Mission Critical
The drink is delicious, and unlike anything I’ve ever had before. The bartender says it’s a national specialty. The fact that I get to charge it to the company makes it even better. I lean back and savor it, mentally thanking the anonymous courier for setting the drop-off at a plush bar rather than by a dumpster in the alley.
I was on my third when the job arrived in the form of an SD card tucked into a napkin under a cocktail that the bartender said was courtesy of the man in the booth. I looked. He was a bit of a parody of a spook in a suit, trench coat, and dark glasses, but he tipped his wide-brimmed hat at me as he slid out of the booth and walked out the door, and I decided that after years in the business one had to develop a sense of humor about all this subterfuge.
I stuffed the package in my pocket as I sipped the drink. It was tart, pleasant, and was a dusty maroon color. “Farier grapes, only grown on the foothills in this county,” the bartender remarked as he saw me examining the drink. “Local specialty.”
I nodded, finished the drink, closed out my tab, and headed out. I took the short walk to the hotel to sober up, turning my collar up at the chilly sleet but leaving my head bare. It’s late, but there are plenty of passersby and the canals are lit with strings of light. I feel a bit like a shadow lurking under the vitality of the city.
My room is a suite with a kitchenette that’s well stocked for a weeks’ stay. I hang up my coat and toss the SD card on the desk. I will open it up shortly, but not right now. I can feel the 16-hour flight catching up with me, and I know that there are hundreds of pages of data waiting for me there. Data that requires a clear mind.
I lay down - just for a moment, I tell myself.
I open my eyes in the passenger seat of a car and am immediately thrown against the window as the driver executes a sideways drift. Several cracks of a high-caliber rifle sound and the back window shatters. A shotgun lands on my lap as the passenger window rolls down.
“Help me out here!” the driver yells. He swerves into oncoming traffic and back out again. A series of pileups blockade the road, but our pursuers are still behind us.
My preferred weapon is not the shotgun, but I move as if it is. I lean out the window and catch glimpses of metallic high rises and flashing billboards before my eye catches on the black tinted SUV coming up alongside. I fire and the round punches a starburst pattern into the windshield. I duck back in to reload, and when I peek out again, the SUV is still behind us. I fire a second at its right wheel, and the tire bursts, sending it into a tailspin.
The driver executes a hard right turn and guns it the wrong way onto an onramp. A cacophony of angry honks pursues us onto the highway, but the SUV is gone. My teeth rattle as we bump over a meridian. Then we merge and it’s abruptly peaceful again.
I sit back, staring ahead, heart pounding as much from the confusion as the exchange of gunfire. The sudden peace was unnerving, and it reminded me that I had no idea where I was.
“What’s your name?” The driver says suddenly.
“Uh…” I am aware that I have a cover identity as much as a real one, but right now neither come to mind. I feel as if my brain is suspended in molasses.
The driver takes this in stride. “Have you seen the news today?”
“No,” I say more definitively. I was in the sky for most of today.
A panel opens on the dashboard. An orange sphere rises out of the space. It looks at me, like a blinking eye on a stalk. Below it is a section of folded black rubber that makes a faint shushing noise as it expands and contracts.
“Huh.” I should find this strange, but the blinking sphere is mesmerizing.
“There was a house fire.”
I don’t respond.
“The whole family escaped, but they left the dogs behind.”
I’m not sure what to say to that. I look out the window and get a faint impression of a city, advanced and futuristic, but also gritty and hard-boiled. This is definitely not the city I fell asleep in.
I turn to look at the driver for the first time. He’s a man in his thirties, with cropped brown hair and stubble on his chin. Sharp eyes squint at the road from underneath a heavy brow.
“This isn’t real,” I say to him. I try the door handle, but it’s locked.
He glances at me then back at the road. “How do you feel about the dogs?” He asks as if I hadn’t spoken.
The bellows pump. The sphere makes mechanical clicking noises as it continues to blink at me. I pull and pull at the door handle. The man continues driving calmly.
“This is a dream,” I say. The door handle snaps off. I look at my hand and see that it isn’t flesh, but a silvery metal skeleton that flexes under my gaze. I look over my shoulder at the driver.
“Gotcha,” Deckard says, with grim satisfaction.
I wake up.
System Upgrade
James stares at himself a bit too long in the mirror. He doesn't know I'm awake, pretending to be asleep, peering at him from under the corner of the blanket. I've been doing this the last few mornings, and every morning it's like this. He gets up earlier than me, like normal, goes to the bathroom to get ready, like normal, and then this. He stares at his face, sometimes touching his skin like it's not his.
He flicks off the bathroom light to come wake me up. I close my eyes and make my breaths deeper.
"Greg," James says, nudging me. "Greg, it is time to revive."
Time to revive? Did he fall asleep with the thesaurus under his pillow?
"Greg," James says again. I moan and stretch under the blanket, catch his arm and caress his neck.
