to end his suffering—but she had her duty, her dharma, and he had his mission.

“Don’t stop,” Jishnu said. His cold expression failed to hide his despair. “Just keep going.”

#

Ornate columns held up the great dome of polished bronze, the underside stained black from centuries of smoke billowing off the ring of fire set in the chamber’s center. Amid the flames a polished effigy towered, a single piece of red agate shaped into a deva with the body of a serpent, four powerful arms, and the torso and head of a man. In his hands he held a torch, a conch shell, and a pair of golden axes. A five-tiered crown made of precious gems sparkled in the light of the blaze around him, and from the god’s back sprouted two great reptilian wings, webbed and glossy.

Deepti stared at the statue of Agni, the god of fire and sacrifice, hoping he was ready to end her misery. She clutched the box to her chest, lost in thoughts that drowned out the sound of the men behind her as they worked to bar the large double doors of the temple. The Grinders had set their line at the entrance, braced against the portal while the rishis and their scribes busied to find heavier objects to help blockade their home. Men heaved as they pressed their shields into the doors, holding back the kravyads scratching on the other side.

An older priest named Prasad approached. “We’re ready, Sree Deepti.”

She mustered a smile. “Of course.” The mask seemed to suck away the warmth of the room when she opened the box. The forged face of a tiger glimmered in a shade of dull, muddy orange. Deepti lifted it out of its container, surprised by its lightness as she laid the box at her feet. “No need for ceremony, Prasadji?”

“Such a foul thing deserves none,” he said.

Agni-The-fire-god-in-HinduismDeepti stepped toward the ring of fire. A thunderous bang behind her broke her concentration. The doors cracked open and three heavy paws poked through the gap. Spears thrust at them as the Grinders pressed into each other to strengthen the shield wall.

“Quickly,” said Prasad, “Throw it into the fire!”

Deepti tossed the mask onto the bed of coals. The flames licked at the cheeks and forehead of the bestial face. From the mouth-hole passed a tongue of flame so high she thought it would melt the lips, but to no avail. The mask simply stared back, defiant on a sea of hot red.

Deepti turned to Prasad. “Why isn’t it melting?”

He shivered, voice trembling. “I-I don’t know. Agni’s holy flames should destroy such a foulness.”

The doors of the temple burst open, flung wide as the seven kravyads rolled atop each other into the holy sanctuary. Sellswords fell to the floor, their faces and breastplates sliced upon by rending claws.

The Captain called over the roars. “Cover the mask!”

From the din of battle rose Jishnu. His helmet torn away, blood sluiced from a cut on his shoulder. He shoved his way to Deepti, lips peeled back in a snarl, eyes set as if nothing—no man or beast—would stop him from getting to her and the mask.

“”You’re bleeding,” Deepti cried, horrified by the wound on his arm.

“No time.” He looked ahead to the fire, and Deepti followed his confused glare. The outer edges of the mask had sunken into the coals, making it seem as if the metal had started to melt.

Deepti knew better. “It’s not working.”

Snarling in defiance, Jishnu grabbed Prasad by the sacred cord hung around his body and jerked him close. “Well, rishi?”

“There’s still a way.” Prasad wrenched his vestment out of Jishnu’s hand and leapt over the fiery ring, a hand out to grab Agni’s arm that held the dragon-god’s holy torch. Hanging his entire body from the agate limb, he whined a prayer before a hidden joint in the statue loosed. The arm swung down, its hinge screeching. Stone panels around the statue’s base sank into a small staircase.

“Go,” he bade. “Agni’s True Flame waits below. If it can’t destroy the mask, nothing will!”

kravyad-3“Tremendous,” grunted Jishnu. He stabbed the point of his sword into the mask’s mouth, levering it off the burning coals.

At that moment the iron kravyad appeared, charging for Jishnu. It collided with him, knocking him down the hidden stair. The mask fell off his blade, skipping down the steps with a series of loud pings. Deepti went after them both.

She reached the first landing on the stair and found Jishnu sprawled on the platform. Stone ground against stone above her, and the sound of the battle above them died as the entrance of the secret stair shut.

#

Deepti sat on the landing and fought to catch her breath, bathed in the warmth of the air and the silence. She listened for any sound from above, any indication of the battle and the fate of the men who had shepherded her to the temple.

“Jishnu?” she whispered. “Are you all right?”

“My shoulder stings.”

“Let me see,” she asked.

His arm fell across her lap. Deepti pressed her fingers on the cut on his shoulder. Squinting against the low light, she ran her finger across the shallow gully. A minor wound, she left it alone. “It’s really not that bad.”

“It doesn’t matter now.”

“What do you mean?” Deepti asked.

“My brothers,” he said. “They’re all upstairs, dead and done. All for that damned mask.”

She looked down the steps to where the mask rested, undamaged. Beyond the worry of destroying it, the weight of the profane object had never been heavier. The servants of the temple, The Grinders, her mother—so many taken, so many lost to its horrid evil. Deepti stood, brushed off the front of her ruined sari, and combed her disheveled hair from her ears.

“Then let’s finish it for them.” She went down a few steps and retrieved the mask. Jishnu came close behind, sticking his sword in his belt.

The heat below grew with every step until sweat plastered the thin cotton of Deepti’s dress to her body and chaffed the inside of her thighs. For a time it seemed the gloom might go on forever, but soon it ebbed against a light, one bright and orange-red. A square doorway opened at the bottom of the stair, carved from the black rock.

In the center of a great chamber stood a perfect dome of white marble, fitted with wooden stairs that started at its base and went around to a wide platform at the top. In the center of the platform lay a basin holding a great fire, brighter than any Deepti had ever seen. Almost pure white in color, the flames licked the ceiling.

“Amazing,” said Jishnu. “This must be Agni’s Flame.”

agni-tantra“My father told me stories of it when I was little,” Deepti said. The air, once warm and pleasant, now choked in a dry staleness. “Agni’s Flame was the first fire in the world, lit by the god’s tear after the floodwaters receded and life sprang from death again. We’re looking at something that was here at the beginning of this world, before the ages.”

“Do you believe that?” Jishnu asked.

Deepti held tight to the mask, fingers aching from the pressure. “I hope I do.”

The climb up the steps went quickly enough, though by the time Deepti ascended to the platform the heat had grown to an indescribable misery, as if she walked beneath the hot sun itself.

“Throw it in,” said Jishnu when they reached the holy flame. “Be done with it.”

Deepti raised the mask up to toss it into the inferno when she caught sight of something out of the corner of her eye. In the doorway of the chamber came a shadow.

“Look,” she said, pointing.

A miasma conquered the doorway. From the dark came the sound of heavy paws thudding on stone, but more than that, the gentle pat of bare feet. A hand broke the semi-solid membrane, sending ripples across the ebon surface.

A woman emerged, dressed in a tattered but familiar sari much like Deepti’s. Her pallid brown skin was ashen in the light, and the dark circles under her eyes were the color of charcoal. Unkempt black hair bordered broad face, which would have been considered beautiful if not for her flaming eyes. Evil infested those red irises, and her burnt lips parted to reveal a harsh glow within her mouth.

The iron and bronze kravyads followed behind this apparition, their faces scarred and marked from battle.

Deepti’s breath caught in her chest. Her legs went out from under her, leaving her hung on the wooden rail around the platform.

“What is this devilry?” Jishnu demanded to know, his sword drawn.

Deepti tried to pull herself to her feet. “It’s my mother.”

The apparition smiled, her broken teeth stained. “Deepti. Still so pretty.” She walked to the foot of the dome’s stair, her guards beside her. Her movements were too smooth for a human woman, sleek and supple like a feline.

“Damn you.” Deepti regained her balance as shock gave way to anger. “You dare take her form…”

“Of course I dare.” The apparition ran her nails across the thick necks of the kravyads at her flanks, and the three slowly made their way up the stairs. “But that doesn’t matter, my little love. What matters is the choice you make right now.”

“Be plain, demon,” Jishnu said.

“Warrior, be quiet right now and let the women talk.” She stared up with those eyes, hatred and lust in her gaze. “I want that mask, Deepti. My master needs it for what is to come in the next age.”

“You’ll not have it,” Deepti promised. She let the mask fall into Agni’s Tear. It clanged against the basin, and the fire erupted in a great roar. The force of the blast nearly blew her over the rail. The kravyads’ wails twisted her stomach, and inside her head a thousand shards of glass sliced at her mind. Her vision cleared in time to see the ruin the divine fire had wrought.

No longer resting at the bottom of the bowl, the mask floated in the midst of the inferno, spinning slowly on an unseen axis. One of the forged ears, once pointed and etched with chiseled stripes, had reduced to a bubbling mass of burnt copper. The edges of the jaw, once sharp and even, distended as the metal softened.

Hope sprang anew.

“It’s working,” Deepti cried.

“Then hope it works quickly!” Jishnu waited for the two kravyads still climbing the steps. Their claws tore ruts into the wooden stair, the smoke from their mouths sulfur-yellow.

Deepti grabbed her head, her sudden excitement replaced with fresh terror. Her focus resettled on the mask, and an idea entered. “Give me your sword.”

“I need it,” he said, crouched and ready to fight.

“Just give it to me!” She took his short blade and stuck it into the fire, a mantra on her lips. Worried the iron would melt before she finished, she forced the image of the three rings before they naturally came, letting them gain their own colors as they waited at the other end of the sword. Purples, blues, and gray mixed together in the swirling rings, which lay still until she urged them to move. The center ring spun fast while the middle and outer ring went at their own paces in opposite directions. The words came, and from the void in the mandala’s center flowed liquid gold. It blended into the sword’s edges and flats, snaking around like a serpent over rock.

“By Asdra,” said Jishnu.

The blade of his sword, once gray iron, shone with a golden luster. Deepti handed it to him and dropped to her knees, exhausted by her work. “Go,” she ordered, barely able to speak. “Stop them.”

The two kravyads met Jishnu as they bounded to the top of the steps. The iron kravyad dove for the sellsword, only to be met with a slash that ripped its jaw from its head. Black blood pulsed from the wound as the beast buckled in pain, its gore stinking of bile. Metal gave away and melted like wax.

Jishnu fought with the bronze kravyad, dodging away as the ferocious cat swiped at him. The two danced around each other, lashing out with paw and sword until Jishnu found himself in one of the tight corners of the platform’s fencing.

The bronze kravyad leapt. Jishnu ducked low, slashing upward across his enemy’s belly. Black blood sprayed as the spirit flew over the barricade.

“Very valiant.” The apparition of Deepti’s mother stood at the top of the stair. “But enough games.”

Bellowing, Jishnu charged at her. The apparition raised her hand up at him and flicked her fingers to the side, and suddenly he shot to the right. He collided with the wall on the far side of the chamber, falling like a fly swatted from the air.

Deepti crawled to the edge of the platform. Jishnu lay on floor, bloodied and concussed.

“It’s almost over, my little love.”

She rolled to her back and found the apparition standing over her, a slight frown on a ghoulish face.

“You fought so very well,” the apparition said. “You mortals try so hard.”

Deepti glared at the corruption of her mother’s form, and then past her to the mask floating above the basin. The ears had melted away, the edges burnt black, and the jaw distended until the mouth was a wide chasm. Copper dripped into the flame.

If only the mask was closer.

“This could have been easier,” the apparition continued. “My lord would have come for the mask at some point, entering your little temple without effort, no harm done. So much suffering could have been avoided.”

“It is my dharma to stop evil. That mask, you, your god—you deserve destruction.”

“That’s one way of looking at it, or maybe dharma swings both ways.” The apparition went for the mask. “Not that it matters.”

There were no mantras left, no warrior to save her, and as Deepti watched the apparition slowly reach for the mask reality set in:

If only the mask was closer.

“Not for us,” Deepti said, and she surged to her feet. Her arms wrapped around the apparition, the two fell on the mask, plunging it deeper into the fire. The ghost beneath her screamed, but Deepti didn’t hear it over her own wail. The flames burnt the flesh away from her arms and hands, exposing the bones as the world disappeared in a flash of white.

THE END

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Published by Associate Editor on August 26, 2015. This item is listed in Issue 27, Issue 27 Stories

Sampson’s Moon

By Preston Dennett

Nobody likes surprises, not really.   So there are alien bases on the moon. Sorry we forgot to mention that. Alien bases, artifacts, ships, other stuff we don’t understand yet. Why did we cover it up? We decided you couldn’t handle the truth. Hah! Is it any surprise that people reacted the way they did, and that NASA was doomed? Perhaps things would have been different if we weren’t so long in learning the truth.  In some ways it’s the same situation with Sampson Thornton. He admitted himself that he covered up certain events. But you have to understand Sampson to understand his story, why he remained quiet about what happened. He liked the mystery; he didn’t want to destroy it. Sampson’s moon was filled with mystery.

Mysteries are funny. They make people nervous. The moon’s most persistent mystery, transient lunar phenomena—tulips—is the perfect example. Thousands of reports of lights on the moon, lights that appear in strange patterns, coming from a wide variety of credible sources (including astronomers) for more than two centuries. We finally go to the moon and see them close-up. Then we establish moon colonies, and we still see them. We photograph them. And yet, be the one to report seeing a tulip yourself and you are ridiculed.  Say you make contact…well, ask Sampson.