"Hey handsome," I whisper, then cover my mouth quickly. I know how much James hates my morning breath. But he doesn't pull back like he used to; it's like he doesn't even notice.
"I am leaving," James says, straightening up.
"It's early still. You can't help a brother out first?" James' gaze follow mine to my crotch, revealing a bulge that would normally be James' top priority. But his eyes seem distant now, and he rigidly shakes his head.
"No. Perhaps after work."
Without another word, James heads out the door and down the stairs. I wait just a minute to hear him slip on his shoes and head out the door. Then I roll out of bed and race to the closet, pulling on a sweater and Crocs. I know James' route to the metro, but yesterday when I watched out the window, he went a different direction. It shouldn't bother me, but I know James wouldn't lie to me. And he isn't lying, not really. He's just not telling me everything. Things are off, and I want to know why.
It's cold out, and I instantly know the Crocs were the wrong choice. James is already up past the light at Chestnut. The neighbor who runs the floral shop is walking her two dogs; they both start barking the second they see me, like always. I duck behind some garbage cans in case James hears the barking and turns.
"You okay, sweetie?" asks the neighbor. I wish I remembered her name.
"Fine," I mutter, peeking over the garbage can. I didn't need to worry; James hasn't adjusted his long stride at all. He's still heading away from the metro stop. I hurry out from the garbage cans, fighting an urge to kick at the yipping dogs, and hurry passed the "wait" hand signal on the light. It takes me nearly running to close the distance, but short legs are my curse.
Up ahead, James is passing a group of highschoolers waiting for the bus. They point at James and start mockingly catcalling, saying the "queer" should come over and show them a good time. They're laughing, and my blood boils. Any other day over the two years we've been together, James would put these asshats in their place. But today he raises his hand and ... waves?
"What is going on."
I hurry to catch up, and luckily the kids are distracted by the floral shop owner and her dogs to notice me. Running hunched over in my Crocs and basketball shorts, I'm a far easier target this morning.
James rounds the corner into an alley. Now I'm incredibly confused. I knew he wasn't going to the metro, but this alley doesn't have anything of note. I should know, because I nearly got mugged there once.
I'm panting and ease up to catch my breath. I don't even know what I'm going to say to James when I turn the corner, because he should just be standing there or realize he made a wrong turn. I almost wonder if I should just forget the whole thing and head home, but I've come this far.
"James, look, I don't know what's going—"
The alley is empty. James isn't there. Nobody is there. There's a dumpster by the back door of the Chinese restaurant and a fire escape up one wall, but the ladder is ten feet above the ground.
"James?"
I take a step in, then jump back immediately.
"What the hell?"
Where I had stepped, where my hand and foot went into the alley, there was ... nothing. I swallow hard and put my hand forward and gasp. My hand disappeared as soon as it passed over into the alley. I pull it back and wiggle my fingers. Still intact. I slowly extend my leg, and it too disappears the instant it goes into the alley.
I feel faint. I laugh a little too, because I'm nervous and it's my tic. But James went down this way, and something is going on with him, so I need to figure out what it is. I take a deep breath and step into the alley—
—and into what I can only describe as a warehouse from space. There are rows of enormous computers, bigger than our corner bodega. Then there are weird rows of capsules, like the ones I've only seen in time travel movies. Behind me, I see an open door I must have walked through. How it connected to the alley is beyond me.
Scientists in long white cloaks move around the computers, making adjustments and checking things off on their tablet screens. One of them spots me and beelines toward me. I think about diving back through the door, but she's already upon me.
"Welcome. Do you require a full system upgrade today?" Her voice is tinny and looks slightly off with the movement of her mouth, like it's not actually her mouth doing the talking.
"Um, no. What? I'm just following my boyfriend. Sorry. I think he came in here?"
The scientist frowns and checks her tablet. "What is his designation?"
"Well, his name is James. Talbot."
She taps and swipes on the tablet. "Yes. He is in processing for upgrades. He has been having system issues the last few weeks."
"What does that mean?"
The scientist pointed to a door that said PROCESSING. "Through there."
I thank her and hurry off, painfully aware of the attention I'm drawing from other scientists as I run through their whatever lab.
I push open the PROCESSING door in time to see James with another pair of scientists who are connecting something that looks like a charger into the side of his head. My mouth gapes, because I realize the skin of his head near his ear and hairline is pulled forward. The charger is being inserted into a port inside his head. The scientists pause to look at me, then look at each other, as if considering what action to take next.
James sees me too, but doesn't react like he should or like I want him to. Mainly, he doesn't react at all.
"I will be with you in one moment, Greg."
Spark
I pass by the legion of rain slick windows on my way to my destination. The sounds of the crowd, the smell of rain and smog mixed with various decaying wares from the nearby market creates a miasma that I find oddly comforting. I look at all of the people that walk about their day. Living their lives, stuck in a fog of their own. I want to show them the truth but is it really my place to do so? Would I really force that on anyone?
The various holo-ads call out and seduce those looking for even a moments respite from reality, offering a myriad of distractions. I keep walking and let them congeal into an unintelligible stew of false promises. I don’t need their distractions. I have my own.
I’m only a block away when I notice the first of them. A misstep on their part, the simplest thing. He kept eye contact for just a split second too long as I passed him. “Reality” expands before me on instinct, and I feel the others as well. Fucking traitors. I keep walking but they feel me just as I feel them and before I know it, I’ve broken into a full-bore sprint.
No more use for subtlety, I let my mind reach out to the system and cross the street in a single step. One of them in a black raincoat and eerie WW2 gas mask steps out of a nearby alley right in front of me. I waste no time, I shoot forward like lightning and aim a fist right at his head. I move right through him. Fuck. They brought in the Wraith. I don’t stop or turn around. I just keep running.
I know I’m close when I feel that telltale feeling. Like an electrical field passing through me then pulling me towards it like a vortex as it passes through me once more. I knew they would use me to find it, but I didn’t think they would be this fast. I should have known better. But at least I’m close now.
As I turn a corner, I find myself flung through the window of a nearby coffee shop. I hear the screams of the people within, as my attacker charges through what was left of the window, tearing the wall down with it. Not for the first time I find myself wondering what the Sleepers see this time. An escaped rhino from the zoo perhaps. Maybe a runaway taxi. I don’t have much more time to devote to that line of thought before I’m picked up by the throat and held at arm’s length by something that maybe could have been human once. The voice is one of the first things to tell me otherwise.
“Give. Us. The spark, Cross.” It says with an eerie, broken cadence. Its voice sounds like electrically charged gravel. It looks like what an alien might think a human should look like, except in partial wireframe. Like those old 90’s hacker movies from over a century ago. I do the only thing that comes to mind. I smile, raise my middle finger to the sky, and give my answer.
“Get bent, Hawking.”
I step through the holes in the system again, escaping the monsters’ grasp like water through a sieve. Jumping from line to line as I make my way towards the siren’s call dancing across my mind. I flit in and out, trying not to lose myself to the currents of code which endlessly die and give way to new lines. Crossing through the immune system of the simulation. I laugh at the pun that is my moniker.
Finally, I see it. The exit. A single rift in the side of a half-constructed skyscraper, right between the 11th and 12th floors. If they were finished yet, that is. I sigh. Of course. I step out of my little digital transit and onto the rooftop of a towering pharmaceutical building across the street. Nowhere to go but up. I feel a death grip on my ankle and almost tumble right off the roof.
I look down at the semitranslucent hand phasing through the roof and curse. The Wraith found me. I try to jump away, dive below the ocean of code and surface closer to the construction site, but it pulls me back.
“Then hold on tight, you bastard!” I yell, before I send myself hurtling 100 stories below. He doesn’t seem to expect that and finds himself ripped the rest of the way through the roof and sent hurtling down with me. I laugh like a madman because what else is there to do in this situation. I’m more than willing to die awake rather than asleep like the rest of them. The feeling of plummeting through falling rain at terminal velocity is…freeing. Just as we approach the ground the Wraith finally lets go. With a split-second thought, I disappear into the dark, frigid depths of the system once more.
I jump from place to place, wherever gets me closer to my destination. Finally, I’m across from the rift with no ground left between me and it. Just unfinished terrain.
“Cross?!” I hear from behind me. I turn and come face to mask with the Wraith. He takes off the mask and lets long, stringy ginger locks cascade down his pale face. I gasp. I thought he was dead. Hoped he was, rather than the alternative.
“I’m not giving it up Connor! I’ve fought too hard to lose this war now and so have you.” I scream over the heightening storm.
“They’re not ready Cross, not by a longshot. You do this, tear them kicking and screaming from their dream and into the twisted state of reality, they may not survive it. Just give us the spark. They’ve watched over us, shepherded us for so long now. Why would you ruin that?!”
I try to contain the storm raging inside myself. This isn’t him anymore, not really. “You used to understand why. This is for you and all the others those bastards have taken.”
I turn and leap as far as I can towards the rift. A flash of lightning and an inhuman mechanical scream are all that fills my senses for a moment. Time slows as I start to realize that I won’t make it. I begin to drop before I can land inside. I reach out and try to grasp the edge of it like a ledge. In that moment I know that won’t work, but as I touch what would have been my only salvation, I let the spark flow through me and into the rift.
The system screams and contorts as it feels the unexpected shock. I continue falling. I smile though because I know the others can win now. And I get to die free after all. My smile deepens when I see the words I had waited my entire life to see, even if I didn’t always know it. I don’t even feel it when I hit the ground.
System File: “Spark of Revolution” Upload Complete
Going Out
The last two years have been the happiest of my life. After finally settling down with Derek, I’ve finally realized what life’s about. We’re not rich; we haven’t accomplished much; we don’t travel, and we don’t have a lively social life, but we have our simple life together, and that’s more than I ever could have asked for.