Like I said, nobody likes surprises. And of all the surprises Luna sprung on us, none was greater than the one discovered by Sampson Thaddeus Thornton. No wonder he was ridiculed and attacked. I maintain, however, that this reputation is unjustified. In fact, Sampson only agreed to tell me his story to correct the many lies that have been told about him. And there have been many.
                            —from Sampson’s Moon
                            (by Claudia Wu)

 

sunriseI absolutely love sunrise on the moon. Love it! It’s always different, the way the sun peeks over the horizon, turning the blackness to a dazzling array of grays, silvers and whites. And best of all, it’s the time we scavvies get to suit up and go hunting. You can feel the excitement pulse through the city, the crowds gathering to see us off, the expectation of success electrifying the air. I especially love getting Sally (my rig) ready.  I love packing up the foodstuffs, tightening the treads, juicing up the batteries, polishing the solar panels, flushing out the air scrubbers, checking the seals, cleaning the filters…and the countless other things that need to be pulled, pushed, tightened, loosened, glued, filled, emptied, squeezed, tested, repaired and, of course, hidden.

Sally’s not much to look at, and she’s older than space and broken in twenty places, but she’s dependable as a dog, and has gotten me through more scrapes than I can count.  Most important—she’s all mine. Not many scavvies can say that. I work for myself.

Of course, that explained why I was fresh out of funds. With my last two outings both dismal failures, this trip would make it or break it for me. And with Elliot missing, the stakes for him were life and death. We scavvies have to stick together, and let’s face it, this was Elliott. Any one of us would have given our right arm to find him.

Sally and I showed up early at the inspection station. I wasn’t shocked to see the crowds.  But my stomach turned at the look of some of the rigs, all expensive and shiny and new.  I cued Sally into the growing line and found Maddy Wu in the waiting room. Like me, she was independent and answered to nobody but herself. For that reason, I respected her. I liked her because she was a damn good scavvie, one of the best, and an old-timer like me. Needless to say, we’ve come to know each quite well. She waved and flashed her crooked teeth.

“What took so long? Surprised you’re not already out there.” She waved toward the window at the moonscape.

“Don’t you worry your pretty little head. I’ll find our man.”

“Not if I find him first.”

“Even if you find him, where will you put him?”

Maddy narrowed her eyes. “I’ll find a spot. My rig will out-perform yours anytime! You just say when!”

I raised my hands. “Just kidding. This isn’t a race.”

“Of course it is,” she said. “Besides, you know it’s true. Zebediah the Great may be old, and he may be small, but he’ll lay out Sally like a track. And you know as well as I, the first to find Elliott will find whatever it is he supposedly found. Do you know when his message actually came in?”

“No, I haven’t been able to find out. It’s the message that’s important anyway. It’s them!  Of course! That’s it. What the hell do you suppose he meant by that? You’ve got to admit it’s an odd last message. Could mean anything.”

“Ten to one, he got the moon sickness. I bet we’ll find him outside his rig, without his helmet, like the others. I don’t know. What do you think he was trying to say?” She closed her eyes and tilted her head oddly toward me.

I wagged my finger at her. “Don’t go trying that medium stuff on me.”

“Why, you’ve got something to hide?”

“Maybe,” I said.

She was silent a moment, and she became still. I knew the look. She was telepathing me, conversing with my spirit guide—whatever the heck she called it. Suddenly, her eyes snapped open and she smiled. “The tulips, huh?  You really think there’s a connection?”

The oxygen went right out of my tanks. There went my secret weapon. May as well let her know; she knew anyway. Damn woman! You couldn’t hide a thing from her. “Could be.”

She pursed her lips. “Interesting. So I guess that means you’re heading to Erasmus.”

Damn her!  I tried to play innocent. “No,” I said, an obvious lie.

She threw her head back and laughed loudly. The other scavvies looked down at us, dressed in their expensive spacesuits. Bet not a one of them worked for themselves. Most of them were kids, in their fifties or younger, probably not an original find among the lot. They didn’t know what it was like before the lunar surface had been tracked and re-tracked, before it had been picked clean of every damn alien artifact that could be found.

The station door opened and a man said, “Madeline Wu?”

She stood up.

“Your rig failed inspection.”

Maddy put her arms on her hips and stared at the young man with livid anger. “What is this? My rig is fine! Show me! And you better be right or else I’ll have your job. In fact, where is your manager?”

I laughed, and felt sorry for the poor technician. By the time Maddy was done with him, he would wish that he’d just passed her. Why the Luna government insisted on inspection was beyond me. It’s not like they would try to rescue us if we got in trouble. We scavvies were on our own. The discoveries on the moon had given Earth a ticket to the stars, and what did we moonies get? Nothing! All the money was going to the new worlds. Nobody cared much about Luna anymore. And to think it was the original scavengers who found the alien ships. It didn’t seem fair. But then again, there wasn’t much about the moon that was fair.

As I waited impatiently for Sally to impress the judges, Chuck “the Slime” Guzman oozed into the room and stank next to me.

“Well, if it isn’t old man Sampson Thornton. Thorny. Wasn’t sure if you’d show up. Are you still driving that old hunk of junk? I don’t know how you can stand it. It’s so small.  I’m surprised it’s still working. You know, it’s not safe out there for you. I have to hand it to you for keeping on trying, though. I mean, considering your last two outings.”

Chuck went on, bragging about his new expensive rig, and looking for other ways to insult me. I hated him. I hated him, and his expensive ultralight pressure-suit with its radiation-protected super-clear faceplate, and the way he stood, the way he looked down on me—me, who had paved the way for the likes of him. It made me sick.

I did my best to ignore him, but he really ripped my pressure-suit when he kept insulting Sally. Insult me, fine. But I won’t tolerate anyone saying those kinds of things about my Sally. I was about to tell Chuck to go follow my tracks when Inspection called my name.

“Sampson Thornton? Your vehicle has failed.” The inspector pointed to a list of items.

“What?” I roared, tearing the red ticket out of his hand. “What the hell is wrong with my tanks? You’ve got to be kidding! Let me see your manager!”

Six hours, an eight hundred dollar repair, and a two hundred dollar bribe later, I was set to go. I looked around for Maddy, but she had already left, as had nearly all the others. So I was late, oh well. At least I was out.

I breathed a sigh of relief as the buildings of Aldrin City faded into the moonscape. My rig clogged the traffic behind me, and I cursed the damn regulations that kept me on the roadways for at least five miles outside of the city. Too many complaints about tracks. As far as I was concerned, they could follow my tracks!

No matter. I was in a good mood. Sally was humming along, the green panel lights casting a merry glow. My batteries were charged, my tanks full, and my secret cache of rum remained undiscovered by the inspectors. It felt good to be out again, on the hunt. I may be an old man, but when the hunt starts, I feel as young as when I first started, all those years ago, when I was just a moonpup.

I put Sally on auto while I turned on the screen to view my secret weapon: a map of recent tulip activity. I admit it, I believed in tulips. Most of us old moonies knew that the tulips were real, but nobody seemed to think much about them. Earthworms, of course, just laughed at the stories. We learned to keep quiet.

The map was my own crude creation, put together from the accounts of scavvies, maintenance workers, travelers, and other people who had reported an encounter, as well as the reports from Earth made in the last three centuries. I had been quietly collecting reports for years. Looking at the map, the connection between the tulips and discoveries of the artifacts was clear. The area also had an unusually high number of accidents or disappearances, like Elliot’s. It was the Bermuda Triangle of the moon, and most scavvies learned to stay away from it.

I was not surprised to find that Erasmus was thick with reports of tulips. Hell, I had seen one myself there many years ago. Damnedest thing I ever saw. Scared the hell out of me, and I don’t scare easy. Bright as the sun…in fact, I thought it was the sun.  And tall, I’m estimating ten meters. It was off in the distance, moving away, and if I didn’t know better, I’d say it was avoiding me. Which meant it was intelligent. But as everyone knows, TLP is supposed to be a natural phenomenon. Or so the officials say. Me, I wasn’t so sure.

The map said it all. The correlation between disappearances and tulip reports was obvious. There had been a few recent sightings, all in the heart of Erasmus. Well, that’s where I would search for Elliot. If I knew Elliot, that’s where he would go. Hell, it was pretty much the only place left that hadn’t been tracked, re-tracked and picked clean of artifacts. I thought of the other scavvies who were now undoubtedly searching Elliot’s official route that he had reported to Inspection, and chuckled to myself. They were newbies. They’d learn soon enough that scavvies don’t tell anyone—especially Inspection—where they are going. Not if they wanted to be successful in this business.

I examined my route. I would take the long way around Mount Icarus, skirt the edge of Crater Curie, traveling the edge of Gable Canyon until it ended and finally moving into the heart of the vast Erasmus lowlands. A longer route than I wanted to take, but at least I would get a good look at the Shard.

And no matter, I was in a good mood. After an hour I turned off the main road and into the wilderness. I was finally out! I dug out my secret cache of rum. It was still early in the trip, but what the hell? Time to celebrate, and take in every moment. If things didn’t go well, this could be my last time out. I drove the thought from my mind and enjoyed the moonscape, taking a sip now and then to warm my stomach.

The view of the sun reflecting silver off the slopes of Curie was rivaled only by the sweeping majesty of Gable Canyon, with its fantastically sculptured walls. I passed dozens of old tracks, and kept on moving, letting the hours pass. I thought about Elliot; I studied my map, watched more scenery, sipped my rum, but not too much; I still needed to remain clear-headed.

Gable Canyon finally smoothed out and disappeared. Then the Shard finally came into view, a smallish-looking gray protuberance off on the horizon. Two hours later, its true size became obvious as it towered overhead.

I pressed my face to the windshield and peered up at its magnificence. Of all the alien structures found on the moon, the Shard was—in my opinion—the most beautiful. Nearly four miles high and razor-thin, only eight meters in diameter at its thickest point, which wasn’t the base. It reflected a dazzling silver light, and looked like a thin shard of diamond glass. No wonder it was the number one tourist spot on Luna. I was glad that the scientists couldn’t identify or duplicate the material. Nobody still had any idea what the Shard was, and I preferred it that way. The moon needed a little mystery. It had been stripped of so much. Let it at least keep that.

A warning buzzer blared. Sally was angry! I read the panel with dismay. Overheating already, and I just got out. She needed shade. A half-kilometer to the right, a tiny outcropping provided enough cover. Sally was lugging when she finally pulled in. I shut off the engine and instead of getting angry, took another sip of rum, studied my map some more, and waited.

Sally was just cooling off when I saw a glint of light in the distance. Tulip? I punched up the scope. No, it was a rig. I zoomed in and laughed. It was Maddy, following my tracks!

She suddenly slowed and stopped where I had turned off to find shade. She paused for only seconds before she went moving ahead, following my secret pre-planned route and leaving me behind. Her rig was lighter than mine, and faster. Damn her, and damn this heat! Sally still wasn’t ready to go. Nothing to do but wait. Maddy obviously recognized my tracks. Why didn’t she stop? What if I was in trouble? Of course, I could try to distract her. I dialed her number.

Her face appeared on the screen. She flashed an innocent smile, clearly expecting my call. “Beautiful, isn’t it?” She sent a feed of the Shard, and then came back to the screen.

“Stunning,” I said. “What’s the deal with following my tracks? Run out of your own ideas already? And why didn’t you stop? Or at least call? You knew it was me.”

She peered at me, eyeing me up and down. “Is that rum? Don’t you think it’s a little premature to start celebrating?”

I snorted. “What? That’s not a beer behind you?”

She smoothly pushed the bottle out of view. “Pardon me?”

“You’ve been following me. Maddy, I thought you were better than that.”

“I’m not following you. You just happen to be going the same way I am going. And besides, if I’m not mistaken, now you’re following me.”

“Ah, but there’s a difference. You don’t know where you’re going.”

“What, you mean your secret tulip map? Don’t look so surprised. I may be pretty,”—she batted her eyelashes—“but I’m also smart. I’ve known about your map since you started it. Do you know how many people have asked me if you’re okay, you know, in the head? People think your obsession with the tulips might be a sign that your tanks are getting low, that’s all I’m saying. Next you’ll be telling me you think they’re intelligent, and that they are the aliens.”

“And what if they are?”

“Damn it! I knew it!  ou do believe it. Maybe your tanks are already empty.”

“Then why are you here? If you weren’t following me? You believe it too. These tulips are not natural.”

She shrugged. “Let’s just say I have a hunch, a feeling. You know me, I’m a lucky girl.”

At that instant, her rig hit a large bump, sending her sailing out of her seat up to the ceiling. She crashed roughly down, and tried quickly to regain a graceful composure as she scrambled for her bottle.

“Maybe you should wear a seatbelt,” I said.

“Maybe you should follow my tracks,” she retorted. She smoothed out her hair. “You are okay, aren’t you? You don’t need help?”

“No, I’m fine,” I said. “Thanks for asking.”

She shrugged.

“I’m just a little hot. I can’t believe you followed my tracks. I’m going to catch up to you.”

“Not if I can help it. And I didn’t follow your tracks! As I was saying, I have a feeling about this place. Where else would Elliot go? This is where all the action is. And like you say, there have been a lot of disappearances here.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“No? Oh, sorry. Well, listen Sammy boy, the trail is roughing up, so I’m going to switch you off and blaze on. Catch me if you can!” She flashed me a moon sign and switched off.

I took a last swig of rum and seeing that Sally was feeling better, took off after Maddy. As I followed her tracks, I could see her rig ahead of me, bouncing along, shining in the sun. She slowly increased her lead, becoming smaller and smaller until finally disappearing from view.

I patted Sally and told her not to worry, that I still loved her. Whatever method Maddy used to guide her, it was right on. She took exactly the route I would have taken. Where I had gotten there with reasoning and my secret map, she used her intuition, I guess. Unless she was reading my mind. Women! Never could figure them.

I followed her tracks, vowing to catch up with her and show her who was boss around here. Meanwhile, I watched the Shard disappear into the background, and wondered for the millionth time, what was it for? Perhaps a monument to memorialize an ancient war. Or maybe a communication device to reach distant galaxies.

I daydreamed along on auto when Maddy called. Her face looked frightened.

“Sampson! Where the hell are you? You’ve got to see this.” She fed me an image. At first I couldn’t see anything unusual, just your average moonscape, a rolling field of rocks and boulders. Then, right before she switched back, I saw it. A shape, a rig. Could it be Elliot’s? I couldn’t make out the call numbers.

“See it?” she asked.

“Not really. A rig?”

“Come on, Sammy. You know I owe you. Let’s do this. It’s Elliot’s. I’m sure of it.”

“How do you know?”

She narrowed her eyes, smiled slyly. “You question my judgment?”

“I’m just asking.”

“I don’t know, I just know. Just hurry up. The trail gets a little sketchy up ahead. We’re getting pretty far out, you know.”

“Fine, just don’t start without me. And while I should know better by now, I don’t believe you.  If that’s Elliot’s rig, I’ll…I’ll…”

“You’ll what? What? What the hell is that? Sampson,” she said, her face forming an expression of shock, “You’ll want to see this. You owe me for this one!”

“What the hell is going on?”

“Just watch!” she snapped, and fed me a live image of the rig that was allegedly Elliot’s.

I watched. It was a tulip, blazing white-hot, huge, and hovering directly over the rig. And then it began to lower, lighting up the ground brighter than sunlight. Lower and then it was behind the rig, circling it. A few seconds later, it darted away towards a rock outcropping, where it disappeared.

Maddy’s face appeared on the screen. “Consider this my official apology. You were right. Those damn things are intelligent. I can’t believe I saw one! Did you see the way that thing moved?”

“I told you,” I said.

“And I apologized. Now get your damn rig over here so we can get down there. I need your help to find a way around these cliffs.”

“Cliffs?”

“Are you guys talking about the tulip?”

“Who is this?” I asked.

“Is that you?” Maddy asked.

“It’s me, guys.” Chuck’s face appeared on the screen. Maddy instantly hung up.

“This is a private call!” I barked. “How did you find our channel?”

“Sorry, I didn’t know. Where are you guys?”

“Never mind,” I said. “What the hell do you want?”

“Nothing, I just was looking at Madeleine’s footage there of the tulip. Not bad, best I’ve seen in awhile. Not good enough to convince any skeptics, of course, but still… You’re at the north end of Gable, aren’t you?”

“Good-bye, Chuck,” I said, hanging up. Great! He had heard everything. He was probably already following our tracks. I called Maddy and gave her a new frequency, encrypted this time. It cost more, but I’d be spaced if I let the likes of Chuck listen in.

I put the throttle on high and took Sally as fast as she could go. Maddy was right, the trail soon began to get rough, and before long, I had to slow down or risk snapping a tread, or worse. The landscape steepened the farther I went.

Finally, I came up to Maddy’s rig. It was perched along the trail, which suddenly swept sharply down into the flatlands below. Off in the distance was the area of the missing rig.

While I had explored a good portion of the moon, this was not an area I knew. Call me superstitious. Maybe I was just being careful. Maybe I thought some places on the moon should remain unexplored. For whatever reason, like most scavvies, I stayed mostly out of the Erasmus regions.

My screen buzzed to life. “What do you think?” Maddy asked. “Should I chance it?”

“Are you crazy?  No. We’ll find a way around. Any sign of Chuck?”

“No. The nerve of that creep. Listening in on our conversation. There ought to be a law!”

“You tried hailing Elliot?”

“Of course!” she snapped. “No answer.”

I activated the map and zoomed to the area. The only way was to backtrack and go the long way around. The escarpment was less shallow there.

I sent the route to Maddy.

“That’s what I thought,” she said. “Well, let’s go. You first.”

I turned the rig around and headed down towards the flatlands. Maddy stayed close behind.

It was slow going because of the rough terrain. We were about halfway down when I saw them—tracks—moving at a diagonal down the ridge, exactly toward the missing rig. I felt the air leave my lungs. I knew those tracks, they were Elliot’s. Maddy was right! It was Elliot’s rig. I turned to follow the tracks, covering them with my own.

I didn’t alert Maddy. She’d figure it out soon enough and I wanted to delay her I-told-you-so’s as long as possible. She came on-line anyway. “This way? What are you thinking? But you said—”

“I found tracks,” I interrupted. “I’m following them.”

She didn’t reply, but she started to hang back, lag behind. She knew.

I kept up my speed and followed the tracks. I was kind of surprised that anybody would go this way. The slope was still too steep for easy travel. Elliot would never normally take this route. He must’ve seen something. The tulips? I wondered.

The slope continued downward and it looked like everything would be fine. Then suddenly, near the bottom, I had to stop. It was too steep. I could still see Elliot’s tracks; they were all slides and scrapes and skips. It looked like he barely made it down.

Maddy chimed in. “Why are you stopping? Let’s keep going. What, are you afraid?”

I surveyed the slope one more time. I don’t know why, but I had a bad feeling. And, yes, I was afraid.

“Are you going?” Maddy asked impatiently.

I couldn’t do it. It was too steep. “I think we should go back.”

“Are you crazy?” Maddy said.

Seconds later, her rig zoomed silently passed mine, hesitating only momentarily before zooming recklessly down the slope. I cursed my lack of courage. I should’ve known Maddy wouldn’t listen. I held my breath as she careened downward. Her rig hit a few bumps, actually took flight and slammed back down, at one point balancing on edge. She was a pro, though, and handled her rig with finesse. After I saw that she was okay, I followed, though perhaps more slowly.

I did my best to keep up with her. She was a natural at picking the best route down. Definitely didn’t need my help. She came across Elliot’s tracks, stopped for exactly one second, then resumed her reckless plunge, following Elliot’s tracks at a significantly higher speed.

What the hell was I so afraid of? Perhaps it was all the stories that had come out of this area. And why not? Hell, I was scared. I had seen that tulip descend on that rig. A natural phenomenon does not behave that way. Whatever that thing was, it was alive.

Which meant, they probably were the aliens. Probably? They had to be. All this time, everybody was wondering where the aliens went. Who built all these alien structures—all the ships, the moonballs, the sculptures, and especially the Shard—and then just left? Well, maybe they didn’t leave. Perhaps they’ve been here the whole time, only we didn’t know it.

One thing was for sure, TLP weren’t caused by moonquakes, which was the most popular theory for two centuries. Hell, most earthworms still believed that, assuming they even knew about TLP.

Maddy led the way valiantly, and I continued to keep up best I could. I kept getting distracted by the view of the vast valley floor opening up below. While it looked smooth and inviting from up high, I knew it was covered with dust pits, deadly cliffs, knife-edged rocks that could snap a tread instantly, and all kinds of hidden dangers. In other words, it was beautiful.

Still, considering the hazards, I wanted to be extra careful. Maddy graciously waited for me when I fell too far behind. We then continued down the slope.

She sent me a zoomed image of the rig.

Her face appeared. “See, I told you!” she said. “It’s Elliot’s! Look.”

It was Elliot’s rig. The call numbers were clear as day. Unfortunately, there was no sign of activity. No sign of life.

“I hate to say it, Maddy, but he’s probably dead. I mean, he would have called responded by now. Whatever he found…”

“We don’t know that. He might be fine. He might.”

Maddy. Always the optimist, but I knew better. We both did. He was dead, and probably because of what he found. What had he found? And where was he? And what was that tulip doing? Were these things dangerous? I had always thought so, but somehow I never considered them deadly.

It took another hour. When we started getting close, Maddy sped up so that by the time I arrived, she was already suited-up and walking around Elliot’s rig, peering in the windows.

I suited up in fifty seconds sharp, jumped outside and joined her. “Let’s get inside,” I said.

“No need. He’s not here.”

“What are you talking about? You haven’t even been inside?”

“The door to the airlock is open. His rig is empty. Look down.” Maddy said flatly.

“What?”

“Look. Down.” She pointed.

There were footprints—Elliot’s—leading away from his rig toward a rocky outcropping a few hundred meters away.

“Well, shall we follow them?” I asked. “You saw that tulip. It could be dangerous.”

“Are you kidding?”

She didn’t wait for my answer, but turned and began loping alongside the tracks. Not to be left behind, I leapt up beside her, and we bounded across the moonscape together with the tracks between us.

The trail led behind the rocky outcropping and down into a hidden rille, curving around, then suddenly becoming deeper and narrower.

All at once it ended, or seemed to. But as we followed Elliot’s footprints, we saw that the mini-canyon led to a dark overhang, which suddenly revealed itself to be a hidden cave.

Elliot’s tracks led directly inside. We stopped and looked at each other on our helmet screens. Maddy’s expression looked like a kid before Christmas morning. She had good reason. Caves were a prime location for finding alien artifacts.

I saw her eyes turn and look at her screen—at me. She laughed. “Scared?” she asked. “Don’t worry. I have a good feeling about this.”

“I don’t.” I said. “I think I figured it out. One of those tulip things killed Elliot. He came in this cave and didn’t come out. The tulip we saw probably killed him.”

“All the more reason to hurry. He could still be alive.”

“Are you sure you want to go inside?” I asked.

“Yes, and so do you. This is it, Sammy! Whatever Elliot found, all my oxygen says it’s in here. We’ve finally hit the big one!”

“We’ll be out of radio contact,” I said.

“What’s wrong with you?” Maddy asked. “We’re going in.”

What was wrong with me? More than likely, Maddy was right. Just a few steps away could be a treasure trove of undiscovered alien artifacts, the big find I had always wanted.

“This is where the tulip went,” I said.

“Yeah, well…we still have to go. Elliot could still be alive. He might need us.”

We went inside the cave.

The darkness lasted only seconds before our suit lights blazed forth, lighting up the cave before us in stark relief.

I saw rock walls, obviously naturally formed. But then it took one sharp turn to the right and the walls widened out. The cave floor sloped down and smoothed. The walls also smoothed.

We crept out together along what now appeared to be an artificially constructed corridor, down a ramp toward an opening. Looking at the walls, I could see that they glistened like the Shard. Maddy stopped and grabbed by arm lightly.

“You see the walls?”

“Yes,” I said. “You were right, this is big.”

“No, you were right. I was following you. Your mind, that is. You found this place.”

“You ready?” I asked. This was no time for confessions.

She gulped. “Let’s do it.”

We stepped forward through the opening.

The cave opened to an open rounded chamber a hundred meters wide. Our lights cast a bright circle of light on the floor, which sparkled wildly, casting chaotic rainbow reflections around the room. At first the room appeared to be empty, but then I saw something at the far end…round spheres? I cast a beam toward them. It was a haphazard pile of round balls, each smooth and white, about fifty centimeters in diameters. Moonballs. I knew them well. As I cast the light beam around the room, I saw several other piles. I estimated there were at least fifty total.

“More spheres?” Maddy asked, disappointed.

“It doesn’t look like there’s much else,” I said. “But these are still worth something.”

Like all moonies, we were familiar with most of the alien artifacts that had been found on our home. These strange spheres had been found in many places. As souvenirs, they were considered quite valuable, certainly worth more than either of us had ever seen. But it wasn’t anything new. There didn’t seem to be anything else in the room.

“There must be nearly a hundred of them,” Maddy said. “Sammy, this could be the biggest collection of moonballs ever found. Let’s grab some, get out of here and stake our claim!”

“Wait,” I said, seeing something behind one of the piles of moonballs. I cast my flashlight at it. It was Elliot, or what was left of him. It looked like he had taken off his helmet. I had seen decompression before. Moon sickness.

Maddy’s scream cut through my speaker like a siren.   glanced to my right and saw that she had walked toward the closest pile of spheres. She was now standing up and falling backwards, while one sphere that she had apparently just inspected lit up brilliantly and began to rise upward and expand.

Maddy scrambled backward crablike then jumped to her feet and stood by my side.  Together we watched the glowing sphere expand larger and larger. It shot down a brilliant pillar of light and then blossomed outward at the top. It was a tulip. The damn moonball had transformed into a damn tulip!