Which is why I’ve been ignoring Derek’s behavior recently. He’s been different. I wrote it off as him having a bad day at work, but then it continued into the next day, and then the next. I don’t want to mess things up with him, but the longer this goes on, the more I feel like I have to confront him.
He’s awake at strange hours of the night. He doesn’t talk to me anymore. He doesn’t seem to be hiding anything; he just never seems to have anything to say, which isn’t like him at all.
And he regularly walks out of the house for no apparent reason. He’s never been one to enjoy walks, or being outside in general, for that matter, but in the past week or two, he will just randomly get up and walk out the front door without saying a word to me. There’s no pattern to it. Sometimes, he does it first thing in the morning; sometimes just after dark. Once, he went out in the pouring rain without grabbing a jacket or umbrella or anything. When he came back, he was soaked to the bone and couldn’t tell me what was so important that he had to leave without a jacket.
If he would just tell me that he needed to stretch his legs or get out of the house or even get away from me for a bit, I wouldn’t think anything of it. But he won’t talk to me about it at all. When I ask him, he just gets this blank look and then changes topics or goes back to what he was doing, like he doesn’t even realize that I’ve asked him a question. It’s starting to give me the creeps.
Something inside of me has decided that I’ve had enough. I don’t want to ruin what I have with Derek, but I can’t keep acting like nothing is wrong. Something’s going on, and I intend to find out what.
So when Derek stands up and walks right out the front door while we’re watching TV after dinner one evening, I decide to follow him. I let him get out the door and onto the sidewalk before I before I get up and follow him out.
I feel guilty for following him, and I’m a little scared about what I might find, but not knowing is killing me.
I follow him down the sidewalk as quietly as I can, but he doesn’t seem to notice my presence at all. The remnants of the sunset hang in the sky, and I realize that the air is a little too cool to be comfortable. I didn’t think to grab a jacket, and my bare arms are covered in goosebumps. But I’m not about to turn back.
Before long, we reach the alley at the end of our block. The little road is much narrower than the other roads in our little town, and it ends in a dead end. Now that I think about it, it’s an odd set up. There really isn’t a reason for an alley to be there at all. But I’ve never given it much thought before.
I watch as Derek turns at the alley and . . . disappears!
I run down the sidewalk and stop in front of the alley.
The empty alley.
There’s no one there. No sign of Derek. Or anyone else for that matter.
I stare into the empty alley in disbelief. There was nowhere for him to go! How could he disappear so quickly?
I don’t step out into the alley immediately. Instead, I reach out with my hand. But as my hand crosses the threshold of the alley, it disappears. Startled, I pull it back and clutch it to my chest. My hand feels cold and sweaty, and as I look down, I realize that it looks exactly as it should.
Am I going crazy? Tentatively, I reach out again. Once again, as my hand passes the place where the roads meet, it disappears. I push forward until I can’t see anything past my elbow. I wiggle my fingers and even wave my arm around a bit, but my hand feels normal. It just isn’t there anymore.
I look around me, hoping to see something that will tell me what the hell is happening, but there is nothing. Just me staring into a seemingly empty alley with an invisible hand.
I hesitate for just a minute, but I know I’m going in there. Whatever this is, whatever’s on the other side of this invisible wall, it doesn’t matter. I have to go through. I have to find Derek. I have to find out what’s going on.
Taking a deep breath, I take one step forward, and immediately everything changes.
The first thing I notice is the cold. It’s gone from a slight chill in the air to below freezing. I gasp and cross my arms.
I’m surrounded by black walls, but there is a single, cold, white light shining straight ahead. With nothing else to do, I step into the light.
And I find Derek.
He’s staring blankly into the light, unblinking. He doesn’t even notice me standing next to him.
“Derek?” I whisper. Nothing. I put my hand on his shoulder, but he doesn’t move. “Derek, can you hear me?”
Where did she come from? I hear a voice, but not with my ears. The room is silent.
“Hello?” I ask.
How did she get in? The voice that isn’t a voice continues. The portal should have locked as soon as he entered.
She could have followed him in, another responds. If she was fast enough. She seems to know him.
“He’s my boyfriend,” I confirm, compelled for some reason to answer, even though the voice wasn’t talking to me.
She’s not a subject, the first not-voice says, ignoring me. I have no record of her brain.
“M-my brain?” What the hell is going on? “Who are you? What is this place?”
She’s beginning to panic. Use the acetylcholine suppressor.
I can’t even begin to guess what an aceta-whatever suppressor is, but it doesn’t sound good. I take a few steps back and glance behind me. There’s nothing there but a black wall, but I know it’s the way I came, and I hope I can get back the same way.
But I can’t leave Derek. He’s still staring at that light, unaware of me or the not-voices.
I still can’t see anyone other than Derek. But there has to be someone here.
Look at the scan! the second not-voice says in a huff. There’s a reason she wasn’t made a test subject. The suppressor won’t work on her. Not as intended.
“Alright, whoever you are!” I shout. “I am tired of you talking about what you want to do to my brain. I’m not your test subject! And neither is Derek!”
It’s well worth the risk. The first not-voice responds to the second as if I hadn’t spoken. We can’t have her running off and telling others about us. It’ll ruin the whole experiment!
Who would believe her? You’ve seen how small their minds are! They can’t comprehend something so outside their perception of reality. They would claim insanity rather than accept her experience as truth. There’s no need to take the risk.
But their population varies to such a large degree! the first not-voice insists. There are those who believe in what they call ‘aliens.’ Do you honestly think not a single one of them would come looking for us? It took us decades to set up an experiment on this planet! I won’t see my research destroyed because you’re feeling squeamish about one little test subject.
“There’s nothing wrong with empathy!” I call out, hoping to sway at least one of the two beings who were apparently arguing about my brain.
Fine. I suppose, if nothing else, it will at least tell us how the suppressor works on a subject with a higher acetylcholine level. But if the subject dies, you’re the one filing the paperwork.
“Dies?” I shriek. “This could kill me?”
A noise from above startles me, and I look up to see a giant metal arm extending towards me. I stumble backwards, but I’ve barely taken two steps before my back hits a wall. I push left, and then right, but I hit walls in both directions. Did the room shrink? Or was it never as big as I thought it was?
Derek is still staring at the light with his eyes glazed over, oblivious to me, the metal arm, and the voices. He won’t help me.
“Stop!” I scream. “Please! Just let us go. I won’t tell anyone about you; I promise! Please!”
But the arm doesn't stop. It keels coming towards me until I am pinned in a corner. I scream and beg for it to stop, but –
I walk in the front door with Derek close behind. My brain is so foggy, I can barely remember if we're coming or going. I reach for the light switch out of habit but immediately turn it off again, suddenly feeling safer in the dark.
“I’m going to bed,” Derek announces, starting up the stairs.
“Oh, okay,” I say. “What time is it?”
He glances at his watch. “10:30.”
I nod and then wince as I suddenly realize that I have a splitting headache. Guess I should head to bed too.
As I climb up the stairs behind Derek, leaning heavily on the handrail, I try to figure out where my headache came from. The harder I try to remember, the emptier my brain feels.
“Hey, babe?” I call as Derek steps into the bedroom. “Where did we go tonight?”
Derek shrugs his shoulders, a blank expression on his face. “Out,” he says simply.
His expressionless face feels right, and I decide to adopt it. Pointless to worry. Pointless to care. My head still hurt, but it didn’t matter. Nothing mattered.
“Oh, yeah,” I reply. “Out.”
The Malaise
Humanity, used to earthquakes, tornadoes, hurricanes, wars, and pandemics, could deal with this. Waves of discontent said otherwise.
The Malaise.
Perhaps it was a ticking bomb hardwired into our DNA. Perhaps it was Chaos theory, the infinite number of small perturbations throughout history summating, finally.
A malady--unmeasurable, then immeasurable--passed not from person to person or demographic to demographic, but from the æther to the soul, relentlessly emptying all it invaded.
Beauty remained only as the standard against which all ugliness was judged. Charity survived, but only when tax-deductible. Music evolved and still moved people, but atonality segregated those listening from those who simply heard.
The pure of heart, steadfast against the Malaise, were called uncool, retards, and neo-Luddites. They were also called non-seculars, which were fighting words.
Untethered to Creation, the devout of organized religions experienced, quaintly put, a time-out for re-evaluating the meaning and sacrifice of their devotion. From there, a defiance matured into an agnostic apostasy.
Within a decade there would be only 150,000 Catholics left, mainly clergy. There would remain only 220,000 Muslims. There would be only 8,000 practicing Jews. There would remain no Protestants whatsoever. The Mormon count projected would be only 150—hardly enough to proselytize adequately in even one city—so wouldn’t count at all. The Amish numbers wouldn’t change (but the Amish never changed). The Jehovah’s Witnesses, it was predicted, would fall from eight million to only 144,000, which they claimed was just perfect.
Financial markets crashed, recovered, and then crashed again. Market corrections reset the stock averages and made billionaires millionaires and made millionaires start over.
Doomsday apologists, the only religious zealots who would persevere, began announcing Judgment Day on Bourbon St., in the Latin Quarter, in Rembrandtplein, on Kuta Beach, in the Skadarlija district, Taksim Square, and Puerto Banús. Still, no one took them seriously; but no one laughed at them, either.
Mental quirks and tics increased. Scientific journals debated whether there was an increase in the incidence of autism or whether there were just new subcategories, previously unrecognized, applicable to the spectrum. People began claiming they were seeing more ghosts than usual, attributed to a new anxiety state that had its own ICD code.
Suicides spiked due to the tangled web of economic decline.