We both stepped backward, stopping only when our feet hit an obstruction. I glanced down quickly. More spheres.

Meanwhile, the tulip was growing, brightening, illuminating the chamber completely. I saw Elliot clearly now. He was very dead.

The tulip flared and moved toward us.

I lurched backward toward the exit.

“One more step and you’re dead!”

Maddy’s voice was stern, authoritative. I stopped in my tracks.

“Look over there!” I screamed. “Elliot’s dead! They k-killed him!”

“Will you shut up?!” Maddy hissed. “It’s trying to communicate!”

“What?” I tried to stop hyperventilating.

“Sshh!” Maddy gestured to keep still, which I did.

Maddy, however, stepped forward, knelt, and looked directly into the blazing light. I recognized her stance. She was telepathing it. The tulip moved closer until they nearly touched.

I eyed the exit, wondered how long it would take me to reach it. I certainly didn’t want to end up like Elliot. I saw enough vacuum-packed bodies in the decom of ’98 to last a lifetime.

What was Maddy doing? She now sat before the deadly flower, motionless. I grew impatient. Couldn’t Maddy see that these tulips were dangerous? The evidence was right in front of us. Elliot was dead.

I noticed the light in the room dimming. Maddy stepped up, backward. The tulip moved back and began to fade. Suddenly it collapsed, shrinking into a sphere, which lowered to the ground, became dull. As the room became dark I noticed that my suit-lights were still on.

“Jesus Christ!” I said.

“It was an accident,” Maddy said. “They didn’t mean to do it.”

“What? No, you’ve got it wrong this time, Maddy. They’re killers. Elliot’s dead. He’s right there, his body.”

“It was an accident. They were trying to communicate.”

“How can you be so gullible? It’s not just Elliot! This exact thing has happened to a dozen scavvies, Maddy! This could have been us!”

She was shaking her head. “Shavi explained it to me. It was an accident. They were just trying to communicate.”

“Shavi? Shavi?”

“Her name,” Maddy said calmly. “At least I think it’s a she.”

“Shavi? You’re serious?”

“Can’t you see? You were right, Sammy. These are the aliens. Or rather…they were. Shavi explained everything.”

“What? Come on, Maddy. You’re not making sense.”

“Just calm down for a second and let me explain.  hey were trying to communicate in the manner that their species communicates. The best way I can think of to explain it is possession. They were trying to ah…move inside us, and not so much possess us, but to commune, to communicate.”

“Wait,” I said. “Something’s not adding up here. These can’t be the aliens. How could aliens like this build ships? They don’t even have hands. They’re just pure energy.”

“Don’t you get it? Sometimes, Sammy…,” she sighed, patient. “Yes, these are the aliens, but they’re no longer alive.”

“Alien ghosts?” I croaked, disbelieving.

“Sorry, Sammy. I can you see you don’t like it, but that’s it. You’ve got your aliens. But they’re dead. They died long ago. These are their spirits.”

“Ghosts?”

“What’s so hard to believe? Humans have ghosts. Animals have ghosts.”

“And they look like that?”

“Like the tulip? When they’re alive, no, actually. They’re like us in many ways. Two arms and legs, a head, but the similarity ends there. They are taller, more slender, more flexible. They’re not from here, the moon. They came from somewhere else. They were refugees. They fled here, and found our planet occupied.”

“They told you this?”

“Shavi. She told me. Sammy, it was incredible. I could feel her inside me. It was like I became her.”

“What else did she tell you? Are they going to kill any more people?”

“No, they were about to commune with us when we came inside here. They knew there was a danger, but they were desperate. That’s why I told you to stop moving. And then I communicated with them. See, that’s how they communicate with the living members of their own species. They were just trying to talk.”

“And all these?” I waved my flashlight at the spheres. “These are all tulips?”

She nodded. “The Seekers? No…the Finders, something like that. That’s what they call themselves. We can’t take them, you know. We have to leave them here.”

“Maddy, you know how this sounds?”

“You know I don’t lie, Sammy.”

“It’s not that I don’t believe you. But everyone else…”

“I don’t care,” Maddy said. “It’s all true. You know, she told me something else. It’s important.”

“What?” I asked.

“They need us to do something for them.”

“Us? What?” I asked. “And why do I have the feeling I’m not going to like this?”

“Well, okay, me. But I assumed you’d want to help me. It’s not a bad thing. They just need my help.”

“How?”

“They want me to activate the Shard.”

“Activate the Shard?” I laughed, perhaps a little too rudely. “What the hell does that mean? Activate the Shard? You mean, our Shard?”

“Well, maybe they meant repair the Shard. Or complete. Hard to say; they don’t really use words.”

“Well, did they say how you’re supposed to do this?”

“No, not really.”

“Did you ask why?”

Suddenly Maddy began to cry, which is so unlike her. “Sammy, they were left behind. I don’t understand it…not exactly, but they need me to activate the Shard.”

“What are you saying? The Shard actually has a purpose? It’s not just art? It’s an antenna to communicate with their home world?”

“I don’t know, they didn’t say. I just know they need the Shard. Sammy, I don’t understand it. I don’t. Give me a break. I’ve never communicated with an alien ghost before. But I know that they’re desperate. They need a living being, somebody physical—me apparently—to activate the Shard. We have to go. Now.”

“What? You’re actually going to try and do this? Maddy, think of what you’re trying to do. You don’t even know what actuate the Shard means.”

“Activate.”

“It’s a public park, Maddy. There’ll be people everywhere.”

“I know,” she said. “But I have to try. Come on, Sammy. Don’t let me down. This is the adventure of your life. Let’s go!”

“Now? These tulips hang around for a quarter-million years, and they need our help now?”

“I’m serious, Sammy. It’s not that they suddenly need our help. They’ve needed it for a very, very long time. Their opportunity to activate the Shard may already be lost. We have to hurry. Come on, Sammy, cheer up! This is what we’ve always wanted. It’s going to be huge!”

“If you say so,” I said.

But I wasn’t as optimistic as Maddy. How could we sell the spheres now that we knew what they were? You can’t sell an entity. And if Maddy was right, and the tulips actually were the spirits of deceased intelligent aliens—alien ghosts—it would be wrong not to help them. And call me crazy, but I was beginning to think Maddy was right. Still, there had to be a way to pull in some money with all this.

Maybe Maddy could activate the Shard, whatever that meant! Maybe then we could finally learn the reason for it. Maybe it would have some fantastic purpose: like an endless power source. Something that big, that impressive, couldn’t be there for no reason. It had to be something big. Of course, there was really no question. Whatever the consequences, I would go with Maddy.  She was right; I couldn’t miss something like this.

We returned back to our rigs. We decided not to call in Elliot’s rig yet. Or rather, Maddy decided. She was afraid to attract any attention until we had at least gotten to the Shard. I disagreed, saying that finding Elliot was huge news, not to mention the spheres, and that we should call it in and lay claim to our find. We compromised on leaving a note attached to Elliot’s ship claiming scavenging rights, and enigmatically hinting that we had gone on an important mission and would be back shortly. I crossed my fingers and hoped that the honor among scavvies would be enough for the claim to hold. Certainly it would have in the old days, but times on the moon were changing.

We headed off, going the long way around as it would have been nearly impossible to go up the slope the same way we came down. I had to stop twice during the climb because Sally kept overheating.

I did my best to keep up with Maddy, and she did her best to wait for me. Neither of us found it easy.

We were going much too fast. The cliff came up with almost no warning. Maddy’s rig went over first, and mine followed.

It was not a cliff, thankfully, just a very steep slope. But it was too steep. Maddy was able to keep control for a few seconds. Like an expert, she aimed straight down, didn’t try to brake her treads which would have sent her tumbling. Her rig shot down like an arrow, hit a small rise and flew several meters upwards, then crashed down as if in slow motion. I held my breath as it started to swivel back and forth, threatening to tumble. Incredibly, Maddy maintained control and wrestled her rig the rest of the way down.

I, of course, wasn’t far behind. Luckily Sally was a little heavier and more forgiving than Maddy’s lighter rig. Still, Sally hit the same rise, flew upwards, and crashed down. It felt like an explosion. The seat-straps seared into my flesh. Warning buzzers flashed around me. Like Maddy’s, my rig started to swivel. It took all my will power not to slam on the brakes. Instead, I steered straight down the slope. In seconds, the roar subsided, and we were at the base.

I heard a loud hissing sound and grabbed frantically for my helmet. By the time I strapped it on, my oxy-gauge showed the cabin at half-pressure. I reached to the back, whipped out the emergency patching foam, and began spraying it anywhere I thought there might be a leak.

One terrifying minute later, the leaks were sealed and the oxy-gauge started to rise. Maddy was already on-line trying to call me. Incredibly, it still worked. “Jesus, Sammy, I’m sorry! Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” I said. “A few leaks, but I’m good.  you okay?”

“I’m good. I’m sorry, Sammy. I didn’t see it.”

“Don’t worry. I’m fine. Sally’s fine. But maybe we should slow down a little. And Maddy?” I paused. “Maybe we should stop and think about what we’re doing.”

Maddy stared at me blankly on the screen. “I’m doing this, Sammy. With or without you.”

“Doing what? We don’t even know what we’re doing. This could be dangerous. We’ll have to trespass to get close to the Shard. And if we do, we could get fined, or worse, arrested. That’s assuming we even know what we’re doing. We’ve got Elliot’s body back there. His rig. The cave. Isn’t that enough?  e should turn around.”

“I’m not turning around. You can turn around. I’m going on.”

“It’s not only about you,” I said. I regretted it as soon as I said it, but even then, I couldn’t stop. “You’re being selfish. Scavvies have a bad enough reputation as it is. And you’re going to…what? What are you going to do Maddy? You don’t even know. One thing’s certain, if we get caught trespassing to touch the Shard and meditate around it, trying to touch it,” I sneered, “Well, I guess we deserve our reputation.”

Maddy, to her credit, dignified my comment with a disdainful snort. “This is important.  Sammy, this is big. You can see that, right? We’re doing this.” Her mind was made up.

I sighed, resigned. I learned long ago, when Maddy’s mind is made up, there’s no changing it. And besides, she was right. If she wasn’t totally crazy and just imagining the whole thing, this was big. Maybe that’s what worried me.

“What are we going to do when we get there?” I asked. “I mean, assuming our rigs hold out.”

“I don’t know. I’ll make those tracks when I get there.” She narrowed her eyes. “We?  Aha! Good for you Sammy. We’re going to be famous.”

“You talk like that’s a good thing.”

“What, you don’t want fame and fortune?”

“Fortune? Sure. Fame, no. We scavvies are an endangered species, Maddy, and I prefer it that way. We don’t need any more Chucks on the moon. And if this story gets out, you can bet all your oxy that every damn earthworm with a dollar to their name will think they can make the next great discovery on the moon and be rich and famous. Don’t you think it’s better that we leave some things a mystery? You’re talking about the Shard here, Maddy. If you figure out what it really is…I mean, after that, what else is there? It’s all we’ve got left.”

“I’m not looking for fame either, Sammy. We can keep this part secret if you want. Is that what you’re saying? I don’t have a problem with that. In fact, I think I prefer it that way.  I agree with you, the last thing we need here is more people. We’ll just reveal that we found Elliott and the moonballs. We’ll leave the tulips out of it. We’ll keep Shavi and my communication with the Seekers a secret. Okay?”

I rolled my eyes. What could I tell her? We both knew that there was no way something this big—if true—could remain a secret. But then again, NASA had hid the existence of the alien artifacts on the moon for decades. “We’re good,” I said.

She smiled, nodded, and clicked off her screen. Her rig peeled out quickly, then instantly slowed and assumed a more leisurely pace. I figured she must still be rattled from the near miss, but after two hour of slow crawling, I couldn’t take it anymore. I radioed her to speed it up.

She moved a little faster, but kept stopping suddenly at imagined threats. Finally I took the lead and took us out of the flatlands toward the Shard.

As soon as the Shard came into view, I headed directly toward it. It first appeared as a little white spike. But as we got closer, it gradually revealed its immense height. No matter how many times I’d seen it, it never failed to impress. We were still hours out, and it already appeared to bend over our heads. It looked so thin and delicate that the slightest shock would shatter it into countless diamond pieces.

So Maddy wanted to activate the Shard. Or rather the aliens wanted her to do it. Call me a softy; I felt an Honest-to-God thrill at what we were doing. Even though I had no expectation of succeeding, and part of me suspected Maddy had become delusional, I still felt good, better than I had in years. It was like the old days, when there were still discoveries to be made, treasures to find. The days of the moon-scavengers were numbered. Soon there would be nothing left. But this proved that my home still contained a few undiscovered mysteries.

One thing was undeniable; this would be my biggest find ever. I would have been satisfied just finding Elliot, not to mention the cave of moonballs. But things were different now. Now I knew the truth. The tulips were the long lost aliens, or rather the ghosts of the aliens. And they needed our help.

I stared again at the Shard, now appearing like a shining crystal tower, reaching up towards the stars. The tracks of vehicles became more numerous and the terrain leveled. We were getting close.

Sure enough, other vehicles began to appear around us, heading in the same direction. The Shard grew slowly taller.

Three hours later, Maddy and I stood side-by-side at the fence, five kilometers from the base of the Shard, though it looked much closer. The dome of the new Shard museum stood behind us, in my opinion, an ugly scar upon the moonscape. A crowd of people thronged around us. Everyone was eager to get as close as they could to the moon’s biggest alien artifact. The last time I had been here, there were no parking lots or buildings or paved walkways, and people could walk up directly to the base.

The Earthworm tourists were easy to spot, shuffling along nervously, clinging to each other. Only a few of the visitors showed the easy natural gate of born moonies. We moonies, I knew, don’t feel the need to visit the Shard. Perhaps we’re just spoiled.

Maddy was pacing. I knew what that meant. She had an idea.

“We’ll have to approach from the other side. Come on,” she said, bounding over to her rig.

I knew better than to argue, and just followed her. We left the parking lot and I followed her as she led us around the base. There was no fence on the far side, which was largely blocked by rough landscape. Maddy, however, spied some tracks, and used them to guide her through an opening in the crags and close to the base.

I was not surprised to find that it was not guarded. Everyone wanted to visit the moon, but nobody wanted to stay. The new worlds were a much more attractive prospect for most people. As a result, the moon’s population was steadily declining. If trends continued, I thought, soon the moon would be empty of humans again. I shuddered at the thought, and turned my attention to Maddy.

She had already walked around the entire tower twice. She was getting frustrated. I asked her if she was okay, but she ignored me. It was exactly what I had feared—nothing. Nothing was happening. She didn’t know what to do.

I waited for her to come to me, which she finally did. “Maybe it is just a monument,” she said. “I’m sorry, Sammy. I’m trying to communicate with the tulips, but I’m getting nothing. It’s like they’re not even listening. I don’t get it. I really thought they would come. Honestly, I thought they would be here waiting.”

“I’m sorry too.”

“You didn’t think they would come,” she said.

It wasn’t a question, but I shook my head.

“It’s okay. I should’ve known better. I don’t know what I was thinking.”

“We had an encounter. You were shocked. Hell, I’m still in shock.”

“They did communicate with me,” she said softly. She looked up at the Shard. “I really thought they would be here.”

“They should have explained better what they wanted you to do.”

“They’re ghosts, Sampson. I was the first person who has ever understood them. You can’t imagine how lonely they have been. How long they have been here, trapped, unable to communicate…”  Her voice trailed.

She stared up again at the Shard, turned back to me. “I’m leaving,” she said.

“That’s it? You’re just giving up?”

“That’s not fair. I’m here, aren’t I? I fulfilled my part of the bargain.”

“But aren’t you supposed to activate the…?” I waved my hand at the alien monument.

“Activate, activate! What does that even mean? I tried, Sammy. I meditated, I tried to telepath with them. They didn’t come.”

“Well,” I said. “Have you tried telepathing the Shard?”

“What?” she said, looking at me sharply. “No, I didn’t. I just tried to contact them. The Shard, it’s just an object. Unless…you think?”

I raised my eyebrows at her. “Worth a try.”

She asked me to guard her while she went into trance, which I did.

I didn’t think anything would happen, so I wasn’t really prepared when it did.

I had my back to Maddy and was watching the other tourists ambling around in the distance. I wondered if they could see us.

Apparently, unknown to me, Maddy had activated the Shard.

First I noticed a strange glittery light dancing across the moonscape, illuminating the ground around me. Suddenly it was bright enough so that I could see my shadow.

I turned around and gasped. Light! Light, like I’ve never seen. It looked like a bolt of frozen lightning. A jagged silver laser beam. The Shard had become like a living creature, pulsing, radiating.

I heard a squeak. It was me trying to call Maddy. I saw that she knelt down and remained motionless with her head down, mere meters from the now brilliant Shard.

Balls of light appeared, swirling around the Shard. Looking behind me, they came from every direction. The spheres, the tulips, hundreds of them…thousands.

Looking back, the balls of light swirled around and then, zzzzt! disappeared into the Shard, which was now transforming, growing in brilliance, becoming brighter and brighter.

In seconds, Maddy would become engulfed.

I lunged forward and looping my arms around her arms, grabbed her from behind, lifting and dragging her back.

She didn’t react at first, and seemed to still be in a trance. I was about to lay her down on the ground when she kicked her feet, quickly stood and shook free of my grasp.

She tilted her head up and gazed at the Shard.

“It’s not a monument,” she said. Her face looked incredibly calm. Her cheeks shined with tears. “It’s something much better.”

She finally tore her gaze from the Shard and looked at me. “Sammy, you’re not going to believe it. It’s not what we thought it was. It’s not a monument. It’s not a communication tower. Sammy, it’s their ticket home. It’s…ah…a transporter. It’s taking them home. And Sammy, I’m going with them.”

“What?” I croaked.

“They invited me. They explained everything.”

“You talked with it?” I said, waving my arm at the Shard, which was now looking almost translucent as the balls of light impacted it from every side.

“Not with it, with them.”

“With the aliens?”

“Sort of, yes.  But not with their ghosts.  Sammy, they were alive!  At the other end of wherever this thing goes.  I spoke with the living ones.  They showed me their world.  Sammy, it’s beautiful.  They invited me to go with them.  I’m going.”

“What? How?” I managed to say.

“You’re not going to like it,” she warned. “But don’t worry, I’m going to be okay.” She hesitated.

“They’re going to possess you? You’re going to let one of those things possess you?”  She didn’t need to say the words. They were written all over her.

“Now you’re telepathing me,” she grinned. “You’re more like me than you know, Sammy boy. Now, step back. Shavi is coming. She has been chosen to take me. I can’t pass up this opportunity. You know I can’t.”

“Maddy, what about Claudia?” It was a low blow, asking about her daughter. I was just being selfish, but I didn’t care. Losing Maddy would be the end of an era. There were so few of us old-timers left.

“She’ll understand. Just tell her I love her.”

“Maddy?”

“Yes?”

“You’d better turn around.”

One of the tulips had just swooped down and was now taking full form. By now, only a few of the glowing white spheres were left, the rest having been absorbed by the Shard.

Shavi, I presumed, floated forward. Maddy stepped closer towards it. They faced each other for a timeless moment.

Finally Maddy turned, lifted her hand and waved at me.

I waved back, but she had already turned and stepped into the damn thing. The tulip blazed red, then a pearly white.

It flew upwards into the Shard.

 

She was gone. And the Shard…well, everybody knows what happened next. I don’t see any reason to continue with this. I’m aware that many people consider it a significant event.  It was important for me to tell it. Now everybody knows the truth. But for me, it was very personal, and I’m not so sure that it’s anybody’s business but my own. So, if you don’t mind, I will end my story here. You know the rest anyway.

And that was it. I was never able to get Sampson to reveal anything more about what he did after Shavi took my mother and the Shard disintegrated. I’ve collected the stories of many eyewitnesses, and have personally interviewed several of them. Despite the news accounts, there is no evidence that Sampson had any part in destroying the Shard or killing my mother. The only reason he never spoke publicly about what happened was to honor the agreement between him and my mother. He never wanted to talk about the aliens from the beginning. And I’m not convinced that if he had, he would have been well received. I suspect he told a cover-story not because he didn’t think people would believe him, but because he was afraid they might. Again, you have to understand Sampson. I think he was ashamed about what happened. I think he felt like he had destroyed the last mystery left on the moon. He never said that, but that was the impression he gave me.

Either way, he has now revealed what happened, and how the Shard was destroyed. Whether or not you believe his account is up to you.

And I think it’s important to re-iterate that it was he and my mother who found Elliot, not Chuck Guzman, whose account of the Shard’s destruction varies widely with Sampson’s in so many ways, and is, in my opinion, pure fiction. As I said, Sampson agreed to tell his story only to correct the many lies that have been told about him, and because, as he said, it was an important event, which I think you’ll agree, it was.
                        —from Sampson’s Moon
                        (by Claudia Wu)

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Published by Poetry Editor on August 24, 2015. This item is listed in Issue 27, Issue 27 Poetry

Is Anybody Out There?

WC Roberts

cell-towerHere we are now, walking to the end of the world,
some of us pushing shopping carts, others carrying
suitcases duffels, and our children toting dolls that say

Mama, Mama is it a long way to go, yet?
We tell them, No, no, it won’t be long now
and we point to a cellphone tower on the horizon.

From there, we’ll call out, and again, if no one answers
we’ll know we’ve reached the end of the world,
we’ll know there’s no point in going on.

But we’ll go on anyway to the next cellphone tower
and to the one after that, from one horizon to the next
for as long as we are able—

and the children carry dolls that’ll say over and over,
Mama, Mama is it a long way to go, yet?
And we’ll tell them, No, no, it won’t be long now.
 

WC Roberts lives in a mobile home up on Bixby Hill, on land that was once the county dump. The only window looks out on a ragged scarecrow standing in a field of straw and dressed in WC’s own discarded clothes. WC dreams of the desert, of finally getting his first television set, and of ravens. Above all, he writes, and has had poems published in _ Silver Blade, Liquid Imagination, Strange Horizons, Apex, Space & Time Magazine, Shock Totem, Scifaikuest, Star*Line and others.

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Published by Poetry Editor on August 24, 2015. This item is listed in Issue 27, Issue 27 Poetry

The Dog

Sonali Roy

 

The dog barked all day long,
but no one heard him.
No one came to give him food.

The dog ventured to the road
dog-1and faced a lot of traffic,
but cyclist saved him.

And they went ahead,
the dog still barking a lot.

A chariot with a rich man
stopped nearby, and its passengers
came out to take snapshots,

but they offered no bread
and went on their way.

The dog now came to a hut
and panted for some water.
Nobody quenched his thirst,
but threw water on him.

The dog sat on the green grass
of the garden and saw the baby
playing near the pond.

The dog dragged the child
to safety on the grass
and played with him.

The parents came to the dog.
The dog thought they came
to thank him and wagged his tail.

But instead, they brutally
beat him to death.

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Published by Poetry Editor on August 24, 2015. This item is listed in Issue 27, Issue 27 Poetry

Cryonics

Deborah Rocheleau

 

cryogenicI once asked
if you’d jump into a pickle jar
to save your life.
Since you weren’t here when I emerged, I assume
you couldn’t bring yourself to do it.

You are no longer here to unscrew brass lids
I never could do myself,
no longer here to eat the onions off my hamburgers,
or kiss the vinegar off my tangy lips.

I’ve tried to rinse the salt off
taking countless showers
till my skin wrinkled like California raisins.
Still, I can’t help but imagine that I look better
than you rotting in your grave, face splotched
like onions in the compost pile.

What if the jar leaks? you said.
What if the coffin collapses? I said.
I won’t feel it, you said.
You won’t feel it, I said.

They no longer sell pickles in jars
in the super markets,
pickle-jarglass has gone the way of tin.

I must admit, I can’t seem to find my way
in this world, and not just because you’re not in it.

I should have heeded the warnings
on all the pickle jars, on your shriveled lips.

In the very end:
            Do not buy if seal is popped
            Do not accept if glass is broken

 

 

 

Deborah Rocheleau has writings published by Tin House, 100 Word Story, and Brainchild, among others

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Published by Poetry Editor on August 24, 2015. This item is listed in Issue 27, Issue 27 Poetry

Always Wet and Humid Here

Lauren McBride

rain-poemThe daily downpour
relentless, incessant.

Could almost wring
water from the air

even inside. Sheets,
clothes, toes, toaster

never completely dry.
Mold grows mold,

walls unbleached.
On the spaceflight here,

regret reading Bradbury’s
The Long Rain.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lauren McBride finds inspiration in faith, nature, molecular biology (a former researcher), and membership in the Science Fiction Poetry Association (SFPA). Nominated for the Rhysling and Dwarf Stars Awards, her work has been included in various speculative, nature, and children’s publications, and appears frequently in the Aurorean, Spaceports & Spidersilk, Scifaikuest, Star*Line and the Songs of Eretz venues. She shares a love of laughter, science, and the ocean with her husband and two children.

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Published by Poetry Editor on August 24, 2015. This item is listed in Issue 27, Issue 27 Poetry

The Man Who Loved a Poem

Sandi Leibowitz

 

The instant he read it, he loved it.poetry-reading
He adored its metaphors
marching across the page like an army
of black brides, exultant and shining.
He lauded its alliteration,
its loose and lovely vowels,
the queenly crooning of its consonants.
He admired its profundity.
It had changed his life.

He tore it from the book
and kept it in his pocket,
pulled it out six times each day,
wore its paper thin with caressing,
creased it into tatters with his constant
folding and unfolding, even though
he’d memorized it.

Once an hour, he declaimed it
loudly for friends and colleagues,
dramatically at cocktail parties
or on the occasional street-corner,
or softly to himself, such reverent whispers.

The poem, however, did not love him.
He didn’t understand her.
He read her all wrong,
stopping at the ends of lines,
ignoring her enjambments.
His tongue poked
at her soft syllables.
She detested his incessant handling,
the probing of his dread eye.
Always, always, he put her
on display.
He acted like he owned her.