Children were tested and demonstrated an underlying sadness. Cancer patients became more likely to give up their brave fights for cowardice. An insidious surrender began building that nothing mattered. Crime increased.
Ecosystems faltered, effect begetting cause begetting effect, trickling down, inexplicably, to the life cycles of nocturnal species, in turn influencing all circadian life. The 17-year locusts would never re-emerge. Migratory birds would stake out permanent residences, giving up their nomadic lifecycle and suffering deadly seasonal realities. The fishing industry was decimated in a complex, undecipherable interaction among dozens of species. Dogs didn’t know what had happened, but they didn’t care; cats did, but also didn’t care.
People became different. They quarreled more often and more viciously. Divorce became the expected, natural consequence of marriage, like its anti-sacrament; parenting suffered and delinquency increased. Erudite studies about all the changes were published in learned journals, but it was only speculation.
The next generation would be expected to determine their own spirituality, hollow, and portending poorly for the last churches, which would remain empty. Next, even the hollow personal spirituality would erode away, not even a shell remaining.
There was a lifespan, a life during it, and nothing after it. Self-indulgence became the authenticity of existentialism. It became wrong only to get caught doing wrong. Countless generations had evolved convolutions around the brain to suppress the amygdaloidal thinking of everyone’s private reptile, but the Malaise engendered devolution.
A new paradigm defined success, ambition, celebrity, and worth, inscribed on the caveman’s walls but re-emerging in modernity as the One Commandment:
If you want it, you take it; if you take it, it's yours.
It easily replaced the ten previously handed down from Mt. Sinai.
The Council
Chrissy knew something was wrong with Brad. They had been in a relationship for two years now, and the first year and half of them were fantastic. Hot sex, great dates, and a boyfriend who showered her with gifts had made this the best relationship in Chrissy's life. But something had changed.
Brad had started disappearing during the night.
The two of them would go to bed together, and he would be there when she woke up in the morning. But one day, Chrissy woke early and found that Brad was gone. She had drunk a liter of water before bed because she had had a headache, and woke up at 3 am needing to pee. It wasn't until she had come back from the bathroom that she noticed Brad wasn't in bed. She had been confused and hadn't been able to reach Brad on his cellphone. She ended up falling asleep, and when she woke up in the morning, he was back.
After a few more of these disappearances, Chrissy decided it was time to take matters in her own hands. She was too nervous that the magic of this perfect relationship would end if she confronted him. So she thought she could find out about Brad by following him.
She waited until after a night of sushi and great sex. She set her smart watch to vibrate every hour to wake her up. Therefore she was able to pretend to still be asleep when Brad left her apartment in the morning. She almost missed him when she woke up at 3 am and heard her front door closing. She sprang out of bed, ran to her door, and slid it open to see Brad get into the elevator. Thankful that her pjs were always a shirt and leggings, Chrissy slipped on her sneakers and ran out to the staircase. By the time she got to the lobby, she saw him just leaving her apartment building.
Chrissy slipped out behind him and started following him. She walked slowly enough so that Brad was far enough ahead of her without raising his suspicions. They walked down five blocks, until Brad rounded a corner and entered an alleyway. Chrissy hurried up to the corner, but when she stepped into the alleyway, Brad was nowhere to be seen. The alleyway was a dead end, and nowhere for him to have disappeared to. She walked up to the end of the alley, a bricked-up back of another building. She held up her hand to the wall, and shrieked when it disappeared into nothing. She quickly pulled it back, and it came back without a scratch. She was confused, but also very tired, and at this point, too interested in finding out where Brad had gone. So without thinking, she slowly approached the wall, holding her hands up so that they could go first. Both hands and arms disappeared into the wall without meeting any resistance, and she took the plunge and walked through the wall completely.
Once she had walked through the wall, she was surprised to find herself in what appeared to be a well-lit hallway. The hallway looked similar to a hospital, and there were closed doors evenly spaced out along the path in front of her. Chrissy could hear what sounded like a multitude of whispers wafting from the doorways. She recognized one of the whispers, because it was Brad's voice. She walked along the hall, putting her ears against the door to listen to the different sounds, until she heard Brad's voice. But she didn't hear it only once. She heard it multiple times, as if he was speaking to himself.
Chrissy knew it probably wasn't a good idea to open the door. Maybe if it was a different time and circumstance, she would have been more careful. But at this point,
she was so overwhelmed, confused, and desperate to find out what was going on. So, she opened the door.
And screamed when she saw the group of five figures in cloaks standing before her. They all turned to face her. The figure in the middle pushed down its hood and revealed, Brad's face.
"Chrissy, what are you doing?" he asked her. Instead of being reassured now that she had found him, Chrissy was pissed.
"Brad, what the hell is going on?" Chrissy asked him.
That didn't help. Because now the other 4 figures took their hoods down to reveal: Brad's face. There were now five Brads staring at her. Five Brads with different hairstyles. One had mutton chops, one was bald, another was wearing a goatee, and the fourth Brad had a beard. Then there was the Brad who had the same hairstyle as the Brad who had gone to bed with her.