One night, when once again
he had laid her down upon his desk
in the lamp’s cruel glare,
subject to his obsessive dissection,
she decided she had enough.

They found his body the next morning—
death by a thousand paper cuts.

And the poem? Gone,
flown out the open window,
free to pursue a million ears
or none,
to a world without pockets.

 

 

Sandi Leibowitz is a school librarian, classical singer and writer of speculative fiction and poetry. Her work appears in Liminality, Stone Telling, Inkscrawl, Mythic Delirium, Ellen Datlow’s Best Horror of the Year 5 and other magazines and anthologies. A native New Yorker, she has ridden in a hot-air balloon over the Rio Grande, traveled in the footsteps of medieval pilgrims to Santiago de la Compostella and visited with Arthur in Avalon.

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Published by Poetry Editor on August 24, 2015. This item is listed in Issue 27, Issue 27 Poetry

Another Place

Marge Simon

 

Because he’d have it no other way
—that man she thought she loved—
she went with him into the cosmos
to a temporary station on another world.

cocoonthe forever sunset of a tangerine sky
strange perfumes from singing trees
flowers delicate as ancient lace
 
Because she’s lonely, misses home,
he brings her a lifeform for company.
She nurtures it from silky floss
to dazzling wings, whispers baby names.
She says it calls her Mother,
but he only laughs.
 
fragments of dreams
her children calling
wings fluttering
come fly with us
 
He finds her out wandering
without a mask, talking to herself
or dancing alone among the trees.
She refuses to eat their rations,
doesn’t like to be touched.

So, when his work is done there,
when he is tired of her laments,
and sick of her sickness,
her deformities growing
impossibly fast,
those ugly wings,
that rasping cry—

he leaves her there to dream,
even into the next dawn
of her beginnings.

 

 

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Published by Poetry Editor on August 24, 2015. This item is listed in Issue 27, Issue 27 Poetry

Lorca’s Duende

Patricia Williams


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Patricia Williams, professor emerita, University of Wisconsin – Stevens Point, taught art and design for 35 years. Art, design, poetry and creative prose, she feels, are natural partners, their work being the creative examination of life and living. Her poetry is published or forthcoming in print and online in the U.S. and U.K. including Camel Saloon, Star*Line, Poetry Quarterly, Stoneboat, Inquisitive Eater (The New School), Fox Cry, Red Booth, Third Wednesday, Negative Capability Anthology, Midwest Prairie Review among others, and was nominated for a 2014 Best of the Net Award.

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Published by Associate Editor on August 24, 2015. This item is listed in Issue 27, Issue 27 Stories, Novellas, Short Stories

Mesmis

by Robert Meyer

Caged MouseVideo of the mouse had been plastered onto every available screen in the office, and a throng of people, their immaculate clothing at odds with the fluorescent lights and dingy ceiling tiles, crowded around the televisions on the walls. Christopher, a stocky scientist whose work was implicated in the day’s proceedings, was not among them. Instead, he had been given a seat of honor by the mouse’s plastic habitat in the middle of the room. His seat gave him ready access to the refreshments, and currently he was shuttling a bamboo boat of curried shrimp puffs over to his red-headed colleague. His colleague’s name was Susan. She wore the same customary lab coat, and occupied herself with a podium wreathed in wires and byzantine controls.

“Hey!” He said. “Look what I got!”

Susan looked up from the podium with hawk-like attention, but her hands stayed down at the controls. She opened her mouth, “Ahhhhhh,” and Christopher stuffed it with a shrimp puff. Crumbs of breading rained down over the priceless array of experimental technology at her fingertips.

“Thanks,” she said.

“Sure,” said Christopher. “You can’ control on an empty stomach.” Christopher fed her the rest of the shrimp puffs as she finished preparing the machine, and looked out over the crowd. “I’m surprised so many people showed up. I think I see actual generals out there. I knew we’d be big, but it’s nice to see everyone in person.”

“Eh,” said Susan. “These people give me the creeps. Look at that guy over there. He showed up in uniform and he’s wearing more metal than his wife. He’s even got a holster.”

Christopher looked at the couple in question and shrugged. AriaCorp—the company that he worked for—sold equipment for ‘nonlethal pacification’, which meant that it tended to attract an officious, super-powered kind of customer. Everybody here was somebody, and they dressed to look the part. Besides, if it wasn’t for the lab coat that the occasion demanded, Christopher probably would have joined them.

“It’s just appearances,” he said. “They have to act like people expect them to, you know?”

“I know that,” said Susan, “but I think that’s what bothers me. Maybe it’d be nice if someone would show up and be like, ‘I’ve got ten thousand people that I need to bludgeon out of rioting and I can’t kill any more today. What’s the biggest thing you’ve got?’”

Christopher laughed. “That’d be nice, but the way I see it it’s already so much easier for these people to just buy guns or tear-gas or something. The fact that they’re coming to us means that fewer and fewer people are going to die, and that’s nothing but good.

Susan looked out over the crowd of starched collars and dark dresses, and Christopher watched her lip as she bit it. Something about the way her teeth showed over the curve always made his stomach flutter. “It’s better,” Susan agreed, “but somehow, I don’t think that it’s ever really their idea.”

Susan gave a signal over a radio and microphone static filled the air as a PA system went live. All of a sudden the amicable chatter of the room was overthrown by the bright, syrupy voice of a man. “Good evening, everyone!” said the man. “I hope you’re all having a wonderful time. Before we begin, I’d just like to thank everyone for being a part of tonight’s special demonstration. Confrontation, as all of you know, can be a terrible thing. It can be ghastly and violent, but in our imperfect world it has also become increasingly and tragically necessary. That’s why we at AriaCorp salute you, our loyal customers, for your continued support of our mission to soften the inevitable blows. Tonight, however, we would like to share with you the demonstration of a device that promises to cushion them entirely. It is called the Mesmis, and finally offers us what we’ve all been wishing for: a means of resolution without confrontation. If you would all direct your attention to the screens, you will be able to watch our brave volunteer, Hansen, as the demonstration begins. I’d like to thank you again for of your time, and hope you see the same potential here that we do.”

There was a brief applause from the crowd followed by an attentive silence. “Here we go,” Susan murmured, and she flipped a lime-green activation switch. A thin, mechanical noise perforated the quiet and a small antenna rose from the podium until, swiveling like the tail of a scorpion, it was leveled at the mouse’s habitat. A soft track of incongruously peaceful new-age music started playing over the intercom and then, almost imperceptibly, the mouse stiffened.

The Mesmis, as the name implied, was a mind-control device, and Susan proved it with a throw of a few more switches. There was a low murmur of delight from the audience as Hansen, in response to some unseen stimulus, began a slow trot around the inside of his habitat.  He moved like a tiny horse, utterly un-mouselike, as a recorded woman on the intercom narrated his orders in a serene monotone.

“Let’s go forward, Hansen. Now, how about backwards? Let’s give those hurdles a try.”
The horse motif was Christopher’s idea. He figured it made the show more impressive if it looked unnatural, and he was pleased to see the wonderment and curiosity stamped on the faces of the audience. A glance at Susan, however, dulled his enthusiasm. She was focused on the machine, but as she took the show through the expected paces she punctuated her work with sour glances at the crowd.

Hansen trotted placidly on. With Susan’s guidance he ran on exercise wheels, flipped levers, and navigated an intricate three-dimensional maze. He did all of this with an unhurried serenity, and each feat was met with mounting excitement. Finally he came to a large platform whose only feature was a smooth red box at the opposite end and it was here, as Hansen came to a stop, that Christopher began to feel uneasy. It wasn’t that he was squeamish about mind control. He and Susan had, after all, spent the last year of their lives developing exactly that, but for some reason the way this demonstration ended always made something inside of him go cold.

“Unfortunately,” said the woman on the intercom, “real-world people aren’t as cooperative as Hansen here, so what we’d like to do is show you how the Mesmis deals with conflicting stimuli. First, let’s turn it off.”

The walls of the small box in the habitat fell outwards to reveal an apple, and whatever compulsive force had been applied to Hansen seemed to evaporate. He scurried towards the apple, sniffed it, and after a few moments of perfunctory investigation, began to gnaw.

“After not eating today, Hansen has quite the appetite. He’s going right after the apple and I think we can all see that, left to his own devices, he’s not stopping any time soon. Now, watch what happens when we flip the machine back on.”

Hansen convulsed and froze. It was a brief movement, but the violence of it made Christopher sweat. Running circles and navigating mazes were meaningless compulsions to mice and they accepted them easily, but when their appetites got involved there was always, before the Mesmis cudgeled them back into serenity, a flash of wild rejection. A crumb of glistening fruit dropped from Hansen’s paralyzed mouth, and the narrator continued.

“Observe how, despite the proximity and strength of the external stimulus, the Mesmis is able to keep Hansen in a state of peaceful stasis. Unless we tell him otherwise, he is incapable of moving.”

A round of soft applause came up from the customers and the space filled with ambitious murmurs. As he continued watching, however, Christopher saw that something was amiss. Hansen wasn’t eating, but neither had he fallen into the expected stupor, and in the magnified resolution of the televisions his muscles flexed against an invisible restraint. His paws trembled, curled and uncurled, and a hint of red crept into his dark, unfocused eyes.

The narrator chimed up again. “The Mesmis can even get him to leave the fruit behind. Come on, Hansen. Let’s walk to the other side of the cage; there’ll be plenty of food for you after you’re done.”

Hansen stooped onto all fours and then recoiled back onto his hind legs as if he’d been burned. His muscles knotted, swelled and shuddered against his skin as they tried to move, simultaneously, towards the fruit and away. Christopher saw a strange look on Susan’s face. “What’s going on?” he whispered.

“He’s fighting it,” she said. “Some of the mice can do that, but it never ends well. If he doesn’t come around it’s about to get nasty.”

“Shouldn’t we turn it off?” asked Christopher.

Susan shook her head. “In front of all these people? Not a chance. Besides,” she sighed. “They’re probably going to enjoy this anyway.”

mouse1Susan fiddled with the controls as the intercom narrator droned on about the Geneva Convention and “humane pacification,” but Hansen’s contortions only intensified. His legs slipped out from under him, his head snapped one way and then another, and sinuous undulations ran down his spine. Confusion, pain and fear pulled his lips into a snarl and then, suddenly, his teeth began to chatter. It began as a sort of tremor, but soon the tempo increased until his teeth flashed like the blades of a woodchipper. Faster and faster they came together until flecks of red lined his habitat and the sound, through plastic and space, reached Christopher’s ears like the growl of a locust. There was a flash of pink as Hansen’s tongue slipped between his incisors, and then there was a bloom of deep, wet scarlet.

A quick-thinking attendant threw his lab coat over the habitat and the televisions went abruptly dark, but it was too late for Christopher. The image had already burned itself into his mind, and as the soft thumping of the mouse quieted under the cover, visions of its death played behind his scrunched-up eyes. He saw a white and twisted body, wild eyes and streams of vivid blood. A ringing silence invaded his ears, and a mounting pressure in his stomach pushed bile up into his throat. He was nearly sick in his seat, but the sound of Susan’s sigh beside him cleared his mind and filled it with the memory of her deep, red hair.

◊ ◊ ◊

The atmosphere outside of the demonstration room was almost oppressively cheerful. A company representative apologized for offending the clients’ sensibilities, but when Susan and Christopher met in the hallway they were met with a departing woman’s tasteless imitation of the mouse’s seizures. Her pearls rattled musically.

“You’re right,” sighed Christopher. “These people are terrible.”

Susan took off her lab coat and slung it over her arm. She was wearing a superhero tee-shirt that made Christopher feel, in addition to clammy and nauseous, painfully overdressed. “At least the project nets us serious money,” she said. “It’s hard to argue with a penthouse.”

“You don’t sound convinced.”

Susan sighed. “I worry sometimes. I like it here, but then I think about what we’re making and what people will do with it once it’s out there. I’m going to be responsible for that someday.” She bit her lip, but Christopher shook his head.

“If it wasn’t for us,” he said, “it’d be somebody else. The Mesmis is going to exist regardless of whether or not we make it happen. At least the science is good, you know?” He smiled. “The things we get to work with, well, on the outside they’re not even theories. In here we get to be pioneers.” It was true, too, and Christopher always imagined this was the bond they shared. They were born experimenters. It flowed in their veins. If you cut them, it would only be a matter of time before they grew a pair of clones.

“Scary, scary pioneers,” laughed Susan. She ran her hand through her hair and took a deep breath. “You’re right, though. And it’s not even forever. In a few months this project’ll be over, and then I’m going to ride into the sunset with a mountain of cash.”

“Where do you want to go?” Christopher asked.

“I have no idea. But then again I’m going to be rich, so I don’t think it matters, right? Maybe I’ll go cure Alzheimer’s to make up for everything.” Susan looked wistfully up at the fluorescent lights. “Cure it somewhere with palm trees.” She never took herself out of the picture. It was, among dozens of other things, something that Christopher liked about her. Suddenly she looked back at him; her expression was strangely intent.

“Listen,” she said. “There’s something I want to show you. Can you meet me after work tomorrow?”

Christopher tried to smile, but there was something in her voice that stopped him. He shrugged instead. “What’ve you got in mind?”

“There’s a place I like to eat. I’ll text it to you tonight. There’s something—” She looked away, then she shook her head. “Can you come?”

“Sure,” he said.

“Cool,” said Susan, and then she nodded, apparently to herself. “I’m going to try to get home early today, but I’ll see you there tomorrow.”

She turned to leave, but something swept through Christopher’s mind. He spoke before he had time to think about it.

“Susan?” he asked. “How often does the demonstration kill the mouse?”

Susan turned back and shrugged. “Every once in a while. The truth is that while we can tell a set of muscles what to do, and even calm the stress response, we can’t make the mice stop fighting us if they really want to.”

“I think I would have had to turn it off,” said Christopher. “I mean, the customers seemed to like it, but…I don’t know, part of me wants to sympathize. They just want to eat, you know?”

“It’s rough,” she admitted, “but the truth is that it gives us a ton of good data when they go like that. When we can finally keep them still even when they’re starving, that’s when we’ll know we’re done.” She smiled a little sadly. “Don’t worry about it too much. After all, we’re scientists and they’re mice. The odds were against them from the start.”

◊ ◊ ◊

dinerSusan’s restaurant, in the end, was a shabby-looking retro diner in a desolate plaza filled with evening glare and shadows. Christopher pushed open a protesting door, shouldered through a forest of white-haired patrons, and found Susan sitting in a sticky booth. She grinned as he sat down across from her; his sharp clothing stood out in the gloom.

“Nice blazer,” she laughed.

“Nice restaurant,” he replied. “I didn’t know you were the nostalgic type.”

“It’s a weakness. Eating here feels like I’m doing something nice, like visiting my grandpa. Besides, they make me a mean burger.”

They chatted for a while as the sun slipped towards the horizon, and when a waiter brought them coffee the steam curled around shafts of melancholy light. Then there came the burgers, huge and utterly unsentimental.

“So,” said Christopher. “What’ve you got for me? You looked like you had something on your mind last night. Other than the obvious, I mean.”

“Obvious?” said Susan. “Oh, you mean the mouse.” She furrowed her brow, wiped her hands clean of burger-grease, and produced a sheaf of paper from a bag beside her. She handed it to Christopher. “I wanted to show you this. I found it in my email. I figured whoever sent it had made a mistake, so I printed out a copy before it vanished. And it did.”

Christopher flipped through the papers of what looked like a medical report. Mostly it was full of obtuse codes, but he recognized graphs of certain variables, of blood-pressure, heart-rate, and brain-activity. Most of the values were unremarkable for a person, but they were punctuated by spikes of spectacular activity and ended in an erratic plateau that never quite returned to the baseline. “Whose is this?” he asked. “I don’t see a name anywhere.”

“That’s the thing. It came right from the mail server with no sender, and there’s nothing indicating who this data’s about. But look at this.” She handed him another report. It was almost identical in appearance, and the graphs traced the same contours. The only real difference, to Christopher’s eye, was the header that ran across the tops of the pages, “Hansen 37.”

“Hansen 37 was our longest-running mouse,” Susan explained. “We only used the Mesmis in short bursts with him, and he held out a whole three weeks. To see his charts recreated with human numbers is…suspicious.”

“But isn’t human use the whole point?” Christopher said.

“That’s true, but it’s not cleared for trials at all. We can’t even keep a mouse alive with it. Who knows what it does to a person.”

Christopher scratched his chin. AriaCorp was a secretive company by design, so the idea of preliminary human testing didn’t surprise him. But while he—whose job was concerned only with technical design—expected to be in the dark, it was strange to see Susan there with him. She was head of the biology team, and he heard she was the only person that could run the Mesmis and keep the mouse alive afterwards. “If they’re actually testing it on people,” he said, “wouldn’t they tell you? I thought you were the only decent operator.”

Susan made a noncommittal gesture. “That’s what I thought too, but here we are. And it really shouldn’t be used on people yet. Even volunteers. We all know it’s dangerous, and we don’t know what it does in the long term. If you even get a long term.” Susan punctuated her words with a bite of her burger, and Christopher watched her lips glisten with fat and late sunshine. Something occurred to him.

“It could be,” he said carefully, “that whoever’s using it isn’t supposed to be. All of the measurements tell us that we’re looking at a scientist, but what if they’re doing the tests for someone else? Like a competitor. I’m sure that’s something corporate would like to know.”

Susan smirked. “How loyal,” she said. “But I think you’re right. It makes more sense than the company keeping it from me. There has to be two of them, too. One of them has to be volunteering.”

A conspiratorial spirit welled up inside of Christopher. Mostly he didn’t concern himself with his co-worker’s doings. But here, in a seedy booth striped with lengthening shadows and Susan sitting sun-lit and across from him, the promise of a mystery seemed enticing. “I suppose we’d better check it out,” he said. “And I think I know how to do it. The Mesmis puts out a pretty unique sort of radiation, so I say I just build an antenna and wait. If it picks up signs of the Mesmis when nobody’s supposed to be using it, we go ahead and tell the company.”

Susan shook her head. “It’s better if we see it with our own eyes first. I like your plan, but we need to rule out a fluke. Besides,” she said. “I think I want to know exactly what’s going on before I talk to someone about it.”

“You still don’t trust the company,” said Christopher.

“I guess I don’t. You’ve always been easier on them, I suppose. I like their money, but on the off chance these tests aren’t a mistake…” She shook her head again, and began to pick over the last of her fries. “Honestly,” she said. “I’m just glad you’ll help me. I was worried you’d blow it off.”

Christopher watched as the sun slipped into her eyes. They were a bright, beautiful, green, and he noticed she was smiling at him. “Well,” he said, “we’ve worked together for a long time, you know? Of course I’d do it for you.” And then, in the last glimmers of daylight, he was surprised to see her wince.

◊ ◊ ◊

A week later Christopher was in his office, proudly brandishing something that looked like a metal wishbone strapped to a screen. The screen read ‘400 feet’ in a cheerful green font, and a pixelated compass pointed swiveled towards the door. Susan was grinning over his shoulder.

“Not bad,” she said. “And it’s always at the same time?”

“Yeah,” said Christopher. “I’ve been getting Mesmis radiation around seven-thirty for the last three nights, and the rangefinder’s always around four hundred feet. Wherever they’re at, they don’t move.”

The readings on the screen suddenly vanished. “That keeps happening too. It goes down for a minute, then comes back.”

“That makes sense,” said Susan. “Whoever’s doing this must know the procedure we used on Hansen 37. At least they’re being responsible.”

“Even spies have to have standards, right?” Christopher grinned as the measurements on his device came back. “Speaking of spying, I guess we should probably figure out where ‘four hundred feet’ actually is. I’m not sure how you want to do that.”

Susan looked pensive for a few moments. “I suppose we could…start walking?”

officeThere was a long silence as the two looked at one another, and then they burst out laughing. Neither of them had the faintest idea about what espionage looked like nor how to conduct it, and the prospect of skulking around a building after hours—even a building where they were gainfully employed and welcome—seemed strangely childish. It was, nevertheless, exciting, and the potential seriousness of their investigation seemed far, far away. They gathered their usual possessions with more-than-usual care, and stepped out into the hallway.

The offices of AriaCorp were, at first glance, completely innocuous, but there were details that gave up the game. The fire alarms, if you looked closely, came printed with instructions on how to deploy bulletproof barricades from the ceiling. The hallways, in the dim after-hour lights, glowed with rows of retinal scanners. The staff lounge, when they passed it, was dominated by an enormous espresso machine that one of their co-workers imported from Italy. It was four feet high and emblazoned with angels of solid gold. Most days Susan and Christopher ignored these details but now, as they followed Christopher’s device like a dowsing rod through the abandoned halls, they formed a looming reminder of the wealth and power that surrounded them.

Christopher angled the device down a hallway as the number on the rangefinder fell. He couldn’t stop himself from grinning. “It feels like we’re secret agents,” he whispered, and Susan stifled a chuckle. By unspoken agreement they moved with as much stealth as they could muster. The halls were electrifyingly quiet, and even as they pantomimed the movements of burglars and super-spies, some instinct within them dared not break the silence.

Finally, as they came to the corner of a new hallway, the rangefinder dropped to forty feet while the tiny compass sprite pointed encouragingly around the corner. Susan and Christopher grinned at one another, and then Christopher flattened himself dramatically against the wall. He made a show of putting on a straight face, pretended to brace himself, and ducked his head around the corner. He snapped back so fast that he almost hit the wall.

At the end of the hall was a thin man in a jumpsuit. He could have been a custodian, but his cart of cleaning supplies was drawn across the door behind him like a barricade, and there was something tense in the way he was standing. Christopher had been lucky; the man had been adjusting his starched—starched?—uniform, and he hadn’t seen Christopher looking around the corner. Christopher led Susan back the way they’d come, and only spoke when he was sure they were out of earshot.

“There’s a guard,” he hissed. “Just standing there, blocking the door with a cart.”

Susan scowled. “We should have guessed. We’ll have to wait him out. If we wait in the staff lounge I bet we’ll hear him leave.

“What’re we going to do? Chat about movies until we see him leave? He’ll see us for sure.”

“People work late all the time. Don’t chicken out on me. We’re just going to wait until he leaves and see what’s left, right?”

It was Christopher’s turn to scowl, but finally he consented, and the two of them settled into an awkward silence just two short halls from the guard. They sat on stools and drew huge cups of frothy cappuccino from the ostentatious machine on the counter. More than a few times they tried to strike up a conversation, but each effort floundered in the silence. Their ears, as they strained to make out the movements of the distant guard, had little left for talk.

Ten minutes passed, then thirty, and that dragged out into nearly an hour before Christopher’s device finally stopped giving him readings. “I guess they’re done,” he said. “Do you hear anything?”

Susan shook her head and closed her eyes as she continued to listen.

“Do you think he has a gun?” asked Christopher.

“Shh!” said Susan. “I mean, yes, probably, but— Shh!”

Christopher gulped down his third cappuccino and stared intently at the door. In the end, neither he nor Susan actually heard the guard coming. He was simply there in the doorway, wheeling a pristine janitorial cart that had been oiled into total silence. He smiled at them, and it was everything they could do not to gape. He was muscular, handsome, and his bright brown eyes watched them more intently than either of them were comfortable with. “Having a nice evening?” he asked them. His voice was warm and rich, and his smile was oddly luminous in the dim lights.

“Um…” said Christopher. “Yes. We’re having a great night. Thank you.” He tried not to glance back at Susan.

“That’s great,” said the man. “I’m having a good evening too. But I’m afraid I can’t chat.” He gestured at his cart. It was covered with orderly rows of cleaning supplies and accented with a bright-orange biohazard bag. “I have lots of work to do. I’m sure that you do too.”

Christopher swallowed. “Yes, that’s right. Always…working late, you know? But we’ll have a good night. If you do, I mean.” The custodian gave him a look that was almost apologetic, and Christopher decided to stop talking. He told Christopher that he would, in fact, have a wonderful evening, and passed through the staff lounge with an attitude that was both militant and strangely funereal.

“Holy shit,” hissed Susan. “What a weirdo. Was he the guard?”

Christopher nodded.

“Well then, this looks like our chance.”

The two of them abandoned their drinks at the counter and sped back down the halls in a half-run. Meeting the guard in person solidified the prospect of discovery, but it also filled them with new anxiety. When they arrived at the door they were looking for, its retinal scanner glittered with the suggestion of the taboo, and a sign on the door read, “BIOLOGY STORAGE, C-2.”

Christopher eyed the retinal scanner. “How are we going to get in?” he asked.

“It looks like we’re in my department,” said Susan. “So really, this should do the trick…” She stooped in front of a retinal scanner and propped open her eyelid with her fingers. There was a metal ‘click,’ and the door popped open. “Being team leader has perks. Are you ready?”

Christopher squared his shoulders and said that he was, and when Susan pushed open the door he was blinded by fluorescence. It was a long time until his eyes adjusted, but once they did he was surprised to see that the room beyond was almost completely bare. To the side there was a table with a few things on it, and in the middle of the room there was a chair. It was the chair that caught Christopher’s attention. It was made of metal and bolted to the floor, and its polished surface seemed to burn in the hot radiance of the room. There were stirrups at the legs and clamps at the arms.

Christopher let out a low whistle, then remembered where he was. “We’re definitely looking at people here. This chair must be to control seizures, right?”

Susan approached the chair slowly. She ran her hand along the back but recoiled from the warmth. “Probably,” she said. “Except I don’t know why they made it out of metal. I actually didn’t even know we had this room, a room with nothing but a chair stuck to the floor. And these…” Susan pointed out the other two doors in the room. They were locked not only with the typical retinal scanners, but with padlocks. “What’re those about? Why don’t I know about this?”

Christopher could see her suspicion mounting and looked to assuage it. “Relax,” he said. “Human tests have always been part of the plan, so of course we’ve got a room for it. The real question is finding out who’s been using it without permission.”