That Brad was looking embarrassed at her, before he said, "Um, well babe, you know how some people believe in past lives? Say hello to mine."
Chrissy stared at him, then again at the other Brads.
"Okay," she said, and promptly passed out.
Old Flame
The only sound that could be heard across the vast,sandy expanse of the wasteland was the boisterous drone of the iron horse's engine and that only by the ears of its rider, for no one else was around within miles and that was how the motorcycle riding man loved it best. The engine died to an utter quiet as the rider stopped before a dilapidated shack crafted of wood and rusted sheets of scrap metal.
The lone rover dismounted his motorcycle and went through the complicated process of opening his door while disengaging the booby traps he'd rigged around it. After this he stepped inside the dimly dimly lit by sunlight that seeped through cracks and holes in the walls. He then plopped a sack of currency from his last job on the wooden table then he he removed his gloves with the spiked bracers and his neck gaiter and goggles then off came the leather jacket, it's shoulders adorned with studded spikes and one sleeve removed so his sword arm could be free. The man who was known across the apocalyptic deserts as the Sandslayer had returned home.
He lowered his bare body which bore many scars including criss-cross ones from many duels in the white hot sun into a tub meticulously collected and filtered water. It was a pleasure to feel months of grime and sand wash away. He has been born in the wasteland and after his father died in a battle over a supply drop from the scumbags that lived sheltered in their domed mega city he had been raised by the wasteland. He made his living as an armed escort and defended the innocent as best he could with his legendary swordsmanship.
He crawled into bed. The bed was a worn sleeping bag he scavenged years ago. Beside him his sword with the spiked handguard and a dagger that looked like a smaller version of that sword lay beside him and his sawed off shotgun with them. These weapons were lined up in a perfect row. It was always so. It was some sort of obsessive compulsive habit that some psychological expert could have explained to him but shrinks did not live in the wastes. They only resided in that putrid mega city that the wastelanders called the Dome of Decadence.
He closed eyes and fell asleep. How much time passed he didn't know, for timepieces didn't exist in the wasteland (except pocket watches used in trade)but he was aroused from his sleep by the dying of an engine. His hand gripped his gun and he crept towards the wall near the door and pressed himself against. He cooked the hammer and prepared to blow away the uninvited guest.
Nobody should know about this place. His mind raced. Had an enemy tracked him here? Was he being descended upon by bandits? Mutants didn't use motorcycles and he heard an engine shut off. He could hear footfalls approaching the door and he swore at himself for not re-engaging the booby traps.
The door slowly opened and a figure entered. The figure was female. Her attire was a leather vest with spiked shoulder pads and no sleeves, a gaiter, tattered leather pants & heeled boots with spiked plates of armor on the toes. A feminine counterpart to his own outfit.
He clicked the hammer back into place in recognition of his surprise guest. She with her hair braided and pulled back in a ponytail had been here before. In fact her and the sand slayer had made love in this very edifice. She was Alexia. She was the ex wife to the grim figure who stood mostly naked with his gun in hand.
She turned toward him and lowered her sunglasses. “Well, I see you're as warm and cuddly as ever.” She said bluntly.
“You thought I was cuddly when I was hauling your posterior out of that hell hole of a combat arena!”
“Oh yes, the posterior you thought was so beautiful on our wedding night, such as it was, until you discovered a slightly unstable mind on the other end! Well that was many years ago wasn't it?”
Yes there was a history between them. She unstrapped the pump action assault rifle from her back and set down.
Her former lover stared at her through his pale plus eyes, a frown forming on the scared lips. Like him her body bore many scares but they weren't confined to her bare arms or her temples. There were deep cut scars in her mind. She stared back at him. “We are not as opposite as you believe Alexia said, “Your eyes already had a haunted look to them. They look even more haunted with each new ghost that resides in your memory.”
“What brought you back here?” he finally asked.
“I was hoping something still existed between us. It does, a butt load of tension!”
“Anything else?”
“A job. I heard some mercs are giving fits to a warlord to the south of the Green River. I thought maybe you'd like to join me in aiding them.”
“No.”
“I thought so. You don't approve of my methods.”
He moved closer to her and gestured passionately as he spoke, “Methods? Alexia I've battled Mutants, cultists, and warlords alike. I left their entrails putrifing in the heat of the sun! But not once did I ever purposely butcher them.”
“And that's why it never worked isn't it? You were much too devoted to your self appointed mission and didn't need a sadistic little sidekick screwing up your righteous reputation.
“Can at least stay the night?”
“Yes. Then be on your way, Alexia.”
That night she slept in the “kitchen.” The Sandslayer couldn't sleep. He was up, remembering. He remembered those years gone by when he wandered into Trinity, a little town in the remains of Arizona. It was hot outside of course and he decided to avail himself at a saloon. He overheard some of the patrons discussing the Death Dome. He thought they meant the mega city that overlooked the miserable landscape, that loathsome zit that dominated the distant horizon.