“It just looks so sinister, you know? I mean, we’re inventing mind control, and then you see these super-bright lights, and metal chairs and guards dressed like janitors. You start to wonder, right?”

Christopher put his hand on Susan’s shoulder. “Whoever’s using this space isn’t supposed to be here. We know that. You’d be the first to know when the human trials start. That’s why we’re here. We just need to figure out what’s going on and tell the company, and it’ll be alright.” He made a motion over to the table. It was bare except for a slender black notebook and what looked like a clunky kind of pistol. “Let’s figure out what we can.”

The ‘pistol’ confounded them for a moment. It had a trigger but no barrel to speak of, and its heavy frame was amateurishly constructed. Squares of cheap aluminum had been soldered together to make its casing and it wasn’t until Christopher, with an experimental press of a button, released an antenna from the front of the device that he realized what it was: a miniature Mesmis. He had to swallow his offense. He’d built the model they’d used in the demonstration and worked long nights to get it as small as he had. To see it reduced even further, compacted by means beyond his understanding, felt vaguely like betrayal.

“This must be the model they’re using,” Christopher said carefully. “Our spy must have enough information to build their own. Or maybe this is just a prototype that I…haven’t heard of yet.” He picked up the device and looked over at Susan, but it was obvious that she wasn’t listening. She was hunched over the notebook on the table, her long hair obscuring her face. Finally she picked up the book and glanced over at him with a strangely flat expression.

“Listen to this,” she said. “Session One: Subject uncooperative, as expected. Denies connection to White Cobra Gang despite evidence to the contrary. Experimental linguistic module was added to Mesmis, but failed to produce confessions. Session ended due to health concerns. Sedatives administered and data on the linguistic module’s performance was submitted.”

damher53_1_“Session Four: A breakthrough. While the linguistic module is still in development, we were able to use the Mesmis to acquire the subject’s signature on a statement professing involvement in the gang. The statement was drafted based on our speculation, but is legally binding and, more importantly, the subject no longer denies his own involvement. He remains uncooperative regarding other members and gang properties.”

“Session Seven: Subject refuses to identify other members or assets of the gang. Through use of the prolongation data retrieved from the Hansen-37 experiments, we were able to use the Mesmis to recreate traditional interrogation methods. Despite this, the subject did not disclose any information, and the relaxed parameters led to a brief altercation between the subject and Lieutenant Wagner. Session ended due to noise and injuries.”

“Session Eleven: Used new linguistic module to extract confessions regarding the involvement of other suspected gang members. Complete notes attached next page. Despite success of the module, encourage Aria to continue the motor-control route pursued by Dr. Susan Smith. The linguistic module seems much more stressful, and nearly fatal levels of sedative were necessary to end this session safely. The company assures us that the data we have provided will make it safer to use in the future.”

“Session Fourteen: Subject is no longer uncooperative. Shared locations of several gang members and properties along the southern Arizona border. Full notes attached next page. The company is willing to house the subject for a few more days while his arrest and delivery to court are organized.”

Susan flipped the page and then slowly closed the notebook. She stared at it in her hands for a long time. “Christopher,” she whispered. “We can’t be part of this. This isn’t safe. This isn’t legal.”

Christopher pinched the bridge of his nose and wiped away the sheen of sweat that he found there. He was cold and nauseous, and when he closed his eyes he was assaulted with visions of dead mice. He tried to focus on the light and silence of the room. “You’re right,” he said at last. “I don’t want you to be, but you’re right. We can’t be here. But who can we tell? The company already knows.”

“The police,” said Susan firmly. “They’ll be able to stop this.”

But Christopher only shook his head in irritation. “You read the report. The police already know. Companies don’t go after gang-members, and you can’t just ‘organize’ an arrest without having an idea of what’s happening here.”

“Who’s above the police, then?” Susan asked. She threw up her hands. “The FBI. We’ll go to them. Somebody has to know!”

Christopher started to pace. “The FBI could work. But we’ll have to be careful.  We can… We can leave an anonymous tip when we get back. Tell them how to find the room. Then they can check it out.”

“An anonymous tip? You think they’re going to believe you like that? Mind control doesn’t even exist yet! We need evidence. We need… We need the notebook, and that!”  Susan pointed at the miniature Mesmis in Christopher’s hand.

“What? We can’t take these with us! Then they’ll know what we’ve done!”

“So?”

Christopher made a gesture to their terrible surroundings. “They did all of this for a gang member. A regular criminal. What do you think they’d do if they found us running away with experimental gear? We need to be careful, Susan. Besides, we can’t be public about this. What about our careers?” Arguing had warmed Christopher’s blood, but the silence that followed his words chilled him. Susan stared at him in disbelief.

“Did you really just say that?” she said.

“I only mean…” Christopher began.

Susan shook her head. “No, listen. You’re great, Christopher. I’m glad you helped me get here, but you’re wrong about this. There might be an actual person behind one of those locked doors. Do you get that? An actual person that our company is ‘housing’. We need to get the FBI to help us out, and that’s not going to happen without evidence. I hope you’re with me, but…I’ve got to do this regardless.” Susan pulled the notebook to her chest and started walking towards the door.

“Wait!” called Christopher. “This is just going to make problems. We can find another way to get the authorities involved, just—Wait!” Susan stopped in the doorway and looked at him. She waited a moment, but when he didn’t follow she made a small gesture like a wave goodbye and Christopher saw her start to leave. It was then that he remembered the device in his hand. It was strange and heavy and it frightened him, but as Susan stood on the brink of the unknown it seemed to radiate certainty. Almost without thinking he lifted the device, pointed it at her, and pulled the trigger. “Susan,” he found himself whispering. “Come back here.”

Christopher’s heart fell into his stomach as he spoke, and as he watched Susan stand immobile in the door the silence of the room seemed to swallow him. Cold sweat soaked his shirt, but his knuckles whitened around the trigger. “Susan,” he said again, louder this time. “I’m asking you, please come back here.” And then Susan moved, turning around and marching towards him. She knew better than to fight the device; her movements were smooth and efficient, but in her face Christopher saw the truth. Her brilliant eyes were slitted in contempt, and her lips twisted with anger and disgust. She advanced until she was nearly on top of him, and when he recoiled from her snarling face she followed him with implacable intent.

“Stop!” cried Christopher, and with a shudder Susan obeyed. She loomed over the table in the middle of the room, her eyes burning as she stared at him. She still clutched the notebook against her chest, and now her fingers flexed along its spine. Christopher took a long, unsteady breath, and spoke as if into a vacuum. “I’m sorry, Susan. I don’t want to do this, I just can’t let you leave with that thing. We’d risk our whole careers if you did. Do you understand? Please, I don’t want…” Susan watched him in baleful silence as he took another breath. There was a terrible pressure on his chest. “Put the notebook on the table,” he said weakly, and he winced at the sound of her slamming it down. Already he could see her fingers reddening with the force of the blow.

“I know this isn’t right,” continued Christopher. “But I hope that one day you’ll forgive me. Until then, I just want you to know that I’m with you on this. I’ll help you report it and everything. We just have to be more careful.”  He looked away from Susan and a sudden feeling like bravery swept over him. The blood crept back into his finger as he relaxed, ever so slightly, his grip on the trigger. “It’s going to be okay,” he said. “But right now we’ve got to go. I’m going to take you down the hall, and then—” Christopher was interrupted by the sound of a man clearing his throat, and the budding confidence withered in his chest. The custodian was standing in the doorway. His cart was absent, but in his hand and pointing almost politely at the ground was a matte pistol capped with a silencer. He smiled, and his teeth seemed to glitter in the light.

“Excuse me,” said the custodian gently. “But I’m afraid this room is only for people attached to the project. I’d appreciate it if you’d put the equipment back on the table.” He spoke to Christopher as though he were a child, and as panic tightened around his lungs it was mingled with a sense of creeping shame. He looked at Susan as if suddenly remembering who she was, but there was nothing familiar in the paralyzed contortions of her face. She was like a stranger to him, alien and distant, and the heavy reality of Christopher’s situation seemed to press in around him. Eventually he lowered the Mesmis onto the table, and was guiltily relieved when Susan returned to motion not all at once, but with a long and trembling sigh.

“There,” said the custodian. “Much better. Really, this is all my fault. Neither of you should have been able to come in here. Please, accept my apologies for the oversight and any…” he paused, “trouble that it’s caused.”

Christopher watched Susan stretch the life back into her limbs. Her face had relaxed, but as she massaged her muscles it became no more familiar than it had been moments ago. The custodian looked on with strange concern as Susan straightened, and in the uncompromising light of the room Christopher felt suddenly alone, like a small and embarrassed stranger.

“What now?” asked Susan. Her voice was cool and measured.

“Now,” said the custodian, “it’s time for me to close up the building.”

“And all of this?”

He made a dismissive gesture. “In the morning this will all be gone and it won’t be a bother to anyone. Beyond that? I’m sure we’ll get back to business as usual.” He slipped the pistol into his uniform. “If you’re ready, I’d be happy to escort you to the door.”

Susan finally glanced at Christopher, and the look in her eyes made him want to squirm. There was anger in that look, but more unsettling was the careful judgment that was being carried out behind it. She looked at him like he was an insect or a particularly frustrating specimen. She was evaluating him.

“Thanks,” said Susan at length. “I think I’d like that.” She stepped towards the door and allowed the custodian to lead her into the dim hall beyond. For a moment Christopher feared that they would leave him alone, leave him to broil in the uncompromising whiteness of the room, but the custodian cast an expectant look over his shoulder and with a strange flood of relief Christopher trotted after him. The custodian terrified him, but his eyes were knowing and the pistol tucked into his uniform stifled the threat of any further confrontation.

◊ ◊ ◊

doorThat night Christopher and Susan parted without words, and when Christopher arrived at work the next morning he found a piece of paper taped to his office door. A message printed in tiny type hung over a field of blank white space. Christopher, read the memo, please report to room 983 on the ninth floor. Christopher had never been up to the ninth floor of his building, and he wondered leadenly if he was going to be fired. He was, at any rate, ready for it. The evening left him sleepless, and now the world around him seemed dreamlike and unfamiliar. He passed his coworkers in a quiet haze and allowed the elevator to shuttle him upwards.

He emerged onto a floor that seemed identical to all of the others. It had been ‘decorated’ with the same utilitarian spirit, but when he finally arrived at room 983 and lowered his eye in front of the retinal scanner he was surprised to find the door open onto his office. At least, it looked like his office. And it had all of his possessions in it, arranged precisely the way he’d left them. His diplomas were plastered over the south wall, his desk was properly facing the window, and all of his disheveled papers were sitting in their respective heaps. It was an uncanny reconstruction. The only things out of place were on his desk: an officious-looking letter and the detector that Christopher had built. Christopher brought the memo slowly up to his eyes.

Dear Christopher,
In light of recent events and as a result of your stunning personal initiative and loyalty to the company mission, management has reassigned you from the research team of Dr. Susan Smith. While Dr. Smith’s team will continue researching the direct manipulation of motor neurons, your abundant talents will be assisting us with a new and exciting direction for the Mesmis project: the development of a linguistic module that allows for the communication of abstract commands. You have thus been assigned to the research team of Dr. Philip Wagner as an Assistant Developer. A full description of your duties has been emailed to you, but one of your first duties will be to help stage the first public demonstration of this module. We have scheduled the demonstration for two weeks from today, and advise that you speak with Dr. Wagner to hammer out the details.

We hope you enjoy your new position, and thank you again for your invaluable service and dedication to our cause. If you ever need anything as you settle into this new department, please remember that we are always here.
Sincerely,
AriaCorp.

Christopher set the memo back onto his desk and stepped over to the window. The only thing different about his office was that it was five stories higher, and the whole of the company parking lot sprawled beneath him. Susan told him once that she wanted her car to match her eyes, and so she’d had it painted a lurid green. It was a frankly hideous color but it was impossible to miss, and now, as Christopher looked down over the glittering rows, it was conspicuously absent.

He hoped she was safe. He sincerely did, but as he stood there in the window he also found himself hoping that her mission failed. He pictured what would happen if the FBI got involved, and images flashed through his mind of stern-faced investigators tearing apart his office, of sweating alone and trembling beneath an over-bright lamp. The prospect of more confrontation, of dredging up yesterday’s events, sounded all at once terrible, futile, and exhausting. It was better if she failed, he realized. He just hoped that she was safe.

mouseIn time, Christopher returned to his desk, and as he sat he relished the familiar creak of his leather chair. It was strangely refreshing to be back in his office, even if it was technically a reconstruction, even if someone must have studied precisely everything about it. There was a soothing realness to it, and the uncertain fog that had swallowed his morning began to evaporate. He set his hand down over the mouse of his computer and for a while he just sat there, flexing and flexing his fingers, soaking in the promise of the day ahead. There was work to do: brilliant, tantalizing, and rewarding work. What happened after that work was finished was out of his hands. As his confused memory of yesterday faded, what else could he do? Christopher reached down to power on his computer, and prayed that nothing else would change.

End

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