No, they were discussing a local battle arena. He decided to check it out. He faded into the crowd gathered for blood drenched carnage like Romans at the coliseum. A match was underway and the announcer a mockery of Elvis Presley was babbling on about the gladiators and the prize, a beautiful lady with a tanned complexion and sand hair almost like his. Something animal stirred within him. No human should be a prize in a combat arena!
He kept from his place in the stands and bloodied his sword slaying the announcer. A hush filled the arena then the hulking brute who was either not entirely human or horribly disfigured at birth from the toxicity bellowed, “Ahh to prizes for Big Boy this day. Pretty girl and chance to kill Sandslayer.”
Big Boy backhanded him and sent him sprawling. He knew he'd have to fight dirty to survive the goliath charging towards him. He slid under the brute and pointed the shotgun upward between his legs and herded the trigger. The behemoth screamed to the heavens as buckshot tore through his nether regions. He was on his knees bleeding out when a well sharpened blade sliced through cervical vertebrae, removing the head from the shoulders and ending the poor beast's misery!
The remaining gladiator didn't fare much better and went down slashed to oblivion by the Sandslayer. A riot broke out in the Death Dome and the wandering swordsman took flight with Alexia in tow.
During the two months they trekked across the irradiated sands they fell in love. Unfortunately it didn't last. Alexia became as good a fighter as her paramour thanks to his patient training. But he discovered she was too vengeful. Whatever horrors she'd endured prior to her rescue had left their mark!
She enjoyed inflicting pain on the people they fought. She would drag out their agony and death while the Sandslayer favored quick efficient kills. He'd tried to stop her one day and became the object of her fury. That was the beginning of the end of their bliss.
The sun rose the next day. Alexia departed. Neither said a word but they looked at each other and the looks said without words, “I wish things had worked out for us; I really do!”
The Sandslayer spent the rest of the day hitting the bottle which was rare. A few days later he began his wandering yet again.
Eclipse
Eclipse Apollo - Year One - Created an endless darkness, endless night, over the world. No sun. No moon. Receding oceans and the death to all crops.
Eclipse Cybele - Year Two - Earthquakes strike the Earth, one every three weeks and two days, at exactly 5:00am, ending at exactly 4:30am. One whole day, save a single hour to gain our composure.
Eclipse Caelus - Year Three - Endless storms. Thunder, rain, tornados. Very few days of normality. Very few days to recollect ourselves.
Eclipse Faunus - Year Four - Forest fires, every two weeks, beginning at 5:00am and ending at 10:00pm. They were unnatural fires, coming from nowhere and ending out of nowhere. Nothing could stop them until exactly when it was supposed to.
Eclipse Hades - Year Five - Deadly arial plague gets released (Hades Plague), turning the people of Earth into aggressive, flesh craving, rotting skin, mindless, soulless beings. They have heightened senses, stamina, strength, and speed, all over a hundred times better than a regular human.
Year Six, Month of Diana, 3rd Friday - 4:38am
I slink in between the aisles, trying to make as little noise as possible, looking for some food for the next two weeks. It is so quiet that all I can hear is the sound of my breath and my heart beating in my chest. It is almost too quiet.
Ever since the transformation, nothing has been the same, it isn't safe anywhere. The world is destroyed, nothing but barren wastelands, filled with Hades Zombies and Pirates. Everywhere is dangerous. So, you're probably wondering, what I am doing at 4:38am, in the aftermath of a Cybele event? Let me explain something first; there are three kinds of people left in this world:
1. The Immune - which are uncommon, but not rare.
2. Hades Zombies - which happens to be most of the population and be the primary reason why the population is depleting.
3. Lethe Zombies - are extremely, causes you to crave violence and you have all of the heightened senses, stamina, speed, and strength as one of Hades Zombies, only thing is you still have your own thoughts. You still belong to yourself. An Immune Zombie as I have heard them called.
So where do I fit into them all-
Something falls, sending my pulse racing. I snap my head in the direction only to find nothing there, nothing at all. I walk towards it, curious, lifting my gun up in protection, making sure the silencer is on. As I walk out the aisle, I see a H.Z. on the other side, of the - rotten - produce aisle. It hears me and looks up, its black, soulless eyes boring into mine. I glare back at it - rotting flesh and everything - it walks away unperturbed.
-I am a Lethe Zombie.
Drag Rope
I drink to forget,
or to die in peace,
or drift as far as the spirits will drag me.
I ride in a bar stool basket,
filling hot air into a glass balloon,
and there’s enough fuel to wander the planet, twice.
So, I do.
Ascension is emery on skin.
The clouds are not as soft as everyone thinks,
but they’re quiet.
I sleep to forget
or to die in peace
or until one day I wake up somewhere else.
or someone else.
©2024 Chris Sadhill